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Episode 73: Halloween Havoc 1991
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We're back for another look at WCW's scariest series, Halloween Havoc! But are the scares from ghouls and ghosts...or match concepts and presentation ideas that should never have seen the light of day or a dark and stormy night? Sting and friends battle their way through the Chamber of Horrors - a match so haunted match props move on their own in ways that entirely demolish the concept! WCW proudly presents a whole bunch of mystery people in masks, only one of which is actually important, which also happens to be the one whose mask fits so badly you can see his quite familiar mustache! Plus - four exciting squash matches to blow through some airtime! A discussion of the uses of early 1990s computers in wrestling! Where is Bobby Eaton going with that pumpkin? Oh, and Ron Simmons has a truly star-making turn in one of WCW's best-produced matches ever. For all this and more...let's go to the ring!
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
Follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LetsGo2theRing/
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Transcript
Delays and Introduction to 'Let's Go to the Ring'
00:00:02
Speaker
Is it just me or has but has this series been kind of cursed? A little bit, yeah. It's the most appropriate series to be cursed. That's true, yeah. Our first one delayed by Hurricane.
00:00:12
Speaker
Yeah. Our second one delayed by just everything happening at once and in December. Yeah. And then our third one delayed by the trying two different experiments for revising the show, both of which failed.
00:00:25
Speaker
Yeah. Hey, things happen. Oh, God. It's like every episode for this one is has had an issue so far, but it is by far the most appropriate series for that to happen on.
00:00:37
Speaker
I mean, I guess you could look at it as having all the bad luck like at the beginning, like front load it.
Halloween Havoc 1991 Overview
00:01:10
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to Let's Go to the Ring, where we take a look at the good old days and not so good old days of World Championship Wrestling series by series. I'm your host, Bob Moore, and I'm joined by a more active tag partner than Wildfire Tommy Rich, Alec Pridgen.
00:01:25
Speaker
I mean, i like to set the bar nice and low for me, just step right over with a little hop. I was gonna say, yeah, yeah, it's not not a hard bar to clear, but you know, you did clear it. Absolutely. Tonight, we're taking a look at Halloween Havoc 1991.
00:01:40
Speaker
An evening of terrifying destruction. Oh. I assume that's a hint at an added match where the WSW World Tag Champs will be challenged by the Destruction Crew. They wouldn't even have to be at the show, actually. Just swing those hammers from a couple states away.
00:01:54
Speaker
Yeah, just take the whole place down, yeah.
00:01:58
Speaker
I guess you definitely would pin a guy if you put him under, you know, a few hundred large chunks of masonry, so... Yeah, I mean, you stand on the top of the pile, they can't really be sure if the chiller goes up or not.
00:02:08
Speaker
It's probably down. True, yeah, yeah. Seems more likely than not, anyway. Yeah, yeah. Halloween Havoc 1991 was held on October 27th, 1991 at the UTC Arena in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in front of 8,900 fans.
00:02:25
Speaker
The UTC Arena, now the McKenzie Arena, holds between about $7,400 and about $11,500 depending on the setup, so WSW did quite well here.
00:02:37
Speaker
Halloween Havoc 1991 received 140,000 pay-per-view buys, which is 60,000 less than last year. We have hit the slower period for WSW compared to the last couple of years of the show.
00:02:50
Speaker
After last year's six-match Chopped to Shred show, we're getting a full show of 11 matches this time. Is bigger better? Our history often suggests not. Springstampy 2000.
00:03:04
Speaker
But to find out, let's go to the ring. The intro video, once again, is wonderfully cheesily spooky. Oh, yeah. A bunch of drawings of tombstones followed by a spooky forest, all accompanied by ghosts flying in the air.
00:03:19
Speaker
Ron Simmons, Barry Windham, Abdullah the Butcher, Kevin Nash as Oz, Rick Steiner, Eligante. And then we go into a spooky house and find Lex Luger and Sting. It closes with the new Halloween Havoc logo with the large spiky v which I believe is the one they're going to use for the next several years, if not the full duration of the series. I think they might change it towards the end.
00:03:41
Speaker
So I assume based on the way they did that video that Ghost Sting and Ghost Lex Luger own the house together like that they own in that gym for a long time. That might have been their first attempt for main event fitness. And then they realized, oh, wait, there's not really room in this ancient Gothic mansion.
00:03:56
Speaker
Yeah. For get all the equipment. And it's not really it's not wired for electricity. So, you know, that would be a problem, too. couple of red flags. Yeah. I love the video package, but man, were those some weird choices about which ghost to show and when.
00:04:09
Speaker
Yes. It makes it look like Lex Luger is facing Sting in a match. And Ron Simmons is facing Barry Windham, which is not the case. No. and it's quite strange that they highlight Abdullah the Butcher and Oz of all people, especially Oz, as after watching the show, it certainly won't seem like WCW values him very much.
00:04:29
Speaker
No, they do not. You'd think it'd be Abdullah and if you're going to be Abdullah, right, you'd be Cactus Jack as well. You would think so. I would understand if it was everyone that was in the Chamber of Four's match, but it's not even that.
00:04:40
Speaker
No. Because it has Ron Simmons and Lex Luger, but they're at random points. Maybe they're thinking we can frame it with the title match, guys, but it's such a misleading order.
00:04:50
Speaker
Yeah. If you watch that intro and don't know anything about the you're like, wait, so what? Which match? Who's against who? Yeah, I see that. I was a little bit sad that the ghosts were less wibbly wobbly this year, but otherwise this was a fun intro.
Chamber of Horrors Match Analysis
00:05:07
Speaker
Host Jim Ross welcomes us to the show in the UTC arena, and we already have the good old Thunderdome slash Capital Combat cage set up as it's going to be used for our first match.
00:05:19
Speaker
I love that we somehow managed to do Capital Combat just before this series without planning that. No. And see that cage in three of the last four shows.
00:05:29
Speaker
Yeah. One of the people I know of uses that cage for Ron Simmons, which read match. I think they have one of those, but I remember but show that's on it at all. Feels like we see it at least one more time. Yeah.
00:05:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:44
Speaker
JR is joined by Tony Schiavone. Sadly, neither of them is in Halloween get up this year. No. Tony does have like a nice colorful bow tie, though. If this was like WBF added to Jim Ross, they could have like switched Tony wears the cowboy hat and the stuff. True. Yeah, yeah.
00:06:00
Speaker
We're still just plain, but still obviously really good. Jim Ross, not good old JR just yet. Yeah, yeah, true. He doesn't have like the full accoutrements yet that he eventually starts using. Oh my gosh, I feel like we have watched this series a long time ago. I feel like I remember Tony dresses up as Jesse Ventura.
00:06:20
Speaker
I might be prescient about this then. Yeah. Time will tell. We'll have to see. Let's see if we whip with that. That prediction pans out. There you go. JR goes over some of the matches, noting that this will be the first time the World Heavyweight Championship is defended in a two out of three falls match on a WCW pay-per-view.
00:06:38
Speaker
He talks up the Chamber of Horrors match, which is what the Thunderdome cage will be used for. Considering the goal of this match is going to be electrocuting someone, this match probably should have been the one that called the Thunderdome.
00:06:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Though guess technically the cage itself isn't doing the electrifying this time, so... I mean, the electrifying object passes through the dome. This is true, yeah. Yeah. Also, admittedly, it's not much of a dome since it's not circular, but whatever. Yeah. A lot of good points.
00:07:06
Speaker
Tony throws to a video of Eric Bischoff standing outside earlier in the evening and greeting arriving performers. Cactus Jack darn near runs him over. Abdullah the Butcher is dressed like an accountant for some reason.
00:07:19
Speaker
Diamond Dallas Page brings the diamond stud, sadly not in Page's pink Cadillac that he drove at WrestleMania VI. No, that's true. Finally, Barry Windham and Dustin Rhodes arrive, but just as Windham is getting out and shaking Eric's hand, Arne Anderson and Larry Zbysko run over and slam Windham's hand in his car door.
00:07:38
Speaker
Rhodes quickly shoves Windham quite roughly back into the car and peels out to take him to the hospital. could Could have been a little gentler with the patient there, Dustin. Yeah, he, like, pushes them across into the passenger seat. Yeah, good very brusquely, I'd say. I'm pretty sure he actually, like, lands on the arm that got slammed in the car door.
00:07:56
Speaker
He, like, yeah smashes into it again. you're like, ah. sure it's not fun, yeah. but So, yes, in the introduction to the show, one of the wrestlers featured in the opening video of the show is now out of the show.
00:08:08
Speaker
Yeah. It's got to record, right? Well, no, because we actually had Starrcade 1989, I think it was, had the skyscrapers, I think, in the oh intro video, and they were already off the show by the time the show aired.
00:08:23
Speaker
Oh, right. Yeah. So this is slightly behind, but it's as the fastest you would think it would be possible. Yeah, yeah. It's a ah good attack sequence, though, I think. Arne and Larry came out of nowhere.
00:08:34
Speaker
Bischoff shaking hands with Wyndham gave him a reason to be slow getting out of the car to kind of have his hand in the right place for it to be a quick attack. Yeah. Plus, Bischoff actually also shakes hands with Paige earlier, so it's just kind of a natural repeat when he does it with Wyndham.
00:08:49
Speaker
It genuinely did catch me a little bit by surprise. The suddenness of exactly how it happened was not what I expected. Mm-hmm. So our first match... is Sting, Eligante, and the Steiner brothers, Rick and Scott, versus Abdullah the Butcher, Cactus Jack, Vader, and the Diamond Stud in a Chamber of Horrors match.
00:09:11
Speaker
The referees for this match are Nick Patrick in the ring, Randy Anderson, and Mike Atkins outside the cage. So the goal of this match is going to be to throw a member of the opposing team into an electric chair, the chair of torture, and throw the fatal lever that is mounted on the Thunderdome cage itself, which will electrocute the poor guy. Not really, obviously.
00:09:34
Speaker
So this will require good timing, careful execution, great special effects, and flawless acting to look at all good. I remind you that this is WCW trying to do this. Yes.
00:09:47
Speaker
This is a match that truly represents the phrase, card subject to change. So originally, the heel team was almost completely different. What originally it was booked was Oz, the one-man gang, the Diamond Stud, and Barry Windham.
00:10:06
Speaker
So right off the bat, it's a little weird because Barry Windham, as far as I can tell, is not a heel. I mean, he's accompanying Dustin Rhodes to the arena. Yeah. and Dustin Rhodes is definitely not a heel. And no, Dustin Rhodes is helping him when he gets his hand slammed in the car door and the people doing the slamming are definitely heels. So yeah, all of the accompanying evidence anyway is that he's not.
00:10:27
Speaker
At the very least, they're fairly recent team. So maybe, you know, like when they originally come up with the idea of the ridiculous idea of this match, let's say. Three months earlier, it all made sense. But then they didn't really figure out how to change it until this show.
00:10:43
Speaker
It's been a while since the horseman, right? Because Flair's in the WWF right now. Yeah, Flair left in the middle the year. Maybe it's been recent enough that he was a heel still that he was originally booked for this match. But he's still at such an odd fit for this match.
00:10:57
Speaker
Yeah, I believe Great American Bash is the big show where everything changed. We'll discuss that match, obviously, when we cover that show, but Blair gets fired, which we'll cover in depth when that matters.
00:11:07
Speaker
So they do a match where it's Lex Luger versus Barry Windham. And I think that's Supposed to be a double turn, like lures a face. Gotcha. And he comes to heal the of the match. And then Windham's a heel going in as a face. So either he's a heel at some point recently.
00:11:23
Speaker
So maybe it made sense when they thought the match, but they didn't really get around to fixing this until like the day of the show where they were like, wait second. Yeah, I don't think I would describe that as recent either. Great American Bash. It's been like, what, four months?
00:11:35
Speaker
Oh, yeah. The other members of the team make some sense. Like, what'd you say? It was Oz, One Man Gang. And Diamonstead. And Diamonstead. Okay, so yeah. And that, oh my gosh, and that's so sad too, that because we would have had Kevin Nash and Scott Hall.
00:11:48
Speaker
Yes. On a team in a match in WCW, like five years before it happened. Mm-hmm. This would have been the first, like, high profile match they were together in.
00:11:59
Speaker
Yeah. On TV slash overview, yeah. I think they might have like one or two things together when Nash is Vinny Vegas. If Diamond Studd hasn't left yet, but possibly, This is twice that we've been, i think, robbed of Kevin Nash and Scott Hall potentially tag teaming together on an early pay-per-view because that was on Battle Bowl too, I think.
00:12:17
Speaker
Like Nash was going to be part of that and then wasn't and Hall was injured. It's a show after this, in fact, yeah.
00:12:25
Speaker
How dare you, WCW. Okay, yeah, so to go over why the match changed, apparently one main gang was part of the company until the day of the show, and something made him quit. I did find a story as to why.
00:12:39
Speaker
Because I found a video I shared with Bob, which was their build-up on, like, two days earlier the graphic, and they they mentioned him. this So it's a real recent thing with him. He quits the company. Like, he didn't even just quit the match. He quits the company. He's just gone.
00:12:52
Speaker
So he's replaced Abdul the Butcher. At that point, I think it's just because of the storyline. They go, okay, let's take Oz out of this match for Cactus Jack. So we have Cactus Jack and Abdul together. Fair enough on that. Yeah, that's a good pairing.
00:13:05
Speaker
they They work together pretty well. So, yeah. and And that gives you like if you're doing an urgent replacement, then that gives you like people who know already some stuff that they can do as a team or or can play off each other. Yeah.
00:13:20
Speaker
And I was to be discussed, so I why win him the match in storyline as well. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it's it's fascinating that so many people are out of this match. I imagine that backstage, the reason Wyndham is so suddenly out of the match is someone was like, woke up this morning and realized, oh, crap, Perry Wyndham's a face. What the heck are we doing?
00:13:36
Speaker
Yeah. It's like, quick, have his hand slammed to the corridor to explain why he's out. We'll come up with something. Even inside the heel face thing, which is discussed, he doesn't really seem like a good fit in the sense that he's not a big outlandish character.
00:13:48
Speaker
Right. Yeah. He's not a guy dressed as well, the wizard from Wizard of Oz. Right. You know, he's not and wearing terroir pants with a big diamond on the front. You know, he's not one man gang with his chains and, you know, all that stuff.
00:14:02
Speaker
Yeah. And even a replacement to be Vader is obviously a big gimmick. I love Vader. He's a big gimmick. Same as Abdullah and Cactus Jack. Wyndham is just, he's a really good talent, but he's just, he's just a dude, especially at this point.
00:14:15
Speaker
So it's really fascinating. The replacement people, with the possible exception of the Diamond Stud, feel like they should be in this match. Yeah. Feel like they should always have been in this match. It's unbelievable to me that that wasn't the original team that they picked because, like i said, the the only one that I would say maybe on is the Diamond Stud. But like Vader absolutely should be in this match. Abdullah the Butcher should be in this match. Cactus Jack should be in this match.
00:14:39
Speaker
They are the type of gimmick that fits a Halloween kind of match like this. Exactly. yeah It's utterly bizarre that that wasn't the original plan and somehow WSW lucked into ah plan that made more sense than what they were originally planning.
00:14:54
Speaker
It also means that Vader was available and they just didn't book him, which yeah is a real crime in my eyes. Picture alternate universe Halloween Havoc 1991. Vader's just like hanging out backstage. He's just not on the show.
00:15:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:10
Speaker
It's so bizarre. It's so strange. Anyway, is there like any storyline to why this is going on that you're aware of? Or is it just like I couldn't find anything. I mean, i think it's they came with this really bizarre gimmick for Halloween Havoc and they just pick some top people.
00:15:27
Speaker
There's no like long running feud between like, you know, Sting and Diamond Stud or... I mean, obviously has got some stuff going on with like Abdullah the Butcher and Cactus Jack, as we'll see on later shows, but... True, yes.
00:15:41
Speaker
Obviously, they also weren't part of the original plan, so... Yeah. Everything you can analyze about the potential storyline of this match will be wrong because the entire heel team changed, basically.
00:15:52
Speaker
Yes, pretty much, yeah. Oh, boy. There's something about a match we've been all this time trying ridiculous. We haven't even started the match. I know, i know, i know. haven't even started Interaches yet. Oh, this is going be such a long show, people.
00:16:07
Speaker
We get a great shot of the stage for the introduction to the match, and WCW has leveled up its set design again for this one. There's a kind of frame around the stage that has creepy spiky fencing drawn on it.
00:16:19
Speaker
And then there's a ton of tombstones on the stage with various cheesy comedy epitaphs on them. And behind all that is the tilted WCW logo of the era. To the sides of that are some gargoyles.
00:16:30
Speaker
And then it's all topped off by a backdrop of a haunted house with a door that actually opens yeah for wrestlers to come out. Al, I think we might have to bring back our Beach Series Award for set design for this series.
00:16:42
Speaker
Yeah. We're getting some real winners so far. I know what late 90s, we got some good ones too. Oh yeah, i like the giant pumpkin one that I'm looking forward to, yeah. Oh yeah. We get loads of fireworks, and some of the set briefly seems to catch fire, but thankfully nothing actually burns down.
00:16:59
Speaker
Great mood is not here this year, they'd be screwed. Yeah, he's ah eats across the ocean, he wouldn't be allowed to help. Yeah. Elegante is out first. Vader is next, wearing his wonderful helmet, which sprays steam.
00:17:13
Speaker
Next up is Diamond Stud, Scott Hall, acting exactly like he'll later act as, well, Scott Hall. I always thought that the toothpick thing was something that he added when he became Razor Ramon in the WWF, but he's doing it even here. So that was just always his thing, I guess.
00:17:29
Speaker
Apparently. Cactus Jack is next, bringing a chainsaw. And if I was Eligante, I would be complaining mightily about this entrance order as we got one face followed by three heels.
00:17:41
Speaker
And one of the heels has a chainsaw. Maybe he's hoping to have ah Terry Funk as mystery partner. That's why he brought a chainsaw. Yeah, maybe. I am astonished that nobody tries to beat Eligante up before the match.
00:17:53
Speaker
Yeah, this whole entrance is weird, too. Again, we haven't even talked the actual match. It's like, I know. Why don't the faces just come out and after all the heels? Yeah. I don't get it. Yeah, don't.
00:18:04
Speaker
Good gosh. Have the heels come out. Or do alternating order or something like that, like they do for for some of the. Yeah, it would explain why they don't all fight each other. Right. Heels that come out first, you know, get their interests. It's fine.
00:18:15
Speaker
And then the faces that come out on the stage and then they enter together. Rick Steiner and Scott Steiner come out next together, which at least does maybe make them bringing out a couple heels in sequence. Makes some sense, but not three.
00:18:27
Speaker
No, they get a big reaction. Next is Abdullah the Butcher. And finally, Sting is last in an amazing blue and gold jacket, tights, and face paint, which I'm sure the Steiners appreciated as those are the University of Michigan's colors.
00:18:41
Speaker
Oh, yeah. He gets his own theme music while everyone else had to come out to the match theme. Sting drops his title belt. He's currently United States champ on the entrance ramp three times. I'm not entirely sure all of those were intentional.
00:18:54
Speaker
Foreshadowing. We kick things off before Sting even reaches the cage as Cactus Jack and Abdullah the Butcher attack him on the elevated entrance ramp. Rick Steiner joins the fray and ends up with Jack's chainsaw, but fortunately puts it down as the sight of Rick Steiner with a chainsaw is scarier than anything you're ever going to see in a horror film.
00:19:12
Speaker
Yeah. Eventually, everyone gets in the cage and brawls around. I am not even going to try to recap this, as there is far too much going on. And a generous amount is filmed by the Refereye camera, hu which is a helmet-mounted camera worn by poor Nick Patrick.
00:19:29
Speaker
As you can imagine, given Patrick is, one, not a cameraman, and two, not able to see his camera's view of things, and three, having to actively referee the match and therefore moving around a lot, the referee camera angle is generally useless.
00:19:44
Speaker
Yeah. It rarely catches the action in a viewable way and often jerks around because Patrick has to look around to referee. The funniest part of it is when JR actually throws to it and builds it up just in time for the camera to start glitching so they have to cut away.
00:19:57
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I joke the time when we're watching it that WWE will go through and find those little footage and lost matches and all that. I really hope there's a tape where they can find and direct the raw feed and it's just this match only from referee camera. I would love that, yeah.
00:20:13
Speaker
That feed had to run the whole time, right? Yeah, I would assume that they were filming consistently, yeah. Yeah, so there's feed that's just that. I really want that release as like a bonus. That would be so much fun, yeah.
00:20:24
Speaker
So yeah, no full recap, but I'll give you some highlights here. The chair of torture does not start in the ring, it's hanging above. Sting beats people up with Abdullah's cane and Rick makes heavy use of a kendo stick in the early going.
00:20:36
Speaker
Somebody in a mask tries to ambush Scott Steiner by popping out of a casket and gets beat up for it. Vader's mask comes off almost immediately. Sting clotheslines Vader out of the ring in that he hits Vader and Vader generously throws himself out as they were really far from the ropes.
00:20:53
Speaker
Sting dives on him to make up for it. Lots of people meaninglessly climb up the cage and fight. There is no more point in doing that than at Havoc 89 or Capital Combat. Yeah. The electric chair switch keeps falling to the on position frequently in the match. I think I counted at least five times that this happens. Oh, I know. It's crazy.
00:21:14
Speaker
And poor Mike Atkins keeps having to go over and put it back up, hoping that nobody noticed. Everybody noticed, Mike. Everybody. The chair of torture gets lowered into the center of the ring.
00:21:28
Speaker
It has its own creepy horror music, which is nice. And it's in its own cage, which has a door. But the door is already open when it comes down. So I'm not really quite sure what the point of the door is. Yeah.
00:21:39
Speaker
Seems like extra expense that was unnecessary, but that's WCW in a nutshell. Rick Steiner slams Jack under the descending chair cage, but Jack rolls out of the way. Now, you might think it would be hard to have an interesting wrestling match with a large cage taking up the center of the ring and filling about half to three quarters of the space.
00:22:00
Speaker
And you'd be right. Yeah. All they can do once the chair is lowered is brawl. There's no room for anything else. Yeah. Vader gets Rick in the chair, but Rick clotheslines him over the ropes to escape.
00:22:11
Speaker
Sting, outside the ring, chucks a coffin lid at Cactus Jack in the most hilarious way that you possibly could. He presses it up into the air and lets it just fall on Jack with this funny so sound.
00:22:24
Speaker
Credit to Jack for selling that instead of collapsing in laughter. Yeah, yeah. A bunch of people dressed as EMT ghouls come out and kneel on the entrance ramp with a stretcher. Pity those guys if this goes more than a few minutes, as it's definitely not the most comfortable way to wait.
00:22:39
Speaker
No. Scott Steiner breaks the kendo stick over Cactus Jack's head. Jack was already bleeding at that point, and that probably didn't help. The Diamond Stud puts Sting in the chair, but Scott Steiner saves.
00:22:52
Speaker
The camera points right at the power switch and clearly shows that it is currently set to on. Atkins fixes it again. Also, is there even the hint of a cable going from that box to anywhere else?
00:23:05
Speaker
I feel like I actually did see one. I don't know if it like actually reaches all the way to the chair, which would be hard because the chair was lowered from the roof yeah and wasn't anywhere near the cage. So yeah, don't know. Maybe it's conducted by the metal of the cages and is leaping between them.
00:23:20
Speaker
Maybe we'll go with that. ah Sure. Uh, the guy in the mask gets chained to the cage somehow. I missed how that happened and was not interested enough to look back and find out. No.
00:23:31
Speaker
Abdullah is also bleeding and stings either bleeding or just has Abdullah's blood in his hair. Lots of people choke people with sticks. Jack climbs up near the switch and it falls to the on position again. Atkins.
00:23:44
Speaker
Moments later, the switch falls again. Atkins. Atkins. Tony and JR admit that this is hard to call, but do get a little bit of analysis pointing out that the one bit of strategy to this match, at least, is to stay away from the opening of the chair's cage so it's as hard as possible for someone to get you into it.
00:24:02
Speaker
I appreciate that they are trying. Yeah. Eventually, Abdullah gets Rick Steiner into the chair and Cactus Jack climbs to the switch and acts like he's having a terribly hard time switching it on, despite it having fallen loosely into the on position at least four or five times of its own accord already.
00:24:18
Speaker
Right. The last literally moments before this. That gives Rick time to reverse Abdullah into the chair and hook all its various bits and bobs to him. That switch is seriously hard to throw suddenly.
00:24:29
Speaker
All can figure, you know, in kayfabe, some fan is just having a conversation with Jack. Like he asked him like what his favorite book is. He goes, well, you know, not you mentioned it. I do like i that. I just, because for this to work, you can't turn and look and see if it was not there.
00:24:43
Speaker
And the switch that happened quickly. He climbs up the part of the cage where the switch is and just stares away from the ring as hard as possible. he He aggressively does not look behind him.
00:24:54
Speaker
Yeah. It's like he thinks that there's a horror movie monster behind him that will kill him if he turns around. Was it that one silent, the Silent Hill demo they did? ah the The PT ghost. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yeah.
