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Episode 27: Slamboree '93
35 Plays4 years ago
Happy New Year! It's a new year and we've got a new series! We're taking a look back at when WCW took a look back, as WCW plans a night honoring stars of prior eras. It's a night of reunions, flashbacks, and classy celebration...and also features Ricky Steamboat wearing a sombrero for some reason. The Four Horsemen reunite (kind of)! Sting faces his most deadly foe yet...the Prisoner! (Boredom can be deadly, right?) The British Bulldog matches strength against Vader! For all this, plus a parade of legends having fun at Eric Bischoff's expense, 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
00:00:02
Speaker
But I'm getting a little background noise from your driver. I think it's my computer's fan just turned on. So once you're done, I'm going to pause for a second and I'll move that. Because I think what's happening is it's vibrating the table that the microphone is resting on. Oh, I see. So I need to move it off the table and that should. In fact, let me just try that real quick. I just lift it.
00:00:30
Speaker
That took it significantly down, I think, right? Oh, yeah. Just a second. Finding a place to set it. Oh, experimenting with new technology, L.
Introduction to 'Let's Go to the Ring'
00:01:10
Speaker
Hello everyone, and welcome to Let's Go to the Ring, where we take a look at the good old days, and not so good old days, of World Championship Wrestling, series by series. Coming to you live via pre-recording at Let's Go to the Ring's satellite base, I'm your host Bob Moore, and my co-host coming through the bland red tunnel flanked by definitely real fans is Alec Pridgen. I'd like to thank all my real fans that are totally here, for real.
00:01:39
Speaker
Good to have you here, definitely for real. How's it going tonight, Al? Good, how's it going with you? It's going all right, it's going all right.
Bob's New Microphone: The Yeti
00:01:46
Speaker
I feel I should announce that we are, or I at least am attempting to record with a new desktop microphone, the Yeti, I believe I'm required to pronounce it as. That is correct, yes. So the audio may be interesting tonight because I haven't quite figured this thing out yet, but I'm making a good go of it.
00:02:05
Speaker
Think of it this way, if you give us bad audio, that's just a feature of WCW. That is true, that is true. But it would mean that I can't criticize them for it anymore, so... Gotta get it right. To properly mimic their ring announce, you have to randomly turn your volume way down and then slowly turn it up as you're talking with sentence. Gotta do the... Right? Exactly, yeah.
00:02:29
Speaker
There's a bunch of time in the show where he's announcing I can hear him just barely and someone's clearly turning the knob and it goes up from like four to twelve. Just messing with him. Yeah. It's like, oh, now you can hear me. Thanks, guys.
Exploring WCW's Slamboree Series
00:02:45
Speaker
Well, after our brief foray into the A.W.A., we are back with our third series. We started off with a long series, followed it up with a short one. And now we're somewhere in the middle with Slamboree.
00:02:59
Speaker
Slamberee runs from 1993 to 2000 for a total of eight shows. It begins in May 1993, a few short months before WCW would split from the NWA that September. Unlike our last two series, it has a consistent placement in the year. Every Slamberee takes place in May.
00:03:22
Speaker
In his first three iterations, Slamboree exists as a sort of combination wrestling show and Hall of Fame ceremony, honoring wrestling legends and sometimes featuring them in matches. In 1995, the show was actually held in St. Petersburg, Al. Oh, nice. At the Bayfront Arena. I'm going to look out the window and see it now.
00:03:46
Speaker
In 1996, the business was changing. Slamboree takes place roughly one week before the arrival of Scott Hall in WCW to kick off the NWO angle. Not that Slamboree 1996 has anything to do with that. It's a Battle Bowl show, which I'm sure will thrill us. Oh, yeah. Got two more of those to go through before we're done with that concept.
00:04:11
Speaker
From that year on, the Legends aspect is pretty much dropped, so we'll have to see if anything else replaces it. Slamboree is also famous, or perhaps infamous, for its 2000 edition. But we've got most of the series before we get to that. Starting with Slamboree 1993, a Legends reunion.
Slamboree 1993: Significance and Attendance
00:04:35
Speaker
Slamberry 93 was held on May 23rd, 1993 at The Omni in Atlanta, Georgia, in front of 7,008 fans. Very exact number, by the way. Yeah. Sorry, two guys didn't show up, so it's not 7,010. Yes, there you go. 3,722 of those paid. Al, if you'll recall, The Omni held four different Star Cades in 1985, 1986, 1989, and 1992.
00:05:03
Speaker
Correct. Slamberry 1993 gets about half the attendance of 85 and 86. About a thousand more than 89 and about a thousand less than 92. So it beats one of them at least. Okay. But you can definitely tell that they booked a bigger arena than they can fill tonight. There's lots of empty seats visible. Should I mention what also was held at the Omni a few years before this show? Sure, go ahead. The 1988 Democratic National Convention. Yeah.
00:05:34
Speaker
Dukakis packed the house for that one, I'm sure. On a pay-per-view front, Slamberry93 earns about 100,000 buys. That's pretty normal for WCW in 1993. It's about 20,000 less than that year's Starrcade, but almost exactly the same as 1992's. So at least there's that. It's time to honor WCW's legends, so let's go to the Hall of Fame ring.
00:06:01
Speaker
Throughout the history of professional wrestling, the chosen few have scaled the peaks of excellence to become legends of sport. Tonight, the greatest of these have converged on Atlanta's Omni for a Legends Reunion.
Legends Reunion and Special Appearances
00:06:14
Speaker
And as we honor the legends of the past, new history will be made as the heroes of the present battle for championship gold and personal glory. World Championship Wrestling presents Slammarine 93, a Legends Reunion.
00:06:38
Speaker
We opened with a nice little video showing black and white photos of various prior wrestling stars, transitioning to color photos of the current crop of stars. It's short and pretty nicely done, marred only slightly by the fact that host Tony Schiavone has brought in a little early and talks over the end of the video package.
00:07:00
Speaker
As in AWA, so too in WCW, I guess. Fireworks go off as we see a shot of the prior stars being honored tonight all gathered in the wrestling ring, and Tony calls out just a few of the names. Mr. Wrestling 2, Dory Funk Jr., Vern Ganya, Don Owen, and Nick Bockwinkle.
00:07:21
Speaker
It's neat to hear Gonya and Bachwinkle in particular get mentions after we just did our AWA episode. That is interesting, yeah. Yeah, we didn't plan that. No, we did not. Sadly, Gonya did not bring his dog with him. Sadly, yes, yeah, I was disappointed by that. Speaking of the AWA, Tony's co-host tonight is the living legend Larry Zavisco. Last episode, we were saying how much we missed him in the AWA show, and here he is. Yes. Again, we did not plan that.
00:07:52
Speaker
Zabisco says the men in the ring were his inspiration and specifically calls out the crusher, who he found terrifying when he was a kid.
00:08:11
Speaker
is roughly man fears time, time fears the pyramids. I believe the general idea is that the pyramids stand despite the passage of time and all the changes it's brought, they're timeless. Yeah, makes sense. And thus too, the legends of pro wrestling according to Larry Zobisco. It's kind of a nice tribute. Yeah, yeah. Tony runs down the card and talks up the world heavyweight title match between the British Bulldog and Vader, and wishes Jesse Ventura well as he's in the hospital tonight.
00:08:39
Speaker
probably explains why Zabisco is co-hosting, though he also fits very nicely with the show concept. Yeah, he was a B&C show announcer they would use, so it's just a temporary promotion for him. Yeah. Tony throws to Max Payne, who is on stage with his guitar, and Payne rocks out with some pyro and jams on his guitar quite nicely.
00:09:00
Speaker
as a bunch of shirtless, shoeless, and nearly pantsless, wrestlers lug out an ornate litter on which rests the Queen of Slamboree 1993, Fabulous Mula. Her white, silver, and blue dress is very dignified, unlike the outfits, or lack thereof, of her carriers. She takes her place near the other gathered legends in and around the ring, and we cut back to Max Payne to see him finish rocking out. He's quite good on the guitar, actually.
00:09:30
Speaker
Just maybe do that instead of wrestling. Yeah, I was never much of a fan of him in the ring, from what I recall. But on the guitar, yeah, he's good. Yeah. So of course, we cut to Eric Bischoff and Missy Hyatt before he's totally done, and the sound just kind of fades out. Yeah. By the way, I hope you enjoyed seeing our female guest, because she never appears again. Yeah, that was weird. They like bring her out with a great deal of pomp and circumstance and then never do anything with her. Yeah.
00:09:57
Speaker
Eric Bischoff's hair, by the way, looks much better tonight than in the AWA show we watched. That was weird. It was like, it was like he had dyed it blonde and it was, it faded to like gray. Yeah. I don't get his look in there. It was so funny. Next time he has one of those questionnaire things on his podcast, send them in and see if he'll enter. What was your hair? Yeah. What's going on in this
Anticipating the British Bulldog vs. Vader Match
00:10:19
Speaker
picture? The helmet hair look too. That was, that was interesting. I mean, that's at least covered by the era. Yes.
00:10:27
Speaker
Eric and Missy say hello to those watching, and Missy wishes friends well in Canada. Salut, eh? Eric talks about Scott Norton, who got beaten up by the prisoner, and says the prisoner will face Sting tonight, as the spotlights go dead, leaving Eric and Missy cloaked in darkness. Eric tries to wait a moment or two for them to come back, but it becomes clear it isn't going to, so he moves on, asking Missy her thoughts on the match.
00:10:57
Speaker
Missy says Sting was ready for someone else, but now has to wrestle this mysterious prisoner and has to prepare fast. Eric builds up the world title match as well, and name drops Cactus Jack and Ron Simmons as former Vader victims, as the lights come back on. Missy says that Bulldog's strength might make this a turning point for Vader. Talking about the upcoming tag title match, Missy notes that the Hollywood blondes are sexy, and she wants to join them for their entrances.
Kick-off Tag Team Match Highlights
00:11:26
Speaker
Eric builds up some upcoming Legends matches and throws to our first match. So the first match is beautiful Bobby Eaton and Chris Benoit versus two cold Scorpio and Marcus Alexander Bagwell. The referee for this one is Nick Patrick.
00:11:45
Speaker
They put Bagwell and Scorpio together because they really want to make something with Bagwell, obviously, because he's young, good looking, and they hope it'll all pan out. But he's not really great in the ring at this point, not that he gets amazing later, obviously. But you need someone to work with him. So he has someone to come and do the big flashy moves, he can come in and sort of essentially share the glory with them. So that's what Scorpio's there for.
00:12:12
Speaker
Eden and Benoit are kind of a weird spot because as you mentioned before on previous shows, the other two thirds of the Midnight Express left for Smoky Mountain. Whereas Eden stayed. So he's kind of been moving around wherever they could use him. And basically him and Benoit are a good solid heal team that can work really strong matches with people, but will always lose. Not to spoil the results or anything.
00:12:38
Speaker
I will note that on the previous show, Super Brawl, there was a singles match between Benoit Scorpio. So at least there is that. Okay, that sounds rather interesting. I do have to disagree with you on one point though, Al. Bagwell does become amazing. Amazingly punchable. Oh, okay. I mean, he's obviously one giant stupid hat away from being a big star. That's no question.
00:13:06
Speaker
Eaton's red and silver jacket looks nice, but it clashes a bit with his primarily yellow pants. Kind of a weird look. Yeah, I think he mixes his luggage up or something. Yeah. Benoit did better color coordination with just black and white for both, but the Zebra pants are a tad odd.
00:13:23
Speaker
I will give him credit for something though. Apparently he did seem to get knee pads that actually were a zebra print as well. Yes, yeah. Because you can see when close-ups later in the match that it's not all one solid pattern. So he got matching knee pads to go with his crazy zebra prints. Yeah, good coordination, not so good design. Right. He was clearly inspired by Zubas and thought, I should make my wrestling types look like this.
00:13:47
Speaker
Bagwell and Scorpio's theme sounds like it's trying to rip off Gonna Make You Sweat, the Everybody Dance Now song. Oh yeah. Not very well though. No. They do a kind of awkward fancy high five and bounce around to the rhythm and we get a terrific shot of the crowd where we see the pure disdain this one lady holds for their dance skills.
00:14:10
Speaker
We get a sign in the crowd that reads, Maris, missing the C, is great. So at least we know that Bagwell has one fan other than his mom Judy. She probably would have spelled his name right. I would hope so, yeah. Benoit and Scorpio start us off. Tony and Larry have a nice discussion about the experience of the two teams, saying that Eaton's the most experienced wrestler there, but Bagwell and Scorpio have been a team for much longer.
00:14:37
Speaker
Scorpio dodges around Benoit and flips him out of holds, but Benoit dodges his strikes until Scorpio finally lands a dropkick and arm drag to make him retreat. Benoit kicks at Bagwell to distract the ref, and Eaton nails Scorpio from behind, and they whip him to the corner. Scorpio accidentally clips Eaton jumping over a charge, but quickly recovers his balance and hits a rebound crossbody out of the other corner on Benoit for one, letting go early so Eaton will elbow-drop Benoit.
00:15:05
Speaker
Bagwell and Scorpio clear the ring and awkwardly high five. It never really goes quite right. Yeah, I feel like if they do it like four or five more times, it'll hit. Just need practice. Exactly. Despite the storyline being that they've been a team for longer. They need lots of practice. Yeah, yeah.
00:15:23
Speaker
Eaton and Bagwell face off next. Bagwell works the arm, but Benoit sneaks in a strike. Eaton charges, but Bagwell ducks, and Eaton goes over the top rope, which Patrick rules was accidental, so no DQ. That's a lot of crap, by the way. Yes, it was clearly intentional. Yeah, it's the same head, shoulder, fake tosser with the ropes that gets made for DQ in this company. Yes, yeah. Now, the DQ rules are, shall we say, sketchy tonight. Yes.
00:15:52
Speaker
Scorpio and Bagwell fling the heels into each other, then we're back to Bagwell and Eaton. Benoit sneaks in another strike from behind and distracts Patrick, so Eaton flings Bagwell over the top rope to the floor. Back in, and Eaton hits a nice top rope knee drop, and Tony says that if that had hit Bagwell's throat, it would be a DQ. I've never heard of that, and aren't the DQ rules complex enough already? Yeah. I would think so.
00:16:19
Speaker
Benoit and Eaton earn two counts with a Benoit leg drop, back suplex, and neck breaker, and an Eaton knee drop, and Scorpio's protests of added leverage on a Benoit figure 4 necklock just give the Heels more time for cheating. Benoit tries a swan dive headbutt, but Bagwell gets the knees up, so Bagwell makes the tag to Scorpio.
00:16:40
Speaker
all four get into brawl. Scorpio has to move the cameraman out of the way for a neat top rope rotating splash on Benoit for two as Eaton breaks. Benoit holds Bagwell, but Bagwell dodges and Eaton hits Benoit. Bagwell tackles Eaton out to the ramp, and Scorpio hits a flipping leg drop from the top for the three count and the win.
00:17:01
Speaker
eating grabs Patrick during the count, but Patrick just ignores him. I guess Bagwell was supposed to have eaten further back so he couldn't reach. That'd be my assumption as well, yeah. Scorpio goes for another awkward high five, but Bagwell doesn't even notice, so Scorpio just hugs him instead. The replay shows that Scorpio landed butt first on Benoit's nose, or as Larry calls it, on his chivani.
00:17:29
Speaker
After a brief pause, Tony asks on his what? Take it away, Larry says, ignoring the question. Thoughts on this one?
00:17:39
Speaker
That was a pretty solid match all around. There's not a whole lot of story here. How's he going in? This isn't a blood feud. This isn't like a for a title or anything. So just four guys basically fighting for the win. So Bagwell for his part doesn't really match anything up other than the, like I said, getting even further away from the ring. Yeah. I didn't get any botches he really did or like any miscues other than again, his terrible attempt at doing high fives in sequence.
00:18:07
Speaker
Yes. The thing that works for the match for me is that they definitely use Scorpio a lot. Cause like I said, said leading Scorpio was here to work the really good match with everybody. So it's, it's good that they used him for that. Him and Benoit definitely have good chemistry together. I was, this is why they put them back together a month, two after they just fought each other. I think they wrestled ECW later as well. I'd be surprised if they didn't.
00:18:35
Speaker
I think my only real critique with that match, other than the whole thing with the position, is that they do the, I'll hold him, you hit him, oh no, he moved, spot like, what, three times in this match? I could've done with like one less of that maybe. Or even like some sort of playoff of that, like they catch themselves and then they get hit behind or something. The fact that it had to be miscues felt very, I'd say very forced maybe, that way. Otherwise it's a good match, yeah.
