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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 29, 2024 20:59:32 GMT -5
Men on a Mission: the poor man's Zambuie Express.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 30, 2024 8:35:44 GMT -5
I watched Starrcade 1993. First of all, we’ve got yet another last minute change to the card. Davey Boy Smith was supposed to challenge Rick Rude for the WCW International World title (or whatever the heck WCW calls it) but due to legal troubles stemming from a bar fight, he’s out and The Boss (AKA Big Boss Man) is in. The Boss attacked Rude from behind (then the ref for some reason rang the bell to start the match even though no contract was signed – Jesse was rightfully complaining about that) on a segment that aired just the night before on WCW Saturday Night, so we’ve at least got some sort of setup for this thing, however rushed and halfassed it might be.
Also, apparently the original plan was for Sid Vicious to beat Vader here but then Sid stabbed Arn Anderson a score of times and he was gone. Of course, in typical WCW fashion, they’d already filmed a bunch of content months ahead with Sid wearing the belt, and all that footage could obviously never be aired. Sigh.
Tony Schiavone and Jesse Ventura on commentary.
Anyway, WCW did a fantastic job with the opening, showing clips and voicovers by Flair then showing Vader clips, then we see Vader coming to the arena and training, then we see Flair leaving his home and hugging his wife and goods goodbye. Really nice job by WCW of setting this up.
First match is 2 Cold Scorpio and Marcus Alexander Bagwell (w. Teddy Long) vs. Paul Orndorff and Paul Roma (not yet called Pretty Wonderful, w. the Masked Assassin). Before the match begins, Teddy Long is presented with the manager of the year award. He’s only managing this one tag team, and he’s only been their manager for maybe 3 months, but he wins anyway, probably because the fans voted for it by calling a 900 number and of the 4 choices you were allowed to vote for (and I have no idea why Col. Parker wasn’t one of the choices) Teddy was the only babyface, so of course he’s going to win. Anyway, no particular feud here but this was a pretty good tag team match, and a good choice for an opener. The heels win when the Assassin puts a foreign object in his mask then headbutts Scorpio, knocking him out and allowing Orndorff to pin him.
Next match is the Shockmaster vs. Awesome Kong (?) w. King Kong (?). Who the heck thought this match would be a good idea??? Especially in a PPV??? Especially Starrcade??? The Kongs in particular are awful. Anyway, the graphic and the announcers say it will be Awesome Kong vs. the Shockmaster, but it looks like King Kong that winds up wrestling this match. Either the graphic was wrong, the Kongs got confused and the wrong Kong wrestled the match, or the ref made the wrong Kong leave the ring (they had both attacked Shockmaster in the ring before the bell). Since this is WCW, any one of those is easily believable. Just a couple of big, fat guys pounding on each other. The only good thing is that this match was quick – about a minute and a half – as the Shockmaster wins it by pinfall.
After the match, Tony actually mentions the dark match (Terry Taylor defeated the Equalizer) which I’d not heard an announcer do before, but I thought was a nice touch.
The next match is Lord Stephen Regal (w. Sir William) vs. Ricky Steamboat for the world television title. Regal is the defending champ here. These two have been feuding for a while, as Regal took the TV title away from Steamboat some time back with the assistance of Sir William’s umbrella.
This match had some good technical wrestling with some nice, smooth moves and countermoves. However, the pace was a bit slow and Steamboat didn’t seem to show the sense of urgency you’d expect considering the 15 minute time limit. It looked like Steamboat might steal the win as he went for the flying crossbody off the top rope with 10 seconds left, but Regal ducked it and the time limit expired. So we get a time limit draw. I half expected Steamboat to win since this event is in Steamboat’s (and Flair’s) home town of Charlotte, NC, but it wasn’t meant to be.
Next match is Tex Slazenger and Shanghai Pierce vs. Cactus Jack and Maxx Payne. Jack and both turned face relatively recently, especially Payne. Jack has sort of become his spiritual advisor, as we have a tag team made up of a couple of people who probably hear voices in their heads versus the two big, nasty Texans (or Texicans, as Jesse would say). This was a random matchup, as these two teams have no history together.
Jack and Payne get a pretty good pop from the crowd. Payne never impressed me as a singles wrestler but he seems better utilized here in a tag team with Jack. This match was better than I thought it would be. I don’t know if it was PPV quality, but it was decent with some nice spots and some pretty good teamwork between Jack and Payne. The faces win when Jack puts the double arm DDT on Shanghai then covers for the win.
Next match is a best 2 out of 3 falls for the US Heavyweight championship, with Dustin Rhodes (champ) vs. Stunning Steve Austin.
The lights went out during the second Rhodes-Austin match because WCW. I think this is the second straight WCW PPV where the lights went out. Jesse made a crack that “if this was Georgia I could understand it” which I thought was pretty funny. He also made a joke that it was a dark match, which was good. Anyway, Austin wins the first fall by DQ when Rhodes throws him over the top rope (gotta love that rule) and he crashes into Col. Parker, who was standing on the apron, then Austin indulges in an obvious blade job. The second fall was pretty quick and Austin won that by grabbing the tights. And we have a new US Heavyweight Champion! I was surprised that Austin won two straight. I figured it would go the full three, as these things usually do.
In the first match, they start with some mat wrestling before it turns into a brawl. Then of course the dumb DQ. The ending to the second match came from nowhere. Overall, this match was okay, but nothing special.
The next match is Ravishing Rick Rude vs. the Boss (the wrestler formerly known as Big Bossman. I don’t know why they didn’t just give him his old WCW name when he came back but they’d eventually be forced to change it. However, he has already changed his uniform. When he appared on WCW Saturday Night about a week ago (and attacked Rude from behind with no provocation) he was wearing his WWF Big Bossman uniform, but here he’s in an all black uniform. Speaking of the Boss, to my eyes, he’s acted more like a heel than a face, between attacking Rude from behind with no provocation and then, in this match, he spits on Rude, again with no provocation. He also fought kinda dirty in this match, but the fans love him anyway because he’s a babyface, so any actions are justified.
As stated before, this was supposed to be Davey Boy vs. Rude but we’ve got the Boss as a last minute replacement. Oh well.