00:25:05
Speaker
yeah It's always behind you. Yeah. There's no explanation for Jack, like never bothering to look behind him once for like a good 15 seconds or so, I think. Oh, yeah. wait it It feels like eternity.
00:25:17
Speaker
So, yes, Jack decides that despite it being like 10 or 15 seconds since he's checked, he'll just throw this switch without looking. So Abdullah gets electrocuted, giving the faces the win and putting this match out of my misery.
00:25:29
Speaker
There are some decent spark and pyrotechnic effects, and Abdullah jerks around, and there's even steam coming from the chair. Beyond Productions made big bucks on the pyro for this one. The ring mat minorly catches fire for a moment, but thankfully goes out.
00:25:44
Speaker
Tony notes, Abdullah is still unconscious. Like, that would be surprising after someone was electrocuted. Yeah. JR says, someone might have to give him mouth-to-mouth, which might be necessary if Abdullah wasn't visibly breathing.
00:25:57
Speaker
Yeah, i'd I'd say no one watched the Green Mile, but I think it was just a series of books at this point. So they couldn't have watched the Green Mile yet. Yeah, yeah. They could have read it. The cage raises up and Jack comes over to check on Abdullah and is traumatized with grief for his very clearly a alive friend.
00:26:14
Speaker
Abdullah wakes up and knocks Jack down, then runs to the ramp and beats the ever-loving crap out of the ghoul EMTs and a stagehand who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He accidentally steps on one of the EMTs as well and nearly falls on him. So pity that guy.
00:26:27
Speaker
I will note that this is a match where in the aftermath, one of the wrestlers gets really violent and dangerous and knocks running people around. And it's not Vader. Yes, that's true. Vader is the voice of reason here by comparison. Very true. Very true.
00:26:42
Speaker
Jack and Abdullah finally hug slash fight to the back. Thoughts on this one. It's a big convoluted mess is what it is. So look okay before the whole chair thing comes in, you have a regular sized ring and you have the cage with and i maybe a couple of feet, but nicely enough to walk around in around it. So it's like it's kind of like it's a bit smaller than like if you think of the held in the cell cage, like the first one.
00:27:08
Speaker
Yeah. So you can sort of fight near it, but you can't anything complicated there. That creates dangers, of course, when the cactus jacket is thrown out and like his hips run into the cage when he goes over. Because, of course, Mick Foley takes the a bit where he's thrown out of the ring into a cage makes that hip first.
00:27:23
Speaker
That's just the Mick Foley way. Oh, man. Throw your legs at whatever's there. That will have no side effects going forward. The thing about this match, there's a couple of things. there's a lot There's a lot of things about this match.
00:27:35
Speaker
But... This match could literally be an entire episode on its own. let's Honestly, yeah. It couldn't, it couldn't, though, because a lot is happening, but nothing you can follow or really be invested in also happens. Yes, yeah.
00:27:49
Speaker
It's the worst kind of bad match for wrestlers involved. They're fighting all around the ringside area, especially once the cage of the tear comes in, taking up most of the interior rings. They got to fight outside it now.
00:28:01
Speaker
Yes. They're legit beating the crap out of each other. I mean, they're bust each other open. They're hitting each other hard in the places that wrestlers get to the heart, in the shoulders, backs. I'm sure they were sore for like a week after this match.
00:28:14
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I bet. Yeah. I mean, there's some big hits and bumps in this match. And they're just impossible to follow. Or what? Because you can go, oh, man, Vader and so-and-so are fighting over here. And look at this slam Vader just did. But you're getting a wide shot of six other people, plus the two math guys that show up from the coffins for no apparent reason.
00:28:35
Speaker
You can't even really go, oh, look this cool spot they do, because it's all a big blur. Yeah. It's like trying to go oh, this ant number three and four, this is my favorite ant. And you look at your anthill and you're just seeing all of it at once.
00:28:49
Speaker
Right. There's just no way to get detail out of it. So I fear for these guys who beat the crap out of each other and ways that most people can't appreciate and in match that will be forgotten other than the terrible gimmick of the stupid lever that will not stay upright.
00:29:04
Speaker
Yeah. And the chair of torture. Lots of good talents and also El Gigante are just wasted in this one. It's like Bunkhouse Stampede, but without the eliminations. Yeah, yeah.
00:29:15
Speaker
It's exactly as confusing, if not more so, than Bunkhouse Stampede. But it doesn't even have like a theoretical storyline that you can follow of like this guy gets eliminated, then this guy gets eliminated or something. Yeah. It just remains a big mess for the entire duration.
00:29:31
Speaker
Again, I feel so bad for people involved because they hurt themselves so severely. Not actual crippling injuries as far as I know, but... They're so sore so beat up and no one can tell and no one can appreciate it. at such feel I feel for them. I really do.
00:29:45
Speaker
They really are giving it their all in this match. Yeah. Credit to all the guys involved. I'm like genuinely trying with this one, but it's just like it is not salvageable. No. Of course, the other aspect of this really makes this match so bad is it front loads so much talent into this match that can't be used later.
00:30:03
Speaker
So no sign up for this match separately for like a tag title or some sort of match. No separate sting match, no Vader match, which makes me really sad. Obviously, i think honestly, without the stupid gimmick, same amount of people you could have booked the straight tag match and then two singles matches where you could have booked a singles match and like say a six man tag.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah, but it's dead because this. Yeah, this was so bad. The action, even before the chair is lowered, is slow, chaotic, and hard to follow. There's no plot to speak of. They just brawl until someone gets put into the chair.
00:30:37
Speaker
There's no storyline. There's no building tension. It's just people hitting each other with things, running into the cage, meaninglessly climbing, and plenty of poor Mike Atkins having to turn the switch off. Mm-hmm. Seriously, Mike, make Randy Anderson do it for you at least once.
00:30:50
Speaker
Yeah. It's made all the worse by the fact that we have to watch a generous portion of the match through the absolutely awful referee camera, which swings around exactly as randomly and frequently as you would expect for a camera mounted on the head of someone whose job is not to be a cameraman.
00:31:06
Speaker
The only way that this could have been worse is if they'd mounted it to one of the wrestlers. Oh, yeah, right. It only gets worse when the chair lowers and then they don't have room to do anything more than brawl anymore.
00:31:17
Speaker
And the ending, of course, is utterly ludicrous and makes Cactus Jack look like an absolute moron. It's a terrible match design, it's poorly planned, it's badly filmed, and it has a stupid ending. But I do want to give WCW one tiny compliment from this match, which is at least they did try something appropriately like creepy slash horror themed for Halloween.
00:31:39
Speaker
So this is like the first match that is truly Halloween themed on their Halloween show. That's fair. Yeah. So I'll give them that. they They did a bad job with it, but at least they did try.
00:31:54
Speaker
If you can call this trying. Yeah, I got you. I can call it trying in one way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, God, it's it's so bad, people. I mean, and again, as an indication, i don't know what this will end up in the actual edit, but we are now 42 minutes into the show on recording, and we are on the first match because this is so bad.
00:32:11
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
00:32:15
Speaker
And what will become a common theme... The Battle Bowl event at Starcade 1981 pretty much supersedes any feud going on that I could be discussing going forward for this. Everyone's just thrown in a knee sometimes randomly, sometimes clearly not randomly drawn series of tag matches leading to battle royal at the end.
00:32:34
Speaker
Some of them will matter, but not really. Everyone in this match, except for the Diamond Stud, who between this match and that show is injured, will take part in that one. The only real thing you get out of this match that continues into Starcade is the Cactus Jack of Duel the Butcher feud slash friendship.
00:32:53
Speaker
Gotcha. Otherwise, there's no like big blow off match between, you Duel and Cactus Jack against the Steiners because electric chair thing or anything. It's just this match happened and then let's move on. Let's let's no one speak of this again.
00:33:06
Speaker
but yes
00:33:09
Speaker
JR says he has never seen a cage match quite like that one. Oh, JR. You made me speak of it again. And calls it a tremendous way to kick off Halloween havoc. Tony gives a little chuckle, which suggests to me that he rather realizes that that match was absolute crap and is just trying to get through the segment without busting a gut.
00:33:28
Speaker
JR throws to their distinguished colleagues, Eric Bischoff and Missy Hyatt, and that gets Tony to break and start laughing. JR gets the giggles too. Ouch.
00:33:39
Speaker
Pretty clear what JR and Tony think of Eric and or Missy. Yeah. We cut backstage to Eric Bischoff and Missy Hyatt, who are wearing Halloween costumes. Eric is a vampire complete with some pale makeup, and Missy appears to be some kind of nineteen twenty s stage dancer in a gold outfit with a gigantic black feather on her head.
00:33:58
Speaker
I mean, truly enormous. Yeah, I got like Vegas Choco from that. Makes sense, yeah. Eric does a pretty good vampire voice for a few seconds, but quickly abandons it. Well, thank you very much, Jim and Tony. And as you can see, we're getting into the Halloween spirit.
00:34:15
Speaker
And as hard as we have tried, neither Missy or I have been able to find out who the WCW Phantom is. I found out who it is. Wait a minute, Missy. You've been with me all day long. You don't know who is. You can't lie to these people.
00:34:26
Speaker
I know who it is. I'm just not going to tell you because I don't like you. Right, well I see the Young Pistols, Tracy, Steve coming by. Guys, tell me, do you know who the WCW Phantom is? Eric, these old boys here, we don't give a hoot in our heck who the Phantom is. What we're interested in is the United States Tag Titles, currently held by the Patriots.
00:34:45
Speaker
Guys, we've laid our challenge out to you. And the Young Pistols, we're just beginning to wonder if your guys' color as the Patriots are red, white, and blue, or just plain yellow. ah That's right. Take a gander at the new sons of the south, baptized on a hunter-proof and raised by the blood of the lamb.
00:35:02
Speaker
Look at here, fireman chip. While you was giving fire tips to little kids and phony baloney Todd champion desert shield. Man, this is a professional wrestling. These two boys are sick and tired of playing it the good way. We're going to get you for the U.S. tag titles.
00:35:16
Speaker
The Young Pistols, their guns are loaded. Let's get back down to the ring. I get it.
00:35:24
Speaker
Pretty decent promo by the pistols here, doing a good job of disingenuously suggesting that the Patriots have been ducking them, building themselves up as brave and insulting the faces for not being fighting champions. I'm not sure that they really intended to, but as you pointed out when we watched, Al, they get quite close to the idea of stolen valor.
00:35:42
Speaker
Yeah. When they imply champion wasn't in Desert Shield. Stolen Valor, if folks aren't aware, is claiming to have been in the military or received military honors when you haven't. It's bad.
00:35:52
Speaker
People shouldn't do it. It dishonors and insults actual veterans and those currently in military service. To be clear, there's nothing wrong with portraying a fictional soldier on a fictional television show.
00:36:03
Speaker
That's just acting. Yeah. The problem comes when you pretend you actually are a soldier in your real actual life. But of course, for wrestling... which often blurs the lines between the performer and their character, this is kind of a dangerous ground.
00:36:17
Speaker
Yeah. I definitely wouldn't make stolen valor accusations part of an angle like this. Where are you going to go with it that's not going to end up insulting or breaking your show's reality?
00:36:28
Speaker
and Unless you're going to make sure that all your soldier characters actually are played by real soldiers so they can say, ah no, I really did serve. Screw you. ah I guess. Yeah. Which would seem kind of pointless as an angle then. So just stay away from that.
00:36:41
Speaker
Otherwise, this was fine, though it's quite weird that it doesn't end up having any relevance for the rest of the show. Yeah, that's my issue with this is that, oh, this is a heel turn from these guys and they're dressed up for a match, it feels like.
00:36:53
Speaker
But they don't have a match.
00:36:57
Speaker
I didn't even realize. Yeah, I forgot about it. ah They actually are wearing their wrestling outfits. and They're not just wearing the oh, my gosh. Yeah, so they they're in the back, dressed to wrestle. You know, they could they could have put a line and like, you know, we're here ready to go if you guys would just fit the tag titles against us. Yeah. But they don't. So implication is they just wear those all the time, apparently. that's just that's that's That's their Sunday best.
00:37:18
Speaker
yeah I guess so. They go to church like that. Yeah, they don't have a match. And spoiler alert, they don't interfere in the later match involving the people they just started a feud with. So, i mean, this is helpful for TV, but I don't know why it needs to be on the show because ah there's no payoff.
00:37:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. i Oh, God, I didn't even clock that. They were actually in their wrestling gear. I'd forgotten that. Yeah. Yeah. That is so funny. Why would you get dressed in that stuff just to be backstage and do a promo?
00:37:44
Speaker
Yeah. Of course, ah like next month's show, which we're going to reference a lot, I think on this show, like next month's show, i think Scott Hall's in the back just like dressed to wrestle even though he was injured. So yeah, he's wearing his, you know, his his trunks and boots, but also his arms in a sling.
00:37:58
Speaker
It's like you blatantly weren't going to be in a match, dude. Yeah, it's very strange.
00:38:04
Speaker
So our second match is The Creatures, Joey Maggs and Johnny Rich in Mask, I believe. Yep. Versus Big Josh and PN News. The referee for this one is Mike Atkins.
00:38:17
Speaker
So back in June, we're going back a little ways, PN News had just started a feud with Steve Austin. His whole thing is he's going to challenge the then recent TV champion for the title.
00:38:28
Speaker
And so we have these squash matches build up as a challenger and lead to some show. However, while he was doing that, he accidentally entered a job redoing a splash. like but It wasn't real, real serious, but it was enough to like, hmm, maybe you should wrestle Steve Austin.
00:38:43
Speaker
Let's make sure that you're actually safe before we put you against a guy that we highly value. Yeah. Gotcha. So suddenly he went from PN News singles wrestled to PN News tag team with Big Josh. He also was used less frequently on TV as well.
00:38:56
Speaker
And I don't think he has a match between... that match where injured the guy and this one. This isn't like a buildup of something else. The only real buildup with this match is that they sort of tease the reveal of these creatures that were show up who are debuting and then never appearing again on this show.
00:39:16
Speaker
i'm I'm shocked, Al, that this isn't like a two year long feud. The next Rhodes versus Flair. It truly is the Stinghogan of his day.
00:39:27
Speaker
The Creatures are two guys in green scaly outfits with green scaly masks who come out to a song that was definitely used by one or more Japanese wrestlers later in the mid-90s. Yes. One of them mugs for the camera and does muscle poses, and the other wanders around in confusion and looks mystified by all he surveys, which was an odd choice.
00:39:46
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Big Josh and PN News come out together, double fist bump, and simultaneously throw things to the crowd. They had pretty good timing on that, I have to say. Yeah. And News gets a microphone.
00:39:58
Speaker
a tremendous combination it's now time to wrap word up it's having 91 we'll take care of business and have some fun and when this party's over hear the fat ladies sing he and and josh are the friends when they do their thing yo baby yo baby yo yo
00:40:25
Speaker
what up chat to know
00:40:32
Speaker
Okay, first off, he definitely says yo, yay, be yo at some point there. He does, yes. He also didn't say yo, baby, yo, yo to rhythm at any kind. No, no, no. Yeah. he He has rhythm right up until like the last line of his rap.
00:40:45
Speaker
And that that kind of starts to go off rhythm. Then he just completely loses it entirely for the yo, baby, yo part. Which is his catchphrase, for crying out loud. It's the audio equivalent of the public enemy failing to hand wave together.
00:40:59
Speaker
However, I think they'd be more in sync with this than he is. Probably, honestly. ah Yeah. At least one of them would probably be in rhythm to their song. Yeah, absolutely.
00:41:10
Speaker
It turns out that the rap was written by a fan, Christine from Cake Curl, Florida. Dang it. Florida was responsible for that crap. We get a shot of her and some fans in hockey masks. So looks like the fans are getting into some Halloween costume stuff again this year, though I don't recall seeing as much of that highlight as his last year.
00:41:27
Speaker
I will say, and I say this is as one of the most Caucasian people you could ever meet. When I'm listening to that rap, I'm thinking ah someone white wrote that rap and I was correct. This is true. This is true. It sounds like when someone's doing an impersonation of what someone rapping is like.
00:41:44
Speaker
Yes. It'd be like, my name is so what I'm here to say. Like, he doesn't say that line, but that's exactly how that feels. It's saying all the all the standard rap stuff, but not using it in any kind of, with any kind of like meaning. one this paint The spacing of how he goes, have some fun. This is so weird.
00:42:01
Speaker
like he Maybe he realizes that that is not in rhythm. He tries to adjust it that way. Yeah, I think he really tries his best with that part, I think. Yeah. that's fair. Big Josh and Creature One start.
00:42:13
Speaker
Big Josh overpowers Creature 1, but 1 lands cheap shots and tags 2, who rocks Josh with some striking, including a few quite good body blows. Josh reverses a corner-to-corner whip and whips PN News into 2, then Atomic drops the charging Creature 1 and sends him into News for a belly bump.
00:42:31
Speaker
News hits a moderately decent dropkick, but Creature 1 eye rakes him and the creatures trade off landing blows. Not dealing much damage, but landing blows. Nice spot as News hits a shoulder block to a creature, keeps hold, and pulls him back up and whips him to the ropes for a belly bump.
00:42:48
Speaker
JR delights in lumberjack references as Josh and News largely dominate, including a great Josh German suplex and a belly-to-belly suplex for two. Quoth Tony, Wow, he's a man.
00:43:02
Speaker
Josh knocks a creature down and yells, Timber! And hits the Northern Exposure Jumping Butt Drop, which you'd more expect News to use. And then tags News, who goes up top and hits the Rap Master Splash.
00:43:14
Speaker
Basically falling off the top rope onto somebody. He pins, and Josh awkwardly disposes of the other creature. Somebody's timing was off there. And then stands on News during the pinfall, which should get him kicked out or disqualified.
00:43:27
Speaker
But instead, Atkins delivers the three count and the win. Josh and News celebrate and JR references Poe's The Raven several years early for WCW. Thoughts on this one?
00:43:39
Speaker
It's a harmless, pretty forgettable match, honestly. The only person that really stands out to me in ring wise is Big Josh. Yeah. In case you it didn't hear when we discussed, but other times know much more we're going to discuss Big Josh on pay-per-view, but Big Josh is Matt Bourne, who nobody formed at the Versus of Mania.
00:44:01
Speaker
He's one of those guys like Brad Armstrong, to my understanding. That was this great journeyman wrestler is like, you know, was really talented. But for some reason, they didn't have that sort of intangible factor that could make you a Hogan or a Savage or, know, Jake stke Robert, for instance.
00:44:15
Speaker
I will not hear you demean the name of the America jacket man. Oh, it's it's not until. Yeah, he has all the talent. And in my heart is at the top of the card. Fair enough. Yeah.
00:44:28
Speaker
But yeah, obviously, Matt Bourne most famous for playing Doink, that being simply the evil version, not the good version. He stands out for me because like his throws and his strikes and everything just he just generally looks good.
00:44:41
Speaker
This match without him, like it was just a singles match between say creature number one and Pia News. Far, far worse. Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. News isn't terrible, to be fair. He has the rhythm in the ring really much either, but he's OK. Yeah.
00:44:56
Speaker
Best I can say about him is that he understands the I'm a big man concept. So he does the we three throws his weight around properly. He's basically he's making the most of his size. So I can't fault that.
00:45:10
Speaker
The creatures are pretty forgettable. They just punch kick a lot. And looking back at night, watch this match twice. I can't go. Oh, i'm in this great spot. The creatures did. Yeah. The only thing I can recall that I watched one of the creatures doing was like, oh, that looked pretty good was there's one point where one land, some body blows that looked like, oh, you know how to throw a punch.
00:45:29
Speaker
Yeah, that's relatively minor. But I mean, look, we've seen a lot of people throw pretty crappy punches on wrestling shows. So, oh, yeah, I'll give credit where credit's due. I would not say they suck. They don't do anything in this short amount of time playing mass nameless creatures and heels to really wow me anything.
00:45:47
Speaker
Yeah, there might be a really good Joey Mags with match out there that I haven't seen. And he could be talented for all I know. this This match didn't really showcase him. One thing I would point just I think is kind of funny. I didn't think about it to you're describing that again.
00:46:01
Speaker
The Big Josh character, the big burly man wearing plaid and everything, to me feels eerily similar to the gimmick you get about six, seven years later with Steve Regal.
00:46:11
Speaker
Yeah. The real man's man where he'd do the promos where he'd squeeze his own orange juice by hand and all that stuff. And at top of that, Big Josh is also doing what most people think of as Finley's finisher.
00:46:22
Speaker
Yes. So he's a weird combination of Steven slash William Regal and Finley. Although not being British or Irish in the worshiper form.
00:46:34
Speaker
Tony even does the he's a man. That was Regal's theme song during that period, right? Yeah. As soon as I heard that, I'm like, oh, yeah, he it really is real man to man. Steve Regal. Oh, my gosh.
00:46:45
Speaker
Yeah, this was just a tag squash. The creatures did land some blows, including, as I said, some nice body blows, but there was no point where Josh or News felt like they were in any danger. No.
00:46:56
Speaker
I don't think there was even a point where they got taken off their feet by a creature move. Josh's power moves looked great, at least, particularly his German suplex. Not so much his strikes, though, not as forceful as I wanted.
00:47:08
Speaker
News has the nice spot with the shoulder block and pull-up, but the rest of his stuff is just not very interesting. no And I will say, honestly, his belly bumps in particular should look like Vader's falling fridge or something.
00:47:20
Speaker
Yeah. But instead, they look almost playful, and they don't really have any feeling of impact. Mm-hmm. It's like a big chunky guy just letting people bounce off his belly rather you know for fun rather than trying to do damage.
00:47:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Speaking of Vader, he's like 400 pounds, but he can do a moonsault. Uh-huh. PN News can kind of fall off the top rope in a vague approximation of a splash. Yeah. Yeah. All told, it's not a horrid match, but it's very much a squash, so there's not really any point to it being on this show.
00:47:48
Speaker
It just took up time that could have been used for matches that had an actual point. That's fair. I will give it minor credit for being a tag match that didn't do the usual face in peril formula, though.
00:47:59
Speaker
We've seen a lot of those lately. Yeah. This match, and I guess the Big Josh character in general, is an example of how you should be careful with topical references that don't really age that well, or at least don't age at all, I'd say.
00:48:13
Speaker
not like they don't age poorly, they just don't eat age at all. So in 1991, if you're watching this and you're like, oh yeah, Big Josh, he has a northern exposure. You go, oh yeah, it's like that show that's currently running. We watch this. But cut to 2025. Hell, cut to 2000. They'd be like, Northern Exposure. Oh, oh, I feel like i that means something, but I don't know what means.
00:48:35
Speaker
At least it's a case of pop culture references from wrestling that are not at least 20 years out of date by the time they make them. That's true. That's true. They didn't like have a guy, you name him move Ironside or something.
00:48:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:50
Speaker
Yeah, i I liked Big Josh. I think he's very, very good in the ring. Yeah. The only thing that's holding him back in WCW is his gimmick, which is just ludicrous and stupid.
00:49:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:03
Speaker
They would eventually pay off to the feud they started and then stopped with Pia News and Steve Austin and that at the next class of champion, which is about two weeks out from the show, he would challenge for the TV title and fail.
00:49:15
Speaker
Both of the faces would, of course, be in Battle Bull. PNU's would not be memorable. As I recall, he's in the very last match where i think we joked that they ran out of talent other than Ron Simmons.
00:49:25
Speaker
Yes, it's Ron Simmons and three dudes, as I recall. Yeah, exactly. The only only real positive for Big Josh coming of this, he has the one spot that I know you and I really remember.
00:49:36
Speaker
where he does the log roll on Rick Rude, who no-sells because his abs are so well-defined. That was absolutely amazing. Yeah, that killed all of us. Yeah. But for most people, he didn't didn't really amount to much as battle ball.
00:49:49
Speaker
A little fun fact I discovered looking up Joey Max, you probably read this too, reading his wiki page. After he retired from pro wrestling, he became a cargo pilot. There is more than one pilot wrestling on this show.
00:50:00
Speaker
That is true, yes, yeah. That's a weird thing to say about a wrestling show, but it is accurate. Ha ha ha
00:50:08
Speaker
JR says the next match, Bobby Eaton versus Terrence Taylor, will be one of the greatest pure wrestling matches of the show. Tony says that Eaton used to be TV champ, but he's actually wrestling even better now than when he was champion.
00:50:22
Speaker
JR says it's going to be the Alabama Jam versus the Five Arm, and I love that both of those are actual move names. Yeah. So our third match is beautiful Bobby Eaton versus Terrence Taylor, the computerized man of the 1990s with Alexandra York of the York Foundation.
00:50:39
Speaker
Referee for this one is Randy Anderson. Eaton is a former TV champion, and he is looking to move back up the ranks to get a title shot. As for Taylor, he, in a lot of ways, he's he's similar to a big jaw shot from Matt Bourne.
00:50:52
Speaker
They keep throwing gimmicks at him, hoping they stick. This is the most current one they have where the York Foundation Him with some other repackaged people, one of which we'll see later on the show. And they they're just basically looking to make a mark at this point.