00:19:04
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. Pretty good opener here. It had a fast pace, though there is a bit too much reliance on arm holds in the early going that makes it maybe not as quick a start as it could be, especially as the arm work goes basically nowhere. True, yeah. Scorpio and Bagwell's friendship feels unnaturally choreographed, but both teams worked well together in the ring. While there aren't a lot of interesting tag team specific moves, the match had a good flow and some cool if occasionally sloppy acrobatics courtesy of Scorpio.
00:19:33
Speaker
Nothing broke any new ground here. It's a very standard tag match, but it was mostly executed well and the ending was fun, if likely rather painful for Benoit. Yeah. So it served its purpose to me.
00:19:47
Speaker
I'm just thinking it's funny having the Bagwell Scorpio pairing is definitely going off of the cliche that started in the 80s with the, you know, black cop, white cop, buddy cop, partner thing.
1993 Wrestling Style and Key Figures
00:19:57
Speaker
The lethal weapon. Yeah. Or the 48 hours, paying on your timeline. Yeah, yeah, true, true. Is Scorpio too old for this s***? He is now, for sure.
00:20:11
Speaker
Yeah, I think it serves as a good show opener. That's what it's intended to do, and I think it does that job well. Yeah, I think for better or worse, the match definitely feels like it from 1993. Yes. A combination of the colors, the way it's high flying, but not the more revolutionary high flying just yet. Yeah. The sort of hints of where it's going, but otherwise it's very solid, yeah. Bagwell and Scorparu would not get in rhythm, unsurprisingly. But they would keep teaming up for the near future, doing so at Beach Blast.
00:20:40
Speaker
A short while after this, Benoit returned to working mostly in Japan, which left Eaton to find a new tag part of it, but unfortunately, not a lot of notoriety for it. You'd see him on shows a lot of times, but his status never seemed to go that far at this point. Yeah, he seems to always be the guy that they pull out as. He's a very reliable performer, but even though they seem to like him, they don't seem to want to give him anything big to do, which was always weird to me. It seemed like Eaton's a very good wrestler.
00:21:10
Speaker
And he really always thought he would have gotten farther than he than he did it which sounds weird to say because he's he's so famous as a tag guy But I think it's just when he does get that singles career It never really goes much of anywhere aside from one or two highlights here or there
00:21:25
Speaker
Yeah, there's, there's his early, earlier on that they're going somewhere with them. Like he gets to main event at clash of champions against Rick flair. And you're like, Oh, he's going somewhere. And then, uh, no. Yeah. That's him and regal together, which is a good pairing, but is not designed for a big push basically. Right. Yeah.
00:21:42
Speaker
You will find this interesting though. So in 1994, there is a co-promoted show with ECW and WCW. They have a little bit of talent sharing going on at this point, because they're trying to compete with WWF. So there's a tag match on that, which has the interning team of Terry Funk and Arne Anderson. Ooh. Grizzled dads, I say that.
00:22:07
Speaker
with Bobby Eaton and the last person who'd expect a team with Bobby Eaton, Sabu. That sounds bizarre. Yes. Kind of want to see that match now. I kind of do too, yeah. Yeah. I hope Grizzled Dats is their actual team name. That would be great. It should be, yeah. Absolutely should be.
Sid Vicious' Return and Van Hammer's Departure
00:22:28
Speaker
Tony builds up the appearances of Colonel Rob Parker, who's been looking for a superstar and was disappointed in Van Hammer. Aren't we all?
00:22:38
Speaker
That seemed like the natural response you're waiting for. Kind of did, yeah. Okay, good. Tony says he had unkind things to say about Van Hammer, but Larry says he was just giving advice and Hammer was rude for putting his hands on someone smaller than him. Tony says that Parker has found his own athlete to face Hammer here in a special added match. So our second match is Heavy Metal Van Hammer versus a mystery opponent. And the referee for this one is Mike Atkins.
00:23:09
Speaker
Van Hammer comes out in a really basic black wrestling outfit, which just seems wrong for his name. Tony introduces Parker as, quote, a man who, much like yourself, Larry, doesn't know when to stop talking. Larry is aghast. We're one for one, Tony notes. Parker takes the mic and says that Hammer and he had a disagreement and Hammer assaulted him, bruising his feelings.
00:23:37
Speaker
Parker has the crew wheel out a gurney for Hammer to ride out on, and introduces his wrestler, the man that rules the world, Sid Vicious. Big cheers for that, actually. Hammer destroys the gurney off-camera, and as he's climbing back in, Vicious mostly misses a kick. Hammer fires back with punches, but Vicious kicks him, close lines him, and power bombs him for the three count and the win.
00:24:04
Speaker
That was easy. That was brisk. Yeah. Thoughts on it? This is just here to show that Sid is back. Pretty much. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. I think it does do a good job of making Vicious look strong for his return to WCW with an extremely fast win. And I have no complaints about making a Vicious hammer match as short as possible. Yes. But still, they did manage to slip in a botch with the opening kick. Yeah.
00:24:31
Speaker
I will say not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but arguably for me, two of the most disappointing matches on the show. One is this one because it's so super short and also not good. And then one that is way longer. So think of the two extremes of quality on the show. Yeah, true. It's kind of weird how much Vicious Sells hammers punches too with how quickly hammer ends up going down. I mean, I guess it's nice, but it makes it feel like hammer should have been a bigger threat. Right.
00:25:02
Speaker
It does what it was meant to do, I guess, but I would have preferred they leave this to a TV show. Right. It's one of the things where if it was done on a later show, like, you know, late nineties on raw, for instance, they would have had hammer in the backstage being interviewed by, you know, Kevin Kelly or somebody. Rob Parker would come in, you know, be right in for turning out his offer and then seditious attack him, powerbomb through a table and then walk off. Right. Yeah. They wouldn't have done it as an actual match. Correct.
00:25:30
Speaker
Cib would main event the next show, so his promotion is pretty quick. Okay. He had an impressive win over that tough opponent Van Hammer. Yes. It's notable that the next show that he's main eventing is a feature of the match that's far more famous than the build-up than the actual match itself. Now, the Van Hammer thing isn't interesting. As you can probably tell by the way he's being treated, he is not being pushed by the company at this point. Yeah.
00:25:57
Speaker
He would actually just flat out leave the company when they gave him a offer for much less pay than he wanted. That would happen in July. I didn't even know you don't blame him. You're being beat up all the time. Might as well leave. Yeah. Now here's the tricky thing though. So this is the point where they're pre-taping a lot of stuff to save money. So Van Hammer's last actual appearance in WSW would be in September. Yes. They pre-taped so much content that he's appearing two months after he left the company.
00:26:26
Speaker
Wow. That's impressive. Yeah, yeah. He has long jab, do you give him that? Yeah, yeah. True, true. I think my Van Hammer, we mentioned Max Payne in the beginning of the playing.
00:26:39
Speaker
I feel like maybe because they have both of them, one gets the really interesting outfit and poor Van Hammer just left with the black singlet. And then that's it. Maybe they were like, well, this guy can actually play a guitar. Yes. So we'll give him the outfit and the entrance and the pyro and everything like that. And you, um, well, we gave you a rock kind of name, but you can't actually do anything particularly rock. So we'll just admit it. Yeah. He is the dynamic dudes of rock characters. Yeah, pretty much. Yes.
00:27:11
Speaker
They should have just put him together like they did, uh, double J and the roadie in WVF. Like have him, have him be like the bodyguard, you know, bouncer character. Oh no, dude, they should have had a van hammer comes out with a guitar and pretends he's playing it. And it's actually max pain. Oh, and that's eventually revealed leading to a big feud in which the guitar playing would be awesome, but the match, not so much. Yes.
00:27:37
Speaker
Dakota famous from tagline, whoever wins, we lose.
Legends Six-Man Tag Match and Nostalgia
00:27:43
Speaker
We cut to Eric Bischoff, who is with Red Bastion, who has an amazing mustache and beard. Oh, yeah. And Bugsy McGraw. We haven't seen Bugsy since Starrcade 83. Yeah.
00:28:00
Speaker
Red says he's glad he's not wrestling anymore because Vicious proves that today's wrestlers are bigger and stronger. McGraw mugs for the camera and turns side to side, never quite looking at the camera. He says Vicious is one of the most awesome looking wrestlers he's ever seen, and then finally looks at the camera so he can, quote, look pretty for them. He says Eric has too much makeup on, but Red says that Eric wears it well. Eric throws back to the ring.
00:28:29
Speaker
It's nice to see the legends having a good time here, sometimes at Eric's expense. Yeah. And both did a very good job building up Vicious. Sure, absolutely. Just kind of ashamed of wasting all this effort on Vicious, but hey. Yeah, yeah. Do what you gotta do.
00:28:45
Speaker
Our third match is a Legends six-man tag featuring Dirty Dick Murdock, Magnificent Don Morocco, and Superfly Jimmy Snuka versus Chief Wahoo McDaniel, Blackjack Mulligan, and Jumpin' Jim Brunzel. The referee for this one is Randy Anderson.
00:29:06
Speaker
A note before we begin on this one, we've already mentioned Dick Murdock's history and allegations that he was a KKK member on this show back when he showed up at WrestleWar 89. We also have to mention Jimmy Snuka here, who was charged in 2016 with third-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter for the death of his girlfriend, Nancy Argentino, 32 years prior.
00:29:29
Speaker
Snuka pleaded not guilty and was ultimately ruled mentally unfit to stand trial and passed away in 2017, leaving the case unresolved. So, as we sometimes have to say, a reminder that our comments and thoughts on this show are about the characters portrayed and the performances given on air, not about the personal lives of the performers. Correct. With that said, we'll move on.
00:29:54
Speaker
At this point, ECW is Eastern Championship Wrestling. They haven't had their big breakaway become ECW extreme championship wrestling moment yet. So notable that their current champion at this point is Don Morocco. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Not come out wearing that belt though, which is kind of disappointing, but yeah. Yeah. He was the ring champion at the time of the show. Okay. Okay. That's cool.
00:30:20
Speaker
We get some very nice black and white photos and video clips during the entrances. Thought it was a nice touch to show the histories of these characters. Yeah. And Mulligan's face shot is epic, with him glaring wide-eyed at the camera like he's afraid it's gonna steal his soul. That was just great. Cracked me up. Bronzel and Snooka start us off. The team members trade in and out in various combinations, doing basic strikes and holds. Mulligan gets some of the biggest cheers.
00:30:49
Speaker
There's a funny spot as a disoriented Murdoch goes to the wrong corner, and later tries to retreat, but is stopped by Wahoo. Larry compliments Tony on rattling off loads of details about the wrestler's careers, and says that he knows things from before Larry was born. Tony notes, that was a long time ago. That's a berm, that's a pretty lazy berm, to be fair. Two to one, Larry Mudders. Wahoo in, and as he chops Morocco, Larry makes a questionable comment about his, quote, Indian blood.
00:31:22
Speaker
Wahoo makes the mistake of chasing Morocco into his corner and gets triple teamed. Tony name drops Rufus R. Freight Train Jones for another Starrcade 83 moment. I think you and I both popped for that on the... That was very surprising. That was great. Eventually, Wahoo gets free to tag Brunzel, who hits a nice drop kick as Tony notes he lives up to his Jumpin' Jim moniker.
00:31:48
Speaker
Murdoch hits a surprising flying head scissors, as Larry asks how he could get his stomach up that high. Morocco in to overpower Brunzel, as Larry notes that these are some of the toughest men in the world, and he's proud to be one of them. Tony screws up Larry's nickname, so Larry says it's 2-2, you stumbling idiot. Poor Siobhan, I thought he got a night off. Ventura was gone, but nope.
00:32:17
Speaker
Brunzel manages a tag to Wahoo, but Anderson didn't see it, so he sends Wahoo back out. Brunzel dodges a Morocco clothesline and Morocco hits Snuka, so the two have words. Murdock, Morocco, and Snuka wear down Brunzel, with one count off a Murdock elbow drop, but Brunzel gets two off a high crossbody to Morocco and a roll-up on Snuka.
00:32:40
Speaker
Brunzel dodges a Snuka charge, so Snuka hits Morocco, and despite having done the exact same thing to Snuka, Morocco is incensed. Wahoo inexplicably gets in to roll up Snuka, I'm not sure what was going on there, as Brunzel rolls up Morocco, and Anderson counts too, even though neither combo has both legal men. Brunzel and Snuka are legal. Everyone into Brawl, and it's gotten two out of control, so Anderson calls for the belt.
00:33:08
Speaker
The match is ruled a no contest, but the fight goes on. Bronzel hurls Morocco into a Wahoo chop. Snuka gets back in, and Wahoo whips him to the ropes and chops him, prompting Snuka to seemingly ignore the chop and hurl himself forward at the ropes beyond to go butt over tea kettle to the outside in one of the strangest spots I have ever seen. It's a delayed reaction. The chop reprogrammed his brain temporarily. I guess so.
00:33:33
Speaker
It overrode his fight or flight instinct. Yes. So he had to escape the ring hook if possible. Larry says that Snuka knocked his monitor off the table in the process and you do hear kind of a thud as he comes out of the ring there. Mulligan decks Snuka as Tony throws to the next segment. Thoughts on this one?
00:33:52
Speaker
It was okay. Um, decent action. The thing with this match is there's six people so they can keep people tagging in and out. No one stays in real long trying to work a hold that much or trying to go over several minutes at a time. Cause obviously they can't, you know? Right. Right. Not to say that they can't perform at this point. They definitely just can't perform the same level they used to. And then it's just a fact of life, you know, it's happens. Yeah, it happens. Yeah. Exactly.
00:34:19
Speaker
I think it's a pretty good use of all these people, even if the assemblage is kind of random.
00:34:25
Speaker
the way they pick the teams and really make a whole lot of sense to me at all. There's no rhyme or reason to why people are on different teams as far as I can tell. They do mention some tension between, I think it's Morocco, Murdoch, and Snuka. Right. But that's about it. Because this is like a one-off Legends match, there's not a storyline here. So it's not like, oh, these are all heals that I'm going to long.
00:34:50
Speaker
One team is healed just because that's how matches work generally. Right. I do question why there's not an actual finish given that nobody actually worked for the company. Yeah. What do they have to lose? Probably was one of those cases where just no one would say yes. Yeah, I guess so.
00:35:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm in agreement. This was decent enough. It's clear these guys are not in their best shape anymore, but they seemed to give it their best and kept the match within the bounds of their capabilities, while still trying to keep things moving and pull out what moves they could. Brunzel looked quite good. And Murdock had some surprising moves that I wouldn't have guessed him capable of in his prime, much less in 1993.
00:35:33
Speaker
Yeah, that headset, I don't think he did that headset just move when we last saw him. And that was four years early. He did basically nothing last time we saw him. Yeah. Other than hog tie Bob Warden seniors. Yeah. And wear his boot for a punch, which was weird. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And that was four years ago, like you were saying. So it was a pretty good performance from him, honestly. Morocco got to show off his strength very well as well, including a tremendous stalling slam at one point. Yeah.
00:35:59
Speaker
The rest didn't make much of an impression in the match, but they still participated enough to have some fun with it, and it didn't overstay its welcome. I agree with you that the no contest ending is bad, but there's not really a story for it to spoil. Right, no, yeah. Overall, I like this quite a bit more than I expected I would. Yeah. I will say it's weird to have Snook in a match and not even tease his big splash move. Yeah, he does a standing one, but not one from the top rope ever. Yeah.
00:36:28
Speaker
I would thought that would be like the breakup for the hot tag. He tries to do his big splash and misses and then he breaks up. Or do it at the end for the beatdown, but no. I was surprised at how little Snuka actually is involved in the match for that matter. He seems like Murdoch I think is in much longer and if I were taking bets on which of them would be in for longer it would have been Snuka.
00:36:49
Speaker
Yeah, because I think as far as being active at this point, obviously Morocco, as I've mentioned, he's the ECW champion. Yeah. Snuka, I believe, is purely active in that organization as well. He's in a lot of early ECW shows. I forget because I think of ECW as the extreme championship wrestling, forgetting the transition they went through. Yeah, that kind of gets lost because of what they become and how different it is.
00:37:11
Speaker
I think in Merrick's case, this is part of him training for a big wrestling comeback, so maybe that's why he's in longer. He's like, no worries guys, I can go and maybe that's why he does the head scissors to show that he can, I guess. Yeah, yeah. It's a decent format for having all these people in the match, I'll say that. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Merrick mentioned, was training for wrestling comeback, so he kept appearing for other companies, including WDF.
00:37:38
Speaker
And he would actually appear in another WCP show we'll cover in a little bit, for better or for worse. Morocco is obviously still active at this point. He's the super champion, as mentioned a couple of times. He would keep working in independence and a great company called War in Japan. Snicker would mainly work easy. W shows, however, he would have a random one-off nitro appearance in 2000. Huh. It surprised me to find that out too.
