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Episode 6: Starrcade '88
32 Plays6 years ago
It's the show that had so much grit it needed an extra "t!" Jim Crockett Promotions has fallen, but in its place rises World Championship Wrestling. Will the show feel markedly different from what came before? Will Lex Luger defeat Ric Flair in a battle for the title, with the DQ rule waived in his favor? In a battle between the original and new Midnight Express, which comes out on top? And just how did Kevin Sullivan convince a nice guy like Dr. Death to join his squad of evil college graduates, anyway? For all this and more, let's go to the ring!
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
Let me refill my water and I'll move us on to the next one. All right, we'll get some too. Hey, and you do make a good point about the... Oh, nevermind, you left. Okay.
Introduction to 'Let's Go to the Ring'
00:00:37
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Let's Go to the Ring, where we take a look at the good old days and not so good old days of World Championship Wrestling, series by series. I'm your host, Bob Moore, and I'm joined by a man who won the Universal Podcasting Federation title at our last show, only to have it immediately discontinued, Alec Bridget. Thanks a lot, Dusty. And our resident squirrel form animagus, John Mullins. How's it going today, guys?
00:01:07
Speaker
Pretty good. Pretty good. No, pretty good. Can you keep it up for the whole show? Oh, I hope not. It would improve the show. I would take at least my portion of the commentary.
Transition to World Championship Wrestling and Starrcade 88
00:01:24
Speaker
Well, it's kind of interesting, things just kind of ended up timed this way, but it seems kind of appropriate that our first recording session of the new year has us looking at a new beginning. We've seen the end of Jim Crockett promotions, and tonight we'll be covering the first-ever World Championship Wrestling pay-per-view, Starrcade 88, True Grit, 2Ts.
00:01:47
Speaker
John, the naming has not improved after the purchase. No comment. You can't believe Turner for that, though, because they're pretty much stuck with that name from the posters and flyers. They probably spent thousands of dollars on for the show. Yeah. He puts two T's in true. Oh, God. For extra emphasis.
00:02:16
Speaker
We talked about this at the end of the last show, but 1988 was the final year for Jim Crockett promotions. The company was founded in 1931 and purchased by the Turner Broadcasting System in November of 1988. It had nearly a 60-year run, entertaining fans of professional wrestling, and was instrumental in the careers of Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Ricky Steamboat, and many other wrestlers who would go on to be legends of the wrestling business.
Challenges and Decline of Jim Crockett Promotions
00:02:45
Speaker
Unfortunately, 1988 was the year it couldn't keep going. Injuries, overexpansion, mishandling of the UWF angle, overspending, and luxury purchases. All of these things are thought to have contributed to its downfall in one degree or another. So, in the month before the year's biggest show, the company has changed hands. And names.
00:03:08
Speaker
From the ashes of Jim Crocker promotions rises the Phoenix of World Championship Wrestling. And this is the first big show for the new company. Will we see big differences right away? Or will things feel pretty much the same since the sale happened so close to the date of the show? To find out, let's go to the ring.
00:03:27
Speaker
Starrcade 88, True Grit, was held at the Norfolk Scope in Norfolk, Virginia on December 26, 1988 in front of 10,000 fans.
00:03:38
Speaker
Now, this is our first Starrcade in December. As we mentioned last time, the WWF created the Survivor Series last year to directly oppose the November Starrcade and did serious damage to Jim Crockett Promotions' first foray into pay-per-view. Last year, Starrcade did only 16,500 pay-per-view buys. Ouch. This year, Starrcade did 140,000 pay-per-view buys. It's like improvement. Yeah, it's about eight and a half times last year's amount.
00:04:07
Speaker
Now that's still less than half the 1988 Survivor Series 350,000, but at least we're into six digits this time.
Bam Bam Bigelow's Championship Preview
00:04:35
Speaker
Bam Bam Bigelow, when you step in the ring for a championship match to where we go, guns out from the very start, you're not gonna walk from that ring victorious. You should have made it a point to get both of them, Daddy. Don't just get one. Don't take one limb. Don't take one heart. Don't take one ear and don't take one eye.
00:05:02
Speaker
If Steve has to carry me on his back down at all, if he has to drag me in a wagon, I'm breathing. You understand what I'm saying? You should have got it done. It's violence for the sake of violence. And now I will turn it around to my violence, my lightning bolt, my fire, my thunder. An eye for an eye.
Fun and Technical Glitches in the Show
00:05:43
Speaker
Some Final Fight music there. Stage select. We get an opening video package this year. It goes over the Luger versus Flare, Dusty and Sting versus the Road Warriors, and Bam Bam versus Windham matches that we'll be seeing tonight. It was, I thought, pretty nicely produced and pretty cool to see. Yeah, it's kind of weird the order they put them in, but that's kind of picky.
00:06:11
Speaker
You want them to build up towards the world title match? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I can see that, yeah.
00:06:16
Speaker
I guess their logic was, we need to start with Flair, because he's like, but I could have seen Death Star with Dusty, but maybe they, I'm sure there's a lot of thought goes into what order it goes where, like. Yeah. Maybe they thought Dusty's was so angry and passionate that it had to go last. I mean, but Flair's is pretty determined as well. Yeah. I mean, I could also see the logic of just saying we're going to start on the main point of the show. Sure. That's like, this is the biggest thing.
00:06:42
Speaker
Yeah, it was just nice to finally see them doing something like that and kind of giving a little bit of that build up for the show to get you charged up for it. Yeah, you would hope there'd be improvement when you're bought by a TV production company. Yeah. Your show. I mean, that was definitely one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If they're on some sort of medication.
00:07:07
Speaker
Whatever Rick's on, it's not nature-derived. But he's the nature boy. Doesn't that inherently make it nature-derived? I suppose.
00:07:19
Speaker
They built up a lot of goodwill with that video package, but that goodwill is almost immediately undone as the actual show opens with the ring announcers' audio feed briefly overlaid over Tony Schiavone welcoming us to the show. Great job, guys. Great job. Oh, yeah.
00:07:37
Speaker
Well, it's like, so every time you do a talk show, there's a guy or girl, whoever it is, they come out and they sort of prep. They are, and you tell jokes and you talk about what's happening. It's a really common thing with TV. And that's clearly what the reenactors are doing. Yeah. But just for some reason, they decide to put his feet on at the beginning of the show for absolutely no reason.
00:07:58
Speaker
Yeah, this will be a consistent problem over the course of the night. Tony, in any case, welcomes us to the show and calls Starrcade the Super Bowl of professional wrestling as we see lots of shots of the crowd. Tony is hosting the show along with hometown boy Magnum TA, but Jim Ross and Bob Coddle will be handling commentary.
00:08:17
Speaker
As we go down to JR and Coddle, there's a very strange sign in the crowd that I just have to point out for a moment. I'm gonna apologize in advance if this is actually something that means something horribly offensive that I'm not aware of. I did try to look it up, but I couldn't find anything about this, about its use as a term. The sign says, Luger and Sting are cow hips. Or it might be cow whips, or maybe cow whips, but they missed a W, I'm not really sure.
00:08:47
Speaker
What does that mean? Well, I mean, in the House of Representatives, there's a whip, but I don't think that's what they mean. I sent you a picture that explains this. Yeah, I don't think that the weird book cover with like the smiling moon on it that says cow hips on it is explained much of anything, John. I got to be honest with you. My best guess is maybe cow whip.
00:09:13
Speaker
is another word for bullwhip, but... Oh, they're bullies. Oh, okay. So I was gonna say, even in that case, I'm not really sure how it applies, but I guess that could be a weird oblique reference to that.
00:09:26
Speaker
I would kind of get it if they were fighting the horsemen maybe, but they're not, so. Yeah. It's by no means the worst sign we'll see on a wrestling show. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. There's plenty worse, but. Caulquip. But it definitely is one of the most
Nostalgia with Midnight Express
00:09:38
Speaker
confusing signs that I've seen on a wrestling show. I could not make head or tail of that one. And again, I'm really hoping it doesn't mean something filthy that I've, now that I've said it on air.
00:09:47
Speaker
Maybe the guy who had that sign will listen to this and explain it to us. If you were the one holding that sign up at Starrcade88, get in touch with us and tell us what in the world you meant.
00:10:02
Speaker
JR and Kottle build up that all five championships are on the line. And Kottle notes that they've been waiting for more than a year for this night, highlighting the Stargate schedule change. We get a really, really odd angle with the camera filming JR and Kottle from around the corner of the ring under the bottom rope. Looks very strange. Maybe the camera just kind of shy. It's like, you know, nervous about me the first time. Got tired, decided to lay the camera down on the ring and just walk away.
00:10:29
Speaker
Coddle and JR try to continue their conversation as the Varsity Club's music starts playing over them, but it's hard to hear. Sound levels are a real problem on this show, as the ring announcer's mic starts out far too loud and seems to vary wildly in volume. So our first match is Kevin Sullivan and Dr. Death Steve Williams of the Varsity Club versus Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers, the Fantasticks, for the NWA United States Tag Team Championship.
00:10:59
Speaker
So at the middle of the year, the United States Tag Team Champions, the Banana Express, and clearly the only one we'll see in this show, are holding those titles, and then they win the World Tag Team titles. I'm not sure why both exist simultaneously, but they do. They briefly hold them at the same time, but ultimately decide they only want the bigger title. So they relinquish the title in September. That leads to the September 7th Clash Show.
00:11:28
Speaker
So it's on the fourth class show where the finals of the tournament to crown the new US Tag Team Champions takes place. On that show, it comes down to the fantastic sequence of sheep herders, or it would have the sheep herders hadn't signed with the WWF and become fully different team and much, much different team and left to the process. So now that they're gone, they decided, well, we'll give the guys who they beat to become
00:11:56
Speaker
finalists in this tournament, which is Eddie Gilbert and Ron Simmons, they lose that match ultimately to the fantastic. So they are now the new U S tag champions 19 days later, we have a title match.
00:12:12
Speaker
The Fantastix have nice, sparkly blue entrance gear. Interestingly, a small fraction of the men in the crowd clearly boo them and cheer for the Sooners. Dr. Deathfans, I guess. Kevin Sullivan is billed from Singapore, much like the Great Kabuki. I wonder if they were roomies. I could see them in sort of a, um, the dysfunctional roommates, you know, uh, one's really messy, one's really clean. I could see that. It'd be six seconds, I would watch.
00:12:38
Speaker
Yeah, you're stealing J.R.'s later reference on the show, by the way. Eh, he's got a pony. Fulton and Sullivan start us off, and trade blows back and forth, with Fulton hitting a Thais press off the second rope. Fulton and Rogers trade off and keep Sullivan and Dr. Death on defense, as we get a shot of Jason Hervey from The Wonder Years in the audience tonight.
00:13:00
Speaker
There's a cool spot as Fulton tries and fails to monkey flip Dr. Death out of the corner, so Rogers comes in and teams up with him to complete the move. Fulton tries and fails again afterwards, which is a little bit weird.
00:13:12
Speaker
So did he have like no short-term memory? Apparently so. Dr. Death breaks the fantastic's momentum with an awesome pumping military press and a massive clothesline. Fulton gets an awkward drop kick and teams up with Rogers for a better double drop kick, but the match evens out. Caudal wonders what magic Sullivan used to get nice guys like Mike Rotunda and Dr. Death to turn into such animals in the ring. And JR says he has very unique communication skills.
00:13:42
Speaker
Well, you know, those druids, they're really wacky like that. I do love that. It's nice guys like Dr. Death too. Well, he kills, uh, he kills mice. You need to be exterminator. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, I just made that up. Just be quick. Yeah. Just put your jaws for John's sake. I mean, it sounds so plausible though. That's why it works.
00:14:07
Speaker
Dr. Death and Sullivan beat Rogers up and get close to a win, but he keeps fighting and gets a few pin attempts of his own, including a very cool spot where he slides between Dr. Death's legs and brings him down for a pin attempt. He gets to Fulton, but Fulton ends up in trouble himself as someone in the crowd yells, We want blood! They are not okay with the new peachy rating for the show, I guess.
00:14:27
Speaker
No, apparently not. Sorry guys, TV company. The match swings back and forth, but Sullivan puts his knees up on a Rogers dive and knocks the wind out of him. Dr. Death puts a headlock on and the camera mostly misses Sullivan providing extra leverage by holding Dr. Death's leg. Rogers breaks free and dives over a charging Sullivan to tag Fulton. All four men fight, and Fulton gets corner punches on Dr. Death and a clothesline, then goes for a sleeper.
00:15:08
Speaker
I really liked the story they had going with it, because initially it feels like it's going to be the strong face and peril
00:15:18
Speaker
the heel controlling it, which we've seen the great effect with the Anderson's and the Rock and Roll Express and other times to varying degrees. But they tweak it slightly because they make it a little more back and forth. On the other aspect is they really make it seem like Dr. Death could almost beat them on his own. Oh God, yeah, he looks awesome in this match. They build him up very strongly in this one. So it's yeah, it's differently paced, which is kind of nice.
00:15:43
Speaker
on the very first Clash show, there's a match with the Vanastics where they do variation of that regular style where they just get beat up continuously for like 15 minutes. And like really exaggerated. It's nice to not see that again. But yeah, my only issue is the timing slightly off on the, that surprise completely hops a little bit, but they're not quite in position. So then Dr. is ready a second later and he does it again.
00:16:11
Speaker
Anyone be able to replay everything because you replay it you see it again. Yeah, whatever was a really good match I enjoyed it. Although I didn't think that the Drop kicks were flubbed. I thought they did a decent job. I was like seeing that the first match rather than you know Only watching headliners do anything off the ropes or or running running at each other like that I would like bear hugs to go away though. I
00:16:38
Speaker
It just seems like such a stall, especially like near the beginning of the match, you know? Yeah. Why? At least he keeps it relatively short on this one, but yeah.
Planning and Strategy in Wrestling
00:16:48
Speaker
I thought the Fantasticks were pretty good. And like Dr. Death pretty much lives up to his name. Yes. Occasionally just is like, forget it, I'm just going to keep on going.
00:17:00
Speaker
But I enjoyed the match and what was the name of the press that you said? The Fez? Yeah, it's named after Luthas. Luthas, yes. Who's a former world champion of the NWA and that was a move he would frequently use.
00:17:16
Speaker
Yeah, that became his big move, because you hop in the guy and you pin him. Steve Austin would later do that, but he would do that same setup and then just punch you. Yeah. Oh. Austin was all about the violence. And they do mention Luther as being there as well. I just remember the stunner, or basically just headbutting. Yes.