A lot of stalling and a lot of brawling (hey, that rhymes!) which is not my kind of match. Rude wins when he gets out of the way of that Bossman charge where the guy is hanging on the middle rope and Bossman splashes into him, then Rude gets the pin with the sunset flip from the apron. Even Schiavone says that the pin came from out of nowhere. Plus Rude hadn’t gotten in much offense to this point, so surprising that Boss couldn’t kick out. This match was okay, I guess, but not particularly good or memorable. This would have been a good match in the WWF in 1990 (they had been building a feud between these two but then Rude left the company) but it wasn’t a very good match in WCW in 1993. Anyway, I would have been extremely annoyed if Boss won this as he just entered (or reentered) WCW and has done nothing to even justify this title shot.
The next match is for the WCW Tag Team Championship with the champs the Nasty Boys (w. Missy Hyatt) vs. Sting and Road Warrior Hawk. Oh boy, I hope Sting is up to carrying this match.
Missy Hyatt is wearing a see-through dress, by the way.
This match went on much too long. It had a 30 minute time limit, then the ref calls for the bell after 29 minutes because Missy tried to pull Sting off of Knobbs? Even Jesse said “Oh come on! They’re going to call a disqualification for that?” They made us sit through that long match for THAT ending? The match was slow and kinda boring. If they had cut the length in half, it would have been much better. The previous match was under 10 minutes and this was nearly 30 minutes. They’d have been better off splitting the time more evenly between those two matches.
Another confusing thing is that Sting was CLEARLY not the legal man, yet was in the ring for the last 3 minutes of the match. Even the announcers were confused. If the ref isn’t going to pay any attention to the rules, why should I care?
Finally, finally, we get the Vader (with Harley Race) vs. Ric Flair match for the WCW championship. Flair signed a contract stating that if he doesn’t win the title from Vader here, he will retire. So this is really an all or nothing match for him.
Tony has said repeatedly that Ric Flair is in his prime. WTF? He’s 44 years old (and will in fact turn 45 in less than two months)so how is that his prime?
Vader just pummels Flair for about the first half at least of this match (which went for about 21 minutes) and Flair does a great job of selling. At one point, with the ref distracted by Harley Race and both guys outside the ring, Flair hits Vader with a chair! Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. Flair tries the figure four a couple of times but unsuccessfully. Eventually, he gets the win by grabbing Vader’s leg (which of course he’s been working then takes him down and rolls him up for the win. Surprising ending.
I thought this match was very good, but I didn’t think it was as great as a lot of other people did. It did have good storytelling and all that, and I though it was good and all, but I preferred the several televised matches that Vader’s had against Sting over the past couple of years, plus his match against Davey Boy.
All in all, this was a bit weak for a Starrcade. The main event was very good, and there were some other decent matches (though maybe not quite PPV quality - I particularly did enjoy the Regal-Steamboat match) then the awful Kong-Shockmaster match.
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Post by driver1980 on Mar 30, 2024 9:30:25 GMT -5
It may not surprise you, dbutler69 , to learn that my views are akin to yours. This was just another WCW PPV filled with a lack of logic, some reasonable matches, and a solid PPV. I suppose seeing Flair win the belt from Vader left viewers with goodwill. I honestly don’t know why WCW developed this obsession with long tag team matches on PPV in 1993. Sting & Road Warrior Hawk vs. The Nasty Boys didn’t need to be 29 minutes. My goodness, when the Rockers fought the Hart Foundation (MSG, November 1989), it was probably about 19-20 minutes - and worth every second. But this was yet another WCW PPV featuring a long tag match, which wasn’t really warranted. I have always hated that 2-out-of-3 falls matches can be decided when one fall is via DQ (remember when Demolition lost a fall by DQ against the Hart Foundation at SummerSlam 1990?). Yes, it’s as old as the hills, but I don’t like it. In my world, if you can’t win championship in a regular match via DQ or count out, then the same should apply to championship 2 out of 3 falls bouts. I’d like to see such matches be pinfalls and submissions only, so as to be more definitive. WCW was really struggling creatively at this point, with even some good matches feeling uninspired (such as The Boss vs. Rick Rude) I did enjoy the next PPV, SuperBrawl IV, which I posted about weeks ago. Hope you get to that soon.
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 30, 2024 18:29:14 GMT -5
Under usual booking structures, a 2-out-of-3 falls championship match will not count the DQ win towards winning the title. It never was for an NWA World title match and generally wasn't for any of the territorial titles. That suggests a problem with time for the event or some really bad booking, or an injury in the match. Take your pick with WCW. Traditionally, you would have challenger and champion split falls, then wrestle to a draw or DQ finish, for the third fall and the champion would retain (unless it was a title switch). I'm to lazy to track down who was booking, at this point. My guess was an audible, called on the fly, over something else, possibly in relation to having to change the Rude and Davey Boy match.
The top rope rule is fine, when used sparingly. WCW's problem (going back to Dusty, under Crockett) was they kept reusing the finish and on a bigger stage.
Quite frankly, a PPV match under 20 minutes, unless there is a time issue or injury, signals, to me, that you have guys who can't work a longer match. In the WWF, tag teams were always low priority, so the matches were usually kept shorter. WCW and the South, in general, had a bigger tradition of tag-team wrestling. The Carolinas was a tag team territory, before George Scott started to transform it, after Flair and Steamboat were first there. It took a while to educate the fans towards singles matches as main events.
Darryl Peterson, aka Maxx Payne, had an extensive amateur background, including competing in the NCAA tournament, placing 5th, in 1985. He was an All-American that year, too, at Iowa State University. He trained under Red Bastien (who usually had someone else, like Billy Anderson, do the training, as with Sting and Warrior), then went to the New Japan Dojo, where he trained alongside Chris Benoit. I first saw him in Memphis, when they were in their transition period, calling themselves the Championship Wrestling Association, after they united their secondary titles and replaced them with the CWA title. He was in a feud with Lawler, for the AWA World title.
Payne could work, but neither WCW nor the WWF really let him do that, in the ring, due to his size. I really think he could have had a hell of a match with Vader, had they booked them together. He also wrestled in Germany, for Otto Wanz's Catch Wrestling Association and held their Intercontinental title. I thought he and Foley made a terrific team, as they complemented each other well.
If memory serves, they were maneuvering Rude towards a face turn, based on crowd reactions to him; but his back injury put an end to that.
One major element you missed, because it was probably edited off the recording, was that during the Nasty Boys match, Missy jumped on Sting's back and one of her breasts was partially exposed. A photographer, at ringside, got a shot of it. Someone at Turner Broadcasting got ahold of a copy (probably a lot of people got copies) and displayed it on the wall, at CNN Center. Missy saw it, complained to Bischoff, who did F-all about it, so she filed a sexual harassment suit against Turner Broadcasting and got a pretty big settlement, especially after Bischoff fired her, in retaliation (he claims due to her behavior, after they signed Sheri Martel; but, I tend to believe Missy and most insiders point to the same thing).