00:38:05
Speaker
As for Wahoo, he would keep working until 1995. He'd finally retire. Brinzel would work until 1999. But this is officially is Blackjack Mulligan's final match. Aw. I mean, I think he basically came out of semi retirement for this match. So it's like, he's like, yeah, let's go play stuff. And it's not a bad way to go. I think it's, we both said, it's a perfectly decent, you know, showcase for these six people. So if this is your final, then, you know, it's not epic, but it's a, it's a very welcome match. Yeah, sure.
00:38:36
Speaker
They're worth ways to go in wrestling for sure. Absolutely. We go back to Missy Hyatt, who is with Assassin No. 1, who is now just the Assassin, and Mad Dog Vashon. The Assassin does not count as a Starrcade 83 reference purely as he continued to appear briefly afterwards. Right. And he ran me a man during like 1990, wasn't he? Yeah, I think so.
00:39:00
Speaker
Vashon growls about being a wrestling legend and then pauses for quite a while. So Missy turns to the assassin only for Vashon to grab the mic and say he wasn't quite done. He regrets not being in the six-man match and wants to teach them what it's like to wrestle. He says, it's a dog-eat-dog world. Assassin says the action has been tremendous and challenges Dusty Rose to a fight.
00:39:25
Speaker
No, thank you. I'm not sure if Missy and Vachon were doing a bit there or if that was an actual flub because Vachon just paused for so long. It was weird. It feels like an actual flub. Yeah, she's like, I think he's done. Yeah, I just kind of stand there staring at the screen for a bit. And if I was in a place, I would have done the same thing. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I would have been like, oh, OK, that's clearly all he meant to say. Yes.
00:39:49
Speaker
Bit of a weird one, and it's strange to see Assassin kind of try to start up a feud in 1993 as well. Yeah, for sure. Now maybe if he can get his son to referee the match, he can have a good chance. Yes. I was hoping that that would somehow be referenced. Yeah. I don't think that ever actually gets referenced on screen ever. Yeah. That Patrick is his son. Yeah, I don't, I don't think so either. Yeah. Yeah. That would be awesome. That would be. Someone just said, well, of course he's the bad guy. Yeah.
00:40:20
Speaker
Our fourth match is another Legends match. This is Ivan Koloff and Baron von Raach versus Thunderbolt Patterson and Bullet Bob Armstrong. The referee for this one is the Assassin's Kid Nick Patrick.
00:40:37
Speaker
They had Thunable Pattison appear on one of the Saturday nights leading up to this, promoting the show, and then they had Koloff and Varenvan Rakhavavavong basically challenged him to a fight and set up a thing, but that's pretty much it, as far as the actual story goes. I love that both of us have just given up saying that name. Oh yeah. I did find it in a story you might find interesting, Bob. Okay. So in the mid-80s, Pattison was wrestling in a regional territory, I believe it's Georgia.
00:41:06
Speaker
And he had tag partner was Ole Anderson. And as you can probably guess, Ole turns heel. And so he doesn't need Thunderbolt Patterson anymore. Bringing his new tag partner, Arn Anderson. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's the angle they brought Arn into wrestling. That is, that's pretty notable there. Yeah, yeah.
00:41:25
Speaker
For a guy we've never seen on a show before, and probably whenever again, it's interesting to see how's that connection there. Yeah, yeah. Did you catch in the entrance promos who was in the footage of the Baron? I don't recall. No? He's actually shown fighting the Road Warriors. Really? In his promo video, yeah. He puts the claw on Hawk. I missed that then, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I didn't catch it when we were watching it together, but I'm rewatching it. Wait a second.
00:41:51
Speaker
So that must be when they were in the AWA, I would imagine. That would make sense, yeah. Interestingly, they call the Baron Master of the Claw in this match, but there's a point in the prior match where they call Blackjack Mulligan Master of the Claw. Sadly, there wasn't that Claw face-off match. Yes, sadly.
00:42:13
Speaker
Thunderbolt Patterson gets huge cheers. Yeah. But he comes out on his own. Patterson says that Bob Armstrong had an operation on his knee so he's gonna fight on his own. Koloff says that Armstrong should be called weak stomach because the Armstrongs are cowards. The Baron grabs the microphone and agrees and claims that Bob Armstrong is faking.
00:42:37
Speaker
that cues Brad Armstrong, Bullet Bob's son, to run down to the ring to be Patterson's partner and defend his dad's honor. Patterson tells him, take your shirt off and kick some butt. Patterson and Armstrong beat up the Baron and Koloff, respectively, including a beautiful Armstrong dropkick. Koloff and Baron retreat, and Koloff shouts that Armstrong has no right to be here.
00:43:04
Speaker
The match proper starts with Patterson versus Barron, and Patterson moves erratically, forcing Barron to the corners and easily slipping free of headlocks. Larry points out that Patterson's movements throw off the Barron's timing, which I thought was a great bit of commentary.
00:43:19
Speaker
Koloff in, and Patterson tags Armstrong, but Koloff almost immediately gets the advantage with a Snapmare leg drop and choking, and brings in the Baron for one of the weakest double team back elbows I have ever seen. Which Armstrong generously sells anyway. Baron grabs the hair and runs Armstrong into turnbuckles, building to the claw.
00:43:42
Speaker
Larry explains Baron's technique and how he's putting pressure on Armstrong's neck with his other hand to latch it in more solidly. Again, really great commentary there. Patterson breaks it up. Tag to Koloff, but Armstrong dives to tag Patterson, who takes out both heels with rapid-fire punches. In a pretty fun spot, you can see Armstrong nodding along with a really big punch. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so he's kind of cheering him on. It's great.
00:44:07
Speaker
Armstrong and Patterson miss time throwing the heels into each other as Armstrong just barely gets a hold of the Baron when Koloff slams into him. Yeah, it looks pretty awkward Armstrong keeps Koloff in the corner with punches as Patterson takes the Baron down with a slow cross chop for the three count and the win Armstrong and Patterson celebrate as Baron seems to accuse Koloff of not being there to help him. Thoughts on this one?
00:44:34
Speaker
It's a pretty decent match, all things considered. It goes about, what, four minutes, I think, something like that? Yeah, somewhere in that range. It's pretty basic. They work through the whole, the general tag partner in trouble, guy comes and save him, hot tag, win the match thing, and fairly record time, especially given the speed of three of the four competitors in the match. Yes.
00:44:52
Speaker
I will say Patterson's, like, whole demeanor is really interesting. I've never seen him before. I would be curious if the older matches of him would be more physically in his prime and see, like, assuming that he does that same sort of thing, like, what he's like, what he can work on in a regular match. Absolutely. He has a ton of personality. Yeah. So I would be very interested to see how is he able to handle the wrestling side of it earlier in his career when he's, like you said, when he's a little bit younger and has a little bit more ability to do the physicality. Yeah.
00:45:20
Speaker
Though he does fairly nice punches in this match still. No, yeah. The switch-out is kind of interesting because it's... I'm curious how much time they knew in advance about Armstrong. Me too. I feel like you had it known a while ago. It's no surprise you're getting knee surgery. You planned that out for a while, I would think. Mm-hmm. Unless, I mean, if it wasn't injury while he was training or something possible, I could see that. Possible, yeah. That's very possible.
00:45:45
Speaker
It throws out the dynamic of the, let's have the legends all fight each other thing, when right in the middle is Brad Armstrong. Yes. Who can probably vertically over everyone in the match. Yes. He has a legend to us though, largely for the America jacket, which at some point, I swear we'll make an appearance. Yes. If he had been like planned as the tag partner, he would have had it, Bob.
00:46:07
Speaker
Yes. It was in his bag, but he had to rush out so quickly. Or maybe he left it with his dad to give him strength at the hospital. Oh, there you go. You'll heal twice as fast as you were during the recovery period. Yeah. Makes perfect sense.
00:46:23
Speaker
In general, because it's so short, it doesn't take around long enough for anyone to really botch anything. You mentioned the little dozy doe throwing them into each other by the little mistime, but it still works as a spot. Yeah, they still hit fine. You can tell Armstrong is like, wait, we're throwing now? Yeah, yeah.
00:46:41
Speaker
The finish is kind of weird to me that it's so abrupt unless that is just Patterson's finisher. We're getting him. I've never seen him before watching the show the way most people would have not, probably not knowing who he is. Like the other fans watching it feels like, Oh, that's, that's it. I got that should be moved. Okay. I feel like that's probably his move, but I, I can't say for sure. Yeah.
00:47:02
Speaker
And maybe it's one of the things, if you never watched Dusty Road, for instance, and suddenly you hit some of the bonnet cowboy, you'd be like, oh. Yeah. I mean, I think that move looks cool, but it's not what you expect the finisher to be. Exactly, yeah. This one is short enough to basically cover the shortcomings for three of the four people here. I think it works. Yeah, this was pretty good fun to me. Patterson, in particular, as I said, was really entertaining to watch. He got really creative with his movements. And I loved Larry taking the time to highlight the strategy in that.
00:47:31
Speaker
Baron and Koloff did respectively, though Koloff somewhat more so than Baron. Baron's strikes look a little wispy, and that back elbow spot looked pretty awful. And that was entirely his fault. There's a missed time spot here or there, but the match had a really good pace. So my only real complaint is that after the opening moments, Armstrong really just spends the whole match getting beaten up.
00:47:52
Speaker
Yeah. Now, the point of the match is to let the older wrestlers show their stuff, so it makes sense. Yeah. But it definitely made him look weaker than I would have liked, just because I really like Brad Armstrong. Yeah, it's possible that they didn't rebook most of the match. Maybe he's just filling in Bullet Bob spots. Yeah. Yeah. But still, you would think that Bullet Bob would have gotten one or two points to show off. Yeah. And it doesn't really seem like there's that much of that in the match.
00:48:19
Speaker
The biggest compliment I can give this match though is that other than maybe the lack of Brad Armstrong offense, it's hard to tell that this match was originally supposed to feature a different Armstrong to me. It's true, yeah. It felt like a perfectly acceptable nostalgic tag match despite that, and that's pretty impressive. Yeah. Thunderball Patterson would officially retire later in that same year, 1993. Okay.
00:48:44
Speaker
when his last project was mentoring Ice Train, who we'll see later. And in fact, we saw earlier in the show, he was one of the front people bringing in, that was Mula. Yes, yeah. The one I recognized from that procession of random speedo-clad people was him. You know, I can see the mentorship. He tries to do that larger personality. Oh, yeah. You can see that being maybe a factor of Patterson's mentoring. For sure, yeah. Did you get Ivan Koloff, actually? He had his final match quite a bit later.
00:49:15
Speaker
His is an interesting note though. So his final match would be against Bullet Bob Armstrong. Okay. It would also be in 2013. Whoa. Yes. So clearly Bullet Bob came back from knee surgery fine. I guess so, yeah.
00:49:32
Speaker
Wow. 2013. Okay. Yeah. The 20 years after the show, we finally get the payoff to all that build of Volvo Armstrong. I hope that they mentioned it. That would have been so great if they had like a promo is like, Oh, you're finally facing me after you ducked me at Slamboree. Yeah. I've been ducking me for two decades, man.
Four Horsemen Reunion: Segment Highlights
00:49:51
Speaker
We go back to Tony, and he says that people are excited because Rick Flair has said that he will reunite the original Four Horsemen at Slamboree, and he throws to Flair's show, titled, A Flair for the Gold. Another Starrcade 83 reference, take a shot. Yes.
00:50:12
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special live edition of a Blair for the Gold with your host, Nature Boy, Ric Flair, also featuring Fifi the May. Tonight, the original four horsemen will be reunited. And now, here he is, Nature Boy, Ric Flair.
00:50:37
Speaker
Claire for the Gold even has its own video intro, complete with cheesy talk show music and a pretty sweet logo. Love it.
00:50:56
Speaker
So from what I understand, Flair had returned from the WWF in February, but his WWF contract restricted him from actually wrestling for a competitor for a few months. So he was given this talk show concept until he could compete again. Aside from tonight, A Flair for the Gold is probably most famous for hosting the debut of the Shockmaster, later in 1993, in an iconic bit of unintentional comedy.
00:51:25
Speaker
We cut to the stage where Flair for the Gold's set has been set up. It looks like the interior of a house complete with tiled floor, some windows with a fake city skyline beyond, a nicely appointed living room area, a bar, and a windowed doorway through which our host Rick Flair enters.
00:51:41
Speaker
It's actually a rather nice set, albeit one that looks more sitcom than talk show. Yeah, again, that's where I'm getting a lot of the America's Mindset videos thing. Yeah, for sure. Although it does actually, in a weird way, sort of inspire the In Your House setup a bit. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Yeah. We see several ladies reclining on the couch. Flair enters and announces that they're live in Atlanta, GA.
00:52:07
Speaker
Flair says he's going to reunite the Four Horsemen, but there's good news and bad news. But first, he has to bring out Fifi the Maid, who struts out and does a spin. Fifi the Maid would much, much later be Flair's fifth wife. Yes, they married in 2018. Hi John, somebody says. I think it's Larry welcoming Johnny Valentine, who's gonna help commentate on the next match.
00:52:31
Speaker
Flair brings out Arne Anderson, who comes out in a very nice tux and wonderful dad glasses. Without further ado, let me bring out the man who will soon be the next NWA World Heavyweight Champion, my best friend, the Enforcer, W.A. Arne Anderson!
00:53:05
Speaker
You are styling and through filing tonight. Something going on, brother? Well, Rick, as you know, Barry Windham has been snubbing you. He's been snubbing the horsemen. He's even been snubbing this show. But Barry Windham in a short while, and I mean in a short while, you're not going to be able to snub me. This is my shot, my one shot. And rest assured, as you look in these eyes, I'm going to make it good.
00:53:32
Speaker
I guess what he's saying Barry is after tonight bw You and these girls over here be calling double-a the champ brother. That's where it is Player says there was a little bad news him blames Barry with them for Tully Blanchard not showing up Flair says not to get down, but the show only gets bigger and better he sends our and off to join the girls and warrants him not to drink until after his match and
00:54:00
Speaker
Now, do women recover wide Tully's action out here? I believe they just couldn't come to terms on a payment, if I recall correctly. Yeah, basically what happened is they offered him a $500-per-appearance contract. Yes. To show up, and he said, no. Yeah. But who knows, maybe Barry Windham called him and said, no, Tully, that's not enough. Kfave, Kfave can be true, I guess. Hahaha. Harn goes and sits at the bar instead.
00:54:26
Speaker
Flair brings out the Horseman's mentor, the legend, Holy Anderson, also in Tuxedo, which he seems quite proud of. The next Horseman is a man who generally is a legend in his own time, our mentor, my cousin, the legend, Holy Anderson.
00:54:52
Speaker
Brother, what's the occasion only? I tell you what, I'm all dressed up for a party with you. I gotta be dressed. But I did not tell you before. I said, you can't trust Wyndham. And Wyndham got to that other Kentucky. And I'll tell you what, it makes me hot. I've said it time and again. You gotta watch him. You can't trust him. Well, only listening to say this to you. Take a look around behind you one time, Rock.
00:55:14
Speaker
It's pin-off today! Hit the flag for the gold. You forget about Tully. Forget about Wailing and having a seat right there, brother. Get your feet wet, because the party's going to keep right out rocking. Pin-off's a pool there. It's getting your feet wet. All these reactions, seeing the ladies on the couch is great. Hey! It's just like over-the-top comedic reactions. Great. A little bit, yeah.
00:55:39
Speaker
Flair moves on, introducing his special addition to the Horseman, their newest member. Pretty Paul Roma. Huge boos to that as a betoxed Paul Roma walks out.
00:55:53
Speaker
The newest member of the Four Horsemen is legitimately one of those kiss, steal, and wheel, and deal limousine riding, jet flying son of a gun that girls has kissed y'all. That made you cry. I'm talking about none other than styling and profiling pretty Paul Roma. Come on out here, Paul.
00:56:18
Speaker
Hey, does he not fit the demographic? Keep screaming, girls. Don't be ashamed of it. Pahong, welcome, brother, to the horsemen. Thank you. It's a pleasure. You know, I don't think these people really realize the thousands of wrestlers you had to choose from, and you chose me to be a part of the most supreme elite group in professional wrestling today. The symbol that stands for, and always will be, excellence.
00:56:48
Speaker
Hey, it's the four horsemen, Paul. We got beefy on our left. We got the girls over here on our right. But before we get the party going, let me lay one thing down.
00:56:59
Speaker
Pillman, Austin, you are the Nature Boy. You got him. Because the tights are coming back out. And as the sun sets in the west, we're going to rock and roll because the horsemen are reunited again. All right. Now.
00:57:30
Speaker
The Four Horsemen give the Horsemen sign and go to party, though as you can hear, Flair could be heard admonishing our Anderson again not to drink. Thoughts on this segment? It's good until the end.