00:17:40
Speaker
Yeah, I thought this was a really really good opening match it really Set the tone for the show nicely and got everyone excited a lot of very fast action very few slow spots to it There's some really cool moves in the match many of them by Tommy Rogers He was pretty exceptional during this. I loved the sliding pin I love the diving tag was just amazing to see perfect timing and he had some really good strikes and
00:18:06
Speaker
Not to be outdone, Dr. Death looked incredibly powerful and just scary with some of those big power moves and closed lines. Makes us really wonder what would have happened in the last show. Yeah, exactly. It's so cool to see an actual full Dr. Death performance and he's really good. Yeah, yeah. Not that Poulton or Sullivan were slouches by any means, of course.
00:18:29
Speaker
Everybody worked really hard and, well, there were some awkward moments, I agree, on that last ending spot especially. The teams worked well together and moves had a really real feeling of impact. I appreciated, like you were saying, how the real back and forth feel of the match, it felt different than a normal tag match. There was kind of a face imperil section, but it wasn't as pronounced or obvious. And Rogers got a lot of offense still when he was in trouble.
00:18:56
Speaker
There really didn't ever feel like a point where one side was just totally in control and the other side was just trying to survive. The match also, I appreciate, didn't linger very long on any one concept. They kind of kept changing things up and modifying how the match was working. So yeah, I had a lot of fun with this one. It was definitely in contention for my match of the night.
00:19:18
Speaker
No, I mean, I will say it's definitely looking back through the previous shows. It's definitely improvement on previous opening matches, mostly the first arcade. Yeah, there's definitely more of a feel of just like, let's get everybody energized in this one. So several years away from Cruiserweight being a thing. So what to do until then? Yeah, everything is a little bit faster paced. There's not much mulling around and they're not doing the sizing each other up, you know, because this get into it.
00:19:48
Speaker
Yeah. Everyone has their own established style and they're not afraid to allow each person to have a couple of highlights. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. They kind of just like charge right into the battle on this one. You don't like stopping them at every move to do a knee wiggle or something like that? We will never forget the knee wiggle.
00:20:14
Speaker
The title rating for Sullivan and Williams is not very long. The actual titles themselves don't stay around. They actually vacated for quite a while in May, a reason that could not find clear evidence on. They're having matches and then suddenly they just vacated the titles. They do reappear again for the end of the year, but it's like a weird stretch in the middle where they just abandoned these titles and then bring them back. Like it didn't really matter.
00:20:38
Speaker
Maybe somebody ran headlong into Dr. Death's crotch again. We go back to the announcers and Tony and Magnum discuss the upcoming Midnights vs. Midnights match.
00:20:52
Speaker
and both think that Cornette's team has the edge. They also take some time to build up the Russian Assassins versus Ivan Koloff and the Junkyard Dog, and they agree that it's likely that Junkyard Dog has a big chance of putting Paul Jones out of wrestling. On to the TV title match, and Tony thinks that nobody can beat Mike Rotunda in 20 minutes, but Magnum thinks that Rick Steiner's perhaps the best wrestler at Starrcade, and he's got a real shot of taking the title.
00:21:18
Speaker
They go down to JR and Coddle, and Coddle disagrees with Tony and Magnum and thinks the original Midnight Express will come out ahead. So our next match is the Midnight Express, beautiful Bobby Eaton and sweet Stan Lane, with Jim Cornette versus the Midnight Express, lover boy Dennis Condrey and ravishing Randy Rose with Paul E Dangerously. That's an awesome name. Randy Rose? No, although I do like
00:21:48
Speaker
Do we only have one R adjective that can be used? He's ravishing Randy Rose. We had ravishing Rick Roode come up with something different. I was hoping you would say Rick Roode when you said the first two. You start making the sound. Sadly, no. Rambunctious Randy Rose. That actually wouldn't be the worst thing. Resilient. Rockin' Randy Rose. Rambunctious.
00:22:16
Speaker
Did Jerry say that? I think he did. Yeah, I did. John loses. No. Oh, yeah. Rectangular? I don't think he's particularly rectangular. No, I know. I couldn't go to our word. Risky. Repetitive Randy Rose. Oh, I'm sorry, Randy. Redundant Randy Rose. Oh, now we're just getting mean to the guy.
00:22:42
Speaker
It's also worth noting that he has a 3R thing going on. But Dennis Condrey really is Dennis Condrey. He should be Kenneth Condrey or, you know, Dennis Dondrey or something. Devious. Devious Dennis would be a good name, actually. I'm looking to look to find out if triliteration's a word. It's not. But I expressed the Eaton Lane version, that is. Loser tag titles, and then shortly after that,
00:23:12
Speaker
Paul dangerous comes back with faces from their past. He brings original team back and they determine they got to get rid of the other one. There's a lot of great promo because you have cornet and you've got Paul Heyman slash Paul dangerously, but they don't really go in depth about why we need to have only have one and why it has to be the old ones versus the new ones. They clearly want people to cheer them in express. They are getting sure to know he's about to lean into it.
00:23:38
Speaker
So the best way to do it is to represent, I guess, the bad version of them and give them something, someone devious to go after and beat. Cause they're, this case they're targeted. Whereas like the road warriors, they target them or at the rock and roll quest, they target them. This time they're just on the show, you know, just being guys and then attacked by the bad guys. So sort of a story turn for them. But yeah, I kept waiting for it's like a bigger thing, but I couldn't find anything about it. Hmm.
00:24:04
Speaker
Both teams come out to the same music. It just plays straight through both entrances, which I thought was actually kind of a nice touch. Eaton and Lane have pretty cool looking black jackets this year, while Condrey and Rose wear black and pink vests. Big fans of Bright Heart, I guess. I don't get the wardrobe choices. I like the black jackets. I thought that was pretty good.
00:24:25
Speaker
I'm talking later. Oh, okay. They brawl quickly, and Eaton and Lane drive Condri and Rose away. Cornette challenges dangerously, and Cawtle says that Cornette, in a shiny red suit, is dressed up like a Christmas tree. Cornette says he'll give America a Christmas present by kicking dangerously's butt, but Condri and Rose hold dangerously back.
00:24:47
Speaker
I also have to note here, I don't remember if we mentioned this last year or not, but Stan Lane totally looks like a smaller Lex Luger. He does, yes. Like you could do a Brothers gimmick with them and I would totally buy it. I can see that. Yeah. It's the hair. It's gotta be a singles match I can find between the two of them. There's gotta be. I will track one down for you.
00:25:07
Speaker
those two on a tag team would be awesome too. Just like, which one's in the ring? Just have to look at the size. Actually, given the weird stuff we have coming up when they start mixing teams up randomly, that would be a perfect opportunity to do that. Yeah, battle bowl or something, yeah. But I don't think they do. Yeah, I don't think so. Boop, I'm wrong. Eaton and Lane beat up Rose and Condrey, as JR notes that Cornette looks like he made his pants out of Christmas gift wrap.
00:25:34
Speaker
Lane drives Condrey out of the ring with strikes, and Cornette nails Condrey with the tennis racket when the ref Teddy Long isn't looking, leading dangerously to protest and demand a DQ, even ringing the bell himself. It doesn't work.
00:25:48
Speaker
Lane keeps the advantage and hits an inverted atomic drop, as JR calls it, the national hold of the American Chiropractors Association. Rose comes in, but Lane and Eaton keep solid control, and Cornette lands another racket shot, prompting more yelling and bell ringing from dangerously. JR says, this is like smoking a cigarette in an ammunition dump. Something bad's going to happen at any time.
00:26:13
Speaker
Heaton and Lane beat up Rose, as JR momentarily mixes up Bobby Eaton and Bobby Fulton. Kind of understandable.
00:26:19
Speaker
And Condrey comes in, and the match kicks into a higher gear as Condrey goes after Eaton with vicious punches. Eaton misses a jumping charge into the corner and gets tied up in the ropes. Condrey takes advantage with some nasty knee strikes and the tide turns. Condrey and Rose trade off smashing Eaton with heavy strikes and dangerously gets in the cheap shot, prompting Cornette to chase him around the ring and hurl a chair at him. JR notes that it's a little uncomfortable to work while chairs are whizzing by her head, which Caudal agrees.
00:26:49
Speaker
Eaton repeatedly fights for his corner, but Condrey and Rose keep him away. Condrey picks Eaton up, tags Rose, and slams Eaton down, launching Rose off the turnbuckle for what might be the winning splash, but Eaton dodges. Stumbling to his corner, he tags Lane. Lane lands kicks on Condrey and Rose and hits a double noggin knocker, then gets more kicks to Rose and a big end security to take him down for a pin.
00:27:11
Speaker
Eaton stops Condrey from breaking up the pin, and Eaton, Condrey, and Long spill out of the ring. Dangerously nails Lane with his giant 80s cell phone and pulls Rose on top before Cornette chases him away. Long wakes up and counts one, two, then spots the cell phone. Rose denies any nefariousness as Long questions him, but Lane and Eaton hit the double goozle for the three. That is actually the move's name. Yes. Awesome.
00:27:39
Speaker
We unfortunately get a clear shot of Condrey clearly just waiting for his moment to charge in, and lo and behold he does, moments too late to stop the bin. Condrey kicks Lane and uses Cornette's racket to beat up Lane, Eaton, and Cornette. Dangerously spits on Cornette, though it actually sounds a little bit more like he sneezed, honestly. Eaton recovers and gets the racket and uses it to drive off the original Midnight Express.
00:28:03
Speaker
I liked it a lot. My only issue was the structure down before, they started messing with the attack structure was off, but not quite in the same way in this one. Cause there's a certain rhythm you get to these matches. And for some reason it felt off to me. It felt like the faces being really strong and dominating the match felt longer than normally is. Like you want to have a flurry and then something happens to take over, but they like, but it felt like they suddenly extended that longer.
00:28:34
Speaker
But I thought that was still pretty good. It was the first time seeing Randy Rose, because he was off the admin I expressed before they even appeared at, I wanna say, is it E5 they first appeared? I think so, yeah. Yeah, four in that tag match with Jimmy Valiant. He's on the show, we'll have to mention him somehow. Bob demands it. I'm perfectly fine just leaving him in the past, the rear view mirror. He can't look just in the ether, he's gotta be with us at all times.
00:29:02
Speaker
But no, um, the Minute Express at one point was a three to four man group. It kind of varied when different territories. Then when they came to Crocker promotions, at that point it was Dennis Condrey and Bobby Eaton. And then I just cussed on a previous show. That's kind of just sort of bails randomly and the replacement Stan Lane, which is generally seen as an improvement. They're the, well, they're not else by no means the original Minute Express, they're like the third iteration of it at this point. They seem like the strongest one, the one people most remember in general.
00:29:33
Speaker
It was a good match. It was just the funny timing of him clearly having time to run in there and stop the pinfall. But she was thinking, no, no, only him afterwards instead. Yeah. It was a little funny to me. Yeah, that last kick, there was some hesitations like, yeah, maybe I should make it look like I'm going to stop it. Yeah, maybe I should get up.
00:29:54
Speaker
I don't know if it was the camera angles or what, but there was some just funny shots throughout this whole thing. I enjoyed cornet prancing about the whole match. I don't know how taunting that was. I just thought I was just having a good time. The racket still seems like a funny weapon to have, but hey, whatever.
00:30:15
Speaker
My favorite, and again, I get their names because they're both Midnight Express. Which one looks like a dangerous lumberjack? Condrey probably. He's kind of the beefier looking one on the originals team. There's a spot in the match that I like the most. He's clearly talking to one of his opponents off screen.
00:30:38
Speaker
But he just like slaps himself in the chest and he just like pulls on the ropes and everything and just like taunting him. But it looks like he's just having a seizure or just talking to nothing. I feel bad for Jim. He always gets it handed to him. Yeah, he does. I mean, even when he's a good guy, he's still getting beat up in some way after the match. Yeah.
00:31:03
Speaker
I mean, this is still by far the best ending for him, I would say. Yeah, true. He didn't actually shatter his knee in a million pieces this time, so there's that. Right. But yeah, definitely change the wardrobe for everyone.
00:31:22
Speaker
Yeah, this felt a bit slower than the first match starting out. I think you were like you were saying now, but once it got going, it did get really good. I thought it feels to me like a switch gets flipped midway through the match and suddenly they really, really go at it, particularly Condrey and Eaton. Lane and Eaton are excellent together and they both have some great moves. I loved Eaton's neck breaker and elbow drop and Lane has some amazing like crisp martial arts kicks that make him stand out. Yeah, so they.
00:31:50
Speaker
And Condrey and Rose felt slower and more methodical, but not in a bad way. It felt like they had a more considered approach once they got in control. And Condrey felt especially brutal when taking former partner Bobby Eaton apart. Kind of a Anderson-esque, but a little more strikes focused.
00:32:08
Speaker
The match had a clearer division of control than the first match. There's a stronger feeling of, like you were saying, the solid face control starting out and solid heel control later on, rather than the constant back and forth the first match had. It does make the matches feel different, which is nice, but I like the first match's style a little better. Still, this was an energetic match that Velthard fought, and Cornette and Dangerously's antics were really great too. They did just enough to add to the match but not overpower it.
00:32:37
Speaker
Um, I liked the ending. It was neat to see the ref figure out what happened while his back was turned for once, and the double guzzle, while oddly named, looked impactful. It is still, like you guys were saying, a little hurt by Condrey, just kind of sitting there waiting for his moment. So, uh, yeah, come on, Dennis.
00:32:55
Speaker
One thing rarely in defense of the heels so as you noted dangerously hits That's the good guy with the phone and then helps the other guy get the pin So when the ref comes in start protesting to conjure he's somebody saying hey, I didn't use a cell phone at all, which is 100% true Overall really good match and it was a lot of fun. Mm-hmm
00:33:21
Speaker
The reason why they end with, while as a clear victor, there's still clearly a lot going on is because they're willing to do the very next show, which is Ticotown Rumble. The match they have booked for that show between the two midnights is expanded. It is now a six-man tag team match, which is basically the manager being involved. Oh, okay.
00:33:42
Speaker
and the losing team is forced to leave their promotion entirely. Let's see, you know, you guys can't work together, so when you guys gotta go? There's only one problem with that. Before this show, and this is February, mind you, Des Condrey actually just leaves. Yeah. Decided to do it again.
00:34:02
Speaker
A couple we had to take, it's less than a month before the show. He's just like, yeah, I know I'm gonna lose a loser leaves WWE match, but I'm gonna leave early because I'm, you know. It's like, I'll leave on my schedule. Apparently, yeah. Undefeated. So what happens is they sub out a wrestler who literally knows Jack Victory, who essentially is the generic wrestler they have. They can sub a mask on, call him whatever they want.
00:34:29
Speaker
If you look at the history of Clash, he plays like 700 people as random mask wrestlers. They go, here, put a mask on. You're the new fifth or sixth member of the Minute Express for this one match where you will be pinned and lose. Well, I guess at least he gets to participate in one of the greatest teams of all time. So, yeah, you know, good for him.
