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Episode 54: Beach Blast 1992
32 Plays2 years ago
It's time for fun in the sun as we start our latest series, covering Beach Blast and Bash at the Beach! First up - Beach Blast 1992. Who will prove to be the Iron Man - Ricky Steamboat or Rick Rude? Can Dustin Rhodes and his friends defeat the Dangerous Alliance? Can the Steiner Brothers stop the Murder Torpedo? Are we sure we're not watching a cheesy 90s action movie? For all this, plus a bikini contest you never asked for, let's go to the ring!
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/letsgo2thering , or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LetsGo2theRing/
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
Wow. I did a great job writing the show notes this time. I've got new blood rising earned. Oh yeah. Okay. I'll be checking these numbers later. New blood rising earned 80,000. Sorry. And I go out and say it. Goodness sakes.
Introduction to 'Let's Go to the Ring'
00:00:42
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 never rewrote Al's intro joke for this episode, but, uh, you appear to be sailing through several plate glass windows without evident harm again, Al. Oh, that's good. It's a bad habit I picked up, apparently, but I should really work on that.
00:01:05
Speaker
What the heck did we talk about last episode? Oh, yeah. Do blood rising. I guess you're storming off the set while the director complains at you. Okay. Hi, Al. How are you? It's going all right with me. You doing all right? Okay. That's that's the best screw up I've had so far because I actually screwed up. I'm writing the thing instead of reading the thing.
00:01:28
Speaker
It's easy to dismounting announcer's name. Yeah, yeah.
Beach Blast and Bash at the Beach Series Overview
00:01:32
Speaker
Well, tonight, I am tremendously happy because we are starting a series, Beach Blast and Bash at the Beach, that runs for long enough that we get to have several shows before the NWO era. It's true. There can be good stuff in their mind, but I needed a break. Yeah. And some more bright colors, lots of bright colors. You definitely got plenty of neon in this show, that is for sure. Yes.
00:01:56
Speaker
So, first up is Beach Blast 1992. World Championship Wrestling beats the heat. I don't know. I don't think it's the best idea to try to suplex the sun. No. Give you one heck of a sunburn. I really hope they don't have beats the heat for the 95 show where they're actually outdoors. Yeah, yeah. Hopefully, WCW, I don't know. Where's lots of sunscreen? Yeah, yeah.
00:02:22
Speaker
Beach Blast 1992 was held on June 20, 1992 at the Mobile Civic Center in Mobile, Alabama, in front of 4,000 people. The Mobile Civic Center Arena is recorded as seating between 8,000 and 10,000 people, and the seating arrangement for wrestling in particular is listed as 10,000, so if that's the case, WCW did not even reach the halfway mark this time.
00:02:46
Speaker
Beach Blast 1992 earned 80,000 pay-per-view buys, tied for the lowest in 1992, with that year's Great American Bash. It's not a good number, though this is the era when WCW is averaging in the 100,000s, not higher. So it's not that bad in comparison. True. Yeah. And hey, it's still better than 10 of WCW's 12 shows in the year 2000, and all three shows in 2001, often by 20 or 30,000. Oof.
00:03:12
Speaker
Prior to the show, there was a single dark match. Junkyard Dog, Tom Zink, and Big Josh beat Tracey Smothers, Richard Morton, and Diamond Dallas Page in a six-man tag match. Sad as I am to miss an early DDP match. We're already getting one six-man tag later on tonight, and I admit I'm glad not to have two of those on one show like Road Wild 1999. I am curious though, because obviously there's no footage of this as a dark match.
00:03:38
Speaker
I'm curious if they had him walk out with the two bears for a dark match on televise. Would they really? Probably not, but they definitely have the expense of pay the trainer and the bears to walk out and match. No one will see with
Early 90s WCW Highlights
00:03:50
Speaker
a live crowd. It is WCW. So that is us. Yeah, probably did. So what does a day at the beach or at least the beach like set look like for WCW to find out? Let's go to the ring.
00:04:06
Speaker
Tonight, turn up your A.C. for Summer's hottest action with World Championship Wrestling. Who will be crowned the first lady of WCW? Can the Steiner brothers since Doc and Gordy packing back to Japan? Will the ring be able to hold Sting and Cactus Jack? Find out who the real Iron Man is. There's only one way to catch this Sizzlin' Slam Fest. It's the WCW beach blast.
00:04:28
Speaker
Our wonderful early 90s video package features a beach and waves motif and finishes off with one of WCW's greatest ever show logos, the big wave that turns into a fist. That is great. Yeah, absolutely killer. Of course, that fist retired and became the smackdown logo. Yeah, yeah, I could see that.
00:04:46
Speaker
Tony Schiavone, wearing a blue polo shirt, welcomes us to the show alongside Eric Bischoff, who is wearing a very loud, colorful Hawaiian shirt. They build up the World Tag Team title match between the Steiners and Dr. Death and Terry Gordy. Tony brings in Bill Watts, WCW's new Executive Vice President. It's weird to see someone else being called Executive VP while Bischoff is standing right there. A little bit, yeah.
00:05:12
Speaker
Watts builds up several of the night's contests, and as he brings up the Iron Man contest between Rick Roode and Ricky Steamboat, he notes that while WSW is setting up strict rules and regulations for matches, if the wrestlers in the match agree to their own regulations, they'll let them settle it. That said, Paul E. Dangerously and Medusa are banned from ringside so that they can't help Roode. Now let's hook him up and kick it off, Watts says. I don't think that's going to catch on as a wrestling podcast title man. Bye again.
00:05:42
Speaker
Can't really think about these things in 1992. Yeah. Tony throws to Jim Ross, who will be heading up the actual commentary team tonight, who is also wearing a very loud shirt. Ross builds up the Iron Man match and the tag title match again, and throws to Jesse the Body Ventura at the beach, by which I mean a sandy set on the stage with lots of beach paraphernalia. It's a great little set, actually, especially after seeing the precisely zero work that WCW did on set design in 2000.
00:06:11
Speaker
They had a drape, Bob. What else do you want? Everything else. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I guess so.
00:06:17
Speaker
Jesse, Jesse has a little trouble getting out of a poolside reclining chair, but several ladies in bikinis help him stand up and walk with them down to ringside. Jesse, wearing a shark themed shirt with blood spatter patterns on it, which is a tad disturbing, waves goodbye to the ladies and joins JR. JR throws to ring announcer Tony Geller with a, let's kick it off. Well, Belle, I guess we're changing to a football podcast now. I guess it's all about punting. Yeah.
00:06:46
Speaker
So our first match is Scotty Flamingo versus Fly-in Brian Pillman for Pillman's WCW Light Heavyweight Championship.
Scotty Flamingo vs. Brian Pillman Match Analysis
00:06:56
Speaker
The referee for this one is Mike Atkins.
00:06:59
Speaker
Flamingo is an up and coming star in WCW, apparently pushed there against his will. He's talked about an interview since cause you know, Raven loves doing shooter reviews. Essentially he said he didn't want to be like heavyweight, which I don't think it was a knock against like the other competitors. Just even he at that point realized how they treat that division. True. Yeah. But he went along and then he did quite well. He built up a nice winning streak as well, which got him the number one contendership for this match tonight. Okay.
00:07:26
Speaker
Scotty Flamingo comes out in a weirdly cut-up jacket and nice wide-brimmed hat. The difference from his future look as Raven is nearly as shocking as the one between early 90s Steve Austin and his later Stone Cold look. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Pillman is out next, stripped of his last name by the Chiron. Yeah. We get quick counterwrestling to start, and Pillman gradually gets the advantage with hammerlocks, then knees Flamingo in the elbow for a couple two counts.
00:07:54
Speaker
JR notes that Johnny B. Bad will be judging a bikini contest tonight, and Jesse complains that it should be him. Pilman Crucifix sunset flip for two, and he keeps working the arm with these short-arm scissors, though Flamingo rolls him up for a couple two counts holding the tights. An arm bar and arm wrenches.
00:08:12
Speaker
Jesse does a great job explaining the intricacies of the short-arm scissors and how it cuts off circulation. In an odd bit during an armbar, Flamingo maneuvers Pillman close to a pin, grabbing the ropes for leverage while Atkins isn't looking. Jesse says, that's a smart move, but wouldn't it be better if Atkins did see him grab the ropes, since it would force a break of the armbar? Yeah, that's true. This is funny, he's like, aha, I can use the ropes for leverage on a pin, but not thinking, oh, I could also get the hold off me if I let the ref know that I've reached
00:08:43
Speaker
Yeah, it's fair point. Flamingo eye rake, but Pillman dropkicks him and he ends up hanging from the top rope, so Pillman kindly dumps him out onto the concrete. Then tricks Flamingo into dodging a fake dive, shushes the crowd so as not to let Flamingo know, and double axe handles Flamingo from the apron. Nice little bit of crowd interaction there. Oh, thanks, yeah.
00:09:04
Speaker
Back in, Pillman goes up top. Top rope moves are now a DQ in WCW for some bizarre Bill Watts reason. Realizing that, Pillman hesitates and that gives time for Flamingo to hurl him to the mat. So if your opponent throws you off the top rope, do you get like a DQ credit where you can do one DQ worthy thing without being disqualified now?
00:09:26
Speaker
Well, does that move the rocket launcher where you throw him off your partner off and land on somebody? Yeah. How does that interact with who's who's disqualified? The guy who thrown or the guy that doesn't throw? I assume nobody because I mean, we've just shown that being thrown off the top rope is not a disqualification. So if you happen to hit another wrestler on the way down, it seems like that's just fair. Yeah, I'm with you on that.
00:09:49
Speaker
Flamingo stomp earns two and he sends Pillman outside and dives out onto him, which is somehow not a DQ, despite being a longer distance and far more dangerous than jumping off the top rope. It's true, yes. Back in, Flamingo wins an exchange of strikes with an iRake, and they trade two counts with a Flamingo second rope fist drop, Pillman crossbody that's almost a shoulder block, Flamingo massive clothesline, Pillman roll up, and Flamingo reverse chinlock with rope leverage.
00:10:15
Speaker
Pillman catches Flamingo with a sleeper, but Flamingo rams him into the turnbuckle to get free, and they simultaneously punch each other out. Both men up at nine. Flamingo wins a slugfest with a couple eye rakes, but on the second rope double axe handle, Pillman dropkicks him in midair. As Pillman beats Flamingo up, Jesse notes that Flamingo is looking for a tag. He's so dazed, he thinks he's in a tag match. Nice little bit there. Yeah, right?
00:10:42
Speaker
Flamingo eventually catches a charging Pilman with a power slam for two, but goes to celebrate on the second rope and Pilman recovers and belly-to-back suplexes him for two. Pilman clotheslines Flamingo to the elevated entrance ramp, but Flamingo dodges a dive and Pilman needs ramp. As Pilman crawls back into the ring, Flamingo hits a second rope knee strike to the ribs, for the three count and the win.
00:11:04
Speaker
Flamingo rolls out of the ring before Atkins can even hand him the belt, and Dazedly celebrates with it outside as we get a replay of the missed dive and the knee strike. Thoughts on this one?
00:11:15
Speaker
That was a very strong competitive match, which was nice to see, given how we'd know the restrictions they put on this division. I mean, taking away top rope moves is just a weird arbitrary thing. Yeah. It's the problem we'll go with the other night, but it's just, it's an interesting choice. It's weird that like taking top rope moves out because it's dangerous. You can hurt your opponent. Okay. That's the logic, but also let's take the math off the floor. So they find the outside, they hurt themselves more.
00:11:44
Speaker
yeah well and like i said you have no floor mats and people are diving from the ring mat or apron down to the floor yeah which is at the very least the same distance as the top rope but probably more
00:11:58
Speaker
That aside, I thought they did a really good match. It's a great example of how you can do simple storytelling within the match itself. To be honest, there's not a lot of Pillman and Flamingo on the buildup I was able to watch on WCW Saturday night. Not like at interviews and like competitive matches or like tag matches they're involved in. So I can really only go off the match in front of me.
00:12:19
Speaker
So in the match itself, you get to see how Omega was really cocky, all the classic heal stuff. But he really, you get a feel for the character. 100% in this match is a nice micro chasm, which is really good.
00:12:31
Speaker
Whereas, same with Pillman, you get the idea that he's very aggressive and he can be used against him. You can get him to do a move he shouldn't do if you sort of make him mad. But he's also very technically sound and can sort of mess with you. They definitely work this in the very 80s style, in both the best and worst ways. It's all, you know, arm holds and stuff. They do work in a few high spots they're able to do with limitations, like the second move moves and the dive they're allowed to do within the dive that doesn't work out for Pillman.
00:12:58
Speaker
So I'm glad they add some accent to it. It's not just a basic match. As good as it is, the working holds and everything like that. Like we talked about back in 84 when this first came up in the original version, essentially was a regular match. They just kind of worked it faster. Yeah, you still had the same kind of stuff going on in the early 80s, light heavyweight matches as in a heavyweight match. It was just like you said, it was a faster pace.
00:13:25
Speaker
I always want to go back and watch that match from A4 again, just to see how close it is in style. I was thinking about it a lot watching that match on a rewatch. I think you have some good exchanges and mat wrestling and stuff like that in that one, but you don't have the dives and that's the thing that really gets added as we go into the 90s, I think. I will say, if they really committed this whole, you know, no top rope moves and no dives, other than the exceptions apparently,
00:13:49
Speaker
If they get at least lean into that with this finish where he does a dive and horribly backfires on him, then at least that's something. Yeah, I think I'm of two minds about the rule as I think we'll go over over the course of the show, I'm sure. But my feeling is the rule is dumb, but they actually use it really well tonight.
00:14:10
Speaker
Yeah, they make the best of a bad situation. It's a stupid idea. Agree that cripples certain types of matches. You basically couldn't have done the late 90s. That'd be stubby crucified stuff with that rule at all. Yeah, right. And the problem I have with that rule is that the people that tend to do cool top rope moves.
00:14:29
Speaker
our faces yeah who get cheered for it because the crowd wants to see a cool top rope move and i remember like Watts i think in one interview i forget when but he says something like well you know you can still do a top rope move you just have to make sure the ref doesn't see it and that's like no that works for heels yeah you know face doesn't do things that he has to hide from the ref true yeah
00:14:50
Speaker
It'd be one thing if it was genuinely out of concern for wrestlers' safety, but it's clearly not because, as you said, they took off the mats around the ring and allow other far more dangerous moves to happen. And they still, in fact, allow top rope moves as a matter of storyline in terms of the competition, their outlaw, but not in terms of the actual performance.
00:15:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's just I think it's a poor choice for a rule. But I think as we'll see over the course of the night, they make actually fairly good use of that rule. I think they basically explore all of the good uses you could have for it tonight. And it will get repetitive if you if you kept doing it. But I appreciate that they really put an effort to make that rule work despite itself.
00:15:27
Speaker
I will say too, you can really see how abrupt this changes because for research purposes, I watch WSU Saturday night, which is their main show. The intro is full, it's all action intro, just, you know, different matches, people doing moves. Half of what the intro is people doing top rope dives. Yeah. Because people like to see those moves. Yeah. And so even before and after this show, when they formally make this a rule, they don't bother changing the intro at all.
00:15:54
Speaker
They really should have just slapped up a band sticker on each of those clips in the intro. Exactly. Or a picture of Bill Watts standing there with his arms folded and giving a very stern look. An early meme of Bill Watts, yeah.
00:16:10
Speaker
I really thought this was a great energetic opener. There's varied action, mixing holds, strikes, and acrobatics. The nonsensical top rope DQ rule, as I noted, could have hurt this one quite a bit, but the guys did a good job of working around it, making just one nod to it with Pillman's top rope hesitation mid-match that was likely there to help establish the rule in fans' minds.
00:16:31
Speaker
They managed to work in a lot of high-flying moves between their dives and second rope stuff, so they kept the light heavyweight feel quite well. Had some fun audience interaction, and this was a great match to get the crowd charged up and into the show. Good choice for an opener. Agreed, yeah. Flamingo would hold the belt for a whopping 15 days. Okay, so we're in like the 2000-era title reigns here. Actually, no, I'm sorry, that would be like two days. Yeah. He would drop it to Brett Armstrong at a house show.
00:17:02
Speaker
The date of that house trip, by the way, is July 5th, which is my birthday. Okay. I really started to feel like I'm a bad luck charm. Well, you're a good luck charm for Brad Armstrong. Look at that. Okay, there you go. And I mean, really, between Scotty Flamingo and Brad Armstrong of the America jacket, I think you want to be a good luck charm for Brad Armstrong. I'll take that. Okay, fair enough.
00:17:22
Speaker
Uh, as for Pillman, he would be part of the thing. I'll bring up a lot during this show. Cause it's the next show. Basically they're doing a date tournament to declare new NWA tag team title holders. So that takes place on the conscious champions was technically was taped before this show, but we'll air two days after the show and goes into the gray American bash show. One of the, the Bob's looking at least forward to this, like seven tag matches and one singles match.
00:17:49
Speaker
Yeah. I remember reading that and I'm like, oh boy, this will be fun when we go to the Green Break of Bash. There's a lot of good stuff. There's going to be a lot of classic stuff, but then there's just one show where it's just, here's a tag match and another tag match and another tag match. And I like tag matches, honestly. I just, I don't like recapping tag matches. Right.
00:18:08
Speaker
When you said there's always so many formers you could do a tag match. So yeah. Unless you get really, really creative with it. You start really noticing around the third or fourth one you've seen on the same show. Yeah. Like, okay. Yeah. These feel a little similar. And in sequence as well. Yeah. So Pillman would team up with Jushin Thunder Liger as part of that tournament, making it through the clash show and onto the pay-per-view itself. Okay. Cool.
00:18:33
Speaker
JR brings up Bad judging the bikini contest again, and Ventura complains some more in mildly homophobic fashion. We go to the stage where Bad is in a sparkly black outfit with eighth notes on either side. He fires off his Bad blaster as Ventura and JR openly debate his sexuality. Bad announces the greatest
Ron Simmons' Journey to Championship
00:18:53
Speaker
bikini contest of all times.
00:18:56
Speaker
He explains it's a three-part contest. There's gonna be evening gowns, bathing suits, and itsy bitsy teeny weeny bikinis. People can vote via 900 number or, if in the arena, buy applause because they already have your money. He brings out Missy Hyatt in a silver and white outfit and she takes a walk. Then Medusa reluctantly comes out, having apparently confused evening gowns for wedding dresses, complete with wearing a veil.
00:19:25
Speaker
The Norse woman warrior ponytail is cool though. That is, yeah. Badd appears to briefly forget Tony's last name as he throws to Tony... Shavane. And Eric Bischoff. But first, JR breaks in to reiterate the voting rules. 1-900-909-9900. It's not quite the same without Mean Jean rattling that off. No.
00:19:48
Speaker
J.R. also builds up the upcoming Great American Bash featuring Sting versus Vader for the world title. And now it's time for Tony and Eric. Tony builds up the upcoming Simmons vs. Taylor match, and Eric says, Taylor is psyched up and ready. Tony notes that Simmons received the key to the city of Tallahassee, Florida that very day. First off, it's the bikini contest that begins with an evening gown contest? Well, yeah, as one does. I don't see a narrative flow here at all.
00:20:18
Speaker
out on the beach, you know, sometimes you have weddings or other occasions requiring, you know, fancy dress. Oh, Medusa was dressed for that. Yeah. Yeah. See, that's the thing is it's Medusa's wedding and Missy Hyatt is in attendance. Oh, okay.
00:20:33
Speaker
So the other thing is I find funny about it is so this lady walks up with a microphone to give to John to be bad. That's one of the random attendance from earlier. And she's wearing a bikini. Yes. So one bikini hands a microphone to a guy to begin a bikini contest where it started two women wearing evening gowns. Fair. Yeah.
00:20:54
Speaker
Bible discusses now very briefly. So, mature logic is that Johnny B. Bad, who he thinks is not straight, is biased in this contest. Is that basically the gist of it? He says that at some point. I'm like, what? Yeah, okay. So, that's like the opposite of how that should work, I would think. Assuming we're going into that train of thought, he's not at all distracted by staring at them.
00:21:18
Speaker
Yeah, in the normal way, if you were not sexually attracted to women, you would be able to judge purely on the fashion. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. If anything, he's the least biased person they could have gotten. Yeah, you would think so. Yeah. Using mature his own logic, it makes no sense.
00:21:35
Speaker
The last thing I'll say is, I will get credit for Medusa, at least, because she's in, well, what's supposed to be a bikini contest. He's like, I think how to act like a heel in a bikini contest. Yes. The answer is, cover myself up in every way I possibly can. Yeah. So fair fighter for at least trying to stay in character, not just being mad in a bikini, essentially. Yeah. As it often happens. One does wonder why you participated in the first place if you so blatantly didn't want to do it, but
00:22:03
Speaker
Just to beat Missy Hyde or something, basically. I guess so, yeah. They didn't obviously wrestle, but they sort of had a war of words and the buildup on the shows to this. Yeah. Our second match is the Taylor Made Man, Terry Taylor, versus the All-American Ron Simmons with referee Bill Alfonso.
00:22:24
Speaker
Recently on a show we covered a while back, the US tag champions of Terry Taylor and Greg Valentine lost their US tag titles. After that, they quickly broke up. Around the same time, Taylor tried to sort of rebound here. And he went after Simmons, who at this point is an up and coming star, and it's sort of marked for high position. So it makes sense. You prove you can beat him and take him out, you can sort of take his spot essentially.
00:22:51
Speaker
Now, mind you, there's no promos where he says this. It's just me inferring. So that's as much work as they put into the building's matchup. Taylor has a very clear eye of the tiger ripoff for his theme. Yes. Simmons is absolutely huge.
00:23:08
Speaker
It's kind of weird that they didn't build up his connection to FSU, though, really heavily, because he doesn't wear FSU's school colors for his ring gear or anything. No, he doesn't, yeah. You know, Pillman, a former Bengals player, wears tiger stripes in his outfit. Come on, Ron, don't you want to show some school spirit? Exactly, yeah. Jesse questions if the key to the city unlocks the bank.
00:23:29
Speaker
I do like that JR points out that he also had the key city as the mayor of a town. He should know how it works. He probably gave the key city at least one person I would think, well, mayor, presumably.
00:23:41
Speaker
Simmons easily overpowers Taylor, who can't even move him on hip-toss attempts. When Taylor does manage to whip him to the corner, but turns away, Simmons nails him with three-point stand charges, but Taylor dumps him to the ramp where Simmons' atomic drops him and hurls him back in over the ropes. JR notes that if he did that from inside to out, that would be a DQ, but the reverse is not the case, for some reason. It's the same, same distance.
00:24:04
Speaker
Yeah. Simmons works the ribs, including an elevated, and then sadly, standard, bear hug. It doesn't long, at least, as Taylor pokes the eyes to escape. Taylor dodges a three-point stance charge, and Simmons lands on the ramp, so Taylor is able to start wearing him down, eventually earning two counts with a flipping neckbreaker and a backbreaker. Taylor nicely sells the ribs the whole time. Does a good job with that throughout this match. He does, yeah.
00:24:31
Speaker
They trade blows and Simmons hits a spinebuster, a double-handed choke slam, a back body drop, and a shoulder block. Taylor dodges another back body drop, but Simmons nails a high-velocity power slam for the three count and the win. After raising Simmons' hand, Alfonso goes to check on Taylor and happens to touch around his ribs, and Taylor brilliantly sells it due to the bear hug earlier. Great subtle work by Taylor there. He did not forget his injury after the match. Thoughts on this one?
00:25:00
Speaker
It's just a pretty good match. The great example of how you can get a more experienced veteran wrestler like Taylor at this point with a wrestler like Simmons, who is very talented, you know, it's got the, all the natural gifts you want to wrestler. But obviously he's not been wrestling that long at this point. It's been a few years. Especially not as a singles guy. He's been in doom and stuff. Exactly.
00:25:18
Speaker
So I imagine Taylor and Gorb of the producer backstage really lead the match out for Simmons, I would think. So it's interesting because technically it looks like Ron is basically running the mat, but I'm guessing it was laid out for him, which is fine. That's how that works. I would think at that point you you would you would want the more experienced dude to be putting things together. Yeah, absolutely.
00:25:41
Speaker
To your point, I liked how we sold everything. I will say he clearly jumps over both of the low tackles that Simmons does. He's a little bit early on taking those. Yeah. He just basically does a summer assault over the dives. It's zero contact.
00:25:57
Speaker
The other thing that's going to be a recurring thing you'll notice about the show is most sane people, I say it with a caveat for a later match, don't like taking bumps on the outside of the ring area because it now has no mats. Yes. So you make a nice drinking game of this show where people get thrown through the front ropes onto the ramp. Yeah. There's a lot of that in the show. They all love the elevated entrance ramp as much as I do in part because it prevents them from taking really, really hard bumps onto the outside of the ring. Yes. Again, any sane person would do that.
00:26:27
Speaker
Cactus Jack. Yes, that was the implication. As a whole though, it's not really much more than the squash match. There's a brief bit where Taylor's in control, but it's clearly a let's make Ron Simmons look really good match, which is not a bad thing at all. Yeah. There's just not a lot of nuance to it really.
00:26:47
Speaker
Yeah, I thought this was a nice power versus technique and cheating story. Anytime Taylor tries to match Simmons' strength for strength, he gets bad to decide with ease, but is able to use leverage, tricks, misdirection, and pure wrestling skill to get the advantage from time to time.
00:27:02
Speaker
He does so well it could almost be taken as a heroic underdog performance. Fortunately, Ron Simmons' great mix of power and charisma make him very easy to like. And Taylor does a good job of being villainous, arrogant, and despicable to avoid getting too much sympathy even when he's doing a terrific job selling those ribs. Except for that bear hug and it wasn't super long, this made for a fun contest that gives both guys respective talents and styles really well.
00:27:30
Speaker
Neither man had tag team partners at this point, so they weren't involved in the class show or the subsequent pay-per-view. Oh, okay. That said, there is some important news that will happen for Ron Simmons between now and Halloween Havoc. In August 1992, they would hold a raffle on a show because the calendar for the world title was injured and the champion needed a person to fight that night. The winner of the definitely real and not at all planned raffle was Ron Simmons, who had gone to win the world title of that show, making history for wrestling.
00:28:00
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. First black WCW champion, correct? Correct. There's questions, but he's the first ever world champion. There's some debate over what count and what doesn't count and whether we got regional belts, but essentially, yes. Okay, cool. JR is with Ron Simmons. A fan behind them holds up a sign saying Hulk who? Sting rules.
00:28:23
Speaker
Notably, however, Hogan is actually not world champion in the WWF at this point. That would be Randy Savage, who won it at WrestleMania 8 from Ric Flair during Flair's WWF period. That's true, yeah.
00:28:36
Speaker
All right, thanks very much, Jesse, the body of Ventura, Ron. Tremendous victory. What a power slam. You really snapped it off. And I want to tell you something. In the last several weeks, I've never seen you look better. I've never seen you more focused than you have been. I know you've got big problems with Harley Race and the Super Invader, but I also know what your ultimate goal has to be. General, my ultimate goal is just like it's been in my lifetime. That's to be the best that I can be at everything I do.
00:29:05
Speaker
Ever since I come in this world, people have placed the odds against me. I'm telling you, I'm living proof that you can beat the odds. For all these little people out here, for all those people that are watching TV, no matter what color you are, no matter what color nationality you are, no matter what poverty level you're at, if you're willing to work hard and got the guts to get off your butt to do something in this world, you can be the best too. Just like Ron Simmons is going to be the world champion.
00:29:42
Speaker
Ron Simmons has the absolute best voice in pro wrestling. Holy crap, the bass. Yeah, sure. That is a voice that makes you sit up and pay attention. It is, yeah.
00:29:57
Speaker
He has a nice inspirational speech here too, turning things from a discussion of his future plans to encouragement of his fans, like a good proper babyface. He does slip in a knot at the end to him going for the world title. And of course he'll go on to win it in August of this year, as you said, he has a good high intensity encouraging promo here, I think.
00:30:16
Speaker
Absolutely. It reminds me a lot of like the Mr. T stuff. Yes. Yeah. But all positive ways you come out, you know, he talks about rising above your status in life and, you know, be the best you can. It's all it's all a good message. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I like when faces will turn.
00:30:34
Speaker
a discussion from just what they can do to succeed to actually being like an encouraging aspect for their fans as well. That's the best thing for a babyface right is like not just I'm gonna win because I'm so courageous or anything but going beyond that and saying here's the kind of life choices you can make to be successful here's if I can do it anyone can yeah that that kind of thing I that's the best expression of being a good guy that you're not just about yourself you're about everyone else great yeah
00:31:02
Speaker
Our third match is Marcus Bagwell versus Greg The Hammer Valentine. Referee is Mike Atkins.
00:31:12
Speaker
So this actually goes back a long ways, although again, it's not a
Marcus Bagwell vs. Greg Valentine Match
00:31:15
Speaker
storyline. They don't get a lot of attention for this because it's not people lie on the card, but back in February of this year, as part of the few with Taylor and Bagwell, Valentine actually made his debut in WCW and joined force with Taylor, obviously becoming us tag team champions for a while. So during that time Bagwell and often Tom Zink would join up and try to win the tag titles from them and never quite succeeding.
00:31:41
Speaker
So this actually is a multi-month feud. It's just it's also not feature-heavy as like any of the major stories on this show. So it's kind of a shame. It is long running, but also not exactly in focus. It's good to know that even in like the less highlighted stuff, though, they are doing things over a longer period at this point, rather than everything being, oh, this came up last week. Yeah. People backstage, they get mad and start fighting. Yeah.
00:32:05
Speaker
I will say if it helps ease the pain a bit for a Taylor and Valentine losing their US tag titles, they'd be deactivated within a month of this show. So long-term, they didn't really lose that much. Yeah. I guess you could say they, they at least got to, uh, lose them legitimately instead of just having them, you know, stripped because they no longer existed. Yeah. I think they're the last team actually to lose or gain the title on pay-per-view. So that isn't something for them. Yeah. Because there's one more title change that happened, but happens on like worldwide, I think.