00:57:45
Speaker
It's probably based on the crowd reaction as their feeling as well. Yeah, Flair does his best, I think, to build up Roma, but that's clearly not what the crowd was hoping for. Yes. The thing with Paul Roma is everything about him should make sense for him being the horseman, but just his career at that point doesn't really fit that.
00:58:07
Speaker
Even outside of his status, he was never a big top guy. He was always in tag teams. Even when he was in that position, he wasn't one of the guys who were just waiting for his big moment to come. Just wait, give him a push, and he'll be the biggest star in the world. Yeah. I mean, he thought that, I'm sure. But based on the interviews you hear, he definitely thought that. But if this is going to take this raw talent and make him a big star, it's not what people wanted, clearly. Yeah.
00:58:37
Speaker
Yeah, I thought it was a really fun segment overall. Flair has his usual huge personality, and it's easy to see how he could carry a concept like this regularly. Oh, yeah. And Arne and Oli play their parts very well. Arne is Mr. Serious since he has a match, but Oli was pretty funny, acting like the poor peasant character in a film who suddenly come into wealth. He's strutting around in his nice new clothes. It's weird because he's been hanging with Flair for years. Yeah, right?
00:59:06
Speaker
Apparently, he's new to it still. Like you said, Al Roma did not get a good reception from the crowd, and he didn't really seem natural interacting with the others, though, admittedly, they've had far more practice working with each other. It's just like, Flair, Arne, and Oli seem like they're just buds hanging out, and Roma's cutting a wrestling pro bow. It just happens to be on stage with them at the time.
00:59:30
Speaker
He does a perfectly fine job with the promo though, it just seems almost tacked on, which is probably because it kind of was, as WCW did intend to get Tully back, but as we said, couldn't make a deal with him. This version of the Four Horsemen is often considered a low point for the group, but this segment was pretty great at least.
00:59:51
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, obviously not knowing at this point where it's going to go, it's a decent sort of re-debut for the group. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're caught in a bit of a hard place because partially their own fault, they can't get Tully. So they're clearly going with plan B.
01:00:07
Speaker
But I think they do a fair enough job of it. Sure. We can't judge based on what happens in the future. Right. Yeah. At this moment, I think it's it's a it's a decent setup. Right. If Roma can prove himself, I think he has a chance to win the crowd over. Sure. But we'll see what happens.
01:00:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's a tricky thing with the Horsemen concept because they built so much of mythos around key people like Arne and Flair, obviously. But even other people like later in the edition, like Wyndham, you think of the Horsemen, you think of them. But yeah, there's a long history before and after this and them constantly bringing in young wrestlers to try and keep things going. And some work short-term, like Luger worked fine short-term. Obviously it wasn't a long-term plan.
01:00:54
Speaker
Some are very short term like Sting. Yes. And obviously there's some I think looking back at it work better. Like when we get with Blinco and Benoit, the horseman, they absolutely make sense in that part. Looking back at it, it's not surprising that they would try and experiment with Roma. Looking at him, I could see why you would pick him. Just purely even aesthetic standpoint. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
01:01:17
Speaker
Just out of curiosity, who do you think, if you're in the back room, they've just come to you and said, oh crap, we can't get Tully. Who do you pull in that's in the company right then? Ooh, that's a tricky one. Yeah, I mean, I would have thought someone, if he didn't have him on the show earlier, someone like Eden Fronten would make a great pick for that. I could see that. Yeah.
01:01:41
Speaker
And you could highlight his accolades and basically push the idea that being the horseman is this new fresh start, like we talked before, him trying to get a chance to break away and be successful without the next press. That would make a lot of sense. Plus he's already blonde, that helps too. I know that.
01:02:03
Speaker
I don't personally enjoy the guy, but if they wanted to do a Horseman reunion, that would also be a nice shocking return. This would have been a good place to bring back Vicious. Oh yeah, that's true. I think that would have gotten a really neat reaction. Yeah. To have him suddenly show up, oh crap, he's back. You know, don't do the earlier match, just have this be where he suddenly shows up again. Mm-hmm. That could have been interesting. No, I can see that as well.
01:02:30
Speaker
I will say I think the idea they're going for throughout this show and not going forward is that the horsemen are going to be a face group. True. True. And Sid can be a face, but we've seen Sid as a face. I don't know if that works. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think if you have him as the strong, silent, butt kicking face character, then it could work and have flair as kind of the mouthpiece. Don't have Sid have to talk about the size of his brain. Yes.
01:02:59
Speaker
But yeah, I just, I think that's an interesting thought experiment is like everyone kind of criticizes the Roma pick, but I don't know how many people there are at this period that aren't already busy with something. Right. That you could bring in. There are some selections, obviously, but I don't know that they necessarily have this deep well that they can be choosing from for an emergency backup. Yeah.
01:03:26
Speaker
So they kind of roll the dice with them and I don't think it's necessarily a bad decision to do that. Yeah.
01:03:32
Speaker
I could see maybe, even though that got them thinking temporarily, if you wanted to bring in Austin and Pillman, bring in the two younger, respected wrestlers, you know, have Arn and Flair and then them. I think that- Yeah. I think the only problem with that is it sounds like Flair's at odds with them at the moment. Right. From his promo, so they'd have to engineer some story around that pretty fast. Yeah, no, for sure.
01:04:01
Speaker
We cut back to the announced table where Tony and Larry have been joined by Johnny Valentine, who Tony introduces as the greatest United States champion of all time. Johnny, who has an incredibly deep voice, says that he's never seen so much talent in one building. He says they're about to see some old-timers wrestle, and Tony says Johnny will join them for commentary for Dory Funk Jr. vs. Nick Bachmankel.
01:04:26
Speaker
Tony throws to a promo for Beach Blast 93.
Dory Funk Jr. vs. Nick Bockwinkle: Classic Match
01:04:29
Speaker
Unusually, there's no narration in the video package, so Tony just carries on doing it himself. I've not seen that happen too often. Yeah, that's true. We've still got the wonderful fist-shaped wave logo, which is brilliant. Oh, I love that one, yeah. Our fifth match is a Legends Singles match. Dory Funk Jr. That's Terry Funk's brother.
01:04:54
Speaker
with Gene Kniske, another Starrcade 83 reference, versus Nick Bockwinkle with Vern Ganya. The referee for this match is Mike Atkins.
01:05:06
Speaker
Keniski actually looks better here than he did at Stargate 83 a decade prior. That's true, yeah. Dory Funk looks, um, less so. Yeah. I think they're trying to make it look like Keniski is pumping him up for the match, but it honestly looks like Keniski is guiding him around by the arm. It does look like that, yeah. And Funk's only 52 here. Yeah, yeah. But it makes him look so much older. Yeah.
01:05:32
Speaker
Funk, incidentally, has the second longest NWA World Heavyweight Championship reign. The longest would be Luthez. Right, yeah. They picked a terrific picture of Bachwinkle for the video package. It looks really dignified. Him smiling and holding a title belt that I would assume is the AWAs. That would make sense, yeah. Tony notes that this is AWA versus NWA with Bachwinkle versus Funk. Valentine says that these men have wanted to face each other for years.
01:06:04
Speaker
As they start off, Larry immediately points out that he was the last AWA world champion. Yes. He also says that if the AWA and NWA champs fought, the AWA would have won. Bockwinkle as AWA champ did actually face then NWA champ Rick Flair in 1986. Oh. It ended in a double count out. I'm not shocked at all. No, me neither.
01:06:29
Speaker
Bachwinkle slips free of an early lock-up, so Kuniski amusingly offers his towel to the ref, implying that Bachwinkle might have put on Vaseline or something to make himself slippery. Tony notes that Dory Funk won his NWA title from Kuniski, and Bachwinkle won his first AWA title from Gonya. So that's interesting that they're the cornermen then. Yeah, yeah.
01:06:51
Speaker
As Bachwinkle evades another lockup, Funk goes to consult Caniskey. Funk and Bachwinkle trade a few blows and transition to trading holds. A Funk takedown into a neck vice looked pretty sloppy, though the hold itself was neat. A nice slam by Funk to escape an armbar later, though.
01:07:08
Speaker
Tony chats with Johnny Valentine about a time when he'd offered a fistful of silver dollars if anyone could pin him. Tony really sounds like he's having a good time tonight. I'm guessing these are the guys that he was a fan of before he got into the business. Yeah. So he's absolutely full of facts and stories about them.
01:07:25
Speaker
Funk gets one off an elbow and punches, but eats hard forearm shots from Bachwinkle, only for Koniski to pull Bachwinkle away. Bachwinkle chases briefly, but goes back in. One counts off a Funk front face lock, Bachwinkle reversal, and Funk bellied back suplex. Back to the holds, and the crowd seems to be turning on the match somewhat. Five minutes left in the time limit as Bachwinkle fights to free himself from a double arm hold. Snapmare by Bachwinkle for two.
01:07:55
Speaker
Wait, wait, off a snapmare? Yeah, yeah. Have you ever seen that before? Not really, no. Johnny notes that they haven't been breaking any rules. You hear that, Larry? Tony asks. No, Larry says. They end up on the ramp. Atkins prevents some Kinesky interference. Funk suplexes Bachwinkle back into the ring for two and hits a dangerous-looking pile driver, but Bachwinkle's foot is on the ropes.
01:08:25
Speaker
We get what actually sounds a little bit more like a Dory chant as they picked up the pace a bit. I think earlier there was a boring one, but this one I felt like actually was Dory. There definitely was a boring one, unfortunately, yeah. Yeah. Bachwinkle counters a double underhook suplex into a backslide for two.
01:08:43
Speaker
Funk spinning toehold, but Bockwinkle rolls him up for two. A rather poor Bockwinkle figure four, and Kinesky kicks him. Gonya justifiably demands a DQ, but Atkins lets it go. Funk makes the ropes. Final two counts off of Bockwinkle slam and a Funk roll up, but time expires. At 15 minutes, it's a time limit draw. Larry asks for five more minutes. The crowd, seeming to have come back around in the late match, actually gives them a standing ovation.
01:09:13
Speaker
Tony says goodbye to Johnny Valentine, who says it was a great match. Thoughts on it? Oh, boy. So nothing bad happens in this match. They don't botch anything, really. No. There's stuff that's not as good, but also nothing really exciting happens. I mean, there's a lot of uppercuts and arm holds and body holds and apparently devastating snap mares.
01:09:38
Speaker
But yeah, it's 15 minutes where these two guys wrestled about a third of the speed as everyone else in the show. They don't really do a whole lot with it. And then there's no finish because I guess they both need to protect their notoriety.
01:09:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of a company versus company thing, too, where you can see maybe they didn't want to say the AWA was definitively worse than the NWA or vice versa. I mean, one of them had been dead for two years at this point. The others are about to be irrelevant. Right. I mean, I think one is definitively worse just as far as not being around anymore. True, true. Yeah.
01:10:20
Speaker
I can't point anything that's bad in this match. It's just so long and nothing really happens. The crowd definitely turns on their way through. They get a little better towards the end when they try to pick up the pace, relatively speaking. And the ending to me felt less like they turned around and they thought the match was good, as much as it's the polite applause when a game is over kind of situation. A lot of them do actually stand up for it, though.
01:10:44
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like it's a respect for the people thing more than like, Oh, well, actually now I think about it was a good match. No, I, I agree on that. I did. Yeah. I just mean they're, they're not so hurt by the earlier performance in the match that they lose respect for them or anything. You know what? We appreciate your performance a lot. Yeah. Glad you, I'm glad you were here, but maybe you could have done this in four minutes. Yes. Yeah.
01:11:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm in the same boat. If they had put the same amount of action in five or maybe 10 minutes, I think this would have been pretty decent. But as it was, 15 minutes was just too long. It's the only one of the Legends matches tonight where I really felt like I was watching older wrestlers. Yeah. The other two kept a good pace, but this one was definitively slow.
01:11:30
Speaker
It did have its moments, though. I appreciated the level of intricacy that they were putting into their holds. There's a lot of little tactics in the ways that they'll lock them on or try to escape. And you can tell these are two very experienced guys. There's one bit in particular I noted where Bachwinkle is caught in an arm lock.
01:11:48
Speaker
And he goes down to suddenly try to reach for Funk's leg to get out, but then gets thrown down as Funk catches him. So you can tell, like, little intricacies of their holds that are quite interesting. It's just that they're being done at roughly a third the speed, as you said. Yes. They smack the heck out of each other with some of the forearm shots, too. Oh, yeah. And for the most part, their power moves looked fine, the Pile Driver being the lone exception. That one scared me a little. Oh, yeah, yeah.
01:12:17
Speaker
They also definitely turned it up a bit for the last two or three minutes, and that feels closer to a normal match at that point. Yeah, sure. I agree with you. The time limit draw ending is pretty shoddy and rather predictable since this kind of a company versus company thing. That doesn't help. Yeah.
01:12:33
Speaker
But overall, it's not badly performed. It's just kind of dull. Yeah. I would bet that these guys could have had a great match like five or 10 years prior, but it feels like time did catch up. Yeah. It is notable that Nick Banquo will retire in 1987. Yeah. So we're six years on from that. And I assume he did some level of training because he can still go relatively fine. He can hit his moves. Okay. It's just everything slower. Yeah. Yeah.
01:12:57
Speaker
It's a respectable match. It's just if they were able to pick up the pace a bit more, I think it would have gotten a better reception. And it's unfortunate that with them not able to do that, they put it out there as long as they did. Yes. I think if you had given these guys, like I said, a five minute match, maybe it gets thrown out because Keniski and Ganya get involved.
01:13:19
Speaker
then they could have just gone full tilt the entire time and it would have been quite good. But because they decided to do the 15 minute draw, they have to ration their energy and you can actually tell that's what they're doing.
01:13:34
Speaker
I know it's a source bar for you in general and there's a lot on the show, but it would work as some sort of tag match. Yeah. Yeah. Cause we saw how well that actually worked to cover their deficit basically. Absolutely. If they don't have to maintain two people's energy the entire time, but can split it between four or maybe, you know, four and a dog, maybe that would work better.
01:13:57
Speaker
So we would see Bonkwinkle again because he would hang around being the on air authority figure in WCW. Botching his promos. Yes. So as I mentioned, Nick Bonkwinkle had retired in 1987. So he comes out retiring essentially for this match. As for Dora Funk Jr., he is still not retired. Proving that he is in fact a member of the Funk clan. Yes.
01:14:21
Speaker
To be fair, at this point, Terry is actually retired. Oh, okay. That actually stuck. It's stuck this time because Terry's also retired about like, what, 11 billion times? Yeah, the people that infamously never stay retired, like him and Dole the Butcher, most of them have actually stay retired. Okay. Dora Funk Jr. officially his last match so far was in 2020.
01:14:47
Speaker
Yes. He teamed up with the Thighter Brothers at a funk wrestling academy show. I'm assuming he would have wrestled again this year, but, you know, COVID. Yeah.
Rick Rude's US Championship Controversy
01:14:59
Speaker
We go to Eric Bischoff, who's with Lou Thez and Bob Geigel. Eric calls Thez a legend that stands alone. Thez says the matches have been wonderful tonight, and Geigel says the NWA versus AWA match was fabulous, and he could see it coming back to the two as they wrestled.
01:15:17
Speaker
Eric says, let's get back to the ring. So close. Yes. I wonder if Luthez is not standing alone because he's standing next to Bob Geigle. Yeah. Our sixth match is ravishing Rick Roode and Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorf versus Dustin Rhodes and Kintsuke Sasaki. The referee for this one is Randy Anderson.
01:15:46
Speaker
So there's a bunch of story to this one, mostly on half the competitors for this match. Okay. Earlier this year, there was a match between Steamboat and Dustin Rhodes to determine who would challenge the US Champion X, that being Rick Roode. However, he was injured before the match takes place, so they turn it from a number one contendership match to a title match. So Roode has a decent run with the belt until Rick Roode's like, Hey, what are you doing? It's my belt.
01:16:13
Speaker
And of course he had vacated, so it doesn't really have a claim to it, but you know, he's a heel, so. Yeah. That's what they do. So very recently to this show, they had a match where both their shows were up, but the ref actually seemed to count Rhodes down, even though he wasn't. So Rube leave with a title. So he's certainly a US champion, but it is hotly debated in kayfabe at this point, whether he actually is or not. As Larry will point out to Tony, possession is nine-tenths of the law. That's true.
01:16:44
Speaker
He's simply ravishing. Rick Rood's 1993 song is cheesy, and therefore pretty great. Yes. But it doesn't hold a candle to the seedy hard-boiled detective theme from his first Stargate appearance. No, nothing does. Sadly, Orndorff comes out during the same theme. I think this is a couple years prior to his own best-ever theme song. Oh, yeah, yeah. Nicely, they've color-coordinated their ropes, both in blue and silver. Oh, yeah, sure.