My memory of Missy's outfit was a black mesh, with black underwear underneath, rather than a sheer material. Nothing was overtly on display, until the spot with Sting, as I recall; but I haven't seen the footage in decades. Given some of the crap they pulled during the Attitude era and under Russo, Missy was tasteful. She damn sure knew how to work.
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Post by driver1980 on Mar 31, 2024 5:59:06 GMT -5
This was a great tape, released in 1994, and featured matches ranging from solid to spectacular: Johnny Polo and Gorilla Monsoon hosted this, they had great chemistry; Polo remarked that he could take Bret - then a triple-crown winner - to high places if he managed him.
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 31, 2024 10:45:32 GMT -5
Never liked Scott Levy, as a manager. Hated the Johnny Polo gimmick. The Flock was a bit different, since he was still wrestling and the cultish aspect worked pretty well, compared to the old school manager gimmick he did as Johnny Polo. Really, I preferred him as Scotty the Body, as he was so obnoxious you couldn't wait to see the babyface beat the @#$% out of him.
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 1, 2024 6:28:54 GMT -5
Hogan’s lies once again covered in the media: www.thesun.co.uk/sport/27052284/hulk-hogan-myth-richard-osman-lies/Will someone PLEASE call him out face to face? I am bored with podcast hosts - none of whom are wrestling personalities - refusing to fact check him. All of his lies are debunkable. One day I hope to see someone say, “Hang on, Hulk, you never wrestled at Wembley Stadium, you weren’t on the WWF roster when SummerSlam 1992 occurred.” The only time that happened was when Hogan was on Howard Stern’s show - and a caller said, “You weren’t even at the event!” Hogan’s response was, “This guy’s crazy. I was at Wembley. There goes his credibility.” And Stern supported him prior to terminating the call. I wish I could sit in a room with Hogan (if I was a podcast host) and put SummerSlam 1992 on - and say to him, “So, point out when your match starts.” He’s such a liar.
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Post by Rob Allen on Apr 1, 2024 14:51:45 GMT -5
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Post by dbutler69 on Apr 1, 2024 16:03:22 GMT -5
I watched the 1994 Royal Rumble recently. We’ve got Vince McMahon and Ted DiBiase as the announce team.
The first match is Bam Bam Bigelow (w. Luna Vacho)nvs. Tatanka. It was supposed to be Ludvig Borga facing Tatanka, as that feud had been going in since before Survivor Series, and is what had been billed, even in WWF shows just a couple of days before the Royal Rumble. However, Borga had a career threatening injury, so he gets replaced by Bam Bam. Actually, I think this works better. Tatanka also had a long running feud with Bam Bam, and frankly I’d much rather watch Bam Bam than Borga, anyway. The match ends when Tatanka gets out of the way of a Bam Bam moonsault (!) and goes up top for the crossbody and covers for the win. The Bam Bam moonsault was very cool but the rest of the match was average. Frankly, about what I expected. Kind of an odd choice for an opening match, though.
Next match is the Quebecers (champs) w. Johnny Polo vs. Bret and Owen Hart. Of course, Bret and Owen got into a shoving match at Survivor Series, and Owen in subsequent weeks called Bret selfish and challenged Bret to a match, which Bret refused. They eventually reconciled and formed a tag team, getting this title shot. In an odd bit of booking, the Quebecers lost the tag team titles to Marty Jannetty and the 1-2-3 Kid just about a week or so before Royal Rumble, making it seem like this would not be a title match (then in interviews Bret saying he was happy for Jannetty and Kid with Owen being upset about it) but then the Quebecers won the title back just days before the Rumble. I’m not sure what the point of giving Jannetty and Kid the titles for just a week, especially as people wanting to buy the PPV might think they’re not getting a title match, but anyway…
The Quebecers win when the ref stops the match, judging that Bret is unable to continue with his badly injured knee – which also renders him doubtful for the rumble. Owen is furious with his brother as he didn’t (or, in Owen’s view, wouldn’t) tag out to him. Owen kicks Bret’s injured knee out from under himl leaving Bret laying on the mat. Owen then leaves to a chorus of boos. This was a good match, with very good storytelling, which set up even better things to come.
Next match is for the Intercontinental Title: Razor Ramon (champ) vs. IRS. Of course, if you’re Shawn Michaels, then this isn’t the Intercontinental Title match, since Shawn Michaels is claiming at this time that he’s the intercontinental champ. Anyway, the ref gets knocked out, then IRS tries to clobber Razor with his metal briefcase, but Razor dodges it and instead hits IRS with the briefcase. However, the ref can’t count IRS out because he’s still out himself. So Razor superplexes IRS then sets up the Razor’s Edge, but Shawn Michaels comes in and clobbers Ramon with his Intercontinental belt, knocking him down, allowing IRS to pin him, and the ref is just conscious enough to count Razor out and awards the match to IRS, so we have a new Intercontinental champ! But wait, another ref comes from out of nowhere, and tells Joey Morella what happened, and he has the match go on. However, IRS is unaware of this, and is celebrating on the turnbuckle, so Ramon easily rolls him up with the win. The match itself was okay, but I HATED the ending! First of all, I hate when another ref comes in and gets a decision reversed. Why not do that for every match? Then nobody will be able to get away with everything and half the fun of pro wrestling will be gone. Second, they didn’t even let IRS know what was going on, so Razor just rolls the poor guy up from behind for an easy an unfair win. Not that I wanted IRS to win the match, but that ending was ridiculous and unfair, even in kayfabe.
Next is a casket match for the WWF Championship: Yokozuna (champ) w. Mr. Fuji vs. Undertaker w. Paul Bearer. Unlike the last PPV casket match with Kamala, you don’t have to pin your opponent before putting him in the casket this time. It never made sense that you had to pin him first before, but they didn’t really make the rule change clear.
This was not a particularly good match, though there was one really cool looking DDT by Undertaker, and there was also a pretty brutal looking chair shot. Anyway, Undertaker has Yoko in the casket and is about to close the lid (up until this point it’s not all that bad of a match but it goes seriously downhill from here on out) when Crush comes out and stops him. They brawl and just when it looks like Taker is going to win, two more Fuji guys, Genichiro Tenryu and the Great Kibuki, come out to join in the fight. Boy, talk about taking advantage of the no DQ rule! Well, at least these are all Fuji guys, so I guess this sort of makes some sense. However, a bunch more heels with no involvement with Fuji or Yoko or anything all come out and join I the attack. The Undertaker is fighting 11 guys, and at one point, he’s winning (just like Hulk Hogan) but eventually the numbers take their toll and he gets put in the casket and the lid closed and Yokozuna wins!