00:32:34
Speaker
The future buff Bagwell gets a decent little rock theme. Valentine in nice blue and silver robe gets the same Eye of the Tiger ripoff as Taylor. They may not be tag champs anymore, but they're sharing an entrance theme at least. That's nice. JR builds this up as a promising rookie versus an experienced veteran.
00:32:52
Speaker
Bagwell uses speed to repeatedly counter Valentine. In an odd spot, Bagwell catches a Valentine kick, then lets go to land strikes, then grabs the leg again to spin Valentine for an atomic drop and drop kicks. I kinda feel like they were supposed to do that on the first leg grab, but somebody screwed it up. Yeah, there's a bit early on, I think they're a bit out of sync, just getting in motion together, but otherwise, yeah. Yeah, they cover it well. Oh yeah, no, they, uh, early on there's definitely an issue of being on the same page, I think, yeah.
00:33:20
Speaker
Valentine rolls out to recover, then gets back in and takes over with big strikes and a backbreaker. Bagwell dodges a second rope elbow drop, but Valentine dodges a knee drop and Bagwell hurts his leg. Valentine works the leg and goes for the figure four, but Bagwell inside cradles him for two, and earns further two counts with an awkward float over on a scoop slam into a roll-up, a backslide, a suplex, and a back body drop. Bagwell struggles to stand on his injured leg, and his knee gives out on a leapfrog.
00:33:49
Speaker
Bagwell manages to block a punch and return fire, but Valentine counters a headlock with a shinbreaker and slaps on the figure four leglock for the submission victory. JR builds up Bagwell's determination to get that far, but says with the leg damage he'd sustained, there wasn't anything he could do to escape that. Thoughts on this one?
00:34:08
Speaker
It's interesting that this match and the last match come in sequence because essentially you reverse or inverse maybe of the previous match because it's the same story. It's young, up-and-coming, rookie, more rookie in this case for Bagel. He's messing for like a little over a year, I think, at this point for you, Zach. Hilariously, at some point, I think Jesse or JR calls him the former rookie. I'm like, he's not that long from starting still.
00:34:32
Speaker
Yeah, maybe in the sense that he might have, he might've won like Rook of the Year in their polling or something, but still. Yeah. How, I don't know what the timeline is when you stop being a rookie in a sport in general. It's always a gray area for sure. But yes, I mean, the whole text of the previous match was let's build Bronn Simmons against this guy. You can work a match with them really well and they can look good.
00:34:50
Speaker
In this case, there's still a little of that because obviously Bagwell gets his hope spots in, gets his advantages briefly. But it's definitely about making Valentine seem like a real threat, it seems like. Not in the way that, again, it's not a squash match on Bagwell, but it's definitely more of a highlight of Valentine in the way the match is laid out, I think. I feel like it's still a highlight for Bagwell in this guy's very experience. Look how well the rookie did. No, I can see it from that point of view.
00:35:19
Speaker
But yeah, we said before, there's not really any real issues out of this early part where they seem like they're jockeying position a bit, like with the foot issue. But as a whole, it's a pretty basic match. They clearly knew what Bagwell was capable of this point. He could do all the basics around the ropes, you know, he's got the back pied drop and everything. Valentine, for his part, does bump for him pretty well. It's not like Valentine doesn't act like he's a challenge or anything, but he's definitely far more in his favor than the previous match was in Taylor's favor.
00:35:48
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I've seen that parallel because again, former tag champions as of like a month ago and then in straight back to back singles match of his brookies. Yeah, fair enough. Do you think I was thinking about, let's see more on the rewatch. I feel like with Ric Flair being gone, they're really pushing Valentine. That's like Ric Flair. You get the same vibe. I mean, I mean, he's always done the robe and the figure thing, but they're really leading into it a lot more. It feels like.
00:36:14
Speaker
We need somebody that can do the figure four really well. And well, Greg, you're, you're, you're our man.
00:36:19
Speaker
Well, and they go the timing as well. So, I mean, January 9th, 92 was obviously flare left before that, but that's his big showcase. That's the war rumble match. We went to title and all that within a month. Here's Greg Valentine wearing the robe. Like, can I keep that before, but definitely more of that. He's doing shops and he's doing all the leg work over spots. So it's not like they fully change Greg Valentine to be flare, but it feels like they're definitely pushing him as the flare kind of character.
00:36:45
Speaker
It's like we haven't actually lost this performance style. We don't have the same character doing it, but we have this performance style, the the good leg work and everything. Yeah, it's not a one to one thing like when they made fake diesel and fake Razor Ramon and W.B.F. But Buddy Landell coming in and being like, I am the real nature boy. Yeah. Yeah. Which led to zero zero match screen flare and land. Yeah. That's amazing. I think Valentine, it's it's always been something he's been doing, but I agree that they maybe highlight him a little bit more. Yeah. And it's not a bad thing. He's still a good performer.
00:37:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I thought this was a perfectly acceptable match. Bagwell shows plenty of young babyface fire, and Valentine makes a good, reliable heal for him to go up against. It definitely helps that the match has a good focus on the work on the knee, and Bagwell does a surprisingly excellent job of selling the injured knee, really letting it impact a lot of his movements and stall and delay him quite naturally. Despite his loss, he got to look good here and showcase what he could do. So yeah, like you said, a minor flub or two aside, I'd rather like this one.
00:37:45
Speaker
Yeah, it was really fine. Bagwell and Tom Zink would rejoin forces as tag team partners and try unfortunately unsuccessfully on the clash of champions 19 show to make it onto the great American bash show. His consolation prize losing a dark match to the super invader. The super invader is Hercules Hernandez, AKA assassin number Z one or two. Z two, right?
00:38:09
Speaker
Two yeah, yeah, that's number. Yeah, one was the the cuddly one. Yes John said the cuddly one and that the the clearly in shape one. Yes JR talks up the upcoming Falls count anywhere match cactus Jack versus sting and shows footage of a prior similar match between Van Hammer and cactus Jack where they ended up outside the building JR and Jesse really highlight that this match could go anywhere even outdoors even away from the arena entirely. Mm-hmm
Cactus Jack vs. Sting Falls Count Anywhere Match
00:38:40
Speaker
Our fourth match is Cactus Jack versus Sting in a Falls Count Anywhere match. Referee for this one is Bill Alfonso. So seemingly out of the blue, Cactus Jack suddenly targets Sting and clears him his enemy. Famously, it's a big segment where Sting is offered a gift and he goes on stage in this big box and Cactus Jack breaks out of the box and attacks him. It's highlighted really heavily in Big Foley's first book, which is really good.
00:39:06
Speaker
In interviews, he would talk about why he targeted Sting. It's the usual kind of thing with the crazy outsider character. Sting is everything he wanted, you know, the looks, the success, and the fame, which is weird because he clearly also doesn't want that, but it's kind of weird. It's actually just generally weird, so I guess you accept it. Yeah. You can wear face paint if you want to, Jack. I mean, it's not that hard. That's true. Yeah, yeah. No one's stopping them.
00:39:31
Speaker
This also leads to a very interesting promo that happens on Saturday night, about two weeks before the show. Jack's interviewed on stage, comes on stage, talked to the area about what he's going to do. The story is that Sting's ribs were rendered in the original attack. He did his diving cax double on the floor, so really selling that. Sting, of course, says he's fine, you know, he's the babyface to fight through whatever it is. The actress Jack brings out a small wooden box, like the little box he's like, fruit comes in and we find him a store, decides to do a falling headbutt to it.
00:40:02
Speaker
Yes. The kind that, like, Simone wrestlers do, where you just sort of fall and hit the guy. Yeah. It goes as well as you would think. Ollie, what the heck?
00:40:11
Speaker
This is on the wooden stage, mind you. Yeah. So he just does a drop. He can't but to to a little crate does break part of it. Tries to get up and cannot get up because he, you know, can cost himself. Yeah, a little bit. And he just sort of accepts that he's sitting down for the rest of this bit, which they didn't sort of leave. You know, this is your rib, then he hits it and then he knocks himself out a little bit. What were you thinking, Nick? I mean, you could have done the elbow drop for when you hurt yourself. I don't know why the head butts the thing he had to do.
00:40:39
Speaker
Elbow drop, leg drop, smack it with a chair. Yeah, no, no, I got a head button, apparently. It's a very interesting choice.
00:40:50
Speaker
For his part, Sting, besides trying to say he's not injured and the way he's willing to face Cactus, he's also made clear that he knows the real reason, which is, of course, Vader is next in line of town for the title. So it's often suspicious that suddenly a guy who's had no history with Sting, like, wants to kill him, essentially, right before a match with Vader. It's a little suspicious, to say the least.
00:41:12
Speaker
Indeed, as Jack enters, JR proposes that he's been hired to take Sting out, all but saying that Vader and Race want to use Jack to weaken Sting for Vader's later title challenge. Jack waits for Sting on the ramp. Sting comes out in a bright, shiny silvery robe, looking bemused to see Jack sitting there on the ramp.
00:41:32
Speaker
Sting is wearing the title belt here, but this match is non-title, lending credence to JR's mercenary theory. Obviously, you wouldn't want the mercenary to win the title if your goal is to win the title from the guy. Right. I will say in all the bits I saw, I didn't see anything where Cactus says, oh, I don't care for the title. He just makes it clear he wants to take Sting out and then just non-title.
00:41:55
Speaker
They brawl on the ramp and Sting gets a backslide for one and a one-handed bulldog for two, but Jack dodges a stinger splash and Sting crotches himself on the ropes. Sting rolls to the floor and Jack gets two counts with an elbow drop from the apron to the concrete, neck breaker, and a sunset flip from the apron to the concrete. Jack limps as landing on concrete like that could not have felt good. Yeah, but the first one, he lands on his hip. So the one leg definitely has a lot of impact from that.
00:42:24
Speaker
Yeah, and then pretty much most of his spine takes the impact from the sunset flip. He hits hard. No, yeah, it's very bad for your coccyx to do that. Yeah. Sting smacks Jack into the barricades, and JR claims that would normally be a DQ. I cannot think of a single time I have ever seen a wrestler DQ'd for that. It's apparently an official rule. They do it all the time. Yeah, not in front of the ref, I guess. Actually, I called this a false count anywhere match, but I did not clarify. This is a no DQ match.
00:42:52
Speaker
Right, right, yeah. This is essentially a street fight, yeah. Sting dumps the charging jack over the barricade and gets two with a suplex amongst the crowd.
00:43:02
Speaker
Finally, in the ring, Sting catches a Jack kick, but Jack lands a DDP-style spinning clothesline, then beats him up, working in a body scissors to Jesse's surprise. Jesse is shocked that Jack is actually wrestling. Jack makes the mistake of slapping Sting, never a good idea. And Sting powers free, but Jack rakes the eyes of clothesline Sting and himself to the floor.
00:43:27
Speaker
Jesse dubs the company World Championship Street Fight. W-C-S-F? Yeah. It's better than W-C-T-T-W from New Blood Rising, I guess. Yeah. Jack Land, several chair shots.
00:43:42
Speaker
Two counts for a Sting belly-to-back suplex, Jack falling on top after Superman doomsday simultaneous punches, and Sting rolling them over for his own pin. Jack catches a Stinger splash and dumps Sting onto the barricade, but his knee gives out on a pile driver and he falls sideways so Sting avoids the impact. I'm not totally sure if that was intentional or not. Yeah, I'm not sure on that one. That doesn't feel like that's a planned spot. Yeah. Sting dodges a second rope elbow drop, and Jack eats concrete.
00:44:13
Speaker
On the ramp, Sting lands his own chair shots, including one to the knee, and tries for the scorpion deathlock, but Jack rolls sideways and they fall off the ramp. Back on, Jack hits the double-armed DDT for two, but Sting clotheslines him down and hits a diving clothesline from the top turnbuckle to the ramp, as it's a no-DQ match for the three count and the win.
00:44:37
Speaker
Brilliant ending spot there. They require both of them to be in exactly the right position to avoid them falling off the ramp one way or another. Oh, yeah. And good confidence on Sting on that jump too. Sting kneels on the ramp with his title as Jack squeals in rage. It's a very distressing noise. Yes, yes. Thoughts on this one? It's a very good hard hitting match, even if the hardest offense is done by Mick Foley to himself.
00:45:05
Speaker
I will say in having read all his books, really more interested in his previous books, they're about this time. He talks about how he, his weird mindset of come up with doing a sunset flip to the outside, but she wouldn't think that that's a way. He doesn't know why he thought that was a good idea in hindsight.
00:45:24
Speaker
He's pretty coy about the whole elbow spot, which is not great for him, but I guess that one's the most direct because you have to take an impact before you do just essentially a slight roll up on a guy. You can argue, at least during the elbow, you're hitting him pretty heavily and you're taking him. And Kayfabe believes that makes more sense than that, especially because there's at least one match we saw where it's not False Guy anywhere, he still does that.
00:45:45
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Yeah. It makes no sense if there's no pin falls outside because it's not an impact move. Yeah. It'd be one thing if the guy was also on the apron and you did a sunset flip power bomb. Yeah. But that's not what this is. This is sunset flip. Lightly roll the guy up. Yeah. It's an odd choice.
00:46:02
Speaker
That part aside, I think they did a really good job of telling a story with Sting here. He's definitely more aggressive in this match. He sort of sees Cactus' energy in his mindset and beats that pretty well, I think. Once they get outside, he sure leans in, okay, we're doing this way. And that is a suplex on the floor and fighting him outside is a really nice touch.
00:46:21
Speaker
This one spot's a little silly. They clearly wanted to do the, run out the ropes and back body drop spot. So he has to whip fully towards the ropes on the outside and then back again. That little dozy do spot. Right. Right. Yeah. It doesn't, it doesn't look silly per se, but it's, it's weird that you're throwing towards the ropes just to bring them back there. I know I couldn't just run a few feet and gotten thrown, but needed the extra running, I guess.
00:46:47
Speaker
Same time, it's creative for working around the environment room. It's just a weird choice, I guess. We talked before when we originally watched it, whether the ending spot where they go over the Deathlock and they fall out of off the ramp is botched. I feel comfortable enough thing. I think it's actually part of the story. I feel like it is. Yeah, I mean, they handle it pretty well right after that. And it's a good way to get out of the Deathlock.
00:47:11
Speaker
I could see someone looking and thinking that's a bot, but regardless, they go from that to the actual ending and match quite well, I thought. Yeah, yeah.
00:47:19
Speaker
It's one of the little things that you really appreciate the more you watch wrestling. So like fully, for instance, he has to get up. It has to be days for staying to go up with the ropes. He's got to get a little closer for staying to hit him. They've got to make it obvious that he's not just walking closer to be in range of being struck. Yeah. So the good job was sort of like, Oh, I'm going to feel like I'm going to get this guy. Oh no, he hit me. Yeah. Watching so much modern wrestling where there's all these spots where eight guys stand in a big pile and pretend to punch each other while looking up constantly checking for a guy to dive. It's.
00:47:48
Speaker
It's refreshing to see little things like this that seem far more realistic. Yeah, I think both of them doing a tremendous job with that ending spot. Foley does a great job of getting right in position without looking like he's getting in position at all and staying again. What he's having to do is jump from the top rope over a gap onto a ramp without going too far and landing in another gap.
00:48:08
Speaker
it's a fairly wide ramp but still like that's a very limited landing zone that you got yeah i've seen a lot of people do top rope moves and be off by like you know three or four feet yes for sure so he has to be precise on this thing and it's it's an impressive jump it's a good thing i bet johnson not doing this put it that way yes
00:48:27
Speaker
Yeah, I thought this was an excellent, brutal brawl, with Cactus Jack in his element and Sting nicely showing that he can very much hold his own in a hardcore match. I do wish Jack had toned down those falls on the concrete floor from high up, but other than the discomfort of watching that, these two had a good, hard-hitting contest, and as the commentators pointed out, both showed that they could work with the other's preferred style just as well as their own.
00:48:50
Speaker
There's some very nice creative spots, like Jack's Counters of the Stinger Splash, the fall from the ramp on the Death Lock, and the excellent diving clothesline to the ramp for the finish. And those made it a very fun watch. It's unfortunate that the commentator spent so much time building up that this could end up outside the arena itself. Yeah. As that might make someone feel a little bit disappointed that it didn't. No, I can see that, yeah. But it didn't need to. It's a great match without that. Yeah, it's a great idea. They made a point, it's all falls got anywhere on the Gulf Coast.
00:49:18
Speaker
Yeah, and they really, I mean, they showed the video of the prior match that went outside the arena. Yeah. And J.R. and Jess here continually talk about, oh, this could end up anywhere. This could go outside. This could leave the city, you know, or something. And it doesn't do that. So you're just you're cheapening the match. So not not the best bit of commentary there by those. The other thing is, too, if you look back, that video, they show him and Van Hammer.
00:49:41
Speaker
They're also, at that point, pushing this angle with Dua the Butcher, where they're feuding and he ends up helping Jack. And that doesn't come into play at all in this match. I get they wanted to show a sample of Cactus, but it's weird to have that part in there and then have- Yeah, was that the only video that you had? Yeah, right? Yeah.
00:49:59
Speaker
I guess they didn't want to show up headbutting the wooden crate on the outside. Yes. Yeah. It just gives a misleading image of what the match is going to be. And then thankfully the match is awesome, but yeah, I can see someone saying, Oh, they didn't actually go outside, you know, and feeling a little bit disappointed because of that.
00:50:15
Speaker
I wasn't being so conditioned to how shows are presented now. I almost feel disappointed that they didn't do a thing where they cut to the back to show Harleresse and Vader like looking at a weird angle on the television. So like, yes, our plan's working or something like that. I'm happy that it's implied, but I'm just used to that, I guess. As noted, world champion Sting would defend this title against Vader at the Great American Bash.
00:50:41
Speaker
I think we all agree, no matter who actually wins the match, anyone who has to fight Vader is not a winner. Yes. Yeah, that's that I'm sure is brutal. J.R. throws to Tony and Eric and they build up Sting's fighting spirit. Eric says this proves Sting will take on any challenger in any kind of match. It's not quite accurate since technically Jack wasn't a challenger in the title since at least. Yeah, very true.
00:51:09
Speaker
Tony turns to the upcoming Iron Man match, and Eric notes that Rick Roode has a weight advantage, but with this being a guaranteed 30-minute match, the weight could work against Roode in terms of stamina. So, is it just me or is this whole formatting a little weird? Not our formatting, to be clear. The show's formatting, where the commentators call a match, then we cut to these two other people at the front of the ramp discussing that, and then back to them again.
00:51:35
Speaker
They've done that on a few shows. It's not a common approach, but there's certain shows that they do this like split commentary versus announcing duties thing. And yeah, it always comes off a little tiny bit awkward. It's not.
00:51:50
Speaker
awful. No, no, it's not. It's just weird. Yeah, it just feels like I don't quite get why you couldn't just have JR and Jesse do that and have Tony and Eric just do interviews. Right? Yeah. But I don't know, maybe, maybe they were worried about with Jesse needing to be involved in some of the other skits on the night that maybe Yeah, I don't know. It's not a terrible thing. It's just it's really weird that there's two other people also calling this show in random bursts. And yeah, and the most time that actually interviewing people,
00:52:17
Speaker
Good J.R. interviews. That's true. Yeah. Eric does an interview and J.R. does an interview. Tony doesn't do one. Jesse doesn't do one. I think the most notable difficulty with it is they sometimes end up rehashing the same points as each other. And you feel like the show would be just a tad stronger with just one team.
00:52:36
Speaker
Our fifth match is ravishing Rick Rude versus Ricky the Dragon Steamboat in a 30-minute Iron Man match.
Rick Rude vs. Ricky Steamboat Iron Man Match
00:52:44
Speaker
The referee for this match is Randy Anderson. I think this is the first time we've had an Iron Man match on the show. I believe so, yeah.
00:52:52
Speaker
So just to briefly cover that, an Iron Man match is a match with a time limit, often 30 to 60 minutes, in this case 30, which doesn't end at the first fall. Instead, competitors get a point for each pinfall, submission or other type of victory. And the one with the most points when time expires wins. They are tremendous fun in the wrestling video games.
00:53:13
Speaker
I was just thinking with the name they chose for this, the Iron Man thing. But assuming pretty safely that this ends up on either both of ours, best of the series matches, I feel like re-gimmicking that this with the name alone has so much potential. I don't give away great ideas yet, but I'm just thinking about that. I have so many thoughts already. It should be called a Captain America match. Right. He can do this all day, you know? Exactly, yeah.
00:53:40
Speaker
So this is part of a long standing issue between Rude and Steamboat, which comes ahead in this match. Briefly before this, Rude insinuated some things about Steamboat and his family, obviously going after Steamboat being the family man, as we'll see, especially in his intro. So it's one of the things he just does to antagonize him a little more, implying that he's not as good as he actually is. Gotcha.
00:54:01
Speaker
On top of that, he also, I think it's mostly kayfabe, but broke his nose. His team boat keeps working matches just with his nose taped over. So like, I would assume as he wasn't really broken, otherwise you wouldn't be working with it. Just tape on it. Yeah. I would hope that at least. Unless you're a big fully, which is probably would do. You wouldn't want tape it up. Then they'd hit you there.
00:54:22
Speaker
Yeah, so it's part of a bigger thing where it's the dangerous alliance that we saw at Russell war 92, the previous show against Steamboat and his allies. As part of this, Steamboat was denied a US title match by Rick Roode for basically no reason. He just didn't want to fight him, obviously, as he likes to score his right. Instead, they come with the idea of doing this 30 man Iron Man match to prove who the better man is. Notably, this is not a title match, which is weird.
00:54:49
Speaker
It's a little odd, like the implication here kind of is that Steamboat has to prove himself as a worthy contender to Rude by means of this Iron Man match. Right. But yeah, it's a little odd that you do something as amazing as an Iron Man match, but it's not for a title. Correct. Rude comes out in a nice blue robe and does wear his US title belt, though this is a non-title match.
00:55:15
Speaker
Rude gets a microphone and calls the crowd fat, out-of-shape, beach-loving bozos. He tells them he's about to show them what a real sexy man is like. Rude's tights this time feature images of him flexing.
00:55:27
Speaker
We talked before, people have really interesting weird gear and wonder like what happened to all that. Like, Oh my God. He is always like long tights. They're all, they're all stylized. Yeah. He does some amazing ones over his career. I don't know who has all or most of them or any of those, but I'd be interested to see like, as some sort of collection for that kind of stuff would be amazing. Absolutely. Yeah. That's, that would be great.
00:55:49
Speaker
Steamboat enters with his wife and little son in the absolute best babyface entrance ever. Dad and son both wear awesome dragon themed Gs. Rude advances, so Steamboat quickly ushers his son back out through the ropes and charges Rude. Jesse claims that Steamboat tried to use his kid to defend himself from Rude. Good twisting of reality there Jesse. Yeah, that's nice.
00:56:13
Speaker
Steamboat lands a gut buster and works the ribs with punches, kicks, shoulder blocks, a sideways bear hug, a neat bow and arrow hold, a Boston crab that he darn near turns into the lion tamer, knee strikes, and a vertical suplex drop. Jesse calls him sadistic, like Dr. No in Goldfinger. Dr. No was in Dr. No, Jesse. I'm guessing that Jesse probably mixed him up with Oddjob. Yeah, yeah. He just quickly adjusted to James Bond movies. Yeah, yeah.
00:56:43
Speaker
Steamboat earns two with a fist drop, but Rude lands a solid knee to the jaw as he charges, pulls Steamboat's tights, and gets a three count, or one to zero for Rude at 22, 18 remaining. Rude hits the Rude Awakening for another three, as two to zero for Rude at 21 minutes, 21 seconds remaining. He lands a top rope knee drop, intentionally getting DQ'd. That puts it two to one in Rude's favor, with 20 minutes and 18 seconds remaining.
00:57:13
Speaker
but Rude immediately inside Cradle's Steamboat for three, so it's three to one for Rude, with 19 minutes and 49 seconds remaining. JR and Jesse say getting DQ'd to deal heavy damage might have been a smart tactical play. Rude works around a camel clutch and tries to dance, but can't because his ribs hurt. Jesse praises his bravery. He's a brave soul for trying to get the worst things in their lives, yeah.
00:57:39
Speaker
Steamboat breaks free with an electric chair drop, but Rude gets his knees up on a splash and gets multiple two counts with a swinging neckbreaker, then slaps on a reverse chinlock. 15 minutes remain. Steamboat escapes with elbows, but Rude hits a pile driver for two, then tries a tombstone pile driver, but Steamboat walks on his hands up Rude's body to turn it over and hits his own for three. It's three to two in favor of Rude, with 12 minutes and 21 seconds remaining.
00:58:07
Speaker
Rude pulls the tights to send Steamboat to the turnbuckle and goes up top, but Steamboat superplexes him down, which JR says is legal because both men were on the top. Sure. Whatever. Yeah.
00:58:20
Speaker
That gets two. Rude gets two off a simultaneous close line as we cross the 10-minute mark, but Steamboat bridges out and backslides him for three. They're tied up, three to three, with 9 minutes and 38 seconds remaining. Two counts off a Steamboat inside cradle, flipping pin, and crossbody, Rude Jawbreaker into a face slam, and Scoop Slam into a forearm drop.
00:58:43
Speaker
Rude pokes the eyes and chokes Steamboat, then goes for the Rude Awakening, but Steamboat powers out and lands his own for two. Five minutes remain. Two counts for Steamboat's suplex and back suplex, but Rude gets a sleeper. Steamboat repeatedly rams him into the turnbuckles, but Rude holds on, even kicking Steamboat's arms down when he reaches for the ropes. Sweat pours from both men to the mat. I mean, you can see it like a waterfall. Yes.
00:59:14
Speaker
Two minutes remain, but Steamboat will not go down. One minute left, and Steamboat manages to walk up the turnbuckle, kicks off, and lands on top of Rude for three, putting us at four to three in Steamboat's favor with only 35 seconds to go.
00:59:32
Speaker
Rude freaks out. Oh yeah. Desperate, Rude gets two counts with a clothesline, shoulder block, another clothesline, an inside cradle, and a slam. But time expires, giving Steamboat the win four to three. An exhausted Steamboat rolls outside, and Anderson goes to help him stand up.
00:59:53
Speaker
Jesse nicely attributes that final pinfall en route to the rib damage that Steamboat did back at the beginning, as that forced him to break his hold on the impact and let Steamboat get a solid pin. Yeah. Thoughts on this one? This is absolutely a great showcase for both men. We're really spoiled by getting Steamboat on the show again, which is really happy to have him back on. So good to see you. So many shows without Steamboat and finally Return is great. One of the best things of coming back to this time period is seeing him in matches again.
01:00:23
Speaker
It's a very interesting way they do this match too. I try to think about this match like outside of an Iron Man match because obviously so much is built around this format. Like just imagine. So imagine watching a regular show and you get up to the first pinfall where Rude doesn't need countering the dive into the corner. Imagine then like that's a regular match that just ends a match.
01:00:45
Speaker
That would be weird. Yeah. I mean, very jarring. Mind you, it's a good impact. And it's a great story that he's, he just put it in the open blocks of guy being hyper aggressive against him. Right. But yeah, especially in that as a regular match, he suddenly got like a seven and a half, eight minute match with steamboat Ruby. Like, huh, that's, that's weird. It could still be good, but you'd want to see what they did with it afterwards. No, absolutely. Yeah. If that's a tease for other matches. Yeah. It's just funny just thinking about if that's just that itself was a match is really weird. Hmm.
01:01:11
Speaker
Again, the story is great because Steepoed is very mad about what Root has done and how he's treated him and all this stuff that's been built up all these many months. So he works super aggressively in the first seven minutes and then it bites him in the butt. He could like 100% control in the match and then suddenly he's controlling none of the match for a long period of time. Root for his part works the rules really well, gets a rope break on the Root Awakened to him later in the match.
01:01:38
Speaker
With the exception of 10 seconds of this qualified, he works around what he's allowed to do legally. It really well. And even then the top row of move to get qualified, but get a pin thing. It's one of the things that has come up with thinking later Iron Man matches, people copying this and rightfully so. There's the famous Smackdown match where it's Brock Lesnar in Kurt Angle. I believe it's Brock uses the Terry gets disqualified, losing a point, but then gets two pin falls off of the damage. So that makes sense.
01:02:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's like Jesse and J.R. bring up. This is actually a strategy element in an Iron Man match that you can't do in a normal match. You can intentionally lose one point, but do such severe damage to your opponent in that time that you're able to get more points or at the very least control things like Ruth spends the next about 10 to 15 minutes still solidly in control of the match after that. Yeah, absolutely.
01:02:29
Speaker
Because one of those matches I think you can really watch a few times and spot little things here and there's so many little touches, like in the way Steamboat sells something or let's talk about Rude still wanting to do his pose and can't do it because his ribs are injured. There's just so many little details you could really diagram out like this. It's one of those ones where they talk about wrestling school. They say, Oh, watch this match to learn how to wrestle.
01:02:54
Speaker
I know this is like the match to show, but there's so much you can learn from watching this. It's absolutely. Yeah. It's like the new one says you can pick up spots between spots with tempo gets the backslide. You see him really fight for it and pull them down with the backslide. Or when he takes the knee, the counter, he just slumps on top of rude. Yes. He grabs the ropes getting up and always. This is so much you could appreciate this match.
01:03:20
Speaker
It will come as a surprise to absolutely no one that I adored this match. In an impressive feat of stamina, these two wrestled for 30 minutes straight and included tons of fast action, hard hits, and complicated technical work.
01:03:36
Speaker
Yes, there are several points in the match with fairly lengthy holds, but they never stop working even in those, maneuvering constantly for position or struggling across the ring to make it clear that every single second of this match is a fight for advantage. The Iron Man rules allow for really interesting tactics that you don't get in most matches, like as we mentioned, rude sacrificing a point to deal extreme damage to his opponent since he can just make it back up right away.
01:04:02
Speaker
They also really nicely influenced the story of the match with rude, for instance, turning from vicious to more careful. Once he has a solid lead as all he has to do is outlast steamboat that exactly. But then becoming absolutely desperate when he ends up down a point with only 35 seconds to go. Oh yeah.
01:04:20
Speaker
Steamboat and Rude both sell like champs for this, with Rude making clear every little move hurts after ribs get injured early on. And the fact that both look legitimately exhausted at the end only makes this feel more epic. To their credit, despite I'm sure being completely wiped by the end of this match, neither loses a step in precision, pulling off move after move perfectly, even in the latest stages of the match.
01:04:46
Speaker
This was one of the finest matches I have ever seen, and the only strike against it in my book is that it was not a title match. For this level of performance, it deserved to be one. Absolutely amazing.
01:04:58
Speaker
Also, get to my point about some of the little things. So for instance, there's the point where Steamboat finally gets out of the Camel clutch by lifting him up with an electric teardrop. He actually doesn't succeed the first time he tries it. Yes. He tries, he starts getting him up and Rude manages to climb up the hole briefly and jump on his back and knock him down again, put him back in the hold. You get the tease of the escape, then he gets back in the hold for long enough where you think maybe he won't do it this time, then he actually does power through again.
01:05:26
Speaker
Yeah, an Iron Man match allows such interesting things. I mean, aside from the interesting strategy around the DQ and stuff, you can have things that wouldn't normally be a finish to a match be a pinfall or a submission here. Yeah. Like the knee strike, as you pointed out, you almost never see that happen in a normal match. But in Iron Man match, you can do that. And it's a really shocking and cool moment.
01:05:50
Speaker
Same thing, like you can have a submission potentially happen from a move that never normally gets a submission. That's, you know, ones that are only used in transition spots because that's not gonna be an end of the match. It's full of areas where you can do really interesting, shocking things.
01:06:05
Speaker
If you have watched enough wrestling, you kind of get a feeling for, OK, this type of move doesn't really normally do it. This type of move normally does a lot of matches, especially as we move towards the modern era, only end with the finisher. I mean, obviously that's the reason for the name. So it's cool to see a match like this where things can go really, really different directions. And it's kind of it's like it's wide open how this type of match can be done. There's all sorts of ways that you can can do things in it.
01:06:32
Speaker
I remember when we were watching this the first time together, I was surprised how much Steamboat controlled the match so early on, so firmly. It's like seven and a half minutes and then abruptly he just takes that E, it goes down. You and I were in mid discussion about, Bob, do you think that they're having Steamboat control this for too long? And I'm just responding and Steamboat just kneed in the face and pinned. I'm like, oh, or that could happen. Yeah.
01:06:55
Speaker
A one of the things I noticed, I don't think it's intentional because it doesn't feel like the kind of people that would do that. But in the part where Steamboat's controlling early on and attacking him, he simply does the jumping splash of the back, which was done by the Ultimate Warrior. Oh, okay. Yeah. And of course, against Rick Rude. True. I could see certain wrestlers doing that as like a show, like, look, our minds better or something. I don't think Steamboat would do that.
01:07:20
Speaker
I doubt it's that, but I could see it being rude saying, hey, this spot got a good reaction. Oh, there you go. When I had my feud with Warrior. It could be a completely coincidental thing. I have no idea, but because of Rude's involvement, that does seem suspicious. I think you'll agree with me. Just a terrific match. Oh, yeah. Probably one of the best we've done for the show.
01:07:39
Speaker
I, yeah, I appreciate even more when I went back and re-watched it. I was looking for more details to try to try to nitpick as you do in a match like this or any match. You look for the things that go right and go wrong. So yeah, absolutely. So good news. Steamboat would get another US title match in January, 1993. Okay. And not against Rook Rood. Aww.
01:08:01
Speaker
They do have stuff going on, but yeah, winning this match doesn't actually get him a title match, which is kind of strange in a lot of ways. Yeah, as we'll see it later tonight, they still throw it back in his face, but. Yes. He would eventually go after Steve Austin's TV title though. It will land in the year around September, October, so. Okay. He keeps busy.
01:08:19
Speaker
Rude and Steamboat are both in the tournament, both on Clash and then Great American Bash, Steamboat and Dikita Koloff. It's the joint US Lithuanian team, which is really funny to me. They said that Lithuania didn't field a full team, so they allowed Steamboat to team with him.
01:08:39
Speaker
They knew it was like, you know, it's, it's like team Australia and like team, uh, team Japan and team America. So that's the split team. It's just funny. Cause they explained it as I guess there's not a little, not a little, the waiting rest of they could find to wrestle with Koloff. So you can deal with team, but it's okay. And for his part, it's Rick Rude and Steve Austin involved in that. Gotcha. Curiously, you know, they're both in tournament with all these brackets. They never crossed paths in the show.
01:09:03
Speaker
That's interesting. Yeah. You think, oh, we can build this match as part of the tournament where these two teams face off again. Nope, they don't. It's a choice they may have just unexpected. And now for something completely different. Yes.
01:09:18
Speaker
JR and Jessie throw to round two of the bikini contest. Jessie is still bitter. Bad is in a different outfit, gold and white this time. And this time the contest is swimsuits but not bikinis. Medusa comes out in a biker jacket, bandana, and one-piece swimsuit. Bad declares the ladies almost as pretty as him. Missy Hyatt comes out next and she appears to have missed the memo about this not being the bikini part of the show as she is wearing a blue bikini.
01:09:47
Speaker
Well, he'd bring a regular sized bikini, though. I guess that's an exception. That's true. Yeah, he does describe the third part is the itsy bitsy teeny weeny bikini contest. Yeah. So this is a a bikini, but not a itsy bitsy teeny weeny. Yeah, it's weird because the producer for her part is playing up the heel of not wearing a bikini in a bikini contest, even the part where she wears a jacket over shoulders and when she turns around, she puts it around her waist. Yes.
01:10:10
Speaker
I do like also that Four Showers are history because he's wearing a Harley-Davidson jacket. Yeah, I like road wild suggestion four years early, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay, it's hog wild in that case. Right. Yeah, that's as well. Yeah, that's that was interesting to see considering the series we just did that she comes out to all this biker paraphernalia.
01:10:27
Speaker
It's also funny too, we think about it long-term because every match we've seen of her, we've seen a few with her now between Hog Wild and other shows she appears. Her wrestling outfit just become basically a bikini, right? I think I'll note that the outfit she actually comes out in as part of the bikini contest thing looks very like her actual wrestling gear. Yeah. So just funny thing, I will wear this. Except when I'm wrestling for like four years, then I'll wear it all the time.
01:10:54
Speaker
The crowd seems in favor of Hyatt so far. JR runs over the hotline info again. 1-900-909-9900. He dubs this the Ultra Bikini Contest. Not sure what makes it particularly ultra, but sure. Uh, yeah. He and Jesse build up the Great American Bash, though Jesse is more interested in finding out who Ross is going to be voting for. Ross says he's making up his mind.
01:11:19
Speaker
Oh, I just realized there was one critique we actually had of the previous match that didn't come up. Yes. Which is that they didn't have a little screen up, which said where the score was at all times. Yeah. Later, later on tonight, they'll have a screen up for this. Yes. But yeah, they don't have a scoreboard showing during the Ironman match, which would have been nice. They do, to be fair, for the home viewers, they have the timer and the bottom of all times. But having the score on the board would be nice, like a visual even if it just came up for a moment when a pinfall was. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah.
The Dangerous Alliance Six-Man Tag Match
01:11:49
Speaker
Our sixth match is The Dangerous Alliance, beautiful Bobby Eaton, stunning Steve Austin, and no nicknames needed, Arne Anderson.
01:11:59
Speaker
with Paul E. Dangerously versus Barry Windham, Nikita Koloff, and The Natural, Dustin Rhodes, in a six-man tag match. The referee for this match is Senior Referee Ollie Anderson. So back on the June 13th episode of WCW Saturday Night, they brought out Ollie Anderson. Now he is, again, the Senior Referee of WCW.
01:12:22
Speaker
He should have laid down the law. That means no top rope moves. And some reason no mats on the floor outside because men. I guess so. That's basically what they say. It's like the toughest people here who won't be able to walk straight for the rest of their lives after wrestling here for every year. This is a manly manager, something. And also no, when their heads against the barricade, which doesn't come up at all in this show, as you mentioned, but he typically says that is outlawed.
01:12:48
Speaker
As noted before, the Daedrus Alliance has been an ongoing thing for quite a while. They had their big War Games match at Russell War, which was quite good. Yes, that was nice. Between then and now, they kicked out Larry Zabisco for not cheating well enough, which now makes him a face because he didn't like the people that kicked him out for not cheating as well as he should have. They don't do a lot with him as a good guy, to be fair. He wrestles, I think, Austin on one show, but he's not on this show. You think putting him on the face team might be a good show of that, but no.
01:13:18
Speaker
I would have, I would have loved to having Zabisco in this match. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know who would have kicked off the team, mind you. Cause they're all good too. Yeah. That's the thing. Yeah. If you got it, you got a fourth heel, then having Zabisco on there too would have been good. Or at least come full circle like that. Yeah.
01:13:34
Speaker
Oh, worth noting, during the build-up, Barry Wynn would actually win the TV title off D of Austin, and hold it for about a week, and lose it right back to him. Oh. Which he referenced later as Austin taking a vacation from the belt or something. Yes. What Chara says. It's just kind of weird to randomly have him lose the title, then just gain it right back as part of this build-up. Otherwise known as the normal situation in the year 2000. Yes, correct. It's unusual in 1992.
01:14:00
Speaker
In the early build of this match, it was announced that they were going to bring back the WWE World Six-Man Tag Team Championship. Thus, it's having this six-man team match, having a three-man team against another three-man team. Sometime between we announced it in the show, they gave up on that and just didn't mention it. Wow. That's why we had a six-man match because there was going to be four titles that didn't exist and were brought back for the show, wherever again. Great. Referee Ole Anderson is out first.
01:14:29
Speaker
Dangerously leads his squad out next, holding the ropes for them to enter. Wyndham, Koloff, and Rhodes enter to what I believe is Wyndham's theme. Rhodes has his amazing yellow, red, and blue jacket. Oh, worth noting, Wyndham's theme is very ZZ Top.
01:14:45
Speaker
Austin and Wyndham trade holds until Wyndham takes Austin down with a second rope Japanese arm drag. Tag to Rhodes, and after a dropkick, Austin crawls for the tag to the wrong corner. Rhodes slaps on an armbar, but Austin gets close enough to tag Eaton. Eaton levels Rhodes with a knee strike and gets a cradle on a charge for one, then tags Arn who challenges and slaps Koloff. That seems unwise. Rhodes tags Koloff.
01:15:12
Speaker
Arne tries to lure Koloff into the heel corner, but Koloff is wise to that. Arne gets Koloff down and goes up top, but Oli reminds him that that's a DQ, and Koloff reminds him that he's waiting there with a Russian sickle, so Arne comes down. Guess I'll let the waiting in sickle at this point. Yeah, I guess so. Koloff later hits the sickle, knocking Arne over the ropes to the floor. Eaten protests, but Oli excellently mimes throw, yes, clothesline, no, making sure that folks way in the back understand what's going on.
01:15:42
Speaker
Again, I still question the logic of that a bit because you clearly get him and knocked him over there. Yeah, it's one of those things that should totally be a DQ if the over the top road thing is at all, but they kind of excuse it. I think J.R. says like he hit him and then momentum took him over rather than him intentionally chucking him over. But yeah, it's tenuous. It's not like they later do a clothesline of the top rope and it's not a DQ in the same match, right?
01:16:05
Speaker
I love Oli's motioning there. It's very, very clear exactly what he's doing. He does perfect miming for all of it. Eton in and Koloff beats him up and Bear hugs him, but Austin distracts Oli and Arne frees Eton. Arne and Eton try a double team, but Koloff knocks them into each other and disposes of Austin too, so all retreat outside. Dangerously suggests plan number two.
01:16:29
Speaker
Arne in and Windham in. Windham sends Arne to the turnbuckle with an atomic drop, but they knock heads. Arne goes up top with his partners distracting Oly, but Windham grabs Arne. Arne pokes his eyes and hits a second-rope single-axe handle.
01:16:44
Speaker
Wyndham hits knee strikes and a sleeper, but arm back suplex is free, and Wyndham stumbles towards Rhodes for a great collapsing tag. Rhodes decimates all three heels with punches, a lariat, and a bionic elbow, but arm rigs his eyes and runs him into Eaton's head.
01:17:01
Speaker
Aren in Austin trade-off wearing roads down as JR shells the hotline 1-900-909-9900. This is where scores show on screen showing that Medusa is ahead in the voting 51% to 49% so the WCW can earn more money as people desperately call in to make sure the hill doesn't win. I should call now because he's winning. I gotta stop that.
01:17:22
Speaker
Rhodes backslide earned two, but aren't sneaks in the tag to Eaton during the backslide, which technically means only should probably not have counted that pin, but it's a cool spot anyway. No, it is. Yeah.
01:17:36
Speaker
Eaton, Austin, and Arne trade off to beat Rhodes up, earning two counts with an Eaton clothesline and Austin Flying clothesline, and working the arm. Classic Anderson tag work, as Rhodes stuns Arne with a bionic elbow, but Arne smoothly locks his legs around Rhodes' as he falls to keep him from making a tag. Oh yeah. That was a flashback to some of our earliest episodes there. They can only be proud in the ring, yeah.
01:18:00
Speaker
Rhodes earns two with a roll-up on Austin, and manages to run Arne into Eaton, but Austin nails a stun gun. But, Rhodes lands near the face corner, and tags Wyndham. JR notes that Wyndham's height let him stretch for that tag.
01:18:16
Speaker
Wyndham runs wild on the heels with punches and hip tosses, and everybody gets in to brawl. Eaton keeps Koloff busy and Arne disposes of Rhodes as Wyndham superplexes Austin. Arne tries to stop the pin with a top rope dive, but Oley spots it, DQing Arne and giving the faces the win. Arne gets in Oley's face, but Rhodes forearms Arne down.
01:18:39
Speaker
Austin attacks Wyndham, but the faces spot it and run Austin off. The dangerous alliance retreats as Koloff checks on Wyndham. Thoughts on this one?
01:18:48
Speaker
It's a very fun, very spirited match. My problem is there's no stakes to this. It's not for a title. It's not for a title shot. It's a good match and it's got six really talented people involved. I just wish they were fighting for something in this match. If we went to see like a live event show, this would be a great, very enjoyable match to watch. And it's still enjoyable on here.
01:19:11
Speaker
But yeah, I just, I don't know, like, it's hard to get super invested. I appreciate the story that these guys are fighting against dangerous alliance, but at this point, there's nothing they're fighting for is all
01:19:21
Speaker
Yeah, if you want it to be at least for like, oh, Austin is ducking Windham trying to do a return title match. If they win this match, he gets it or something. Yeah, something else. Yeah. I think that's maybe a victim of, like you said, the six men belts being started to be brought back, but then stop that. Like that's originally what the storyline was. Right. That makes sense. That goes them to fight for, but then taken away.
01:19:43
Speaker
That said, they do tell a nice fast-paced story throughout. With the six-band format, there's less slowdown with me working ahold and everything. You get little bits of that, obviously, with Dustin Rhodes who gets to be taken out for a while because he loves being faced in peril. Yes. He's good at it, so I don't blame him. Oh yeah, he does an excellent job.
01:20:01
Speaker
And definitely more believable than Koloff being the face in peril. He can definitely do as you've seen. Oh yeah. I'm just pushing the six in the back laying the match out and you know, Austin's like, well, okay, so who's going to be the face in peril? And they'll just, they all turn and just look at Dustin. Yeah, I don't. Okay. That's fine. It's only natural.
01:20:20
Speaker
Yeah. I have a little thing. I do appreciate that. So Wyndham and roads are attacking at this point and they were matching cowboy boots. That's how you know they're attacking. That's cool. But I would do that matching gear otherwise, but the boots are a good symbol.
01:20:36
Speaker
The other problem is that so much of this match is built around, Hey, remember this rule, but no top rope stuff. I don't think I really truly bogged them down the match, but so much is built around, don't do this move because you get disqualified or do this move when you do get disqualified. It's not like all of the math is enough that it's distracting for me. Okay. All in all though, it is still a very controlled match. It's just zero stakes. Do it. Yeah.
01:20:59
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I think this was a really fun, chaotic tag match that gave everyone a chance for some highlights and featured some really nice tag work from both sides. I loved ARN slipping in a tag during a backslide, Windom managing one while collapsing, and roads falling just close enough after a stun gun to tag Windom thanks to Windom's height.
01:21:18
Speaker
those were really good surprising moments. As you and I said before, tag matches can feel very similar to each other after a while. I think working in moments like that where a tag just shocks you is really a good way to keep them fresh. It got very creative and I also enjoyed seeing snatches of the old Anderson tag work in there in parts. It has been a while.
01:21:42
Speaker
The ending is a mixed bag. It's disappointing for this great match to end on a DQ, especially a DQ from pretty shoddy rule. But at the same time, I'm going to disagree with you slightly on its involvement in the match out, because I thought that did a great job to set up how the ending was going to go throughout the match, as Arne repeatedly tries to cheat with top rope moves and either has to back off because Oli catches him or hesitates and allows someone else to grab him.
01:22:07
Speaker
So him getting caught by only in the end does make sense. It does get some genuine build over the course of the match. Yeah, I just I think for me, unless it should end the payoff to that because of what the story is. But yeah, I can totally see that point. Yeah, it's not just an out of nowhere moment. It is the story. Yeah, I get that. I still don't really like it either. But I appreciate that. If you're going to do it, you at least do it with some actual effort.
01:22:29
Speaker
Oh, there is a point when he tries it and it gets punched by Wyndham, I believe. And they briefly argue whether that shouldn't be disqualification because he didn't actually land the move. Right. Yeah. He's punched while trying to do the move. Yes. You can't argue intent on a move. No. Yeah.
01:22:44
Speaker
I think the idea was probably that they needed to have a DQ from the rule at some point to really establish it in the fans minds. But as you pointed out, when we watched the show, Al, they did have a DQ from that rule in the Iron Man match. And that was the good way to do it as they didn't have to end the match from that DQ. Still, aside from a slightly disagreeable ending, the overall match was loads of fun.
01:23:07
Speaker
I think I get the idea that it's armed because always the Raphony videos, he thinks they'll be more lenient for him. Yeah, true. But it is kind of funny that aren't the one conflict over top rope moves. That is funny, yes. If Bobby Eadon's finish is a top rope leg drop, or was a top rope leg drop, before the rules were changed, obviously. But he never tries it at all during the match. I guess he's smart enough not to try.
01:23:29
Speaker
The other part that I found hilarious during this match was there's one point where Arne has some kind of arm hold on somebody on the face side. I think probably Dustin and Oli is obviously standing there checking for the submission, but I like to think that, you know, them being a former tag team partner that loved doing arm holds on people. Oli was like, now you got to cinched him, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Giving him advice on the finer points of an arm hold, reminding him of what to do. I was like, I got it, Oli. Yeah. Yeah. Cause in K-fabies, what his uncle, I think.
01:23:58
Speaker
Oh, God, I never remember. It's not father and son. It's either uncle or cousins. I can't forget which. Yeah.
01:24:08
Speaker
Uh, as I know before, call off a team up with Ricky Steamboat as part of the tag team tournament. They interfacing RNS and Bobby Eden, who are also in the tournament. So at least there is follow-up from this match, keeping the dangerous alliance story going. So that's good. Yeah. Fair play to that. As also noted, Rick Roods there with Dave Austin as part of the same tournament. So at least this is all still going, even if they abruptly end this match with a DQ finish.
01:24:32
Speaker
Yeah, it doesn't feel like it should end the storyline, and so I'm glad it doesn't. Yeah, exactly. It'd be really a bad blow off for sure. Yeah. JR throws to Eric Bischoff, who is with Ricky the Dragon Steamboat. Let's go up to Eric Bischoff, who's standing by gotta be Eric, but one very tired, but one very brave individual, Ricky Steamboat.
01:24:57
Speaker
Thanks Jim and you know one of the great things about this tremendous sport is that you have an opportunity to see two athletes of caliber of the United States heavyweight champion ravishing Rick Roode and this man, Ricky the Dragon, Steve Oat, may meet one on one in the center of the ring.
01:25:13
Speaker
And on any given night, one of those athletes may rise to the occasion and not only meet the challenge, but beat the challenge. First of all, Ricky Stiebel, congratulations. Thank you for being with us. I know that you've got to be physically, emotionally exhausted at that grueling battle with the U.S. heavyweight champion, but you also have to feel elated and be at the top of your game. I'm looking forward to a chance to meet Stiebel this time for the U.S. title. You know something, Eric? I would like to give thanks to all the fans that have stood by me in the past several months.
01:25:43
Speaker
It's been hard on myself, my little boy, my wife, all the false accusations, all the name bashing, the name calling. Well, tonight, finally, ladies and gentlemen, in a 30-minute Iron Man challenge, I prove to the world that this was my finest hour. This, without a doubt, was the hardest wrestling match of my entire career.
01:26:08
Speaker
I feel good about being on top of my game right now. And knowing, and knowing that the Dangerous Alliance cannot dodge me anymore. Annoying Ravishing Rick Roode that I am the Iron Man. Annoying Ravishing Rick Roode that I am going to be knocking at your door for more United States Heavyweight Championship match. You can best take it to the base.
01:26:32
Speaker
I'm gonna tell you, as the CEO of the Dangerous Alliance, and as Ravishing Rick Rood's best friend in the world, my friend, you put on one of the greatest athletic exhibitions in the world tonight. But you have received your final chance at the US Heavyweight title. I don't just mean tonight, and I don't just mean this week. I don't just mean this month. You'll ever see your last title shot forever.
01:27:10
Speaker
Suddenly, Cactus Jack attacks, and he and Steamboat brawl near the stage until security separates them. This was an excellent promo by Steamboat, building up a terrific win and justifiably noting that he should clearly be number one contender to the US title after a non-title win like that.
01:27:29
Speaker
I appreciate that even dangerously when he comes in cannot help but praise Steamboat's fight, even as he's denying him a US title shot. He was so good that dangerously cannot lie about it. That is good. Jack's attack comes as a real surprise and works quite well with his overall mercenary storyline tonight, letting this segment build up multiple viable story paths quite well.
01:27:54
Speaker
I think as you know, watching it, Steamboat seems completely recovered from working at Ironman. That's amazing. Like, yeah. I mean, he's, he's had, I don't know, about 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes. Yeah. Hadn't been a long time. Yeah. Like I would be, I mean, I wouldn't make it through the Iron match in the first place. Right. Let's know. Let's put it that way. But if I did, I would still be on a couch backstage somewhere gasping for breath. Yeah. You'd be one of those ice baths that you use in like pro sports. Yeah.
01:28:21
Speaker
Yeah, just like lying there, you know, waiting for the world to come back into focus. But Steamboat is out on the stage looking none the worse for wear. Yeah. You know, having an energetic interview and then having a fight with Cactus Jack. Good gosh, man, you're good. Yeah, absolutely.
01:28:40
Speaker
It's always nice to have a bit of Paul Heyman slash Polly Dangerously on the show as well. Yes. Cause they make a point of taking him out of involved in the Rick Roode match earlier. Understandably so. And we get a little taste of him as the outside person, you know, yelling at the ref or again, saying one to plan number two, all his things, but you can always use more Polly Dangerously on a show.
01:29:01
Speaker
He's, he's generally a quite a good character. Yeah. I probably asked before, but I do wonder if the name comes from Johnny Dangerously, the Michael Keaton film. I'd be shocked if it didn't. Yeah. I mean, it could be a quick coincidence, but yeah, it was like, cause yeah, that's, that's mid eighties and it's probably around the time he starts doing that. Yeah. I'd be, I'd be shocked if that was not the origin of this name. Yeah.
01:29:25
Speaker
We go to the beach for the bikini contest finale where Jesse is still moaning about wanting to be the judge. Bad is apparently totally okay with that and just joins him on stage this time in a sparkly blue cowboy outfit. He's a sheriff now.
01:29:40
Speaker
Yes. The two do an alleged comedy routine about bad sexuality, then bring out Medusa in something not too far from some actual red, white, and blue wrestling outfits that she ends up wearing. Yes. Not sure that chaps count as part of a bikini, though. Yeah. Apparently, someone has stolen Missy's bikini, which she claims was in a very tiny envelope.
01:30:03
Speaker
Jesse and Bad come over to investigate and Missy steals Jesse's scarf and bandana. Jesse and Bad now joke about Jesse's baldness.
01:30:13
Speaker
Bad goes in to Missy's tent to investigate and says he doesn't think she can come out like this, but Missy says she can. She emerges in a bikini that is allegedly crafted from Jesse's scarf and bandana, but clearly consists of far too much material for that to be the case. And has strings on it that also would not have been on a... It is clearly a professionally crafted bikini that is made from at least twice to three times the material of his scarves. There's no way.
01:30:38
Speaker
It's a good thing it's wasn't later with like jr and his hat, somehow like shield his hat and somebody turn to the bikini. Yes. At least they made up material from a 10 gallon hat though.
01:30:49
Speaker
Bad declares Missy the winner. Medusa calls him a piece of you-know-what and shoves him into her tent. And Bad comes out holding her top for some reason. Jesse goes into the tent to investigate and declares Medusa the winner moments later. Bad asks us to stay tuned. Neither one can actually declare the winner because it's done by fan voting, so JR notes that you can still vote and that Tony and Magnum TA will have the results tomorrow. They dragged Magnum TA into this?
01:31:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Poor guy. This is not a great segment for quite a few reasons, not least of which that bad and Jesse just do not have good comedic timing together. No, there's just massive pauses between each line as they're arguing. So it doesn't feel at all natural. Yeah, I first was thinking that you could blame bad for it because he's quite new to his role still. But really, like Jesse is kind of flipping up the timing here, too, which was surprising.
01:31:47
Speaker
You know, it kind of reminds me of in the wake of people finding his movies funny, unintentionally, Uber bull tried to do a thing where he had the actors improv. Okay. And it's, it's very terrible. They're like an all improv version of one of his other movies. And you can see, and it's like you're saying, you can see where they go. I say a line, they're like, Hmm, what can I say? And then they say it.
01:32:08
Speaker
Yeah, because they're improving everything. It's where this one I actually feel like it's almost the opposite on this one that it's it's because they're trying to remember exact scripted lines, but it has the same feel where it's just like say something and pause. Oh, right. That was the line. Yeah, you know, so that brings you to the other major thing with done to be bad, which looks like the other issue discussed is mostly toned down as time goes by. Yes. So Mark Merrill, the actual guy that played Johnny the Bad,
01:32:39
Speaker
So I have three issues with him. One, the whole how they handle the sexuality, allegedly, all that stuff. Second, and a much more minor issue, as I've trusted for, he's named after Johnny B. Goode. This is not a song by the person he's impersonating. Yes, yes. To Jerry Lewis song. I don't get why he's a little Richard and he's just... Yeah. That's a really minor thing, but it gets me every time I see a thing, I'm like, why is your name that? Yes, yes, true. Third,
01:33:05
Speaker
Well, he is a very tan person. I've seen him in real life now. He isn't so much makeup on here. It is practically blackface. Yeah. And potentially torso. Yes. My thought when I see him in this outfit, he has this very sparkly shiny vest that says chair of bat on the back of it. My immediate thought, especially with his little mustache, is he's Cowboy Curtis from Pee Wee's Playhouse, who of note is played by Lawrence Fishburne.
01:33:33
Speaker
who is actually black. He's actually black. Correct. Yeah. So if you remind me of him, it is too much. Blessedly towards the end of Johnny B. Bad's run, or actually not too far into it, that aspect of it, I think it's shoved aside and he stops doing the heavy makeup and everything. Thank you. Yeah. We've seen some later where it's not nearly as bad. Yeah. Yeah. By the, by the time he's finishing up in WSW it's, it's just Mark Mero just still calling himself Johnny B. Bad. Exactly. Yeah.
01:33:58
Speaker
He meant Phil wouldn't have some good matches that are fully separated from this nonsense. Yeah. It was something that should not have been done. Yes.
01:34:08
Speaker
I will say, again, as bad as the timing is and as silly as the premise of her making the bandana bikini is, it's at least something extra than rather than just her walking out wearing a small bikini going, yeah, you'll hit my body. Fair enough, I guess. But they at least built to something, even if it's really dumb. Yes. And Dusa does a little bit where she serves her coy smile. They cut to her like a soap opera, which he's celebrating her victory of ever stolen bikini from the envelope.
01:34:37
Speaker
It really is like general hospital and they cut to someone who would just, you know, scheme to fake someone's death. That's true. Of course they did it. Yeah, I think the segment overall is pretty demeaning to everyone involved, especially the women. Yes, agreed. Not as much as any given five seconds of Mark Madden commentary in the year 2000. So there's that but still it's pretty bad. Yeah, just kind of a waste of time on this otherwise terrific show.
01:35:03
Speaker
What's with, yeah, that's the thing is it stands out in a show where there's so much good throwback 80s action with the style and how to perform with the 90s flourish of so much neon and the bright and everything. Even in fact, like the ring has the real blue and yellow going on. Yes. Yeah. And you get that, that vibe from it. So having this on the show, it's kind of disappointing because you wish it's on a show. What's otherwise bad, no pun intended.
01:35:30
Speaker
So you could just go, oh, watch this part of this show. But it's this thing that breaks up a really good show with really no bad matches on it. Yeah, give Medusa a match, not a bikini contest. She is wrestling at this point, as we saw on the AWA show. Yeah, she's wrestling before this and after this. She's good. She is. Yeah. Yeah, I don't get why they had to put her in stuff like this at this time.
01:35:50
Speaker
It's funny too, because I don't know the exact timing of this, but a couple of years after this, anyway, she leaves to go to WWF after being in Japan where they actually let her wrestle for a while until they then stopped letting her wrestle and she goes to WWE where they promised to let her wrestle, then don't for like a year. Yes. Then we'll make a title for you and she never gets to hold the title they made for her. She doesn't have a good time in WWE. No, no. It's a shame.
01:36:16
Speaker
Tony builds up the result to the bikini contest on TBS the next day and ask Eric about the Jack attack during the interview with Ricky Steamboat. Eric says it came out of nowhere and when Steamboat gets his hands on Jack, there's going to be something to pay. This is like, it's so funny going from new blood rising to this where it's like everybody's swearing to people are refusing to even get close to swearing. Yeah. We're past shows we're staying, staying of all people, swearing at people and then suddenly gosh darn it. Yeah.
01:36:46
Speaker
The two build up the world tag title match and Tony gives us a, here we go to the ring. So close. Our final match is Terry Bam Bam Gordy and Dr. Death, Steve Williams versus the Steiner brothers, Rick and Scott, for the Steiner's WCW world tag team championship. The referee for this one is Randy Anderson.
Steiner Brothers Tag Team Championship Defense
01:37:08
Speaker
In May, WWE made a big deal about bringing in Williams and Gordy, having up them as bigger national superstars.
01:37:16
Speaker
That is true. And of course they wrestled in all Japan per wrestling where they were our favorite tag team name, the miracle violence connection. Yes. Amazing. It's great. I will say this too. So looking up their history in all Japan on Wikipedia, they list them like their build name in Japan. If you put their name from there in Google translate, you get murder torpedo.
01:37:39
Speaker
That's, that's just as good. So our seventh batch is actually murder torpedo versus this tighter for the WSW world tag titles. Awesome. Yes. Love it. Yeah. So anyway, like I said, they were big stars in all Japan. All Japan essentially is the WWF to new Japan's WCW. Think of them as the two top companies and at least at this point, anyways, in Japan. Yeah. They won their tag titles four different times.
01:38:05
Speaker
They go on to win them one more time in 1993 as well. So naturally being this big international team, being this torpedo of murder as they were, they obviously had to go against the center brothers who were the WPW world tag team champions. Recently, the Steiners won the titles that defending now over our Anderson and Larry's at Bisco, being the enforcer and the cruncher, the great tag team name, your team's there.
01:38:31
Speaker
They also come up with a point in early 1991 where it's true. They were the WSW United States world and IWGP tag champions all at the same time. That's pretty impressive. Yes. So while it's not built this way, this is an arguably international match because between all Japan pro tag team champions and new Japan pro tag champions.
01:38:54
Speaker
That's cool. They do at one point in the match describe Gordian Williams as the Japanese team, which is, I guess, technically correct, since they do at this point apparently reside in Japan, but also a little bit weird to hear when you're discussing two very large American men.
01:39:10
Speaker
Yeah. And we're, yeah, worth knowing they're part of that NWA tag tournament. Don't have two team, Japan's. Okay. The other team is two actual Japanese people. And then Liger is the split us one, but yeah, it's just funny that there's two Japanese teams and one of them is actually Japanese. Yeah.
01:39:30
Speaker
Gordy and Williams make their way to the ring, as Jesse rejoins JR at the commentary desk. The Steiner's are next out, as JR notes that they're the number one seed in the NWA World Tag Title Tournament. JR predicts, however, that Gordy and Williams are going to win this, and Jesse notes how unusual it is for JR to consider the challengers the favorites.
01:39:51
Speaker
Of course, to be fair, and not to discount Williams and Gordy, but the fact that Williams played for the Sooners might make their a little biased in his favor. Just a tad, just a tad, yeah. Scott and Gordy do some excellent counterwrestling until Gordy gets frustrated and slaps Scott. They trade blows and Scott takes Gordy down and rains down punches until Anderson interposes himself. Jesse notes that he's a small ref to be trying that. Yeah, Ole should probably have ref this match.
01:40:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's a shame I don't have a former wrestler and larger man that could be in this match. Maybe the two have read Anderson on the schedule backstage and got mixed up with one was which that makes sense. Williams in and he and Scott do some complex Matt wrestling, then trade strikes. Williams tries a three point stance, but Scott goes up and over and rolls him up for two. Williams nearly gets a pin on a Scott headlock, but Scott tags Rick.
01:40:45
Speaker
Williams blocks a hip toss and a takedown, but Rick rapidly switches holds and gets a belly-to-belly suplex. Williams lands forearms and three-point stands charges until Rick Steiner lines the crap out of him for two.
01:40:59
Speaker
Williams and Gordy earn two with a Gordy back suplex and hurl Rick to the ramp, but Rick hits a sunset flip. Williams grabs the ropes, but Scott knocks them away from them for two. Williams and Gordy trade off working Rick's leg with a half crab, leg lock, which Rick rolls over for a couple two counts, and a spinning toe hold. Rick hits a belly-to-belly suplex and tags Scott.
01:41:22
Speaker
Scott earns one with a T-bone suplex and two with a crossbody, but Williams and Gordy keep getting him to their corner for cheap shots and double teams, as Rick accidentally distracts Anderson. Williams and Gordy trade off working Scott's leg with a kind of half STF, like just the leg part of it, a toe hold, kicks during a bow and arrow, a high angle leg lock, and a half crab, and earn one with a Williams clothesline and two with a Gordy snap suplex.
01:41:49
Speaker
J.R. notes that Williams got the Dr. Death moniker in middle school. Yes. That is terrifying. Equally terrifying is trying to picture Dr. Death Steve Williams as a middle schooler. Yeah. I can only picture him like shorter, but still as muscular and with the big beard. Oh, yeah. Still with the beard for sure. I find it funny, too, because so Jared just drops that in commentary. Like there's no question. And he's he almost seems surprised when Ventura asks him for follow up on explanation, please. Yeah. Yeah.
01:42:19
Speaker
Yeah, it emerges that he just like he was constantly beating people up or something. Yeah, apparently so. Williams gets another two by leveraging Scott onto his shoulders. And when Scott gets a shoulder up, uses that momentum to turn it into a high angle Boston crap. Jesse does a great job calling the intricacies of that. Yeah.
01:42:37
Speaker
Scott crawls for the corner and makes the tag. Rick lands close lines and punches to Williams and Gordie and almost drops Williams on a modified power slam for two. Yes. Modified is JR speak for botched. Yeah, it is.
01:42:52
Speaker
Everybody in, but Gordy disposes of Scott and Williams floors Rick with a clothesline. Gordy slams Rick off the second rope and tries a pin, but he's not the legal man. Williams tries it and gets two. More two counts with a Gordy dropkick and Gordy and Williams double shoulder block as we're down to five minutes remaining.
01:43:11
Speaker
More with Williams' backbreakers, a Gordy back suplex, and a Williams gut wrench powerbomb, and Williams goes for the Oklahoma Stampede, but Rick slips free and Steiner lines him. The crowd is absolutely roaring. Gordy clotheslines Rick, but Rick Steiner lines him into next week and tags Scott. Scott hits Gordy and Williams with back body drops, slams, and clotheslines, and a double underhook powerbomb, then hits the Frankensteiner to Gordy for nothing as time expires.
01:43:42
Speaker
Scott and Rick look disappointed despite retaining their titles. And Anderson does some wonderful miming of a Frankensteiner in interrupted pin count due to time expiration while explaining to Scott. I'm loving all the referee miming tonight. Yeah, yeah. Thoughts on this one?
01:44:00
Speaker
So I'm a kind of a two-minded this match. There's a lot of hard-hitting action, but as you'd imagine with these teams. Yes. Because what's like in Japan, you know, there's that whole strong style thing and it's like called Kings Road style as well. All about hitting people hard and you drop them in their head and neck, which is great for long-term health. Let me tell you. Yeah. It makes for really interesting matches in the short term, but long-term it's not great for the bodies, obviously.
01:44:23
Speaker
There is a legitimate contest tonight in who has the hardest hitting match, these guys or Mick Foley versus the concrete floor. That's true, yeah. So I really enjoyed those parts. Likewise, the parts where they're showing off a legit technical wrestling background, getting out of moves, escaping them. They punctuate these spots really well, like they'll west around for a couple minutes and then Scott just throws that death over his head. Yeah. Or if Brick gets his throws.
01:44:50
Speaker
The intro section of this match in particular is amazing for feeling like a legitimate amateur wrestling contest where you can tell all of these guys have that background because they know all the little details and tiny movements that you make when you're looking for the position and everything that even when other people do kind of an amateur wrestling or counter wrestling approach, you don't get that kind of stuff. Yeah, they just lock up and then go for things. But the way they approach each other in this match even feels legit as a contest.
01:45:21
Speaker
Yeah, there's definitely a point where they they're sort of eyeing each other and like, there's a one where I think Rick goes for a hold and like the I spins out of the way. I think it's just, there's a lot of really good stuff here in that that regard.
01:45:32
Speaker
For me though, I think they sort of worked this backwards. So they decided before they made this match that Regan wrestled 30 minutes to a draw. A lot of the middle is wrestled like they know they have to work 30 minutes to a draw. I don't, it's never bad, but there's prolonged bits and holes and Scott's, you know, legit, like the face and pair for like 10 minutes straight. So it's definitely stretched to fill.
01:45:58
Speaker
To be fair, we have seen Scott as a face in peril for like 10 minutes straight in matches that are not time limit draws as well. I think that's just something he likes to do. Right, right. But as a whole, they work the match like they knew they were going to work 30 minutes straight. I think a 20 minute version of this match would have all the stuff you'd like in there, all the arting match action, the counterwrestling, still some of the prolonged keep away from the ring and cut off spots.
01:46:24
Speaker
are all really good. Nothing is executed badly here at all other than they accept the one power slam we kind of loses Gordy for a second. So now you're taking this from technical level, it's just more on the rewatch. I think again, no one is going to be 30 minutes to a draw. It feels longer.
01:46:41
Speaker
Again, nothing bad in this match. Like I said, even throughout, there's little bits where they work like they would normally, like, mid-poor, poor Rick getting kicked in the side of the head by Gordie, for instance. Oh my gosh, yeah. Admittedly, he has his little head thing on to protect his ears from getting cauliflower, but still, that could not feel good. And that bit when they've got, is it Scott, I think, in the bow and arrow hold and one of them's kicking him in the leg repeatedly, I'm like, that cannot feel good.
01:47:08
Speaker
No. Yeah. So for me, which one of the matches that works really well when they go to their strengths, but again, when they stretch it to fill it, it's still entertaining, but you definitely feel them going, Oh, we got to hold this pole for a couple more minutes. We got to, we're not quite there yet. Okay. I think it's because there's another 30 minute Ironman match, another 30 minute match. Sorry. That specifically designed me 30 minutes on this show. I have them as direct comparisons. So I have that difference. Okay.
01:47:37
Speaker
I don't think that I felt quite the same way on that with it actually feeling like they worked backwards from it again. I can kind of see where you're coming from on that, but for me, they kept things interesting during all of the holds and things, and they changed them up enough that it felt more like just normal work the leg or working the body part. Yeah, I think it's just if they had more tagging in and out in that middle part, it would help me a bit. Yeah, it does stick more to a traditional face and peril kind of role than the Lex X-Man tag did.
01:48:04
Speaker
There's that comparison as well to be fair. But again, that's six men rather than four men. I thought this was an absolutely brilliant tag match featuring two teams who clearly knew each other's styles perfectly and could work together entirely comfortably, as Audubord as comfortably is to use in describing this brutal match. The two teams worked extremely well together and mixed in lots of great complex amateur wrestling all the way through the match with lots and lots of little subtle cues and motions you don't normally get in pro wrestling matches.
01:48:34
Speaker
With all of them having the amateur background, they knew exactly what that sort of match looks like and were able to put together something that felt legit and messed surprisingly well with the brawling and pro styles that they used elsewhere in the match. Add a good old-fashioned attack the leg storyline that was used very well to keep Gordian Williams in control, and you have a great, fun performance.
01:48:52
Speaker
I do feel like the time limit draw itself was a bit unfortunate. It's a slight mark against the match, though I do understand why you wouldn't want to have a definitive ending for this match as this 100% succeeded in making me want to see these guys fight again. Right. That's absolutely true. But so they look at this way. Here's the pay-per-view match. You're paying 30 bucks for whatever the price is at this point to watch.
01:49:16
Speaker
make sure to watch two days from now on TBS or you'll get an actual finish. Yeah, I'm saying I would want to see them fight again on another paper. I got you. Yeah. I'd be able to the actual way they work it is a little so with the way they work it is more again looking back at the Nitro era. Yes. Yeah.
01:49:32
Speaker
I would love, incidentally, to see a tag team Iron Man match between these groups. Yeah, that would be amazing. I think I wouldn't mind the time limit draw here so much if this were not our main event. Yes. That's the thing I think that made it feel awkward to me. If you shuffle the order so the Iron Man match or Sting versus Cactus Jack goes last, I think this works. It's just a bummer of an ending to close the show. For sure. Otherwise, terrific match.
01:49:59
Speaker
Right. Oh, and to be fair, at that point, you're following a tag match and then a DQ. Yes. So here's a DQ tag match finish. Now here's a time to draw a tag match finish. This is Russell Moore 89 all over again, right? Yes. It's really super hyper satisfying match in the, that's, you know, a couple of matches from the end. And then, oh, there's more. And in this case, the two more matches are excellent. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, they both have kind of disappointing finishes.
01:50:25
Speaker
to their credit, they probably put this one on top because it's actually a title match. Right. It feels fine in terms of importance of the match, but it feels off in terms of giving a satisfying ending to the show. I absolutely would love to see a bunch more of these matches between the groups. Just this one, the way they worked ultimately. I enjoyed all of it for the most part, but just there's a little caveat to it. Okay.
01:50:52
Speaker
As noted at the beginning, the Clash of Champions 19 was taped four days before this show, but aired on Tuesday, so that tournament took place and the teams would face off again in the semifinals. They do the story where they started as opponents before the match, so they actually don't wrestle, whereas Williams and Gordy beat their opponents, I think it's Team Australia, handily.
01:51:14
Speaker
And they make it clear that what they did, like they took out their opponent because they won the Steiners. Okay. Their mindset was we want to make sure that they don't actually lose before we get to fight them. So they changed the ruling on this show to where the semi-finals begin on the show. Normally supposed to be all on pay-per-view. They closed the show with Williams and Gordy versus Steiners, which is won in nefarious fashion by Williams and Gordy. Okay.
01:51:39
Speaker
So it really excused me at first, because like I said, Wikipedia talks about how the sick place beforehand, then you have to read. Oh, right. It aired after. Yes. Someone needs to make it out on that page. So it helped me out a lot. This leads to that weird period where the InnoAte tag titles come back and they coexist with the WWE tag titles. Yeah. They're two different belts. Yes. And I think a point as I know before of getting rid of the US tag titles and keeping the six man titles out of the company.
01:52:05
Speaker
I guess they only went to so many tag belts. So we go into just one new belt, so get rid of the other belts. So this leads to Williams and Gordy going on to the Great American Bash show, going after the new slash old End of the Way tag team titles, where the WCB tag champions unfortunately are out of the tournament because of what happens. Gotcha.
01:52:26
Speaker
to add misery to, well, misery, the start-up would also drop said WWE Tag Team titles to William the Gordy at a house show on July 5th. And yes, it is the same July 5th house show. I mentioned the beginning of the episode with Flamingo losing his title there as well. It's a very eventful house show, apparently.
01:52:47
Speaker
A little bit of good news for you to give this recap a bit of a happier ending, which the show didn't give us. You remember Wrestle War where they built that match with the Steiners winning the number one hindership to the IWGP tag titles, right? Where they, they bloody beat this poor young guy. And then Fujinami's got to keep the match running. Yeah.
01:53:06
Speaker
They obviously they're no more dinners. They would actually win their match. It's again. I mentioned for the match. I really want to see Because it's the tag champions Vader and Bambam Bigelow against the Steiners in New Japan. Okay. Yeah, it is online Unofficially because of how things work with New Japan and old wrestling, but yes That would be awesome
01:53:28
Speaker
Yeah, they would go on to hold the title for six months in Japan. They'd interesting enough for you, they would lose the tag tiles eventually, around the end of the year, to the team of Scott Norden and the future Ludwig Borghe. No, that point is the Hellraiser. Oh, okay. JR throws to Tony and Eric who go over the night's events. Eric says it isn't over between the Steiners and Williams and Gordy.
01:53:54
Speaker
Tony notes that they'll have the bikini contest results tomorrow, and throws back to JR and Jesse, who praised the hard-hitting pay-per-view. Jesse says he's glad it's over because he was out of voice. JR builds up the Great American Bash, and Jesse says Sting's match against Cactus Jack will cost Sting against Vader. JR shells Clash of the Champions and the Wrestling Hotline, and we get end credits over some simple beach graphics. And Beach Blast 1992 is done.
01:54:22
Speaker
So overall thoughts on Beach Blast 92, Al.
01:54:38
Speaker
Even the least important matches, like the singles matches, one Terry Taylor, Ron Simmons, and the one with Buff Bagwell. I still say Buff, you know he's not Buff yet. I know. And Greg Valentine are still good. They're still well-worked matches. Like if that same match happened on New Blood Rising, most of these matches would be competing with the World Auto match for Vic or Vaseline Knight. Yeah, yeah, yeah, honestly.
01:55:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think even those two matches, they're not for a title or anything like that. I mean, most of the things on the show aren't for a title, which is interesting. It is. But even those two matches are just good for building up these new performers that they're trying to start highlighting, I think. Yeah.
01:55:20
Speaker
Yeah i agree with you there's not really any match on the show that i would call even remotely bad no most of them right there are solidly good yeah. The worst part on the show are the interstitial bitch for the key content that no place on this yeah other than the idea that it's a summer theme show but you could do better things there's other things you can figure out for that yeah exactly.
01:55:39
Speaker
I will say looking back at the show, having to go through it over a couple of times, look for history notes and then watching it twice, obviously. I know there's a lot of weird repetitions in very exact ways in the show. So for instance, as mentioned before, the former US tag champions wrestle concurrent singles matches against young, up-and-coming talent. Okay. And it's like in a row, it's just bizarre that it's together like that. There's no spacing here.
01:56:04
Speaker
You have two matches where a champion, in this case, the world champion, US champion are wrestling on the show and not fainting their belts in matches. They should be to fainting their belts on. Yeah. And then you have two tag matches would be one six man and one regular singles that end in less than straight fashion. One being disqualification to build up this rule and one being counted to build other matches up.
01:56:28
Speaker
And again, right in a row. Right in a row. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. There's there's there is a lot of two things happening in the area. Interesting how that works out. Yeah. That said, it's like it's all good. If you can get around the really bad and just otherwise just distasteful stuff with the special bits of the bikini contest. It's a really good show. Definitely worth watch.
01:56:50
Speaker
It has been quite a while since we've reviewed a show this good. Not a single match drops the ball in this show, as you noted. The majority are really good, and some are absolutely incredible. There's seven matches on this show, and I'd say there's probably four that are easy contenders for Match of the Night, maybe even five.
01:57:12
Speaker
If it weren't for the bikini contest, there would be no bad segments on this show at all. As it is, it's 90% great matches, 10% bikini contest, so that easily makes it one of the best shows we have ever watched. Agreed.
01:57:25
Speaker
I will freely admit I may be a bit biased just by my joy of being out of the NWO era for a little, but still, the show was just plain fun to watch and easy to get into and stay engrossed in. There's fast-paced and varied action, but even when matches are slower-paced by a necessity, the performers never lost me, performing with such charisma and attention to detail that there was always lots to watch and it could keep me involved.
Final Thoughts and Critiques
01:57:50
Speaker
I do feel like there's room for improvement. Aside from axing the bikini contest and giving Medusa an actual match, I think the show could really do to shuffle the match order like we said. Space the tag matches out in the show rather than having one after the other and put either Sting versus Cactus Jack because it involves the world champion or the Iron Man match because you kind of need the Cactus match to already be done for that post-match interview in the last slot to end the show on a higher note.
01:58:16
Speaker
I get what they were going for. Again, the world tag title match is actually for a title while Sting versus Cactus in the Iron Man match are not. So normally an actual title defense should trump a non-title match. But it would just really help to end the show on one of the definitive endings instead of having a DQ finish followed by a time limit draw for the end. Yeah.
01:58:34
Speaker
There wasn't a lot of promo content, but what was there was quite good with Ron Simmons and Ricky Steamboat both absolutely nailing their promos. I think we could have maybe added one from Sting after the cactus match or from the Steiner's after their time limit draw, as both of those felt worth a bigger reaction than they got. Still largely a positive.
01:58:56
Speaker
The commentary team was also mostly great. JR and Jesse have an easy camaraderie, and while they're argue, and Jesse will crack jokes at JR's expense, it feels like they're friends.
01:59:07
Speaker
JR is always great at getting across the match's action, and Jesse added some excellent insights as a former wrestler himself. The only real marks against commentary are Jesse's involvement in the bikini contest, which aside from the actual segments, gets brought up quite often during matches and things, and the slight oddity of having two separate crews for commentary and show hosting duties as you noted before.
01:59:28
Speaker
There's just really no reason that JR and Jesse couldn't do both in Aftonie and Eric on interviewer duty. And having both crews sometimes means both go over the same points right after each other. I also really liked the look and feel of this show. The set design was fun and so nice to see after New Blood Rising's boring set and the struggle WSW had getting a correct set for the Road Wild series, you know, four years in.
01:59:53
Speaker
I appreciated everyone wearing beach or at least summery kind of outfits. It helped emphasize the theme. The camera work is sometimes a bit annoying though, particularly during the bikini contest where cameras get tilted at wacky angles to emphasize the comedy. And there's one particular camera that they keep cutting to. It seems to be set to just a slightly different color tone or depth or something than the other.
02:00:17
Speaker
Yeah, the contrast and sharpness is like way up on it. Yeah. You'll see, you know, for instance, Scott's diner and it looked normal in the wide angle shot. When there's one camera, he's like really orange and like his pores are practically showing because the sharpness is up so high.
02:00:33
Speaker
There's also a lot of times where you can see the, there's a poor guy, I think it's Jackie Crockett. I've mentioned a bunch of times in this show at this series where he's always in the corner. They didn't get him his little step yet, but he's, he's hanging on there. So it was pointing for their fight towards the corner. They bumped him a couple of times. He noticed that he's holding the camera on his right shoulder. So he's gripping the ropes and leaning back as far as he can away with the action with his left arm. And you can see him in shot, but that also means you're not, they're not using his camera in shot.
02:01:00
Speaker
I don't think they ever use his camera angle when he's trying these heroic acts to get a good shot. Yeah, it's kind of sad for him, honestly.
02:01:07
Speaker
Either all this work for nothing. Yeah. We don't. I think when after first watch mentioning if they had the raw feed from these and they could cut between camera angles that free well and that'd be neat. Yeah. I think that would be an awesome, awesome app for them to build in. Yeah. Yeah. That, that one camera though. Definitely. Whenever they cut to that camera, it's a little bit jarring because you, you always get this brief disconnect of, wait, something's not right. Yeah. Like when I drove up to your house today and it was repainted, I was like, wait, is this really the right house? And the next thing you come back and you pay it differently. Wait, it's just messing with me at this point. Yeah.
02:01:38
Speaker
It's not without a few rough patches, but as a whole, Beach Blast 1992 was just plain great. An easy watch and a really easy recommendation. After seeing a few shows of WSW stumbling towards its end, it was great to get back to a night when it was going strong and see performers at their best having fun and putting on terrific matches. Excellent, excellent show.
02:02:01
Speaker
Right. WCW's argument is competition in the early stages of this war before really became a full TV war anyways, was the WF is all cartoony. It's for kids. Whereas we're strong as like competition. Here's all these rules and people are fighting and it's real intense. And this is a kind of show other than the bikini contest, the fact that I wanted to bring neon because it's just the nineties. Yes.
02:02:26
Speaker
like the fact that rick star is wearing a solid pattern singlet and scott is wearing a split pattern which is weird that you're on the same it's always interesting how their outfits work together because they generally don't yeah yeah they don't think these up at all as brothers you think they talk more
02:02:40
Speaker
But this is a good example of what they were going for. Mm-hmm. Because you have these matches that are real hard hitting. Whether you like the rules or not, they're really certainly enforcing these rules. Yes. It's not letting people do what they feel like. And you have these matches that if you imagine like in 1992, WPF having that Williams and Gordy for the standard match, it wouldn't seem right.
02:03:01
Speaker
Right. Yeah, compared to WSW 2000, where as we noted on New Blood Rising, they never say that it's an ODQ show, but everything is clearly being contested under no DQ rules because there's no other explanation for what's going on, except that the refs are regularly threatening to DQ people. That's true. It's like, I believe it when I see it, ref.
02:03:20
Speaker
Yeah, on this one, again, like you said, whether you particularly like certain rules or not, they do a good job of incorporating them into the matches, making them part of things, having them be enforced in a mostly rational fashion. Yeah. It gives the show such a nice feel.
02:03:37
Speaker
I'm always most a fan of WSW when it has that more sports-like atmosphere, when it's trying to be in a legitimate athletic competition or act like that. And the show is just so strong in that. I really appreciate that.
02:03:52
Speaker
There's two points that were to be strong. One was just like this, and one was just absolutely insane, but in an enjoyable fashion. Like mid 90s, like 94, 95, Hogan, Dungeon of Doom nonsense. Those are the two really adorable parts, which we went too far one direction or the other towards the end of the company, trying to correct these things. So this is definitely one of the stronger ways to show it. Match of the night and MVP. So Al, you're match of the night.
02:04:22
Speaker
So a lot of strong competition, as mentioned. The opening match is a real sort of dark horse match, given that for a title that most people forgot about in WWE Clued and care about all that much.
02:04:33
Speaker
By my critiques, you have the six man tag match, which was again, enjoyable if they had to set the stakes. And the 30 minute final match with the Stylism with Gordy, which was really well contested. I just felt wasn't paced quite right. If you're listening, it's pretty obvious what I'm going to pick and I'm pretty sure what Bob is going to pick, but it's, it's obviously the Iron Man match with Ruined Steamboat.
02:04:55
Speaker
It's such a good match that it really edges out these other matches that are also really good in the room. But yeah, there's no other match to pick better than that. Especially in rewatch, I picked up so much in that match. Yeah, there are several really good matches tonight. And on any other night, the opening match, Sting versus Cactus Jack. Yes, that's true.
02:05:17
Speaker
or either of the two final tag matches could easily, easily be match of the night on any other show. They just had the misfortune of being on the same show as the amazing career defining Iron Man match.
02:05:32
Speaker
The Iron Man match was a thing unto itself. It managed to even use the top rope DQ rule. Well, and it lacked any notable flaws that would degrade it. Even the slightest bit. Yeah. It is one of the best matches we have ever watched for let's go to the ring. Right. And there's simply no way that I can choose anything other than that. Yeah. Again, if our biggest critique is widens for a title, that should tell you something. Yes. Yeah. All right. Al MVP.
02:06:01
Speaker
I really thought long hard about this one, be honest with you. Cause again, like I, I often try to, I try to, if I can find a match that doesn't win match the night and pick one person that really stands out in some way, I'll do it. So I mean, looking back, I mean, do you have both him and Sky Flamingo do really well in their match? All four people involved in the final tag match. I have lots of show, especially for me, Gordy, who I don't see very often. He was cool, wasn't he? Yeah.
02:06:26
Speaker
He has a lot of technical expertise mixed with suddenly just kick you in the side of the head and just throw you around. It's really, really enjoyable. Sting, obviously, Sting is always a strong hitter. He changes the game a bit to Matt Cactus Jack. This is a match for a long time. Mick Foley said it was his best match ever. So that says something about that as well.
02:06:46
Speaker
And again, everyone in the six man tag, really good. I mean, Wyndham works, his style will Cola shines in his big strong moments. The heels all work really well. Dustin, the great face in peril does all these little things right. But
02:07:01
Speaker
Going back to it, I can't pick anyone besides one of the two people in the Ironman match. So I've got back and forth in this part as well. I mean, ultimately for me, I have to go Steamboat. He does so many little things, like I've said a couple of times now, like the way he sells moves, the way he recovers from moves, the way he powers into moves, the way he powers out of moves, the way that he, he slowly fought his way up climbing the turnbuckle to kick off for the ending. Yeah. Oh man.
02:07:31
Speaker
Because obviously, that's a very famous spot done in WrestleMania 8 this exact same year, I believe, with Bret Hart doing the Piper, and they do that really well. They have the benefit of not wrestling this long, so it's much more of a quick counter. He sort of runs up and kicks off really quickly. But it almost makes it better that it's this slow climb, right? Yeah, because it works well in this match. Yeah, it fits the story so well. Yeah, exactly.
02:07:52
Speaker
He really struggles to fight the whip and pushes it off. And even there's a little gap there of time when the impact of landing it stuns Rude and then he adjusts his pin on there. But yeah, I can't think of another steam move for the match as much as I want to go with the pool to shine here.
02:08:07
Speaker
Yeah, for me as well, this had to be between our Iron Man participants, Steamboat and Rude. Both did absolutely amazing work in the match, and Rude's pure desperation at the end was a sight to behold. But Steamboat's excellent work throughout, combined with his great post-match promo, pushed him just a smidge ahead of Rude for me. So I'm going to give it to Steamboat as well.
02:08:29
Speaker
I was almost tempted to say it's rude because I was pretty sure you could pick Steamboat, but I can't get my instincts to pick Steamboat here. Take nothing away from McRude. He has so many good details. Again, trying to do his hips will pose and he can't. The way he reacts goes from super confident to sudden fear at the end. And his selling throughout of the rip as well. He does an excellent job with that as well. Again, you could really diagram a match like this if you were trying to learn wrestling or really study wrestling.
02:08:55
Speaker
Rude is amazing as match. They both are. Yeah, they both put on an amazing show. For me, really, the clincher is that Steamboat also gets that excellent promo. I think if Rude had also got a promo, it'd be really up in the air which one I would pick. If they have Rude confront Steamboat, for instance. Yeah, I've been at both of them in that segment. I don't know how I would have picked. Yeah, that's a bit over the coin toss. You might have done what I was going to do when somebody said Rude because I picked Steamboat. You might have done that. Yeah, yeah.
02:09:22
Speaker
And that wraps up our review of Beach Blast 1992. If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can find us on Twitter or Facebook as Let's Go to the Ring. Links will be available in the episode description. 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 Podcast, Google Podcast, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, TuneIn, Verbal, or Audible.
02:09:46
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. Next up, Beach Blast 1993. A Day at the Beach. A Night for Revenge. Oh, that sounds more like the setup for a cheesy beach-based slasher film than a wrestling show, but okay.
02:10:15
Speaker
Yeah. That's jarring, yes. This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling.
02:10:37
Speaker
Anytime Taylor uses, sorry, anytime trailer, any trailer, trailer, he's a different guy. You're literally for a great trailer. Yeah.