01:17:13
Speaker
Rude asks for the music to be cut and mocks the crowd for being out of shape. He and Orndorff start to take their robes off but are interrupted by Dustin Rode's The Natural. Natural. It's still a great, ridiculous song. It is, yes.
01:17:29
Speaker
Rhodes has his terrific Desert Sunset jacket, but Sasaki is sadly years before the great God of Fire jacket he had at Starrcade 95. So he just has a t-shirt. On the bright side, the t-shirt is from his team up with Road Warrior Hawk in Japan. A sign in the crowd calls Orndorff Paula, which I have never gotten.
01:17:53
Speaker
Yeah, we we had another show where that came up didn't it's constant. It's constant. Yeah. Yeah, they're doing that all the time But much more awesomely it also calls him mr. Blunderful The crowd chants Paula at him. I wish that they would chant Blunderful Blunderful. I mean that is a much better one. Yes Sasaki and rude start and rude mocks his physique and outfit shoves him and flexes
01:18:21
Speaker
Sasaki looks him over and shoves him several times, the last hurling him skyward and into the corner. That was actually a nice little bit. It is. He hooks him underneath the armpit and toss him in the corner. That's like a perfect leverage throw. Yeah. He basically caper tossed a person. Yes. It's impressive. Yeah, yeah. Angrily, Rude attacks, but Sasaki catches him with arm holds and Rude tags out. So Sasaki and Roach just trade off working Orndorf's arm instead, including an unusual arm death lock by Sasaki.
01:18:51
Speaker
tags to Rhodes and Rude. Rhodes wins a slugfest and hits a high back body drop. Let's ask Rude how the ozone's doing, Larry jokes. Each catches the other with a knee on a charge, and Rude dodges a Rhodes crossbody so Rhodes spills over the top ropes to the floor.
01:19:08
Speaker
Rude rams him to the apron and argues with Sasaki to distract Anderson, so Orndorf sneaks in some barricade rams. Tony claims that would be a DQ normally, but then admits maybe it wouldn't. I've never seen that draw a DQ myself.
01:19:25
Speaker
Back in, Rude's swinging neckbreaker gets two, and he and Orndorff trade off against Rhodes. Rhodes resists a Rude Piledriver, so Rude changes to a Tombstone Piledriver, but Rhodes flips over that and turns it into one of his own for two. Larry is very impressed with that. Orndorff back in, but he and Rhodes knock heads on a charge. Orndorff tags Rude, but Rhodes rolls to tag Sasaki.
01:19:50
Speaker
Sasaki destroys Rude with high velocity strikes and does Rude's own hip swivel after an inverted atomic drop. That was pretty funny, yeah. That was hilarious. He does a better job with the hip swivel than he did with the stinger call at Starrcade 95. Oh yeah, yeah. Remember that pathetic attempt at it. Sasaki mostly manages the military press and hurls Rude at a charging Orndorf, but Orndorf ducks only to get decked by Rhodes.
01:20:19
Speaker
The faces run the heels into each other, and Rhodes fights Orndorff outside. The crowd chants, whoomp, there it is, because it is 1993. Yes. Sasaki goes up, but Orndorff knocks Rhodes down and pushes Sasaki off the top rope. Rhodes chases Orndorff, but Rude hits the rude awakening on Sasaki for the three count and the win, as Rhodes realized too late that Sasaki was in danger.
01:20:45
Speaker
thoughts on this one? I thought it was a pretty good match, the action was pretty strong. Obviously, as I mentioned, Rude and Rhodes, which sounds like a law firm, I guess. Yeah, and it sounds like they should be the tag team. It does, yeah, yeah, Rude and Rhodes, yeah. Yeah. They work together quite a bit at this point, so it's not surprising they have chemistry down. Mm-hmm, absolutely. One thing I think about the more I watch Young Dustin Rhodes is so we had a story the previous year
01:21:12
Speaker
where it was him and Barry Windham together. And then when they lost titles, Windham betrayed him. Thinking back to how Windham does the thing where he'll use his height and serve his leverage in interesting ways. I see that with Rhodes, especially in this match, when he powers out of the tombstone, for instance, where he pushes off of Rhodes' hips and leans his body back. Those long legs do most of the work for him. So it's interesting to see if he really picked that up from working with Windham.
01:21:38
Speaker
Yeah, and it's interesting because I've never really thought of Dustin Rhodes as particularly tall, but he is. He's 6'5", I think. Yeah, he's right up there with Wyndham. Yeah.
01:21:48
Speaker
Sasaki thought I was pretty impressed with this one, too. He's always been pretty good when we see him in the show. He has good speed and sort of power behind what he does. At this point, he hasn't quite gotten the character thing down other than his musing bit where he's sort of looking over Rick Rude and his outfit and sort of befuddled by the whole thing. Like, he sees the airbrushing on us, sort of confused by it. Yes, yeah.
01:22:15
Speaker
At this point he feels like he's really close to being the star he used to be and obviously he gets closer though for time. Pretty career outside of this. I have to note the amusing selling by Rick Roo when he takes the atomic drop as well. Yes. He pops up on the front of his feet. Yeah, it goes all tiptoe. Yeah, you go all tiptoe, exactly. It's like a cartoon character, like when they fall and they get up and the crew gets knocked down.
01:22:42
Speaker
All I could think of was like a punch out. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. The finish was interesting. It's pretty cliche at this point. You know, the face is fight really strongly, but then one gets distracted and you know, the heels win. It's a little bit of a chief finish, but definitely protects them that way. Sasaki has an interesting, almost miscue with the rude awakening. We start to go down and rude. No, no, not yet. Yeah. You can see him hold him up and finish it.
01:23:09
Speaker
It's funny you mentioned that he's wearing the Hellraiser's shirt because he blatantly no sells that finish, much like Roadwear Hawkwood and has. I mean, he takes the three and then is like back up to his knees, like ready to fight a second later. Yeah, for me, this was a very good tag match. It set a fast pace from the outset and never slowed down one bit.
01:23:32
Speaker
I thought both teams worked very well together, though neither really had particular tag spots aside from holding opponents during tags to smoothly trade off holds, which it did quite well. Yeah. Rude and Rhodes had good emotion in their bits, but I'm going to disagree with you a bit on Sasaki. I think he nailed that part of this match as well, especially when he was facing Rude.
01:23:54
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think anything away from their interaction. I think as a whole, he's not quite there, that's all. Yeah, I can see that still, but I just think that this match, more than anyone that I've seen him in, other than maybe his match with Sting, felt like he really was hitting that emotional side and willing to pull out the intensity, not just in how he was doing the moves, but in how he was reacting to doing the moves. It's definitely an improvement over Star K. Wood. Is it 92, I believe? 92, yeah.
01:24:22
Speaker
where his standout moment is suffering the falling refrigerator spot, as I recall. Yes. True. Yeah, I thought he nailed his role here. And while everyone did well, Sasaki was the star of the match for me with great emotion and a nice story of him using momentum and even turning his shorter height into an advantage over the taller route. Really a standout performance with him at this stage, even with a loss.
01:24:44
Speaker
The ending I thought felt really nicely timed. Orndorf takes advantage of a split second away from Rhodes to interrupt Sasaki, and Rhodes is just a little too angry at Orndorf to notice that his partner is in trouble until it's too late. It even ties in nicely with something Larry was saying mid-match, that you have to keep your emotions in check and wrestle with your head or you're going to make mistakes. Rhodes started letting emotion rule and the team went down for it. So it's a nice match with a good story.
01:25:13
Speaker
I will say there's definitely too much focus on commentary about whether or not Rhodes and Zaki can communicate with each other. Yeah, there's some questionable commentary on this one. Thing with this match, you could argue that it's the weak point of it that it seems like it's two singles wrestlers working together instead of two tag teams fighting, but at the same time, the finish is all based around that. Yes. So it kind of works both ways. It's part of the story of the match, and I think that actually ends up working for it, yeah.
01:25:43
Speaker
There would be another match between the pair of rude and roads, attorneys of law, which would lead unsurprisingly to a double pin spot. So now the title is vacated.
01:25:55
Speaker
Which is already being disputed so I guess you need to make sure it's vacated as well. It's a little interesting. Yeah. How many times do we have to have Rick Rude vacating titles, let alone the US title? Fair point. In this story alone. I do have to say, if you take out the and, if it's just Rude Roads, that sounds like maybe a country band. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, that would lead to a match at Beachblast where they would try and determine who is the new rightful US title holder.
01:26:25
Speaker
Okay. As for Orendorf, he would continue to defend his TV title against the likes of Ron Simmons and Ricky Steamboat. We go back to Tony Schiavone and he says it's time to induct the first members of the WCW Legends Hall of Fame and throws to Gordon Soli, first taking a moment to build up Gordon as a man who guided his own career and as a legend himself. Credit to you for that, Tony, that was very nice. Yeah.
01:26:53
Speaker
Larry agrees with Tony that it's fitting that Soli gets to introduce the Legends of the Ring. Soli seems genuinely touched by the crouched cheers, but they go on for so long he actually has to ask them to let him proceed, which I just realized is kind of another Starrcade 83 flashback. Didn't Flair have to do that? Oh yeah, of course. That's true.
01:27:14
Speaker
Soli says that they'll induct four members to the Hall of Fame, and he's honored to induct them. He slightly flubs a line by noting that there are, quote, living legends who won't join us tonight because they've passed away. Well, they live on in our hearts. Yeah, no, it's still sweet. It is, yeah. He reads off names, Buddy Rogers, Andre the Giant, Pat O'Connor,
01:27:42
Speaker
Gene Anderson, Dick the Bruiser, Wilbur Snyder, and he says one more will be mentioned later. He asks for a moment of silence. It actually takes the crowd quite a while to cool it, so it really ends up just a moment.
01:27:59
Speaker
Soli introduces the Hall of Fame inductees as a classy video package plays for each, showing news articles and old photographs of them, and each comes to the ring, and Soli goes over each man's history in very nice detail. Each is given a plaque with their picture on it. First is Luthez, followed by Vern Ganya, who gets a few boos from the NWA fans. Vern wipes away tears.
01:28:25
Speaker
Mr. Wrestling 2 is third up, and Soli points out that we have never seen him unmasked, and tells the story about him being invited to visit Jimmy Carter at the inauguration, but finding out that he couldn't go masked, so he politely declined. That's true, yeah. And indeed, he's still masked as he accepts his award here. The final inductee is Eddie Graham, and as he's passed on, his award is accepted by his son, Mike Graham. Soli builds up Eddie Graham's charity and service work, which is a really nice touch.
01:28:56
Speaker
Solely shows the legends to the crowd one more time and throws to Missy Hyatt. I don't know about you, Al, but for me, this is in contention for the best thing WCW ever did. It's definitely up there. It's really classy. Yeah. Yeah. It feels genuine, heartfelt, and very touching. Truly honoring these men and what they'd accomplished both in professional wrestling performances and in their personal lives. Icing on the cake for me was having Solely do this.
01:29:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. As Tony and Larry point out, Soli is a legend himself and the perfect person for announcing the inductions. I think WSW is at its best when it's honoring its history, and there's no better example of that than this. Yeah, it's definitely up there for sure, yeah.
01:29:42
Speaker
Oh, it's an interesting little note. The last appearance of onto the giant, who's mentioned here in a wrestling show is appearing at classic champions 20 as a guest of Gordon. Oh, how interesting. Yeah. He never actually appears officially as a WWE competitor or anybody, but they do a red carpet at the beginning of the show while his legends are there. This is September, 1992, like I said. Okay. And yeah. So Andre is the invited guest of Gordon solely. Oh, that's cool.
01:30:10
Speaker
Missy Hyatt introduces Lord James Bleers and John Tolos. Tolos says that he's been having a great time hanging out with his old friends, and that WCW is, quote, the only way to spell wrestling. The first letter's right. Yeah. Bleers agrees and gives Missy an English monocle, so she does a terrible British accent. Tallyho, let's go back down to the ring.
01:30:40
Speaker
What's with everyone adding to the show title tonight, by the way? Come on, people, get it right. Exactly, yeah. Trying to make us change the art moniker. Can't wait till it's time making that graphic. Our seventh match is Sting versus The Prisoner in a special bounty match.
Storylines and Matches: Sting and The Prisoner
01:30:59
Speaker
The referee for this one is Nick Patrick.
01:31:02
Speaker
So they're playing coy about it at this point, but the story is that someone has put a bounty out on Sting to keep him away from challenging for the title or any title like that. Pretty sure it's supposed to be that it's Vader doing it, but they have at this point, they haven't gotten to that saying that. So yeah, they build up that Scott Norden has come to answer the bounty. And he actually appears on the show that due to pre-taping, there is the day before the show on WSB Saturday night.
01:31:31
Speaker
They gave him a big squash match, and this little side knife that I found was kind of funny. So they mentioned as part of the accolades that he appears in the movie over the top. Yeah, because that's an accolade. Yeah, yeah. That is actually a segue, because it may fall in that area of special interview with specialists alone from the set of Demolition Man. Wow. Now, the network does not have this on there. But YouTube does.
01:31:59
Speaker
You can watch that. Derek Bischoff interviewing Salona on set backstage somewhere. It's him and Jesse Ventura who was in his outfit and he wears in the movie even though his scene was cut for time. Yeah, I was gonna say I legit forgot that Jesse Ventura was involved in that movie. Yeah. He's in a bunch of those movies where he's in a cut for time race and they're so briefly you don't remember. Like being a Batman and Robin, for instance. Yeah, he's a prison guard in Batman and Robin. Wow. Yeah.
01:32:27
Speaker
Um, but yeah, so that was all set up. And the fact that it pretakes mature is commentating that show. So I don't, I don't, I don't know how recent his hospital stay is. So you'd be surprised if finally he's not on the show, given you heard him last night. Yeah. And Scott Norton is also not there because he allegedly quit the day before.
01:32:46
Speaker
Or at least very, very recently. Enough that they didn't cancel airing his match to build up his match against Ding. So there wasn't a point on a show where he got beat up by the prisoner. No. They just credited prisoner with that because he left. Correct. I love it. Yeah. He wrestled like a one minute squash match, beats a guy and they build up his match against Ding. They cut a video package and then yeah, that's it. Wow. Wow. At some point off camera, the prisoner beat up Scott Norton.
01:33:19
Speaker
Sting's jacket today is silvery blue and pink, and we are in the Man Called Sting song era, which always makes me smile. The prisoner comes out to no music at all in an orange prison jumpsuit and with a nightstick. Larry jokes that he looks like the thing.
01:33:37
Speaker
He looks like neither the Marvel Comics character, any character from the John Carpenter movie, or the Addams family character, so I'm not sure what Larry is referencing there. At most, he kind of vaguely looks like the creature from A Thing from Another World, but that's still a stretch. That's quite distant. Yeah, yeah. Just being a tall, ugly person, I guess, is enough to be the thing. I guess so. The Prisoner is the much more generic name for the man who was known in the WWF as Nails.
01:34:05
Speaker
You couldn't come up with a different prison name for him, WCW? Really? No. Prisoner chokes Sting. And chokes him. And chokes him. And chokes him. He breaks at four most of the time, at least. Larry sounds shocked when prisoner finally actually uses a back elbow. Yeah. But then it's back to choking. Yes. He does get two off a stalling backbreaker.
01:34:33
Speaker
Sting dodges the charge and land strikes, but Prisoner just kind of stands there. Tony tries his best to tell us that he's absorbing the blows, but I'm pretty sure he just doesn't know how to sell. At all. Prisoner rakes the eyes and flings Sting outside for choking with a cable, and Larry tries to excuse it by saying he's got a 10 count outside. That's for countouts, Larry, not for DQs. Yeah, you can't choke someone for 10 seconds outside. Yeah, but it really is how he sounds like. Oh yeah, no, he definitely tries to push that, yeah.
01:35:04
Speaker
This is incredible, Tony says. His tone of voice says otherwise. Yes. Back in, Sting ducks a clothesline and hits a weird kind of clothesline splash, for one. I think somebody was in the wrong position there, probably the prisoner. Yeah, pretty sure. Sting gets prisoner in the corner for the stinger splash, and seems to set for a scorpion death lock, but instead just covers for two.
01:35:28
Speaker
Sting misses a high angle elbow drop and Tony jokes, there's nobody in the cell that time. Tony's trying to have some fun here. Yes. Prisoner Lance strikes in the corner, and Patrick warns him, so Prisoner grabs him but Sting hits a top rope flying clothesline for the three count and the win.
01:35:46
Speaker
Sting starts walking to the back as soon as the match is over, and Patrick actually has to catch up to hold up his hands in victory. Patrick says something to Sting visibly, and Sting stops and faces the crowd for a little bit longer before going backstage. I can't say for sure, but it felt like Sting just wasn't happy and wanted to be done with it. It sure looks like that. Yeah. The closest reaction you have to him after a match is the infamous Victory Road 2011 match. The Jeff Hardy one, yes.