00:34:50
Speaker
There is some bag and forth with management, a bunch of wrestlers that we'll see going forward, um, with the new, you know, new bosses and new heads over that. As such, the Newman express also leave, but it's a very brief tenure. They leave and they come back far before the next arcade. So there's a loser leaves there to be a match. One guy leaves beforehand on the team. He's going to lose anyways. And then before that win also briefly leave, but they come back. It's all kind of a mess.
00:35:20
Speaker
Yeah. We go back to the announce team and J.R. builds up the level of effort that both teams gave and that they haven't seen the last of this situation, as you've just made clear. Yes. Kottle discusses the upcoming Russian Assassins versus Ivan Koloff and Junkyard Dogmatch, and he predicts that the Russians will win. We go backstage to Magnum TA and the Varsity Club, as the Varsity Club are celebrating their big US tag title win.
00:35:52
Speaker
I think I understand that Magnum TA is standing by with the new United States champions. Let's go to him now in the locker room.
00:36:03
Speaker
guys are really celebrating here. You know, Doc, Steve, Dr. Williams, I got to say, you know, I don't like the company you're keeping, but I've got to say, honestly, I feel you made the difference. You made the difference of them winning this team. Oh, boss, man, we've never met eye to eye on anything we've done in the years. But let me say one thing. Mike, Kevin, the varsity club will always be at the top. Oklahoma, Syracuse, suspensions, probations, it don't matter.
00:36:32
Speaker
We will always stand ahead. You know, Magnum, you're an intellectual. You're right. We traded a moron. Michael and I traded a moron in on a genius. You see, we are the start of the franchise tonight. So far, we're one for one. I told you we win. And Michael is going to take that Rick Steiner and Alex, and we're going to run them out of the wrestling business. Right, Michael?
00:36:59
Speaker
Stiner might as well forget about it right now because I'm gonna beat you like that stupid dog that you are, Stiner. Just like a stupid dog, you know how you kick him? I'm gonna do that to you and show the whole world who the better wrestler is, and that's me. Well, the varsity club certainly lacking for confidence. Let's go back ringside for more action. A promo that only Michael Vick would love. Oh, girl.
00:37:28
Speaker
For me, this was short but effective once the sound starts up at least. Good production values this show. Oh yeah. I thought Dr. Death did a much better job this year in this like short dose. He sounds really threatening, dangerous, and driven. Admittedly, it's probably easier to cut a decent promo when you haven't just been hitting the crotch.
00:37:47
Speaker
Yeah, that definitely helped me. Yeah. Rotunda was fine. It was a little weird how little everyone had to say here, but it worked. And Sullivan was actually surprisingly sedate during his promo as far as Sullivan goes. Though admittedly, I've only really seen his later Dungeon of Doom stuff where he's completely bonkers. So it's not the best comparison. His repeated miming of kicking a dog in the background was probably the best part of this, though. It just takes some such inordinate joy in it.
00:38:15
Speaker
Well, I mean, he's going to be a little more calm. I mean, he's from Singapore, so he's in all the Eastern meditation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's it. Yeah. No, he's still a druid, just to be clear. Yeah. It definitely gets across that these guys are evil. Totally. The lesson is people that have college degrees are the worst people in the world. Yeah. Yeah. I know that's how, how we advertise, uh, the college I work at definitely is, you know, get a degree, you'll become a horrible person. Yeah.
00:38:44
Speaker
But you'll win the US tag team titles. Yeah, there you go. I can just find them. I know why they don't mic them directly. Yeah. Dr. Death is loud. We go back from the interview to our next match, which is the Russian assassins, number one and number two with Paul Jones versus junkyard dog and Ivan Koloff.
00:39:11
Speaker
Last show was the first one we had without Paul Jones on it in any way, which was weird. True, yeah. So he had lost his soulmate. So they gave him a similar different feud with a different sort of country guy if Chloe was not enough to make it on the Starrcade. So he figured, I gotta try something different.
00:39:28
Speaker
So during this time, Nikita Koloff finally gets Ivan Koloff to sort of turn to his way of thinking, which is, you know, U.S. isn't all bad. You can play fair. You know, you're really, really good. Let's all work together and we'll, you know, we'll be good people now. Paul Jones' response to that is to bring in two mass wrestlers known as the Russian assassins.
00:39:49
Speaker
And yes, one of them is Jack Victory, the guy that is the replacement for Dez Condrey, you will see later. Great. I remember. Yeah. So this is his first debut on these shows. It kind of makes me sad that neither of them, presumably, is one of the assassins from the first Starrcade. Does it? No. Okay, just checking.
00:40:11
Speaker
But yeah, so he brings in Russian assassins and targets the now, technically it turned Russian turn code, it does still apply. They just turned, yeah, yeah. Because they were rushing her against it, so yeah. It's the good version of Russian turn code. Take note of that, Steven Zagal. The only problem we have is that a short period of time before this show, Nikita Koloff takes personal time because his wife is sick.
00:40:40
Speaker
And he actually has gone with emotion for quite a while. Yeah. So on the December 7th class show, they announced his replacement, which is the junkyard dog. Yeah. Bit of a downgrade.
00:40:53
Speaker
Yeah. Um, I believe she does end up passing during this period. Didn't she? Uh, in mid eight nine. Yeah. Yeah. So obviously a really sad experience for many reasons, but yeah, it's definitely, uh, it's definitely sad to not see Nikita. We were seeing him, I think really, really come into his own last year. Absolutely. And, um, you know, it's a totally understandable reason to interrupt your career. Absolutely. Sympathies on that situation. Definitely. Of course.
00:41:26
Speaker
Junkyard Dog has some very 80s music. That's the only way I can describe it.
00:41:32
Speaker
Ivan Kolov has a chain. The Russian Assassins have Paul Jones, I guess, and Mask. Confusingly, Paul Jones is called number one Paul Jones, but we also have Russian Assassin number one and number two. The Russian Assassin's weight is not given, and Ivan Kolov gets the kilos instead of pounds thing. It's kind of weird that they bother giving the weight for him and not for them, but whatever.
00:41:59
Speaker
JR steals your earlier joke, Alan calls junkyard dog and cola Felix an Oscar, wrestling's odd couple.
00:42:08
Speaker
If the assassins lose this match, they must unmask and Paul Jones must retire. Someone in the crowd aggressively yells that Paul Jones is going down and starts chanting USA. Koloff is on the face team too, just saying. Oh, I also, I didn't, I just mentioned this, but as you mentioned, there's the stipulation if they lose, there is no other stipulation to it. So basically if the Russian assassins win, they gain nothing. Other than the ability to keep their mask and to keep their manager.
00:42:38
Speaker
Yeah, that is a little odd We also see a great dot matrix printer sign in the crowd calling for the assassins to unmask Although assassins is misspelled. Yeah Still like that was a real blast from the past dot matrix gosh continuous paper, baby
00:43:00
Speaker
JYD beats up assassin number one and does his crawling headbutt spot. Jones seems to be late for a spot where he's supposed to put number one's foot on the ropes for a pin, so number one just kinda does it himself. Number two doesn't fare any better and gets punched out of the ring over the ropes. Jones puts number two's foot under the ropes on a pin with the proper timing this time. Koloff in, and he beats up number two and gets choked takedown like the one you liked Nikita doing last year, John. Yes. It's very fluid. Yes. Very aggressive.
00:43:31
Speaker
Kolov calls Ivan the most respected Russian athlete in wrestling. Sorry, Nikita. Ouch, yeah. Ivan does hit a pretty nice diving Russian sickle clothesline, so I guess he does deserve some respect. Kolov continues dominating when number one comes back in, and tags JYD, but JYD misses a headbutt, and Kolov notes that while he brags about having the hardest head in wrestling, it clearly isn't as hard as the ring. The Assassins team goes to beat up JYD, but number one accidentally nails number two with a double axe handle.
00:44:01
Speaker
The ref is busy with Koloff and Mrs. JYD's pin attempt. Caldwell notes that Paul Jones said that his men have to stay on top of these guys or he won't be around in 89. JR, deadpans, well that would certainly break my heart. That'd put a damper on my new year. I don't think he was being very sincere. No, man, probably not. No.
00:44:23
Speaker
Tag to number two, and number one flings him at JYD in the corner, the Russian missile. But JYD dodges, and number two hits the corner hard. Everybody gets in, and Koloff and JYD beat up the assassins and Paul Jones as I lose track of which assassin is which.
00:44:38
Speaker
Koloff fights one next to the ropes as JYD whips another into the ropes. The assassin leapfrogs JYD and runs into Koloff, knocking the other assassin out of the ring. JYD hits an atomic drop on the assassin in the ring, and Koloff hits a standing sickle, but Jones puts something in the other assassin's mask. The assassin gets in the ring and headbutts Koloff, and that gets the three, as Long loses track of which assassin is legal. Yeah, it's definitely a drop in quality. What are you talking about?
00:45:08
Speaker
I like JYD. Yeah, I don't hate JYD. I just think the match itself wasn't as good as the last two.
00:45:14
Speaker
kind of reminded me in not the best way of that opening match we had on Starrcade with Rufus R. Freight Train Jones. Yes. Who I just wanted to actually say his full silly name one more time. Haven't said it in a while. And Bugs McGraw, the guy wearing like the boots look like socks and all them. Yeah. Remind me a lot of that because that was the two assassins with the mask. I thought it was pretty impossible to tell which one was which. You did better than I did, so that's good for you. JR did better than you did. There you go. I followed JR.
00:45:45
Speaker
I made no attempt to keep track of them. Oh, yeah, no.
00:45:50
Speaker
It's easier when one of them is really fat and one of them is really much good. Yeah, it was much easier with the two assassins on the first show. Yeah. But yeah, it just didn't do a whole lot for me. It wasn't definitely not the worst match we've seen on this series, which was also a tag match. But following the two matches, it was a real drop-off in quality. It also didn't help that we're three matches in and first three matches are all tag matches. So you can't help but feel comparisons.
00:46:18
Speaker
I feel like it's kind of an opportunity to not call the Russian missile, just call it the ICBM. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can see that. Speaking of changing of names, I really think that they should be called Ruskadors. Oh, okay. Not bad. Because I think that would be a better name for them than the Russian assassins.
00:46:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely shorter to say. And I like the very beginning spot when JYD comes in, takes off the chain and then jumps into the ring and the assassins just flee. Yeah. I thought that was good. I did not expect the numerous amount of head butts. That's kind of the thing. Like WWJYD, it's head butts.
00:47:06
Speaker
I enjoyed the match, but I noticed that Ivan seemed like he was moving in slow motion or just scripted. It didn't seem like his heart was in it, and I didn't know any of the other backstory behind that, but the spot where they have the two assassins and one leapfrogs and pushes them.
00:47:24
Speaker
He's just kind of like, I move in at like a third or fourth the speed he normally does. And he didn't do any like really massive, you know, over the head slams or anything. I thought actually JYD did a little bit more work in the match. But yeah, I didn't think Ivan's heart was in it that much.
00:47:46
Speaker
Yeah, you wonder if maybe there was a little bit of, you know, I wanted to do this match with Nikita going on possibly. Potentially. I guess how I'd describe it is not as bad as I'd feared. No. I don't know. I was expecting that this would be more like Assassin number one in Buzz Tyler versus the Zambui Express. Yeah. When it's just like against two people that I have no idea who they are, the Russian Assassins and like
00:48:17
Speaker
My experience with the Last Assassin team was not good, so, you know. But this was just kind of a basic match. No real screw-ups. The moves looked fine. The only really good spots, in contrast to you, John, I actually thought the only really good spots belonged to Ivan Koloff.
00:48:32
Speaker
So, I don't know, I just read it opposite, I guess. I really liked his nice diving clothesline in particular. JYD's crawling headbutts kind of confused me. It's a fun little spot, but I don't get how that's supposed to actually hurt. It's intimidation, I guess. And the Russian assassins just kind of feel like they're there. They're capable enough, but they're not very interesting and they don't really have a lot going on. Well, can I have a talk?
00:49:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's part of it. I do respect that number two really threw himself at the corner on the missed Russian missile spot though. He was willing to do what he had to do for that spot and it looked like it hurt. Kind of a dull match to me, but it was short and it did keep moving.
00:49:16
Speaker
The ending is a little weird. Long can clearly see that Koloff was pinning an assassin before the other one headbutted him. So, how did Long think that this was working out? Did he think, oh, Ivan's stupid, he was definitely pinning the wrong one? It's like, I'd get the twin magic spot if the ref didn't see the switch at all, but Long is clearly watching as they switch out too, so.
00:49:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's one thing. I will say they do look enough alike. Yeah kind of swap it out They just they just don't have the best timing for it or something It's like it needs to happen when long is clearly not looking and there's no There's nothing that would lead him to believe that there was a switch
00:49:55
Speaker
Well, I mean, who's supposed to distract their free, the manager? Oh, he's busy tucking something into the mask. Does he look like some sort of like Italian racing coach or something? Yeah. I'm not, I'm not saying that be whatever, but like the mustache.
00:50:11
Speaker
His mindset is Mario-esque for sure. Okay, that's what I'm saying. It's a me, Paul Jones. It's definitely better than his military get-up. Yes, yes, I appreciated the change away from that. Well, his Dracula cape is pretty cool that way. Yes, that I would love him to go back to.
00:50:30
Speaker
So, the story moving forward is that Paul Jones leaves a motion during 1989, as does Ivan Koloff. You wanna guess which month he leaves in? January? Yes. Yes. The streak continues. Yes. The Russian assassins hang around just not as Russian assassins, because they're just you guys, you can take on any mask or outfit. Yeah. But don't worry, JYD is just gonna take around the next couple of years, so you have that to look forward to. Okay.
00:51:00
Speaker
We don't get a JYD promo on this one, but I do actually really like his promos, I do have to say. He has a good, just like, really exuberant kind of style. He ate a pretty good one on the Clash show. We watched prep for this.
00:51:12
Speaker
We go back to the announcers, and JR and Coddle discuss the matches so far. Coddle says we've seen three great matches. I agree on two. I'll give you two. Usually by this point we have one of those rope or flail or chain or some sort of special match for the third slot.
00:51:33
Speaker
That's true. Pacing this at placement is really weird because they have ultimately three singles matches and four tag matches, but put three tag matches in a row. It's just bizarre to me because you get that. That's what it felt like with the first show was a lot of tag matches. Yeah. Just another way that this kind of returns to the first show again, I guess.
00:51:57
Speaker
Our next match is Rick Steiner versus Mike Rotunda with Games Master Kevin Sullivan for Rotunda's NWA World Television Championship. In January of 1988, then Florida Heavyweight Champion Mike Rotunda wins the TV title off of Takeda. He decides he's going to keep both titles, so he gifts the Florida Heavyweight title to Rick Steiner.