That was all pretty dumb. I know there are no DQ’s, but at one point the other 10 heels are trying to put the Undertaker in the casket while Yokozuna is in the far corner of the ring resting. So how the heck does somebody else putting Taker in the casket make Yokozuna the winner? I’m pretty sure the rules said you had to put your opponent in the casket and close the lid to win, not have a bunch of other people do it for you. There’s some WCW logic going on here. And with so many guys spending so much time ganging up on the Undertaker, why didn’t any of the faces come out to help him?
Somehow there’s a camera inside the casket, from which Undertaker delivers a promo. Then, I guess the Undertaker…died...and rose out of the casket into the rafters. More to come on this, but you’ll have to wait a long time for it.
On to the Royal Rumble!
Now only 90 seconds between entrants instead of 2 minutes.
The WWF roster is really thin at this point, as evidenced by the fact that they brought in several guys (Kabuki, Tenryu, and Greg Valentine!) to help get us up to 30 guys, plus a bunch of guys had to pull double duty by wrestling in a regular match prior to the Rumble, which was not typically done to this point. We also had some late replacements, with Sparky Plugg (making his televised WWF in-ring debut) replacing the 1-2-3 Kid and Virgil replacing Kamala.
Some odd stuff here, with Tatanka completely ignoring Bam Bam in the Rumble. I’d have expected those two to go right at each other. Also, Crush, Tenryu and Kabuki (I think Kabuki was eliminated by the time Luger got in, though) basically ignored Lex Luger, even though they had supposedly been brought over by Mr. Fuji to keep Luger from winning. (They did work Luger over prior to the Rumble, in the locker room, but he came out anyway and acted as if nothing happened, and it’s really odd that in the Rumble itself the Fuji stooges never went after Luger.) There was one spot (in the 20’s) where nobody came out, and McMahon speculated that it was Bret Hart due to the knee injury. However, Brey came out a couple of spots later and we later found out that the no-show was Bastion Booger who I guess supposedly got sick. Must have been something he ate.
Diesel was very impressive here, eliminating 7 guys one right after another and making it look easy. He had the ring to himself a few times. Randy Savage finally slowed him down enough for some other guys to enter the ring eventually.
Of course, the ending is utter chaos with Hart and Luger both going over at the same time. Each guy has one official declare them a winner, then Jack Tunney comes out and declares it a draw. This leads to uncertainty over who will face the champ at Wrestlemania X, but of course that will get cleared up in the coming weeks.
The rumble was decent. It had some slow parts, of course, and a few memorable moments. Not the greatest rumble, certainly, but not terrible.
Aside from the Undertaker-Yokozuna nonsense (and boy, Taker has been in same bad feuds over the past year) this was a decent Royal Rumble.
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Post by dbutler69 on Apr 1, 2024 16:05:38 GMT -5
I recently saw Superbrawl IV from 1994. Which apparently was for some reason never released on home video. I can hear driver1980 groaning right now.
This WCW PPV is coming from Georgia (of course) and with Tony Schiavone, making his WCW PPV debut, is Bobby the Brain Heenan!
Apparently this is Flair’s first job as a booker.
The main event here is Flair vs. Vader for the WCW championship in a Thundercage match!
The first match was supposed to be Johnny B. Badd vs. Michael Hayes, as they’ve recently started a rivalry (they were partners until Hayes attacked Badd). They introduce Badd with his music and his glitter gun and all that….Then Hayes comes out in a wheelchair pushed by his old teammate Jimmy Garvin, and Hayes and Garvin tell conflicting stories of how Hayes really wanted to wrestle Badd but he got hurt in the way in (reminiscent of what Lawler Pulled at Summerslam 1993 except that in this case apparently Hayes really is hurt) so the match is off. However, new Commish Nick Bockwinkle comes out and says that he’s looked through the old Freebirds contracts (which are still in force) and is Hayes can’t wrestle Badd, then Garvin (who hasn’t wrestled in 2 years and is now a commercial pilot – for real!) must wrestle him, or they will both be heavily fined. So, they have 45 minutes for Garvin to get ready. Apparently, they had to do this because Hayes had a legit injury and since WCW films things months in advance, they got railroaded into having a retired guy wrestle at a PPV. Okay, fine, but why bother wasting 5 minutes on the Badd entrance if you know the match isn’t going to happen and we’ll just have to do it again. Good ol’ WCW.
So, now the first match is Harlem Heat (Kole & Kane) vs. Thunder & Lightning. Thunder & Lightning are a green, generic babyface team who haven’t been in WCW very long. Harlem Heat now sport their new, cool looking leather (or vinyl?) outfits. Harlem Heat win when Kane stomps Lightning in the head (unseen by the ref of course), allowing Kole to cover him for the win. The was a decent match. Kole, AKA Booker T, was the best part of it. It would be pretty weak otherwise. But anyway, this match was fine, if nothing special.
Next match is Jungle Jim Steele vs. The Equalizer. Ugh. This match has NO business on a PPV! Jungle Jim is supposed to be a Tarzan gimmick (he sort of looks like a cross between Jimmy Snuka and the Ultimate Warrior) and he’s supposed to be from the jungle and his intro has animal sounds – including monkey – and they say he’s from…the Florida Everglades?! Oh, WCW!
Jungle Jim hasn’t impressed yet in WCW but he’s still worlds better than the Equalizer. Jungle Jim wins with his closer, which I think is a Lou Thesz Press. Terrible match.
Next match is Diamond Dallas Page (w. a Diamond Doll) vs. Terry Taylor. Both guys are back in WCW after a lengthy absence. I guess DDP had recently come back and was challenging wrestlers by pulling names out of a fishbowl, but every name he pulled was a retired guy. Finally Taylor called his bluff when his name was called, and accepted Page’s challenge. Taylor wins with a rollup, which surprised me. This was a decent match, though the crowd didn’t seem to care much. Perhaps because, like I said, these guys have been away from WCW for a while. Besides, whatever momentum Taylor had is long gone. Oh, and on his way out, Taylor shoves the Diamond Doll for no particular reason. Real nice, babyface.
Next, we finally get that Johnny B. Badd vs. Jimmy Garvin (w. Michael Hayes on the entrance platform in a wheelchair) match. Badd wins the match with a nice looking sunset flip off the top rope. After the match, Badd goes over to the platform and threatens Hayes (the guy in a wheelchair) then Garvin jumps him from behind then throws him into the ring. Then Hayes tosses Garvin his boot and he clobbers Badd with it, and the heels go off, crowing. This was an okay match. Considering that Garvin hadn’t wrestled in 2 years, it cold have been worse. They worked the crowd but that doesn’t do much for the people watching on TV. Not a terrible match but not really PPV quality. This match was too long at 12 minutes and really dragged at times.
Next is for the TV Championship with Lord Steven Regal (champ) w. Sir William vs. Arn Anderson. Regal wins when Arn goes for the sunset flip, but Regal sits on his chest, then holds onto Sir William’s umbrella for additional leverage, and the win with something like 6 seconds remaining in the match.
Normally I enjoy Regal’s matches, but I thought this one was just plain boring. TV title matches are normally 15 minutes (and sometimes even 10 minutes) but for some reason they made this one 30 minutes, and it would have been a much, much better match if they’d kept it at 15 minutes (or at most, 20 minutes). It seemed like they were just stalling and going for the time limit draw. I’ll at least give them credit for going against the grain and tricking us by actually giving us a decision right at the end. I just wish I didn’t have to wait so long to get it.
By the way, someone in the crowd was holding up an “Arn rules the world” sign so I’m guessing that that person her about the Sid Vicious stabbing incident somehow, way back in the pre-internet days.
Next up is the Tag Team title match with the Nasty Boys vs. Cactus Jack and Maxx Payne. These two teams have had several battles recently, and they’ve been pretty good. No Missy Hyatt as she has left the company at this point and I think had sued WCW for sexual harassment.
The match ends when Payne gets Knobbs in his finishing submission move, the Payne Killer (and armbar), then Sags hits him over the head (twice) with the guitar that the Nasty Boys had brought with them to the ring to mock Payne (who was a guitar player) so the Nasties lose by DQ but retain their belt. This will set up a no DQ match between these two teams at the next PPV, I think.
This match was fun and brutal. Jack took a nasty bump off the apron onto the cement floor (the Nasties had pulled up the padding) but then doesn’t he in every match? How could that guy even remember his own name? Payne was very impressive here, too, suplexing guys and tossing them around like a Stainer at the beginning of the match, and to this point, Payne hadn’t really impressed me, but he showed me something here. These two guys make a good tag team. Too bad the Hollywood Blonds broke up, I love to see the tackle Jack & Maxx!
Next is Thundercage match #1, a 6 man tag team match with Paul Orndorff, Rick Rude, and Steve Austin vs. Sting, Brian Pillman, and Dustin Rhodes. These guys have all sorts of feuds going on between the 6 of them. So here we go!
Oh, the cage is a few feet away from the ring, so it doesn’t come into play as often as in a regular cage match, but don’t worry, guys definitely still got smashed into it!
The good guys get the win when Sting picks up Pillman and throws him onto Austin for the pin. After the match, Rude slams the cage door on Sting’s face then gives him the Rude Awakening on the floor.
Orndorff and Pillman both got opened up in this match. This was a very good match, with some ood heat segments, and the crowd was into it. At just under 15 minutes, maybe they should have made it longer (and shortened some of the other matches that were way too long) but overall an enjoyable match.
The final match is the Thundercage between Flair (champ) and Vader (w. Harley Race) for the WCW championship match (no DQ’s, and Vader brought a chair with him!) and the Boss (AKA Big Bossman) is the special guest referee to bring “law and order” to WCW!
The match was pretty good until the last couple of minutes, where it got pretty silly. Vader & Race manage to get the Boss handcuffed to the cage, then Race gets the key to the cage (the cage door had been locked at the beginning of the match so Race, and everybody else, couldn’t get in) then Race goes inside the cage and locks the door. And Vader and Race gang up on Flair. Arn Anderson and Ricky Steamboat frantically try to get inside the cage to help their buddy, to no avail. The Boss eventually breaks the cuffs, then he clips Vader I the knee with his nightstick, then Flair slaps on the Figure Four and Boss calls for the bell less than a second after the Figure Four was applied. Heenan kept saying over and over that Vader never quit, and he’s right. Boss ran the bell so quickly that Vader literally didn’t even have time to say I quit, plus I don’t think Boss even looked at Vader. It honestly looked more like he was calling for the bell due to a DQ, except that this was a no DQ match. Pretty good match but messy finish. Vader is furious after the match, terrifying the announcers, and I can’t say I blame him. Well, I guess this sets up a feud with him and the Boss now.
Overall, I thought this a decent PPV. Well, average at best, really.
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 1, 2024 16:17:19 GMT -5
I watched the 1994 Royal Rumble recently. We’ve got Vince McMahon and Ted DiBiase as the announce team. The first match is Bam Bam Bigelow (w. Luna Vacho)nvs. Tatanka. It was supposed to be Ludvig Borga facing Tatanka, as that feud had been going in since before Survivor Series, and is what had been billed, even in WWF shows just a couple of days before the Royal Rumble. However, Borga had a career threatening injury, so he gets replaced by Bam Bam. Actually, I think this works better. Tatanka also had a long running feud with Bam Bam, and frankly I’d much rather watch Bam Bam than Borga, anyway. The match ends when Tatanka gets out of the way of a Bam Bam moonsault (!) and goes up top for the crossbody and covers for the win. The Bam Bam moonsault was very cool but the rest of the match was average. Frankly, about what I expected. Kind of an odd choice for an opening match, though. Next match is the Quebecers (champs) w. Johnny Polo vs. Bret and Owen Hart. Of course, Bret and Owen got into a shoving match at Survivor Series, and Owen in subsequent weeks called Bret selfish and challenged Bret to a match, which Bret refused. They eventually reconciled and formed a tag team, getting this title shot. In an odd bit of booking, the Quebecers lost the tag team titles to Marty Jannetty and the 1-2-3 Kid just about a week or so before Royal Rumble, making it seem like this would not be a title match (then in interviews Bret saying he was happy for Jannetty and Kid with Owen being upset about it) but then the Quebecers won the title back just days before the Rumble. I’m not sure what the point of giving Jannetty and Kid the titles for just a week, especially as people wanting to buy the PPV might think they’re not getting a title match, but anyway… The Quebecers win when the ref stops the match, judging that Bret is unable to continue with his badly injured knee – which also renders him doubtful for the rumble. Owen is furious with his brother as he didn’t (or, in Owen’s view, wouldn’t) tag out to him. Owen kicks Bret’s injured knee out from under himl leaving Bret laying on the mat. Owen then leaves to a chorus of boos. This was a good match, with very good storytelling, which set up even better things to come. Next match is for the Intercontinental Title: Razor Ramon (champ) vs. IRS. Of course, if you’re Shawn Michaels, then this isn’t the Intercontinental Title match, since Shawn Michaels is claiming at this time that he’s the intercontinental champ. Anyway, the ref gets knocked out, then IRS tries to clobber Razor with his metal briefcase, but Razor dodges it and instead hits IRS with the briefcase. However, the ref can’t count IRS out because he’s still out himself. So Razor superplexes IRS then sets up the Razor’s Edge, but Shawn Michaels comes in and clobbers Ramon with his Intercontinental belt, knocking him down, allowing IRS to pin him, and the ref is just conscious enough to count Razor out and awards the match to IRS, so we have a new Intercontinental champ! But wait, another ref comes from out of nowhere, and tells Joey Morella what happened, and he has the match go on. However, IRS is unaware of this, and is celebrating on the turnbuckle, so Ramon easily rolls him up with the win. The match itself was okay, but I HATED the ending! First of all, I hate when another ref comes in and gets a decision reversed. Why not do that for every match? Then nobody will be able to get away with everything and half the fun of pro wrestling will be gone. Second, they didn’t even let IRS know what was going on, so Razor just rolls the poor guy up from behind for an easy an unfair win. Not that I wanted IRS to win the match, but that ending was ridiculous and unfair, even in kayfabe. Next is a casket match for the WWF Championship: Yokozuna (champ) w. Mr. Fuji vs. Undertaker w. Paul Bearer. Unlike the last PPV casket match with Kamala, you don’t have to pin your opponent before putting him in the casket this time. It never made sense that you had to pin him first before, but they didn’t really make the rule change clear. This was not a particularly good match, though there was one really cool looking DDT by Undertaker, and there was also a pretty brutal looking chair shot. Anyway, Undertaker has Yoko in the casket and is about to close the lid (up until this point it’s not all that bad of a match but it goes seriously downhill from here on out) when Crush comes out and stops him. They brawl and just when it looks like Taker is going to win, two more Fuji guys, Genichiro Tenryu and the Great Kibuki, come out to join in the fight. Boy, talk about taking advantage of the no DQ rule! Well, at least these are all Fuji guys, so I guess this sort of makes some sense. However, a bunch more heels with no involvement with Fuji or Yoko or anything all come out and join I the attack. The Undertaker is fighting 11 guys, and at one point, he’s winning (just like Hulk Hogan) but eventually the numbers take their toll and he gets put in the casket and the lid closed and Yokozuna wins! That was all pretty dumb. I know there are no DQ’s, but at one point the other 10 heels are trying to put the Undertaker in the casket while Yokozuna is in the far corner of the ring resting. So how the heck does somebody else putting Taker in the casket make Yokozuna the winner? I’m pretty sure the rules said you had to put your opponent in the casket and close the lid to win, not have a bunch of other people do it for you. There’s some WCW logic going on here. And with so many guys spending so much time ganging up on the Undertaker, why didn’t any of the faces come out to help him? Somehow there’s a camera inside the casket, from which Undertaker delivers a promo. Then, I guess the Undertaker…died...and rose out of the casket into the rafters. More to come on this, but you’ll have to wait a long time for it. On to the Royal Rumble! Now only 90 seconds between entrants instead of 2 minutes. The WWF roster is really thin at this point, as evidenced by the fact that they brought in several guys (Kabuki, Tenryu, and Greg Valentine!) to help get us up to 30 guys, plus a bunch of guys had to pull double duty by wrestling in a regular match prior to the Rumble, which was not typically done to this point. We also had some late replacements, with Sparky Plugg (making his televised WWF in-ring debut) replacing the 1-2-3 Kid and Virgil replacing Kamala. Some odd stuff here, with Tatanka completely ignoring Bam Bam in the Rumble. I’d have expected those two to go right at each other. Also, Crush, Tenryu and Kabuki (I think Kabuki was eliminated by the time Luger got in, though) basically ignored Lex Luger, even though they had supposedly been brought over by Mr. Fuji to keep Luger from winning. (They did work Luger over prior to the Rumble, in the locker room, but he came out anyway and acted as if nothing happened, and it’s really odd that in the Rumble itself the Fuji stooges never went after Luger.) There was one spot (in the 20’s) where nobody came out, and McMahon speculated that it was Bret Hart due to the knee injury. However, Brey came out a couple of spots later and we later found out that the no-show was Bastion Booger who I guess supposedly got sick. Must have been something he ate. Diesel was very impressive here, eliminating 7 guys one right after another and making it look easy. He had the ring to himself a few times. Randy Savage finally slowed him down enough for some other guys to enter the ring eventually. Of course, the ending is utter chaos with Hart and Luger both going over at the same time. Each guy has one official declare them a winner, then Jack Tunney comes out and declares it a draw. This leads to uncertainty over who will face the champ at Wrestlemania X, but of course that will get cleared up in the coming weeks. The rumble was decent. It had some slow parts, of course, and a few memorable moments. Not the greatest rumble, certainly, but not terrible. Aside from the Undertaker-Yokozuna nonsense (and boy, Taker has been in same bad feuds over the past year) this was a decent Royal Rumble. I thought this was an improvement on the 1993 Royal Rumble, and was solid for the most part. You have picked apart the lack of logic well. (On Jannetty, it’s so hard to keep track of his firings, he did disappear in January 1994 - or was it February? - so could that be the reason for the short reign). It was disheartening to not see any faces come out to help Undertaker. Come on, I know he’s a loner, but that is a massacre. Blimey, I didn’t like a neighbour of mine years ago (personality clash), but if I’d seen a dozen guys attacking him, I’d have helped - and/or called the police. And that’d have been for someone I didn’t care for. How much more should a babyface have rushed out to helped Undertaker. I don’t like referees coming out to reverse other referee’s decisions. Logically, and WWF often referred to “senior referees”, it’d make sense for the supervisory referee to come out and deal with all and any issues following controversial wins. If you’re gonna do it, do it for every match. Or just let the referee’s decision be final. Or, do what they did at This Tuesday in Texas and have President Tunney at ringside. I did enjoy Ted DiBiase as a colour commentator. Oh, I like Luger, but he’s taller than Bret, so wouldn’t his feet have touched first? Hmm… While I have shared this before, here’s some interesting stats about the Rumble match: * Diesel eliminated the most men, 7 in total * Bam Bam Bigelow lasted the longest (30:12) * Billy Gunn lasted the shortest (00:14) * This was the only Rumble that Bam Bam Bigelow, Bastian Booger, Great Kabuki, and Rick Steiner competed in, although as stated, Booger didn’t make it to the ring
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 1, 2024 16:28:11 GMT -5
I recently saw Superbrawl IV from 1994. Which apparently was for some reason never released on home video. I can hear driver1980 groaning right now. This WCW PPV is coming from Georgia (of course) and with Tony Schiavone, making his WCW PPV debut, is Bobby the Brain Heenan! Apparently this is Flair’s first job as a booker. The main event here is Flair vs. Vader for the WCW championship in a Thundercage match! The first match was supposed to be Johnny B. Badd vs. Michael Hayes, as they’ve recently started a rivalry (they were partners until Hayes attacked Badd). They introduce Badd with his music and his glitter gun and all that….Then Hayes comes out in a wheelchair pushed by his old teammate Jimmy Garvin, and Hayes and Garvin tell conflicting stories of how Hayes really wanted to wrestle Badd but he got hurt in the way in (reminiscent of what Lawler Pulled at Summerslam 1993 except that in this case apparently Hayes really is hurt) so the match is off. However, new Commish Nick Bockwinkle comes out and says that he’s looked through the old Freebirds contracts (which are still in force) and is Hayes can’t wrestle Badd, then Garvin (who hasn’t wrestled in 2 years and is now a commercial pilot – for real!) must wrestle him, or they will both be heavily fined. So, they have 45 minutes for Garvin to get ready. Apparently, they had to do this because Hayes had a legit injury and since WCW films things months in advance, they got railroaded into having a retired guy wrestle at a PPV. Okay, fine, but why bother wasting 5 minutes on the Badd entrance if you know the match isn’t going to happen and we’ll just have to do it again. Good ol’ WCW. So, now the first match is Harlem Heat (Kole & Kane) vs. Thunder & Lightning. Thunder & Lightning are a green, generic babyface team who haven’t been in WCW very long. Harlem Heat now sport their new, cool looking leather (or vinyl?) outfits. Harlem Heat win when Kane stomps Lightning in the head (unseen by the ref of course), allowing Kole to cover him for the win. The was a decent match. Kole, AKA Booker T, was the best part of it. It would be pretty weak otherwise. But anyway, this match was fine, if nothing special. Next match is Jungle Jim Steele vs. The Equalizer. Ugh. This match has NO business on a PPV! Jungle Jim is supposed to be a Tarzan gimmick (he sort of looks like a cross between Jimmy Snuka and the Ultimate Warrior) and he’s supposed to be from the jungle and his intro has animal sounds – including monkey – and they say he’s from…the Florida Everglades?! Oh, WCW! Jungle Jim hasn’t impressed yet in WCW but he’s still worlds better than the Equalizer. Jungle Jim wins with his closer, which I think is a Lou Thesz Press. Terrible match. Next match is Diamond Dallas Page (w. a Diamond Doll) vs. Terry Taylor. Both guys are back in WCW after a lengthy absence. I guess DDP had recently come back and was challenging wrestlers by pulling names out of a fishbowl, but every name he pulled was a retired guy. Finally Taylor called his bluff when his name was called, and accepted Page’s challenge. Taylor wins with a rollup, which surprised me. This was a decent match, though the crowd didn’t seem to care much. Perhaps because, like I said, these guys have been away from WCW for a while. Besides, whatever momentum Taylor had is long gone. Oh, and on his way out, Taylor shoves the Diamond Doll for no particular reason. Real nice, babyface. Next, we finally get that Johnny B. Badd vs. Jimmy Garvin (w. Michael Hayes on the entrance platform in a wheelchair) match. Badd wins the match with a nice looking sunset flip off the top rope. After the match, Badd goes over to the platform and threatens Hayes (the guy in a wheelchair) then Garvin jumps him from behind then throws him into the ring. Then Hayes tosses Garvin his boot and he clobbers Badd with it, and the heels go off, crowing. This was an okay match. Considering that Garvin hadn’t wrestled in 2 years, it cold have been worse. They worked the crowd but that doesn’t do much for the people watching on TV. Not a terrible match but not really PPV quality. This match was too long at 12 minutes and really dragged at times. Next is for the TV Championship with Lord Steven Regal (champ) w. Sir William vs. Arn Anderson. Regal wins when Arn goes for the sunset flip, but Regal sits on his chest, then holds onto Sir William’s umbrella for additional leverage, and the win with something like 6 seconds remaining in the match. Normally I enjoy Regal’s matches, but I thought this one was just plain boring. TV title matches are normally 15 minutes (and sometimes even 10 minutes) but for some reason they made this one 30 minutes, and it would have been a much, much better match if they’d kept it at 15 minutes (or at most, 20 minutes). It seemed like they were just stalling and going for the time limit draw. I’ll at least give them credit for going against the grain and tricking us by actually giving us a decision right at the end. I just wish I didn’t have to wait so long to get it. By the way, someone in the crowd was holding up an “Arn rules the world” sign so I’m guessing that that person her about the Sid Vicious stabbing incident somehow, way back in the pre-internet days. Next up is the Tag Team title match with the Nasty Boys vs. Cactus Jack and Maxx Payne. These two teams have had several battles recently, and they’ve been pretty good. No Missy Hyatt as she has left the company at this point and I think had sued WCW for sexual harassment. The match ends when Payne gets Knobbs in his finishing submission move, the Payne Killer (and armbar), then Sags hits him over the head (twice) with the guitar that the Nasty Boys had brought with them to the ring to mock Payne (who was a guitar player) so the Nasties lose by DQ but retain their belt. This will set up a no DQ match between these two teams at the next PPV, I think. This match was fun and brutal. Jack took a nasty bump off the apron onto the cement floor (the Nasties had pulled up the padding) but then doesn’t he in every match? How could that guy even remember his own name? Payne was very impressive here, too, suplexing guys and tossing them around like a Stainer at the beginning of the match, and to this point, Payne hadn’t really impressed me, but he showed me something here. These two guys make a good tag team. Too bad the Hollywood Blonds broke up, I love to see the tackle Jack & Maxx! Next is Thundercage match #1, a 6 man tag team match with Paul Orndorff, Rick Rude, and Steve Austin vs. Sting, Brian Pillman, and Dustin Rhodes. These guys have all sorts of feuds going on between the 6 of them. So here we go! Oh, the cage is a few feet away from the ring, so it doesn’t come into play as often as in a regular cage match, but don’t worry, guys definitely still got smashed into it! The good guys get the win when Sting picks up Pillman and throws him onto Austin for the pin. After the match, Rude slams the cage door on Sting’s face then gives him the Rude Awakening on the floor. Orndorff and Pillman both got opened up in this match. This was a very good match, with some ood heat segments, and the crowd was into it. At just under 15 minutes, maybe they should have made it longer (and shortened some of the other matches that were way too long) but overall an enjoyable match. The final match is the Thundercage between Flair (champ) and Vader (w. Harley Race) for the WCW championship match (no DQ’s, and Vader brought a chair with him!) and the Boss (AKA Big Bossman) is the special guest referee to bring “law and order” to WCW! The match was pretty good until the last couple of minutes, where it got pretty silly. Vader & Race manage to get the Boss handcuffed to the cage, then Race gets the key to the cage (the cage door had been locked at the beginning of the match so Race, and everybody else, couldn’t get in) then Race goes inside the cage and locks the door. And Vader and Race gang up on Flair. Arn Anderson and Ricky Steamboat frantically try to get inside the cage to help their buddy, to no avail. The Boss eventually breaks the cuffs, then he clips Vader I the knee with his nightstick, then Flair slaps on the Figure Four and Boss calls for the bell less than a second after the Figure Four was applied. Heenan kept saying over and over that Vader never quit, and he’s right. Boss ran the bell so quickly that Vader literally didn’t even have time to say I quit, plus I don’t think Boss even looked at Vader. It honestly looked more like he was calling for the bell due to a DQ, except that this was a no DQ match. Pretty good match but messy finish. Vader is furious after the match, terrifying the announcers, and I can’t say I blame him. Well, I guess this sets up a feud with him and the Boss now. Overall, I thought this a decent PPV. Well, average at best, really. I’m glad you’ve got to see this. Sorry you didn’t enjoy Arn/Regal that much. I did find it absorbing, and was engrossed, but I do remember some negative letters about it in one magazine published here, so I appreciate that its not for everyone. I was never 100% sure what was supposed to be special about “Thunderdome”. Ever. Or perhaps it was that WCW didn’t effectively hype it in the way the WWF did with Hell in a Cell. It just felt like Thunderdome was an afterthought. I thought the good bouts on here were good, others were solid, and the bad bouts didn’t ruin things. I had to get an imperfect copy of this in the late 90s because of WCW’s utter inconsistency with its home video releases. I’m pleased that the Boss/Vader shenanigans led to a heated feud between the two. In 1994, Sting seemed lost in the shuffle a tad. Or is it me? This PPV also shows how relentless and ever-changing wrestling was. When people watched Flair/Vader, did they ever suspect that five months later, Flair would be a heel, challenging Hulk Hogan, who had been synonymous with the WWF for so long?
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 1, 2024 21:05:40 GMT -5
I really wasn't watching much WWF, at all in this period, and did not realize that The Great Kabuki ever worked there , though it just isn't right, without Gary Hart, as his manager. Da Great Kabookee, brudda!
Missy was fired by Bischoff, then filed her sexual harassment suit.
Page wasn't winning a lot of matches, at this point. Little wins, here and there; but, he did a lot of jobs. The Diamond Doll, if I have my timeline right, is Kimberly, his then-wife. When he was in the AWA and commentating in Florida, he brought women form the nightclubs he was managing, as The Diamond Dolls. When it was singular, in WCW, it was Kimberly, before they started the Nitro Girls.
Thunder & Lightning were one of the early Power Plant graduates and got a bit of a push, but had their biggest run in Puerto Rico. Page was usually down working out in the Power Plant, in this era, trying to get better.
Page had the problem of starting late, after an injury sidelined him when he was younger, and tried wrestling, then he came in as a manager, but he was bigger than a lot of the guys he managed, like Pat Tanaka & Paul Diamond, as Badd (B-A Double D...BADD!) Company. Then, when he started as a wrestler, he was about 35; so, he didn't get much of a bump card, to work with. Worked his ass off, though.
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 2, 2024 3:34:16 GMT -5
On this day 35 years ago, WrestleMania V aired on PPV, taking place at the the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey: Hulk Hogan won his second WWF World Heavyweight Championship, by defeating the Macho Man. It was a great match, although I believe the two had better matches than this one. The rest of the card was pretty good, too, including Intercontinental Champion Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude, WWF Tag Team Champions Demolition vs. Mr. Fuji and The Powers of Pain, Mr. Perfect vs. The Blue Blazer, Jake Roberts vs. Andre the Giant (with Big John Studd as the guest referee), and The Rockers vs. The Twin Towers. I don’t believe every match needs a storyline behind it, certainly not on an undercard, whatever Vince Russo has to say. Sometimes, competition is enough, so other bouts here, like Brutus Beefcake vs, Ted DiBiase, were what they were. Roddy Piper returned to the WWF here, hosting a “Piper’s Pit”. His guest was Morton Downey Jr. (Brother Love gatecrashed proceedings). My match of the night was the tag team championship match. For over 8 minutes, Demolition and The Powers of Pain held nothing back, beating on each other in the most brutal and believable way. This is one of the best WMs.
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 2, 2024 6:44:24 GMT -5
On this day 35 years ago, Clash of the Champions VI took place at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana (airing on TBS).
The main event saw NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat defend his title against Ric Flair in a two-out-of-three-falls match, which was another great bout between two of the greatest of that era.
I did quite like The Varsity Club (underrated stable?), and seeing Mike Rotundo and Steve Williams take on The Road Warriors for the NWA World Tag Team Championship was fun.
Other bouts on the card:
The Samoan Swat Team vs. The Midnight Express The Great Muta vs. Steven Casey Junkyard Dog vs. Butch Reed Bob Orton vs. Dick Murdoch Ranger Ross vs. The Iron Sheik (what happened to Ranger Ross?) NWA United States Tag Team Championship: Eddie Gilbert & Rick Steiner vs. Dan Spivey & Kevin Sullivan
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