01:36:13
Speaker
Although he's more overt in that one, but how he feels. Yeah, it really looks like he's just like, wow, this was bad. I'm going backstage. And Patrick is like, dude, post for the fans for a moment. Yes. Uh, thoughts on it? Choking. Choking. More choking. Sting wins. Oh, and Sting leaves and never looks back. Yeah. Yeah. It's.
01:36:39
Speaker
I think we kind of share Sting's opinion of this match. Yeah. You know, the thing is, and mind you, I haven't covered a lot of Scott Norton on this show. I'm not a huge fan of Scott Norton, but I feel like his match was still been better than this. Like a billion times. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to, you know, how many times, times zero Dean you'd be. Yes. Yeah. Poor Sting. He, he really tries by dynamic and the selling, but his matches is set up to where he has to be dominated so much that he's going to do a whole lot.
01:37:08
Speaker
I mean, I had more fun with him when he wrestled that really short match against the Iron Sheik. Yes. T'wiltha wasn't a great match, but it had Sting looking big and dominant, so it worked okay for me. They both have big characters, so that still worked, yeah. Yeah, it pains me to say this because this is a Sting match, but this was awful. The prisoner just has so little beyond just choking Sting, and he seems to have no idea how to act when he's not on offense.
01:37:35
Speaker
WCW is clearly going for kind of like a Sting Vader King of Cable vibe here, where the dominant heel batters Sting and he just manages to last long enough to find an opening, but it does not work. No.
01:37:50
Speaker
The match is plain dull even when Sting is on offense because Prisoner is just bad at taking hits. Yes. And the ending feels more suited to a surprise jobber win over an arrogant heel than a win by well-established superstar Sting over a totally new heel. This is a hard sell to get over a new character that just ends up exposing how little that new character has to offer. Very much so, yes.
01:38:15
Speaker
I know this is the first show for the series, but I am going to be shocked if this match is not on my list of worst matches of the series when we're done with the Slamburys. It's that bad. I totally can see that, yeah. So this is the only WWE match, as far as I can tell, with the prisoner in it. Okay. At least trying to sound disappointed when I say that, Bob. Nope, not at all. Okay, good. Just making sure.
01:38:42
Speaker
He would keep working in numerous companies like the AWF. Very briefly, Jim Crockett tried to make a new promotion after he sold his shares to Turner called the WWN. He hired him for some reason. And he also worked for a company called the WWWA, which made him their world champion. Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's after this, mind you. Yes, it's like two years after this, they made it. Why? I don't know.
01:39:10
Speaker
Thing with him, so I was doing research on the prisoner. He actually had a prelinked the nursing career before this. Yeah. He wrestled in world class and in fact in the EWA. That's what's so shocking that he doesn't seem to have anything. He's not new. No, no. His performance would be fine if we were talking about like, this is your first year. Yes. Like we were covering with the previous thing with Tommy Jammer. Right. He came and did basic stuff, but he also had been wrestling for less than a year. So it's fine. Yeah.
01:39:38
Speaker
Or even I'd give him if it was a new character like Callaway's first few performances as the Undertaker. He's pretty slow in plotting and doesn't necessarily do a lot. Because they told him don't sell. Yeah, they told him don't sell and choke people a lot. Yeah. And that's what he does. But that's like the first few performances as the character. This guy has been nails for a while. Yeah.
01:40:03
Speaker
Yeah. I found this. You might find this string. This is a picture I'm going to send you now. This nails a few years before this, actually in the eighties. That's different. Yeah. Right. And then see who the manager is. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
01:40:19
Speaker
Magnificent Kevin Kelly. Yes.
Tag Team Cage Match and Key Moments
01:40:22
Speaker
I guess I should describe it for listeners as, yeah, he's standing there in a robe, not a bejeweled robe, unfortunately. A bathrobe. And with long blonde hair. Yeah. Kind of going for a flare look, I think, but with less bling. Very much so, yeah.
01:40:36
Speaker
I would never have pictured that before you sent me this picture. That's another one I have where he surprisingly looks like Lex Luger. Interesting. I would actually be interested in seeing a match with him outside of the nails gimmick to see is that the gimmick or is that just always the way he wrestled?
01:40:55
Speaker
Yeah. Maybe, you know, maybe he has more and he just is actually restraining it because he doesn't think it's part of the character. Right. Right. I could see on that, but give him some grace there. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, this is not good. No.
01:41:10
Speaker
Brent Ganye for all his faults. He really liked technical wrestlers due to the background. I don't think he would have been very happy with this style. Yeah. So I would assume that when he was, wasn't wrestling with the prisoner, he didn't wrestle this poorly and just choke people so much, but Sting would obviously, thankfully rebound from this to be in the same mid event match with Sid mentioned earlier at Beat Blast.
01:41:38
Speaker
No more prisoners in his future, thankfully. Oh, thank goodness. We go back to the commentary team and Tony narrates another quick beach blast promo. Has a fun cartoon wave and beach animations for this one, but nothing notable otherwise.
01:41:54
Speaker
We cut back to them, and Tony and Larry try to talk up the show so far while the WCW crew is working around their table to set up a cage around the ring for the next match. It really throws Larry in particular. Tony jokes they're gonna cage Larry rather than the ring, and throws to Eric Bischoff. Eric is with Larry's greatest fear, the Crusher. And Ox Baker, the latter of which wins our Lifetime Achievement Award for Facial here. Absolutely, yeah, no question. Holy crap.
01:42:24
Speaker
Spiked eyebrows and crazy huge mustache. Awesome look. If you're a fan of 80s cinema, he also fights Kurt Russell and Escape from New York. Oh, okay. That's Ox Baker. That's cool. Crusher says that he's got a hundred megaton biceps and he's thrown lots of bums out of saloons, but he must have missed Ox Baker. Baker gives a great, wait, did he just call me a bum kind of look?
01:42:49
Speaker
Crusher claims he's undefeated in cage matches, much like his friend Dick the Bruiser did when he showed up, and says he'll throw Baker through the cage like throwing tomatoes through a screen door. Baker joins the fun, claiming that Crusher tried to get him in a cage match at his wedding. Baker notes that whenever he knocked people down, he would kick them in the face like a gentleman does.
01:43:12
Speaker
He says he loves to hurt people. He suddenly notices that Crusher is better looking than him. Poor Eric looks completely befuddled by all of this. Yeah. And Baker gives him a bear hug as Eric throws back to the ring.
01:43:25
Speaker
Utterly hilarious bit these guys were funny as heck. Yeah Pish I was definitely the like teenage cousin stuck between the two uncles Yes, the two drunk drunk ranting uncles. Yes, very much so her odds over I don't know a football game or something Yeah, I don't even know who these people are to you are that you're talking about what's going on? Why are you talking about Vietnam so much?
01:43:51
Speaker
Yeah, this was probably my favorite of the Legends promos. I think it was just absolute gold. Yeah, because they don't have anything to prove. They're not part of a story. They're just there to have fun. That's what they want to do. Yeah, they're clearly having a great time. Yeah.
01:44:07
Speaker
Our eighth match is Dos Ombres, Ricky the Dragon Steamboat and allegedly Shane Douglas, versus the Hollywood Blondes, Stunning Steve Austin and Fly M Brian Pillman, and a cage match for the Blondes NWA WCW World Tag Team Championships. The referee for this one is Mike Atkins.
01:44:28
Speaker
So when we last left the team of Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas, they were the combined world tag champions when they currently hold in the NWA and WCW tag champions. But I think they eventually got rid of the one somehow. Forget the heck that works. They have two balls of Starrcade. At this point, they're clearly still combined. Yeah. But I think they only have one set of belts now.
01:44:50
Speaker
and a very recent class of champion show. The rain came to an end at the hands of Steve Austin and Brian Pillman. Something else happened before the show. Shane Douglas left the company for ECW. Oh geez. So a couple weeks before this, they had a match in which, I guess trying to keep the storyline going, they had Ricky's Dean Boat and Brad Armstrong. Okay. Both wearing full mask and bodysuit covers as the masked dough's own brace,
01:45:19
Speaker
which led to Ricky's team belt unmasking, but not Brad Armstrong, because they have to send his Shane Douglas somehow. So that happened to the taping. So at least do this match where I guess they don't want to make Brad Armstrong work two matches. So they play with Tom Zink, which you do whenever possible. Wow. So to be clear,
01:45:42
Speaker
He had left before they even started this, there was Ombray's thing. Okay, yeah. That was a cover to keep the storyline of Steamboat and Douglas against the Hollow Blondes going, because they wanted this payoff. That's funny. And it's not even the same guy that Steamboat is wrestling with. It's a go-to masked wrestler, Brad Armstrong. Yes. And then now it's Z-Man. Okay. Yes.
01:46:03
Speaker
It's weird that it's two different people. Yeah. I was, I thought it was, I would assume it was zinc both times by reading that out yet. No, it's spread Armstrong the first time. Yeah. I was with knowing that even when you cover in a bodysuit, neither what looks like exactly like Shane Douglas. No. Not a great cover.
01:46:18
Speaker
Dos Hombres come to the ring in red bodysuits with red and green masks and big sombreros, but still entered to Steamboat's Family Man theme. This may be the strangest thing I've yet watched Ricky Steamboat do. Yeah, it's definitely up there. On the plus side, their red and green masks are kinda Christmasy. They are, they are, yes. I know that's not what they're going for, but I'll take it. Kombre Uno grabs a mic and explains that they had good luck in these outfits in an earlier match, so they're hoping it helps them win the tag titles.
01:46:48
Speaker
Okay. Austin and Pillman come out in Bee Feeder uniforms. Just kidding. They just wear the normal Hollywood blondes get ups. We cut to a couple guys in suits and sunglasses in the crowd, talking to each other, and Tony and Larry wonder who they could be. Austin yells for Steamboat to take the mask off, and yes, he does point at the correct one.
01:47:13
Speaker
Uno and Austin start, and Austin aggressively takes him down and tries to tear off the mask. The blondes trade off against Uno, but he gamely takes them on with chops and arm drags. Tony says he has to be Steamboat. Yeah, he does that running chop, even where he does his drop to when he while doing it. Yep, yep. Uno and Pillman both block cage matches. Tony says one of the greatest cage matches was one Larry had with Bruno San Martino, and Larry is very pleased.
01:47:41
Speaker
Dose takes over, and he and Austin both block cage smashes, but Austin tries to get a different angle by going through the ropes, and Dose shoves him into the cage repeatedly. Dose does a little dance. That's how you can tell that it's not Shane Douglas because there's actual personality. That's true, yeah, yeah. Larry mentions his own good luck charm, parachute cord that he's used as boot laces for 18 years.
01:48:06
Speaker
Uno tags in to send Austin flying to the cage with a back body drop, again with an atomic drop, and again by just hurling and bodily over the ropes.
01:48:15
Speaker
Ow, ow, ow. The back part dropped from especially bad work. Yes. Because he's like not quite enough where he gets all his body against the cage, which would not be pleasant either way, but it's a more solid impact. Yes. He's like his legs hit it and bounced at the ropes and he falls at a really bad angle. Yeah, it did not look pleasant at all. Yeah. It was like he was simultaneously too close to the cage for the backdrop to work as a normal backdrop, but also too far away from the work as a backdrop into the cage. Yes.
01:48:43
Speaker
The worst of both worlds, unfortunately. Dose and Pillman in, and Pillman lures Dose in for a sucker punch and some choking. Dose fights him off and tags Uno, who sends Pillman into the cage. Pillman tags Austin, but his back's too hurt to lift Uno, and Uno suplexes him up onto the cage, hanging him by his legs, and mocks the blonde's filming taunt, then hits a flying shoulder block.
01:49:07
Speaker
tagged to Dose for another, but Austin gets free and Dose eats the cage. I mean, that's pretty generous because I think what happens is his legs come loose and he falls really dangerously towards them. I couldn't tell if that was a botch or if he actually was supposed to get free there because they kind of go with it. I mean, it feels like a botch to me, but I don't know. Yeah, I feel like maybe he was supposed to get free, but get free smoother. Or like get free and like pull himself upward rather than just fall head first towards the ground. Yes.
01:49:36
Speaker
But anyway, if it is a botch, they cover it really well because Austin just immediately very quickly snatches Dosa's leg for a split second to block a tag, and the bonds wear down Dosa with vicious strikes, choking, and an Austin diving elbow for two. So it definitely feels like that was supposed to be a turning point moment. Somehow, yeah. There's a funny bit as Austin's back hurts too much for him to do the filming taunt.
01:50:00
Speaker
Pillman sneaks in some choking with his towel, but when the ref looks he pretends he was just wiping off his sweat. That gets one as Dose gets a foot on the ropes. Dose counters Pillman's nothing in particular off the second rope with a boot, and starts fighting back, even pinballing Austin between him and Uno with some punches. Tony says, you can tell Dose is Douglas based on his punches. No.
01:50:24
Speaker
I do wonder if we have to analyze if Z-Man was properly imitating a Douglas Punch or not. That's true. If they just happened to punch similarly. Austin smoothly blocks a tag with a Spine Buster. Austin launches Pillman at Dose in the Atomic Blonde, but Dose gets his knees up and makes the tag to Uno.
01:50:45
Speaker
Uno chops both blondes down and sends both to the cage. Pillman and Austin try to flee, but Uno stops Austin with an electric chair drop, and makes him wound the crowd for a second, and stops Pillman by crouching him on the ropes, then hits a double noggin knocker.
01:51:00
Speaker
All four in, and Austin and Dose meet the cage, so Uno dropkicks Pillman to the cage and goes up top. Uno unmask, revealing that Tony was right. He's Steamboat. Huge, huge cheers to that. Steamboat dives off the cage onto both blondes. For two. The bell rings, but Atkins leaps up to signal it was only two, not three. Steamboat DDTs Austin, but Atkins is still correcting the timekeeper, so it only gets two.
01:51:30
Speaker
Steamboat DDT to Pillman for two. Stereo Ombre Dropkicks for two. The Ombres try to fling the blondes into each other, but Pillman reverses and DDTs Steamboat as Austin stun guns Dose on the top rope for the three count and the win. Everyone is left laying by that ending, totally exhausted. The replay shows Steamboat's cage dive, which Larry oddly calls a perfect imitation of Captain Planet,
01:51:57
Speaker
I don't get that reference at all. And Austin Stungun. Yeah, the pattern plan thing is weird. Yes. I remember when we were watching the address, and I'm like, I don't know what that means. I mean, Captain Planet does fly, and I think that show was roughly current at this time. Yeah, no, I get that part. I just don't know why you associate jumping off a cage with somebody. Yeah. You know, I do associate jumping off a cage with Jimmy Stuka. Jimmy Stuka, yeah. Who was on this show. Yeah, you could have called that out, but.
01:52:25
Speaker
Like, hey, I'm Maj. Demi Stuka, who is on the show, if I'm right guess. Yeah. No. Thoughts on this one? The actual match I thought was really strong. Obviously, you have to get past both the old stecanery of the whole process, where Tom Zink is trying to be St. Douglas for some reason. Steamboat is the one that wears finger tape.
01:52:50
Speaker
Okay, I got one of the two. One's wearing it and one's not wearing it. That's all I ended up with. I looked at the end of the match, waited for Steamboat to unmask, and then looked at his hands to see that he had the finger tape on. Yeah. And then I could follow which one was him throughout the match. You could also do a reverse because he's the one that does the promo. Yes, yeah, that's true. But either way, you can get to there.
01:53:11
Speaker
The other thing is it's one of those matches where it's the, it's a cage match, but it's not no DQ and you're tagging, which obviously I've liked some of, I've liked at least one of those matches. Yes. So it's not like that match can't work, but it's definitely, it's confusing the time to do matches like that.
01:53:28
Speaker
It's like, I get you're in a cage to like stop at a ton of interference or something, make it more dangerous, but you're still tagging it and now it just looks really weird in a cage. I don't know how you do it. Yeah. It's an interesting midpoint where it's like, we're not going to go to the extent of making this a no DQ total brawl. Right. We're just having the cage and it's okay to use it as a weapon. Yes. Yeah. Like you said, it's a weird rule set, but we liked some of those matches, one massively in particular during the Starrcade run.
01:53:56
Speaker
It can definitely work, yeah. It does feel weird looking at modern eyes, this kind of match. Yes, yeah. Poor Austin takes a pretty rough time. Oh, God, yeah. All those cage bombs and then the possible bot, possible escape spot where he decides to drop towards the ground with his head. Yes.