00:52:24
Speaker
who he then proceeds to wrestle with and defend it for quite a long time. So it kind of makes his own at least. As it comes clear that Rick Steiner is very popular, he's sort of growing that way, and he sort of finds his comic character, they realize they have to break up the group and turn them against him. So they have Megatron to basically ask for his title back. He wants to be a dual champion again.
00:52:49
Speaker
Rick Steiner says no, so I kick him out of the group, and in turn they point out to the board of directors, who apparently were not paying attention to this, how the title was literally just given to Rick Steiner. And they go, oh yeah, that's true. We'll just take the title off of them now. In the board of directors defense, they were probably fairly occupied with company finances at the time, so. Yeah, their accountants kept calling and telling them to have to do something.
00:53:15
Speaker
But yeah, so he loses the title that he didn't actually win, but had trees like he'd won all this time. So it says, Hey, I'm down to how to muzzle take a Cretentis title. Okay. But he defended it successfully, right? Correct. But he didn't initially win it. So that's the excuse they use for getting off of him. Oh.
00:53:36
Speaker
Steiner's music is the same as the Varsity Club music. And the Varsity Club music is neither of the fight songs for University of Michigan or Syracuse University, nor is it the Oklahoma Sooners fight song. Yeah, the only thing I could think was maybe it's the song for Sullivan's own Miskatonic University. Yeah. I think you hear that song, it drives you insane. So then they're allowed to play that. Oh, okay. Yeah, true.
00:54:01
Speaker
JR says something that we can barely hear about, talking to Alex before the match but not being able to hear what he had to say. Ironic. Caudal doesn't understand what's going on with Steiner and JR notes that people are barking for Steiner. A cage is lowered. Sullivan will be in the cage for this match. Sullivan doesn't like the idea but Teddy Long forces him to get in. Sullivan does look ominous in his hooded robe as he's raised into the air.
00:54:27
Speaker
Breaking the mood, we get another dot matrix sign of an adorable cartoon dog labeled Rick Steiner the new TV champion. Someone was busy with their printer. The fans chant, Syracuse sucks. Rotunda and Steiner start with a shoving match that quickly comes to trading blows, and Steiner wins that as Rotunda rolls out to calm down. Steiner gets to show off his power early on, even using one arm to hurl Rotunda across the ring when Rotunda grabs a wrist lock, which looked really cool.
00:54:56
Speaker
JR says hello to Steiner's mom for him. After a massive clothesline, Rotunda flees outside again and Steiner talks to his hand puppet, Alex. Back in, they move to mat wrestling and Steiner wins that contest with a smooth hammerlock, then bites Rotunda on the butt. He, and the crowd, deny the biting when refs had a long ass. Funny spot, but it's weird the refs stopped to ask the crowd what happened.
00:55:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of Teddy Long's thing over the show. He occasionally will ask the crowd on a spot and it is funny that they defend Steiner on this, I thought. Same he didn't ask them if they had shot a piece of metal under their mask earlier. Yeah, yeah. Might have changed that story completely.
00:55:38
Speaker
Steiner grabs side headlocks in between rapid sequences of power moves and mat wrestling. There's a very smooth transition from a Steiner headlock takedown to a Rotunda lick scissor hold in particular. Rotunda is clearly bothered by the crowd's barking and chants as Steiner dances to it. JR says that the crowd should have brought dog biscuits and collars. Rotunda gets fed up and walks out, threatening to leave. He eventually comes back and the crowd rewards him by chanting Syracuse sucks. JR respectfully disagrees about Syracuse.
00:56:08
Speaker
Steiner gets flung through the ropes and JR says that he landed on his head. JR also notes that that was probably the safest place for Steiner to land.
00:56:16
Speaker
Rotunda wears Steiner down and grabs a headlock, using the ropes for leverage. The fans inform Teddy Long, and he makes Rotunda break. Steiner wins a slugfest, but gets taken back down into the headlock again. Steiner fights free, but Rotunda hits a great diving clothesline to take him down. But Steiner grabs the ropes to dodge a dropkick. Steiner hits one of the biggest clotheslines I have ever seen, as JR notes that people in the maritime provinces and sailors out at sea could have heard that one.
00:56:45
Speaker
Dr. Death comes down to the ring as Steiner hits a huge power slam for two. Steiner hits a belly-to-belly suplex and Long counts one, but Dr. Death rings the bell early. Steiner, being an idiot, thinks a one count was enough to win him the match. Teddy Long thinks that the time limit expired and goes to raise Rotunda's hand, but ref Tommy Young comes down and clues Teddy Long in on what happened. The cage lowers and Kevin Sullivan comes over to try to argue his side, but Tommy Young lectures him and Teddy Long restarts the match.
00:57:15
Speaker
Rotunda hits Steiner, but Steiner rams him into Sullivan and pins him and gets the three from both refs. The crowd erupts in one of the loudest cheers we've yet heard on this or any other show. As Steiner runs laps around the ring elated with a tremendous grin on his face, he grabs the belt and waves it above his head as he sprints towards backstage.
00:57:37
Speaker
I really like most of the match. I like that it builds up Rick Steiner while also not doing too much to make rotunda. It becomes clear, kind of like with the first match, that the power aspect is just too hard to overcome. But on top of that, there is definitely, there's this really solid technical side to Rick Steiner here, as you see a lot later. He's a very good technical wrestler and he can do all of that.
00:58:02
Speaker
Matanda does really well, sort of playing his heel as character, doing the whole, I'm gonna walk out here thing, all that. My only real issue is the way they handle the ending. I feel like it must have been a match where they tried the tricking him thing before ringing the bell. Maybe. So they don't make that clear watching this.
00:58:22
Speaker
Like with the Ron Garvin spot in the last show. They made a point of when Ric Flair kicks out of the Sunset Flip, they say, well, that's how he won the title last room. If that has more context to it, it would help. Maybe, but I don't have it.
00:58:37
Speaker
That said, obviously the crowd teams have no problem with any of that. And I do like seeing them celebrate and having everything turned on them. I just wish they, it's one of the things where it doesn't ruin the match. It's just, it's an unnecessary level for me that they could, if they'd done without it, it would've been just fine too. I still liked a lot though.
00:58:55
Speaker
This is the first time I've seen Mike Rotunda. And, uh, despite the unfortunate naming, I thought that, uh, he, uh, you know, he, he was a decent wrestler, but I think he, he's a very good arrogant heel throughout. And he plays it, you know, into his, his mannerisms and everything. He does bad things to, uh, Steiner, but even how he talks to the ref just seems like why are we even having this problem?
00:59:20
Speaker
Yeah. I like the ending, uh, just because it's different. Like usually you have these situations where one ref is knocked out and another one comes in or, you know, there was, there seems like there was a finality and consensus when Steiner makes that quick lunge and takes them out. They're both quick to respond. And I didn't know about the other belt situation, but they should have given both titles.
00:59:45
Speaker
Cause he had, he penned them twice. But that didn't happen. But the crowd is clearly on sign or side. I think a large part of that is due to Mike Rotunda's performance. Yeah.
01:00:00
Speaker
Yeah, the crowd was seriously into this one. And it's impossible not to feel good for Steiner with his celebration at the end there. Both of these guys were great athletes who could put on a good show with both Matt wrestling and convincing power moves like you were saying now.
01:00:16
Speaker
It felt like it was half amateur wrestling and half the usual pro style and that gave it a very different feel than the other matches that we've seen tonight. Both were really smooth and made good use of their characters to get the crowd incredibly hyped up. Signer in particular was clearly having a great time and that made the match easy to enjoy.
01:00:36
Speaker
It did get a little repetitive at points with a lot of reliance on headlocks as transition moves. I would have appreciated a little more variety there, but the rest of what they were doing was exceptional. There's a great mix of different tactics from both. Excellent emotion in the match and inspiration in the crowd in a very, very fun storyline. I really liked Rotunda playing up just how much the crowd was bothering him without really ever slowing the match down. Yeah, I'd say that. And Steiner playing along with the crowd and just having fun with it.
01:01:06
Speaker
I was worried about the ending, but I actually think that it worked out alright.
01:01:10
Speaker
I think what made it work to me is when I realized it's Steiner beating the whole Varsity Club. The way that they did that ending takes it from being just Steiner beating Rotunda to Steiner overcoming Kevin Sullivan and his plans as well. And that I think is important because Sullivan's the guy that's saying, you know, Steiner, what an idiot, Steiner, we traded in him for a better guy. And he overcomes the actions of all three of them rather than just Rotunda.
01:01:36
Speaker
He does fall for the trick at first though. Yeah. But I mean he like he overcomes despite the best efforts of Kevin Sullivan and his emissary doctor death. I think it works as like giving him a victory over the whole club rather than giving him a victory over just one part of it. It makes sense with that.
01:02:01
Speaker
that Steiner has this super elated response, because it feels like he got one over on everybody. Sure. And Steiner felt like he won twice. Yes. Almost three times. That was two notes. One, it's getting to the reduction issues. We get to see Rick Steiner thrown out of the ring. We don't actually see his landing. True. So when they say it, it's really impactful. So I guess we could take his word for how he landed and how much it hurt him. Yeah.
01:02:30
Speaker
there was that Dr. Jesse Williams comes out, rings the bell, and just walks away, and doesn't seem to try to come back when things get turned around. It is fairly quick, but it would be nice to cut to him at the entryway, shaking his fist, like, oh, I'll get you next time. Because it feels like he's like, oh, wrong the bell, time to go. Yeah. I guess the idea is he's so confident that it's going to work, but yeah, it is a little odd.
01:02:58
Speaker
Like I said, it's not a real big deal because that whole sequence is fairly quick at the end. Not like they have another match after that in play time, but it's kind of funny that he never, like show him trying to get back. Yeah, true. The TV title stays fairly competitive. It's traded around a few times. Rick Stoner's reign isn't too long, unfortunately. And by the end of the year, ends up paying a hand to someone we will see on the next show for the very first time, the great Muda. Oh, cool.
01:03:27
Speaker
We go back to the announcers and Tony and Magnum talk about the match. Tony notes that champs so far are 0 for 2 at Starrcade. Both are very happy for Steiner. Magnum points out that no one was expecting the title changes so far because matches are generally in the champion's favor, but anything can happen at Starrcade. We go to our next match, which is Bam Bam Bigelow with Sir Oliver Humberdink.
01:03:55
Speaker
versus Barry Wyndham with JJ Dillon for Wyndham's NWA United States Heavyweight Championship. The overall stir is that Barry Wyndham is a good guy starting out the year him and Lugar team up together.
01:04:12
Speaker
They'd feed the horsemen a couple of times, but then right at the peak period where after their big victory, he then turns on Luger and joins a horseman. If not too long after that, he wins the US title, thus putting him in that spot where he's the mid-card, younger support guy in the group, which literally Luger was slash show. Yeah. As far as direct feud between the two of them, there's actually really not much as far as Bam Bam and Windham.
01:04:40
Speaker
They really just build up Bambigolo as coming into the area and challenge the title. So in a way, it's like what they did with Superstar Billy Graham, where they just go, hey, Superstar Billy Graham is going to be a Starrcade in the US title match. Just this big noteworthy outsider. Exactly. Yeah. Well, at least with Graham, they make a point of he had previously held the title and he has big names like, well, I just gave him the title match. Whereas Bambam, they are doing it because he came from WPF and that's why he's getting the title match.
01:05:11
Speaker
Bam Bam Bigelow comes out in his awesome black bodysuit with flames with Sir Oliver Humberdink in a green Hawaiian shirt and some kind of weird sumo shirt with a green cartoon figure on it that I couldn't quite figure out what it was. I couldn't get it out there. He's a leprechaun. Okay, sumo leprechaun? Mm-hmm. Barry Windham is already in the ring, which felt a little bit weird. Yeah, right?
01:05:33
Speaker
Some in the crowd loudly champed for BamBam during the introductions. He is definitely popular. Coddle tells us that Bigelow was announced at 390 pounds, but he'd had 396 in his notes, so he theorizes that Bigelow didn't eat as large at Christmas dinner as expected. JR puts it down to Bigelow trying to improve his cardio to keep up with Wyndham. I think that may be the more rational explanation. Yeah, that's a better explanation than I guess.
01:06:01
Speaker
They have a slow and careful start, with Windom taking time to try to come up with different strategies, but nothing really works for him. Bigelow even just pops right back up after a backdrop, earning a good freakout from Windom who scampers right out of the ring on that. Later, Bigelow just flat out ignores several hard punches to the face, and gets a huge military press slam on Windom, who rolls out to talk to Dylan.
01:06:23
Speaker
With Windham having slipped in and out of the ring several times by that point, ref Tommy Young mimes him getting in and out, clearly exasperated. J.R. notes that Bigelow doesn't move like a man that's nearly 400 pounds, he's a lot faster. Bigelow batters Windham with corner punches, and Windham pulls out his own version of the flare flop. A Bigelow dropkick, really impressive, sends Windham out over the top rope, and Dylan quickly demands a DQ, but it's turned down. It wasn't a throw, so yet again, that rule doesn't matter.
01:06:52
Speaker
Bigelow gets his nice stalling suplex and leans heavily on Windham on a reverse chinlock, as the announcers note that he's wearing Windham out by making him carry his weight.
01:07:01
Speaker
Windham desperately throws Bigelow out through the middle ropes, and Bigelow lands on his knee, but Bigelow comes back in with a splash over the ropes, but he lets Windham up at the two count. Bigelow gets up on the top turnbuckle for a massive splash, but Windham dodges and Bigelow is dazed. Caudle points out that Bigelow could have won the match if he just stayed down on the earlier pin. Bigelow got overconfident.
01:07:22
Speaker
Windom takes over and nails a high-speed diving lariat and shows off his power by easily lifting Bigelow in a belly-to-back suplex. A notable portion of the crowd cheers Windom as he knocks Bigelow into the ring post, gets him back in, and gets his claw hold. Bigelow stumbles to the corner to force a break. Windom makes body-slamming Bigelow look easy, but Bigelow dodges an elbow drop off the top rope and starts fighting back. Windom hits a desperation crossbody, but both spill over the top rope.
01:07:50
Speaker
and the two brawl outside as Young counts. Wyndham rams Bigelow into the post and darts back into the ring, and Bigelow can't get back in before 10. Wyndham wins by countout. It's really good at first. The story that Bambigle is just so strong and powerful and Wyndham is sort of befuddled by this is a pretty classic wrestling story but definitely works here.
01:08:12
Speaker
Because Bam Bam has that sort of air around him where you can believe anytime he's, he's no selling this and, you know, throwing the guy around. It's a little weird that they have him try to get actually seem like he could have won, but literally lift the guy up. Yeah. Just trying to match around. The story of the night is Sully tweaking the formula, which I guess is good. I don't know how well that one works.
01:08:37
Speaker
I will say many, many times in many, many episodes, my issue is a finish because they're fighting outside and that is a very, very fast 10 count. It is a fast 10 count. Yeah, I'll give you that. It's like a six count, maybe, if you've been generous.
01:08:56
Speaker
The match is really good. It's just, you know, it has really has two solid parts as bam, bam, unstoppable. And then once a weakness is there, Wyndham really can't actually exploit that and sort of shows off there. But then once it starts turning around again, it just stops.
01:09:14
Speaker
Yeah, speaking of his pain tolerance and everything, the announcers even take time to build up that his head tattoo took like a full year of appointments to get fully done. So they kind of use that as building up. This guy can endure quite a lot there as well. So it's kind of an interesting way of building it up, I guess. Absolutely.
01:09:35
Speaker
It's all in preparation. I actually like BamBam. I mean, I enjoyed watching him in WWF. It is beguiling how many splashes and like Dusty, he does move. He carries his weight well.
01:09:52
Speaker
and why I never really bought into the character too much. He does have a lot of prowess and he didn't really hesitate at all during the match to fill that role. Wyndham reminds me of Dara the Beastmaster. I think everyone is starting to remind me of that. There's a point where he recovers and he screams and everything after Bigelow misses that giant splash off the top turnbuckle.
01:10:16
Speaker
And he screams and he holds his arms out. I was waiting for ferrets to jump from the crowd and aid him in winning. Should have morphed into squirrel form and gone out there, John. Maybe. I didn't want Wyndham to win, but that is what it is. Yeah.
01:10:35
Speaker
This had a bit of a slower pace than the earlier matches, but it still felt intense. Bigelow came off, like you were saying, as very tough, very durable, very strong, had a really impressive showing. It's amazing how well he moves for such a big guy. And this is without him showing off his ability to actually do cartwheels at his size.
01:10:54
Speaker
He looked great in this match, and it was a very effective way of showing off his abilities. Wind, for his part, got to show off how surprisingly strong he is. He doesn't look like he's got a lot of pure power to him, but between this match and last year's match, man, he's a strong guy. He knows how to use his muscle, I guess. So, tendon strength, as we probably would say. Yeah, it was impressive that he could lift a guy repeatedly, as big as Bigelow, without really any problems.
01:11:24
Speaker
I felt like the match was maybe a little bit too neat and tidy. There's a real, this is bigelow section, now this is wind of a section feel to it. And while that exists in most matches, it felt a little more obvious here, I guess I'd say. On the ending, I'm kind of torn on it.
01:11:42
Speaker
I get what you're saying Ana, it's another kinda not that great finish, but I do like that it's really clear that Windom tactically does this. He has better ring awareness, better awareness of the count than Bigelow, so he chooses his moment to run Bigelow into the post and dart back into the ring. And so it actually does feel like a true win for Windom.
01:12:05
Speaker
I like that it wasn't just like an accidental thing, when it intentionally does this at just the right moment, and the announcers do a good job afterwards of building that up, I thought.
01:12:15
Speaker
But it is a pretty flat finish for a match that I think could have gone further and could have gotten even more intense. They seem to be, like, hitting their stride and then it ends. Yeah. Not as suddenly as Dr. Death vs. Wyndham last year, but, you know. Yeah. I was hitting something else. Yeah. Still, it was a fun match. It had some great character work in it and some really impressive power moves. I just don't feel like it reached its full potential.
01:12:39
Speaker
Yeah, and I get what you're saying, being tactical with trying to get the count out, but for me it's still a count out finish and a title match, and it's just the abruptness of it. Yeah. I would like to know where numbers seven through 10 went, you know. Well, the crowd didn't seem happy, and even the announcer's like, yeah, he left under the eight count, and yeah.
01:13:03
Speaker
I wish I had more storyline context for why Oliver Humperdink and a guy I later be known as the Big Kahuna. He's the same guy, mind you. Yeah. Is Mandink Bayman Bigelow from Asbury Park, New Jersey. Big scary guy with a flame tattoo on his head. Yeah. For any fault he may have, Paul Jones would always adjust his look and style to the people he was with. True, yeah. Or the way that you'll later see with Jimmy Hart where he has a jacket for every person he makes. Oh my gosh, I love the Jimmy Hart jackets, yeah.
01:13:32
Speaker
It's not really a thing that matches kind of thing I notice is like, I don't see a connection between the manager and the guy. Yeah, true. That's the only thing. So there's a pay dispute, among other issues between the new management of the company and Bim Bigelow. It's described as a pay dispute and an issue of control. And, but you can guess what month he leaves in. January. Yes.
01:13:58
Speaker
Good to know that even with a new company, we've got the same dang month causing problems. Yep. He goes off to all Japan pro wrestling where he stays for quite a while. We will see him in a year because he's in Starrcade 2000. Barry Windham also leaves the new WCW in 89. It's later. It's later. He takes time off to rehab a hand injury. Oh, okay. And then signs the WWF.
01:14:27
Speaker
After a quick discussion where Caudalyn Jr. highlight that Windham clearly paid close attention to where the count was and that's what won in the match, they throw to Magnum TA backstage with Rick Steiner.
01:14:40
Speaker
standing here with the new world's television champion Rick Star, despite all odds, despite all the confusion, you pulled it off, just like you said. You know, Mike, he's a tough wrestler, but you know, every dog he has is dead, and today, it was my day.
Champion Challenges and Interviews
01:14:55
Speaker
Well, did you and Alex do a lot of planning for this? Well, you see, I got tired of them calling me stupid all the time, and not Kevin Sullivan and his stupid back, tricky backfire. Have you seen it? Yeah, I thought it was great.
01:15:15
Speaker
No, I didn't say that. Alex may have told you that. I didn't say that. You told me that. No, I didn't say that. No, you got the World Television Championship. That's a tremendous title, and you're going to have a lot of people coming down trying to take that belt away from you. Who? Well, a lot of the wrestlers. A lot of guys are going to want a shot at that belt. When?
01:15:31
Speaker
Well, coming up here in the future. Really? Yeah. I'll beat him. That'd be great. And where's your dog? Where's Spike? Where's Spike at? Oh, I left him home in a cage. He didn't want to cut airline them. You know them airlines. They won't let him fly, because he's a pit bull. And I don't know. Well, regardless of whether Spike was here, I know this is one of the greatest days in your wrestling career. I'm glad to be standing here beside you. Thank you. And I hope you are very successful defending this title. Thank you very much. Let me shake your hand. All right. Let's go back to more action on ringside right now.
01:16:06
Speaker
This was like no interview ever. That is true. Normally the interview more like intros the promo than lets the wrestler take over till the next question, but with this one it was more Magnum being in charge and Steiner kind of just commenting on what he said. Part of that is because the sound cut out and we missed what looked like a longer bit of Steiner talking, but even so it feels really unique.
01:16:29
Speaker
Steiner comes off as really nice and likeable, if not too bright. And Magnum seems genuinely amused by his antics. They kind of have some good chemistry together, I think. So it came together fairly well for me. It's hard to hear because part of it is the part that's missing, but Steiner clearly thinks that winning the TV title gets him free TV service. Which is pretty amusing.
01:16:57
Speaker
I am not as fond of the Alex hand puppet stuff and all because it kind of puts it a little more towards the category of, does he actually have some kind of disability or handicap or something? Rather than just being, you know, amusingly not that bright. It gets a little bit more questionable to me, but Steiner's clueless act for me is otherwise pretty good. And he and Magnum, like I said, played off each other pretty well.
01:17:20
Speaker
Yeah, there's a fine line that's sort of being simple and, you know, really very friendly like the way he is and being just a radio from the movie radio. Keep it going, Junior. Where there's obviously an actual thing causing him to be that way. Yeah. But I think he manages to steer it just the right direction. Yeah.
01:17:41
Speaker
No, he's, he's excited. I mean, like if that's the character, he's playing it well. I don't know why they asked him about his dog or whatever, but you know, it is what it is. He's just trying to look for something to say because clearly, uh, Steiner was not taking the initiative and saying things. So, but I did like the exchange, you know, like he, he's obviously excited. And I liked that he came back like immediately, like who's going to take it with that was great. Wasn't it?
01:18:11
Speaker
They're like, oh, like tonight? Sure.
Sting and Dusty vs. Legion of Doom
01:18:17
Speaker
Our next match is Sting and Dusty Roads versus the Legion of Doom, the Road Warriors. Hawk and Animal with Precious Paul Ellering for the Road Warriors NWA World Tag Team Championship.
01:18:33
Speaker
As the middle of the year approaches, the row warriors sort of slowly get a little more aggressive and get more heelish to the point where they beat the UNI Express in a pretty brutal match to win the titles that they didn't have. As part of that, they're then confronted by Stingdussy Road who don't like the new attitude and the way they've turned.
01:18:54
Speaker
So Dusty B. Dusty is never backing down from a fight, calls him into the ring, says, you know, guys want to take me out. This is after they tried to take Sting out. They got ideas that they attacked him, probably tried to break his neck. Their ideas are going above and beyond what you need to do to be champions. Like Dusty says in the opening, violence for the sake of violence. Exactly.
01:19:15
Speaker
So they have an exchange on the November 26th WSB show where they come in the ring and they get the best of Dusty in a two on one exchange. It's not clear why Sting isn't there much sooner, but he kind of works on his own schedule. During the beat down, Animal takes off one of the shoulder pads, which apparently just sort of screws off very easily from his outfit, which is kind of surprising to learn. I think they'd be like welded in or stuck and he's like, no, just kind of come for it off.
01:19:41
Speaker
for easy shipping, I guess. And then it attacks Dusty. It is, he's supposed to be stabbing him in the eye with the spike. Yeah. It's a pretty bloody thing. So of course they run the segment live-ish. That's always a tape show. And then at the end of the show, recap and play the entire section all over again.
01:20:00
Speaker
So that leads us this match where there's even more reason for Sting and Dusty to try and take these guys down because they're, they're affecting every one and every thing around them with their violence. Also as part of this, they were in a six man tag with Dusty Rhodes with the rarely mentioned end of the way world six man tag championships.
01:20:24
Speaker
So once they turn heal, they don't like Dusty anymore. Obviously he doesn't like them. So they set up a match at the December 7th Clash Show between Dusty and I believe it's Animal. And whoever wins that gets to control the titles.
01:20:37
Speaker
It won via DQ by Animal because Dusty literally breaks the legs off of metal, the sort of combination metal plastic chairs where the legs are metal when they're stuck on a plastic base. He really breaks that off on his leg, which looked pretty painful. Yeah. So the Road Warriors get to pick their own third person, but it amounts to nothing, unfortunately. It doesn't affect this match at all.
01:21:04
Speaker
Sting has some awesome face paint this year. Cool light blue and white pattern. It looks great. Dusty is wearing a shirt that matches the color pattern, which is always a nice thing I like to see when you get two singles wrestlers working together that one of them at least tries to kind of match up the other's look a little bit. Yeah, sure. Give them a little bit more team identity. The Road Warriors for their part still look awesome. Oh yeah. That spiked shoulder pads look will never get old. They are two big dudes.
01:21:35
Speaker
The Road Warriors attack right after taking off their spikes, only to get beaten back by Sting and Dusty, with Sting hitting one heck of a dropkick on Hawk in particular. The Road Warriors back off outside the ring for a few moments to regroup, then slowly come back in to let the announcer actually do the introductions. Sting gets massive, massive cheers, especially after he does a Stinger call.
01:21:57
Speaker
Dusty likewise gets really big cheers, though you can hear a few Road Warriors fans booing. The Road Warriors get loads of boos, but after the noise goes down, a few guys can be heard chanting L-O-D. Sting and Animal start, and Animal tries to overpower Sting, but Sting uses his agility to stay ahead of Animal and get the crowd into it, including a stinger call during a leapfrog. Actually, during the leapfrog. And another heck of a dropkick.
01:22:24
Speaker
Sting gets Dusty in for a bit to work on Animal's arm and claw at his eyes. And Animal tags out to Hawk, who goes aggressively after Dusty. Dusty escapes him to bring Sting back in. The Hawk rakes Sting's eyes and lands rapid punches and stomps in the corner, dazing Sting.
01:22:40
Speaker
He lays in more punches as Sting stands, and Sting misses one big haymaker, but lands a second to knock Hawk flat. Sting beats his chest and the crowd erupts as Sting gets a flurry of offense on Hawk, culminating in a great jumping elbow drop. Hawk tags Animal, who catches Sting with a military press, but Sting catches himself when Animal goes to drop him on the ropes and fires back with rapid strikes and close lines.
01:23:04
Speaker
Animal retreats to take a breather, and Sting just dives right out after him to knock him down. Then does an excited little jig, and Stinger calls for massive cheers. This time they actually get to see the dive. Yes. In a rare bit, the camera crew catches something this time that they missed last time. True. On purpose. Yeah. Dusty in, and he starts working Animal's knee, but Animal tags Hawk, so Dusty gets Hawk with the figure four instead.
01:23:29
Speaker
but Animal evades Sting to break it up. Hawk recovers and focuses abuse on Dusty's face for Hot Wheels of Pain and one definite audible swear. I heard you, Dusty. Hawk also hits a nice dropkick. Dusty starts to recover and hits his own respectable dropkick, but Hawk and Animal trade off to keep him down. Hawk ultimately tries a sleeper, but Dusty frees himself with some kind of proto-stunner.
01:23:53
Speaker
Yeah, those look very similar. Hawk tags Animal, but Dusty dives and tags Sting. Sting charges in and takes control, leading up to a big sting or splash to Animal's back. He grabs the Scorpion Deathlock, but Hawk gets in to break it up. Dusty gets in to try to defend Sting, but Hawk throws Sting over the top rope while the ref isn't looking. Hawk and Animal beat Dusty up, but Dusty kicks Animal in the nuts and ducks a Hawk clothesline missed by the camera, shown in the replay, to send Hawk out of the ring.
01:24:20
Speaker
Sting climbs up on the top turnbuckle and dives off onto Animal for the one, two, and Paul Ellering pulls Ref Tommy Young out of the ring for the DQ.
Post-Match Emotions and Storylines
01:24:30
Speaker
Dusty beats up Ellering after the match and Hawk comes in to try to beat up Sting, but Sting hits a big enziguri to take him out of the ring. Tommy Young holds up Sting and Dusty's arms to monster cheers, but Dusty and Sting do a good job of congratulating each other but looking bummed at the DQ win, since it doesn't earn them the titles.
01:24:47
Speaker
I really like the overall story of the match. It's very clear that the World Warriors are very vicious. Sting and Dusty have to do their best to survive almost. And they do really good job of mixing up the offense, doing the power stuff. Dusty's big thing here.
01:25:05
Speaker
doesn't sound mean, but he's in the downturn wrestling-wise with his physical abilities. Though he does do that nice drop kick in his, he has good moments. It's not like he had nothing to give it. It's clearly not the same guy he was in, say, 85 in that really lengthy match with Flair. Yeah, the drop kick just surprised me because I've seen him try to do a drop kick before and the first time wasn't too good. Oh, yeah. But this one, it looked like, oh, that's respectable. Yeah.
01:25:29
Speaker
That part aside, he does his role there pretty well because he's really likable, he has his strikes, and it goes back to the story of him, the eye being attacked. It helps make it clear that if you like LOD, they're trying to blind a man, and they are definitely the bad guys here. There's not as much gray as maybe they want to think. Unsurprisingly, my issue is the finish.
01:25:54
Speaker
It's just the final part of the finish, go straight through like it would normally for a win. And then manager pulling the breath out and attacking was just like the sort of ladies way to do it. Yeah.
01:26:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's, it's a shame because I really liked what I'm looking up to and then like with the match before it kind of stops because here's the ending of the match and we're not having a title change and we're not giving you a clear ending. And two of the things I like with the Bamba match when I liked, if I didn't care about the match and it's a great finish and it wouldn't bother me because I had no investment. But all the time they had an investment and then I just get it, I think pulled out from under me and I get to enjoy it.
01:26:33
Speaker
Yeah, this one, the ending bothered me a lot more than the bam bam match. The bam bam match, it felt like, okay, that's still a win for Wyndham. Yeah, and I clearly know you're saying there, yeah. Where with this one, it felt like, okay, that's just really cheap. I get the rules are rules idea, but come on, if I was the ref and my hand was clearly about to come down for the third time and I got pulled out of the ring by the heal manager,
01:26:54
Speaker
I just slapped the map from the outside and award the match to Sting. And, you know, the ref has discretion on the top rope stuff all the time. We see that all the time that that thing gets ignored or excused or, oh, the ref's decision, yada, yada. He doesn't have a discretion on this. He has to dequeue him because they laid his hands on him. It's like, it feels like he should have a choice, right? Yeah. He is the ref. Yeah. You would think he'd be able to decide, no, I was about to count three. So three when good, you know,
01:27:25
Speaker
I'm going to go back to the beginning of the match because I want to be really excited. I don't know. I don't want to think about the end. You know, I'm, I'm happy to see Dusty Rhodes and, uh, Sting and they're working the crowd. I feel a little bit for Dusty at this point in the match. I'm like, well, he stings getting all the love with the camera, but when you, when they zoom out, you can see the crowds cheering equally. You know, they're just, they're just taking their time, you know, but it looks like Dusty's has fallen and staying around in the very beginning.
01:27:53
Speaker
And then when they go to the next camera switch to do the entrance for the Road Warriors, I don't know if it's the lighting or whatever it is. And I'm like, oh, this is stock footage. This is sort of, you know, like whatever. They're doing one of their entrance thing. They're going to build them up, you know, a little bit. And then I'm like, I didn't even notice that they got in the ring with.
01:28:14
Speaker
Dusty and Sting, and I'm like, okay, so what's this promo gonna tell me? And then they start fighting, oh, wait, wait, wait, why is this? What's going on? I could see that actually, yeah.
01:28:25
Speaker
So yeah, a very abrupt and wonderful beginning. This match really tugged at me quite a bit. At this point, watching through Starrcade 1988, I'm wondering why isn't this the main show? Because I want to root for all four contestants. I like Sting and I like Dusty and we have met Hawk. Yeah.
01:28:49
Speaker
An animal is always a great presence, you know, whether his legs broken or not, you know, he's just he's doing good. I kind of wish Dusty had face paint on so that they would have all have face paint. That's true. Yeah, that's one thing that he could have done to even more imitate Sting's look. That would have looked cool, actually. Yeah, I think so.
01:29:07
Speaker
There's not a downside in the match for me until the end. I'm just rooting for every person. Anytime it cuts down, I'm like, all right, this is great. Animal, in particular, seems exceptionally brutal of this one. He's biting Dusty's head. One of the great spots is where Animal's working on him and Dusty's holding on to the ring and he just starts flopping around and dancing.
01:29:33
Speaker
and they have Sting in the back like calling to the crowd and you know it's just like I'm like that's such a dusty way to shrug off blows and and come back you know he's just like I'm just rolling with it whatever you know like it just it fits his personality. Sure.
01:29:47
Speaker
As far as the ending, at least they're doing things differently. They're trying to do different endings with all the math head, you know, the double count out with two refs. And I'm glad that, you know, Rhodes and Sting win, though, you know, with the them going after Dusty, this is kind of a little adds a little bit of resolution to their storyline, even if it's not the way that you want it to end. They still get a win. It's kind of one of those let's protect everybody kind of endings.
01:30:17
Speaker
But you could easily say, no, I won. I still had you pinned for like two more seconds after, you know, they had the interference. So you still felt like there was a good like emotional payoff there for you? Yeah, at the end, you know, both Sting and Dusty are, you know, they're genuinely celebrating, even though it's not the ending they would normally want.
01:30:41
Speaker
This was really fun and had some of the best crowd reactions of the night for sure this side of the Rick Steiner match. I mean, it's stinging dusty. There's no way the crowd isn't going to be screaming their heads off at that one.
01:30:56
Speaker
I really liked it. The Road Warriors had really impressive power, as always. Dusty still gets great crowd reactions. And I noticed he was really properly used in this match, I thought. He plays face imperil. So you get to have Dusty, the older wrestler, making the Road Warriors look really good and making Sting look really good because Sting gets to come in and show off his moves and save him and everything.
01:31:22
Speaker
It's a really good use for Dusty, I think, in this match. It's like this match and last year's Luger match, I think Dusty was pretty effectively used to kind of like build someone up. Sting gets to show off his amazing agility, strength, and crazy jumping ability. It is not really any surprise when I found out that Sting played basketball in high school.
01:31:47
Speaker
He is by far the star of this match. Even with Dusty and the Road Warriors in there who are all great performers, Sting stands out as an incredibly gifted performer. The match itself doesn't push much beyond the usual tag formula, though I think that only stands out so much maybe because, you know, this is the fourth tag match on this show.
01:32:06
Speaker
But it's still an exciting and really well-worked match, and it gets great mileage out of some of wrestling's biggest personalities. Like we said, the ending feels like a pretty big letdown, but it's a really fun little match. There's nothing exceptional story-wise, but there's really, really great character work.
Dusty Rhodes' Storyline and Firing
01:32:29
Speaker
Yeah, so remember that whole dusty, the spike thing? Yeah, yeah, that great emotional angle that set up this match, right? Yeah. Yeah. So he was told not to do that. And then he did it anyways. So they waited till after Starrcade and fired him. That is a big loss. Yeah.
01:32:49
Speaker
I think that's like, as far as personality and centrality to the company goes, I think that's the biggest loss we've had over these shows. Yeah, the biggest loss you could have at this point is dusty or flare leaving. Yeah, and wow, that's enormous.
01:33:12
Speaker
I guess it's kind of weird that they wait this long. It's weird that if they have such a problem with the spike angle, I get that they maybe couldn't do anything about it the night it originally aired, but it's in the opening video package. If you have that big of a problem with it, wouldn't you tell them don't use that again? Just show the earlier strikes or something?
01:33:33
Speaker
I do get why you don't, like, can him immediately, because you kind of need him for the storyline and everything, but I do wonder if he knew going into this that he was done or if...
01:33:43
Speaker
I don't know on that one. Yeah. It's literally, it's literally a month from the angle happens on the 26th and this show is December 26th. Yeah. They have a month to decide what to do. They decided to keep them around, let the show go as go on as it is and then do what they want to do. Yeah. That was like a liability where they think they're going to get fined because the no, no blood or. It's a network choice.
01:34:08
Speaker
They weren't super firm about that before because obviously they were on his network, but basically it was, well, you know, you do your own thing, you're on network and we'll give you notes, but now they're literally owned by the people that produced the show. So they obviously have a lot more power over the show and people involved.
01:34:26
Speaker
I would imagine it's probably less that Dusty did this particular angle and more that he did this particular angle after being told specifically not to do something like that. It's the defiance of orders rather than necessarily the nature of what happened.
01:34:46
Speaker
Well, it is unfortunate, but I do think that it, my ability might even be part of it because they would still, if they still use the video spot, it's not because, you know, like it's already done, they just don't try to profit from it or whatever. But, you know, here's an asset that, you know, they would love to build up, but if he's just going to have a career ending injury next month or next time they tell them not to do something, you know, that's a big loss for them.
01:35:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, true. Definitely. On the right side, I know Dusty does return eventually, but I believe this is the end of his full active in-ring career in WCW.
Sting's Future in WCW
01:35:26
Speaker
Correct. On the first actual WCW show. Yep, pretty much.
01:35:35
Speaker
Um, as far as the rest of it, Sting goes on to challenge for the world title following this and has a lot of interesting matches involving flair and other people for that. As for the taxing titles, like with the TV title, they're heavily contested. They changed hand quite a few times during 1989, uh, which builds up towards the next show we're going to do, which the champions going to that show, not that they're on the line, mind you, are, are Rick and Scott Steiner. They sounded brothers.
01:36:06
Speaker
That'll be cool. Tony and Magnum discuss the match, and Magnum says that Sting and Dusty showed that the Road Warriors are not invincible. They could be beaten. They build up that while a disqualification saved the Road Warriors there, Flair can't count on that in the match coming up, because for the upcoming Flair vs. Luger match, Flair will lose the title if he gets disqualified.
01:36:29
Speaker
Magnum says that he thinks that Luger is up for the challenge, but Tony says in baseball they have a Mr. October, and in the NWA they have a Mr. Starrcade, Ric Flair. So our final match is Lex Luger versus Ric Flair with JJ Dillon for Flair's NWA World Heavyweight Championship.
01:36:49
Speaker
So as mentioned in the follow-up on last show, by the beginning of the year, Luger turns face, acquits several horsemen, he has a whole thing with Barry Windham who turns on him. That sort of leads into him moving from challenging for the lower card titles and the tag titles to going right after the top, going after Flair.
01:37:09
Speaker
they have some matches throughout the year. Basically, Rickflower always finds a way to escape, including a DQ situation, thus setting up the no DQ for this match so he can't escape with the title with the DQ. I think it's interesting that they didn't go for just a solid no DQ match. There are DQs, but Flair loses the title if he gets
Match Rules and Crowd Engagement
01:37:30
Speaker
DQ'd. I think that's actually kind of a nice move on Luger's part if it's what he was gunning for because
01:37:36
Speaker
You know, if it's no DQ match, then Flair can just say, hey, Horseman, come on down. Yeah, exactly. Where if it's a DQ match, he still has to be really, really careful in this one. Yeah, sort of his style. Yeah. Luger comes out to some interesting music. It sounds kind of like a grungy, post-apocalyptic 80s movie theme is all I could kind of gather for it.
01:38:02
Speaker
It does make me kind of sad that Luger has lost the nice robe that he had because he's turned face. Flair of course still has his robes and this time it's green and gold. We get a pro Flair sign in the crowd that decries Lex Loser, but another sign says that Lex Luger is going to kick some booty in public if you will. That's a dusty line. Yes.
01:38:26
Speaker
Maybe Dusty said that in support of Luger at some point. I don't know. It was just kind of weird to see a Dusty-ism on a Luger sign. It's like the colliding of universes. Yeah. Speaking of that guy with that sign, he is all over that show, too. Yeah. He's in the front row. He shows up all the time. It's kind of weird. The part that I didn't think about with the filming is it seems like there's a really small gap between the outside, where the barricade is, and the ring.
01:38:50
Speaker
Yeah. Like when they're going behind Bob Coddle and Jim Ross, there's a very small gap. You sort of like got to tuck your way through it where. Well, it's because we've decided to stick the announce table right up against the ring. Right, right. What it comes down to is that guy holding the sign up is like four feet from the ring apron practically. So anytime the camera moves in towards Coddle and JR, he's like, oh, me, me. And they point a sign at it.
01:39:17
Speaker
JR notes that Luthaz is in attendance. I wonder how he felt about seeing his move fail in the first match. JR says that many say that Luthaz is the greatest champion ever. JR is leaning towards Blair. Wait, not Ron Garvin? No, not Ron Garvin, sadly. He also notes that Blair was Rookie of the Year in 1975, and in 1986, the Rookie of the Year was Lex Luger. That's kind of a good hard sell of Luger's potential, I thought.
01:39:48
Speaker
Luger gets a very good reaction if it's not quite as good as Sting or Dusty. Some people cheer Flair, but everybody boos Dylan. Oh yeah. The biggest cheers come from the announcement of the special DQ title loss rule. JR notes that Luger is down 13 pounds because Flair's cardio is among the best, and he and Kottle discuss Luger wanting to pick up some speed and endurance to stay with Flair for the duration.
01:40:17
Speaker
Flair gives a woo to Luger starting out, and celebrates countering a whip by stopping himself with the ropes, even going so far as to high five Dylan and give Luger a smug grin. Luger wipes the smile off his face with a clothesline out of the ring.
01:40:31
Speaker
We get a shot of Luthas in the crowd as Flair comes back in. It looked like he was having some fun. Flair tries to out wrestle Luger, but Luger holds his own and stays calm. Flair gets enraged and charges. Luger hits a power slam and a military press to take solid advantage, and uses a series of holds to wear Flair down some more, while shrugging off Flair's strikes and powering out of his holds. Luger applies a hammerlock with a lot more energy than you normally see, really wrenching on the arm, which looked cool.
01:40:59
Speaker
It takes an eye poke to get Luger reeling, but Flair just can't get him worn down and can't get away from him. J.R. tries to make a point about how having Lou Thez in the crowd really might be a good luck charm for Flair, because he won at the first target with Gene Ganiske, another wrestling legend present. It seems tenuous at best. That's a bit of a stretch, yeah.
01:41:21
Speaker
Luger hits a huge stalling suplex, but misses an elbow drop. And Flair finally gets some sustained offense by hurling Luger out through the ropes and landing strikes on him outside, assisted by the barricades. Luger starts to recover and no cells a chop, jiggling his pecs. Is that his version of the whole cup? I kinda like it. Luger grabs the sleeper, but Flair counters with a belly-to-back suplex that leaves both laying.
01:41:46
Speaker
Flair going up top goes even worse than usual as Luger superplexes him down. Luger gets the figure four. Ref Tommy Young kicks Flair's hands off the ropes the first couple times he goes to them to break, but accepts it the third time. It didn't look like Flair or Dylan cheated there, so I wasn't really sure why he was kicking the hands away. He just doesn't like Rick Flair at all. I was thinking maybe it's just he instinctively thinks Rick Flair figure four spot must kick ropes.
