I watched Bash at the Beach 1994 recently. This really kicks off the Hulk Hogan era, brother!


First Match is the TV Title Match with Lord Stephen Regal (champ) w/Sir William vs. Johnny B. Badd.

Badd is a replacement for the injured Sting. I don’t know what the real injury is, but the kayfabe explanation is that Sensual Sherri raked him in the eyes and caused cornea damage.

Regal wins by reversing a sunset flip attempt by Badd. The end was slightly botched, I think, but overall I thought this a very good match.


Next match is Vader (w/Harley Race) vs. the Guardian Angel.

The feud between these two continues. Angel showed some impressive power moves and Vader (!) showed some impressive agility moves (like a spinning heel kick and of course his moonsault) and overall this was a good match. However, at the end, the ref takes a weak looking bump, then Vader takes a telescoping night stick and attempt to hit Angel with it. Angel dodges it then gets the nightstick from Vader. Angel stands there holding the stick, but doesn’t use it. Then the ref recovers, sees Angel holding the stick, and disqualifies him, even though he didn’t use it! So Vader wins via DQ. This was a good match with an awful ending. I guess maybe they were trying to protect Guardian Angel for a future matchup between these two but this was still dumb.


Next match is a tag team match with the Stud Stable (Bunkhouse Buck and Terry Funk) w/ Col. Parker and Meng vs.Arn Anderson and Dustin Rhodes. Dustin has been feuding with Colonel Parker, and Funk still holds a grudge against the Rhodes family, so here you go. Dustin chose Arn Anderson as his tag team partner for this match. Let’s see how that goes. Rhodes takes on both Studs for pretty much all of this match, then he finally tags in Arn Anderson, who promptly DDT’s Dustin then puts the prone Terry Funk on top of Rhodes for the pin. Good heel turn here by Anderson. The match itself was just okay, I though. Not bad, certainly, and did have some nice Dustin vs. two guys at once spots, but perhaps a bit too much of that.

Next match is for the US title: Champ Stunning Steve Austin vs. Ricky the Dragon Steamboat.

This was a great match. Austin wins in about 20 minutes by rolling through a Steamboat crossbody and using the ropes for leverage for the pin. Good pace and good storytelling here. There was a cool sequence here where the two of them kept reversing Tombstone attempts. Unfortunately, Steamboat’s career will come to an end soon due to an injury. Also worth noting that Col. Parker is no longer Austin’s manager.


Next is the Tag Team Title Match: Pretty Wonderful (Paul Orndorff & Paul Roma) vs. Cactus Jack & Kevin Sullivan (c) (w/ Dave Sullivan).

Okay, this match was awful, IMHO. Boring and much too long at over 20 minutes. Plus, the ending was really stupid. Orndorff pinned Jack (after Jack had hit a double arm DDT – his finisher – but the ref was too distracted to see the pin) with the aid of Roma holding Jack’s feet from the outside. However, it is impossible to believe that the ref didn’t see that. Nearly half of Jack’s body was outside the ring! Plus, Roma was holding Jack’s feet down even before the ref came over to count the pin. How could the ref have not seen this? Answer, he couldn’t have missed it. I guess Jack got himself in trouble by spitting on the tag team belt during an ECW promo so losing the title was a foregone conclusion, anyway.

Way to get the crowd revved up for the main event, WCW.


Next is the main event, the WCW Title Match: Hulk Hogan (w/ Mr. T & Jimmy Hart) vs. Ric Flair (c) (w/ Sensuous Sherri).

I’m not sure why Hulk Hogan needs Mr. T “for security reasons” Does he think Sensual Sherri is going to beat him up on the outside? Well, more on that later. Anyway, Shaquille O’Neil is there and will present the belt to the winner, and of course Michael Buffer does the ring announcement for this main event.

The crowd is seriously behind Hogan here. That would not be the case in other WCW cities, so they were smart to host this in Orlando, near Hulk’s stomping grounds.

They kept saying that Hogan hadn’t wrestled in 2-3 years. That’s not true. He wrestled just a year ago against Yokozuna at King of the Ring.

A couple of (not seated together) Hulk Hogan look alikes in the first row. I pity the fools.

Hogan actually does some real wrestling moves early on! Also, Hulk with his usual heroic biting and hair pulling.

Sherri is about to clobber Hogan with a chair outside the ring, and Jimmy Hart has to make the save? Where is Mr. T? Isn’t that exactly what he’s here for? Later on, Sherri attack Jimmy Hart. Again, what is Mr. T doing? Finaly, towards the end of the match, after Hogan knocks Sherri out of the ring, Mr. T earns his paycheck by picking her up and carrying her away.

In the end, of course Hogan wins with the boot to the face off the Irish whip, followed by the leg drop, followed by the cover. Yawn. And we have a new champion! And Shaquille O’Neil is happy! And Bobby Heenan is miserable! Heenan’s reaction to all this is great.

Okay, overall, I thought this was a good match. As far as Hogan matches go, I have no complaints. I do think, however, they’d have been better off if Flair retained the belt here due to some chicanery to set up a rematch, but I guess WCW (or Hogan himself) couldn’t wait to put the belt on Hogan. A bit shortsighted.


All in all, a very good PPV. One bad match, but all the other matches were at least good, with one great match (Austin-Steamboat) and the main event was good, if not great.