01:54:14
Speaker
At least the angle he falls in, I think that got to be a bot. But either way, it's covered well enough. Something like that could really mess a matchup, especially if it was accidental. Yeah. Credit to them all for keeping everything going apart on that. Absolutely, yeah. I think the story you really tell here is that Steamboat is a really solid wrestler. Obviously, we know this. But in character, he's a really strong former. But ultimately, Austin and Pillman are a better tag team, especially because his tag partner has changed, what, twice now?
01:54:45
Speaker
It's already he's he's good with Shane Douglas, but he's gone. He just did a right arm throw and he's gone too. So yeah, I think is the last guy left. But I like that finish is really good. They'll sort of switch around a bit where Austin counters a basic move to throwing guy at at you into his finish was really nice. Yeah, that was an excellent, excellent ending, I thought.
01:55:08
Speaker
I thought this was a terrific tag match filled with intense action, some great use of the cage for some crazy spots, particularly as you noted on Austin's part. He was willing to take, willing to take absolutely insane bumps. Yeah. The cage over the course of this one steamboat was sharp and graceful as always. And dose who, uh, I guess I would just refer to now as Tom's Inc. Yeah. Z man had some good chemistry with him. Actually, I thought, yeah, which is especially impressive considering this was, you know, their first tag team together, apparently.
01:55:38
Speaker
And the Blondes had some terrific teamwork with nice, subtle moments, like when a dazed Austin grabbed Dosa's life for just a split second to prevent a tag. The match got particularly wild and chaotic in the ending moments, and it is a little bit odd that Atkins counts both pin attempts on the DDTs after Steamboat's dive. I guess he just couldn't remember which Blonde was the legal one. Yeah, true. I think it was Austin, but I'm not actually sure myself.
01:56:05
Speaker
Regardless, really fun and fast-paced match with an ending that kept me guessing. Excellent, excellent work.
01:56:11
Speaker
And this is another Z-Man match that we've liked. Yeah, true. So, you know, hey, good on you, guy. I think the key so far is he has Pillman and Z-Man. That seems to work. Yeah, that's a good pairing. I hadn't actually thought of it that way, but that is the same one we liked from Russell War in particular. Yeah. So we just need every Tom Zake match from here on out to have Pillman in some way, shape, or form. And we're good. Yep, yep. You should just carry a little Brian Pillman flag out each time he comes out for a match and he'll just do well by association. Yeah, yeah. There you go.
01:56:44
Speaker
So as mentioned, Shane Douglas had left the company.
Arne Anderson vs. Barry Windham
01:56:46
Speaker
He would win his first ECW title in September. And obviously you can guess what you won it from given. I already told you the champion is currently as a steamboat as servant that he would change his focus from the tag title. Since he's now down to tag partners or I guess three tag partners. Really? Yes. It's starting to get track of this anymore. He would change his focus from that to the TV title going after polar dwarf.
01:57:12
Speaker
We go back to Eric Bischoff, who's with Stu Hart, Mr. Wrestling 2, and Dusty Rhodes. Dusty congratulates Mr. Wrestling 2 and accepts Assassin's Challenge, saying that his big a** is standing right out here. Mr. Wrestling 2 thanks WCW for the honor of being in the Hall of Fame.
01:57:33
Speaker
Stu Hart talks up his extensive wrestling family and builds up the strength and wrestling ability of his son-in-law, Davey Boy Smith, the British Bulldog, who's going to challenge Vader for the world title tonight. He's hoping that Smith can overpower Vader and win the title.
01:57:50
Speaker
It continues to be weird that Dusty and the Assassin keep trying to get a match going here, but I thought Stu actually did quite a good job of building up Smith for the upcoming world title match. It's really weird seeing Stu hard on a WWF show of all things. Yes. At this point anyway. He's far more associated with the WWF because of Brett. Yes.
01:58:09
Speaker
Our ninth match is The Enforcer, R.N. Anderson versus Barry Windham for Windham's NWA World Heavyweight Championship. The referee for this match is Randy Anderson, giving us another R.N. Anderson, Randy Anderson match. At the end of 1992, after their tag partnership failed to regain the titles, Windham would split from Pillman, who obviously, as we saw, has done pretty well with tag partners since then.
01:58:37
Speaker
And so being a solo act, Barry Windham went for and won the Anyway title on the previous show. In the process, he also spurred the advances of Brick Flair and other forest men in the buildup of the show because they wanted to bring him back. And he said, no, he's, he cleared himself the lone wolf. Cool, lone wolf title.
01:58:56
Speaker
Arne comes out with a nice shiny red Four Horsemen jacket, but has sadly left the dad glasses behind. No. Barry Windham has a vocal song this year, Smokin', in a very nice red and brown jacket that looks quite dignified. The big problem with Windham's song is that he walks to the ring so fast it barely actually gets to the lyrics. Which are ridiculous, by the way, if you ever look them up. Yeah, yeah.
01:59:22
Speaker
Arne gets early two counts off a shoulder block, belly-to-belly suplex, and back body drop, and signals to Wyndham that that was close. Wyndham lands big punches, but Arne gets another two count off a DDT as he's a little slow to cover, so Wyndham retreats outside, and Dex Arne when he follows. Back in, Wyndham counters the shoulder block with a knee to the face, and slugs Arne as he's coming off the top rope. Those look like they hurt.
01:59:48
Speaker
Mmm, yeah. Arne is stunned and Windham gets two off a DDT and an elbow drop. They brawl outside, and Arne sends Windham to the barricade, which Tony finally clarifies is legal in NWA rules, but illegal under WCW rules. Oh, that nonsense, yeah. Windham is bleeding, and Arne rakes and slugs the injury until Tony calls Windham's face a Crimson Mask in honor of Gordon Soli. Yeah.
02:00:17
Speaker
Wyndham suplexes him on the floor mats. Sorry, that sounded like he was suplexing Gordon Sully. Apologies. Wyndham suplexes Arne on the floor mats and back in hits a top rope clothesline that knocks Arne butt over teakettle. Wyndham earns two counts with a knee drop and suplex, but a dazed Arne still reverses a whip to his typically beautiful spine buster. Wyndham grabs his belt and tries to walk, but Arne decks him and brings him back, flinging him to the ring.
02:00:48
Speaker
Arne batters Wyndham with punches in the corner, and Randy Anderson tries to warn him to stop, so Arne brushes him aside a couple times and finally just throws him down in frustration. Yeah. Arne immediately realizes his mistake and is distraught, but with Arne distracted and Randy down, Wyndham nails Arne with the title belt. Randy wakes up to deliver the three count and the win for Wyndham. Wyndham walks off down the ramp with his belt, as we get replays of the top rope clothesline and the belt shot. Thoughts on this one?
02:01:19
Speaker
That was a pretty solid match. Obviously, you have two really reliable competitors here, so it's not surprising that they have a good match. It's interesting to see Arne in a situation like this, because how many times do we have him wrestling for like a singles title, especially of this caliber, even at this point on pay-per-view? And basically being the face. Yeah. For the match as well, which is just, it felt weird.
02:01:43
Speaker
You have to think the biggest thing for me of the match is that Wyndham definitely, if he didn't start as a heal, he definitely is a heal by the end. It's almost like they realize midway through that everybody loves Arne, which, you know, I agree with. Yes. I guess it is weird that I have trouble with realizing Arne was the face in this match when Arne is basically always a face to me, but... You're fighting your base or instincts on it, yeah. Yeah.
02:02:08
Speaker
Yeah, because it seems like he's definitely a face going into the match because he's, you know, he's on his own. He doesn't need the groove. Even if you like the horseman idea that he's a lone wolf and fending his title by himself is pretty impressive. But then when things go wrong, he definitely resorts to cheating. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very quickly. Yeah. Yes. I think a very natural tradition for him to go, Oh, well, I'm gonna heal now. Just the two of the, two of my belt.
02:02:33
Speaker
It might be intentional, but it feels like a very old school late eighties match versus a shim and made event on a 1993 show. Now I think I say it might be intentional one because it's Arne and Wyndham who obviously wrestled in that era, but also maybe because it's an NWA thing, like you're wrestling the NWA title, so you wrestle an NWA title match. I could see that and also see just like maybe a bit of tribute to the legends that are showing up tonight. Very possible, yeah. Do a bit of a throwback match that way.
02:03:02
Speaker
That's why you get all the stuff like the bleeding, for instance. This is the point where there's definitely too much bleeding. That was what, Darkade85, I think? The one show, it was like TVMA. Yeah, 85, yes. With Magnum T.A. and Tully Blanchard. But also everyone else on the show. And also everyone else, yes.
02:03:22
Speaker
I don't know what else you saw about this match because they go to the blood fairly quickly to get drama. That's the old school, you know, get some color, get some heat situation. I'm not sure they need that for the match, but they did it anyways. Yeah. I think they do play it nicely into the storyline though. And Tony actually even references Starrcade 84 at one point. Yes. But they kind of do play with it where Wyndham plays up that it is interfering with his vision.
02:03:49
Speaker
and actually like kind of works with that where you can sense that that seems to be the point where he starts really getting frustrated and turning more heelish. So for me, it actually ended up working well with the storyline that they had set up in this one, that before that, he's trying to fight more. And after that is where you start noticing him feeling like I need to withdraw or taking shortcuts or things like that more than at the beginning. I can see that. Yeah, seems to be the pivot point. Hmm.
02:04:17
Speaker
They definitely get a lot going on that finish. Yes. Because that's got to be down for them to walk away from the ring, come back to the ring spot, but then knock down again for the belt shot. Yes. I guess I had not to DQ him with his pin going on. Yeah, I guess it's kind of like, well, you're going to lose anyway, so. Yeah, I suppose so.
02:04:36
Speaker
This was an enjoyable singles match between two very, very good performers. The action was really good, and they made every strike feel strong. There was a nice flow, with Arn getting the better of the wrestling, but slipping up and getting hit hard to transition to more of a brawl that favored Wyndham, until they managed to use the environment to injure Wyndham and make it even again.
02:04:56
Speaker
I really liked Arne's, oh heck, what did I just do kind of reaction when he threw Randy Anderson down at the end? Oh yeah, yeah. It's a perfect heat of the moment kind of thing that worked great with the ending. So there was not atmosphere to this one, but a good solid match from good solid performers, I thought. At Beach Blast, Windham would face his biggest challenge yet as a Noi champion, defending it against Rick Flair. Okay.
02:05:24
Speaker
This would also be getting us to the point where the NWA title was replaced when you ran into the WCW International Heavyweight title. Yes. As WCW withdraws finally from the NWA, they decide to keep the belt. Yes. That's an interesting time. Yes. As for Arne, he would team up with his new partner, Paul Roma, the one fans definitely love here. Yeah. To challenge the Hollywood blonde for the tag titles at Beat Blast.
02:05:52
Speaker
We go back to the announcers, and Tony says we've had a bit of everything tonight. Larry says he's never seen Arne lose his cool like that in Shovelref, and agrees that you could see from the look on his face that he knew he'd screwed up. Tony builds up the upcoming Vader vs. Bulldog match, and Larry criticizes Bulldog for interfering in Vader's public workout.
02:06:13
Speaker
So our final match is the British Bulldog, Davey Boy Smith versus Big Van Vader with Harley Race for Vader's WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Referee for this match is Nick Patrick.
Vader vs. British Bulldog: Match Analysis
02:06:27
Speaker
Big Van Vader has been very dominant and very destructive. In KFA, he entered Sting to be able to win the title in the first place.
02:06:36
Speaker
and has been entering people along the way. Most notably, Cactus Jack, being his whole Amnesia angle. Yes.
02:06:44
Speaker
And legit injuring Joe Thurman, a job where we took a bad choke slam from him. It's weird that that's mentioned so much in the buildup. I mean, it did happen, but it feels weird to mention like a legit injury that happened that was not intentional. Yeah, it's that blurring of the lines in wrestling. Sometimes they're like, yeah, we can totally use this. And maybe sometimes you should and sometimes you shouldn't. I hope they at least like
02:07:07
Speaker
did get permission from Thurman to make that part of things. But the thing is, I mean, for the story, you already have Sting. Yeah. And in fact, as Jack and you have Ron Simmons. Yeah. Because in kayfabe, he ended Ron Simmons after Starrcade and won the belt from at a house show. So you have enough there without mentioning the guy who was partly paralyzed for a while. Yeah.
02:07:30
Speaker
So the bridge bulldog, anyways, after all that, has stepped up to stop him and take the title away from him. For listeners, it's worth noting that he mentioned faders, quote unquote, public workouts. That's him beating up jobbers. Got it figured. But just to clarify, it's not him like sitting on a bench in the ring, lifting weights. Because obviously, why are you protesting that? Just to clear, he's protesting his workouts because they're possibly injuring, legit injuring jobbers. Yes.
02:07:59
Speaker
Bulldog comes out with a terrific, glittery Union Jack cape that has Bulldog in text along the red stripe in the middle. Looks awesome. It does, yeah. I also have to note his wrestling gear. I think it's some of the best ever designed, honestly. It's a great design, reflective of the Union Jack, with fringe that highlights every movement he makes. Right. Really helps him look dynamic in the ring. Oh, yeah.
02:08:26
Speaker
Tony points out a sign saying that Smith will win the title for Cactus Jack, and Larry jokes that there's another that says he'll have a hospital bed next to Cactus Jack instead. I see Larry Barr's own sign. Vader sadly lacks the Mastodon mask this time. He signals that it's Vader time. Harley raised cuts a promo to a camera, but we don't cut to it, so that's lost to time.
02:08:53
Speaker
Vader flexes, and Bulldog looks on impassively. Neither can move the other on early lockups, but Bulldog just absorbs a Vader clothesline and a charging double forearm, and Vader is stunned, but recovers quickly to beat the heck out of Bulldog with hard strikes in the corner.
02:09:12
Speaker
Vader chokes Bulldog on the apron, withdraws a lecture from Patrick, which lets Race land his own monster punch on Bulldog. It's a really great punch, actually. He really builds up to it, too. Yeah, I punch him. Bulldog dodges a charging splash on the outside, and Vader spills over the barricade.
02:09:30
Speaker
Bulldog hefts Vader onto his shoulder for a slam. Back inside, he hits a stalling vertical suplex. Yes. Holy shit. It's like a legit 10 seconds up in the area. It's amazing. Amazing stuff. Again, he catches a top rope dive to power slam Vader and then clotheslines him over the top rope, soaking in the crowd's well deserved cheers. Absolutely. Yeah.
02:09:59
Speaker
Back in, Bulldog counters clotheslines with a crucifix pin attempt, but Vader throws himself back to land on top hard, and Bulldog howls in pain. It's almost a Samoan drop. It almost is, yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:10:14
Speaker
Vader goes to work, including vicious elbow drops, a second rope splash for two, and your favorite owl, the falling refrigerator. It's a great spot. I love that name. That should have been its legit name, it's great. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hard forearm strikes in the corner as Bulldog's bleeding from the nose, but Bulldog slightly awkwardly counters the superplex to hurl Vader to the mat. It looked like he wanted something else but couldn't get the proper footing, so he adjusted.
02:10:42
Speaker
They throw a little bit too long up there, but they cover it, yeah. Bulldog Flying Headbutt leaves both laying to their feet, and there's an odd bit where it looks like Vader Bulldog Bulldog. Just realized what I said. Yes. But I guess it was actually Bulldog throwing Vader down for two. Vader lands nasty strikes, but Bulldog gets two by dodging a drop on an attempted sunset flip.
02:11:07
Speaker
Vader lands a splash but hurts himself in the process, and Bulldog is up first, but Vader flings him through the ropes for race to knee drop him. Back in, Vader beats the hell out of Bulldog, as Larry calls for Stu Hart to come throw in the towel. But on a Vader rear chinlock, Bulldog lifts Vader on his shoulders again for an electric chair drop.
02:11:33
Speaker
Great shot of a absolutely shocked Harley race. Yeah, for sure. Terrific reaction by him there. He's totally on for this match. Oh, yeah. Bulldog earns two off strikes and catches a Vader crossbody, halves him on his shoulder and slams him for another two. But race pulls him out of the ring and while Bulldog punches him, Vader nails him with a chair to draw the DQ. Bulldog wins, but Vader keeps the title.
02:12:02
Speaker
Vader rolls Bulldog in, and Bagwell charges to save him. Vader disposes of him and two Cold Scorpio with ease, chucking both out of the ring. Vader goes for a powerbomb on Bulldog, but Sting charges down and launches off the top rope, clotheslining him down and driving him from the ring to save Bulldog. Vader retreats as three other guys run down. I couldn't tell who they were, though, two had serious mullets.
02:12:27
Speaker
to help guard as Sting checks on Bulldog. They might be the cold twins, maybe. There's two twins that had those long mullets mipping them. Thoughts on this one? It was a strong, hard-hitting match. Holy crap, yes.