01:42:14
Speaker
Luger goes after Flair, but accidentally elbows Young, and Flair throws Luger over the top rope. Luger lands on his feet and climbs up top to dive on Flair for two. Luger takes it to Flair and gets enormous cheers and calls for the torture rack, but Dylan distracts Luger so Flair can roll out. With Young distracted, Flair grabs a chair and nails Luger in the knee, then goes to work on the leg, earning a Luger self that actually gets bleeped. Oh yeah, for the adult audiences. Yeah.
01:42:44
Speaker
Flair gets the figure 4. The crowd chants for Luger, and Luger fights the hold, so Flair slaps him. That turns out to be a mistake, as Luger screams in rage and powers the hold over so Flair has to break. Luger keeps after Flair, but his power moves take a lot out of him now, and he has to use the ropes to stand back up with his leg injured.
01:43:05
Speaker
Flare tries a jumping forearm, but Luger just stands there and Flare bounces off in an awesome spot. After a big power slam, Luger goes for the torture rack. But his leg gives out, and Flare lands on top and puts his feet on the ropes for the three count and the win. Luger tries to tell Young that Flare was using the ropes, but Young says he didn't see it, and awards the match to Flare. Dylan helps an exhausted and battered Flare out of the ring.
01:43:32
Speaker
I really liked it. The best comparison I have for this match is the match from 86, where it's Nikita Koloff and Rick Flair, where it's the young power guy against Rick Flair, the cheating heel. I obviously really liked that match, but I feel I almost feel like this is maybe the better version, even better version of that.
01:43:52
Speaker
because that one had the mix of mostly just power and striking into flare, whereas they have more moves here and a little more story as they even even flow to it. A slightly more balanced, more nuanced version of that match, I would think.
01:44:08
Speaker
Yeah, obviously Luger is fun to listen to because he sells everything for the back row. There's that joke they made earlier about the sailors and ships at sea heard that one clothesline. Yes. I'm pretty sure they are kept up at night by Luger constantly shouting as they try to sleep.
01:44:26
Speaker
Though I did notice there's one section in the middle of the match where he's so worn down by what players doing that he actually stops Luca selling. Wow. Yeah, it's like it's less. That's his super selling is I'm not going to make any noise. Well, you know, what's the thing? So there's that famous glitch from Civilization where they made Gandhi so peaceful that it looped back around any super violent. It's the same thing. He's in so much pain that he it looped all the back around. He's silent.
01:44:57
Speaker
And yes, I just compared Gandhi and Civilization to Lex Luthor. And I'm proud of myself. But no, I really liked this story. My only issue really is that on Luger's side, there's no build to figure four. He's beating him up. He's beating him up. It's really good. And then so he's like, hmm, superplex. That targets the back. So I'll go after figure four.
01:45:17
Speaker
Do you think maybe that's an intentional storyline thing, that it's showing Luger doesn't have the technical expertise of Rick? Or do you think it's just an oversight?
01:45:30
Speaker
I could see that if, you know, going back to the Cola Flair match where there was clearly that, not that Cola couldn't wrestle because obviously he could and did, but that was definitely more about him just using more power and striking. I could see if that was in that match, that would make perfect sense as that answer. Yeah. But he's, you know, he's doing arm holds, he's doing suplexes, doing body slams. So I don't quite see that. I think it's just,
01:45:55
Speaker
We have this middle point and we have to have the face use figure four and Ric Flair. It just kind of didn't connect. It's not a bad, really bad thing. It's just, it stands out because everything else is so good and suddenly like, oh, figure four time now. Yeah. A little buildup to that would have been nice. Okay. Flair side obviously Flair, once he can cheat and use the chair, he's obviously going, we're at figure four.
01:46:19
Speaker
And I like that it plays into the finish. It does, it's one of those things where it does make Luga look a little dumb. He could just not go before torture rack. He's shown he can throw Ric Flair around and stay in his shops. But then he goes, no, I'm going to do a move where I have to lift him up on my bad knee and then move off the ball of the knee, shaking up and down to cause torque. And oh no, that hurts my knee.
01:46:42
Speaker
If they've done a little bit more of, I just can't keep them down, I have to go for my big move, where it doesn't quite feel like they get there. Yeah. Yeah. It was things where when they have peated matches and more experience together, a little thing like that get worked out.
01:46:58
Speaker
Obviously, there's a screwy finish aspect to it, but very similar you were saying with the Wyndham using the advantage and figuring out when to knock Bammam down and get in there. It really goes down to the smarter heel using the Ferris thing. So it doesn't bother me nearly as much as those previous two matches of the finish did. Because even though it's a cheating finish, it is still a clean finish. Yeah. As clear as the heel brick player finish and he wins, the pinfall finish is going to be using all those caveats there.
01:47:29
Speaker
This is probably one of the matches I actually like, Rick. Not that I don't like Rick Flair, I'm just saying. This one, I think he did a really good job building up Lex. There are some points where like, yeah, I found it funny when they were talking about how Lex had lost weight to gain speed and I don't really think of
01:47:51
Speaker
Ric Flair being super fast out of all the other wrestlers. I think he's cunning or, you know, he has some strategy there, but no, he, he did a good job, you know, really selling a bunch of those whips where he heads towards the turnbuckle and flips himself around and then flops down, which is always a little comical to me. But then you have Luger selling on top of that. So, uh, it's all good.
01:48:19
Speaker
I didn't know if they'd hold hands and then they in the middle and like they were both like they were in pain. It felt weird to see Luger use like a wrist lock or some sort of you know arm submission. At least with his physique it seems like he would be the just do nothing but slams and jumps and and everything so I thought that was a little odd. Or John he could have done a bear hug. Oh yeah there you go. Could have.
01:48:50
Speaker
Okay, well, like the sleeper, it's just like a modified bear hug. It's a face hug. Yeah. Not what I'd think of when I hear the word face hug, but yes. Well, you know, like aliens is out, you know, and it just seemed like Luger was doing moves that didn't really, I mean, I haven't seen him wrestle other than, you know, the last arcade, but it just seems like, I don't remember him doing a figure four or a wrist lock. I don't know if it's just- You felt like it didn't really fit his style?
01:49:20
Speaker
Maybe not. Again, I haven't seen enough of his wrestling to really fully say that, but it seemed like, you know, he had chosen the leg lock to show Rick he could do it too. Beat him with his own moves kind of thing. I did like the pectoral comeback that he did where he's like flaunts and taunts his abilities and then goes all, would you say hogan-esque or? Yeah, it's like the whole cup, but in his case it's peck-chickles, which
01:49:48
Speaker
It's something Luger does frequently and he's inordinately proud of that talent, which I would be if I had pegs. When they're doing the leg locking and he does that slow crunch up and then he slaps him in the face and then he hawks out again. I thought that was done well. Good camera work and the crowd seemed to love it at that time.
01:50:13
Speaker
I don't get the ref. I only need 10% of my field division to see that they're pinned. I need to look towards the camera constantly.
01:50:22
Speaker
Iron will and focus. I know they did that to kind of save face for Lex.
Criticism of Referee Decisions
01:50:29
Speaker
You know, we're like, oh, well, he took advantage of me other than messing with my knee and everything. But I kind of wish they just gave it to Rick without having to do the last bit of dirtiness. I just want to be happy that the person won overcome adversity rather than inflict it.
01:50:50
Speaker
It's probably just muscle memory at this point near the ropes. He is climbing them. He might not even be supposed to do it. It's just like, yeah. But Luger did a good job and I guess Rick had to win. Yeah, I really, really enjoyed this one. It's actually about 35 minutes long, I think. I believe so. But it doesn't feel like it.
01:51:13
Speaker
No. There is some repetition in the match. Luger repeatedly does corner punch spots and he hits several power slams over the course of it, for instance. But it never really slows down or feels dull. Luger has a lot of personality in this match and he interacts really well with the crowd. And Flair plays off him really, really well and really shows the fear of Luger's ability to just keep coming through all his strikes. Luger doesn't actually feel outright superhuman. No.
01:51:42
Speaker
The player is able to wear him down a few times in the match, so it feels like we have a pretty nice back and forth flow after Luger's initial rush of offense. Luger does a pretty nice job selling the leg, and there's a nice sort of theme difference in his moves. Early in the match, he easily uses his power and even uses a big stalling suplex. Well, later in the match, especially after the chair hit to the knee, he uses shorter throws and his knee gives out after the only longer one, a military press.
01:52:11
Speaker
It's a nice way of building to the ending I thought.
01:52:14
Speaker
I liked the foot on the ropes pin for this one because I thought it really, really builds up Luger. Even with the injury and Luger's mistake in going for the torture rack, it nicely feels that Flair just barely sneaks out a win over him. So it gets you looking forward to like, okay, what could Luger accomplish with a little more seasoning? And he did a collapse at the end, so you need to call upon whatever he could. Yeah.
01:52:42
Speaker
Like with last year's Luger versus Dusty, it feels like this match does a ton to build up Lex Luger and he doesn't lose his momentum in losing here. No. I came off feeling like Luger could definitely hang with the world champion. I totally bought him at that level. So really a lot of credit to both guys here for some great character work and for maintaining a really fast pace over quite a long match. Excellently done.
01:53:06
Speaker
I do have to wonder, how many times does he have to do the chop and has no effect that he learns? Because it happens when he fights Ding as well as Luger. Other people, probably Hogan as well. Yeah. Hogan matches. I'm guessing something happens. He keeps trying them. 10 minutes later, I'll try him again and go, wait, it didn't work. He even hurts his hand on one of them this time. Yes. I assume it's because Lex countered the chop with a Peck Jiggle. Right. And maybe pinned his hand there. Yeah.
01:53:37
Speaker
In the coming months, Rick Flair is attacked by a masked Ricky Steamboat who makes his return to WCW. A happy ending. For us anyway, Ricky Steamboat's back. Yeah. They would go on to have what many wrestling purists call the greatest match of all time. The problem is that that's not a Starrcade next year, so we aren't covering it yet. Yeah.
01:54:01
Speaker
I had to talk about the Forestmen because they have an interesting 89. So I had to go back just a little bit for this. So going into 88 when the year starts, the Forestmen, you got Rick Flair, managed by Dade Dylann. You've got Lex Luger, who doesn't say that long, obviously, placed by Barry Winips, which kind of did fairly even trade. And you've got Arnett Tully. Yeah.
01:54:23
Speaker
come September, Arnhem totally leaves the WWF, which is why they dropped the titles to the Midnight Express, who quickly dropped them to the Road Warriors.
01:54:34
Speaker
And then you have what I talked about before, like Barry Windham leaving. Following that bit where Max Steamboat Attack works with Flair, he gets really mad and fires J.J. Dillon in Storyline. When in fact, J.J. Dillon goes to work for WF and back off his job. Okay. So they now needed a replacement for the manager, oversee your character. Their solution is to take Hero of Matsuda.
01:55:00
Speaker
and make him the new manager or overseer character for the Four Horsemen. Other people join, I'll talk about that in the next show, because it's kind of interesting, but the worst thing that happened, unfortunately, through the middle of the year is, with all these people gone, with Hiram Matsuda now overseeing them, there's a brief period where there is no Four Horsemen. In its place, there is the Yamazaki Corporation. Okay. That's what it'd become with here at Matsuda.
01:55:29
Speaker
Okay. Michael PS Hayes joins. They tease other people joining, but yeah, this is kind of forgotten dark period where they're literally not even for horsemen. Thankfully they sort of rebound towards the end of the year. But yeah, just, I was surprised to learn that the period where they re christened the force from the Yamazaki corporation. That's not quite as intimidating a name, is it?
Ric Flair's Promo and Rivalries
01:55:52
Speaker
No, I don't know. If it was Kawasaki, they could at least all have motorcycles.
01:55:58
Speaker
Kawasaki would've been good. I first thought reading it was, was that maybe it really had to die hard, but it's actually not the different Japanese name. Oh yeah. The building in Die Hard is yeah. Following what I'm sure you'll mention is billed as Luger's final title match, which obviously is not the case. He would go on to challenge for the US title. Okay.
01:56:21
Speaker
We go back to the announcers, and Tony, JR, and Coddle all agree that Lugar really proved himself despite the loss. Coddle says that he will definitely be world champ one day. JR and Coddle have to talk over an announcement about the upcoming Bunkhouse Stampede match, which we won't get. It is a dark match for this show. Following that, we go backstage with Magnum for an interview with Ric Flair.
01:56:51
Speaker
standing here with the man, Ric Flair, who just retained the world's heavyweight title. Despite all odds, despite what all the skeptics said, maybe Ric Flair was pushed to the ultimate limit, but he is still the world's heavyweight champion.
01:57:03
Speaker
Well, I've come to live by one motto, and that is survival. This is the greatest, toughest sport in the world. This is the National Wrestling Alliance, the Big Daddy. There's nothing like it. And tonight, for three hours, people around the world saw the best competition in a man's sport, the National Wrestling Alliance. And Ric Flair once again called it luck.
01:57:33
Speaker
call it the grace of God, call it the scab off down to my chin. Whatever you want to call it, I'm standing here. I never claimed to play this game other roles. I played Rick Flair's way, and that's time at all costs. And here I am, and I'll tell you, and the Crockets, and Ted Turner, and anybody else that doesn't like it, to get this, you got to beat this, bottom line.
01:58:03
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, it is now time for the broadcast stampede. This message goes especially to you and those millions of adoring fans that look at you, that look at you as being their idol figure, their role model, whatever they live and breathe every day. That's what you represent, Lugar, but the bottom line is right now,
01:58:29
Speaker
You will never wrestle Ric Flair again for the World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship.
01:58:39
Speaker
It's going to cost James Dillon a lot of money, but we're going to roll, champion. Money's no problem. Lawyers, Ted Turner, Crockett, had mixed their differs. Luger, you had your last shot tonight. That was it, pal. How do you like that, huh? You like being told by me, you're done? That's it. Last shot. You, my friend, are history. Yes. I'm the champ.
01:59:10
Speaker
Woo! Ha ha ha ha ha! Yeah, Esther and Logan! Woo! Ric Flair is awesome.
01:59:28
Speaker
he's in full lunatic ranting mode here and it is great in past years he's come off as you know still respectful or still a fighting champion even if he's towing the line not here no here he is full-on ranting villain that just wants to take the win and deny the hero another shot
01:59:50
Speaker
It really makes you want to see Luger somehow get another shot at him anyway and wipe that smug grin off his face maybe with another monster clothesline outside the ring. The Bunkhouse Stampede announcement is unfortunately timed. Yeah. Unfortunate.
02:00:11
Speaker
I wonder like was it just that loud where they could actually hear it backstage or did they forget to turn off the ring announcer sound feed again? No, I think the echo that go they could have just had one of the doors open or something. Yeah
02:00:24
Speaker
Or could have been playing over the PA in like the hallway outside of the room or something. It's just like this continues to happen this night. It's, ugh. Ah well. It's a great promo anyway. It's fun to watch and it made me want to see Flair beaten. I would like for you to convince me that there is no drug use involved in that rant. I thought it was a good promo from him. Like he just kept on escalating. I don't know if it was just because he wanted to talk over the other announcements.
02:00:53
Speaker
or you know like he had something to say but he talks about like it's gonna take a lot of money and you have to go through me but guess what you're not gonna get a chance yeah he kind of he starts out just like claiming victory then he goes to Luger I hate you and all of your fans and then he goes to
02:01:13
Speaker
I'm also never giving you ever another title shot against me. And no matter how much money it takes me, how do you like that? And you're just like, he's just being a jerk now. Because we've had the true Ric Flair as a performer for a few shows now.
02:01:30
Speaker
But on those shows, we haven't gotten an actual Ric Flair promo for the past couple years. So this is, I think, our first actual look at the evil lunatic Ric Flair, just arrogant heel promo style. And it's terrific. You can see why he has such a long career in wrestling. He's one of the best talkers in the business by far. It's absolutely amazing to see.
02:01:58
Speaker
I was a little annoyed when I first learned that there's this crazy bunkhouse stampede match and
Bunkhouse Stampede and NWA's Future
02:02:02
Speaker
we don't get it. But then I'm reading Wikipedia about it, seeing who's in it. I'm not as sad about it. It's won by Junkyard Dog, the only guy to win a bunkhouse match that's not Dusty Rhodes, because he won every one of them that actually counted. But among the competitors you have, Abdul the Butcher, sadly cut from the show. I know Bob is disappointed.
02:02:24
Speaker
the team of Commando Ray and Commando Boone. One of them was one half of the Zambui Express. Oh, boy. Yeah. Some people I do like, Eddie Gilbert. Actually, this would have been at first Dustin Rhodes appearance. Oh, really? Yeah, he's in the bunkhouse to appear. He just doesn't win it.
02:02:42
Speaker
Interesting all of the magnetic press people are in it. They're also the panastics are in it we at Larry's a Bisco just kind of weird and Al Perez who the one point was gonna be a huge star and then Never really fold up on it
02:02:57
Speaker
There's a little bit we'll get in a couple of shows, but it's not quite the same. But yeah, I was like, Oh, is Matt going to see? I'm like, I'm okay. Yeah. A lot of people working two matches that night going into the bunkhouse stampede. Yeah. Got all the midnight. She got junk our dog. You know, that's, I'll keep looking. If we find it, we can watch it and do a mini review or something. Oh, okay.
02:03:20
Speaker
We go back to the announcers to wrap up the show. Tony reflects on the NWA, developing from individual territories to a national power. He wonders where the NWA goes from here, riding on the shoulders of one of the greatest champions, Ric Flair. As they go into 1989, Tony sees good things coming for the NWA.
02:03:41
Speaker
JR and Coddle try to discuss what's coming up next, battling sound errors, and Coddle finally gets out that the NWA is like a shooting star, it's gonna take off. I don't think that's how shooting stars work. No. I think they more descend.
02:03:56
Speaker
They also got a winner, so they're super braggadocious at the end of this show. Roughly a month removed from having to be bought out to stay in business. Yeah, true. So is that them just really being braggart about it or is it like a weird defense mechanism? Yeah, we're great forever. Definitely nothing wrong. I could see as that or it might, I mean, honestly, I could characterize it as relief that they're like, you know, we were, we saw the dark times and we might be coming out of them now.
02:04:25
Speaker
I don't get that latter part of it from the promo, or from any other way they say it. It's just like, we're the best. Oh, we've been the best. Best forever. They recap the night and promote the next show. And we close with a video package of the show's matches. Starrcade88 has drawn to a close. What are your overall thoughts? It's a pretty strong show.
02:04:47
Speaker
more memorable for me than A7 was. A7 was good, but it all kind of blends together. Even now, like a month removed, I don't have tons of memories, specifically. I'm sure I could be prompted to go, oh yeah, that thing, but they don't come to me right away, whereas I feel like a lot of this stuff's still gonna stick with me. All the matches are purely solid, there's only one weak point for me. That's early enough in the show that they can sort of move past it.
02:05:15
Speaker
Obviously there's a lot of dusty booking that I have issues with. Either non finishes like this Deque or sort of shady finishes like the Countout or convoluted finishes like the TV title. They don't ruin the show and the show is thankfully staying at the seven match length and things shorter than other shows were like 86. It definitely a solid show. There's enough there even if you don't like the finishes you can enjoy everything for me I would say.
02:05:43
Speaker
I enjoyed watching this one with the Road Warriors and Dusty Rhodes and Sting match in particular. I know you're going to ask us that later, but spoilers. Sorry. No, good. The first two matches were quick. You know, we didn't really have the normal, everything went off with the bang.
02:06:03
Speaker
I thought that promo footage was actually turned into a match suddenly. Got to meet some new people. A lot of great backstory now that we've done this review. There's a lot. The matches all have a little bit more meaning to me now. Yeah. This is my favorite match with Rick Flair. Good. Yeah. Nice. He's on an upswing for you. That's good if it's going upward in trajectory.
02:06:31
Speaker
Those non-shooting stars.
02:06:38
Speaker
For me, it's the tale of two shows. The wrestling on this show, the performances, the announcing, all that is really good. The production, however, has backslid almost all the way to where we were at Starrcade 83. I really wasn't expecting that at all. This is now being run by an actual TV company. So I thought that things like camera work, sound equipment and all like that would be on the upswing.
02:07:04
Speaker
but they were all serious, serious downgrades from last year. The sound was inconsistent, they seemed to struggle to keep the mics working properly, mics cut out in interviews and announcing segments, the wrong sound feeds played at times. Even when everything seemed to be working, something just seemed wrong with the sound levels this year. I know I don't have that much room to talk as my own audio editing isn't that great, but the way things seemed to jump or dive in volume was just distracting, and the announcers even got drowned out by the entrance music.
02:07:33
Speaker
The camera work was even worse than prior years for the most part, and without the excuse of the scaffold or cages this time, there's important moments and matches that are frequently just not quite in frame, the wrong angles are chosen, one particular camera seemed constantly tilted off kilter a little bit. It did, it did, yeah. Production was just shoddy, apart from the opening video package, which was great.
02:07:58
Speaker
But the show itself was really, really good. We had seven matches, six of them were great fun, and the one remaining one was acceptable enough to me.
02:08:10
Speaker
Everyone seemed motivated and they put on excellent performances. We got some wonderful, genuine moments like Steiner's title win alongside some excellent character work like Lunatic promo Ric Flair and the Cornet vs. Dangerously scuffles. The matches had emotion and felt really, really important.
02:08:28
Speaker
The announced teams definitely helped there. JR and Coddle emphasized the history of the wrestlers involved and built up their personal stories, and Tony and Magnum brought up the chain of title matches and helped hammer home each match story and how the night was progressing. I thought the two announced teams would feel strange, but it actually worked really well for me. The transitions felt natural, and the two teams played well off of each other. I particularly liked Coddle bringing up the predictions that Tony and Magnum made to put his own spin on them.
02:08:54
Speaker
Coddle and JR had great chemistry as a commentary team, and similar to Tony and JR last year, they had some good discussions that really brought out the story of the matches. There was... I felt like a kind of excitement in the air on this one in general. The crowd was happy, and aside from a few rebellious voices, they really cheered on the faces. The wrestlers and hosts, though, seemed excited here, too. I guess...
02:09:18
Speaker
It's not that hard to understand. JCP was struggling this past year. Yes. But now things are different and people can keep doing what they love. I guess maybe that's it. There's a feeling of possibility here, I think. People being excited for the future. For now, at least, it feels like a hopeful company. The show's order is pretty strange. Yes. We have three tag matches in a row.
02:09:45
Speaker
then two singles matches, then a tag match, then a singles match. The first two tag matches were really great, mine, but it still felt like maybe we could have done with breaking those up with some of the singles stuff. Or two in a row maybe, but three, that's a little much. And honestly, four tag matches is just maybe too many for one show. No matter how hard they worked, it was hard not to feel a little bit too samey by the end.
02:10:09
Speaker
On the previous shows, none of them had an extra gimmick like having Caitlyn. Yeah, yeah, it's all just straight tag. Yeah. Do you think it was a timing thing where like we want to get everyone in, but we have so much time for matches and we'd rather... Yeah, maybe or maybe. I mean, it's just like, I think it just is the angles that they ended up working this year just all naturally lent themselves to tag matches, but there's really a lot of them.
02:10:36
Speaker
production difficulties and weird show order aside, this was a really, really fun watch and is among my favorite Star Cades thus far.
Production Critiques and Event Highlights
02:10:46
Speaker
There's some backsliding here with the production and all, but by and large, something went really right this year. And while I'll talk yours off about the sound and camera issues and how odd it feels that we've gone back to very basic entrances again, this was a great show.
02:11:02
Speaker
Time for Match of the Night and MVP. Al, you want to go? Sure. So, I debate a lot about Match of the Night. I really like the Rick Steiner microtundum match. As I said, my issue with how they sort of got to the finish is the one that keeps it from being Match of the Night for me.
02:11:19
Speaker
Likewise, I really liked the opening match in the logistics. There just, there was some nice nuance to it. It wasn't quite enough to take it above like a really, really good tag match to being extra special. Like with the rock and roll express versus the Anderson, for example, it's going to be hard to top that. And I hope someone does.
02:11:42
Speaker
So it comes down to be the highest quality one with the closest thing to also having clean finish. So that's why I picked Flair Luger. Okay. I liked that story and like how it builds, why I felt the issue was not perfect. I liked the overall feel of it. And like I said, during the recap, for me, it's a better version, stronger, more subtle nuanced version of the Cole off match from 86. Yeah, it's a terrific match. Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
02:12:10
Speaker
As far as MVP, that was really tricky for me too. The way I looked at it was, there was the two matches I talked about, I couldn't put match the night two and then the one she didn't mention yet, which in this part, which is the whole thing was sting and dusty and there were worries. I liked all the minutes just began finishing all that. Yeah. So I really came down to me between picking sting or breaks down of my MVP because for me, both of them really shined in the role.
02:12:39
Speaker
they had and they did their part very well. So yeah, for me, it came down to Stinger Rick Steiner. I'm even, as I'm saying, I'm still not a hundred percent set on it. I feel like I gave it to Sting cause I think Sting's part in the match is the least blemished cause he did a really good job. It's just, they did that finish. Uh, John.
02:13:02
Speaker
A match of the night has to go to the Road Warriors versus Dusty Rhodes and Sting. Like I said, I want everyone in there to win. That's like the ideal match, taking the favorites out of other Starkades and just putting them against each other.
02:13:18
Speaker
Yeah. I can see that. But that said, my MVP for the night does not come from that match at all. Oh. Oh. And I think you will be quite surprised by who I choose. And I'm going to go with Rick Steiner. All right. Because I enjoyed this character. I enjoyed that they did all the heel stuff of the storyline where he shouldn't have won. And he came back.
02:13:44
Speaker
And the crowd was loving it. Like at that point, you know, there were some other big points of the night where they were just ecstatic. But I think that the biggest one at that point was for Rick and he's doing laps and he was clearly there. And even the promo afterwards was nice, even though the sound cut out, I think that I liked the, the joking, it was jovial overall. And I enjoyed his character. So, and his abilities, you know, so, uh, I choose Rick.
02:14:14
Speaker
Honestly, re-listening to that promo made me really unsure of going in and actually asking me. I had written down Sting Oryx on my notes, but I was 80% towards Sting. But here again, I'm like, oh, maybe not. That's Richard Bakky. Yeah, it's just such a fun character-driven promo that just works really well. Absolutely. Well, this is going to be interesting. I think this will be the very first show that we've not had at least two of us agreeing on one of our picks. All right.
02:14:42
Speaker
So for me, the match of the night is Rick Steiner versus Mike Rotunda.
02:14:48
Speaker
I complained a bit about some over-reliance on headlocks for transitions in this one, but you know what? It doesn't matter. Every single other thing about this match is amazing. Every move is crisp and perfect. There's a ton of variety, a great mix of amateur wrestling and big power moves, some of the best clotheslines I have ever seen from both guys. Top it all off with a really great storyline and a lovable face in Rick Steiner, and you get some amazing crown interaction.
02:15:16
Speaker
What really did it for me though was just that sight of an elated Steiner racing around the ring post-match overjoyed and pointing in disbelief and happiness at Rotunda and grabbing the title and running full tilt with it overhead, all while the crowd cheers wildly. I actually teared up a little watching that. It was a beautiful moment. It's a great moment, absolutely. Yeah.
02:15:37
Speaker
For MVP, there's a ton of good choices for MVP tonight, some of which you've already mentioned. Rick Steiner, of course, deserves a mention for that moment and the rest of that match in his promo. Mike Rotunda provided a really great foil. Flair, of course, is brilliant. Sting deserves particular praise for his energy and unmatched crowd reaction tonight and that crazy dive outside in particular.
02:16:03
Speaker
but I'm giving it to Lex Luger. Luger's here in a match against Ric Flair. He actually doesn't have to work that hard to make that work. Flair is so good by this point that he could, as the saying goes, carry a broomstick to a good match. But Luger pushed himself really hard, and he put on the best show he possibly could, keeping up with Flair in a fast-paced and very lengthy match.
02:16:31
Speaker
The announcers talked about him improving his cardio, and I don't think that was all story. Luger clearly came prepared for a long performance, and he put on a great show. All the little details just seemed to come together for him perfectly. So, Lex Luger is my MVP for tonight. Fair enough. I'm glad you chose Lex. That was my next choice. I was wondering if that was gonna get your way. I certainly considered him. I definitely didn't draw him out.
02:17:02
Speaker
I also want to mention the surprise of the night here. Tommy Rogers surprised me tonight. He really made the fantastic versus the varsity club match superb. Had a whole bunch of cool spots that I wasn't expecting to see at all. It was a great match, but he just stood out in it and really constantly seemed to have some new cool thing to do or a perfectly timed spot that really impressed me. So I just wanted to note him in particular. Yeah, absolutely.
Conclusion and Reflections on Starrcade 88
02:17:28
Speaker
Well that wraps up our review of Starrcade 88 True Grit. I hope that you've enjoyed listening to us here tonight. Next time we'll be back to review Starrcade 89 Future Shock.
02:17:46
Speaker
If you've enjoyed listening to us here tonight, you can find further podcast episodes on iTunes, Google Play Podcasts, and Spotify. You can also follow us on Twitter at Let's Go to the Ring. That's with the number 2 in place of the word 2. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Let's Go to the Ring. If you've enjoyed the show, please do help us spread the word. Many thanks to OSW Review for attendance and pay-per-view figures tonight.
02:18:12
Speaker
This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen and John Mullins signing off. Good night, everybody. And happy wrestling. Get some rest.