00:51:04
Speaker
Yeah, i always always feel really bad for Terry Taylor because I feel like he's good. He is like a good performer. He just never quite clicks in quite the right way to become what what I think he has the actual in-ring talent to do.
00:51:19
Speaker
Yeah. And I don't know what it actually is about him. Like, he seems to really go for whatever gimmick they give him, but it's just like, it never quite, quite works.
00:51:29
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, i was i always have felt bad for Terry Taylor and in that regard. Yeah, wrestling, honestly, is full of a lot of people like their history. that are legitimately talented. like If you just judge purely based on merit, like if this was 1930s pro wrestling where it was all legit shooting and youre throwing people around trying to pin the guy, they'd be challenging for the top titles. They'd be fighting Gotch and Hackenschmidt whoever might be.
00:51:53
Speaker
But once you get into the 80s, it's much more about characters. And to this point in the 90s, it's still that. And then once you get later, it's the more grounded and real characters and edgy characters. And those guys like like him and again, Brad Armstrong or Even like Adi Malenko, to certain extent, just couldn't get past a certain point because they just couldn't or wouldn't do certain things that they had to do to become a top star.
00:52:18
Speaker
Taylor's definitely on that list for me of like the what might have been. sure I don't know if he just needed the right gimmick or if's a slight tweak here or there or something like that. He always seems like on the cusp of being a major, major star, but just like doesn't quite, quite push over the line.
00:52:33
Speaker
Yeah, like like gonna be if you're a booker, like in 1991, booking a house show loop and TV loop, you could book Terry Taylor and, you know, if you're WF or Randy Savage or like a regular Steamboat six, seven times and you get good matches every single time. But ultimately Steamboat and Savage just have that extra thing and they become higher ranking stars and just more notable stars long term than ah Taylor and them do, which is unfortunate.
00:52:59
Speaker
Yep. Eaton is out first in a great blue and silver jacket. His mullet, of course, is a real winner. Oh yeah. He's still using the Midnight Express music, which is a bit odd with him being a face now.
00:53:12
Speaker
Taylor is out next, accompanied by Alexandra York. Taylor wears a tuxedo. The York Foundation theme is amazing. It's a perfect corporate infomercial or promotional video kind of theme.
00:53:26
Speaker
You can virtually hear someone talking about innovation, quality, Six Sigma, and such over it. Yeah, yeah. I imagine that's probably because it's like in the Turner Audio Library for exactly that kind of video in the first place. so Oh, yeah.
00:53:39
Speaker
JR mentions their York Foundation also includes Richard Morton and Thomas Rich. I love that two members of this business-themed faction have Rich in their names. Yeah, it's true. Taylor removes his tuxedo, revealing that he's wearing his wrestling outfit underneath, complete with knee pads.
00:53:57
Speaker
does he Does he do that at all the board meetings or fancy parties? He's like always secretly dressed to wrestle when he's attending a concert? I would assume so, yeah. I don't know why if I find Specifically, I find it funny that he has knee pads on.
00:54:09
Speaker
Like the wrestling boots, I have like no reaction to. That's just as funny, like logically, but for some reason the knee pads are the part that makes me really giggle. I mean, maybe you could accidentally put your wrestling boots on. You know, you put them in and the wrong spot for your regular shoes and you go, oh, ah I'm already halfway on. i I'm running late. I'll put them on. But that might be the thing. Like the wrestling tights and the wrestling boots are replacements for items that you were going to wear anyway in any outfit.
00:54:35
Speaker
Yeah. Where the knee pads are something you had to intentionally definitely think I am putting this on extra. Yes. Yes. York has her laptop. Now bear in mind that this is 1991, so this thing probably has a battery life of around 10 minutes.
00:54:51
Speaker
Yeah. She keeps it at ringside and opens it up to immediately show information to her wrestler, like predicting the flow of the match or planning what they should do. It's fine enough before the match, but it's hilarious when they go back during the match when she hasn't even been showing doing much to update any kind of information.
00:55:05
Speaker
And she just kind of like pops it open and shows them a screen like there could be anything on there that would help at all. Yeah. The thing probably wouldn't even wake up from sleep mode in the time they spend looking looking at it most of the time.
00:55:16
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. Taylor shoves Eaton about to start and yells at him, trying to tick him off as Tony notes that Bobby Eaton has a quick temper. Eaton sells his arms surprisingly long from an arm drag. I kind of wonder if he actually did tweak a muscle or something.
00:55:33
Speaker
Maybe. Taylor slaps him, so Eaton fires back with several arm drags and a clothesline, and Taylor flees and comedy pratfalls, then goes to check with York. But Eaton tries to stomp the computer.
00:55:46
Speaker
Be careful. That thing probably costs as much as WCW's pyrotechnics budget in 1991. yeah Taylor makes the mistake of getting in a fistfight with Eden, and that goes poorly for him.
00:55:57
Speaker
Outside, Taylor throws a clothesline but pauses, and Eden ducks and throws him over the barricade. I think Taylor wasn't sure that Eden was ready there. So kind of like starts the move, pauses for a second and checks if Eden's like ready, and then continues the move from the middle of it.
00:56:14
Speaker
It's a fairly awkward pause. a little bit, yeah. Back in, Taylor begs for mercy but sneaks in a kick, but Eaton catches it and decks him for two, then works around a hammerlock for a while.
00:56:27
Speaker
Tony and J.R. nicely build up that Taylor's five-arm can be hit quickly, but the Alabama jam, while quite powerful, requires you to have mostly immobilized your opponent on the mat to hit it, so Eaton will have to do more work to wear down his opponent than Taylor will.
00:56:41
Speaker
Taylor escapes with a jawbreaker and sends Eaton to the ramp, but Eaton slams him and hits a diving knee drop from the top to the ramp, clearing about the same distance he did being launched by Stan Lane last year, which shows just how little the partner does in the rocket launcher move.
00:56:55
Speaker
Yeah, pretty much. He punches Taylor back in over the ropes, so I think that earns him a DQ credit, right? Yeah, absolutely. Taylor grabs Eaton's waistband to fling him through the ropes and knee strikes him into the barricade to take over, beating Eaton up in between grimacing and grabbing his stomach.
00:57:11
Speaker
He gets two counts with a knee drop and a splash, and hits a gut wrench powerbomb on the entrance ramp, and works the backwood knee strikes. Chin lock, and Taylor asks what Eaton will do, so Eaton punches him.
00:57:25
Speaker
Taylor knocks Eaton outside, but Eaton climbs the ropes, and Sunset flips him, slowly selling the damage that he's taken. Taylor clotheslines him flat, earns two with a knee drop, and slaps on a camel clutch, then a sleeper hold, but Eaton gets his own jawbreaker escape.
00:57:41
Speaker
Tony and JR nicely discuss Eaton's past as a tag wrestler, and note that before you can be a good tag wrestler, you need to just be a good wrestler at all. Each gets his legs up on the other's splash.
00:57:53
Speaker
Eaton counters punches with his own, dazing Taylor, grabs him before he can flee, and repeatedly counters Taylor's counters, ending up hitting a neckbreaker and going up top. Taylor hits the ropes to crotch Eaton and tries a superplex, but Eaton punches him down and hits the Alabama jam top rope leg drop for the three count and the win.
00:58:12
Speaker
Very nice energetic pinfall at the end there by Eaton. He really yanks on Taylor's leg to get it into position to emphasize the count. Yeah. Eaton gives Anderson a high five. Nice.
00:58:24
Speaker
They talk a lot about rankings on this show, with Eaton being 7th in the WSW rankings and Taylor 10th, for instance. I really like that concept with wrestlers trying to climb the rankings. It makes it feel more like an actual sport.
00:58:37
Speaker
Yeah. And it makes it easy to tell who's ascendant, who's closest being number one contender, that sort of thing. I do get why it doesn't generally stick around long when companies try it, as you really have to stick with it and plan around it.
00:58:49
Speaker
And wrestling companies are good at neither, but it's a cool idea. Yeah, I get you. Thoughts on this one? but This is a really enjoyable match, though. I think I'd say it is really well worked. Yeah. Obviously, both guys are very experienced at this point.
00:59:02
Speaker
I don't know much to wrestle each other, but it definitely feels like they've had a lot of practice. Well, that's on how show loops or on TV going into this match. Aside from one or two moves looking a bit too choreographed, like the slightly mistimed clothesline backdrop bit, it all looks really good.
00:59:18
Speaker
Yeah. I think for me, the only thing with this match is that it doesn't have stakes, right? So they talk about, you know, he wants to move the rankings and town of the TV title.
00:59:31
Speaker
These two guys fighting for like an actual title or there's like a direct number one contenders match or something along those lines will give a little extra drama to the match.
00:59:42
Speaker
It's well done. It's just, it feels too much like two guys just fighting. on a show full of, you title matches and we're supposed to be feuds and everything.
00:59:53
Speaker
It's good. But i yeah to I think they just given a little more story to this one and consequences for who wins who loses rather than just vaguely, oh, well, he won. probably won the rankings.
01:00:04
Speaker
I agree. But I kind of wonder if we were watching this during this period of WCW, if it might feel like the rankings was more of a consequence. Okay.
01:00:15
Speaker
We know in this period that WSW doesn't do rankings for for very long. You don't hear about it on other shows that we've watched, but I don't know how well they did with that on their weekly shows or such.
01:00:28
Speaker
Right. But if they were like emphasizing that all the time on their weekly shows, then to me, that can be enough consequence for a match. If you actually do plan around it storyline wise and highlight it. But I understand like looking back at the show, like 30 plus years in the future,
01:00:43
Speaker
Good gosh. yeah It's harder to be able to look at it that way because we have you know the hindsight of the ranking thing doesn't actually go anywhere. But for me, like if you are doing a storyline around the ranking system and actually like sticking to that really well, then I think that is enough stakes to even do a pay-per-view match.
01:01:01
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely have no problem with these two wrestling pay-per-view. I just wish for me, they gave it more, so would the match itself would have more historical importance as well. Yeah, fair enough. This was a really fun match with a good amount of storytelling that's built up excellently by the commentary team.
01:01:18
Speaker
Even in trouble, Eaton is able to fight back repeatedly, but he keeps getting countered until nicely in the final moments of the match, he starts countering the counters. Including even the ending spot where his top rope attempt gets countered, but he counters the superplex to give him the chance to win.
01:01:33
Speaker
Both guys look good and strong and able to fight all the way to the end. Great inversion with the ending as well, that they built up that Eaton's finisher takes time, unless he stuns his opponent when he's already in position to hit the move.
01:01:47
Speaker
Yeah. So i like that he finds the one way that he can hit his finisher quickly to end the match, which was cool. Both guys did a great job with ring work and emotion here, though Taylor could do to use his most dramatic facial expressions less often.
01:02:01
Speaker
Yeah. It got a little bit silly. He's like grimacing all the time at certain points. Still, JR's assessment of this as one of the best pure wrestling contests on the show is entirely accurate.
01:02:12
Speaker
Yeah. would say New York really looks the part as sort of the lady that's supposedly in charge of this whole group slash company, whatever the hell is' supposed to be. But she doesn't really interfere.
01:02:23
Speaker
No, yeah. I would say there's limitation on what they're going to let a woman manager do, but she doesn't even like really do the distraction. They had to fly to the computer and it was distraction or something.
01:02:34
Speaker
She's helpful for the gimmick the character. But when you think she would come in and help or do something to help, because it's also is there. I mean, on on the one hand, i get what you're saying. And I i pretty much agree, I think.
01:02:47
Speaker
But I'm playing York's advocate, I guess, for a second. It's kind of interesting to me if if the gimmick is that the computer real. Hmm. then her means of interfering in the match is the spots where the wrestler comes over to look at the match strategy.
01:03:03
Speaker
And if she believes in her computer, she wouldn't interfere. Mm-hmm. I simultaneously, I get what you're saying and I agree with it. Like a manager character for a heel should be interfering in matches and doing something that's more dynamic at ringside to help tell the match story.
01:03:18
Speaker
But I also kind of get like looking at just the character. i can actually see this character simultaneously being a heel manager and yet not being one that interferes in matches and it making sense for the character they've written.
01:03:32
Speaker
If you're good at that though, I think you fully commit to it. Like she, She walks him out to ringside and like she sits in a chair like watching you know sort of disinterestedly. like Yes. She's analyzing it, but she's yeah maybe concerned about She's not going to let them know that she's concerned.
01:03:45
Speaker
Or just constantly typing on the computer, updating the information. That could be the thing that they show her doing is like typing furiously away on the computer. I think I'm mostly just conditioned to when there's a heel manager and you give him a prop that's going to matter somehow.
01:03:59
Speaker
The prop is going to bang off someone's head at some point. Yeah. Yeah.
01:04:06
Speaker
Shortly after this, Eaton would turn heel. He would join a new faction that would be set up later in the show, which we'll cover through segments. He would also play a key role in betraying Sting, an act that countless people have have taken part in.
01:04:21
Speaker
was like, it's my turn. Yeah, exactly.
01:04:27
Speaker
Conveniently, after turning heel on Sting and interfering in his actions that come up later, he would then be on the other side of of the ring against him at Battle Bowl. Yeah, and just randomly drawn.
01:04:40
Speaker
Speaking of the ranking system, JR builds up the next match being Jimmy Garvin versus the number eight ranked athlete, Johnny B. Bad. And injured Michael Hayes will be in Garvin's corner, which Tony says is good as bad has been on a real hot streak.
01:04:55
Speaker
JR says it's Garvin's DDT versus bad's left hook and actually mimes a left hook and looks proud of himself. It's adorable. Yeah. JR and Tony seem to be having some real fun tonight. Both are in really good moods.
01:05:10
Speaker
It feels a bit like the Japan Super Shows in Atmosphere for them. Yeah. Like they're just having a lot of fun watching the show together and palling around and having conversations. can see that, yeah.
01:05:20
Speaker
I like the general feel of their commentary together during this period. Yeah, I agree.
01:05:27
Speaker
Our fourth match is Jimmy Jam Garvin with Michael P.S. Hayes versus Johnny B. Badd with Theodore R. Long. The referee for this match is Mike Switch Fixer Atkins.
01:05:41
Speaker
Another new star on the rise and another match against the Freebird on Halving Havoc. Can Badd break the streak? I will say there's one bit of of storyline that I'm actually surprised doesn't get mentioned by commentary at all during this, which is that is managed by Teddy Long, right?
01:06:00
Speaker
Yeah. The last time Teddy Long was on the other side of the ring from the Freebirds, the Freebird won the tag titles off of Doom. Oh, they can post story of, you know, he's trying to get revenge with his new client. But yeah no, don't feel like mentioning that at all.
01:06:14
Speaker
Hmm. It wasn't that long. It was like Wrestle War, I believe. So it's been a few months, but it's still easily can be mined for content and story that he's he's definitely a heel manager. So why wouldn't be after revenge?
01:06:27
Speaker
I was like, wait a second. He should be really mad at Freebird, but they don't tell us why. Garvin and Hayes come out first, wearing Atlanta Braves outfits and doing the tomahawk chop, which the crowd in large part mimics.
01:06:40
Speaker
Obviously, this is culturally questionable at best, as always with various sports teams referencing Native American tribes and concepts in less than sensitive manner. Yeah. Notably, we actually have two wrestlers today that will be supported by the same gesture from the crowd because two different teams in two different sports ah use that same ah yeah same thing.
01:06:59
Speaker
It's true. We have ah the Braves, which are, I believe, a baseball team. Yes, correct. I know very little about sports. Yeah. You didn't have to agree with me there. Yeah. And Ron Simmons used to play football for Florida State's Seminoles team.
01:07:13
Speaker
Correct. The Freebirds are finally supposed to be faces on a show for once. Yes. Rather than being heels that the crowd just treats like faces because they don't like the actual face team.
01:07:23
Speaker
Yeah. I will note it's not universal, mind. There is a sign in the crowd reading Michael P.M.S. Hayes and Sad Street. I mean, Michael P.U. Hayes is right there, guys. Yeah, that is true.
Bad Gimmick Discussion
01:07:35
Speaker
That is true.
01:07:36
Speaker
I don't even get what you're trying to say with P.M.S. Hayes. I don't know. Hayes' right arm is in a cast. Bad comes out next with Teddy Long. Speaking of highly questionable racial and cultural gimmicks, well, we've already talked at length about what's bad about the bad gimmick.
01:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, I believe that was on our Starrcade 1991 episode, actually. So give that a listen for various reasons, not just this. For what's good about the bad gimmick, he comes out in a super sparkly purple cape with piano keys on it, fires off his bad blasters, then doffs the cape and gets handed a feather boa by Long.
01:08:11
Speaker
So yes, he actually has two different entrance accessories that he changes between during his entrance. Yeah, yes. Long, for his part, has a very cool dark but multicolored long coat tonight that's almost sting-like.
01:08:25
Speaker
Yeah. It looks really, really cool. I praise Long's outfits a lot lately. He is a snappy dresser. Yeah, can see that. Bad gets a few cheers for firing off a bad blaster, but gets booed for posing on the turnbuckles for the crowd.
01:08:38
Speaker
Hayes poses and gets massive cheers. In a nice touch that I'm not sure was intentional or just happy coincidence, Bad does a punching combo with Long wearing those trainer striking gloves.
01:08:49
Speaker
Yes. But his left hook catches one of Long's gloves so hard it actually knocks it off his hand. So it's a great subtle buildup of the power of Bad's left hook, which is his finisher. Long takes a towel, another part of their entrance ensemble, and exits and we're off.
01:09:05
Speaker
They quickly end up trading hip toss attempts until Garvin hip tosses Bad over the top rope to the floor. Atkins realizes that he's about to see someone go over the top rope and looks away for no good reason, but he doesn't fully turn in time so he just kind of awkwardly pauses then pretends he didn't see anything.
01:09:21
Speaker
Hayes, outside, takes his arm out of the sling and lands a right hook to Bad, then winks at the camera and puts the sling back on. Very funny. The crowd is very much on Hayes' side there.
01:09:33
Speaker
Back in, Garvin power slams Bad and lands a hard forearm shot to Bad's face that seemingly knocks him down legit. Bad rolls out and has Long check his lip.
01:09:43
Speaker
Later, we will see that Bad's mouth does end up quite bloody, and my guess is that Garvin accidentally did tag him there. That's the only spot I could see that would have resulted in the bleeding that we see later in the match.
01:09:54
Speaker
gotcha Garvin works the arm, presumably to try to weaken the left hook, but Bad punches free and uses choking and some quite good body blows. He hits a very cool jumping clothesline and grabs a chin lock.
01:10:07
Speaker
Long sneakily distracts Atkins, then throws Bad a towel behind Atkins' back, and Bad chokes Garvin. Bad gets rid of the towel just in time as Atkins turns, and Hayes finds it, but it's too late as Atkins didn't see the cheating.
01:10:21
Speaker
Bad continues beating Garvin up and tries a top rope sunset flip, but he gets good elevation and poor distance. He basically lands on top of Garvin there. Yeah, he kind of flops on him and then falls down on the other side like he's supposed to.
01:10:35
Speaker
Yeah, they they make it work still, but. Yeah, yeah. It gets two. Top rope bad elbow drop for two. And just as Tony is questioning how many high risk moves he's doing, Garvin slugs him in the gut on a third dive and bad goes butt over tea kettle.
01:10:50
Speaker
Garvin fights back and dodges a bad corner elbow and bad spills out of the ring. And this is where you can see his bloodied mouth. Yeah. Bad dodges a Garvin elbow drop, but they knock heads when both try to leapfrog.
01:11:02
Speaker
Both fight to their feet, and Garvin dodges Bad's left hook and hits the DDT, but Long has Atkins' attention. Hayes is too busy celebrating to realize it, so Garvin has to go call Atkins' attention himself, and turns right into Bad's left hook.
01:11:17
Speaker
Garvin gets his foot on the ropes, but Long pushes it off before Atkins can notice, and Atkins counts three to give Bad the win. and incensed Michael Hayes decks long and his bad and long retreat.
01:11:30
Speaker
Hayes theatrically demonstrates for Atkins to the crowd's great agreement that Garvin had his foot on the ropes. J.R. says the ref doesn't have much to go on other than the free bird's word just before we cut to replays.
01:11:42
Speaker
yeah Just saying. Thoughts on this one? I think this is a pretty decent match, honestly. The goal of this one clearly is to show off what Johnny Bat can do. His strike in, his jumping moves.
01:11:55
Speaker
Obviously, he'd be little more famous for his air offense a bit later when he'd be going to WF in the wild man, Mark Marrow. Yeah, yeah. Or Mark Marrow as he first debuted it and the guy said name wrong.
01:12:07
Speaker
He's famous for doing the shooting star press when like no one else is doing it. In America, obviously, Japan and Mexico, different story. I do like that he's pretty good about keeping his character going throughout the match.
01:12:19
Speaker
And he's a big character, obviously, with all his things going on and his outfits and his look. There's not quite enough of it like you we'll get in later matches where he's fully 100% in the gimmick and wrestling.
01:12:33
Speaker
Basically, he's still at the point where he's got memorable spots and how to do everything right. So that can distract you from the little things you have to do to remind people that what character you are and how my character react, not how I would react.
01:12:46
Speaker
Yeah, there is some good commentary on that point as well. I think it's Tony. I can't remember it's Tony or JR, but one of the commentators says like, oh, we're not seeing the eternal smile that he normally has now that he's like frustrated in the match. So yeah, they did a good job of like kind of giving him that out, I think for not having to really constantly be fully on.
01:13:06
Speaker
Yeah, i think they say something about the sides of him as well. Yes, yeah, yeah. Garvin, I think, does a good job of making him look good. I appreciate they they didn't hijack the match against the heels like we've seen other incidents with the Freebirds.
01:13:20
Speaker
So it's definitely a good form for him. And also, worth noting, he is niy's in really good shape for this match as well. Oh, yeah, yeah. I noticed that too. Garvin is like ripped. He never like looks bad or anything when he comes out. But yeah, he looked particularly in really good shape for this one.
01:13:37
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely. Obviously, there's a few parts that don't go well and some little timings here and there, but it's a good showcase of what sort of raw talent at this point Johnny Bad can have.
01:13:48
Speaker
And it's nice that they got a veteran with the experience that Garvin has to put him over this way. Yeah, yeah. I do wonder if the extra bit with the foot in the rope and then pushed off is necessary. Because, mean, you're already cheating to get a strike on him.
01:14:04
Speaker
So why do we need that, too? Yeah, i I kind of agree. Like, I don't think that you need to give Garvin an out on this one. He he has the ref distraction and everything already. So having him also get his foot on the ropes is is not needed.
01:14:18
Speaker
It's not the full level of hot dog and we'll see ah Hogan circa World War Three, but it's a precursor, I'd say.
01:14:27
Speaker
Yeah, I thought this was really good fun. I enjoyed the inversion of a normal formula we got here. We have Garvin and Hayes as canny veterans and Bad as a rookie, but where normally that would mean the rookie was the face facing off against the arrogant veteran heel, Bad is very much intentionally the heel here.
01:14:43
Speaker
The Freebirds still pull their tricks too, but they do it with crowd support, openly playing to the crowd this time from the beginning instead of starting to mid-match because they really had no choice. Yeah. Do you think WSW just finally realized they were just going to get cheered every Halloween Havoc?
01:14:57
Speaker
maybe Maybe they did, yeah. Otherwise, this nicely built up bat is a serious competitor with some visually interesting moves and a deadly striker despite his eccentric mannerisms.
01:15:08
Speaker
His body blows look great in particular, and kudos to Garvin for how he sold each one of those. He looked like he was getting hit with a sledgehammer every time. Oh yeah, he really does sell the striking. He like jerks his whole body and you can feel the pain of those.
01:15:23
Speaker
The left hook the bat misses looks terrific. It looks like it would have taken Garvin's head clean off. The one he hits looks a little bit sloppier. i think it's a combination of things. I think he, one, throws a real punch when he knows that he's going to miss because he knows he's not going to hurt the guy. Correct.
01:15:39
Speaker
But he pulls it when he's going to hit. And also, he's selling the DDT still, so it makes that one kind of look a little wobblier. But it kind of makes the ending hit look a little... Bad is not the word I'm looking for, though it is done by bad.
01:15:56
Speaker
Yes, yeah. It doesn't quite have the oomph that you want from it. Yeah, I gotcha. Overall, this had a nice storyline of trickery versus trickery, with Long being just a bit ahead of the Freebirds in this case.
01:16:08
Speaker
Though, really, Michael Hayes probably should have been smart enough to realize what was going on at the end there. And it would have been funny, but obviously better not to have Bad Lose clean when you're trying to build him up.
01:16:19
Speaker
Yeah. Watching this match and the whole thing with the Freebridge really encouraging the crowd to cheer along with the Tomahawk shop, the and Braves thing. ah talk about this because they're in the World Series this point.
01:16:32
Speaker
Gotcha. I was wondering because because I'm like, I genuinely thought at first that they were coming out and being the heels. Right. Because they're wearing a sports team's gear from a city that is not the city they're in.
01:16:45
Speaker
But that makes sense. if it's If it's the World Series, that kind of like narrows it down a lot. So you're either for or against one of the two teams in there generally. Yeah, and generally, if it's a regional thing, like a southern team like the Braves and northern team like, say, the Yankees, i can remember who they're actually playing in the World Series in 91. People pick sides that way.
01:17:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, reminded me, so there's an episode of Saturday Night Live. Christian Slater is hosting the show. some reason, remember watching this as a kid and not getting the full context to it. So he comes out to do monologue, and he's trying to talk to the audience everything, but everyone is distracted because they're watching the game.
01:17:18
Speaker
doing the motion and even he goes to control and they're all watching the World Series game and not the show they're actually supposed to be filming like that. So I looked it up while we were talking. I feel like that can't be a coincidence. And sure enough, the episode SNL with Christian Slater is October 26, 1991. Oh, nice. The day before this one.
01:17:36
Speaker
So both companies, in a weird kind of way, did sort of get into this whole braise in the World Series hysteria in their own kind of way. That's that's pretty cool, yeah.
01:17:47
Speaker
Yeah.
01:17:50
Speaker
Of course, again, Sarkade is battleable. Conveniently enough, Garvin and Hayes would end up on opposite sides in a tag team match. Who would have guessed?
01:18:01
Speaker
After John B. Badd, he would draw a little less successfully as he'd be teamed up with Arachna Man. Yep. I guess with the neon, the only one dressed more flamboyantly, least color-wise, than he is.
01:18:15
Speaker
Yes, flamboyant. That's definitely the word for that. That's definitely the word for that. Garish is another word. Infringing is what I was thinking of. Oh, yeah. I meant the colors as in the purple and the neon, but yes. The outfit is 100% copper and infringing.
01:18:31
Speaker
But yes, just the colors.
Bobby Eaton's Pumpkin Interview
01:18:35
Speaker
JR throws to Missy Hyatt backstage, who is still searching for the WCW Halloween Phantom. She accosts Bobby Eaton, who is walking by in red trunks, which is not what he was wearing for the match, and a towel, and holding a pumpkin for some reason.
01:18:50
Speaker
Missy grabs him. Thanks guys, and I'm still looking for the WCW Phantom, and I can't find him, it's not fair. I want to be the first to find him. Oh, beautiful Bobby, stop, stop. Please tell me, please tell me, where's the WCW Phantom?
01:19:04
Speaker
Who's the Phantom? How about Dorothy, Myra, Jack? I talking about. What, what? Look, you've been in the dressing room. I know you know where he's at. Tell me, I want to be the first, please. Hey, Missy, I'm going to celebrate, I just want a match. Please, please help me out here, don't disappoint Women.
01:19:18
Speaker
This is not fair, let's just go to the ring. Because he almost gave us our title there. Yeah. I think that's the version if we just want to get a show over with. Yeah. Let's just go to the ring. Let's go to the ring.
01:19:31
Speaker
Yeah. Gosh. Barely a promo segment here. Eaton just basically says he won a batch and walks away. i was trying to figure out what he's referencing with the names. I listened a couple of times. I can't figure out what he's trying to do. I'm not sure. Yeah.
01:19:45
Speaker
It's like Dorothy, Myra, and Jack, I think is what he says. Yeah. I mean, my first year of Dorothy, I think Wizard of Oz. i mean, and Oz is on the show, but. Yeah, but i don't think Myra and Jack are, unless that's the uncle and aunt, but I don't think that's the case.
01:19:59
Speaker
I'm not, yeah, I'm not sure at all where those words came from. The main question I've got about this segment is, why the pumpkin? Oh, good. You had that question too. Yeah, my note was, why is he carrying a pumpkin? That is the real mystery of the show.
01:20:11
Speaker
Yeah, is that his traditional post-match celebration? Did he forget to buy a pumpkin to carve for his house and he snagged one thinking nobody would see? What is he going to carve in it? Will it be the Midnight Express logo? Cornette's tennis rackets?
01:20:24
Speaker
Great many mysteries in this scene. Okay, so at some point he won his match. He you know got changed into like his you know track pants, whatever he's wearing there. He goes, I gotta celebrate. He grabs a pumpkin.
01:20:34
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, there's plenty around, sure, but still. I would genuinely love it for like a year. They had Bobby and be in matches and then be seen backstage with a prop from the stage or show like leaving the arena.
01:20:48
Speaker
Yeah. It's just like I take a memento from every show. Yeah. Like, you know, he wins a match at Spring Stampede. He's carrying one of the the like wagon wheels on the way out. Yes. Yeah. I'm going to celebrate.
01:21:00
Speaker
Also worth noting, of all the people you stopped to ask who the Phantom was, you asked Bobby Eden, which may be important later.
01:21:10
Speaker
Our fifth match is The Natural Dustin Rhodes versus Stunning Steve Austin with Lady Blossom for Austin's WCW World Television Championship. The referee for this one is Randy Anderson.
01:21:23
Speaker
As mentioned for the previous affair back in match three, Steve Austin won the TV title off of Bobby Eaton. And ever since then, he's been ah sneaky champion. You he'd get your screwy wins or more importantly, he can run the timeout because the gimmick of the TV titles, you have a much shorter time limit and matches just stop abruptly. If get that time limit at this point, Dustin is sort of moving up the ranks. So it's natural. He go after TV title like this is sort of, I see what you did there.
01:21:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
01:21:55
Speaker
Yes, it's only natural that he would go after a ah title like that. And it's the right level, I'd say, of championship for him after. But he's a face, so you can't go. I want to fight sting because, you know, you should want to fight the champion. But a face challenge, a face is a thing they don't do as much back in the day.
01:22:13
Speaker
Yeah, they kind of make those like special occasion matches at the very least like, oh, wow, we've got this. You've always wondered type of situation, right? Exactly. Austin, who looks nothing like the Austin of the WWF days, has very triumphal music in a red and black robe, but still has his Saved by the Bell tights, which is an odd combination.
01:22:35
Speaker
He's accompanied by Lady Blossom. Interestingly, I noticed that ring announcer Capetta is wearing a ringmaster's outfit, which will be Austin's first gimmick name in the WWF.
01:22:46
Speaker
That's true. Speaking of gimmick names, Lady Blossom, real name Jeannie Clark, is generally credited with inadvertently giving Austin his more famous gimmick name, Stone Cold, as they were married at the time and Clark told Austin to drink his tea before it became Stone Cold.
01:23:04
Speaker
Awkward moment during the entrance as Austin gets in, signals to Lady Blossom to follow, but she kind of wanders off apparently unaware and Austin just kind of stands there for a few moments, then goes on. Sorry that the cameraman didn't cut away there, Steve.
01:23:18
Speaker
Meanwhile, JR calls Missy Hyatt Wendy Weiner for complaining. And Tony, like me, wonders what the heck was up with Eaton making off with a pumpkin. yeah Dustin Rhodes is out next. He is already the natural, but has ah quite good rock guitar solo instead of his wonderfully cheesy song that he'll have later.
01:23:39
Speaker
Different jacket too, but quite a nice one. JR points out Dustin's grandma at ringside. Dustin, they say, is ranked number 5 and Austin is number 4.
01:23:51
Speaker
Rapid counter wrestling to start, intermixed with strikes including a Rhodes jumping lariat and dropkick for two. Rhodes also clotheslines Austin out over the ropes, but Anderson does not DQ. Tony and JR agree.
01:24:04
Speaker
There are some extremely fast and smooth exchanges in this, though they do repeat a headlock takeover headscissors counter a few times. Rhodes tries for his bulldog, but Austin evades it, so Rhodes uppercuts him and gets another headlock takeover for two, but Austin uses the tights to roll him over a few times for two and pulls the hair to get free.
01:24:23
Speaker
Rhodes crossbodies him for two, but then goes for it again, and Austin ducks, so Rhodes flies past, lands hard on the apron, bounces off, and flies off the edge of the ring to the floor.
01:24:35
Speaker
Goodness, Dustin. It's pinball. Yeah. JR says he bounced like a rubber ball, and that is 100% accurate. Yes. I love how enthusiastically Dustin Rhodes sells missed crossbodies.
01:24:47
Speaker
Yes. There's one better one that comes up. I forget what series it's on. It might even be on this same series. I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not sure. Austin takes over and beats Rhodes up, and unsurprisingly, a member of the Rhodes family bleeds in a wrestling match.
01:25:02
Speaker
Tony notes that Austin might have made a mistake by going out to land blows as Rhodes didn't seem like he was going to make it back in by the 10 count after that missed crossbody, but Austin ended up giving him more time to recover.
01:25:15
Speaker
Austin rolls him into the ring himself finally, but Rhodes decks him with a really big wind-up punch. Austin gut runs suplex for two, and Tony and JR say that Anderson should check the injury Rhodes has as they don't want things to go too far.
01:25:29
Speaker
Rhodes' dad would probably have something to say about stopping matches due to injury. Stargate 84.
01:25:37
Speaker
Austin grabs a reverse chin lock and repeatedly uses the ropes. Anderson checks with Lady Blossom and she surprisingly says Austin wasn't cheating. Shocking. but Why did Anderson think that would work?
01:25:50
Speaker
British people are more honest, I guess. I guess so, yeah. That's why there's always the narrator voice for various commercials, right? They couldn't be lying to you about the product. Exactly. Anderson eventually catches Austin and forces the break.
01:26:02
Speaker
Austin argues with him, and Rhodes lands massive punches to Austin, but Austin blocks the monkey flip and hits a monster diving clothesline, sending Rhodes spinning to the mat. But beside tea kettle, I guess?
01:26:14
Speaker
Yeah. It gets two. Four minutes left. Two counts off a Rhodes roll-up, Austin reversal of said roll-up, Rhodes reversal of the reversal, Rhodes diving clothesline, and Austin dodge of a dropkick.
01:26:27
Speaker
Lady Blossom sneaks in some slaps, and Austin chokes Rhodes, but Rhodes slumps out of the way of an Austin rope drop, and Austin rebounds off the ropes and face plants. Rhodes diving lariat for two.
01:26:39
Speaker
Rhodes runs Austin to the ring post, and Austin is bleeding. Two minutes left. Rhodes power slam for two. Rhodes lays in punches and hits the bionic elbow for two.
01:26:51
Speaker
One minute left. Tony points out Rhodes failed to hook the leg twice and that might have been enough. Rhodes lands more punches and elbows, and we've got 30 seconds.
01:27:03
Speaker
Rhodes' punch combo gets two. Rhodes climbs up top with 10 seconds left. Rhodes hits a diving clothesline for one, two, and the bell rings.
01:27:14
Speaker
It's a time limit draw, and Austin retains. Notably, it appears Austin did manage to kick out just as the bell rang as well, so it may not have been a three count, even if Rhodes had had just a little more time.
01:27:27
Speaker
But man, the timing on that finish, right? Yes. That was brilliant. They timed that incredibly well with time expiring literally just before three. So kudos to all three guys for delivering on that moment so well.
01:27:39
Speaker
That had to be really tense getting that right. Rhodes still dropkicks Austin after the bell, and Anderson has to hold him back as Austin rolls out of the ring. The crowd is not happy with Austin retaining, and he gets massive boos.
01:27:55
Speaker
But he celebrates and walks off with Lady Blossom as the dejected Dustin Rhodes leaves the ring. Thoughts on this one? thought this is a very good match with a very simple story. I've talked about before, and I'm sure we'll mention again, because this is a recurring thing with the TV title.
01:28:10
Speaker
Whoever came up with the idea of the, this is a title that you, as a heel, you fight to get a time limit draw on, is really good. Yeah. It's a neat gimmick typically for this belt.
01:28:21
Speaker
You don't get US Championship matches generally running into time limit draws or world title matches for the most part. Obviously, there are exceptions. So it's kind of baked into this idea that you're the heel, you get the championship, you just try to stall.
01:28:36
Speaker
Austin is a great person for this. Obviously Regal was, was he later, we're also gets really good at this gimmick. it' It's just one those things that i don't know if Face could really do. a Face would should always be fighting to win, no matter what the time is. but So it makes a great heel championship.
01:28:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. These two obviously are great pairing. They have good chemistry together. They know how each other works so they can really build up to his strengths. Austin really looks really good here. It's much more technical style than if you're used to seeing him do it. If you know him as the Texas rattlesnake and, you know, dumping a mud hole and everything.
01:29:10
Speaker
It's definitely fascinating to see this previous career where before neck issues and his other issues, it is <unk>re like his knees start to give him issues as well. He could really just go in a way that he didn't need to in insurance and sirson couldn't later his career.
01:29:26
Speaker
ah so He did just fine winning multiple titles and selling hundreds of thousands, if not millions of those 316 shirts. So he didn't need my help there. If you're a wrestling fan that has seen the later WWF Austin and has never seen his early WCW stuff, definitely take a moment to check it out because one, it's really good.
01:29:47
Speaker
But two, it is such a completely different style yeah of wrestling than what he will later do. He's good in both ways, but I mean, it is astonishing. He's a completely different wrestler in the early ninety s Other than the fact that obviously he's still the same guy, the only real close cap comparison you can make to stunning Steve Austin TV champion or tag champion with Brian Billman later is that the stun gun, which is where he drops you sort of neck and chin face first on the ropes, is similar to the way you fall for the stunner. Yeah. And obviously stun gun, stunner. So you can see that through line. but otherwise, yeah, it's.
01:30:26
Speaker
It's interesting because early Steve Austin, in this case, is dressed and acts much more like Hunter Hearst Helmsley. yeah True, yeah. Ironically, his future rival Triple h is the original gimmick when he was the Connecticut Blue Blood and all that stuff.
01:30:41
Speaker
Yeah, he is very much doing like a flair type gimmick during this period, for sure. It is utterly fascinating. It's one of the biggest transformations that you will ever see in pro wrestling, I think. It's it's incredible.
01:30:53
Speaker
Absolutely, yeah What like to do with the story as well is you can see some wrestlers better handle the time limit aspect. We'll think character out of it.
01:31:04
Speaker
Like we talked about Steamboat back when he had that Iron Man match with McRu, which is amazing. When time starts to draw near, he can really show the quickness of attacking and constantly going for pins and knockout blows.
01:31:18
Speaker
With Dustin here, he obviously has that same energy, but he didn't have the experience in storyline to know I got to I should just try as many pinfalls as possible. Yeah.
01:31:29
Speaker
So he spends time, you know in the last two minutes doing mounted punches in the corner, which will definitely hurt you, but it's not. I don't know has ever led to a pinfall victory. Yeah, yeah, he does like go for a few of them during those last few minutes. He doesn't like just leave it entirely to one move.
01:31:44
Speaker
But yeah, it's not like move, pin, move, pin, like Steamboat and Rude got into in their match. So what it does is it leaves more room for rematches. And of course, there will be some obviously, because again, he at this point hasn't figured out the secret to how you sort of get around that the time itself is your enemy here.
01:32:03
Speaker
So when he figures it out, he'll do a lot better. Yeah, this was a tremendous match. They keep a great pace right up to the ending, and not a single part feels like a stall of any kind to burn up time.
01:32:14
Speaker
No. I don't know how they managed timing the finish so well, but it was incredible. It's one of the rare moments where a time limit draw not only works fine for the match, but gives a great dramatic finish rather than feeling like a cop out at all.
01:32:26
Speaker
Mm-hmm. The only notable complaint I would have on this is that it got a tad repetitive with several of the headlock whip free spots and a few headlock takeovers into head scissors counters. But they also managed an amazing pace of counter wrestling. So one is maybe kind of the price of the other.
01:32:42
Speaker
Yeah. There was one spot in particular that was literally too quick for me to take verbal notes on, which was incredible to see. Yeah. Yeah. Great striking as well, excellent emotion throughout, and wonderful selling from Rhodes, looking dazed and tired but putting his whole body into punches to make up for it, while Austin did a great job looking like a disciplined and skilled but dishonorable and arrogant fighter.
01:33:04
Speaker
I thoroughly enjoyed this match, and it's a very easy watch and lots of fun, particularly the Rhodes Bounce.
01:33:12
Speaker
Again, Battle Bowl takes over everything. Notably, Austin would have good luck with the draw. Again, the luck of the draw. As he would end up being teamed up with his teal teammate and stablemate at the time.
01:33:25
Speaker
While Dustin Rhodes would end up teamed with El Gigante. Life is not fair. Oh, I remember that match. I believe I chose Larry Zabisco as my ah MVP because he made something of it.
01:33:37
Speaker
Yeah, I believe you did as well. Yes, remember that.
01:33:42
Speaker
We cut to an ad with a bunch of wrestler video clips housed in kind of trading cards, falling from the top in front of a starry background. They fall into a transparent bowl. Starrcade 1991 Battle Bowl The Lethal Lottery In case you can't already tell our thoughts on that show from the comments we've made so far tonight, that show sucks so bad, made it on both of our worst of lists for our Starrcade series awards. Yes. And John gave it a dishonorable mention.
01:34:09
Speaker
And just for one more as well. So lot later series we've we've done post-Starrcade have been like six to eight shows max. Yeah, this was 18, I believe. So out of 18 shows, that one makes it on two out of three worst of lists. And nearly makes it on the third one. Yeah. Yes.
01:34:26
Speaker
so ah So look forward to that, people, in 1991. We are mercifully already done with it. That's true.
01:34:35
Speaker
Our sixth match is Bill Kazmaier versus Oz. The referee for this one is Mike Atkins. Kevin Nash would re-debut in WCW as Oz back in May on pay-per-view.
01:34:47
Speaker
Previously, he had been part of the Master Blasters, a team that I can't believe they get sued over. I mean, it's literally from and Max Beyond Thunderdome. You didn't even disguise it.
01:34:57
Speaker
And you can't say we didn't see the movie because you've named a match Thunderdome. Yes. And think they use the two men under one man leaves thing multiple shows as well. So it's it's no accident.
01:35:10
Speaker
So bear in mind that this is conjecture from someone there, but still it's not as sourced as I think to be. According to Kevin Nash, he was asked to take a pay cut shortly after he debuted.
01:35:23
Speaker
based on how expensive everything was and how things were doing as well, as we sort of talked about the shoe, not drawing as well. He told them no, according to him, which is a very Kevin Nash thing to do. Wait, you want give me less money? No, no, I'm not doing that.
01:35:36
Speaker
I don't blame him. No, no, yeah, yeah. But that's a very Kevin Nash thing. Other people might go, oh, you know, the company's not doing well. I'll take a little bit. Then you pay back later. No. Kevin Nash was like, nope. Cash up front.
01:35:47
Speaker
That's it. According to him, after he said no to a pay cut, they kept him around and him lose to pretty everyone they could. Notably, he'd lose by just two on various house show loops or TV to Big Josh, PN News, so both members of that previous SAG match, Van Hammer, who we'll fortunately see you later, and even a a single pinfall loss on house show to Arachnoman.
01:36:11
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Yeah. You're looking at the light for the Arachnoman on top of you. Things are not going well. He must have been so loving it when he came back in 1996 and got like among the highest contracts in the company.
01:36:26
Speaker
Oh, and he must have. Yeah. Just like, look what you guys gave away. Yeah. Not only I get to control my booking, but I get paid way more than I did then. Yeah.
01:36:38
Speaker
In contrast, Bill Kazmaier been done pretty well. Scott Steiner has got injured, so Steiner is no longer tag champions. Obviously, Steiner is better by this show. In the interim period, Rick Steiner, a team with Bill Kazmaier's replacement and nearly win the tag titles in a tournament. But obviously, as you'll see in the later show, they are not champions.
01:36:57
Speaker
Wow, that's a big team. Yeah, right? Also, as you know, before Oz was pulled from the opening match, we discussed at very great length of that, I'm sure, even the final edit.
01:37:08
Speaker
And he's taking Cactus Jack's place in this match, originally with Jack versus Kazmier. OK, that's an interesting combination. i can definitely see that working.
01:37:19
Speaker
But yeah.
01:37:21
Speaker
So Oz, of course, is Kevin Nash in a Wizard of Oz cross promotional gimmick, which is just such an astoundingly strange concept, even for WCW. Yeah. This is quite late in the gimmick, I believe. So they've largely abandoned, well, everything about it other than the name.
01:37:35
Speaker
And Green, I guess. And Green, yeah. I don't recall what show he debuts on, but i'm I'm sure we'll get to it. And it's absolutely bonkers what they put. Oh, I'm looking forward to that so much.
01:37:46
Speaker
Also, so is he supposed to be like the manifestation or avatar of the actual Land of Oz? Like, the king is the land and the land is the king or something like that? it's It's so weird. Yeah, I mean...
01:37:58
Speaker
He's not the Gnome King, that's for sure, but I i don't know he's supposed to actually be. Anyway, it's Kevin Nash with a blonde flat top haircut, wearing a big neon green and silver cape and coming out to music that sounds uncannily like Another One Bites the Dust by Queen. Yes.
01:38:14
Speaker
To the extent that I'm shocked that WCW did not get sued. It is the same rhythm and even pretty much the same note progression. Yeah, it is. Nash pretty much just acts like Nash at this point. It'll be interesting to see earlier stuff if we can and see if he acts more mystical at all earlier year in the gimmick.
01:38:33
Speaker
Yeah. I do like his actual wrestling gear. It's long tights in black and green. He looks like a big and tough dude if you ignore him strangely being Oz. Yeah. Bill Kazmaier announced as the world's strongest human being carries a large globe.
01:38:48
Speaker
I'm pretty sure it's a balloon, but it does look pretty hard to carry. So credit to him. He is one big beefy dude. He is, yes. Oz mugs at Kazmier and they repeatedly lock up but are unable to move the other.
01:39:02
Speaker
Oz resists a shoulder block and challenges Kazmier to try it again and tries a clothesline when he does but Kazmier ducks and flattens him with one of his own then slams him. Oz challenges him to a test of strength while making super duper crazy eyes.
01:39:16
Speaker
Kazmaier overwhelms him, but Oz headbutts him in the gut and kicks him to force him to his knees. But Kazmaier forces him back to his knees and stomps on his hands. Oz really could have moved his hands there, but I guess he was too polite.
01:39:28
Speaker
Yeah. It's like, like, I want to see where he's going with this. Oz turns it around with some strikes, beating Kazmaier up a bit, getting tube with a back suplex and hitting repeated forearms to Kazmaier on the apron, then knocking him off with a knee strike.
01:39:44
Speaker
But Kazmaier skins the cat back in while Oz's back is turned. That's amazing for a dude that size. It really is. Yeah. JR and Tony were actually talking about the Japan Super Show at the time, and they stopped dead to just go, wow, and in astonishment.
01:40:02
Speaker
Kazmeier clotheslines Oz flat, knee strikes him, and puts him in the torture rack for the submission victory. Kazmeier celebrates and JR says it wasn't pretty, but it was effective. Tony is impressed with how easily he lifted Nash on his shoulders.
01:40:16
Speaker
Fair enough. Yeah. Thoughts on this one? It's a decent match, although it is obviously very basic. I'm curious how much lead time they had on this.
01:40:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So I'm going to be a little lenient because these two guys didn't work together as far as what they didn't on the house show loop or various events. So this this is really their first time wrestling or even second or third time wrestling.
01:40:42
Speaker
And they're putting match together with like and a less than 24 hours and and how much time they would have for match number six on a show like this, which is already been recast basically. So how important is it really going to be?
01:40:54
Speaker
I can forgive them for not having a more elaborate match planned out between the two of them. Yeah, definitely. They don't really have that great of chemistry. They're just two big guys that can hit each other really hard.
01:41:06
Speaker
the same time, they don't really botch anything either, so it's not like... They're not a terrible pairing. They're far, far worse pairings you can see in wrestling, but for two people that are big and impressive looking, it's an unimpressive match, I'd say, other than a couple spots.
01:41:20
Speaker
Yeah. Things that stand out, obviously, would be the hints of what Kevin Nash's character, when he's sort of fully unleashed, when he becomes, you know, cocky diesel and then becomes Kevin Nash again, becomes back in the company.
01:41:35
Speaker
Or again, Kazmaier is showing his ability to do the skin. The cat move is very impressive. There are matches where you go, oh, it's this is okay. And there's so much as you go, oh, this okay, but one or things kind of stand out at least.
01:41:47
Speaker
And this is one of those ones. Yeah, I think with both guys, you can see that they are genuinely talented. Yeah. And yeah, with Nash especially, it is fascinating to like see the early version of what Kevin Nash will become.
01:42:02
Speaker
A lot of the facial expressions and mannerisms are already there at this point, but just like not quite as polished as they'll get to. Yeah, this was a very basic big man match.
01:42:12
Speaker
Nash was barely over a year into his career at this point, and while he does what he can do quite well, save for almost over-rotating on his back suplex, he's quite limited at this point, and Kazmaier either doesn't have much more or isn't confident enough working more complex spots with him.
01:42:27
Speaker
They do keep a decent pace considering they're two very large dudes, but ultimately this is just two big guys beating each other up for a very short time until one wins. It's barely more than a squash match, and it's just there to use Oz to build up Kazmaier, basically.
01:42:41
Speaker
Yeah. Like several other matches we're going to see tonight, this probably didn't need to be on the show at all. Matches like this can really just be on television. Leave the pay-per-view for stuff that feels more significant and important.
01:42:54
Speaker
That said, it is different from anything else on the show, and I do appreciate that anyway. Yeah, for sure. I do wonder like if this was a year later, so Kevin Nash had more experience and they gave these guys an 8-10 minute match.
01:43:12
Speaker
I feel like this pairing could have worked to have like a good, solid big man match or feud. Kind of um like the Ray Traylor Vader type of stuff. Yeah, i see that. I think these two could pull off like a good, solid fight.
01:43:26
Speaker
Oz would be left off Battle Bowl, which feels like both a blessing and a curse, really. Yes. Because like, I've been bumped from pay-per-view, but I've bumped from this pay-per-view. Yes. He would redebut as Fitty Vegas in January.
01:43:40
Speaker
So a rare positive for January. Yes. Throw one of those in every once in a while. So interesting because they mentioned at the beginning that Oz is going to work more New to Japan dates, or they don't say Japan, but these Japanese dates.
01:43:54
Speaker
The implication being that he's supposed to work the New Japan Super Show that happens in January that they ran in like, don't know, March or April, I think we established. Yeah, fair. Yeah. ah He's not on that show. Now, he did work a handful of matches. I found a cage mat talking about it where he teamed up with people like Jushin Liger, which is pretty interesting.
01:44:11
Speaker
In May of 1992, despite being Vinny Vegas in WCW, he would keep wrestling as the great, powerful Oz in New Japan. He'd rig a handful of dates and handful of matches.
01:44:24
Speaker
He'd team up with or battle against the likes of Brad Rangan, who we saw on AWA shows. Yep. Tony Haume, or Home, however you pronounce his name. He'd also work in a tag match against Masahiro Chono, we've seen a bunch of times and will show up later in WCW.
01:44:41
Speaker
And a guy who we sadly will not see much of anymore. I think outside of Japan, Shinya Hashimoto. Oh, Shinya. Yeah. Even if they don't work from that together, I could see Shinya Hashimoto and him working really interesting together.
01:44:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Because they're both not little guys. And I think they could definitely something really fun together. Mm hmm. Being in Kazmaier, he actually would have a New Japan connection of his own. As noted, he would be on the Japan Super Show.
01:45:08
Speaker
And of course, his match would be against Shinya Hashimoto, who we just talked about. So it's funny, I'm just wanting to see one with him and then the other one did actually get to wrestle him. And of course, he would also be part of the Battle Bowl Ventus Darkade, where he'd team up with Jushin Thunder Liger, the match and show that made Jon love Liger, which I don't blame him.
01:45:30
Speaker
No, yeah, that's fair enough, yeah. And funny because it's one the things that he did conduct about on the show. If you read about it, you're like, oh, man, they brought Liger and they teamed him up with this big, beefy guy. But they actually made it a good team. So. Oh, yeah, yeah. That was that was one of the better matches on the show, as I recall.
01:45:46
Speaker
But on paper, it sounds like a real demotion for Liger. He's being left with someone not talented, but it's actually far from the truth. Kazmaier is not bad. He's not a particularly fast wrestler, but everything he does looks good.
01:46:00
Speaker
Yeah. He is visually impressive and more than capable in the ring. Yeah. I wonder if he had gone on longer, what would have happened with him? Yeah. Yeah, me too. JR builds up the three championship matches coming up, particularly Simmons versus Luger.
01:46:16
Speaker
In the background, Oz hobbles by. Tony struggles to maintain a straight face as he and JR build up Van Hammer, and he has to say Van Fantastic, The Hammerheads, Hammer Hysteria, and The Van Hammer Tour.
01:46:31
Speaker
Tony so nearly loses it on many of the announcer segments on this show. Yeah, can't blame him. JR notes that Hammer was supposed to face Michael Hayes, but he was injured.
01:46:43
Speaker
Then corrects himself as Hayes showed he wasn't injured earlier tonight. Yeah. Tony gets the giggles again.
01:46:51
Speaker
so our seventh match is Van Hammer versus Pretty Boy Doug Summers. The referee for this one is Randy Anderson. So this iss another match that was promised to be a musical versus musical feud.
01:47:04
Speaker
In this case, it would be hair metal against the Southern Rock. But then obviously one of them is injured, but also not really. And I guess really just doesn't want to be in a match against Van Hammer, which I don't blame you.
01:47:16
Speaker
More power to you, Michael Hayes. Actually, after watching the finish match, which we'll discuss, I definitely don't blame you. Yeah. and And to be frank, Van Hammer should be glad he wasn't in the match against Michael Hayes on a Halloween Havoc show.
01:47:27
Speaker
That's yeah. The crowd would have turned on him, I'm sure. No one would have been better off in that scenario.
01:47:34
Speaker
Van Hammer is introduced first, and he gets quite a big entrance, coming out with an electric guitar, which he swings a lot but doesn't actually play, unlike Max Payne on some shows, with people using jackhammers, the actual tool, not the Goldberg move, on the stage.
01:47:50
Speaker
I get that those have hammer in the name, but they do know those have nothing to do with heavy metal music, right? Yeah, i mean, wouldn't it make more sense to, like, on a wheel of Van out and start hitting with steel hammers? Yeah.
01:48:00
Speaker
That'd be more thematic. Yeah. Of course, Hammer has always looked more like a big surfer dude than a heavy metal rocker to me. Yes. Summers is introduced second, but is already in the ring and doesn't get an entrance, which should tell you everything you need to know about how this match is going to go.
01:48:19
Speaker
Ladies in the crowd scream as Hammer removes his shirt as he is ripped. JR asks Tony if anyone has ever reacted to him taking his shirt off like that. Tony laughs and evades the question.
01:48:32
Speaker
Yes. They almost immediately screw up a spot badly as Summers goes to kind of duck a clothesline and Hammer just stops. So Summers nearly runs headlong into his gut.
01:48:43
Speaker
They stumble around for a moment and Hammer just clothesline Summers after all from the side. Great start. Hammer beats up Summers, including a decent power slam and a very nice leg drop, but also including some quite awkward punches and a quarter whip into a back body drop that has kind of an odd pause in the middle.
01:49:01
Speaker
I think Summer's oversold the whip a bit or perhaps legit tripped and was slow coming back out to get back body dropped as a result. Yeah, i think so. Hammer pumps up the crowd to the we will rock you rhythm just so we rip off another Queen song tonight and then hits Hammer Rocks, a slingshot suplex with extremely poor timing for the three count and the win.
01:49:23
Speaker
He starts the suplex part before he even got Summer's bouncing off the ropes. Yeah. So it looks more like he just screwed up and hit the ropes by mistake. Also, what the heck kind of name is Hammer Rocks for a finisher?
01:49:37
Speaker
How about Hammerhead, Hammer Time, or just Hammerplex actually sounds cool. Yeah. Thoughts on this one? Oh, those are my notes. Bad. Just bad.
01:49:49
Speaker
Those are my notes. now I do have more than that, but that was my those are my opening notes. i They wrote bad. and It does sum it up. Yeah. Yeah. So look, Van Hammer has some positives.
01:50:02
Speaker
Does he? i'm being I'm being nice. i'll be I'll be mean in minute. Don't worry. Okay. No, he has some positives, least on paper. He has a good look. I could see if you're a booker and have not seen him wrestle going, man, you should be on my show. You know, ladies will love you.
01:50:17
Speaker
have this big look. It'll bring an air of authenticity to my show. And and very least people that don't follow wrestling will see you. You know, you have a ah look that commands attention because of your size and where you're built.
01:50:29
Speaker
But then, of course, he's playing a rock from a guy who can't play guitar. He just kind of spins it around. And he's a wrestler who really is not very good at wrestling. Let's just put it that way.
01:50:42
Speaker
Doug Summers, what I've read, is a good talent. I've heard good things about Doug Summers, but none of that comes through here. and don't you want to blame age, timing,
01:50:53
Speaker
Just blame Van Hammer, which is fine with me. i can blame a lot of stuff on this match for sure. Summers, to be fair to him here, is just the Jopper. Oh, yeah, yeah. You literally could put anyone in there and they'd be doing the exact same role.
01:51:06
Speaker
You don't get to see what Summers can do. And that's because this match is in no way intended to show you what Summers can do. Oh, yeah. But mean you can get hints of what a Jopper can do if a job match is done well. Yes.
01:51:17
Speaker
How they take a clothesline, you know, they can do a cool sell or if they can, you get thrown the top rope, the outside, stuff like that. You don't really get that here, though, because he gets beat up by a hammer and then nearly killed by Van Hammer with that suplex.
01:51:30
Speaker
Yes. And I've seen a slingshot suplex before. It's a really cool move if you actually know do it. Yes. It's not entirely clear Van Hammer knows how to a regular suplex, let alone a slingshot suplex.
01:51:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. He barely gets him up and then he bounces his feet out the ropes and the rotation part, which is very important, nearly does not happen. Poor Doug nearly just gets necked.
01:51:53
Speaker
It's similar in a way to the landing to how the infamous Goldberg-Undertaker match goes when they both get sore and tired and just overheated and they both mess a finish up when Goldberg nearly necks Taker doing a jackhammer where he drops him too fast and too sudden.
01:52:09
Speaker
ah It's that same kind of fall. Yeah, basically, he kind of like picks him up, puts him on the ropes, but doesn't really get a bounce. No. Because normally, like, you land the guy on the ropes, he goes down, he goes back up, and that's when you do the move that you're normally aiming for.
01:52:24
Speaker
Yeah. So what Van Hammer does instead is land the guy on the ropes, he goes down, and Hammer immediately goes to the suplex. Yeah. He doesn't have the momentum or the angle to carry him over fully properly.
01:52:36
Speaker
He's turning over the suplex before his feet and ankles actually hit the ropes. Yeah. I'm not a wrestler. not going to hear to tell you that, oh, this move that takes years of practice and experience to do is easy, but it can be done.
01:52:49
Speaker
Yeah. Tony Blanchard can do it. Oh, yeah. I think that's exactly the point is like this move isn't easy. Yeah. So why did you give it to someone who did not have the experience or the ring acumen at the time to handle it?
01:53:04
Speaker
Yeah. This is not a move you give a rookie. No. Yeah, I'm not fond of Van Hammer to begin with, so seeing him in a squash match that managed to include a few botches of varying levels of severity in an extremely short runtime, I think it's just over one minute long, yeah was far from thrilling.
01:53:20
Speaker
I'm not sure who gets the most blame for the screw-ups. I'm inclined to blame Hammer, but that's just me. He does have a good leg drop, but most of the rest of this sucked. Again, this show has given us a super short, pointless match between a guy they're trying to build up and a completely random jobber.
01:53:36
Speaker
They've done it three times on this show so far with The Creatures, Oz, No Offense Nash, You Will Be a Big Name in the Future, and Now. And we're going to have one more later. Yeah. I don't know whose idea it was to fill this show with squash matches, but it was a bad idea and a waste time that could have been given to matches that actually matter.
01:53:55
Speaker
I really wish WCW had just hired John Meiklethor. That's what they wanted instead of Van Hammer. Fair enough. would been interesting. It would have been a short run, would have been interesting.
01:54:07
Speaker
Doug Summers would make one more appearance for WCW, a lost El Gigante on Power Hour. And that was it. Oh, wow. He got the good ones, didn't he? Yeah, he was not a conducted talent. He was an independent worker they use. And then they they had to fill a last minute bit because I'm guessing Michael Hayes probably saw him practicing that slingshot suplex and went, ah, my arm hurts.
01:54:29
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. And I do not blame him. Nope. I could have at least given Summers like one squash match against Sting or something like that just yeah to make up for this stuff. You had to put him through.
01:54:41
Speaker
In contrast to the abrupt stop for Doug Summers' WCW career, Van Hammer would have made a ploy with WCW for nine more years. Oh my gosh, yeah. Someone saw this match and keep this guy in payroll.
01:54:53
Speaker
it's It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. There's cases where you have a guy with theoretically raw talent and a good look, or at least a look you can use. You know, like, OK, you just need more time, need more seasoning, you know, more time in the oven, as they say.
01:55:07
Speaker
But year after year, you keep giving him time in the oven. You keep putting it back in and it's not working. Yeah. At what point do you say, OK, maybe he's not talented? Yeah, I'm in agreement on that. It's like you can look forward eight or nine years from this match and see Van Hammer in matches again. And it is not considerably different from this.
01:55:28
Speaker
Yeah, Kevin Nash wrestling 2000. You can argue with the booking, but you can see so much difference in how he performs. Yeah. And how we act as a character and everything. Ben Hammer is extremely stagnant because his ceiling is ah very short.
01:55:43
Speaker
His ceiling is here. Pretty much.
01:55:47
Speaker
JR and Tony throw backstage where Brian Pillman is cutting a promo in front of the gray backdrop with the dried plants in front of it that Stan Hansen nearly destroyed last year. We get Pillman's audio before we actually see him.
01:55:59
Speaker
Timing. Many great athletes have competed over the years, gone their entire careers. without ever having the opportunity at a world title.
01:56:11
Speaker
And the reason this world title shot is extra special to me is because just a few short months ago, I wasn't even in WCW. I didn't have a chance to compete if wasn't for the great fans. I'm dedicating my efforts tonight to my family and the great fans at WCW. I won't let them down.
01:56:28
Speaker
I really love Pillman's wording here. He celebrates that he's challenging for a world title. Which he is. Yeah. It's just not the one people normally mean when they say the world title.
01:56:39
Speaker
Right. Yes. So normally you mean the world heavyweight title for that, but he's going for the world light heavyweight title, which is traditionally just called the WSW light heavyweight champion later on. But it does say world on the belt.
01:56:51
Speaker
He does. Yeah. It's one of those interesting things that actually happens not only in wrestling, but in actual legitimate sports as well sometimes, that this is exactly the same level of belt as the heavyweight version, but it's not normally treated as such in storyline.
01:57:05
Speaker
You almost always see the heavyweight title being the top of the card, and that's sometimes the case and in like boxing and stuff as well, that you have the weight classes not only being a weight class, but also a sign of prestige.
01:57:17
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So it's a very interesting thing just how that's treated. But it's interesting because you don't normally then hear them also say, unless they're a heel like Diamond Dallas Page, saying like television world champion or something. I think so, yeah.
01:57:29
Speaker
You don't normally see them explicitly saying, yeah, this is a world title, even though it is. Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise, I really liked his promo overall. Maybe would have benefited from a little bit of more variation in volume, particularly when he starts talking about how it means so much to him.
01:57:45
Speaker
It could have added more of a feeling of sincerity if he like dialed it back a little bit then. and can see that. Yeah. But at the same time, he sounds super excited and very thankful to the fans. So I think this was a good promo overall.
01:57:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's fine. He has a weird tone where it's like when you're trying to talk to one in like a library, it's a moment to be quiet. And we tell somebody quiet and somehow some other whispering, but they're also louder than they were normally speaking. Yes, yes. It kind of has that going on.
01:58:14
Speaker
We flip immediately to Alexandra York and Richard Morton in front of a bluish backdrop with dried plants in front of it. Morton has a quite nice black and blue sparkly jacket, but he's totally dressed like a wrestler rather than a businessman and even has the Ricky Morton mullet.
01:58:29
Speaker
Yeah, he didn't really commit to the whole I'm a businessman guy, did he? I love that he could not be bothered to change his traditional hairstyle to something more businesslike. Yeah, right? Like even the ponytail he had at last year's show would have worked better.
01:58:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. The ponytail is like business yuppie, which works at this time period. Which is what Terry Taylor came out with, too. True, yeah, yeah. Doesn't really look like he belongs to this group. This is Halloween Havoc, and you will all be witnesses to the York Foundation securing their first ever title in WCW. We will not stop there, however.
01:58:59
Speaker
Richard, this is a big night for all of us. That's right, Miss York. You know, it's been a long, hard road. But the road you're taking, Brian Pillman, is coming to a dead end because all my life I've been a champion. When you mention Richard Morton, it is championship material, and it's going to be no different because tonight, brother, I'm coming to be the light heavyweight champion of the world.
01:59:19
Speaker
York gave a pretty good, confident faction leader type of intro. Mm-hmm. Morton's promo style is very much in his rock and roll express mode, but he does dial up the arrogance a little bit, which is nice.
01:59:31
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I thought he did a good job of starting off sounding almost as much of a nice guy as he usually does, just with him being a nice guy to a faction that folks don't like. Mm-hmm. But then he turned up the heelishness to sound entitled and arrogant. Like, of course he should win the title because he deserves it.
01:59:47
Speaker
Yeah, it is funny. The guy famous for being beaten up for long sections in that to get heat for his team. And he against heels is now full and arrogant heel.
01:59:58
Speaker
Yes, very much so. It is interesting, like how good he is actually at sounding like an arrogant heel when he spent like probably 90% of his career just being absolutely beloved by fans. Yeah. And the guy that, like you said, gets beaten up because he's so liked that they know they'll get sympathy.
02:00:17
Speaker
Mm hmm. I can definitely see the pitch being pretty easy and hey you know give the heel you'd be different it would definitely be a fresh thing to do it's like going to play a bad guy in a movie if you're you know Tom Hanks for instance right yeah yeah exactly I like his persona here I like what he's doing with it he's just an odd fit for the group largely because they didn't modify his look I feel like if you had just gone with him also wearing like the suit and tie or tuxedo type of thing and doing the ponytail thing you did the previous year, it would have fit better with the group. But personality wise, he's he's nailing the heel persona, I think.
02:00:50
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. So as set up by those promos, our eighth match is flying Brian Pillman versus Richard Morton with Alexandra York for the inaugural WCW Light Heavyweight Championship.
02:01:05
Speaker
Referee is Nick Patrick with Refereye. Inspired by Japan and Mexico, WCW would finally make a division for its smaller wrestlers. The tournament exists of such big names as Joey Maggs, who we saw earlier as one of the masked creatures.
02:01:20
Speaker
Bright Arms starring in gimmick number 46, aka Bad Street. Mike, he broke a thousand guitars and never drew a dime, Graham.
02:01:30
Speaker
Terrence Taylor, also of the York Foundation. And Johnny Rich, who was the other masked creature we saw earlier in the show. Johnny Rich, not Thomas Rich. Correct, yes. I guess it doesn't matter because they didn't win, but they supposedly say there's a weight limit in this division. I think it's 236, I think.
02:01:47
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Oddly exact number. Like, not 235, 236. It is an interesting thing, though, isn't it, with just how human brains work. Mm-hmm. We like using fives and tens. Yeah. It makes sense to some extent because it it does end up, like, nice and even that way. But, well, actually, with fives, it's the very opposite of even. It's odd, but...
02:02:05
Speaker
It's predictable what the numbers are going to be, I guess, is what it is, but it's still arbitrary. Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. There's nothing sacred about us setting up things to end on five or ten. Exactly.
02:02:15
Speaker
My point is, though, i don't think those guys we saw as the creatures were under 236. I'm pretty sure they're built around 250 or so. I mean, I didn't weigh them. Yeah, thinking back to how they look, I would say, at the least, they like would be right at the top of the weight limit.
02:02:32
Speaker
Yeah. There's no way they're down in like the 220s or something. I don't think we're talking like exactly 236 maybe, but... Yeah, I would lean towards higher. Granted, this is still better than than the women's title tournament we covered before, where the same person was in it twice, one in a mask and one not.
02:02:49
Speaker
Yes, yeah, that's true. At least people in this tournament wore a mask after the tournament, not during. That's that's true, yeah.
02:02:57
Speaker
As noted, this is the finals that tournament to crown the inaugural champion. Pillman runs out so fast he is most of the way down the ramp before his pyro even hits.
02:03:08
Speaker
Richard Morton and Alexandra York, of course, come out together to their wonderful corporate theme. Early exchanges are inconclusive, and Morton retreats outside to chat with York, who shows him something on her very clearly powered-off computer.
02:03:21
Speaker
She typed something, presumably the sequel code, to query her database of Pillman's wrestling moves and the appropriate counters. And Morton looks at the screen for approximately half a second before she shuts the computer. he's He's fast.
02:03:32
Speaker
Fast reader and fast runner. Genuinely, though, that like what what did he have time to read there, especially on a computer of this era that would probably not even have finished following the program before she shut it? Oh, it says don't get dropkicked.
02:03:45
Speaker
Got it. I mean, that's not a problem anyway if you're not fighting Z-Man. Well, yeah, obviously. Tony actually even notes how quickly Morton glanced at it and looked away.
02:03:56
Speaker
He says he's not sure that Morton really depends on the computer at all. And JR agrees that Morton is a highly skilled athlete and might not feel he needs it. Back in, Pillman lands a spin wheel kick and fakes Morton out on a corner whip, getting him to dodge a fake crossbody but hitting a double axe handle.
02:04:13
Speaker
There's a cute moment there as Pillman shushes the crowd to ensure that Morton wouldn't figure it out. Yeah, that nice. Pillman earns two counts with a shoulder block and a few side headlock takeovers, and they too do the side headlock into headscissors spot a few times.
02:04:28
Speaker
We get several terrific views of Nick Patrick's inner elbow, which is helpful.
02:04:34
Speaker
Morton finally counters a charge with an inverted atomic drop to take control and works the shoulder, which JR notes was previously injured with arm bars, wrist locks, and the like. Pillman roll up for two, followed by an angry Morton clothesline for two.
02:04:48
Speaker
He uses the hair to keep Pillman in holds. Tony actually makes use of the referee's eye view as Pillman fights back with punches and we see Patrick's arm punching as well. Tony says, what we're seeing there is the referee's signal for a legal punch.
02:05:02
Speaker
I don't know why a ref needs to signal for legal punches, but oh well. Good try at making the referee relevant, Tony. Yeah, I guess someone in the back, I guess his boss is, you know, looking over. and no, it's okay. It's okay. I checked.
02:05:14
Speaker
like Yeah. It feels like you'd more need the signal for it that was illegal since that will lead to a DQ, but no will. Yeah. Pillman lands a clothesline, but Morton gets a back suplex and smoothly rolls into a pin for two.
02:05:28
Speaker
He chokes Pillman and later catches a Pillman kick, but Pillman hits an enzigiri, and JR immediately references Antonio Inoki for one of many Japan references the two are making tonight.
02:05:39
Speaker
They both turn to strikes, fighting back and forth until a Pillman shoulder block sends both guys through the ropes to the floor. Morton throws Pillman to the ring post and gets in, but Pillman quickly climbs to the top rope, Tony praising his never-say-die spirit, and hits a diving crossbody for the three-count and the win, or so I assume, since all I got to see of that pinfall was Patrick's hand hitting the mat.
02:06:02
Speaker
Pillman celebrates as the first WCW light heavyweight champion to good cheers, and the replay actually shows that the referee did get a good shot of the dive, so too bad that WCW didn't use that part of its shot.
02:06:16
Speaker
Yeah. Thoughts on this one? I thought this was a pretty good match. Obviously, these two work really well together. My only thing was, and I think it's this is somewhat of a conditioning thing for me, like I'm conditioned to expect certain things.
02:06:30
Speaker
think had to discuss it before with, I think it was the 96 show where it's Bright Armstrong and Dean Malenko, which was a good match just like this one. But my issue with that one and with this one is that it's not paced like I'm kind of used to them being paced.
02:06:46
Speaker
It's not badly paced like it's not slow paced drag at all like it kind of stays in second gear the whole time i'd say are you saying like you're comparing it to cruiserweight matches later exactly i gotcha gotcha which is certainly i think a fair thing i mean you can argue that these are like heavyweights those are cruiserweights and there are slight differences i guess but i think that's a fair comment on this match it's not a day against the performance obviously they do really good job here Real simple, but effective offense, like cross by the clotheslines, that kind of stuff.
02:07:19
Speaker
The finish is pretty good as well. I like the idea that Moran is such a cocky heel that he thinks the movie did in the outside is like when the match might be a count out. So he doesn't bother looking and check and see the guy until he's too late and the guy's jumping at him and he catches him.
02:07:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, as a whole, I liked it. I just used to full on cruiserweight matches. And again, don't dislike the match. I just was expecting a little bit more from his all. That said, this is crowning the inaugural light heavyweight champion. So we are very early early in what these kind of matches are. Yeah. On a national stage. So I'm getting to a lot of leeway as well.
02:07:57
Speaker
Not that we haven't had lighter wrestlers have matches before, but I think this is kind of them trying to figure out what does this division look like? Yeah. And what type of match do we want to put on? So I can certainly see like, functionally, this is quite early in the design for this type of match.
02:08:13
Speaker
Yeah. Okay, before I get to my thoughts on the match, first off, on the camera. Yeah. I had so much trouble documenting this match for myself because of the referee camera.
02:08:26
Speaker
They so frequently cut to it exactly when Patrick was looking at absolutely nothing useful. Yeah. It really made it hard to document or enjoy this match at times.
02:08:36
Speaker
It happens all the time in this match, and it is so distracting and so irritating. I cannot imagine why someone thought it was a good idea to bring the referee back after what a mess it was in the first match, but it was not a good idea.
02:08:50
Speaker
It was probably the producer backstage who thought it'd be great for the first match and is like, give it another chance. Just trust me. Just trust me. It'll work. Do it in a normal match. It'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah. It was not fine. No.
02:09:01
Speaker
It was the furthest thing from fine. Yes. The match itself is really, really nice with a good fast pace, and it was fun to see Morton as a heel.
02:09:12
Speaker
He doesn't really use the York Foundation gimmick at all, but otherwise he does a great job of being an insufferable brat in the ring, swiping at Pillman to make him mad, taking cheap shots, and just being an arrogant jerk.
02:09:24
Speaker
It's a really fun twist since he spends most of his career, as we said, as being the extremely likable guy who just gets beaten up to gain sympathy. I was cheering for Ricky Morton to get punched. That is very rare.
02:09:36
Speaker
True, yeah. That said, while it's an exciting match, it did get fairly repetitive at times, which wouldn't be so bad except that it was repetitive with the same moves that earlier matches were repetitive with, which made it a bit worse.
02:09:49
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. Going off of what you were saying, Al, the match didn't quite feel as dynamic as I thought it would be with these two and with this kind of weight class. But it was it was good, it was solid, it was quite fast-paced still.
02:10:03
Speaker
I really, really have to compliment the ending. They played quite hard with either a double countout or countout win for one of them when they both ended up outside. And I was genuinely surprised when Pillman not only made it back to the ring and made the crossbody, but when that actually got the win.
02:10:20
Speaker
I genuinely expected that to be a near fall. So I very much enjoyed being surprised. Yeah, see that. Overall, a fun, fast-paced match that I enjoyed, despite the awful camera gimmick.
02:10:31
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah. The number of times that you just see Nick Patrick's inner elbow in this match is amazing. I can figure if you're wearing one those things, you got have a lot of self control. Like you don't like, you know, reach down and scratch somewhere you shouldn't be scratching. Yes.
02:10:48
Speaker
Or like, you know, got to scratch your elbow or something. And like your instinct is like, should I look and see what's that on my elbow? And they don't look at their elbow. You have a camera on you. Well, just like the the motions you have to make to do your job as a referee. Yeah. Inherently make you a really terrible camera angle.
02:11:05
Speaker
Because you're going to be looking at just kind of weird positions, especially if, as I'm guessing may have been the case here, the camera is not perfectly aligned with your eyes. so That's true. Yeah, he's he's basically wearing a bike cam with the camera on it.
02:11:19
Speaker
Yeah. So if this is not quite pointing exactly where his eyes are looking to, then that's where I think you can end up with things like him ending up with the camera view of his inner elbow while he's counting a pinfall, because what he's looking at is probably maybe a little bit centered on their shoulders.
02:11:36
Speaker
Sure. But if the camera is like maybe slightly to the right, you end up with these really awkward and weird camera angles. I think even in the best case scenario, you would have to have him move like no referee has ever moved to make this make any kind of sense as a camera view.
02:11:53
Speaker
And in order for him to do the role that he's actually been hired to do, you're going to end up with just a terrible camera angle for this. Yeah, I see that.
02:12:03
Speaker
I would have loved to see them bring it back for one more thing, though. And that's if they slap the thing on Randy Anderson's head for when he does one of those cool um jump over the wrestlers and land on the other side and go right into a pinfall dives.
02:12:16
Speaker
I would love to see what that looked like from referee camera. Yeah. or ah Charles Robinson doing like cartwheels to get to position. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't show any of the rest of the match from it, but just show that jump into a pinfall.
02:12:29
Speaker
Yeah, there's like a thing in wrestling where there's a million things that work. And but someone goes like, yeah, what if we did it just a little differently? And there's so many cases where like this, it just doesn't work.
02:12:40
Speaker
Yeah. There were exceptions, obviously, like when WWE made a really good use in early days, like Bachelor, when the camera facing down the ceiling for like the TLC matches, do you get the full view of the ring like that?
02:12:53
Speaker
That's the extra thing they can add there. But refer eyes, no. There were a couple WCW shows that we've seen periodically. They did that overhead camera angle for sequences. i remember And it depends on which point you put it in at. But that can be a very viable camera angle at times, especially when they're using it for like a counter wrestling sequence. Sure. Yeah. That's a great camera angle for that.
02:13:16
Speaker
Our very first official episode was Starrcade 83. And that that featured ah Gordon Soley praising a cameraman that he said was like, what, 75 feet in the air or something like that? Yeah, I believe so.
02:13:28
Speaker
Job I would not want, I'll tell you what. Yeah, absolutely not. I don't begrudge them experimenting with things like this. It's just, I feel like it was abundantly clear after the first match that it hadn't worked.
02:13:41
Speaker
And someone should have called an audible backstage and said, let's abandon it for the second match that we were going to use it in. Just dump it. Thankfully, they do decide to dump it after this match and the next match that Nick Patrick referees does not feature the referee.
02:13:55
Speaker
So here's a pitch for you, Bob. Instead of referees, or I guess it's one referee wearing a camera on his head, how about it's Halloween Havoc, right? All the referees wear Halloween masks. Yeah. That's simple enough, right?
02:14:05
Speaker
That would be a great opportunity for like ref swaps and stuff, right, too? Yeah, exactly. yeah I can't think of any other way that you would tell the difference between Randy Anderson and Nick Patrick. Yeah, no.
02:14:16
Speaker
It's not like one of them is almost a foot shorter than the other. True. Yeah.
02:14:22
Speaker
I love that I shot down my own idea immediately. was going to say, yeah. Oh, well.
02:14:29
Speaker
Brian Pillman would defend his newly won title against Johnny B. Bad at Clash 17, and later he defended against Houston Thunder Liger in post-show Dress Tarkade.
02:14:40
Speaker
Nice.
02:14:43
Speaker
JR says Cincinnati is celebrating Pillman's victory. He says the next match has a cloud of mystery over it as Z-Man faces the Halloween Phantom. JR seems oddly shocked that Bischoff and Hyatt failed to find out the Phantom's identity.
02:14:59
Speaker
Does Bischoff have a detective business that I'm unaware of? why Why is he surprised that these people were not able to do this? He really thought they killed the whole gimmick of the character before he even appeared?
02:15:09
Speaker
Yeah, I guess so. Tony hopes that we'll find out the identity in the match, but says either way, Z-Man is ready. JR gives us a let's go to the ring.
02:15:20
Speaker
Great deal of speculation on this one. Let's go to the ring. ha ha. So our ninth match is the Halloween Phantom versus Z-Man. The referee for this one is Mike Atkins.
02:15:33
Speaker
Not much bill for this in general. All they really did was they promoted the idea that there was mystery about the show, that there a mysterious phantom that's going to appear. Granted, the other mystery they promised for the show was who are the creatures? And that wasn't great. So who was this better?
02:15:51
Speaker
Z-Man comes out first to quite big cheers in his neon green trunks with a big purple Z on them. He is quite happy about it being Halloween Havoc. The suspiciously Rick Rude shaped Phantom comes out next.
Phantom of the Opera Match
02:16:07
Speaker
Dressed like a luchador version of the Phantom of the Opera. Wide brimmed black hat, black cape held before him like he's Dracula, and a white and black mask that basically does absolutely nothing to hide the suspiciously Rick Rude like mustache.
02:16:21
Speaker
He gets some pyro. The camera gets a very good look at his face, which is not at all hidden. No. JR claims that he can't tell who it is, and I call BS on that. Yes.
02:16:34
Speaker
Tony says all we need is Christine Dye to sing a couple bars for us, referencing the female protagonist of The Phantom of the Opera, and therefore revealing that The Phantom of the Shivani outfit from last year was no coincidence, and Tony is definitely a musical theater fan.
02:16:48
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Phantom throws off his hat and cape and charges at Z-Man, beating the crap out of him with hard strikes, a monstrous clothesline, and a gut buster. Z-Man briefly stuns him with a kick and hits a dropkick, kind of, as Phantom sells by just kind of turning around briefly like he only barely got tagged.
02:17:06
Speaker
I think what happened is Phantom was probably supposed to totally dodge it by grabbing the ropes, but went too far and looked like he got hit, so he kind of like half sells. Yeah, that makes sense. Tony saves by saying, it's impressive how Phantom just absorbed that blow.
02:17:22
Speaker
Phantom knee strikes Z-Man and hits a move suspiciously similar to the Rude Awakening for the three count and the win. Phantom gives excellent crazy eyes as he poses in victory. The mask looks very uncomfortable.
02:17:35
Speaker
Basically, it's a full mask, but with the eyes, nose and mouth area open, except it's a little bit misaligned. So number one, we see the suspiciously Rick Rude shaped mustache. Yes. And number two, the strap that should have gone right under the nose goes right across the mouth, which had to be really annoying anytime he breathed in as it would go right in his mouth.
02:17:54
Speaker
Yeah, he's biting on that thing a lot. Yeah. Tony says that was the rude awakening. Interesting, JR says, which is what you say when someone has said something true, but you don't want to say that it's true, but you're a very bad liar.
02:18:10
Speaker
And we cut to the Stargate ad again. Thoughts on this one? That was the pretty enjoyable squash match. Obviously, they're not going for a whole lot here. They obviously want this totally not Rick Rude Phantom guy to look really strong.
02:18:25
Speaker
I will say, too, I like that the match is booked around the Phantom essentially bull rushing the guy and attacking Zink. So it gives him a little bit an ouch, because it's not like they don't have a face-off and he gets countered and beat up.
02:18:39
Speaker
This guy runs at him, starts punching hitting him, so he never quite really fully recovers, especially if he's supposed actually miss that dropkick. It's a way of losing a match real quick like that, but not looking like a loser, if that makes a lot of sense.
02:18:53
Speaker
There's a lot of those ones where they throw some random slub that, you know, he's an indie worker guy and he's only on there to get beaten up by, you know, your Randy Savage or your Rick Rude, is in this case, I suppose that their whole job is to get to look bad and get beaten up.
02:19:09
Speaker
This is obviously better than that because Zig is an actual talent on the show. so I like that they gave him a little bit of protection there. I just said, though, that mask is extremely ineffective.
02:19:21
Speaker
Yeah, if I know. was this The poor guy had it part of it in his mouth the entire time. Oh, God. Yeah. It's not even the only one that works. like Like, I think the creatures and the guy that comes out in the Chamber of Horrors match are all wearing that same type of mask. And all of them have that kind of trouble with it at some point.
02:19:37
Speaker
Yeah. It's weird because, like, you know, they had a very famous incident of them trying to put a guy in a mask less than a year ago, as I recall. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And not learning from that, are we?
02:19:49
Speaker
Not at all. At least this one isn't smushing the poor mask guy schnoz. Yeah. Into his face, though. So maybe that's the issue. They overcompensated. Yeah. Yeah, probably. They made him as too small for Ric Flair at Starcade before. Like, OK, well, don't make it the exact size the face because it's going to really stretch on them. Make it make it looser.
02:20:09
Speaker
And then we see what happened there. Yeah.
02:20:14
Speaker
I mean, yeah, they make masks that don't have that weird sort of cut into it. I don't know why they went with this design. You have the ones where they have the ice cut out and then like it goes down just above the mouth. So be fitted correctly and then just run the chin and then back under again.
02:20:30
Speaker
as someone who literally owns a Lucha mask himself, I know how these things are supposed to work. and So it's weird that a wrestling company does not know how these things are supposed to work. Yeah. Yeah.
02:20:42
Speaker
Of the four matches on this show that are some variety of squash match, this is the most forgivable. Sure. Because it is at least debuting an entirely new character or a character who will remain entirely new for the next 10 to 15 minutes, then be revealed as a quite exciting return instead.
02:20:59
Speaker
That's one of the situations where I will accept a squash because the important event is not the match, it's the debut. Mm-hmm. But I'm going to disagree with you a little bit, Al, on the treatment of Z-Man here. Okay.
02:21:10
Speaker
I feel like Z-Man got squashed convincingly and brutally. I genuinely would not have been surprised if this was him leaving WCW as he gets beaten with so little offense.
02:21:22
Speaker
For me, it would have actually been better for him if he didn't even get to try the dropkick. If he just got pinned inside of 15 seconds, that for me would sell the shock angle that he just like gets attacked from behind, Rude Awakening pin immediately.
02:21:36
Speaker
But with this one, to me, it looked like he got to try to fight back, but was just bad at it. I do, though, want to really compliment him on his selling. He made Rude look like a million bucks here. Oh, yeah. And he did not even move for the rest of the segment once he got hit with the Rude Awakening.
02:21:53
Speaker
I don't have any a argument with the choice or with the result. I think it was important to use a guy at least the quality level of Tom Zenk. That was an insulting way to say it. A guy at least the level on the card of like Tom Zenk was necessary for this debut to make Phantom look great against a guy that is seen as an actual competitor.
02:22:14
Speaker
But I think they could have hurt Zenk a little bit less with this match if they did it in other ways. Sure. I'm almost wondering, and obviously can't confirm this, I could see this being a scenario where maybe the match is initially laid out, like you said, where you just hit him, boom, move boom, boom, hit him, and hit your finish.
02:22:33
Speaker
And maybe Rude's like, you know, ah I'll give one thing, but it won't be a big move, and then I'll take you down. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe in their mind, it helps Tom Zink because he does try to get off and say it doesn't work.
02:22:44
Speaker
And to your point, maybe it makes him look worse by accident. Yeah, I don't think the intent of this match was to hurt Tom Zink. I think the intent of this match was to build up Phantom slash Rick Rude. But I found it to do a surprising amount of damage to Tom Zink, considering that we're, I think, like six months away from him having that great match with Brian Pillman.
02:23:03
Speaker
Mm hmm. they definitely had to do some rebuilding to him after this match, I think. So would you consider him a phantom menace?
Enforcers vs Patriots
02:23:15
Speaker
Our 10th match is the Enforcers, AA Arn Anderson and the Living Legend Larry Zbysko versus the Patriots, Todd Champion and Firebreaker Chip for the Enforcers WSW World Tag Team Championship.
02:23:30
Speaker
Referee for this one is Randy Anderson. ah Just to note, we have Arn Anderson and Randy Anderson both in the match. No relation. So I'm going to use their first names when I refer to them.
02:23:41
Speaker
An injury to Scott Steiner earlier in year would lead to the world title titles being vacated. Zabisco and Anderson would team up together and win the tournament, besting the very beefy team of Rick Steiner and Bill Kazmaier, as mentioned before. Oh my gosh, yeah.
02:23:58
Speaker
Notably, they would win him on Clash 16, the previous clash back September. As for the buildup, Bill Kazmaier was doing a sort of workout routine showing how strong he is, and they attacked him during it, thus setting up an injury angle so that they then exploit it in the match himself.
02:24:13
Speaker
Gotcha. You know, they injure his arm in the attack, and then they use that to win. This appears to be their most operandi because they do the same thing to bury Wyndham early in the show when they viewed him as ah as a future threat.
02:24:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting that they didn't do that to the Patriots. Yeah. Just like, what is that? you're You're not enough of a threat for us to bother slamming your hand in the door. I, yeah, I guess not.
02:24:36
Speaker
Or maybe they just thought that Todd champion might be armed. get Yeah. You know, being a, at least in storyline soldier. Well, the other guy's a firefighter. probably has an ax. This is entirely feasible. Yeah.
02:24:47
Speaker
Or he has one of those formations that could really, you know, that could mess you up. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Throw line between these guys isn't that big. The veteran tag team doesn't respect the comparatively rookie tag team of the Patriots here.
02:25:04
Speaker
I believe this also goes to a rule that they kind of sort of remember what they feel like it, but also not really most of the time. When it relates to the US championship as far as singles division, which is by default, there's no more contender.
02:25:19
Speaker
the United States champion is the number of contender because it's the next top champion in the company. Yeah. Which is basically how it was treated in the old NWA days back when there was one world champion, but every territory had a U.S. champion.
02:25:34
Speaker
You're the U.S. champion. Ric Flair comes to town, you fight him for the belt because you're the top guy there. Yeah, automatic number one contendership. As long as they haven't set up someone else having a claim to number one contender, U.S. champion is just kind of assumed to be number one contender.
02:25:47
Speaker
So in this case, the Patriots are the United States Tag Team Champions, so they're number one contenders. And yeah, just to be clear, their belts are not on the line in this match. It's only the world belts that on the line. Mm-hmm. The Patriots come out first.
02:26:01
Speaker
Champion dressed like a Saturday morning cartoon version of a soldier, though I do love the parade. And Firebreaker Chip dressed in what I can only describe as a fireman-themed stripper's outfit. Yeah, I was getting real American Males vibe.
02:26:14
Speaker
Yes. He's ah shirtless with suspenders and fireman pants. They both will lose the extra stuff in favor of their reasonable, if still, colorful gear to actually wrestle, though.
02:26:26
Speaker
The Enforcers are out next. Interesting that they named the team that, since that's associated more with Arne when he's in the Four Horsemen. It'd be like if Flair was in a tag team and they called it the Nature Boys.
02:26:37
Speaker
They could be the Enforcers, they could be the Crunchers, which you would you rather be? ah True. Well, they could be the Living Legends, if they wanted to use Abyssal's other nickname instead. Yeah, that's true. Which would actually be a great tag team name, now that I think about it. Yeah.
02:26:50
Speaker
You would expect to see Captain America walk out then, though, but you know. Mm-hmm, yeah. This is a fascinating match gimmick wise. You've got the very, very G.I. Joe slash Saturday morning cartoons looking Patriots where their gimmicks basically just being non wrestling jobs and their bright, colorful cartoonish outfits.
02:27:08
Speaker
Yeah. And then you've got the enforcers dressed in just basic wrestling gear with zero extra flash, just deadly serious wrestling personas. Mm hmm. Neither is necessarily a lesser part of wrestling. It's by nature a mix of heavily gimmicked performers and more pure wrestling characters.
02:27:23
Speaker
It's just kind of rare to see such a clear dividing line in one single match. Yeah, yeah. Especially with both being champions. It'd be like, for again, going back to the American Males comparison, if American Males Scotty Riggs is challenging Ric Flair.
02:27:38
Speaker
Yeah. And even Flair is at least like still quite heavily gimmicked. Yeah, true. This is more like, yeah, Scotty Riggs challenges Dean Malenko. Yeah.
02:27:49
Speaker
So yeah, both teams being champions is an interesting aspect to Todd's a double champion. Actually, is he a tag champion? His name is champion. That's true. Also interesting. This match is not a replacement match as Wyndham was scheduled bizarrely to be in the chamber of horrors match.
02:28:03
Speaker
Question mark on that. Like why? Yeah. So the enforcers injured their future opponent rather than their current opponents. Yeah. Tony explains that they just didn't want to worry about a future challenge.
02:28:15
Speaker
So this is just kind of their way of clearing their headspace to be ready for the present. We've had some of that stuff on earlier shows where they're talking about, say, Sting being worried about a future match with Vader.
02:28:26
Speaker
So he's distracted in his current match or things like that. Yeah. So just slam Vader's hand in a car door, Sting. Consider it. Yeah. Yeah.
02:28:36
Speaker
Zabisco and Chip start us off. Zabisco, of course, mouths off a lot as he and Chip trade off abdominal stretches and Chip gets one with a scoop slam and counters a neckbreaker with a backslide.
02:28:47
Speaker
Tony calls Zabisco a miserable person. Tagged to Arn, who smiles, claps, and mockingly salutes Champion. He and Chip try to grapple each other but struggle all across the ring and Arn spills out through the ropes.
02:29:01
Speaker
Arn complains that Chip is oiled up. Chip gets the better of a short counter-wrestling segment and tags Champion. They slightly mistime one of those confusing pull-on-the-ropes-and-the-other-guy-forward-flips-over-them bits.
02:29:14
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Arne was pushing forward when Champion flipped. Then they do another one, but Champion dodges by letting go of the rope briefly and does it to Arnn instead. i I don't understand the supposed physics of that spot.
02:29:27
Speaker
Yeah. Why does one guy pulling on the ropes a little bit while the other guy holds them send him absolutely flying? I get them going off balance a little maybe, but the physics do not work here for me.
02:29:38
Speaker
Yeah, this is foreshadowing the wrestling physics of the Canadian Destroyer in present day.
02:29:45
Speaker
Arn tries to pile drive Champion on the floor, but Champion counters with a back body drop. Back in, Champion grabs an elevated bear hug, but before that has a chance to turn boring, Zabisco runs in and hits Champion.
02:29:58
Speaker
Chip tries to stop him, but accidentally distracts Randy, so Zabisco and Arn try to double team Champion, who just double clotheslines them down. Zabisco signals a timeout. tag to Zabisco, who slaps Champion in the face, gets him to chase him, and sneakily tags Arn as he comes back in.
02:30:15
Speaker
Arn grabs the unaware Champion from behind for as a Zabisco spin kick. Chip protests, so Arn takes the opportunity to chuck Champion over the top rope and looks so smug as Chip continues accidentally distracting Randy and Zabisco rams Champion into the barricade.
02:30:31
Speaker
Absolutely disastrous sequence for the Patriots there. Yeah. Zabisco and Arn trade off wearing Champion down, attempting pins off a Zabisco rotating slam, Zabisco swinging neckbreaker, and Zabisco backbreaker, cutting off his comebacks, including a slightly odd point where Champion picks Arn up for an atomic drop, but Arn tags Zabisco, but Champion just kind of sets Arn down.
02:30:54
Speaker
But Arn sells anyway, so Champion follows him and gets hit by a Zabisco jumping axe handle. I'm guessing Champion was supposed to hit the move there, but didn't. It's a weird bit. Yeah, very possibly.
02:31:05
Speaker
Champion eventually counters a Zabisco suplex with his own, and tags Chip, who runs wild with punches, slams, and dropkicks to the enforcers. Impressively, while going for a power slam off a whip, he realizes his grip isn't quite right, so he manages to keep Arn up, shifts his grip around, and completes the move for two.
02:31:25
Speaker
Zabisco saves, and Champion joins the fray, but Arn whips Chip into Zabisco, knocking Zabisco to the ramp. As Champion goes after Zabisco, Arn catches the rebounding Chip with his beautiful spinebuster for the three count and the win.
02:31:39
Speaker
Champion didn't even notice he was in trouble. Arn does his cutthroat pose and celebrates as Tony says, once again, experience overcomes youth. Thoughts on this one?
02:31:51
Speaker
but this is a pretty decent match. I like the story they were trying to tell here. The more powerful but inexperienced wrestlers against the older veterans, you know, that know all the sticky tricks there.
02:32:03
Speaker
It's a pretty simple story, but unless you have really bad rookies that legit drop the people in their heads, it works pretty well. This match obviously is far from perfect, but nothing that disastrous happens, thankfully so.
02:32:18
Speaker
It's kind of weird to compare the two matches, but I have similar issue with the pacing in this match as I did with the light heavyweight match before. For me, when matches siding, you get into the third gear and then, you know, you have a big sequence.
02:32:33
Speaker
They never really quite get there for me. They, again, it's never really slow and boring. They don't, you know, work like six version, the arm hold or ah chin lock for five minutes. But yeah.
02:32:44
Speaker
There's no like sense of urgency in a lot of bits here. Once they get to, I guess it'd be second gear, they kind of just date that little match. I do like the sort of misdirect on the finish there that ship is thrown and bounces into Zbysko.
02:32:59
Speaker
Sort of a weird frenemies thing going with Aderson and Zbysko where he's willing to use Zbysko as a weapon against the second win the match. Yeah, I'm not sure in storyline if that's supposed to be 100% intentional or if it's supposed to be that Anderson's just a veteran enough wrestler that he is able to take advantage of what happened.
02:33:20
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I mean, obviously, in actuality, Zabisco's exactly where he's supposed to be. But like in the Mad storyline, it feels like Zabisco ends up there rather than necessarily originally intending to be there.
02:33:33
Speaker
I don't know Yeah. So my read on it was just like, it's Anderson taking advantage of what happened to occur rather than him intentionally throwing the guy into him. But I mean, either way works, frankly. Yeah, my thing on is it wouldn't work if you just throw him off the ropes and got the spinebuster because he's in full control. Whereas this one, whether he's bumping into you know his own part, a champion or his abisco or, you know, the corner, for instance, anything like that, even the ref.
02:33:59
Speaker
The idea is he bumps and he's sort of off guard and yeah he's coming back towards and that takes advantage of it. It's absolutely terrific spot. i i loved loved that use for getting to the spinebuster. That was terrific.
02:34:10
Speaker
Yeah, there's another case of where I don't think they bury the Patriots too much, which is good because they are technically the face of a smaller tag division in the company. So you should have be careful with champion versus champion matches, ah whether they're Todd or otherwise, because you you're in the risk of really developing another division.
02:34:29
Speaker
I recall there's a period in WWE where they would have cruiserweight champions would be challenging larger champions for belts and not look great a lot the time. you're like, oh,
02:34:40
Speaker
that's how That's how you feel about us. This is definitely not a case of that. I do like that they kind of like for me was the thing that they give them a little bit out, at least with that finished part of it. This to me feels more like both sides of the match getting respected.
02:34:53
Speaker
This is an ordinary tag match in outline. There's nothing worse that happens to the Patriots than this than happens to Ricky Morton on a regular basis. So absolutely. Yeah.
02:35:05
Speaker
Yeah, i thought this was a very fun little tag match, in large part thanks to Arn and Larry just having so much wonderful heelish character. Larry is a terrific, whiny little brat, and Arn is just so beautifully smug and confident.
02:35:19
Speaker
The storyline of youth and power versus experience and strategy slash cheating works really well here, and the enforcers have so many sneaky little tricks that are all perfectly timed, particularly those stealthy tags. They're great team.
02:35:31
Speaker
Not to sell the Patriots short, they did their part for sure, and though their moves and styles are fairly generic, they executed their moves well for the most part, and showed some quite impressive feats of strength, particularly Chip's grip correction mid-powerslam.
02:35:43
Speaker
If there is a flaw here, I would say that the Enforcers do feel perhaps a little too strong, given the Patriots are the US Tag Champs. This isn't a squash, but the Enforcers don't feel particularly in trouble at any point, so it could have been made a little bit closer, I guess.
02:35:57
Speaker
Yeah, this one for me comes off as champion and chip are just naturally really gifted athletes, big and strong, or maybe not as big and strong, but still very strong in the chip.
02:36:11
Speaker
But they don't have the experience and they have the sort of guile and wiliness of ah the Enforcers. Yeah, I feel like you you can sell it quite nicely as this didn't go well for the Patriots, but it really was like the worst possible matchup for them.
02:36:26
Speaker
The Enforcers are just so strategic and tactical and clever that you could not just overwhelm them. Yeah. Where if you put them up against you know a team that was more based around speed or power or something like that,
02:36:42
Speaker
Put them up against, say, Doom last year, which by no means a worse tag team than the Enforcers or anything. But no, in terms of storyline, put them might be up against Doom and they might have ah more of a chance.
02:36:53
Speaker
Put them up against the Enforcers and there's just too much going on for them to keep up with. Yeah. One really nice point I have to compliment this match on, though. Chip very much learns his lesson about distracting the ref by mistake.
02:37:06
Speaker
He does it a few times and then he stops, which the commentators actually point out. Oh, yeah. There's a point late match where one of our Nersabisco is taunting him and he does not get drawn over.
02:37:19
Speaker
He does better than Butch Reed at that then. ah that match last year. Yeah. So overall, I thought maybe maybe a slightly too one sided, but a very fun watch nonetheless.
02:37:31
Speaker
I can see this being a um very good inspiration for some Patriot character development if you showed them really learning from this defeat.
02:37:39
Speaker
As set up earlier, the young pistols in that promo that I said doesn't matter in this show does matter later. They would fully turn heel based on that promo and their actions and defeat the Patriots for the US Tag Team Championships.
02:37:53
Speaker
So this is one of those ones we're still in the pre-taping era, so bear that in mind. yeah So they would tape the match. According to all the sources they could find, the match was taped on November 5th, but wouldn't air until December Kind of a big gap there, not like a week or two out. I'm not sure why a match airs a month after it was taped, but I guess it does.
02:38:16
Speaker
Speaking of the other champions match, just two weeks after the title loss was taped, Again, the date is important there. The Enforcement would drop the tag titles to the duo of Dustin Rhodes and Ricky Steamboat returning and replacing Barry Windham, who was injured this night.
02:38:33
Speaker
Ooh. It's the case of your plan very back much backfiring. Yeah, to say that's a, I mean, Barry Windham's good, but that's a bad trade for the Enforcement. Yeah, exactly. You got rid of Barry Windham and you got Ricky Steamboat.
02:38:48
Speaker
Oh, yeah. That's almost bad enough to make Arn Anderson swear off slamming people's hands indoors for at least a month. Yes.
02:38:59
Speaker
And fittingly, the tag championship run of Arn Anderson and Laird's Biscoe would begin at Clash 16 and end at Clash 17. Oh, okay. Nice little framing there. Yeah.
02:39:11
Speaker
JR, as they come back from the replay, is adjusting his headset, and he and Tony have a chuckle, JR noting it's live television. I would love to know what happened there. Did he accidentally knock it off at some point?
02:39:22
Speaker
Yeah. JR says that was a tremendous victory for the Enforcers, who proved why they are the best tag team in the world today. I think that's a fair assessment, but I have to say that that statement just highlights for me how many really good tag teams have gone away since the last show.
02:39:39
Speaker
We lost the Midnight Express, the Rock and Roll Express, and Doom just off the top of my head. True, yeah. JR throws to Eric Bischoff, who has an interview with someone who always has a lot to say.
02:39:51
Speaker
Tony says Eric didn't find the phantom, but he found someone else. Cut to Count Bistula on the entrance ramp, who introduces Paul E. Dangerously, accompanied by Medusa.
Paul E. Dangerously's WCW Challenge
02:40:04
Speaker
Well, thanks, Jim and Tony. And what a great night of WCW action. We've still got our two out of three fall match for the heavyweight champion of the world to come. But I'm here because I've been told that my former broadcast colleague, Paul E. Dangerously, has some news that is going to shock WCW.
02:40:23
Speaker
People do that phrasing. It's always worrisome when you pause after shock in a WCW show. do so Yes. Paulie Dangerously, I'll ask you point blank, what is this earth-shattering news?
02:40:35
Speaker
First of all, there's a story that nobody here has had the guts to break. For those you who have been watching television and haven't seen me for a couple of weeks, WCW is headed by a steering committee, a bunch of modern-day Einsteins that don't realize it's 1991.
02:40:53
Speaker
See, these guys think I'm too controversial. These guys say polydeterously, you're too outspoken. So they say to me, Paul, eat dangerously.
02:41:06
Speaker
You are no longer the co-host of world championship wrestling.
02:41:17
Speaker
Now, this means war. This means war on the championship committee. This means war on world championship wrestling. Because in case you forgot, I happen to have a manager's license.
02:41:34
Speaker
And the way bankrupt this whole damn company is to take away your heroes. And I'm starting right at the top with Sting. Because what would WCW do without Sting? So, I went out and got the First Lady of World Championship Wrestling, Medusa.
02:41:55
Speaker
And I said, Medusa... Find me the man that can eliminate Sting for good. Find me this man, and this man is here in this building tonight.
02:42:07
Speaker
And Jim Ross couldn't pull his mask off. And Tony Schiavone couldn't pull his mask off. Maybe you could have, but he's been in the back watching the World Series game.
02:42:19
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, the man Medusa brought to me is here tonight.
02:42:37
Speaker
Behind this mask is the only man on the face of the planet that can help me bankrupt this company till I can fire every single person that has stood in my way.
02:42:52
Speaker
The man behind this mask is the only man that's ever eliminated each and every person in his way.
02:43:16
Speaker
peace, stinger, your career is over. Ladies and gentlemen, the next United States heavyweight champion ravages the grand prize.
02:43:34
Speaker
that incredible or what? What a coup. That's right, people. It's Ravaging Rick Groove. And anybody who knows Ravaging Rick Groove knows that all care about is myself, my women, and my money.
02:44:00
Speaker
It just so happens that my money man has a problem with the World Championship Committee. And the way he brick by brick.
02:44:24
Speaker
can tell where he's recently been. Yeah, right? What better way, Mr. Dangerously, to start off than with a low-life scumbag like Sting?
02:44:41
Speaker
you know, Mr. Dangerously, couple questions come to my mind, being that I've never had the opportunity to stand face to face with the stinger.
02:44:53
Speaker
I'm kind of wondering if he's really as small as he looks on television. I'm kinda wondering if he is the low life garbage collected scumbag that he portrays on TV.
02:45:10
Speaker
Well, Sting, your days are numbered. I'm gonna tear apart the WCW and I'm gonna take your United States title.
02:45:21
Speaker
For Paul's portion of this promo, he very much channels his later ECW self, talking about being controversial and outspoken and kicked off TV and such. Exactly the same brash and aggressive persona he'll later adopt as a promoter of his own company.
02:45:36
Speaker
I genuinely love the story concept here. It's ticked off that the company is going to get revenge by hurting the people the company depends on. Yeah. I love it because while it does play with kayfabe a little, it's also true in the fictional reality.
02:45:49
Speaker
Even if you take this as a real athletic competition, certain athletes can be popular and good for the company's ticket sales and such. Yeah. As we see even in real sports. Mm-hmm. He does have a bit of an awkward wording at one point.
02:46:03
Speaker
Yeah. As he says, he wants to eliminate Sting, so he went out and found Medusa. Which makes it sound like he wanted Medusa to face Sting. Until he adds, he told her to find him a man to challenge Sting.
02:46:16
Speaker
I think it came off as far more sexist than it was intended to, just because of the progression there. Yeah, maybe. could throw to you that. One last thing.
02:46:26
Speaker
His poem was almost brilliant. But he should have said, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Rest in peace, Stinger. Your career is a bust. Oh, yeah. There you go Better rhyming.
02:46:37
Speaker
Better rapping than PN News. that that is That is true, yes. As we said earlier, ah that that low bar stepping over. yeah Exactly, yeah. Rude's part of the promo sadly gets drowned out by his own music in part, but he does get across his points quite well in the end, and he comes off as quite a significant challenge to the Stinger and an immediately hateable character as well.
02:47:00
Speaker
Meanwhile, Paul E. Dangerously was massaging his massive old cell phone in a manner that could only be described as seductive. Mm-hmm. Yes. Not a sentence I thought I would be saying.
02:47:11
Speaker
Well, look, those batteries are not great. You got to really make a static charge for the state to affect that. You got to just rub that thing down. That's how he's powering it. I gotcha. Exactly. Yeah. And of course, Rude repeatedly says the WCW as he was recently in the wf WWF and everybody makes that mistake. It's a dead giveaway for where you've been.
02:47:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's true. Yes. Aside from that really good promo segment. I was thinking about his thing where he said he never got to face Sting. And I remember the timeline. I think that that is true. Yeah, I think he leaves just before a Sting comes in for the first time. Yeah.
02:47:44
Speaker
Yes, the last time we see him in the original timeline of this show is Stargate. I think it's Stargate 86, I believe. I believe that's the one that he has the strap match with Wahoo McDaniel at, is it?
02:47:56
Speaker
Yeah, we very much, by the way, did not take out of the game. So maybe maybe after he left the WCW, he started taking everybody out because, yeah, he didn't take Wahoo. That's for sure.
02:48:09
Speaker
Unless it was in the theme song competition at the time, because man, that film noir theme. Yeah. Yeah. It's a shame they weren't licensing music like they were in later years.
02:48:20
Speaker
Just put that on ah on a CD or I guess at the time it'd be a cassette tape, but it'd be a CD later. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess he basically leaves WCW right before Sting comes in. Sting comes in with the UWF that's bought out in 97. Mm hmm.
02:48:36
Speaker
Yeah, so I was thinking, like, does that make sense? Yeah, he you really, really do cross paths like that. Yep. Interesting to think about that. Yeah, considering both guys are so prominent when they're in WCW, it is kind of shocking that they, like, just have that near miss before.
02:48:51
Speaker
Exactly, yeah. So I really liked Paul's promo here. Like you said, it's very much future Paul Heyman promo. He has some really good ones where he's like cutting down the WBF, you know, when he's part of the invasion or when he's, you know, kind on the network that's putting on TV because that definitely wouldn't backfire.
02:49:08
Speaker
ECW. Paul Heyman, good speaker, not necessarily the best at decision making. Yes. I always remember my first time seeing him was Beyond the Mat.
02:49:20
Speaker
in that movie where they show the sort of prep for ECW's first big preview. And he gives sort of raw, raw speech to the wrestlers who are going to on the show. Is that the you've made it to the dance speech?
02:49:31
Speaker
Yes, that's the one. Yeah, that's that's good. I liked his promo so much. He almost could get really in consideration for MVP in the show. If he just appeared a little more in the show, like if he had done something else, he had really was sealed it.
02:49:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's a really, really good establishment of heel faction promo. Yeah. You immediately know what this faction is about, know what they're trying to accomplish, and strongly dislike them because they're coming after the absolutely beloved Sting.
02:50:03
Speaker
It's a magnificent promo, honestly. Absolutely, yeah. I definitely feel bad for Rue because, like I said, the first part of the promo was cut off by the music. I think maybe they're expecting the reveal to take longer. i think so. Yeah, that's all I can figure. Because it's funny the transition he goes between his match and then this bit.
02:50:22
Speaker
Because for the match, he comes out with the hat and the cape and the full body suit plus the mask. But for this one, he basically takes the bodysuit off. He puts on his regular Rick Rude tights, then puts the hat and cape back on and basically just hold it really closely around him. So you don't see his legs. Yes. Because that gives the whole game away.
02:50:41
Speaker
I mean, let's be clear. It was already given away. But yeah. And their minds like yeah their mind. Yeah. Some kid in the far back row didn't quite figure it out. So, you know, you don't want to spoil it for them. and So maybe they're expecting him to like rip the bodysuit or like do his posing a bit. And then he'd pull the mask off, pull the cape away. He's just already wearing the outfit.
02:51:02
Speaker
Maybe they couldn't get the tearaway pants look to go quite right. right Who knows? I mean, I could see, too. I mean, Rick Root is known for doing those quite long entrances where he does his poses and a little bit dancing and that kind of stuff.
02:51:16
Speaker
So I could see them having expected him to do something like that for a little bit. And then they get the urgent signal. Wait, he's already talking. Yeah. And have to take a moment to get that to the person running the sound.
02:51:29
Speaker
hmm. It so doesn't kill the promo because Heyman's bit is so good. And his bit when you can actually hear him properly is also really good. That being McRude. So yeah, other than the fact that this is built around a reveal that was immediately off as second to see the guy walking to the ring for his match earlier.
02:51:45
Speaker
This is definitely them making the best out of a bad start in situation like this. Yes. Yeah. You can almost forgive how bad the reveal is at the match by how good the actual reveal here is.
02:52:00
Speaker
You got to look at things like this in the plot versus the costuming. Yeah, sure. The costuming for this is terrible. The plot for this is excellent.
02:52:11
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair.
02:52:14
Speaker
So at Clash 17, a match would be booked between Rick Rude and US s Champion Sting. They'd always make the whole show about the story. the beginning the show, Sting would do a promo about how he's going to beat Rude.
02:52:26
Speaker
He'd then be sneak attacked and his leg would be damaged. His knee would be messed up. Which is kind of a good storyline thing, because obviously he was going to fight Flair about about two years back at this point, and he was just knee. So it makes it a natural place you attack.
02:52:40
Speaker
Throughout the show, they worked a bit where Bobby Eden, who had not turned heel yet officially, is telling Sting, oh, we go to hospital, he got plenty of time. Don't worry, be back for your match. You know, we go to be good. It's definitely not telling him that apparently the WCW commissioners decided that if doesn't show up for his match, he'll be stripped the title and Rube just get it.
02:52:59
Speaker
Ah. Once he figures it out, he you know he doesn't do the full Steve Austin driving much back to the arena thing, but as close as you you would do in the pre-adjust era. He comes out to the ring, of course. His leg is still injured.
02:53:12
Speaker
And even though he finally fights Rude, he can't beat him because he's just a disadvantage. And then the new faction, now including Eaton and Medusa, celebrate the victory. So, fair play. I mean, they go from, again, a really bad setup for who's this Phantom that's Rick Rude to a great promo and segment revealing Rick Rude to immediate success for Rick Rude.
02:53:37
Speaker
He doesn't fight Sting and you lose via count out or wind via disqualification or something. They set a goal, immediately they get it. Yeah. It's a fair play. Yeah. And just like quick question on that point.
02:53:49
Speaker
Do you think the reveal is let's assume that the costuming works better. Assuming that the costuming goes off, right. Do you think that the whole phantom aspect of this is worthwhile?
02:54:02
Speaker
Hmm. Or would it be just as strong if they just had Paul Heyman come out and announce Rick Rude? Yeah. Do you need him to come out in a mask for a match? Yeah, I don't think you really do do you?
02:54:15
Speaker
Obviously, it's them embracing the theme of the Halloween having things. So can't be mad about that. This is true. Yeah. We objectively, if this is happening on, say, Starcade, it's not some terrible battle ball show.
02:54:27
Speaker
I could see you doing the reveal there with none of the extra nonsense. Yeah. Of like a mask and hat and cape. Yeah. I think you could have done just as well with like, play it like the third man of the NWO bit.
02:54:40
Speaker
Have them say there's someone backstage. Paul Heyman has someone backstage and we don't know who it is. I think you do need some kind of mystery angle to it, but I don't think you have to have him come out for a match because Rick Roode, I think is, even if you haven't watched that much of the WWF,
02:54:57
Speaker
Rick Rude, I think, is bigot of name and big enough performer that you probably get a big reaction from him coming out even without any buildup beyond just saying there's a mystery person around.
02:55:08
Speaker
Yeah, and I can see the point in there. Yeah, I think this goes back to like last year's show where you're talking about how they almost kind of ruin a good sting to vicious match with all that nonsense with the fake sting and all that.
02:55:22
Speaker
So they're doing this extra stuff they don't need to do. And it it does risk the actual important stuff not looking as good. Yeah, it doesn't end up ruining it here, but no, there's ways that it could have.
02:55:35
Speaker
It was riskier than they needed to go with it. I think they really could have just gone with like a little bit of talk and then this reveal. Yeah, I could even see them if they had put that opening ridiculous nonsense match a different place.
02:55:49
Speaker
Sting and his team win, they celebrate and Sting is suddenly attacked from behind by a mysterious person who doesn't, you know, that's really where the matches sort of do it quickly And then reveal Trick Root and then do the promo where they beat up Sting and like throw him off the ramp or something. And then the promo where he's being helped away or something.
02:56:06
Speaker
That could work as well. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah, so I get the idea in sense that aside from just the thematics of Halloween, they really did push this whole who is a Halloween phantom thing on television.
02:56:18
Speaker
And they really thought that's going to be a big buy rate. You could have said we're going introduce the mystery challenger for Sting on this show without him being some sort of burn victim of his opera.
02:56:29
Speaker
ah Yes.
02:56:32
Speaker
We cut back to the commentators and J.R. says that Paul was suspended for being too controversial, but now he's back and it's like he picked an all American in the draft. Ironic, considering that all American Ron Simmons will be out next.
02:56:45
Speaker
Yeah, true.
Simmons vs Luger Title Match
02:56:47
Speaker
Turning to the upcoming match between Luger and Simmons, J.R. throws to a video package building up Ron Simmons.
02:56:55
Speaker
thought what a better place for me to come and prepare myself than right here where it all began for me, right here on the campus of FSU. you know, when came down here, since was consensus All-American.
02:57:06
Speaker
When I come down here with the desire and determination that i wanted to be the best I could, and I was. So I wanted to come here and capture some of that. And here I am, and I'm going to give it everything that I've got to be the World Heavyweight Champion.
02:57:22
Speaker
We see Simmons at Florida State University, seeing his own honors display, including some art of himself, and running some football training exercises, demonstrating his athleticism very well.
02:57:42
Speaker
He meets with Coach Bobby Bowden, who tells him, If know you, you know exactly what it's going to take to win this game. If I know you, you've done everything you possible possibly can do to prepare for it. So just just remember the things I used to tell you when you're here.
02:57:58
Speaker
Don't worry about winning it. You just go out and work and fight and strap the hardest you can do and do the very best you can do. We don't know any other way.
02:58:08
Speaker
And then we just let the chips fall where they are. I want you to know this. When y'all get locked up and it's pretty tight and you think he might be about to turn you, just don't forget the old coach is sitting out there looking whispering the prayer.
02:58:34
Speaker
Slightly oddly worded advice from Bowden, though I get the idea. You know, don't get all tense. Just do what you do best and you'll be fine. But really, this was absolutely brilliant. hu One of the single best video packages that WCW has ever done.
02:58:49
Speaker
Simmons gets to look like an absolute hero, showing what made him famous and the honor he's received. It's very well produced, and it shows Simmons as a hardworking athlete who's beloved by those who knew him.
02:59:00
Speaker
It's maybe slightly hard to square with his time with Doom, but if you weren't adoring Ron Simmons and rooting hard for him before this video package, you definitely are now. I think there's only one really important thing missing from this video package.
02:59:15
Speaker
We gotta go a full Rocky IV, Bob.
02:59:19
Speaker
We need Ron Simmons, you know, running up, doing sprints, doing his tackle training, and then cross-cutting with Lex Luger, you know, using experimental weightlifting techniques and, you know, punching, show how strong he is, and you know, injecting steroids, all that kind of stuff.
02:59:35
Speaker
I mean, he is Drago here, right? He is the Ivan Drago in this scenario, yes. I joke, but I mean, that part of why that whole thing in Rocky IV works is they're cross-cutting with Rocky, you know, getting his roots and he's real manly and real down to earth kind of stuff.
02:59:52
Speaker
And the kind Drago's in his like state of the art for the eighty s gym and, you know, doing all these spiritual techniques and all this stuff. So it's a good contrast there. It's just kind of a shame that we don't get anything with Lex Luger, even if we don't go full Ivan Drago here as a contrast.
03:00:08
Speaker
Mm hmm. But yeah, it's really good. It's it's just it should be nothing for like Suga. guess they figure he's already the world champ and we'd be building it pretty well. We don't need to give him a video package as well. Are you in a response?
03:00:18
Speaker
Which I think is i think it's somewhat fair. I mean, Luger is a very much a known name and already main event guy. Yeah. So, yeah, I think Simmons is the one that needs to be brought up to the main event level with this kind of presentation and stuff. So, yeah.
03:00:33
Speaker
It's very JRPG, but I really love the soundtrack to it as well. Mm-hmm. That very like heroic theme kind of. they They've done a ah decent job with the music selection. Yeah. Well, the other person that made when we were watching this originally is it reminded me a lot of the ability to SummerSlam 2002, I believe, where they're building up to Brock Lesnar challenging the rock for the world title.
03:00:53
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Because that that one, again, they really did the whole thing about the Rockwood Back to the Roots. He was doing step training and all this thick football training that he did in his early days, college and then CFL.
03:01:03
Speaker
And they had Brock Lesnar as this beast. It was like doing resistance training with like a tree and all this crazy stuff. That is a very famous package as well. So that's high praise for me that I think of that one when I see this one.
03:01:15
Speaker
Mm hmm.
03:01:18
Speaker
So our final match is the All-American Ron Simmons with the American Dream Dusty Rhodes versus the Total Package Lex Luger with Mr. Hughes and Harley Race in a two out of three falls match for Luger's WCW World Heavyweight Championship.
03:01:34
Speaker
The referee for this one is Nick Patrick, sans horrible camera helmet. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. Absolutely.
03:01:43
Speaker
So a lot has happened involving the world title since the last show we covered. Ric Flair? Yeah, he's gone. We'll discuss that more when you go to American Fast 91 or even the show after that, because there's a lot to cover about that.
03:01:55
Speaker
yeah have time for that. We already talked enough on this show. All you got to know is that Lex Luger turned heel during that match is now world champion. And you know heel because he has a manager and a bodyguard.
03:02:07
Speaker
Even in the late 80s, if you're a Hogan, you can have a manager, Jimmy Hart, but you can't have a bodyguard because that implies you're weak. Fair enough, yeah. That's just wrestling rules there. At this point, they're really being a bronze Simmons.
03:02:19
Speaker
He's got a name value as a natural athlete in his football career. He turned face, not completely by default. It wasn't the I betrayed you. So now you're a face thing. He did act more of a good guy before he's betrayed.
03:02:33
Speaker
And he's obviously been a good guy since Doom broke up and him between had a blow off angle. The key thing here is that Dusty Rhodes is behind him, both literally and figuratively in this case.
03:02:44
Speaker
Dusty is really the guy pushing for Ron Simmons to be pushed the world title here. So in storyline, he's also supporting because he's agreed to manage him as a one-time thing, which I'll explain later.
03:02:56
Speaker
As far as the two at three falls thing, it seems like the idea is that it's going back to the early days and the roots of world championships where every world title match was two at three falls. You know, your Frank Gotches, your Hackensmiths, you'd have these 60 minute matches, three falls. It would be all hard fought because the world title is so important. You can't be sided by a single fall.
03:03:18
Speaker
That could be a fluke count out or a lucky shot. Right. I love the concept of doing world title matches, two out of three falls. Like you said, it it makes the title changes feel earned.
03:03:29
Speaker
And I think it opens up more story possibilities as well. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. In a way, kind of a shame that this is apparently the first one they ever did on pay-per-view. I don't recall us seeing any yet in the Stargate run, so that feels right, yeah.
03:03:43
Speaker
Now, they do qualify. i believe they've done versions of two of the evolved matches for various titles on the Clash of Champions and TV specials. Yeah, I think they do specifically say on pay-per-view.
03:03:54
Speaker
Correct, they do, yeah. Simmons is out first, accompanied by Dusty Rhodes in tie-dye. Luger is out next, and some people actually quickly run out with big gold sparkly letters spelling Luger.
03:04:07
Speaker
That was impressively fast for WCW. He appears to briefly lose his balance on the ramp. Luger is accompanied by Harley Race and Mr. Hughes, but Patrick soon sends Hughes to the back.
03:04:21
Speaker
We get to hear Patrick giving instructions to Simmons and Luger and going through the pre-match rituals. We hear that better than on many shows where they make a really big deal out of it. Just think, if we could see him looking down at the ropes while he was doing that, it'd be better.
03:04:37
Speaker
Simmons stares straight at Luger for the duration, not even looking at the title belt, and Luger stands absolutely still as Patrick gets Rhodes and Race to their places. As we start, JR mentions what I believe I mentioned on a prior show, that Luger and Simmons were actually teammates in the USFL's Tampa Bay Bandits team.
03:04:56
Speaker
Yes. Woohoo, Tampa Bay. Oh, yeah. Neither can move the other to start, and they're roughly even on early exchanges. JR rattles off more factoids about Simmons being at FSU and Luger at University of Miami and says there was no bigger rivalry in college football.
03:05:13
Speaker
I always think more of FSU versus the University of Florida myself. JR also notes that Simmons' second, Dusty, beat Luger's second, Race, twice for the world title.
03:05:26
Speaker
Luger dodges a dropkick and beats Simmons up, selling his own strikes and taunting Simmons, but Simmons fires back with a facebuster, clothesline, powerslam, and his wonderful spinebuster for the three count and the first fall.
03:05:39
Speaker
Holy crap, does that build Simmons up as a serious contender. I love this match type. You can do so much with it. Absolutely, yeah. In the break between falls, Rhodes runs in and celebrates, but tells Simmons, that's just one fall, don't get focused on it.
03:05:55
Speaker
Simmons tells Rhodes that he thinks Luger's got a hidden weapon, but Rhodes tells him he doesn't think so, but if there is, they'll find it. Rhodes says Simmons has to stay on offense. Meanwhile, Luger tells Race he needs more time and his back is messed up, further excellently selling Simmons as a massive threat.
03:06:12
Speaker
Absolutely, yes. I'm loving the very sports movie atmosphere of this match. that To your point on like Rocky and stuff, yeah the entire presentation of this match is very Rocky. Absolutely, yeah. As the second fall starts, Luger is still slumped in his corner trying to recover from the spine buster until Patrick starts counting.
03:06:32
Speaker
Luger gets to wrestling, but sells his back constantly. He can't get anything going early on, with Simmons countering both big moves and dirty tricks, and earning two counts with a double-handed bulldog, inside cradle counter to a Luger slam, and sunset flip, while Tony and JR make baseball references I don't understand.
03:06:51
Speaker
Luger finally manages to sidestep a Simmons charge and throw him through the ropes to the outside, and alternates landing blows, eye rakes and such, and selling his aching back. Luger attempts pins off an elbow drop, power slam, and clothesline and suplex.
03:07:06
Speaker
And JR and Tony point out that Luger's back injury is affecting the power of his moves and his pins. Luger grabs a chin lock and puts his feet on the ropes. And when Patrick checks, race cleverly covers for Luger by drumming on the ropes. So it looks like that's why they were moving.
03:07:21
Speaker
Just like, I'm just so into the match. Yes. Then by leaning on them on another check. Simmons fades and Patrick checks the arm for one, two, and the camera cuts to Dusty, so we miss Simmons keeping his arm up on the third.
03:07:36
Speaker
Yeah. Even on a good presentation match, they're still WCW. True. Simmons gets two counts with a roll-up and backslide, but Race grabs his foot as he bounces off the ropes.
03:07:48
Speaker
Simmons yells at him, and dusty bionic elbows Race, but soon Luger rakes Simmons' eyes, and he stumbles back to the ropes near a recovering Race, who grabs his waistband, exposing more of his backside than I wanted to see, as Luger crossbodies him.
03:08:03
Speaker
Luger spills out, and Simmons is effectively held in place by Race and moves his arms up in reaction, so it looks like Simmons intentionally threw Luger over the top rope, drawing a disqualification to give Luger the second fall.
03:08:16
Speaker
It does get Luger a point, but that probably didn't do wonders for his back. Yeah, that's fair. JR notes we now effectively have a standard one-fall match. During the break, Dusty tells Simmons to forget that call and go on, though he and Simmons do have words with Patrick about the call and about Luger raking Simmons' eyes.
03:08:36
Speaker
Patrick promises to do his best watching. Good old trustworthy Nick Patrick. Yep, absolutely. Dusty delights in football references to encourage Simmons.
03:08:47
Speaker
Meanwhile, Luger is walking around like someone stabbed him in the spine with a big metal spike. Oh my goodness, Luger's selling in this is terrific. He is, yeah, absolutely. He's also bleeding from near his right eye. I'm guessing maybe he kind of whacked something as he fell out of the ring.
03:09:03
Speaker
Yeah, must have. Luger hides in the corner until Patrick comes to encourage him out, and Luger sneaks in a cheap shot around Patrick to Simmons' face. Luger lands blows, but Simmons just gets mad and beats the crap out of him.
03:09:19
Speaker
Simmons blocks an inverted atomic drop and clotheslines Luger for a very close two, as Dusty even climbs to the apron in preparation to celebrate. The crowd very much thought that would be it.
03:09:30
Speaker
Simmons earns another two off of it, then gets two with a superplex, but you can actually see Luger on camera calling for Simmons to cover him. I'm guessing that Simmons was selling the move, but Luger wanted to keep moving and didn't know that the camera was that close.
03:09:44
Speaker
I guess so, yeah. go Cover me!
03:09:49
Speaker
Simmons power slams Luger and hits a diving shoulder block, but Luger rolls out. Simmons runs him into the barricade, but Luger, propped against the ring post, pokes Simmons in the eyes, then dodges a charge, and Simmons hits the ring post shoulder first.
03:10:04
Speaker
Back in the ring, Luger hits the attitude adjustment pile driver for the three count, the third fall, and the win. Many fans are visibly upset by Simmons' loss as Luger hobbles his way up the entrance ramp with his belt and with Harley Race.
03:10:20
Speaker
Dusty checks on a distraught recovering Simmons. The replay shows the pile driver didn't quite go right as Simmons' head landed on Luger's knee, which could not have felt great for either.
03:10:31
Speaker
No, no. Thoughts on this one? I thought this was very strong match. It's of matches where if you look at it and really break down the moves, like in how much variety is or how they're done, it's not the most amazing match in the world.
03:10:46
Speaker
But the presentation, like the way they lay out the match is so good. Mm hmm. I think it really compensates for any issues you might have where, oh, they don't do this move enough or, you know, they do this too often or, you know, this maybe this version, the clothesline isn't as good.
03:11:01
Speaker
All the little nitpicking things you can do in a wrestling match in general, especially for world title matches, the main events where obviously the really the most scrutiny is rightfully placed because it's the selling point of the show.
03:11:14
Speaker
The match itself, good it's it's fairly basic in a lot of ways. They tell a good story with it. I mean, they make a good point of once Ron really gets an offense early on, he's able to hit spinebuster and actually pin the champion, which is a big deal. only been able to pin Luger in a long time because obviously they weren't doing two of the Evolved matches. So if this is, say, his first pinfall loss since...
03:11:35
Speaker
I think it's June. He wins the title. That's a big deal. Then Luger figures out that he's got the experience advantage over Simmons, although not by a whole lot, but by a couple of years, I think he has on him. But in storyline, he definitely does.
03:11:47
Speaker
Yeah. More importantly, has a more experience at being nefarious manager. Yes, it's very true as well. The whole second fall thing is intriguing because we wonder how much of that in storyline is like Luger's plan and how much is Harley just adjusting.
03:12:03
Speaker
I can't imagine like Luger's like, was crazy. I'm going to throw myself out of the ring. You make sure I land outside. I'll be back. That'll be totally cool. ah Yeah. Yeah, it feels to me like the storyline for that spot is that it's Harley Race calling it audible because he thinks that Luger's losing.
03:12:21
Speaker
It's just like Luger's doing a crossbody. This is desperation. So I'm going to take advantage of it. Yeah, that definitely works, I think. One thing ah really highlights the match for me and really accentuate, I should say, is Dusty doing his speeches between each round. So good. They're so good.
03:12:40
Speaker
Yeah. Because I could easily see a situation like this where you have the bigger established name like your Dusty Rhodes coming in again. He gets to go the bigger passion speech.
03:12:52
Speaker
I could see that almost overshadowing somebody. But thankfully, I think they do so much with Ron Simmons to make him look like this big star. And this guy you want to admire that even though he's not giving the big speech to prep the person for the next part the match, he doesn't look overshadowed.
03:13:10
Speaker
No, I could easily see Dusty overtaking somebody in the same position. Well, I think what they do quite nicely, and credit to Dusty on this, he makes sure that it's an interaction. Yes.
03:13:21
Speaker
It's not him just standing in the ring and giving a long speech. He's doing a lot of like back and forth with Simmons. I know there's one point where who he's repeating right or wrong, right or wrong, and Simmons is answering him. Yes. And so, one, it helps it feel more like a coach interplay with a competitor.
03:13:35
Speaker
Absolutely, yes. But also it, like you said, helps prevent Rhodes from being the only focus of the segment. We're focusing on Simmons more because Dusty is directing our attention to him.
03:13:48
Speaker
Those are masterfully done bits of work by one Dusty Rhodes. Absolutely, yeah. think my only real critique with the way they play out the finish is obviously someone has to lose because you're building up to Sting fighting Luger and win the title.
03:14:03
Speaker
I think even at this point they're aware of that. But I don't know if you want to have him take Luger's finish, even with the covering of, oh, he would simply blind and hit the ring post. I could see doing the blinding spot and run to the corner post inside the ring and Luger pins him and maybe, you know, grabs the ropes or something and does it as well.
03:14:24
Speaker
I could see that. um What I would say is, I don't think it would bother me at all if it weren't for the fact that Pillman shrugged off a similar spot earlier in the night. That's fair, yeah. Which I think does hurt this a little bit.
03:14:35
Speaker
But what I liked about it is that it actually very nicely uses the storyline they've been hinting at throughout the entire match. In one of the Dusty and Simmons segments, they start getting on Patrick about, why aren't you yelling at him when he's getting at my eyes?
03:14:52
Speaker
Yeah. So I think what they're going for there is not just that Simmons is blinded, but that Simmons is PO'd at being poked again in the eyes. Sure. That this is just not stopping.
03:15:04
Speaker
Yeah. And so he charges really hard at the ring post. I think with the emotion added to that moment, it makes it work more as a pivot for me than it otherwise would have.
03:15:14
Speaker
Oh, I get that. So I didn't have a problem with them having a hit with Luger's finisher then, because number one, I think it made him go down to a finisher level move, which I think helps make him still seem quite tough.
03:15:29
Speaker
Number two, Tony does a good job, though the replay kind of spoils it a little bit, of building up that that actually does involve then hitting on that shoulder to some extent. Sure. Yeah. So linking it to the spot that we just saw.
03:15:42
Speaker
yeah And again, Simmons going down for one pinfall doesn't undo the fact that he had a much more significant and impressive massive series of offense immediate pinfall early in the match.
03:15:53
Speaker
Oh, no, I get that. Yeah. I actually don't think the finish ruins Ron at all here. My only concern is when you do that kind of finish that you risk certain fans getting a feeling of finality there.
03:16:07
Speaker
Because Luger just finished and pins him, even if it is after having to cheat to get a second fall and, you know, losing the first time. The last thing they see Simmons going down, even if you do smoke and mirrors to help cover why he goes down to it.
03:16:23
Speaker
I think that's fair. It didn't read like that to me. Obviously, I think that's exactly how Luger will sell it as a good heel character in the coming weeks. I'd beat you quite definitively, but I think they've done enough in the match to this point to make quite clear that Ron Simmons is a massive threat to Lex Luger and a main event worthy competitor. So I didn't feel like it undid any of their storytelling at all. so like yeah I'm not necessarily saying it does. I think it runs a risk of it happening with some people.
03:16:49
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I absolutely love the two out of the three falls concept. You can do so, so much with it. Case in point, an early quick win combined with Luger's exceptional match-long selling of the back makes Simmons look incredibly strong, instantly establishing him as a serious main event contender.
03:17:08
Speaker
What follows is a terrific big man match filled with big beefy moves and a ton of emotion, where both guys get to look really good and tough and powerful, with Luger also looking wonderfully spiteful and petulant and desperate.
03:17:20
Speaker
Mm-hmm. The story of the match is great in both big and small ways. I love the general atmosphere. I love the coach gimmick for Dusty and race in the corner chats. Dusty's advice in particular was awesome for making this feel like a legit sporting event and showing the strategy element in a wrestling match more clearly than in most.
03:17:37
Speaker
The ending I found terrific. I don't think that Simmons loses anything by getting pinned. And Luger looks quite canny with him ticking Simmons off all match and then using Simmons frustration against him.
03:17:48
Speaker
Simmons basically looks great all match, but just makes two notable mistakes. He's too close to race and then he loses his temper after an eye poke. And those two mistakes cost him two falls in the match.
03:18:00
Speaker
He gets beaten by strategy and underhandedness, not power. And his one fall demonstrates solidly how amazingly strong and good of a fighter he is. So he comes out of this as a confirmed main eventer.
03:18:13
Speaker
Credit to all involved for the presentation of this, especially with the very sports-like break segments, Dusty and Race's coaching, Tony and JR's excellent work building up and analyzing the story of the match and the fight strategy, and I can't say enough good about this match, honestly, which probably gives away something for later in the night.
03:18:31
Speaker
Fair. I said this before, but it felt like watching Rocky. It's so good. I would not be surprised if this one ends up on my top three matches at the end of the series, just for the terrific combination of the actual ring performance and the narrative and presentation brilliance that this match contains.
03:18:48
Speaker
yeah and and yes i said presentation brilliance for something made by wcw i'm as shocked as you are yeah broken clocks right twice a day and all that i suppose i suppose yeah
03:19:03
Speaker
both them would up in battle bowl which if think about kind of silly lugers in battle bowl because the whole point is whoever wins battle will gets a world title shot yeah think I might have even said this maybe way back when we covered remember, honestly.
03:19:18
Speaker
New Japan, when they have the G1 Climax tournament, which is a great silly name for anything, the G1 Climax. They often have the world champion in the match or in the series, rather. It's a series of of matches where everyone fights everybody at some point.
03:19:34
Speaker
And that way it works for two reasons. One, you can have someone beat the champion during that and possibly win the tournament, thus showing they can beat him later. But also in storyline, at least if the champion wins it, he then gets to pick his own challenger.
03:19:49
Speaker
Oh, OK. They have actually addressed that. Whereas this is this Luger going, yeah, I want to be number contender to the belt they already hold. Yeah. Which on one hand, if you fight yourself, you'd automatically win, presumably.
03:20:01
Speaker
But you'd also automatically lose. And then that would mean the guy that lost would get a rematch, right? Yeah, yeah. So you end up actually facing yourself for, you know, at least two months. So it's actually a really good thing for Luger.
03:20:15
Speaker
Yeah, poor Simmons is like, I want a title shot. Sorry, Luger's fighting himself tonight. You have no problems. I am busy for the next two months just standing in the ring and eventually lying down for myself. Exactly.
03:20:28
Speaker
JR says Simmons trained really hard and came out strong, but he wonders if he spent too much of his emotion in the first fall. Tony says later on there was one point that everyone, even Dusty, thought Simmons had Luger, and he thinks not getting that pinfall took it out of Simmons and cost him his momentum.
03:20:45
Speaker
The two agree that everything would have been different if both men had gone over the ropes on the spot that got Simmons disqualified. They turn to the other events of the night, noting Pauly Dangerously's alliance with Medusa and Rick Rude, making one of the strongest forces they've seen in some time, and congratulating Brian Pillman on his win.
03:21:02
Speaker
And fireworks and a stormy purple sky show us out. And Halloween Havoc 1991 is done.
Halloween Havoc Show Review
03:21:10
Speaker
So overall thoughts on Havoc 91. So this is one of the where I think they're getting good ideas in here.
03:21:18
Speaker
They much more embrace the Halloween theme, the set decoration, and for better worse, with matches and match-related characters, be them the creatures or your Halloween phantoms, or...
03:21:30
Speaker
the but The opening match, which is terrible, but kind of in an endearing way. Yes. The tradeoff seems to be that it's a bit of a drop in overall ring quality on this show for me compared to 1990.
03:21:43
Speaker
There's more matches that are essentially squashes and the matches that if they aren't squashes, some of them just don't live a potential. You think, oh, that could be better or they could have this or that.
03:21:56
Speaker
So it's less of a show where you can pick multiple matches and segments. going Oh, you definitely need to watch this. And more of one. The whole package is really up and down and iffy at times in quality.
03:22:10
Speaker
But there's a real charm to with all the the announcers dressed up and all that sort of Halloween hijinks, as it were. Yeah, I guess it's step forward, two steps backward kind of situation, I suppose.
03:22:22
Speaker
But they have, what, nine more of these? see what they do. This was almost a really good show. It just has far too much dead weight.
03:22:35
Speaker
There's 11 matches on this, and four of them are effectively squashes, only one of which really had any right to be on the pay-per-view in my mind. yeah Add to that the exceptionally terrible mess of an opener with the Chamber of Horrors, and that's a lot of content that either should have been cut, or at least should have been better thought through.
03:22:54
Speaker
There are quite a lot of good to even great matches among the rest. In fact, I think you could make an argument for several to be match of the night. But it's astounding how much time just feels completely wasted on this show.
03:23:06
Speaker
Not just by matches, but even by promo time that has nothing to do with the actual events of the show, like the Young Pistols. Yes. Even some good things I'll compliment could just as easily have been done on the TV show, like the attack on Wyndham, which does admittedly take him out of Chamber of Horrors, but he shouldn't have been in there to begin with.
03:23:24
Speaker
And honestly, even the Halloween Phantom and his reveal, none of it really affects what's happening on this show. And pay-per-views should really be more cohesive than this. Mm-hmm. Quality-wise, the show ends up kind of middle of the road as a result.
03:23:38
Speaker
It has very high highs, but quite low lows that somewhat balance out. Though, to be fair, more of the show airtime is good than bad. And there are some tremendous moments on this where WSW pushes beyond what they usually manage to do well and actually nails it.
03:23:54
Speaker
Promo work was generally good if not always meaningful, but was plagued by technical glitches minor and major at times, the most notable being Rude being drowned out by his own music for a significant portion of his promo.
03:24:06
Speaker
The forging of the future Dangerous Alliance is an incredibly big moment, and though it probably could have been on free TV since it doesn't have a big impact on anyone but poor Z-Man here, it does make for an entertaining segment.
03:24:18
Speaker
Commentary is terrific. Tony and JR have some great discussions, delve into a ton of match strategy, help bring out storylines and character extremely well, and just seem to be having a wonderful time working with each other.
03:24:30
Speaker
It was very much the atmosphere that they had on the New Japan Super Shows. Yeah. It felt like I was watching the show with two buddies who were really knowledgeable about the show and performers and were invested in making sure that I had a good time with them.
03:24:43
Speaker
I really love their work here. Production was variable. There are some moments that this is one of WCW's strongest ever shows, with a good set, strong camera work, and some careful plotting in the main event in particular that mixes presentation with in-ring storytelling to put on something unlike most of what we've yet watched and give a cinematic feel.
03:25:06
Speaker
But then there are the usual missed or awkward shots, missed time camera cuts, and wrong choices for focus, and of course the blight on humanity and match recappers, the rougher eye. Yeah, what a turd of an idea that was.
03:25:19
Speaker
Yes. It's hard to call this a great show, but I'd say it's good overall. Just be aware that you'll have to wade through a bad opener and some largely pointless mid-show stuff to get to all the good stuff.
03:25:31
Speaker
Still, it's well worth a watch.
03:25:34
Speaker
Match of the night and MVP then. So Al, what is your match of the night? All right. So like I said, for me, yeah the highs and lows are much more obvious here.
03:25:45
Speaker
So there's less matches. So I think for me, qualify as match the night. Ones they think could qualify in their own way would be Eden versus Taylor. And of course, Dustin Rhodes versus Steve Austin is really good.
03:25:57
Speaker
And of course, the main event plus to a certain extent, the ball is the Pillman and Morton match as well, as promised. For me, though, the match that really all comes together with a good finish as a whole, with the right presentation, the biggest stars, and just the best feel overall is the main event.
03:26:19
Speaker
Ron Simmons versus Lex Luger. Yeah, for me, it is also Simmons versus Luger. Yeah. It's one of the best produced things we've seen out of WCW with an atmosphere like nothing else on the show.
03:26:30
Speaker
And it's a darn good match besides with some exceptional storytelling from start to finish. There's several good matches on this show, but this one really, really stood out. and Plus, it's effectively three matches.
03:26:41
Speaker
So there's that. MVP. So it's an interesting one. There's a lot of people that in their own way be highlighted. I think Steve Austin does a good job in his role as a heel. Richard Morton also, to his part, either doesn't commit to the look, as we said.
03:26:56
Speaker
He works really well as a heel here. Obviously, notably, we have Rick Rude, who despite but that match not being all that exciting to a report, and really, he does a really good promo afterwards. Like, as I said, Paul Heyman slash E Dangerously. It was a really good promo with that on its own merits almost got him MVP for me.
03:27:14
Speaker
And there's people that even in bad matches, I think they look all right, which is credit to them. It's like, you know, the diners and Sting don't really look bad in that opening nonsense match.
03:27:26
Speaker
They just can only do so much with the actual space and then the way it's shot and everything involved. They are absolutely doing their best with it. Just there's only so much they can do. Yeah, absolutely. So for me, this is the rare case where I'm going to pick MVP from my match the night as well, which happens to be the main event.
03:27:44
Speaker
I went back and forth in this one Luger is really good as a heel. Race is a really good heel manager as well. Dusty as the hype man and the sort of player coach there between the round is really good.
03:27:57
Speaker
Simmons also does a really good job. You see the full gamut of emotions from him as, you know, he's really excited when wins. He's annoyed when he's sort of screwed over with that DQ fall against him.
03:28:09
Speaker
And then, you know, he's getting mad and mad at Luger that, you know, So it's really hard to pick for me. I still, even my base notes here, I'm torn between picking Simmons or Dusty here. Okay. So if they really have to pick, I'm trying to think.
03:28:23
Speaker
In a way, it's kind of like how I judge with flair segments. Rhodes and Flair are both naturally really high up on the rankings because they're just so good. So for me, I think going pick Simmons because he, I think, steps up as close as he can at this point in career to Rhodes' level here in terms of how he delivers everything in the match.
03:28:46
Speaker
And plus, I don't know how many big main event matches they get to cover with Ron Simmons for the series. So that's also a factor as well. But even outside that, he definitely earns his spot here. Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you did that.
03:28:59
Speaker
he Oh, yeah. Because I was warring between Ron Simmons and Lex Luger. ah And I really felt one of us should pick Simmons. Yeah. He's so good in that match. And I think I was at the point where if you didn't pick Simmons, I was probably going to pick Simmons.
03:29:15
Speaker
Sure. But I also did not want to... undersell what lex luger did so since you pick simmons i'm gonna pick luker fair enough luger was incredible in that match with simmons is one of his best performances that i have seen him do in wcw he sold the pain and desperation very very well he made simmons look amazing basically from the point he takes the spine buster he sells his back continuously for the entire match oh yeah never forgets that it's aching, lets it affect everything he does.
03:29:48
Speaker
It's a near steamboat level selling performance from Lex Luger, which is not something I thought I would ever say. Yeah, got you. And then he turns vindictive, spiteful, and cruel whenever he gets to take control.
03:30:00
Speaker
He's very much a, you hurt me, so I'm going to try and end your career kind of wrestler in this match. Absolutely focused on taking down the person who dared to become a surprisingly real threat. It's excellent, excellent work.
03:30:12
Speaker
And he's a big part of making Ron Simmons look main event worthy in this match. I mean, Ron Simmons is obviously also a very big part of that. Yes. That's why I wanted, I think, both of them to get it, is that...
03:30:24
Speaker
Yeah.
03:30:27
Speaker
two make very clear that ron simmons is now a main inventer yeah it's one of the best synchronous performances that i think we've seen it's akin to like stings big match against fla act clash the champions oh yeah sure where it's two guys just working perfectly in sync too get this result
03:30:48
Speaker
And that wraps up our review of Halloween Havoc 1991.
Podcast Promotion and Acknowledgments
03:30:52
Speaker
If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can find us on Facebook as Let's Go to the Ring. A link will be available in the episode description.
03:30:59
Speaker
Follow us for episode announcements and other show details, and share your own thoughts about each show as we go through. You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, YouTube Music, Audible, iHeartRadio, Spotify, TuneIn, or Pandora.
03:31:13
Speaker
And please, if you've enjoyed this show, give us a rating or review, and share the show through your favorite social media platforms to help others discover us. Many thanks to OSW Review for attendance and pay-per-view figures, and to Gina Trujillo for our logo.
03:31:29
Speaker
Next up, Halloween Havoc 1992. Spin the wheel, make the deal. You know what that means, Al. A WCW mini-movie. Ooh!
03:31:40
Speaker
Sting. Jake the Snake Roberts. Cheat him! A seedy bar. Laser eyes. I am so looking forward to that. Ooh, now I am too.
03:31:52
Speaker
This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling.
03:32:10
Speaker
Do-do. Do-do-do-do-do. Doo doo doo doo doo.