02:12:44
Speaker
It's really impressive, even after all this time, to see how strong Rich Bulldog was at this point. Wow, yeah. You can obviously understand that the setup to a suplex is a, you know, what, 40, 60. They're doing some of the work, hopefully to help you out. Right, yeah. Like they're all being it off the ground. You've got to get them over a certain point. But then, so he's got to hold them up there.
02:13:09
Speaker
And even with displacement, that's still strength holding guy up that long without your legs just blocking underneath you. Yes. Let alone shattering under the weight. Absolutely. That's one of the most incredible things I've seen. Yes. Someone doing a stalling suplex to Vader. Yes. It's amazing.
02:13:25
Speaker
He's also very smooth for the most part is the thing. There's some guys that are real strong, but there's a lumber around. He's fairly solid technically here. He has good speed as well. He's got everything going for him in this match, honestly. Yeah, I love his transition to the crucifix pin whenever he does that too. It's just so smooth every time. Yeah. Remind me of the rock when he would do his like foot over DDT. That's like smooth as of that whole thing. Yeah.
02:13:51
Speaker
One thing that's really neat about this match too is seeing all the facets of Vader's map game. Because when even being a big scary knock you down guy, he definitely does that. At the same time, he can suddenly be in peril and be in danger of losing his title, be thrown around in me and that shock of being knocked over by Bulldog or his opening up below.
02:14:15
Speaker
So again, he's not just big strong guy. He's also really good stamina of this match as well, like he gets that in a lot of matches. Absolutely, yeah. As a component commander, he can really go for a long time, especially given his size and just how he works in the ring. Yeah, he's always surprising on that. There's very few matches where I can say, I feel like, oh my gosh, Vader's getting tired. In some matches, longer ones, you can see him catching his breath for a moment, but he always comes back from it.
02:14:41
Speaker
Yeah, that flare match is Darkade, for instance. That's a longer one and a more physically active one. The sting match we have at Starrcade 92 before this. Right, yep. Well, the fact that that was the second match of the night at that point. True, yep. Yeah. Obviously, the fact that it's a cheap finish does take it away from a bit. It'd been nice to see a way to have either a bulldog that's found out, cheated out of a win, like, you know, he goes for a slam and race pulls his legs with that classic bit.
02:15:10
Speaker
I don't know if Vader obviously used the title, although obviously at this point Bulldog had earned it, I think. So if they gave it to him in the short run, I wouldn't have been upset at the day either. He really did perform very well in here. So the shame is it just kind of stops, but it definitely reached a big apex with that running cross-bind in the corner, let them slam him thing. Oh my gosh, yeah. I said the Stalling Suplex was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. That actually, I think, topped it.
02:15:38
Speaker
And I realized he propped himself with the corner a bit to help absorb the blow, but still, a guy the size of Vader barrels at you and you like, don't move. Yeah. There's a match with John Cena where Ed to the cross body from the top and he goes down with it, but rolls up to his feet and lifts them up like in one amazing, smooth motion. It's just like that. That's a combination of smoothness and power and it's the finesse there. It makes you really impressed with people. Yes. Yeah.
02:16:07
Speaker
Yeah, this was an amazing match. Bulldog looked incredibly powerful with impressive feats of strength, but what I liked is they never actually made Vader look weak. No. It's not that Bulldog can overwhelm Vader. It's just that for perhaps the first time, Vader's up against someone who can fully absorb his offense. And he can match him, yeah. Yeah, for at least a little while. Yes, for sure, yeah.
02:16:30
Speaker
Vader still managed to be his normal dominant, brutal self after he weathered the initial storm, but Bulldog's comeback spots were some of the most incredible I have ever seen in a match. Kudos to both guys for the performance. This was one that clearly required a lot of guts and a lot of trust for those spots to be accomplished safely. Because, I mean, if you're Vader and you're looking at this guy and saying, yeah, so he's going to hold me upside down in the air,
02:16:56
Speaker
You gotta believe he could do it. And if you're gonna fling himself at him, when you could easily go flying outside the ring if he tilts over or something, you gotta believe that this guy's gonna be capable of it. It's a great team performance by the two of them here.
02:17:12
Speaker
I wasn't as bothered by the DQ finish, I think. Now, probably this doesn't happen, but it feels to me like it actually serves to build Bulldog up more. It does, for sure, yeah. As they point out on commentary, it's an expression of Vader being really worried about this guy for perhaps the first time having this extreme amount of worry that he could actually lose here, and so deciding to take this shortcut and get out of there.
02:17:37
Speaker
and maybe face him another day. So conditional on this going forward and Bulldog being a big thing in the company still, it's actually a good ending. But I've realized this is WCW. They probably screwed that up. So we'll see on where it goes. But I think it didn't hurt the match to me at all. And it was just a terrific match.
02:17:59
Speaker
Oh yeah, no, I still love the match, though I'm wrong. It's just a bit nice to have a conclusive finish to it, like I feel, but I still like the match a lot.
02:18:09
Speaker
Oh, I'm a little confused by the ending bit with bulldog. He goes, like he's going to lift up Harley race, but he sort of sets him down and punches him. I wonder if maybe Vader was supposed to be there a little bit faster or something. Yeah. I remember what I was like, yeah, what is he doing there? So you lift him up like for a choke slam or something and then sets him down and punch them instead. It just lets a very minor thing. It was like, that's kind of weird. Yeah. Yeah. Um, absolutely terrific match. Absolutely.
02:18:40
Speaker
The pair would round out the tag match that is main eventing the next show at Beach Blast. So you'd have Sting and the British Bulldog against Vader and the Man the Rule of the World, Sid. I also just note there's an odd trend that starts with that show as well. So going into this, you have Vader as champion defending his title. Now, coming out of this show, you have Vader almost always main eventing pay-per-views like Beach Blast and Fall Brawl.
02:19:10
Speaker
But he'd never defend the title of people. Interesting. Like he's back up in matches not for the title for some reason. Nick is Halloween Havoc. And there's Battle Bowl. Yeah, he's always around and he's visible world champion. It's just his matches are just not title matches some reason. Probably a story behind that. I don't know. We got to Eric Bischoff, who is with Magnum TA. Always good to see Magnum. Yeah.
02:19:35
Speaker
It's funny, I have such a, like, attachment to the guy, despite the fact that I've only actually ever seen one of his matches. That's true, yeah. It was awesome! It was, yeah. But I've only seen one of his matches, but I just, I like the guy. Magnum says it was an exciting evening, and that fighting for the world title brings everyone up.
02:19:54
Speaker
Magnum says Vader's a guy who doesn't care what anyone else thinks, and he predicts further matches between Bulldog and Vader for the title. I would be up for that. Absolutely, yeah. Eric says that Bulldog showed intensity and could really take it to Vader. Magnum says Vader could walk the walk and talk the talk, but men like Sting and Bulldog can give him the challenge that he wants. We go back to Tony and Larry, and they're with Vern Ganya,
02:20:21
Speaker
Tony shakes his hand and says it's been great having him be part of Slamboree. Vern thinks the WCW has captured the real wrestling talent of the world and he says the WCW is king of wrestling. I know why you keep repeating it like that Bob.
02:20:39
Speaker
It seems to happen actually more than a few times tonight. A lot of the older guys coming back in refer to it that way. I'm guessing it's ones that just literally never worked for WCW. For sure, yeah. So they just think of it, you know, if you were saying the AWA or the WWF, those make sense. Larry gives us his pyramids line again, and Tony signs off, and Slamberry93 is done.
02:21:05
Speaker
So let's take a moment here to discuss the overall Legends promos tonight. Thoughts on those, Al? For the most part, they're really good. Most of the guys came out, they just sort of had fun. They used some of them wisely to build up the rest of the show like Sid or the ending bit with Dick and Vader. I think overall it was a good use of them. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I thought they were, in large part, pretty fun promos.
02:21:33
Speaker
Some were utterly hilarious, but even the ones that were more serious were just nice to see. They all seemed genuinely touched to be there in front of the carat again, able to talk and run through some of their old catchphrases and just reminisce on their achievements and hang out with old friends. Only some really related to what was going on in the modern wrestling storylines, and there were a lot of these. But I don't know that I'd cut even one. And those that did mention the modern characters did a lot to build them up, like you said.
02:22:03
Speaker
I thought they gave the night a good, unique atmosphere, and I really enjoyed them. They were short enough that they weren't... they didn't make the show start and stop, so I thought that was good, yeah. No, right. That's the key thing for me, yeah. Yeah, it doesn't slow it down at all, but it just gives it a different atmosphere. Yeah, it's short breaks between the matches, well, it can get refs changed out and people get ready, yeah. Mm-hmm. So, overall thoughts on Slampery93? It was all over the place, to be honest with you. I mean...
02:22:33
Speaker
For the most part, it was all really good though. It opened strongly. Thankfully the Sid match was super short, so didn't have time to really go wrong on the kick. I thought the Legends part and the matches they had for the most part were good. Two or three really used the assets they had well. You got them the name value, do a couple spots, just sort of be around and active and then leave.
02:22:58
Speaker
It's only when they went a bit self-indulgent with the whole Dory Funk Jr. Nick Bakugal thing that they went a little too long and, for me, didn't do as well with it, unfortunately. But yeah, there's only a few real downsides to the show. I mean, Sid Vicious, again, that match isn't great. Unfortunately, the prisoner really drags down Sting to, I guess, solitary confinement.
WCW's Historical Tribute and Production Quality
02:23:21
Speaker
I think with the theme going. Yeah.
02:23:24
Speaker
the end of the show really strongly. It's a weird reverse of how later one to go. We had these really strong mid-card and opening acts, and then everyone that really couldn't work that one anymore was getting 20-minute matches. There's this point when the really talented people are actually still in the main event, which is nice to see.
02:23:41
Speaker
Yeah, we seem to say this a lot for the 80s shows and some of the early 90s shows that they can be average-ish or even sometimes bad in the early card, but then suddenly take a huge upswing in like the last three to four matches oftentimes. Yeah, exactly.
02:24:00
Speaker
Dopin pretty strongly, there's some low points there that's never, well some of the shows where there's like three or four okay or disappointing matches in a row, it's pretty evenly dispersed with the action. I would have probably split the legend stuff up a bit more, just with them all in a row like that, but otherwise it was a fairly good use of them and using them throughout the show in the interviews as mentioned was strong. It's a shame that they couldn't draw like half capacity in the arena.
02:24:29
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's unfortunate. Because there's a lot of shots when you're watching the action, you just see all this empty bread seeing the background. Yeah.
02:24:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think your feelings about this show may be influenced pretty heavily by how you feel about the assorted Legends content, both in terms of the promo time afforded them and the three Legends matches. For my part, I appreciated it. I think WCW is at its best when it's honoring its history and when it brings out the more sports-like presentation, and this first Slampery had both of those in spades. I will admit the Legends matches are slower and at times a bit sloppier than those of the current roster.
02:25:09
Speaker
but it just felt good watching them get out there and wrestle again. Even the Dory Funk Jr. vs. Nick Bakwinkle match, which I would have liked better if it were trimmed down a bit, had a lot to offer and showed hints of why these men had been so successful in the wrestling business. And yes, there were a lot of Legends promos tonight, but they were all fun in their own way, and I wouldn't want to take the spotlight away from them.
02:25:32
Speaker
Slamberry93 declared its purpose from its title, honestly. Tonight was about the legends, about bringing them back together to be honored. So if anything, it's the modern wrestling that's the extra tonight. Yeah. How did that extra turn out? Well, of the seven modern matches, four were good to great. One was perfectly acceptable, one was so short it can pretty much be ignored, and only one was outright bad. And that wasn't hugely long, though it did feel like it. Yes. So yeah, the modern side of the show largely turned out good.
02:26:02
Speaker
My only real complaint, aside from never wanting to see the prisoner on a WCW show again, is that I felt like we didn't get a ton of story content for those matches outside of the matches themselves. But again, they were almost the side attraction tonight. Yeah, that's true.
02:26:16
Speaker
The commentary team was terrific. Larry and Tony make a great team, and play off each other very well for the duration, getting into amusing arguments but making good points about the matches as well. Larry brought a lot of character and a well of wrestling knowledge, and Tony seemed to be having a lot of fun interacting with him. Yeah. Larry also had deep knowledge of a lot of the legends, and really enhanced that part of the show in particular. They were a good team, and one I'd like to see again, especially if you get more Legends content.
02:26:43
Speaker
It was funny too that Larry always wouldn't bring up if you beat or end a retired people in there.
02:26:49
Speaker
He mentioned the big bug while he retired and also with him and Bruno, he mentioned that as well. Yes. Yeah. He really does a good job still playing heelish. Yeah. Honoring the people, but also being like, but I'm good, too. Yeah, exactly. To get a delicate balance sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. I think my favorite line from him in the night was these are some of the strongest men in wrestling. And then he pauses for a split second and says, and I'm proud to be one of them. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good one. This is great.
02:27:16
Speaker
Minor flubs aside here and there, I really like the production tonight, particularly the little video packages for each of the Legends wrestlers in the Hall of Fame presentation. It felt like a very respectful night, a night of genuine honor and history. Yes, we had moments like the power failure early on and the cameraman being in the way of Scorpio's spot. Cut well the spot as well, yes.
02:27:39
Speaker
and the oddity of the doso embrace concept. But by and large, this felt like a high point for WCW production. And with a lot of moving parts of the night, it kind of surprised me how smoothly everything went. It was a good night. Even if you're not as high on the legends things and maybe won't enjoy those as much, even if you skipped those matches, there's still a seven match wrestling show of which five are entirely worth your time. And one more will take up pretty much none of it. Yes.
02:28:08
Speaker
Skip Sting versus The Prisoner, but the rest of Slamboree is good fun, and a look at a WCW that respects its history. It really grew on me, and I think I'm going to look back on this one quite fondly. Yeah, I can see that. So time for our Match of the Night and MVP, Al. Match of the Night? That's a tricky one. The Cage match was really good.
02:28:33
Speaker
I thought the In a Way title match was good. Most of the tag matches in the whole were quite good. Very in love with that. For me, I think just for the combination of brutality and smoothness, I have to go with Bulldog versus Vader.
02:28:49
Speaker
It hit all my buttons. It has the big strong guys doing big strong guy things, but they're also technically proficient and quick and telling a story. Yes. So it gets all the things you need for them to do. Yeah, I was all ready to give this to the tag title match, but then Bulldog versus Vader happened. No question that's Match of the Night for sure.
02:29:15
Speaker
I would characterize it as a career defining performance for Bulldog, as he showcased his incredible strength, but all without taking a single thing away from the powerful Vader. It built Bulldog into a potential superstar, but did no damage to Vader in the process, and that is a hard feat to accomplish, but the two managed it incredibly well. MVP? So obviously it's between British Bulldog and Vader for me because of that match.
02:29:46
Speaker
I think it narrowly edges to Vader for me, just because, like I said, Vader showed all the facets of his character and performance in the ring. Because he could have just given you the big, hard-hitting guy stuff and soul, but not been committed to selling. Somebody has to do that, you know. They sell for the match, but you know their heart's not in it.
02:30:06
Speaker
But he really went out of the way to make sure that he sold everything that Bulldog did, showed like, wow, this guy can actually throw me around. He's actually a threat to me. And that aids his offense because then he's hitting him extra hard, or it looks like he is anyways, sometimes legitimately is. Because he sees him as a threat. The guy can hit this guy extra hard in this punch, so he stays down. It's a tough one, but I think Vader for that extra level, for me narrowly, I just had him out of MVP.
02:30:38
Speaker
I was really wrestling with this a lot for the past day. And I think much like you did with the Road Warriors once, Al, I'm gonna go with the team. Okay. Because I can't separate these people. Okay. And my MVP is Tony Schiavone and Larry Zabisco. Interesting.
02:31:02
Speaker
They enhanced the heck out of this night, with hugely entertaining discussions and camaraderie, and it was so much fun listening to the two just get to be fans as much as they were commentators. It was clear they were having fun getting to watch and listen to guys that they'd watched or worked with in the past.
02:31:21
Speaker
I was tempted by Bulldog and tempted by Vader as well. And I kept trying to pick either Shivani or Zabisco, and I just couldn't because they worked together so exceptionally well on this show. It's really the combination of them that I think gave me the greatest enjoyment on the show. Yeah, I don't agree with that at all. Yeah.
02:31:43
Speaker
And that wraps up our review of Slambere 93.
Closing Remarks and Social Media Connections
02:31:47
Speaker
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 the Slamberees as we go through.
02:32:01
Speaker
You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, High Heart Radio, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, or TuneIn. 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.
02:32:26
Speaker
Next up, Slamboree 1994, A Night with the Classics. Presumably that means it features showings of Citizen Kane and It's a Wonderful Life. Sure, sure. Remember, every time a bell rings, Ric Flair wins a belt. Woo. Can you hear it? Can you hear that woo?
02:32:51
Speaker
This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling.