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Episode 8: Starrcade '90
34 Plays6 years ago
Sting has risen to the top and captured the World Heavyweight Title, but the mysterious Black Scorpion threatens to bring him crashing back down. It's mask vs. title as Sting seeks the Black Scorpion's identity. Meanwhile, which tag team will be declared Champions of the Universe? Will the Horsemen get revenge on Doom for their attack on Ric Flair? Will the amazing power of computer science defeat Terry Taylor and his five-arm? And which match drove John into an existential crisis? For all this and more, let's go to the ring!
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
Paul carries on noting that the Steiners are illiterate, taking over for con- ah, taking over for con- why can I not say this? Paul carries on noting that the Steiners are illiterate, taking over co- again, I clearly need to change how I say this. It's illiterate? Yes. It's ironic, isn't it? Okay.
00:00:49
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 missed last year's podcasting tournament due to injury, but was still in the opening video package, Alec Bridget. Dora, my bone tumors are much better now. And the master of the Fool Nelson, John Mullins. I don't even know how to do that move.
Starrcade '90 Event Overview
00:01:19
Speaker
Today we're taking a look at the first Starcade of the 1990s Starcade 90 collision course. Starcade 90 was broadcast on December 16th, 1990 from the Keel Auditorium in St. Louis, Missouri in front of 7,200 fans, 6,357 paid, with an additional $175,000 tuning in by pay-per-view. As a side note, that's the highest number of pay-per-view buys for a Starcade so far.
00:01:49
Speaker
but it's also the lowest number of pay-per-view buys for a WCW show overall for 1990. As another side note, over on the WWF side of things, WrestleMania this year drew a crowd of 64,287, 61,864 paid, and 550,000 pay-per-view buys to see Sting's former tag team partner, The Ultimate Warrior,
00:02:12
Speaker
best perennial champion Hulk Hogan for the WWF title. It was clearly a good year for wrestlers in face paint, as like his former tag team partner, Sting has also ascended as world champion this year, but now he faces his greatest, or at least silliest, challenge yet.
00:02:36
Speaker
Nope, it's the mysterious Black Scorpion, a masked wrestler who's been tormenting Sting with clues to his identity for months.
Sting vs Black Scorpion Match
00:02:44
Speaker
Tonight, it's title versus mask. Sting will reveal the Black Scorpion's identity or lose his hard-won World Heavyweight Championship trying.
00:02:56
Speaker
We get an amazing opening this year, set in outer space with loads of asteroids flying around, interspersed with pictures of the wrestlers in frames shaped like the player's ship from the game Asteroids, which released in 1979. Wrestling, as always, is on the cutting edge of pop culture. In all fairness, it's a pretty fun intro and a pretty high-tech one for 1990. I loved the Starrcade logo this year, too, with the starburst effect in the middle of the logo. Very colorful.
00:03:24
Speaker
They cost an extra five bucks. Worth it. JR welcomes us to the show alongside co-host Paul E. Dangerously, and we get a shot of the crowd and the stage as the fireworks go off. The stage has the WCW letters in the center, framed by twin multicolored stars. Not as cool as last year's stage, but still a nice design, and I appreciate seeing more work put into these than in the past. I do wonder why the WCW letters are kind of slanted diagonally, though. It looks a bit awkward.
00:03:54
Speaker
Well, they're on the rise. They're going, Oh, okay. It's a metaphor. There you go. We also have an elevated entrance ramp this year, heading all the way to the ring at pretty much the same height as the mat. I love that kind of setup. I wish it was something used more often by wrestling promotions. It looks cool. And I think it allows for more variety in spots when fighting outside the ring.
00:04:19
Speaker
I liked it a lot, with the exception of the weird sudden drop-off right at the end. It was a little odd.
00:04:25
Speaker
I think it's great that, you know, we're getting shots now of, of just the wrestlers and not them wading through the crowd. True. Yeah. They always use, they used to have like the gotta find your way through the crowd and clamber over the barricades and stuff like that to get in. So there's definitely an improvement over that. And I'm sure the crowd, I mean, unless you're right up against it, you know, you might appreciate it that you're getting a similar view no matter where you're
Tributes and Technical Issues
00:04:52
Speaker
at. True. Yeah.
00:04:54
Speaker
JR gives best wishes to the troops in Operation Desert Shield and throws to Paul, who builds up the Black Scorpion angle and the Mask vs. title match. JR goes over the tag team tournament, the United States title match, and the world tag team title match, as well as announcing that Dick the Bruiser will be the referee for the world title match.
00:05:14
Speaker
Ring announcer Gary Michael Capetta introduces the greatest promoter of all time, Missouri's own Sam Munchnick, to intro the show. The microphone proceeds to immediately stop working, so we miss a lot of his speech. He says something about promoting here for 37 years and wrestling being the world's oldest sport and a great sport. He thanks the crowd and seems genuinely touched by their cheers and welcomes them to St. Louis. I wish the microphone had worked properly, but this still came off kinda nice.
00:05:43
Speaker
Well bear in mind he's a former promoter so he probably owed the sound guy like five bucks and he's like, oh you know what, I'm drinking my coffee now. No, they have to have some sort of glitch. I think it would be even worse luck if they didn't have some sort of audio or visual issue right off the bat. If it goes wrong early it won't go wrong later on. Kinda. Yeah.
00:06:05
Speaker
The National Anthem appears to start up early, as Kepeta talks through about half of it, announcing that the show is being taped for broadcast to the armed forces before he finally asks people to stand for the National Anthem, when it's about, you know, half to three quarters over. It never quite goes right. No, there it is. We've got 14 matches this year, so strap in folks, it's gonna be a long one.
00:06:30
Speaker
Thirteen. I slept through one. Let's go to the ring.
Beautiful Bobby Eaton vs The Z Man
00:06:40
Speaker
Our first match is Beautiful Bobby Eaton vs The Z Man.
00:06:45
Speaker
Tom Zink as a young prospector came in at the beginning of 1990 just after the last arcade. He was in a promising run as a co-holder of the USA tag team titles with Brian Pillman before I got injured. He comes back from injury shortly before this show and he built up his 35 match winning streak. But I'm sure he'll be the longest winning streak in history of WWE. Bar none.
00:07:09
Speaker
I don't know if this is an issue of their taping schedule, because they're at the point where they're taping two or three shows at once in the Disney Complex to save money. But from all the notes they have, Tom Zink won the TV title of our Anderson on December 4th, 1990. Even though he doesn't come out as the TV champion here on December 16th, nor does he have the title, nor is it mentioned, nor is it shown with Anderson.
00:07:37
Speaker
As for probably Eaton, obviously we know him from Minute Express. There was a lot of issue when New Management came in earlier in the year. We lost a bunch of people, unfortunately, to that. Two of whom were the Road Warriors, who went with WDF. And also we lost Minute Express, who went to SMW, Smokey Mountain Wrestling. Eaton decided to stay, so he was sort of put in an awkward spot of being a singles wrestler now. He's trying to find his spot while Tom Zink is trying to sort of build up to a big new spot coming in.
00:08:07
Speaker
This year, we sometimes, or most of the time, get Starrcade stats for the wrestlers during their entrances. It's kind of a nice touch, honestly. I like these nods to wrestling as a sport, but you have to do them consistently and, if I'm honest, better than they end up doing them. Eaton's picture on the stats page is incredibly dull. Just him in a basic WCW collared shirt, just kind of standing there. At least show him in his entrance gear or something.
00:08:35
Speaker
The Midnight Express is no more, but he's still using the music. His opponent, the Z-Man, likes to utilize a drop kick from the top rope, if possible. It's good to know that he doesn't like to use it when it's impossible, that seems like it'd be a tougher strategy to implement. It's all about qualifiers here. Yeah.
00:08:54
Speaker
Paul says that Z-Man has been hiding in tag wrestling, but Eaton's been in tag wrestling because he's the greatest tag team wrestler in history, and now he's out to prove he can be a singles wrestler too. So I guess Paul came around to Eaton after the midnights versus midnights feud. Yeah, given that he was literally trying to kick him out of the company, yes, apparently so.
00:09:13
Speaker
all on water under the bridge don't you think it would be a better entrance uh thing if they played after midnight like the actual i think that would be like someone would recognize that there you go yeah or around midnight
00:09:29
Speaker
I don't know if they want to play copper and music on the show like this. They wouldn't want it in trouble. We're told that Ric Flair has withdrawn from the World Tag Team title match due to injury. More on that later. Likely story. John, are you suggesting that Ric Flair might not be telling the truth? I would never suggest that. In this world, there's only two people I can trust. Ric Flair and Nick Patrick. I know you'll never be disappointed.
00:09:59
Speaker
The match starts up and Z-Man gains advantage and gets a series of quick pin attempts off of crossbodies, but Eaton keeps kicking out and gets in the ropes to break his momentum. Paul explains that Eaton is no longer a member of the Midnight Express because his partner started dating Yoko Ono and the tag team split up.
00:10:17
Speaker
The Beatles disbanded in the 1970s. Asteroids. Yeah. Z-Man stays in control through some counter-wrestling, but Eaton counters a whip with a shoulder block and hits some weird elbow strikes, placing the elbow against Z-Man's head and hitting his fist with the other hand to drive the elbow in. It kind of seems less effective that way. It's just like a weird stylistic thing, I guess. Yeah. But I've never seen an animal through it in history of ever, so...
00:10:43
Speaker
It actually looks kind of neat, but then you actually think about it. They're just trying to change it up.
00:10:49
Speaker
Z-Man nicely counters a monkey flip by landing on his feet, and hits a couple good dropkicks for two. Not the top rope kind, though, that's not possible yet. Eaton slows him down, and lands some hard punches that knock him to the ramp, so Z-Man's suplex is Eaton out on the ramp. JR says that's not a DQ because Z-Man was outside himself. Paul says that should make it even more illegal, I'm not entirely sure what that would mean. Does he lose a second match, too, or...
00:11:15
Speaker
I assume you just talk in a really mean voice to him and you tell him that? I guess so. JR calls Paul psychoceramic, a crackpot. JR brings up his past as a ref, but Paul says that JR was so good at being a ref that he had to become an announcer to make a living. Ouch. No response, JR. Just moves on. Yes.
00:11:38
Speaker
Eaton hits his big leg drop off the top, but Z-Man counters a second jumping move with a bad superkick. Z-Man goes up, but Eaton dodges the top rope dropkick. But the Starrcade stats told me he'd only do that when it was possible. How could they lie to me like this? Yeah. I'm only gonna believe Ric Flair and Nick Patrick from now on like you, Al. Solid choice. Eaton rolls the stunned Z-Man up for the win.
00:12:04
Speaker
I made note of how quick everything was, which is nice for an opening match. Other shows have been kind of slower slogs or had different people in it. I can see why they would go with this as their opening match if they're not going to start with the tournament, which I guess they aren't.
00:12:19
Speaker
My problem, I think, is just really with the finish. Because we know from other shows, not necessarily from Star Kate, from other shows in the build-up, that that leg drop is Bobby Eaton's finisher. There's a clash where he almost pins Rick Flair with that, so it's a big deal. And he just does it and then kind of stands there like, yeah, I hit the move, and then doesn't try to pin him.
00:12:42
Speaker
It'd be like if, don't think Steve Austin is the stunner and then sort of stands around five minutes and picks him back up for suplex afterwards. Yeah. The real bonus in the match is the drop kick that supposedly Tom Zigg was trying to do at the end. Cause clearly he knew that he was not going to hit. So he tried to like flatten his body out as much as possible and they could back bump rather than like a, to be fair and awkward, I'm sure painful side bump.
00:13:08
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it kind of looks like he's coming down for a leg drop at first rather than a drop kick, but he isn't standing, so... I think he slipped. It looks like it. But he makes the distance forward, though, so I can't... I don't think it's that. My theory is just him kind of compensate because he didn't want to take the bump. I would be if you actually did a drop kick and then fell like two more feet under your hip. Yeah.
00:13:32
Speaker
Overall elected though, it's just those couple weird bits and obviously that, oh, the suplex at the outside was a little awkward at the end. That might be an effect of the incline ramp. There's a little bit of unevenness just right near the end of the ramp, and that, I would imagine, makes your keeping your footing and landing correctly kind of hard. Well, and also, if you notice, Zink is standing at the very end, which is lower at his slant. Yeah. Weirdly, he's dropping the guy at a higher point on the ramp as well. So I think he might be throwing off the timing.
00:14:01
Speaker
I can see that, yeah. Just a solid opener, though.
00:14:05
Speaker
I was wondering if they were going to work in a pistachio commercial with all the bright green at some point. I didn't know if they haven't been doing that until recently, but I enjoyed the costumes. Not really costumes, it's just 90s. It was a quick match. They both tried to do their things from the top ropes and with varying success.
00:14:32
Speaker
I was transfixed by the mullet and the main, or whatever you want to call it, throughout the match and the finishing was... I just wasn't expecting that. Yeah, it's a bit of a shock. Overall, you know, it was a fun match and it didn't drag out and I thought it was good.
00:14:57
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm on the same side as you guys on that, not a bad opener at all. It's a pretty fast pace, involves some pretty good high-flying moves, the final dropkick aside, and some acrobatic spots. And I liked how the tone of it kind of changed as the match went on. It started out feeling almost like respectful competition, but it got more aggressive. First with Eaton sneaking in some blows, then with Z-Man landing some nasty punches late in the match and repayment.
00:15:23
Speaker
Z-Man seemed athletically gifted, but inconsistent. He could pull off some impressive spots, but he sometimes looked awkward. Some of his early moves looked a bit scary, and as we mentioned that final miss top rope dropkick just didn't look like a dropkick. Eaton proved that he was just as capable as singles wrestler as a tag wrestler, and both guys had varied offense, so it was a pretty fun watch overall. They kept it straightforward and just had a fun match.
00:15:49
Speaker
Tom Zink may or may not have been TV champions in this match. Either way, it wasn't a title match. Unfortunately, Tom Zink's TV title reign is not long. I bet you can guess which month he lost it in. January? He did. Yay! So that creates two notable stats. Tom Zink is the last person to hold the fully NWA TV title, which makes Arnerison the first person to hold the official WCW TV title.
00:16:16
Speaker
Okay. Because the full transition to the talent naming happened during that point. So, Arne Anderson beats him for it.
00:16:23
Speaker
Yes. Yay. That's a weird thing where Iron is kind of like the default to norm for the TV title. Yeah. Because it happened last year with Luda. He's just a dependable guy. Oh yeah. That you can have on it. When he literally holds the title from that match after Starrcade up until like 2004 Starrcade. Okay. Bobby Eden starts his canoeing his solo career at this point. He actually ended up winning the TV title for more Anderson a couple months from there as well.
00:16:49
Speaker
So it's all sort of connected on the title. You know that's not a title match. Interesting. Yep. Tony Schiavone is back. Hey. His mustache sadly is not. Aww. He introduces Dick the Bruiser. Ladies and gentlemen, Dick the Bruiser!
00:17:12
Speaker
Dick, I know you're aware that World Championship Wrestling has changed your assignment for this evening's match. You will now be the special referee for the cage match with Sting and the Black Scorpion. And no one knows more about a cage match than you. I'm the champion of all cage matches. I've never lost a cage match. I know everything that's going to go on. I've heard there's more than one Black Scorpion.
00:17:41
Speaker
And I know there's a cage, but believe me, Sting will get a fair shake. I'll make sure there's a winner, and I'll see that it's swear. All right, from Dick the Bruiser. Right now, let's go back to the ring and Gary Capeta.
00:18:00
Speaker
I don't know why, but I really love how he says, I'll see that it's square. That's just like that line in particular. I think it's the hand motions he's making at the same time, where he's like, it just has one finger out on one hand, and it's like making these very stiff, like jerky motions for it. You wouldn't want to come out and be surprised and find out the cage is round now, would you? That would be a problem, yeah.
00:18:25
Speaker
We go back to the ring and Gary Michael Capetta introduces the tag team tournament in honor of former NWA World Heavyweight Champion Pat O'Connor, who passed away in August of 1990.
Tag Team Tournament Highlights
00:18:37
Speaker
The trophy is brought out as he notes that the winners will be acknowledged as Champions of the Universe.
00:18:43
Speaker
Ooh, so close. Are they going to defeat He-Man for that? Yeah. Man in arms. There you go. The participating nations are intro'd, but rather than the teams themselves coming out, ladies in sparkly dresses bring out the flags of the nations as sparkly pyro goes off. The crowd doesn't really seem to like anybody but the USA, but they really hate Japan. They clearly need to play more Nintendo.
00:19:08
Speaker
They're just holding, they're still holding a grudge. Yeah. The long term grudge town. The announcers do note that the US team, the Steiners, are hoping to face Japan later in the tournament, so maybe that explains it. Yeah.
00:19:23
Speaker
So many of the matches on this show are a tag team tournament, which I'm sure you can guess I was thrilled about after last year. Oh yeah. But this time it is a single elimination tournament rather than a tournament for points. So if you lose a match, you're out. The first match of the tournament is the team from South Africa, Colonel de Klerk and Sergeant Kruger, versus the team from the United States, Rick and Scott Steiner.
00:19:53
Speaker
The Stiners come out to the United States National Anthem, but the South African team just comes out to vaguely intimidating militaristic music. JR requests that we get to see the Starrcade stats before the match gets underway and repeats himself on that. Did someone forget?
00:20:10
Speaker
Paul takes over for Cornett, noting that the Steiners are illiterate. The crowd chants USA as the clerk amusingly tries to shush them.
00:20:25
Speaker
Kruger gets utterly destroyed by Rick to start, culminating in a vicious Steiner line. He quickly tags de Klerk, and they try a team clothesline, but Rick nails them both with Steiner lines. De Klerk gets a spinning wheel kick to knock Rick through the ropes for a dive outside, but Rick mostly fails to catch him, and the camera catches Rick just kind of helplessly laughing for a few moments.
00:20:47
Speaker
Back in, Rick casually dodges a clothesline and brings in Scott to wrap things up with slams to both South Africans, a tilt-a-whirl to the clerk, and a Frankensteiner to finish him off. Scott nicely shifts position on the pin to guard against a charging Kruger as Rick blocks. Less nicely, he seems to get off to clerk before the three count. Steiners win anyway.
00:21:09
Speaker
So maybe they weren't a litter and they were just really bad at math. Yeah. But I don't know. Al Scottsteiner at least seems to be pretty darn good at math. Well, he took classes later. He took his GED on top of his, you know, college degree. I liked that there was immediate action. Like I was like, Oh, we're in the match. Okay, great. And then the South African guy jumps out and immediately like tries to break his own neck.
00:21:36
Speaker
I got, see? Self-destructive. Yeah. And there wasn't a point in this match. I mean, the match only lasted, I don't even know how long. Like, it's probably three or four minutes, but it felt like one. Yeah, that's really short. It's closer to like two and a half, three minutes. Yeah. I think that time frame. And it had some, you know, high intensity moves. You know, people were flying left and right and the finishing was just
00:22:02
Speaker
freaking awesome, especially like, you know, like if they did any of the jumping that they did in this one in the first match, it would have been a much better match. But I was like a backflip suplex or what's the name of that move, Al or Bob? I jump in the air and then grab your neck with my legs and then do a backflip. That's the Frankensteiner. Okay. Well, that was freaking awesome.
00:22:30
Speaker
it was really smooth and it really stood out, the replays and everything. So I like the match, short, sweet, and of course the crowd did too.
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah, no, I liked it for what it was. It was obviously the story there is just hit a few moves and the Stiners beat them up. So the Stiners advance. Clearly the focus is not on these two guys from South Africa as being big stars that they want to promote or, you know, protect at all. It was interesting. I think that's our first spinning heel kick. Yeah. We have never seen that before either. That's a, that's a really interesting move. Yeah.
00:23:07
Speaker
And it's not our first dive, because I think Sting does it. No, excuse me, Hector Guerrero does that. Hector Guerrero does one first. Which makes sense. At Hector Guerrero, then Sting.
00:23:17
Speaker
But I think it's our first flipping one, because most of them did the one where you just throw yourself over the top rope. In hindsight, maybe he should have done the one they did, would have done the pain play for him. Yes. It's good as a quick show on top of the dinosaur, which honestly, looking at it, I'm not surprised they didn't just start with the tournament and had this be doing the match of the show. It would have been a very good one, yeah.
00:23:42
Speaker
You could even split up the tag matches, which I know you would have liked. Yes. Done two and then done the even one for some reason, but they didn't. That's what it is, what it is. It was fun just overall on an eventful because there's no real story to it. Yeah.
00:23:57
Speaker
Yeah, really short, but really energetic match. De Klerk in particular was pretty impressive. He was capable of some unexpected acrobatics. Maybe, as we pointed out, too unexpected, as it definitely looked like Rick just really wasn't ready in position to catch him on that outside dive. I'm not sure if the match might have been cut short as a result. De Klerk did seem to hit his head, but he also seemed fine to continue and took several more moves, so like you, I think it was just, that's the plan. The Steiner's come off looking really strong.
00:24:25
Speaker
It's just, with the botch, it gets a little bit awkward in the middle. Scott's Tilt-a-Whirl, Slam, and Frankenstein were really beautiful. And I think we can give some of the credit for the latter to the clerk who just seemed to know exactly how to take that right. The finish is slightly botched, but still a fun little match here. I really would have loved, actually, to see a little more from these two teams. Give it a bit more time. I bet they could have had a fun longer match, too. I can definitely see that. Yeah.
00:24:55
Speaker
So this may surprise you or not, but neither man in the team is actually South African. I'm not surprised. Basically they needed an extra foreign team and they took two guys that had worked for the company or in the way at some point, you know, said grow your stubble and put on fatigues and now you're South African. Okay. And obviously it doesn't matter that much because you're gone in the first round. So Kruger, the larger the two men without the beard,
00:25:22
Speaker
is Matt Bourne, AKA Dorant the Clown. Oh, okay. Also from the first WrestleMania as well, under his actual name. The clerk is Theodore Petty, AKA Rocko Rock, for Public Enemy. Are you kidding me? I am not kidding you. You can see it now, can't you? I can see it now, but I can't picture, like, wow. It's a big change in look overall.
00:25:45
Speaker
No, that's interesting. I'm not a particularly big fan of Public Enemy. He is not. No. It's in the name. But I liked him here. He did a good job here. Wow, I would never have called that. Never. The second match of the tournament is the team from Great Britain, Norman Smiley and gentleman Chris Adams, versus the team from Mexico, Rey Mysterio and Conan.
00:26:11
Speaker
the adventure that is that is what he's based off of it he goes by konan el barbero in mexico for a while which is spanish for the barbero yes yes okay good the crowd is all right with the brits now sarkade stats tell us that norman smiley is a tremendous map wrestler i'm sure that he'll continue to be known for that and only that and maintain an entirely dignified career absolutely you can take down mats with the best of them
00:26:41
Speaker
Ray Mysterio is announced as Mysterio, but his name is misspelled during his entrance, and the Starrcade stat is Mysterique. J.R.R. calls him Mysterique at first, then corrects himself to Mysterio. The thing that's funny about that to me is, he jokes about his pronunciation, so he's sort of implying that I.C. is somehow I.O. in Spanish, which is extra weird.
00:27:03
Speaker
This, by the way, is Ray Mysterio, not Ray Mysterio Jr., who will later show up and amaze everyone with high-flying antics for years. Yes. Mysterio is also dressed a little bit more like a barbarian than Conan, whose outfit reminds me of the later Ray Mysterio Jr. looks, so I was actually a little bit confused about who was who at first. Fortunately, JR clarifies it pretty fast. This is our first sighting of ref Randy Pee-Wee Anderson, who will be a common sight through the 90s.
00:27:34
Speaker
Smiley and Mysterio fight for leverage and Conan comes in to help, but Smiley backflips in their grip and arm drags them down with the momentum. They close line him down and grab his legs, but Adams comes in and oddly dives over Smiley and Mysterio and Conan just let go, I guess to be ready for him? Weird spot. Adams and Smiley dropkick Mysterio and Conan out onto the ramp. Paul makes offensive comments about Conan's parents and JR says he needs a yap and deck to me.
00:28:01
Speaker
Back in, Adams gets the better of Mysterio, and Mysterio rolls out of the ring, then tags Conan, which is apparently legal! Adams tags Smiley. Conan gets a dynamic arm drag off the top turnbuckle on Smiley and more acrobatic moves, but Smiley fires back with a beautiful fisherman's suplex. The teams trade off double-teaming and Adams hits a nice superkick into a back suplex by Smiley. Smiley and Conan come out even on a very smooth mat-wrestling sequence.
00:28:27
Speaker
Adams gets knocked onto the announcer's table in a double elbow, and Paul complains. Conan gets a reverse suplex on Smiley in an unusual bridging pin for the win, as Mysterio dives out onto the floor. The camera misses whether Mysterio hits Adams or not. It looks like it doesn't based on the aftermath they cut to. And the thud that you can hear it too.
00:28:47
Speaker
Cepeta now calls Mysterioso, and a confused JR tries that one out too, clearly uncertain which is the right name. JR and Paul sell that the Mexican team has won, but now they're injured. Conam from an earlier match with Mil Mascaris and Mysterio from his dive.
00:29:06
Speaker
as a finishing match it's not the smoothest i would say there is points where they're clearly set through rolling into a spot or the part with that and read it's not of the table it's kinda weird because he tags in norm smiley but then there to go after him and he rolls out and by kinda waits there and then starts going to it
00:29:28
Speaker
So it's kind of weird because they clearly had stuff planned out, like very sort of ridiculous with these spots, like the flip over part, the drop kick, but then just like the middle parts, they didn't quite oil them together. They're not sort of in sync on that. It's a weird mix of being almost too choreographed and being that choreographed enough for me. It doesn't really take away from the match too much overall. It's just coming out of the cork of that. I really noticed in a replay and the second watch of it more than anything else.
00:29:58
Speaker
Adams's drop kick is good too. Adams's super kick is really good. Especially compared to the one we saw earlier, Tom Zink, who did not fully extend because of the facing on it. I will say I'm a little bothered by the first shot I see of coming in. When he walks into the ring, pass our camera, all I can see is his back knee.
00:30:18
Speaker
And not infer anything from that, but that's very distracting. That's my first sight of him once he has a ring. I don't think away from how good he is. It's just very distracting. That's all it's saying about that. But yeah, there's a lot of really good stuff in there. I kind of wish...
00:30:36
Speaker
This has gone longer as well, or this duo had met later, so we get more of the Brits. This is a really good spot. I'm going to smile at the way he does the different Suplex from the floor. It was really good. His technique is really good, so it's just kind of a shame there's instances in that. For me, it's a real match of real high and also real low, just to gain the instinct.
00:30:59
Speaker
I'm with Al on this. I wish I saw more of the Brits. Smiley was really smooth with just about everything they were doing. He looked like he wasn't flying around a lot, but he was doing a good job rolling through and going with some of the moves to make it look like he's not going to get hurt.
00:31:18
Speaker
I was like a little bit on edge where, um, you sit on the turnbuckle and, uh, I thought Conan was going to hurt him, you know, and, uh, he was able to kind of roll out when he was about to hit. Then I was like, all right, good.
00:31:32
Speaker
other than that yeah um good match the pin at the end was was odd and uh you know i thought it would be one of those things where you know they were going to do one of those controversial things like well his his shoulders were down too and and you know it was going to go a different direction but yeah his his bridge i will say yeah his bridge is kind of
00:31:56
Speaker
very close on there. It's very close but you can tell from the camera angles his shoulders are up still. It's just an ear thing. Well he's bouncing actually. A little bit yeah. But yeah I swear the the ref only had like two. Everyone seemed surprised even when I was scared that he won and just jumped out to hurt himself.
00:32:25
Speaker
Oh, incidentally, I do have a theory on your confusion about the tag spot, where he rolls out and then tags Conan. Yeah. So, in lucha rules, when someone is throwing out the ring, someone else is allowed to enter the ring. Yeah. It's a very open version of tag rules, so someone dives out the next person on the...
00:32:43
Speaker
and the corner can just come in. So my theory is he started to do that and then either remembered or maybe Conan told him, and then he tags him there. It's more than a difference there. That's my guess in that.
00:32:56
Speaker
totally different than the tag matches that we've seen so far, I think. They seem to play a little fast and loose with the rules, like we were saying about who was legally in the ring, and I've never seen a tag from the floor allowed before, but it features some really great double-team spots and some cool acrobatic work from both teams. Great fast-paced, lots of excitement, and I appreciate that they mixed in some solid mat work with the high-flying too, so the match didn't get too one-note.
00:33:22
Speaker
It did feel like the realism suffered a bit. Nobody really seemed to feel extended effects from any of the moves, for the most part, until Mysterio's outside dive during the pin, which may be more legit pain than acting. They just kept moving otherwise. It did give the match a really unique feel though.
00:33:39
Speaker
I think I'd get annoyed if every match was like this, but it was a breath of fresh air to see it here, as I've been getting really tired of regular tag matches over the past few shows. I really, really liked this one. I thought it was pretty great, yeah.
00:33:53
Speaker
Still be torn if we ever do any AAA shows or cross-mode shows. Because every tag match is going to be like that. Yeah. What about with six-ray people maybe? I'm not sure if I like this one so much because it's like the first time that I've seen something in more of a lucha style on our run or if it's, you know, something that'll still stand out later on when I see, you know, more of the cruiserweight matches, but for this I really enjoyed this a lot.
00:34:17
Speaker
I liked the aerobatics, the spinning, the one where he runs up the turnbuckle and then whips smiley around and smiley flips. I thought that was executed perfectly. That was really cool, yeah. They did a good job with that.
00:34:33
Speaker
Chris Adams is one of the guys that stays around wrestling for a long time. His problem, unfortunately, is he has Buddy and Dell's issue to a certain extent, so he doesn't stay too long in one place or another, at least consistently. So he'll be in and out of WWE multiple times. We'll probably only see him on a random show or like World War III when everyone's in the ring, even though they don't actually work there.
00:34:57
Speaker
He is notable for having the first match on Thunder. But other than that, it's he's those guys that went everywhere, just couldn't stay because of a number of personal reasons. But other than that, his point is really good. Normally, Smiley, we'll see again later. His character, I think next time we see him will be very different.
00:35:15
Speaker
Yeah. I will know in a technical prowess, he is currently the wrestling trainer in NXT. So he has proven here that he definitely has the stuff. Off of this performance, I have no problem with that whatsoever. Off of some of his later performances, I'd be like, why the heck did you hire this guy? But off of this performance, yes. Absolutely. We go for an interview and Missy Hyatt appears with Michael Wall Street, formerly Mike Rotunda and Alexandra York.
Michael Wall Street Interview
00:35:47
Speaker
Thanks, Jim. And I'm here with Michael Wall Street and Alexandra York, who has recently been featured in the money section of USA Today and will be wrestling Terry Taylor here shortly. Now, on World Championship Wrestling, the computer predicted that Michael Wall Street would beat Terry Taylor here tonight in less than eight minutes and 32 seconds. And he got a little upset about that, and Miss York had to put him in his place.
00:36:17
Speaker
Yes, I did, Missy, and everything you've said here tonight is completely accurate, with the exception of one thing. This computer doesn't deal in predictions. Solely, cold, hard fact. And the fact of the matter is, Terry Taylor will lose to Michael Wall Street in less than 8 minutes and 32 seconds. We warned him, we told him, we gave him the benefit of the doubt.
00:36:40
Speaker
I'm so proud to be employed by the man who's the most talked about man in the professional wrestling world and the business world, Michael Wall Street. Terry Taylor, it's obvious that Michael Wall Street is the news. And when I get finished with you, you're going to be yesterday's news, pal. And now let's go to the ring.
00:37:03
Speaker
Uh, sadly, yesterday's news, not yesterday's newspaper. Yeah. I wonder if Wall Street's his real name. No. No. I'm joking. Yeah. The Clash Champion before this officially talks about his name has been changed to that. Yeah, because he came into some money. Yes, from being a boat captain. Yes. After he retired being a collegiate wrestler into his late 20s.
00:37:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's a basic and short interview, but I think it is reasonably effective. They get across their somewhat ridiculous gimmick and the power of computer science. Computer fact. Yeah, facts, facts, only cold hard facts, but it hasn't happened yet, so it isn't a fact yet, it's a prediction. Yes, oh well. It's the early version of what Paul Heyman says now, it's not a prediction, it's a spoiler. Yeah.
00:37:58
Speaker
York does flub some of her lines, and Wall Street doesn't speak for long enough to risk doing so himself, but it's alright. It does amuse me that Wall Street's doing this wealthy Wall Street guy persona while still rocking that mullet. Yeah, I can't picture Christian Bailey Murray in Psycho with that haircut. You can't buy taste. There you go.
00:38:22
Speaker
The third match of the tournament is the team from New Zealand. That's Rip Morgan and Jaco Victory, also known as the Royal Family, versus the team from Japan, Mr. Saito and the Great Muda. I really love the Royal Family's entrance gear. It looks like they just walked in from the Renaissance Fair. Yeah. I'll buy a wooden sword from you.
00:38:45
Speaker
New Zealand's Starrcade stats include qualifying late for the tournament. I feel like the quality of these stats is going downhill fast. I will also note that Pat O'Connor was from New Zealand, so it's weird that one, the heels are from New Zealand, two, they're treated like that. And it's not even mentioned, I don't think. No, not at all. Yeah, yeah, that's weird. Paul tells us that he thought Muda could have been the Black Scorpion, but Muda being in this tournament shoots that down.
00:39:12
Speaker
So the Black Scorpion is someone that wouldn't wrestle another match tonight. Hmm. Good to know. It's Alexandra York.
00:39:22
Speaker
Victory and Muda are pretty even until Muda gets victory on the ramp, and dives off the top rope onto him, tags to Saito and Morgan, and Saito counters Morgan's strikes with a monster clothesline and a snap suplex. Tag to Victory, and Saito cuts off his offense with an armlock. J.R. notes he's like a Japanese version of the Steiners, but Paul argues the Steiners are American Saitos. Victory jabs Saito and the I, and both tag out. Morgan does a little better against Muda,
00:39:49
Speaker
But Muda hits a great spinning jump kick and a rapid elbow drop. Sayido comes in and he goes for the scorpion death lock. He's actually credited as the inventor of that hold. But victory stops it. Morgan and victory manage to finally wear Sayido down. And Morgan hits a huge belly to back suplex before throwing him out of the ring and distracting ref Nick Patrick so victory can beat Sayido up outside. Back in, Sayido escapes the leg drop and tags Muda.
00:40:17
Speaker
who quickly gets his handspring elbow on victory before everyone gets in for a brawl. Muda gets knocked down, but Seiro dodges a Morgan clothesline and Morgan nails victory. So Muda quickly springs up and German Suplexes victory for the win.
00:40:32
Speaker
This is the longest of these matches so far, so that could really be a positive or a negative. In this case, it's kind of a split for me. I wasn't that invested in Rip Morgan or Jack Victory. She used to call him Jack of Victory because that just sounds really weird and stupid. Sounds like he's Irish instead of New Zealand. Yes. Which I guess is the only connection to Pat O'Connor. There you go. So I guess... Yeah. I can't mind if that's a positive connection there, but hey, there you go.
00:41:02
Speaker
The people that really shined for me were definitely Saito and Muda.
00:41:08
Speaker
Budo was, this kickstart was always really great. We don't get the performance, obviously, from last show where someone's really, really injured and he gets to work off of that. So in this case, it's just real quick strikes, like that jumping strike. And in some cases, he's actually almost too energetic for it, with his elbow being a big one. He jumps and throws his sole back at the guy's face. Yeah, he actually clears his head with the elbow.
00:41:35
Speaker
There is no elbow connection near the head at all. You don't need it. Arguably it's more effective if you know they're not going to move. It's like a whole body of them like that. Yeah. It's almost a reverse tinger splash. Yeah, there you go.
00:41:48
Speaker
I don't know, I liked the part with Saito and Buda, but like I said, Morgan and Victor didn't do a lot for me. They didn't mess anything up though, so it's not like they're bad and the two are good, it's just Saito and Buda are really good. Especially seeing Saito for the first time on these shows.
Japan vs The Royal Family
00:42:08
Speaker
Morgan and Victor are okay, they're sort of passable guys to me, but the other thing that especially stands out to me.
00:42:14
Speaker
I like Muda's tag team partner. I guess this is the first time we see him. He was throwing the New Zealanders around a bit. I don't know what about them really stood out to me as New Zealandish, but it was a lot of great performances from both sides. Obviously, one was supposed to be the victor. Muda's flowing jumps and kicks and everything always impressed me.
00:42:39
Speaker
He's one of the few people that when he throws those chops, he's putting his whole body into it. It actually looks like more of a technique rather than just moving their arm. If he's pulling those, he's doing it with great skill because he's just doing it rapid fire.
00:42:54
Speaker
Yeah, his big thing is the sort of snapping at some moves, like his kicks and his chops and the elbow. Yeah, that elbow drop of him. Yeah, his rotating and yeah. Yeah, he does like a full torso rotation for most of his moves, so that's probably why they look so powerful, whipping it around.
00:43:10
Speaker
I was not expecting a suplex at the end, but I did find it funny that once the guy got clotheslined, he looked behind to make sure he was lined up with mood before he threw the move. You probably wouldn't notice it, but with the big hair, it was more pronounced and I was just giggling. It was a fun match and I was impressed by Team Japan.
00:43:39
Speaker
Not their clothes. That goes to New Zealanders. Yeah, basic but really solid match here. Everyone had something to contribute. Buddha had his swift and sharp strikes in his agility. Morgan and Saito both had big power moves. And victory, well I'd say he was kind of the weak link of the match, less interesting than the others. Did have some really good sneaky offense and some more painful looking headlocks than most I've seen. Like really wrenches on him and makes it look like it would hurt. Thanks for that.
00:44:09
Speaker
I really liked the ending spot. Sure, it's the whole everybody in time for the finish thing that we saw so much last show, but the timing was good and it caught me by surprise. Decent match, good ending, not memorable overall.
00:44:23
Speaker
In the previous match, the Brits do a kick, knock a guy into his German suplex. But I guess he was supposed to be in the studio breaking it up, but he didn't. So they just sort of, kind of just sort of rolls off as he comes in. And then the very next match, almost the same spot is done and actually works. Yeah, point. A hit by your own partner is always much more damaging than a hit by your opponent. That's true. The emotional pain is there. Yeah, yeah. It's a heartbreak.
00:44:54
Speaker
So, Morgan and Victory, they're not actually from New Zealand, in case you were wondering.
00:45:00
Speaker
yeah victory actually it's funny his blood and those two of you was basically being a guy that was always at the shows but when wasn't a big name so they could just slap a mask on him so on one classes that he's the terrorist on their class he's you know a mass assassin we'll tell you actually see him officially on stark event and now was one half the britain assassins and i want their match with uh... jay yd and uh... and cola uh...
00:45:29
Speaker
Both of them lead WCW in Midnight 91. They only have one actual, really, match of note besides this. They find another person in the challenge for the World Six Man titles, which disappear after the Road Warriors, then reappear, but just no one cares about them, basically. Just to sort of prove the point, the team holding the Six Man Tag titles that defeats Morgan Victory and their partner is Tommy Rich, Ricky Morin, and JYD.
00:45:58
Speaker
One of, like, three teams to hold the titles. Wow. On the bus side, I looked up Rip Morgan. He, when he retired from us in the late 90s, he formed his own wrestling company in New Zealand. So, did well for himself. Yeah. Yeah, I liked his power moves. They were pretty good, I thought. I'll say, look-wise, he reminded me of Billy Jack Haines, but I think he had more going on. But I can sort of stay at a similar build in the beard and everything. Yeah.
00:46:23
Speaker
We go out just outside the ring to Paul E. Dangerously with Mr. Saito and the Great Buddha.
00:46:29
Speaker
I am standing here with Mr. Saito and the great Buddha. Obviously, you are going to be looking at the brackets, Mr. Saito, and you have to be concerned whether it be the Mexicans or the Soviet Union, the next team that you two are going to have to face tonight. I don't care the Mexican, Canadian, the Russian. We are best. Japanese is the best.
00:46:53
Speaker
Mr. Seidel, let me just ask you one question. What would happen in the finals should the two of you face the number one seed, the Steiner brothers? Steiner brothers. At the period of mental distress, we are too soft. We are more strong. We are best in the world. We are number one.
00:47:17
Speaker
The number two seed in my mind, the number one seed, the Great Muda and Mr. Saito. And now, check this out. I'm slightly offended. Yeah, just a little. Yeah.
00:47:33
Speaker
Not a lot to say about this, it's just a basic we're the strongest sort of promo. I don't get why Paul is talking about the Mexican team as a possible team the Japanese team would face next, given that they're in the upper bracket on the board and the Japanese team is in the lower bracket, so they definitely at least have one match between meeting if we pretend that the signers aren't obviously headed to the finals. I think the idea is you're just naming every other team that could possibly face them.
00:48:00
Speaker
Yeah, but he literally, he definitely says next and there's no way that's the team that they're facing next.
00:48:06
Speaker
well he sees time and space different than you and i yeah it's all relative it felt like they took the the russian formula no i mean that you know i get it yeah that's pretty accurate actually yeah and you know just kind of okay let's make it a rivalry and then just went with it all that was missing was them demanding that they played the japanese national anthem and everyone rise for the doctors that loved them
00:48:37
Speaker
Our fourth match of the tournament is between the team from Canada, Danny Bull Johnson and Troy Mont...
Soviet Team vs Canada
00:48:45
Speaker
and... No, it was Troy Montour, right? It is, yeah. Because I've typed it, Tori Montour. Versus the team from the USSR, Viktor Zangiev and Salman Hasimikov. Bull Johnson has some somewhat disturbing bear-themed pants with a bear face in exactly the position I really wouldn't want there to be a bear face.
00:49:06
Speaker
It's also not a bull. Yeah, that's the good point as well, yeah. The Soviets are welcomed in the spirit of Glastnost. Ominously, the Canadian team's Starrcade stats say that they are not favored against USSR. JR accidentally calls Troy bull's opponent, so I guess he's hoping that we'll get some singles matches at some point too. Zangiev is a very, very hairy man.
00:49:33
Speaker
He is, yes. It's like male pattern werewolf. Zangiev quickly dominates and gets a bow and arrow hold on Johnson, really wrenching on his back. Montour saves, but Zangiev just flings Johnson to the mat, leading to a nice bit of mat wrestling that neither dominates. Zangiev then gets a mighty belly-to-belly suplex that basically dumps Johnson right on his chin. Did anyone remember to tell Zangiev that this stuff's supposed to be an act? I'm not sure he knows.
00:50:03
Speaker
Johnson finally gets one bit of offense with the flying double chop, and Montor and Hasimikov are tagged in. Montor quickly complains about hair pulling as I realize that Canada is the evil team here, not the USSR. Not believable. That's a bit of a shift. Paul notes that these Soviets are different from the usual because they have hair.
00:50:28
Speaker
Yeah, I know. That sounds dumb, but if you think about it, that actually does make a lot of sense. Yeah. Everyone we've had has been bald. Hasimikov and Montor struggle for leverage, and Hasimikov suplexes him. For the win? And that's it. On the replay, by the way, thank god Montor ducked his head in at the last moment. That was a scary suplex. Well, he learned from the other one.
00:50:55
Speaker
like okay he's gonna throw me I'm just gonna tuck my head and go with it I really like the Russians here kinda like with the Brits they had a very unique style the thing is that they are legit big wrestlers that just happened to transition into pro wrestling so their style is definitely built around their knowledge of that in a way they're almost sort of a gruff for version that we see with that Kurt Angle later yeah or a lot of ways like Taz you'd see as well or the Steiners you know
00:51:24
Speaker
Well, we already have the Japanese Stiners. We can have the Russian Stiners. Yeah, we can have the Russian Stiners. There's only so many Stiners I can handle. But yeah, I like their throws. The one was definitely a little scary. Simekov's definitely looked safer. And as we'll see with him later, his throws have a real good sort of height and like torque to them.
00:51:46
Speaker
The ending was definitely weird. Even the replay, he throws him over and he starts like renting with his hand. I thought he was like going for submission, but I think what's supposed to be happening is he's sort of muscling the guy's arms flat. So his shoulders stay down with a pin, but it's still a weird finish. I wasn't sure the first time if the guy who was verbally submitting from the pain or was pinned.
00:52:10
Speaker
when everyone kinda like pauses for a moment afterwards and everybody looks a little bit confused so i'm honestly not a hundred percent sure that was supposed to be the finish i kinda have a feeling like either he was supposed he was supposed to kick out or maybe uh... johnson was supposed to get in there for a save or something like that and just something didn't happen right so the ref counts three
00:52:33
Speaker
it does happen sometimes and when it happens they tend to just go with it but yeah everyone kind of like there's about six seconds or so where they don't actually seem to be in character for a few moments and then and then they just kind of go with it so i don't know when there's a running theme throughout this certain data earlier that because these are teams that have never met before and sometimes never meet again there's definitely with a literal language barrier and just an understanding barrier between them so i feel like that might be a big part of that yeah maybe
00:53:03
Speaker
you know, Asimikoff maybe is really sure this is the finish and the roughs, trying to tell him it's not, but then looks at him and thinks, thinks wisely. Not to correct him. I don't want to take that suplex. No. Yeah.
00:53:16
Speaker
I think there were two hundred and something pound guy like that, rather than me. Yeah. Yeah, the awkward finish aside, the Russians really did a lot for me. The show, just the really unique amateur style. And on the plus side, this is the only time we get actual Russians on any show, I think, ever. I think so, yeah. So I'm just going to enjoy it for what it is. For accuracy. Yeah. Exactly.
00:53:44
Speaker
I was really surprised by the Russians in this one too. I was not expecting them to pull off some of the feats of strength that they did. Yeah. They both had some awkward moments here and there, but when Simakov goes for Montour and there's a hold and he's behind the ropes, and he's just doing this thing with his arms like... Yeah, he's like... I was up and down, like he's trying to break away from... Yeah, I got that too in the replay.
00:54:13
Speaker
bearable or whatever his name is. At the end after Simikov takes his pulse to win, the stomping with his back up against the ref was hilarious.
00:54:30
Speaker
Yeah, this was a short one, but the Soviet team felt incredibly legit. To the extent that, as I said, I'm not entirely sure that they were working with the Canadian team so much as they were actually fighting them. Some of those moves were downright painful looking and they seem not particularly worried about how the Canadians fell on those suplexes.
00:54:51
Speaker
The Canadians got next to no offense whatsoever. It's, I believe, literally just the one double chop by Johnson. I think so, yeah. So, I guess their stargate stats were right. To me, it looked like this ended earlier than they were planning, and there's a few seconds where people look all confused, but overall, the match was a bit weird, but I kinda liked it. I definitely liked the legit nature of the Russians.
00:55:17
Speaker
It's kind of like the previous match for me as far as the other side of it. Montour and Johnson didn't think wrong, but they didn't do anything that really depressed me other than the weird, yeah, other than the weird little elbow dance there. And I guess the ability to get back up after being thrown on your head like that. Yeah. Yeah. It's a certain amount of resilience. Yeah. Yeah, so I tried to get research for, like, for everybody. There is no Wikipedia paid for Troy Montour or Danny Bull Johnson. Huh.
00:55:47
Speaker
I tried other sources through Google. There's a site called Ringside Fighting, or whatever it is, where it has very detailed stats for wrestlers that list like how shows and lists, all these things. So I looked up Tori Montor. They have one match listed, and it's this one. Yeah. Poor guy. We go back to the locker room where Tony is interviewing Sting.
Sting's Mindset for the Black Scorpion Match
00:56:17
Speaker
Okay, Jim and Paulie, thank you very much. Moments away now from the main event. In the case of Final Confrontation, Sting and the Black Scorpion. Champ, how you feeling about all this right now? Well, Tony, all I have to say is who would ever believe that something like this would have happened if you look at the whole Black Scorpion scenario from beginning to end?
00:56:34
Speaker
Who would ever thought that something like this would happen in the sport of professional wrestling, but one thing I know here in World Championship Wrestling, anything and everything can go, so I'm not going to run away from it. I know that. Only one thing I do know is my head is very, very clear, and I know exactly what I need to do. A lot of people said, Sting, you haven't been Sting lately.
00:56:54
Speaker
I got news for you. Sting left maybe for a little while, but Sting's back now. Sting's gonna find out who the Black Scorpion is once and for all. And those of you who know me, you can look into my eye and you can tell by the tone of my voice that I mean what I say. I will find out who the Scorp is tonight, Tony. All right, that's it from the world champion. Back to Jim and Paul Lee.
00:57:19
Speaker
Very weird Sting promo. He's like really really quiet here, and that's not normal for him. It actually comes off kind of cool. And if those were connected to a better angle than the Black Scorpion, it'd be a pretty good way of building some tension. Sting's calmer and more controlled than normal.
00:57:37
Speaker
I probably wouldn't have done the little bit at the end where he suddenly changes moods, flexes, and gives an angry face as they cut, but I guess he felt the need to get a little bit of emotion in there. He's back. I liked his actual closing line. I see it does seem very sincere and intense. Yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's always interesting to see someone try a different promo style overall, though. I don't want Sting to do this regularly, but as a one-off, it was neat. Yeah, see that.
00:58:05
Speaker
very contemplative. I've been meditating for a while and I think that, you know, I'm fairly certain that I'll achieve victory this evening. When's the point you take him very seriously while he stands in the back in bright neon green with neon green and yellow on his face. And the glittery jacket to end all glittery jackets in the background. Yeah.
00:58:31
Speaker
Well I like too that when he's like saying his head is clear and he knows what he needs to do or might be on the sting's back, he's like looking right at the camera and gives like crazy eyes while he's still talking really calm. It's very funny. We take a break from the tournament for a bit with a match between Terry Taylor and Michael Wall Street with Alexandra York and Alexandra York's computer.
Terry Taylor vs Michael Wall Street
00:58:57
Speaker
Terry Taylor has been kind of an interesting guy in the last few years. If you recall, he randomly showed up on, I believe it was StarK87 from my mistaken. I think so. With part of the UWF angle. He lead after that. He actually went from world class to the WWF, where he had his more infamous run, where they put red on top of his head and called him a rooster. Yes. So he's happy just to be back here and be Terry Taylor, normal, albeit angry guy, maybe.
00:59:27
Speaker
Wall Street is obviously a new gimmick for Mike Rotunda. As we noted earlier, he does a promo at the previous class of the show explaining that he came in a lot of money and now is a serious business guy who legally changed his name to Michael Wall Street. Which I feel like that should come up later when he shows up again. Like it should be his default name. And actually, I hope it is. If they forget that part, I'll be really sad. Yeah. It's pretty to figure out what this gimmick is. It's Ted DiBiase's Multidar Man. Yeah, absolutely. Just to be clear, because they know they didn't get that.
00:59:57
Speaker
So basically because that's doing well, they made their own version. There's really not much door between them, it's just they're trying to establish Wall Street and his new gimmick and heel character. And Terry Taylor is sort of the reliable wrestler guy people know but aren't super invested in. He's a known commodity, but not like a major commodity, I'd say. To use stock market terms.
01:00:20
Speaker
He looks like an alternative Lex Luger, like body type. He's like, Lex before he hasn't worked out for a while.
01:00:33
Speaker
We get a replay from WCW on TBS, showing an interview with Terry Taylor that was interrupted by York and Wall Street. Taylor tells York every system has a kink in it, and maybe it's her. She slaps him, and Wall Street challenges him to a fight, but York says they're not being paid for it, and lectures Taylor to conduct himself more professionally. So, just to be clear, they were appearing on the TBS show and they weren't being paid? I think she means that they aren't being paid to fight Taylor there.
01:01:00
Speaker
I don't know if you're paid more to wrestle than to stand there and talk. I mean, I'd assume you'd have, you know, some, some additional like danger pay. I feel like you should have, if that was a base analogy. A danger pay. Well, I mean... Well, at least if you go up against the Russian team for the last match. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Hmm, that's true. We go to the entrances and Taylor has a nice robe. I think it's the same one from the last time we saw him or at least close to it. Pretty much, yeah. He also has a wonderful mullet.
01:01:29
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Wonderful. Yeah, Michael Wall Street has perfect corporate video entrance music and he too has a mullet. I prefer Taylor's, it's more vibrant. Taylor's Starrcade stats at least mention his world ranking and his finisher, but he has a deer in headlights photo. Wall Street's Starrcade stats talk more about him and York using computers than anything else.
01:01:52
Speaker
Taylor attacks before Wall Street even has his suit off. Blessedly, Wall Street wears a wrestling singlet underneath so we don't get a repeat of Jimmy Valiant vs. Paul Jones v. 1.0. I don't know if my heart can take that. I kinda like to imagine that if he's a serious business guy in Wall Street when he's not wrestling, he's always like that. Yeah, well probably, yeah. Makes sense. Just in case, you don't know. Never know when you need to resolve a board meeting through violence. Yeah. We get a clock counting down from 8.32 since Wall Street promised to win within that time.
01:02:22
Speaker
Taylor hits rapid punches, a crossbody, and a dropkick to start as Wall Street has to roll out to check strategy with York and her Dot Matrix printout. He gets back in and the crowd hurls abuse at him. A bit more, and a Taylor clothesline sends Wall Street out for more discussion. Back in, Wall Street works an armbar and uses the hair to keep Taylor down as York types in her little computer. Wall Street seems to have found his answer to Taylor now as he counters a charge with a nice catch into a backbreaker, then hits a suplex and a nice diving clothesline and a great jumping leg drop for two.
01:02:51
Speaker
Wall Street uses the ropes on an abdominal stretch, and Paul says it's not illegal till the ref catches you, which the ref does. Can you imagine someone involved in Wall Street doing anything illegal or questionable in the world like that? No, no, absolutely not. He's giving them a bad name. They're almost right out there with Ric Flair and Nick Patrick. Yeah. Right? Just below them, yeah.
01:03:12
Speaker
Taylor evades a dropkick and fires up, landing quick moves once more, including an atomic drop into a belly-to-back suplex. He hits the five-arm, a very nice flying forearm, but gets two as Wall Street gets his foot on the ropes. Wall Street drops Taylor neck first on the top rope and hits his stock market crash for the win. Wait, that's the name of it? That's the name of his move, yes. I guess you can figure that is probably the worst thing he can possibly imagine. I mean, in the end, it's better to call it the dividend.
01:03:42
Speaker
the same dainable johnson to stick around because having a bull as your bodyguard would make perfect sense for wall street yeah yeah yeah this opportunity would have been a good tactic named to the bull market there you go i'd watch that uh... so for me it was a solid match my problem i think is that neither one of them has really great character work because in taylor's case there's not everything bad about it
01:04:11
Speaker
i feel like as a he'll he served out by in uh... a seven show because he did a lot of stuff i liked uh... as he elected lugar in the previous show so i gave him a bit of a pass on the character work but as a face he's as kind of white bread serves neric it's not bad as just nothing you have to be more impressive when sting your world champion evil of these big characters in the steiner's were bright neon and this extra stuff to center itself with the barking everything
01:04:41
Speaker
Wall Street Case, he has character stuff down. He had it really well with Matt Tinkendricks' Diner, I thought. But his problem is that this is a brand new character. So he really doesn't have that much experience doing it. So it's a lot of new stuff for him to learn. So I feel like if we saw the third or fourth version of this match, which I'm guessing happened at some point on TV or a layup review, we might get a more solid character aspect of it.
01:05:07
Speaker
Taylor seems to be good at responding to someone else's character, but maybe doesn't have a ton of it himself as a face. I could see that, yeah. I would agree with you on that. Yeah, he doesn't have a strong persona. I liked that his, first off, his move was the five-arm. Yes. Because it's one above the four-armed. Well, yeah. Just in case the pun wasn't clear enough. But I also liked that, I feel like I didn't notice that before, but definitely in this one.
01:05:32
Speaker
It's kind of a cross between the flying a forearm where you just sort of jump with the arm out like with the cross shop with the Canadians. Kind of a cross between that and Superman punches you a lot now. Yeah. Where you jump and then cock your fist back and punch. Because there's sort of like a half-cocked nature to it. Yeah. Where he pulls it back a bit as he's flying instead of just sort of flying with his arm out and hitting him. Yeah, there's a lot of really good motion involved in the move that you get a good sensation of the hit.
01:06:01
Speaker
which I assume is that must be the idea behind it being the flying five arm. Yeah. The forearm is good, but mine is the one extra touch. It's that little extra touch, yeah. Yeah. Well, I fully understand why you don't do it. It was pretty clear Taylor did not actually touch the top rope with his neck or each chest area at all. Yeah. He put his arms down and then grabbed his throat when nothing hit it. I didn't fair, I don't blame it. I just do a cable wrapped in like tape. So I wouldn't do it to myself, but just, you got to cover that better. Yeah.
01:06:29
Speaker
it's one of those matches where it's solid but unremarkable and definitely could be better with future matches between the two of them. I like the setup of a time match with not really not having a time limit. You know I like that they've created that sense of urgency and the assistant or is she his manager?
01:06:52
Speaker
You mean York for Wall Street? Yeah. Yeah. She apparently works for him, but it's called the York Foundation, so I don't know. My theory is that he hired the York Foundation. She's the head of that, so she technically works for him, but she is also the head of it. But yeah, it's a little bit awkward. I didn't even know the hierarchy in these things. This is my thing. You want the York chart? I do, yes.
01:07:15
Speaker
Well, you know, the premise actually kind of funnily, you know, when Al mentioned about the Superman thing, this actually kind of reminds me of the Superman thing where he goes up against a supercomputer to beat him. The best movie in the series. You know, I mean, you got the yellow-haired...
01:07:36
Speaker
you know it's for some reason it just seemed to have some sort of parallel for me and I was laughing the whole time because I was like okay we're calculating everything and I liked a little bit where he's coming out then you're gonna do this and you're gonna do this yeah we check check check you've done this you gotta do different moves
01:07:53
Speaker
So, as I was going the narrative I had in my head, I did like the finisher, the stock market crash. It does look very solid and chunky and painful, even if it looks like he's probably breaking his own neck. A little bit, yeah.
01:08:09
Speaker
As a character, I like Wall Street much better than Taylor. You know, he seems like he has a gimmick, and maybe the backstory wasn't as big for you guys, but for me, I thought it was just different than the other matches. I appreciate that, yeah. I think he really embraced his character as much as you can for being rich or whatever. No, it was good. Yeah, I thought it was well performed. I just thought it was a little too short to be much of anything.
01:08:38
Speaker
Wall Street did some very good sneaky heel work and Taylor had a good fast-paced offense but they just didn't actually get time I felt to build much of a match story. It came off as them kind of just trading off doing collections of spots and it didn't have a lot of emotion to it.
01:08:54
Speaker
Like you, Al, I really like the five-arm. I think it's a good and very convincing finisher. I like that the announcer's actually built up that it's too strong. It knocks Wall Street back so far that he can reach the ropes and is Taylor's undoing. It's a fun idea for that being kind of a reason that things turn against the face. And yeah, I thought the stock market crash was a pretty good finisher.
01:09:16
Speaker
I do think it's kind of funny that we had a whole thing in the last show. We had to address how the Samoans retreated and, you know, character work in general. And on this show, we have no Samoans. Yeah. But we have Michael Wall Street using the Samoan drop as his finisher. Point. Yeah. I expected to go for a minute and 36 seconds longer.
01:09:40
Speaker
So this view goes on after Starrcade, but it kind of, it's a wall because one of them leaves the company. That man being Michael Wall Street. Oh really? Yeah. He leaves 1991 fairly early, I want to say on March or so, to go to the WVF and be IRS. I didn't realize Michael Wall Street was that short of a gimmick. I thought it was a bit longer.
01:10:04
Speaker
So what happens is they go, we just started this York Foundation thing, we have Alexander York here, and now he's gone, what are we gonna do? He's thinking about the most logical thing, which is to turn Terry Taylor a heel and take his place. So he becomes Terrence Taylor and becomes a heel, to cover for the spot the guy that just beat him. And I think he does, if I recall correctly, he has a pretty great and or terrible nickname of the of the Taylor made man.
01:10:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's the right response to that. Yes. I guess since his name is Taylor does that mean he's that is that a just really weird way of saying that they're a self-made man? I guess that's the idea maybe? Yeah, I don't know. The suit fits. We get a brief interruption for an ad for Wrestle War.
01:10:52
Speaker
I want you at Wrestle War 91. World Championship Wrestling presents an ironclad event of man versus metal. Wrestle War 91 featuring War Games. We declare war. Witness a grueling double steel cage confrontation where anything can happen. Don't miss the duel in the desert live from Phoenix, Arizona. You can be there front and center only on pay-per-view. Dismissed!
01:11:23
Speaker
Carter's starting to slaughter and I'll be played by Sting. Yes. When that came on, I was like, why aren't we watching this? Because this is awesome. Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh. It's so 90s. Oh, I know. I love it. It's so just beautifully cheesy. It wasn't selling a toy though. That's what I was kind of upset about. No, yeah. It looks like a toy commercial, yes.
01:11:50
Speaker
They show the construction of the War Games cage interspersed with Michael Hayes and Uncle Sam Garb, Sid Vicious dressed as Sid Vicious, and staying in military garb with a bullet bandolier yelling, dismissed. I am so glad that WCW has learned to advertise its shows in shorter and much more hilarious fashion than back on 86 with the cowboy droning on by the campfire for a five full minutes. But now you know what a bunkhouse is. Yeah, I kind of don't still.
01:12:19
Speaker
I don't know either, honestly. It reminds me of like a Van Dam commercial. Yes. Like Black Black, you know. Double impact. Like GI Joe mixed with that. Yes. Yeah, I have two notes on this. One, so I know, obviously know what the War Games is. I've been seeing all of them at this point. But when I'm just hearing them say double steel cage, my immediate thought is because it's WCW, they put a steel cage around the ring and then when a second steel cage, oh, we're the first steel cage.
01:12:49
Speaker
No escaping the cage this time. There's a second cage. Yeah. Cageception. My other note is that because Sting is clearly starting to slaughter, who is getting ready to betray America, by the way? Yes. Oh. We're doing a WF podcast. We're talking about that. So if he's doing a slaughter, he should just go full slaughter and threaten to put you in an itty bitty ditty bag. Yes. The greatest slaughter line ever.
01:13:14
Speaker
Yeah, 30 seconds of pure gold here. That was absolutely amazing. It didn't have monster trucks. Oh, don't worry. WCW uses those later. Oh yeah, you'll get your fill. Yes, and far more than it.
Skyscrapers' Non-Tournament Tag Match
01:13:34
Speaker
Our next match is the Big Cat and the Motor City Madman versus the Skyscrapers. Sid Vicious and Dangerous Danny Spivey. This is not part of the tag team tournament. We get extra bonus tag matches tonight because WCW wants to actively antagonize me. I don't know what I've done to make them hate me so much. You know what you did, deep down aside.
01:14:01
Speaker
obviously the skyscrapers missed last year's show on account of the vicious injury. So it's nice that they finally get to come back after some complicated stuff where there's three different people in the team trying to fill the matches that they didn't get to do.
01:14:16
Speaker
It's nice to see them brought back together, albeit really suddenly. Especially with Sid Vicious still in part of the Four Horsemen. Yeah. It's just like, well let's find these guys while you guys do your whatever thing with Doom. And I guess I'll reform my Attack Water for one show, just for fun. Originally the big cat and the Night Stalker had been attacking Sid. But then they realized the Night Stalker was terrible. Which we can confirm from watching that clash. Oh my gosh, it was so bad.
01:14:44
Speaker
They do mention that nice dog was taken care of on like the main event or Saturday night or whatever. So they worried him out pretty last minute. Wow. To be replaced with the Motor City Men and who do fair is also really bad. Sid Vicious is from anywhere he darn well pleases, which is one of the best wrestling intros ever. It is, yes.
01:15:04
Speaker
J.R. throws to the Starrcade stats for Big Cat and the Madman, but the match starts while the stats are showing. I did have time to note that the Big Cat and the Madman are called the biggest ham on tonight's event and a power match with Little Finesse. Okay, now these are just getting insulting. Oh yeah, it's accurate to be fair.
01:15:25
Speaker
Everyone brawls. Vicious and Spivey botch a double back body drop on Kat so they repeat the spot. Vicious and Spivey trounce Madman and hit a double powerbomb. Vicious seems to have a little trouble lifting him, but Spivey helps. That gives them the win. Thoughts? Yeah, thoughts on this one? Brock Sampson. Yeah. Swedish murder machine. Yes. I wish he had the charisma of Brock Sampson.
01:15:55
Speaker
I mean, they could have clearly made the character after him. Yeah, I wouldn't be that surprised, honestly. Yeah, with my notes, I have a pretty ugly brawl that is thankfully short. That ending's powerbomb is the scariest cat's attempt to stop the pin was slow.
01:16:16
Speaker
Yeah, there's like, it's that whole part near the end of the match with the Mexicans and the Brits, except that was the entire match, and also was worked terribly, and they messed things up. Yeah. So I'm trying to be favorable comparison, that's the best I got. Ouch. I mean, I will say it's nice to see the skyscrapers, I wish there was something else.
01:16:38
Speaker
I would have liked to see more from the other team, but, you know, when they missed that spot where they were both going to pick them up and flip them over or whatever. Yeah. I thought it was like, okay, well, you know, they're going to reset a little bit, but it's going to be a lot longer match. Nope. No. Immersively no. I mean, it gives me like the thought that they had more things planned. You would hope so, but I don't think so on this one.
01:17:06
Speaker
Yeah, this was too short to be anything, though I'm kind of happy, as I've seen Big Cat, Madman, and Vicious each wrestle before, and they were all, um, bad. Yes. Again, 13 matches. Yeah. You can see that here, I mean, they clearly botch one spot, and nearly botch a second in the course of what, like a minute? A minute to six, I believe it could be as is, yeah.
01:17:26
Speaker
Cat and Madman get absolutely no offense. Fishes and Spivey do look dominant, but I question putting a clear squash match on Starrcade. At least with the earlier short matches, I felt like there might be excuses for them aside from the main part of a tournament. This just felt like it didn't need to be on the show at all. Yeah. I can't disagree with that, really. The match is totally worth it, though, because what follows is a truly awesome interview as Paul tries to talk to the skyscrapers.
01:17:57
Speaker
The skyscrapers definitely are dominant here on WCW, Paul E standing by. And here you go one night and one night only, the retirement and reunion team of the skyscrapers. And I'm here with the skyscrapers.
01:18:18
Speaker
Now that we're eye to eye, little man, let me tell you something. Everybody says this is a one time only deal with a skyscraper. We decide what we wanna do, when we wanna do it, and how we wanna do it. Nobody tells the skyscrapers what they're gonna do. And if we do decide to get together in 1991, there's a lot of people that better watch out.
01:19:09
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Bless you Paul.
01:19:15
Speaker
That might have been the best thing on this show. Paul gives a hilarious performance here. He goes from brash to please don't kill me big scary men in about half a second as they lift him in the air and grab the microphone to do the interview themselves. Suspended in the air by the skyscrapers, he spends the whole time quaking in fear and just echoing Spivey and looks utterly shaken by the whole thing even after they let him down. The tough guy facade just falls apart.
01:19:41
Speaker
The actual promo is fine, and Spivey and Vicious just come off as dangerous and frightening. But Paul is absolutely the star of this segment. Love this. Yeah. It's one of the things, honestly, when I think about it, if he didn't have really bad stuff, like questionable lines about races and that iconic line, I'd almost get maybe a piece of the show just based on this review, but it's just that's not enough. It's great, though.
01:20:07
Speaker
Yeah, his performance is a little uneven over the show, but he does a good enough job building himself up as a heel. He's mean enough to JR, you want to see something happen to him? Sure. So you get this moment and it's like, oh yes, Glory. And he really, really sells it. I'd give him a lot of credit for this bit. It was pretty cool. Yeah. You know, honestly, like just listening to it without seeing the character, you know, seeing the people there, it was like, is he doing a little John track?
01:20:37
Speaker
Yeah, he just kind of like echoes a lot of people are going to be scared. A lot of people. A lot of people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's very, very funny.
01:20:47
Speaker
So this is the, thankfully, the only face-off between the Big Cat and mostly Madman and the Skyscrapers. It's eye relief for everyone involved. Big Cat is Curtis Hughes, who has one of the most inexplicable careers in wrestling. He never quite does anything compressive, but he stays around and works in every major company in major secondary roles for his entire career, even to this day he gets occasional work for any Feds based solely on his work in the 90s. Wow.
01:21:16
Speaker
This segues from him being a regular performer to being bodyguard to the stars, which would begin in 1991 when he teamed up with Lex Luger as his bodyguard. As for Cid, he rejoins a horseman next month's Wrestle War, has a different scary powerbomb spot in that one.
01:21:36
Speaker
We'll cover that eventually. Unfortunately, he faces issues with management like a lot of people are facing before this show, and many people face after this show. And he leaves in mid-1991 to join WWF. Dan Spivey has kind of the same issues.
Morton and Rich vs Freebirds
01:21:50
Speaker
The problem is he never reaches the same heights before he leaves that Savicius does. Savicius, you know, gets a challenge for the world title, a challenge for the US title. Dan Spivey is also a big scary guy that exists. No offense to him, but...
01:22:04
Speaker
As far as the way he's booked, that's all that you really do with him. Yeah. He'd be a scary guy that challenges you in the EBM. Aww. Our next match is Ricky Morton and Wildfire Tommy Rich with Robert Gibson on Crutches versus the fabulous Freebirds Michael P.S. Hayes and Gorgeous Jimmy Garvin with number one roadie and best friend Little Richard Marley. What's with all the tag matches?
01:22:32
Speaker
You're already holding a tournament. Let me have some other types of matches. Well, and there's no tag tiles involved because the world tag tiles are later. Yeah. And the U.S. tag tiles are locked up in the show. Yeah. It's kind of a shame we didn't have different U.S. tag teams. You can at least see this different title. Yeah. The Starrcade stats literally just explained the storyline this time, saying nothing about the actual Rich Morton team.
01:22:54
Speaker
The Freebirds at least get some bio info in that they're former tag champs, but we're also informed that Marley will be at ringside, which we already knew because we watched him come out. So what's the point of these screens again? Yeah. Basically all you need to know is that in storyline, the Freebirds injured Gibson to cover up an actual injury he had to deal with. He's gone for a while. This is the first time actually appearing back at their side. Obviously he's not 100% yet. Yeah.
01:23:19
Speaker
You know, I think that these cards would be really good as like a collector's item if they actually gave out like a deck of cards with these for kids or souvenirs. I feel like they must have. Yeah, that would make sense, like have a better picture of the wrestler on the front of it and then on the back you've got their starcade stats. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. That'd be interesting. Then you could go to all those starcades and then you can have collect all the cards.
01:23:43
Speaker
I'd hope that they'd come up with more interesting facts on at least some of the shows, but yeah. You want to know who the biggest ham is, so. Yeah. The Freebirds are dressed in sparkly suspenders and robes with Confederate flag face paint. Awkward. And cape. Yeah. I suspect that this relates to them beating the team of the Southern boys on a recent clash that Al and I were watching. Yes. But it's not a particularly good look.
01:24:12
Speaker
Paul explains that the Freebirds are the greatest rock and roll band of all time, apparently because they've broken more people's legs than Bruce Springsteen. Is that how it works? I guess so. It doesn't matter. I mean, number one distinguish you have is how many legs you break? I mean, I guess you could convince people pretty well. Vote for me or I'll break your legs. I mean, in a way you can rhyme Freebird with femur. It doesn't make sense.
01:24:37
Speaker
J.R. mentions that the Keel Auditorium is planned to be torn down in 1991. They should get in touch with Crusher Khrushchev. I heard he's been doing work in demolition. Hey. That's the right response. Yes. Garvin opens with fisticuff poses and Morton mocks his yeah yeah yeah taunt.
01:25:00
Speaker
Morton starts off hot, and he and Rich dropkick the freebirds through the ropes. Marley tries to get involved and gets dropkicked as well. Paul decries such horrible treatment of an innocent roadie. Morton and Hayes in. Morton hits an inverted atomic drop, and J.R. notes that the baritone will be singing tenor now. As a tenor, I'm not sure how I should feel about that line. Is that why you sing tenor? No. No, it's not. I just want to clarify. Yeah. Incremental.
01:25:25
Speaker
They go outside and Hayes blocks a ram into the ring post and gloats about it, but Robert Gibson comes over and slugs him to an absolutely huge crowd pop. Hayes eats post and everyone goes back in, as Paul insincerely worries for the injured Gibson's safety. JR says even the freebirds wouldn't go after an injured man, but Paul says that they have no class. Kind of a weird way to defend someone.
01:25:48
Speaker
Hayes fights back, but Morton evades a knee drop and calls to Gibson that this is for him as Morton and Rich get stereo figure fours on both freebirds. The ref forces a break and Garvin is formally tagged in and calls for Rich. Morton obliges.
01:26:02
Speaker
Rich gets the advantage so Marley climbs up on the ropes and Rich pulls him in the ring and spanks him. Weird choice. Hayes runs in and Rich and Morton pinball him around the ring with punches until he finds his corner for a comforting hug with Garvin. Things continue to go poorly for the Freebirds until Rich gets in to counter a Freebird's double team and the rough ushers him out, allowing Hayes to break up a Morton pin attempt with a Bulldog.
01:26:25
Speaker
Garvin and Rich brawl, and Hayes holds Morton's leg for Marley to climb up top, as JR notes that they're planning to break Morton's leg like they did Gibson's. Gibson knocks Marley off the turnbuckle with his crutch, and Marley falls onto Garvin, who immediately assumes betrayal and chokes Marley. Morton rolls Garvin up for the win.
01:26:43
Speaker
Morton and Rich casually leave the ring and escort Gibson towards the back as the Freebirds beat up Marley and hit a double DDT, but eventually their conscience gets the better of them and they come back to rescue him. The Freebirds corner Gibson on the ramp and double clothesline him down, and Morton and Rich run them off before more can be done. Well, if we're judging surely by the last match, this is incredible. Everything is relative. That's true, yeah.
01:27:11
Speaker
everything by the rest of the show, it's decent. My problem I think is I'm kind of spoiled by Rock and Roll Express matches, and I can't understand why there's not one here, but they do everything they can to make it
01:27:23
Speaker
Basically the store brand soda of Rock and Roll Express matches. They want you to think of Tommy Rich as their replacement for Gibson in this scenario. Where they've just done like a singles match, for one thing they've been different. But also it wouldn't have made me think of them so much. You could have done a Tommy Rich singles match or a Morgan singles match.
01:27:43
Speaker
I just didn't fully connect to the story all that much. There's nice little things in there. I like the Freebirds are unabashedly, super evil, cowardly heels. There's no shades of gray about it. They're panicky when they're in trouble and then they're super cocky when they're doing well. As always, I like Garvin better than Hayes. Hayes never is bad. It's just I never got much out of him, honestly. He really had the most longevity of anyone in the group. So does I know, I guess.
01:28:12
Speaker
I feel like if it wasn't marketed as like a rock n' roll express match, I would like it a lot better. Yeah, kind of sets an expectation. Exactly. What was that? It was a surreal depiction of, it was like, it reminded me of Alice in Wonderland. It would have made more sense if the Teshar cat appeared in the middle of the ring and started becoming, it was the ref.
01:28:40
Speaker
I had no idea what was going on the whole time. I thought they were just tagging random people and they would become their partner. And it was just like, it was bizarre. Okay? Like, why were they spanking? Why were they, why were they talking and playing like, I don't know, footsie and thumb war. It was really weird. Yeah. Wait, so you didn't like the fabulous, favorite friendship with magic spot? No.
01:29:08
Speaker
No, I still don't know who won. I mean, I know who won, but it was so weird. I don't know if it was the sequence or what, but I just kind of like glazed over halfway through this and I'm like... There's definitely a sort of hypnotic effect of those shaking bright sequence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm having existential problems watching this match like, why are we here?
01:29:35
Speaker
Why is this happening? Wow. A match should not make you feel ennui. I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah. I've been there but with different types of matches from this. Yeah. I just wanted to understand. I tried the whole time. And I should have gave up. Oh my gosh, that's great.
01:29:56
Speaker
Yeah, I found this was more of a comedy match than an intense match. It had some good energy and a hot crowd, though. Like you said, Al, Morton and Rich are no Morton and Gibson. Yes. Thousand percent. Morton is still great, but he just doesn't have the same chemistry with Rich as with his longtime partner, which is understandable. Right.
01:30:17
Speaker
The Freebirds just came off as a comedy act rather than threatening heals, but I did enjoy watching them get their comeuppance. Not much of a match story here otherwise and way too many comedy spots, but it worked for what it was, I guess. The post-match bit was awkward and probably would have worked better if Morton and Rich had immediately gone to help Marley rather than walking away first. It just didn't make them seem the most heroic at first. I was actually pretty surprised when the Freebirds managed to nail Gibson at the end, I was honestly expecting one more reversal there.
01:30:47
Speaker
Yeah, he was like clearly erasing the crutch like he was gonna hit their arms and break the move or something, but he doesn't. Also, how many riches do we need in one match? We have Tommy Rich, Richard Morton, Little Richard Marley. True. Heck, even Ref Nick Patrick is close.
01:31:08
Speaker
Also getting into their roadie slash manager. I should also note, since it doesn't come up in this show, the original name they gave him before Little Richard Marley. Fantasia. Okay. Yeah, he was originally Fantasia, and then Disney heard and said, no, stop that. Oh, that's great. This fugo sort of goes on for a little while. Rich and Morton find a third person in JYD to be their six-man tag champion for a while. This is all while Gibson's recovering.
01:31:38
Speaker
Gibson eventually does recover, whereupon Ricky Morton turns heel on him. Aww. And becomes Richard Morton to join the York Foundation. Smart move. And ironically enough, you'll never guess he also joins the York Foundation with him. Tommy Rich. Well, he is Rich. Richie Rich? Yeah. Though both facing this match turn heel to join the exact same faction.
01:32:02
Speaker
with the previous face that turns heel from the singles match to join the same faction. Wow, that's a weird theme on this show. Yeah. As for the Freebirds, they stay around for quite a while, still never quite doing anything really major. They start a peak by winning World Tag Dolls and U.S. Tag Dolls respectively at different points in the year. However, they do get a really good manager for next year. Diamond Dallas Page. Oh, yes.
01:32:30
Speaker
He's looking up eventually. Yeah. DDP always reminds me of like Diet Dr. Pepper and I picture both at the same time. So it's always a bit confusing when I go in the supermarket. We go back to Tony and he builds up the upcoming Texas Lariat match.
Stan Hansen's Texas Lariat Match
01:32:49
Speaker
It's basically a strap match for the US title. Hanson comes out wearing a vest uncannily like the one that stone gold Steve Austin will wear later.
01:32:59
Speaker
All right, Jim and Paulie, later on, US title. It is a Texas Lariat match. You know the story, the man said he wouldn't give you the title shot. World Championship runs as a yes, you have to, but now we understand it's a Texas Lariat match. You know, they tried to push me into all these different types of matches, but you know, I thought them all. But this is gonna be really different.
01:33:22
Speaker
Never before has a title match like this ever been done in a Texas Larian match. This rope right here, though, it looks a little skinny, can hold some 600-pound steer. I know it can hold Lex Luger. We're gonna tape each other up.
01:33:38
Speaker
We're gonna get it right down, we're gonna put it around our waist, and you gotta drag the guy around four times and touch all four of those posts to be a winner. Lex Luger, I'm not really excited about this because they made me take the bell off because it was too violent, but I'm coming for the four count. One, two, three, four, yeah.
01:34:16
Speaker
Oh, this was really gross.
01:34:20
Speaker
Uh, Hanson is chewing tobacco, which is gross, and he shouts while chewing tobacco, which is gross as well. Yes. Tony spends most of the interview trying to dodge around Hanson to make sure he isn't in the way of any, you know, spray of goop, and just tries to keep the microphone pointed the right way.
01:34:40
Speaker
The actual interview, I think, was fine, but I was distracted the whole time just trying not to look at him, which largely meant that I was paying more attention to Tony looking about how I felt. My sympathy is Tony. Yeah, if I didn't have to watch him with that crap coming out of his mouth, I could at least enjoy the fact that he sounded like Yosemite Sam. Yes. Yeah, just very, very distracting.
01:35:02
Speaker
Yes. I honestly don't know why they did that. I mean, I guess, you know, he's the crazy Texan or whatever. Yeah. But like, you know, he's got like the cheap dollar store, Halloween pirate vest.
01:35:21
Speaker
Every time he shows up on one of these shows, he will be doing that. Yep. And I can't watch it. I just like actually can't watch him when he does that. That's so bad.
Steiners vs Mexico
01:35:34
Speaker
Like if he sort of talked about how he took tobacco and he said, like, they'd make me took it out or something that he could be a heel like complaining, you know, complaining about or something. And you'd like, you know, he's a guy that does that. But because he does it live in the interviews, it's really just too far. Yeah.
01:35:51
Speaker
The point where it goes beyond being a bad guy and just being so I don't look at. Tony's face, though, is absolute gold in this interview. If you watch this, just ignore Hanson. Pay total attention to Tony. His antics are very funny. Yeah. Good dodging. Yes. I do love JR's closing line about we'll get Tony a raincoat if he does any more interviews with Hanson. That was pretty good. Clearly sympathetic. Yeah.
01:36:17
Speaker
We go back to the tag team tournament for the fifth match. The United States team of the Steiners versus the team from Mexico, Rey Mysterio, and Conan. Boy, I sure am glad we switched things up with some tag matches before we got back to the tag tournament. I feel refreshed. Mm-hmm. I got hot glass of lemonade. Mysterio's name is still written as Mysterique. The Steiners are now using their rock theme rather than the national anthem. I guess they're done being patriotic today.
01:36:47
Speaker
Rick and Conan start off with rapid holds and counters, neither unable to get a solid advantage. Tag to Scott, and he gets a knee strike and a power slam before lifting Conan so Rick can jump off the top rope for a bulldog, but the Steiners don't try a pin. Conan recovers and commando rolls to tag Mysterio.
01:37:03
Speaker
Scott takes him down for two, but Mysterio fights back and gets a front face lock until Scott lifts him into a follow-away slam. Tag to Rick and he slugs Mysterio a few times, but Mysterio counters with shoulder blocks and tries his own Frankensteiner, only for Rick to catch him and powerbomb him down for the win.
01:37:20
Speaker
I was definitely a fun impactful match, I would say. I liked how it evolved throughout. It's actually surprising Rick and Conan do the technical wrestling they do, because I know obviously Rick can do it. But I don't get a lot of that from Conan, at least from what I've seen later. It's not like a real record part of the arsenal, so it's a nice surprise to see that. I think it was a little more like full lucha crossed with power wrestling right around. So yeah, I was genuinely surprised too by that, yeah.
01:37:47
Speaker
it is weird that this is the first time they've done the deltine bulldog and it does look really good it's just they don't it's where they don't try to pin off of it they're just like oh we did bulldog well okay let's just wait a minute let him recover then go grab him oh no it got away it's I mean it's clear they were trying it out but it's it's interesting that the way they handled it was awkward I was like maybe Conan was supposed to roll away and didn't so they pick him up and he got away I don't know I don't know I definitely like Scott doing the power moves in there
01:38:15
Speaker
Getting him up from the ground with the double ugg was really impressive. I liked the finish even though it was kind of sudden. It was funny seeing that compared to the previous Diners match because the clerk slash rocker rock tries to do the dive outside and what I assume was some for a power bomb like catch. I assume he's gonna like catch him and then like throw him back in the ring or something but he obviously does not and rocker rock just kind of hits his head. Yeah.
01:38:41
Speaker
So this time, if you watch Rick when he's doing it, his arms are very low and he's ready to catch the guy. Yes. He's learned from his mistake and or been told not to drop people like that. Yes. Either way, it's a creative finish. It's nice seeing the counter of it. Even if Paulie dangerously calls the wrong move and the replay saying that he's going to stop him doing the styroline. Yes, I forgot about that. Yeah. Like with a bunch of these tag matches, if there were less of them and they were longer, I would have gotten them out of these, but it's fun for what it is.
01:39:11
Speaker
This reminded me a lot more of collegiate or high school wrestling. Um, there was a lot of good floor work and there wasn't a move that didn't have a bunch of power behind it. When I enjoyed that, there was, everything was snappy. When I remember that one time that you were telling me about when you, uh, you won that tournament in high school with a power bomb, that was. Yes. I was, I was waiting for you to like say some move and I'm like,
01:39:43
Speaker
Yeah, there's a little more flash to it, but even the pickup and throw them by their head, you know, whatever that move is, just, it's hard to fake. There's still a lot of strength that they're... Oh yeah, absolutely. They're utilizing and it's nice to see a move that was shown as really powerful earlier being countered.
01:40:01
Speaker
It was a good finish. And you can look at Steiner's face at the very end. He's got this real tobacco-eating grin on his face without the mess. There isn't a point where he's not smiling until after they've announced it and everything. He meant to hit it just perfectly. Yeah, I think he's proud of that spot. And he should be. It comes off perfectly. No, it was honestly like,
01:40:30
Speaker
one of the most genuine reactions from him. Yeah. Anything I've seen with him. So I could tell he's extremely happy and I kind of felt that with him. Yeah. Wow, this was fast. Yeah.
01:40:45
Speaker
I can only guess that Mysterio or Okonan or both might actually be a little hurt from the earlier matches because it felt like we really could have had a much longer match between these teams. I think the ending was the right way to end the match, but it just felt like it really could have gone longer.
01:41:01
Speaker
And the Stiners getting a second fast win doesn't really seem to add much to their story tonight. They already had one, you know? There was some promising counterwrestling starting out, but that's all we really got of this match to me. The start. Unlike with the Skyscrapers match earlier, I'm pretty sad about this time. They did pack in as much as they could at the short time that they took, but I felt honestly kind of underwhelmed. I hope there's another match between these teams somewhere. I think it would have some real potential, but we didn't really get, you know, enough here.
01:41:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely too short to be what it truly could be, but the parts you get are really nice. So I can't complain too much about that. Yeah. I'm still frustrated with the graphic. I'm like, Canada should have won, so we have white versus yellow in the bottom as well.
01:41:50
Speaker
This is Rey Mysterio Sr.'s only WWE show to my knowledge. So I thought I'd say they didn't wrestle in AAA or anywhere else, but as far as I know, there's nothing in WWE between these two teams again. Obviously, as you noted earlier, Rey Mysterio's nephew will come in and have a much longer stay in WWE than his uncle did. His uncle did star in the horror film The Russell Maniac, so I guess he has that going for him.
01:42:17
Speaker
Conan is obviously someone we'll see a lot more of later. It should be because he'll come in a few years from now, but for whatever reason, we won't actually see him on a Starrcade until 1998. Wow, yeah. I had various reasons for it. Like he'd be injured one year, I think, or not in a big, hopeful match. Yeah, because I know he's there by, like, 96.
01:42:38
Speaker
Well, it's there by 95, I think him and one man gang over the US title. Right. Yeah. Yeah. By the time we see him next, other than his body type, you may not even recognize him. Yeah. So I'm interesting to see how that works.
01:42:52
Speaker
We go back to Tony and he's with Barry Windham and Arne Anderson as we get shots of an attack on Rick Flair in his limo earlier engineered by temporary chauffeur Teddy Long. Long had to serve as Flair's chauffeur for a day because Flair beat Butch Reed at the recent clash of the champions. If Reed had won, Long would have gotten Flair's limo and yacht, so honestly I would have taken that bet if I were Long too. It's pretty high return.
01:43:18
Speaker
You probably put it in tiny wording for a day. Probably, yeah.
01:43:23
Speaker
Jim Ross, Pauli Dangersley, thank you very much. Now, we all saw what happened on the famed limousine ride. Nature Boy, Ric Flair, of course, in his limousine with Theodore R. Long, and they were all transpired. He said at the top of the show that Nature Boy, Ric Flair, is probably going to pull out of this tank, keep catching him, here they are. Flair pulled himself back. Believe you me, whenever you sign one horseman, you sign them all, and we're going to win this world title match tonight.
01:43:52
Speaker
Tony's your body. The people of St. Louis have been geared for violence. Pure unadulterated violence. Doom, this thing didn't start out personal. You made it that way. Now, buckles, cowboy boots, chairs.
01:44:11
Speaker
Baseball best. Anything goes. We got nothing to lose. You look at these faces, beat on them all you want. You in turn have got everything to lose. The world title. All right, Jim and Pauley, certainly it shapes up from maybe one of the most violent matches we've ever seen right here. Let's go back to you.
01:44:33
Speaker
I can't really judge Wyndham's interview as I couldn't hear most of it because they're playing the audio of the attack underneath it. Anderson's, though, I thought was great. Short, but intense, deadly serious. He gets across how upset and how enraged he is about what happened to Flair. When you want to make sure that people buy an angle entirely, you bring in Arne Anderson. Really, really good performance here to me.
01:44:57
Speaker
Yeah, they definitely should have decided whether they're going to show the video package and then talk. Yeah. Or show it silent underneath it or something. Yeah. Because what they did is just they overlapped and kind of messed it up a bit. Could just be a technical thing. Yeah. I mean, it's always entirely possible with WCW that they didn't mean to play the audio. So, you know, who knows. Or at least fade it down when it came time to back to the interview. Yeah. It wouldn't have surprised me.
01:45:29
Speaker
The sixth match of the tournament is the team from the USSR, Viktor Zhangiev and Salman Hasimikov versus the team from Japan, the great Mudha and Mr.
Japan vs USSR
01:45:39
Speaker
Sayito. Paul does a really nice job actually of building up the teams here and notes that it's going to be Olympian versus Olympian. That's true, yeah.
01:45:48
Speaker
Muda and Zangiev cautiously start off, and rapid counterwrestling ends with Muda managing to get on top, but he can't get a solid hold and he backs off. Zangiev hits a belly-to-back suplex for two, and Muda tags Sayito. Zangiev tries to get an armlock on Sayito, but Sayito fights him off, and an exhausted and frustrated Zangiev tags Hasimikov.
01:46:09
Speaker
Hasimikov takes Sayeto down and gets a Boston Crab. Paul dubs it the Kremlin Crab, which is a good name. Yeah, yep. Muda breaks it up with a heck of a kick, and Hasimikov tags Zangiev, but Sayeto takes him down and gets the Scorpion Deathlock. Zangiev escapes and both teams tag. Hasimikov gets huge power moves on Muda, including some kind of suplex slam combo, as someone, I think Hasimikov, yells WOAH so loud I looked around for Luger.
01:46:39
Speaker
With Sayuto and Zangiev back in, Sayuto nails a massive clothesline and a huge belly-to-back suplex for the win. With that, our final teams are decided. It's going to be the USA vs Japan to finish the tournament.
01:46:53
Speaker
it was a very solid very technical match i really liked that it was a good mix of like actual to get the rose but also we did and that's like takedowns and grapples into those throws that not just grab a guy and flip around is that you see all the setup for it really nice the strikes are also very impactful
01:47:14
Speaker
It was interesting seeing Muda kick a Simikov in the back and he commando rolls out of a hole. Like he's kicked that hard. He didn't just let go and like stumble forward. He let go and rolled forward. Yeah. It makes sense actually too because he's like someone's attacking me from behind I'm gonna try and get some distance. I can see that. No, yeah.
01:47:32
Speaker
It's not bad, it's just funny. The visual, because he's such a huge guy. The thing that kick and roll was fine to me. I feel like it would have been as funny if it was Zengiev who's a more normal size. I liked seeing that part of it. Obviously my problem is just that they stop so quickly. They're building this nice back and forth rhythm and then it's just like, oh, matches over, so hit a clothesline, suplex.
01:47:58
Speaker
At least they're really good clotheslines and suplexes though. That is a monster, monster clothesline in particular when he just like flips him. Yeah, don't get me wrong. The way they do the finish is good. I just wish there was like five more minutes between them. Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely.
01:48:14
Speaker
Yeah, there could have been some really good exchanges, but the tag work was very smooth. There was always some action. It seemed like they were breaking stuff just to give time for the other teammate a chance to do some spots here and there. I like that when the Russians did a move, Japan answered it in the next
01:48:35
Speaker
iteration you know with a similar move that when they got I think they uh... kremlin crab they also answered that with some other version the scorpion death lock he goes into there yeah i can see that it's kind of a tip for tap
01:48:50
Speaker
Right. I mean, I think it highlighted a bunch of their moves, but in Japan's case, I don't think that just like with USA, I think they're trying to save some of their steam for their confrontation. And maybe that's just written into the story a little bit.
01:49:06
Speaker
To be fair, our other team, if you're going to believe in her a lot in the match, they assume they're going to win and know they have one more match. You can't put literally everything on the line in this match or you're not going to have anything left for facing the Steiners and you want to have something left for facing the Steiners. But it's a good match. It's fun to watch.
01:49:28
Speaker
Yeah, short match, but really, really good. Unlike some of the other quick matches, this didn't feel one-sided or underwhelming. It felt like two teams that were both experts, both able to win at any moment. Just about every move felt like it could be the end of the match, which made this one really exciting, even after all the tag matches I've seen on this dang show. I'm torn because I actually felt like this had a really neat feel as it is, but at the same time I'd really love to see a longer match between these two teams.
01:49:57
Speaker
If there's one critique, I'd say it's that everyone gets to show off a little except Muda here. He doesn't really get a good moment other than that one kick. Otherwise, this was a lot of fun while it lasted.
01:50:09
Speaker
Yeah, that was when I was thinking, too, maybe it's because the one suplex was so scary and the one was less scary, but, you know, Felice landed more safely. I kind of would have liked that they tried suplexing Muda and he could have landed on his feet or something. I could see them do some sort of suplex where he flips over and shows off what he can do. My complaints would just be stuff I really wanted to see, and fortunately, the masses are short. I couldn't see it.
01:50:34
Speaker
Yeah. And I think you're right, Al. And, you know, it is unfortunate that we didn't see more out of Muda, but I think it really, his moves are more draining and probably why he didn't have such, you know, spotlight in this one, trying to save it for the Steiners. I can see that, yeah. Solomon and Victor, this is their only show in the United States ever.
01:51:03
Speaker
They were legit Russian athletes. They broke into pro wrestling, but it other than this one show is entirely in all Japan for wrestling. Okay
01:51:11
Speaker
So there might be a match with these two, or very least, Saito and someone else against them off the scour of the internet to try and find some. I will note that one of them, Salomon, did actually win New Japan's top world title, beating someone we'll see in the very next show of Vader to win that title. And imagine that's a hard-hitting match. Yeah, I gotta find that as well.
01:51:36
Speaker
I really, I'm sad that they don't have more shows in the US. I, in particular, would have been really cool to see them against the Steiners. That, yeah. I'm torn because I really do like the match with Saito and Buda that comes up. Yeah. But I, if there was an alternate reality where they'd flip that part around, I'd be just as happy. Yeah. We go back to Tony, and he is now with Doom and Teddy Long.
Doom vs The Horsemen Street Fight
01:52:00
Speaker
Lots of interviews this show. It's like WCW is trying to make up for cutting off the interviews last time.
01:52:08
Speaker
Here they are, the tag team champions of the world, obviously prepared for this encounter. Let me say one thing right now, it's your buddy Rick Flair found out in that limousine one thing, and that's homie don't play that. Now tonight, Orrin Anderson, Barry Wyndham, you're gonna find out that homie don't play that. I've got two hits out, and one is gonna be on you, Orrin, and the other is on you, Barry Wyndham. Now, sorry, Brother Ron Simmons is gonna tell you what a street fight is all about.
01:52:33
Speaker
You get out here and tell everybody you ain't got nothing to lose, but check this out. When we were born into this world, they predicted us to be losers, but take a look at this. If this ain't the proof of a winner, I don't know what is. And tonight before the world, they will know what it means to be the true world tag team chapter and the answer lies right here.
01:52:52
Speaker
champions now and we'll be champions when they close this building let me tell you something butch weed specializes in street fight matches butch weed is the founder and the creator of street fight matches and we're born in the streets
01:53:11
Speaker
I live in the streets, and I know how to survive in the streets. Get ready! Well, you know, because it's gonna happen. St. Louis! All right, I tell you what, Jim and Paulie, a good point from Hacksaw butch Reed. And let me hit the foot of the bank, Rick Blair. Oh, that is a very windom. I've fallen, and I can't get up. How about this? All right, let's go back to the ring.
01:53:38
Speaker
I wasn't keen on Long's TV catchphrase segment here, but Reed was quite good, I thought, and Simmons was really, really good. He came off as intense and taking this very personally, much like Arne did. He sounded driven. This wasn't just about keeping the titles, it's about proving to the world that he and Reed are winners, about beating the fate that life seemed to have in store for them. Arne got me interested in this match earlier, and Simmons and Reed very effectively built on that momentum.
01:54:04
Speaker
And this is a tag match. I actually want to see another tag match on this show full of dang tag matches. Power of good promos, I guess. We get another good Tony expression as Long jumps back in as he's trying to wrap up and he gives this, oh, come on, look. I do want to just go quickly off of Buttrite's logic there. He's a master of street fights, and he's an inventor of street fight matches, apparently. Apparently, yeah. Not street fights or matches, but street fight matches. Yeah.
01:54:32
Speaker
He's a master of those because he was born and raised on the streets. Yeah. Well, I know that's not to survive on the streets too. That's true. With matches. Yeah. So I can only assume that Dick the Bruiser was born and raised and survived in the cage his entire life. Yeah, possible. I mean, yeah, I could, I could see that actually. Yeah, it was, it was a very interesting interview. Yeah. For sure.
01:54:56
Speaker
I think Ron Simmons has like the best voice. It's just like this, this bass. Oh yeah. Really just, oh man, you like feel it in your chest. It's a voice you take seriously. It's a THX sound quality voice, yeah. Our next match is Lex Luger versus Stan Hansen in a Texas Lariat match for Hansen's United States title.
01:55:22
Speaker
So when we last left Luger, he was a United States champion, but he was a bad guy.
01:55:27
Speaker
We now come into him being a recently former U.S. champion, but now he's a good guy. Stan Hansen is a big Texan bruiser who, weirdly enough, is coming in from Japan, because he's just really big there. So just him on the list with Saito and Muda, they all come from Japan, technically speaking. Yeah, the Russians. The Russians as well, yeah. But yeah, so basically the good-looking, strong, good guy who lost his title to the various means to a two-spitting gross person, and I went to the back. As you do.
01:55:59
Speaker
We see a large and rather poorly made picture of Luger hanging above the WCW on the ramp during his entrance. I've forgotten that. It looks awful. So does Luger's picture on his Starrcade Stats page. One of those pictures where it looks like they snapped the photo about three-fourths of a second before Luger was actually ready. Yep. A fan holds up a cloth with a much, much better picture of Luger on it a few seconds later. Hanson has even more disgusting tobacco as he comes down the ramp and he spits it at the crowd.
01:56:27
Speaker
You seem anti-tobacco, Bobby. This is seriously gross. It's like, I know that's his act. I know he's intending for it to be gross, but it's seriously gross. It is interesting that Luker and Hanson are both former football players, so that's one notch in favor of the stats. Yeah, fair enough.
01:56:53
Speaker
This is a four-corner style strap match, just with a rope instead of a leather strap, as opposed to the strap together, but it's still pinfalls that we've seen at other points. Yes. Ref Randy Anderson barely gets the strap taped on to both before Hanson charges Luger and slugs him in the face, and the Luger selling begins. Hanson beats Luger up at first, but Luger fires back with his own strikes and celebrates with a good flex. Hanson fights back with whips with the rope for lots of Luger howls.
01:57:22
Speaker
They choke each other with a rope and end up outside, where Hanson uses the barricades and a chair to wear Luger down. Back in, Luger wins a brawl with a headbutt. The announcers can't remember seeing Luger use that before, and neither can I, and nails a massive clothesline before trying a pin, but pins aren't legal. I'm not sure if that's an actual spot or if Luger just screwed up there, but who knows. 50-50 shot, honestly. Habit.
01:57:47
Speaker
Luger gets three corners, but Hansen hits a belly to back suplex to break momentum. Hansen ties the rope around Luger's neck to make his own try, but Luger struggles, so Hansen stops after one and throws Luger out and hangs him by the neck with the rope. Ref Randy Anderson manages to get Hansen to let Luger go before we never get to hear Luger selling again.
01:58:05
Speaker
Hanson batters Luger and tries again, as the crowd chants for Luger. Hanson gets three corners, but Luger desperately charges and clotheslines him down. They brawl outside and Luger uses the rope to drag Hanson hard into the apron and ringpost. Luger hits three consecutive leg drops and drags Hanson to one, two, three corners. Hanson tugs on the rope, but Luger dives for the final corner and gets it.
01:58:29
Speaker
but knocks down Randy Anderson in the process. The ref lies stunned. Hanson uses the deadliest weapon of all, the boot. Aren't even listed in it as promo earlier, so you know it's dangerous. And as ref Nick Patrick runs down, Hanson tags three corners. Luger fights, but Hanson nails him with the lariat and hits the fourth corner for the win.
01:58:48
Speaker
But wait! Randy Anderson wakes up and informs Patrick that he saw Luger touch the fourth corner before his nap. So Patrick reverses the decision and awards the match to Luger. Luger sends Hanson running with a nice clothesline and celebrates with the cheering crowd.
01:59:03
Speaker
My problem with it right off the bat is that the gimmick is very intense and it's hard to get past. You have to fight in this fairly confined space for the most part and then slowly walk to each corner and then someone interrupts you. The brawling aspect I'm kind of torn on because I like it in the sense that it differs from the very technical matches we've had before. So there is some variety in that regard.
01:59:27
Speaker
But nothing about Hanson's offense other than how hard he hit people was really that exciting to me. Just to note, Stan Hanson is practically legally blind. He wears extremely big coke bottle glasses like cliche nerd characters wear in like 80s movies. So bear that in mind when he's wrestling and not wearing them and then throwing his arm at like 50 miles an hour your face.
01:59:52
Speaker
I'll give him credit for a couple of interesting spots. There's one where he does the elbow drop out of the corner which actually surprised me because it's coming from him. And his brawling looks legit because it probably is. I feel like because he can't see very well he's not pulling as much as it is and Luger just kind of deals with it.
02:00:09
Speaker
I noted that this one of those matches that's clearly billed as a clash of styles, like we had a bunch in the tag tournament. The problem is this one doesn't really work for me. It's the sort of awkward brawling guy, but it's not against like the superintendent of the wrestler. Luger is good, don't be wrong, but he's not like say Eric Steamboat, where there's a clear division. He's still striking, but there's slightly more finesse to it, so it's not a complete contrast and not quite as effective I think it would be.
02:00:38
Speaker
I don't think I'm a fan of this style of, you know, I don't like to play four corners.
02:00:45
Speaker
Yeah. I'm always going to compare it to the first match, but I'm trying to avoid that. You can play compared to the Wahoo McDaniel Rick Ruderman we had a few years back. Sure. Yeah, but I mean, I always see it like, okay, if you got long enough arms, you get the guy in the very center of the ring, you just run around. Yeah. And you touch all four, you just land a big move and just be able to get out of three. And all you really have to do to counter it is just run to the fourth.
02:01:13
Speaker
Yeah. And prevent, I mean, that's what they did. He powers through and wins, but I think that they have Hanson come across as, you know, just crude. He's walking around with his mouth open the whole time, but that's another thing. Yes. He's trying to catch flies. Coolie.
02:01:35
Speaker
Yeah, but you know it's it's not too different from Lex. Yeah. They're both power characters even though obviously one looks like it's in more shape than the other but that you know there's some mysterious stuff that uh whatever Hanson's doing sometimes you know it is impressive. I mean he looks like he's a strong dude too but I don't know I I guess he just turned me off on the other interviews and and everything else I was kind of
02:02:02
Speaker
Glad that it turned out the way it did, and that it was over. Yeah, I guess I'd say better than the Wahoo vs. Rude Strap match, but it'd be kind of hard to be worse. True. In all honesty, this was alright. Lucre and Hanson went at it pretty well, and Hanson was particularly vicious. The Four Corners thing wasn't too onerous, and they didn't try it often, and they did a good job of varying up how they broke momentum.
02:02:28
Speaker
I didn't mind watching it and I thought that they did reasonably well with the concept and kept it interesting, but it felt like some level of extra impact was missing. There were some intense spots, but the overall mood of the match didn't feel any more intense than other matches that we've seen. It didn't stand out and it needed to stand out. Especially since everything else was tag matches. Yeah.
02:02:50
Speaker
I actually liked the ending after a fashion. We often see the whole dusty finish thing used to overturn a win the crowd wanted to see to hold it for later, but here a similar concept is used to give the crowd what they want after holding them in tension. The crowd reaction to it is epic, too, so it clearly worked. Right. It's in the vein of the Rick Steiner win. They're not exactly the same, but same idea where you tease pulling it away and then give it back. Yeah, yeah.
02:03:18
Speaker
Yeah, I was worried because Nick Patrick comes out and accepts the other finish when he sees it. That like, I'd somehow lose my faith in trusting him, but then he immediately believes Rainy Harrison, so. Yeah. Being no evidence whatsoever, just on his word. Yeah. See, Nick Patrick's a trustworthy and very intelligent guy who knows how to work his way through a situation. He's almost pulling ahead of flair right now as far as being trustworthy. I think so. That's a hard thing to do. Yeah, I know, right?
02:03:48
Speaker
Paul winds about the overturned finish and throws to JR, who's with Lex Luger.
02:04:27
Speaker
I love that he opens by yelling while flexing. That's just like, that's awesome.
02:04:35
Speaker
Nice short little promo here. Lucre keeps it simple, but put in a lot of emotion. So maybe he was saving up all the extra impact I thought should have been in the match for here. It's a little bit silly, but what the heck, it's fun. It'd be hard, I think, to watch this and not feel happy for him. It's theatrical, but simultaneously pretty genuine, I thought. I will say it's funny to do a promo or speech that is short and sweet, but then also announce that it is short and sweet. Yes, true. This is really emotional, let me tell you.
02:05:06
Speaker
Well, you can't hide the fact that he's stoked. Yeah. Where was this Luger in the match, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I'm not saying he had no energy, but if he had done that a few more times or just any level close to that, I think the last match would have been a lot more memorable and enjoyable to me. Both of them look like they were just going through the motions in the match here. You know, there's some, some real, uh, feeling behind it.
02:05:37
Speaker
St. Hanson at this point, he's basically splitting his time between two promotions, World Championship Wrestling and All Japan Pro Wrestling. Following this feud, he stays around for a little while, sort of balancing the two out. The WWE then reveals their new planned form, which involves a series of vignettes featuring three desperados.
02:05:56
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Which are three cowboys that walk into a really obvious, tiny set of a town with constant, terrible guitar music playing, telling all the jokes basically that would have been cut out of blazing saddles in the very first draft. The whole premise of these is they're going around Texas towns in old west areas, but also in 1990 somehow. I don't know how that works. Looking for Stan Hansen. Then just sees that and promptly leaves the company.
02:06:22
Speaker
Wow. Unfortunately, they let him watch those promos with his glasses on. There you go, yeah. He wouldn't, he would have stayed if he hadn't, yeah. As for Lex here, his US title run goes very well. And in fact, his luck increases even more so by the middle of the year when the big event happened, which I will discuss later.
02:06:44
Speaker
Our next match is the Horseman, the Enforcer, Arne Anderson, and Barry Windham versus Doom, Ron Simmons, and Butch Reed with the Godfather of Professional Wrestling, Teddy Long, in a street fight for Doom's World Tag Team titles. Just be clear, it's not the Godfather from Professional Wrestling. No. Okay, just make sure.
02:07:06
Speaker
Doom has been very, very dominant in their run with the tag titles. Tasting away other teams trying to get the titles, which is why the standards are U.S. champions. This naturally due to the attention of the Four Horsemen, who obviously love holding gold and tag titles. They had a match at the previous show as a hint at an commentary that did not end. It was a pinfall, it ended with double count-out and they brought it to the back. So a regular match didn't work, so we're trying a street fight, because it's gotten deep serious and personal.
02:07:35
Speaker
The Horseman song is definitely a rip-off of something, but it sounds pretty cool. Their shirts, however, really aren't. I'm not sure why they got what looks like Horseman Records, like for a record player on there, but they're not the ones with the rock band gimmick. To give a visual of someone doesn't see the shirt, it's four horse heads, basically forming like a clock, so there's like an up and down and left and a right in the middle, and then the other stuff around it just doesn't quite look as good as so many other shirts they have. Yeah.
02:08:04
Speaker
The Starrcade stats inform us that both men represent the Horseman. Is there some kind of fusion going on? Maybe that's Flair. Maybe, okay. Probably not. They can cut part of the O out of Mysteric's name. The Horseman's page is used to inform us that Doom is better at this type of match, which seems better saved for Doom's page.
02:08:30
Speaker
I feel like Doom wrote that one, yeah. Yeah. Though they seem to be pinned against each other. They downplay one of them, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Hilariously, Long actually blocks out view of Ron Simmons as they come down their entrance ramp, which is kind of the opposite of what I assumed would happen. Long is also the only one pictured on the Starrcade stats page for Doom, which is kind of weird. They wrote the Norsemen's page, and he wrote their page. Yeah, apparently.
02:08:56
Speaker
The match gets started while the stats are still up. The four brawl and Anderson saves Wyndham from a Simmons beating and whips Simmons with his belt. Reed reverses a Wyndham suplex and Simmons clotheslines Anderson with Anderson's own belt and whips him with it as Paul spots a guy just standing there on the ramp and asks who he is. J.R. doesn't answer and the mystery forever remains. Slenderman. Oh, there you go. He's always somewhere.
02:09:19
Speaker
Windham and Reed brawl outside, and Reed nails Windham with his weightlifting belt, and rams him into the ring post to get him bleeding. Anderson gets Reed's belt, landing strikes and a choke. Windham tries his luck again with Simmons, and Anderson joins in. Windham lashes Simmons right in the face with the weightlifting belt, and Simmons is bleeding too.
02:09:38
Speaker
Anderson goes out to nail Reed with a steel chair, did start him bleeding too, then puts the chair in the ring so Wyndham can nail Simmons with it. Simmons hits Wyndham with a spine buster for a close two count, and there's a weird bit where Reed climbs up to the middle rope but Wyndham just wanders away, so Reed comes back down. Did Wyndham forget a spot?
02:10:11
Speaker
Reid hits a top rope shoulder block on Anderson, but Windham saves and hits a DDT on Reid. The chair gets involved again, and Reid and Simmons get both Anderson and Windham down, but can't finish them off. Reid spills out over the top rope, but the match is no DQ, so that's okay. Not like it would have mattered anyway most of the time. True. Windham holds Simmons, and Anderson climbs to the second rope, but as he jumps off, Reid knocks Windham away, and Simmons lands a clothesline on a jumping arn. Very nice spot.
02:10:22
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know who to blame in that one.
02:10:40
Speaker
Windham reverses a whip by Reid into a roll-up, and Simmons pins Anderson. The ref counts three for both teams. With a double pin, the bell rings, but the teams keep fighting, brawling wildly up the ramp and all the way to the back. It's a double pin, so it's a no contest, and Doom keeps the titles.
02:10:59
Speaker
So obviously you have to deal with, first and foremost, the bait and switch aspect going into the show, which is they pull flare out, but wait a minute. That said, it's still a really good match. It obviously has a very different feel from the tag tournament matches or other matches that we had, because it's just basically a four person brawl.
02:11:17
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not always a fan of those. Generally, my problem is they can be really hard to follow. This one to me had more nuance and actual spots in it than the one we had with a Minute Express against Garvin in drag and, um, what was the name?
02:11:32
Speaker
Jimmy Valiant. Jimmy Valiant, thank you. My brain has fully forgotten his name, which is good. But no, that one for me, just to compare it, was them mostly just sort of fighting and bleeding and then fighting and bleeding some more until the fanfic I liked. In this case, this is a mix of spots. They have good moves. They sort of trade off with partners. They're in the ring. They're out of the ring.
02:11:54
Speaker
It could be really hard to follow, but I think they actually manage it pretty well because there's not something really, really important happening on the outside, what's been happening on the inside and vice versa. Obviously anyone who's listening to me talk about these matches knows I'm not going to like it because it's a non-finish and a tag match. I mean, it's just better than I catchphrases at this point. That's how I liked everything about it up until the finish. It's a shame that they're still not committal with this story, but knowing what I know afterwards, I guess that might be a factor in it.
02:12:23
Speaker
Doom is impressive. Yeah, absolutely. I'm not a big fan of the blood aspect, but I think that it was really warranted in this one. I differentiate it from the rest of the night, you know, in previous arcades that kind of seemed like everything was, you know, a bloodbath.
02:12:41
Speaker
Yeah, that one show that Matto was talking about was like, I think the only show I've seen on the network that was TVMA because everyone is leading every match. Yeah, every match. And I like the reverse here where they used it in a situation where it was absolutely warranted to show the brutality.
02:13:02
Speaker
Like when they cut to some of the people and they're calling each other names and everything. It just, it felt a little more real, a little more personal, even if it was, you know, theatrics. I like that even though it wasn't on finisher, they still carried it on, you know, up the ramp and everything. Yeah. Yeah.
02:13:22
Speaker
There's a spot where they have all three of them knocked down, like one after they're like dominoes, and I was hoping the fourth one would trip or fall or something, so like a perfect screen grab of it. I mean, if that had been Flair like the visually booked, he would have... then the last one up and then Flair flopped, yeah. Yeah, but that wouldn't fit this match, but... No.
02:13:42
Speaker
that spine buster. It was ridiculous. It's like one of those trapdoor spiders, you know, just like, just ripped him off his feet. Yeah. And it was executed perfectly. He landed flat on his back. There was no, you know, neck injury or possible. It was just pulled in and tucked him under. It was great.
02:14:03
Speaker
I know that the announcers talk about, I've never seen someone come back out of it. Well, took the ref like, you know, five seconds or something to start the count. They cover that really well, yeah. Yeah. But it was pretty intense and that's the one part of the match other than, you know, just the, they're having fun even though they're slogging the crap out of each other.
02:14:24
Speaker
Yeah, if this had an ending, this would be really, really good. As it is, it's a pretty intense brawl, with some good ideas for spots that elevate it above just being mindless violence. We get kind of the parade of finishers at the end that'll become a pretty common thing in the late 90s and early 2000s, but at this point it's really unusual to see people trading and kicking out of finishing moves and big moves like that. So it made it seem like everyone was pushing themselves harder than normal in a deeply personal match, like you guys were saying.
02:14:55
Speaker
I like that there always seemed to be this feeling that the teams, while often parrying off to brawl, really kept track of where their partners were and came over to help pretty quickly if they got in trouble. Wrestlers had to really stun one man on a team to be able to double team the other, and it felt natural. The weapons were used well, they felt significant, but not overused. I don't think this rises to the level of some of the earlier bloody brawls that we've seen, but it got pretty good all the same. It's just the lack of an ending that hurts it a lot.
02:15:24
Speaker
You mentioned the spine buster that Ron Simmons does, John. How did we not get a spine buster duel between Simmons and Arne Anderson? How did they miss that?
02:15:36
Speaker
Yeah, they should have had Arne do it to read on one side of the ring and Simmons do it to, yeah, wind them on their side. Yeah. And like both turn, like look at each other or something. And then they could, they fight each other. Yeah. Yeah. Clothes line each other down or something. I agree. Yeah. Simmons Spine Buster is, looks super intense, but also does feel very safe if you actually think about how it's being done. Anderson Spine Buster is always a thing of beauty. So it'd be amazing to see both of them hit those. It'd just be great.
02:16:06
Speaker
and there was a ddt that came up later that looked really really good because it was like it was cocky it was like he's like i'm tired i'm just gonna get this done and uh it pulled it off well this is again uh brawl with a story yeah that makes those much much better yeah i don't want to seem like i'm too negative on i just don't like the non-finishes i totally get that yeah it's just because i'm i'm i'm i'm i'm there as well with this one yeah
02:16:32
Speaker
And it's because I liked everything about it and then they don't give me a finish that makes it worse. Yeah. For me, I mean, I don't like it either, but I like that at least with a non-finish, usually you have someone cowering and running away or something like that. We didn't get that here. At least they still were trying to get some sort of resolution all the way to the... Yeah, it didn't like stop. I can understand that point of view, man.
02:17:00
Speaker
A couple of shows from now, Doom will sadly drop their titles and split up. Aw. Yeah. They've just kind of hit their stride, it feels like. Yeah. They basically spent all of 1990 showing how dumb they could be fighting all of their teams and getting their experience. And then they lose them. What's funny actually is that so they lose it and I think it's February, March, or it's not January. They could pass that rule. They lose their titles to the fabulous Freebirds.
02:17:28
Speaker
What? Yeah, exactly. Somehow, between here and now, the Freebird is in the fire of the titles. Go figure. However, because I just heard about it earlier, they had this complicated bulk taping where they would tape two or three shows and then sort of stretch them out over weeks. They actually had already filmed a match where the Stiner brothers beat the Fallis Freebird for the world-tagging titles, while still holding the U.S. titles, by the way, one day before that.
02:17:55
Speaker
So the Freebird have a negative six day title reign.
02:18:01
Speaker
Oh, that's awesome. Those poor guys were handed belts and said, here, you won these belts next week. Now go and lose them. Yes. The only upside of this, of them breaking up, is that the reason why they broke up is because the company was firmly behind Ron Simmons. They saw a lot in him, so they really wanted him to be a big star on his own. So they started his separate push. And he deserves it. Oh, no, absolutely. He's a very, very good worker and a good personality, I think. Absolutely, yeah.
02:18:31
Speaker
As I know before, Arnon has some pretty good souls as that's when the TV title, albeit not for a super long time, he will find other tag partners until the fourth man officially reunite again, mid of the year. We get the Wrestle War ad again. Even played twice, it takes up about a fifth of the time one show ad took up on Starrcade 86, just saying. Yeah, they didn't show us the entire finish to a tag title tournament and the coronation ceremony. And then tell us to watch the show.
02:19:00
Speaker
I was still excited by it the second time. Yes, it's still glorious. Oh yeah. The tournament final is between the team from Japan, the great Muta and Mr. Sayido, versus the team from the United States, the Steiner brothers. The guest referee for this match is internationally respected referee Masayo Hitori.
Steiner Brothers' Tournament Final
02:19:22
Speaker
Muta sprays green mist on the ramp.
02:19:24
Speaker
He spits out his hand, doesn't anyone does the mist? Yeah, he's standing on the ramp as well. Oh, no, no, just to clarify. Because it'd be funny if it was like the same area where Hanson is spitting his chew out. They're like, oh, no, no. The Stiners get a nice curtain of sparks as they come out. It looked really cool. Toe twinkles. JR says that single elimination is the way wrestling should be. So I guess he wasn't a fan of last year's show. Apparently not.
02:19:51
Speaker
J.R. predicts that the Steiners will take it, while Paul is pulling for Muta and Sayetu. Because the yen is more valuable than the dollar, Japan makes better cars than America, and Japan makes better computers than America, as Alexandra York can apparently attest to.
02:20:07
Speaker
The crowd chants USA, but Muda nails Scott with rapid kicks and an enziguri, then catches Scott's foot on a kick. But Scott pulls his amazing reversal from last year's LOD match and gets Muda in a single leg crab. Still love that. Muda gets the ropes as everybody comes in, but Hitori gets Saito and Rick back out. Paul tells us that he doesn't like Hitori because he's too honest and won't turn the match for Japan.
02:20:31
Speaker
Scott tags Rick and Muda at first hits kicks and his jumping spin kick to him too, but Rick fires back with a Steiner line that sends Muda to tag Saito. Saito hits hard hammering blows, but misses a closed line, so Rick hits a dropkick and Steiner line. Muda climbs up top, but Rick shakes the rope so he crotches himself, but it goes to walk it off for a bit.
02:20:50
Speaker
Try not to get distracted if you're watching the match. And you can see in the corner of your eye, you can see Muda opening the front of his pants to look down to examine the damage done. I guess so, yes. I really noticed the second time it was very distracting. Yeah, slightly.
02:21:08
Speaker
Sayido offers Rick a handshake, but Rick kicks him. Great sportsmanship there, Rick. Tags to Scott and a recovered Muda, and Muda gets the handspring elbow. Scott responds with a belly-to-belly for two as Sayido saves. Tag to Sayido, and Paul tells us that Hitori used to manage Sayido, but he was disgusted with Sayido's tactics and quit managing to become a referee. JR equips, the only advice he would give him is to stay out of McDonald's.
02:21:34
Speaker
This bears a bit of explanation. Yeah. Yeah. Well, just curious. What was your response here in that, John? I had no idea what they were talking about. Were you having another one of the existential crises, or? Not quite. Okay. There was no dazzling lights. Oh, okay. So back in 1984, fellow wrestler Ken Patera was refused service at a McDonald's that had closed for the night. Per Patera, its lights were on to film a commercial, thus his mistake.
02:22:01
Speaker
Patera apparently reacted by throwing a boulder through the window of the restaurant, though Patera himself claims it was someone else. I'm assuming that he found out about them filming the commercial, if indeed they were, after throwing the rock, presumably seeing cameras would have stopped it unless the need for munchies was just that bad.
02:22:28
Speaker
In any case, Sayido became involved when police came to Patera and Sayido's hotel looking for Patera. Sayido was Patera's tag partner at the time, I believe. Yes, in the other way, yes. And Sayido and Patera decided it would be a really good idea to just beat the heck out of the cops. Yeah. As one might guess, this earned them some prison time. Yes. Sayido apparently took time to invent another hold while in prison. I'm not sure if it's one that we'll get to see. I don't believe we do, no. So yeah, that's the McDonald's story.
02:22:59
Speaker
It is a little weird that JR says that he should stay out of McDonald's because he apparently wasn't actually there for that part of it, but he did get involved in the overall story anyway. Yes. I wish I didn't know.
02:23:13
Speaker
Back to the match, Sayudo brawls with each Steiner in turn and gets the better of an exchange with Rick, then brings in Muda for his rapid elbow drop. JR calls it the Power Drive Elbow, which is an awesome name. Muda throws Rick out, and Scott starts protesting, and this continues as Muda and Sayudo take advantage. A ram to the ring post, Rick loses his headgear but someone throws it back. I'm glad you noticed that, yeah. Yes.
02:23:35
Speaker
A shot with the ring bell. What Paul dubs a Muda line. Choking and other double teaming ensue, but Rick finally gets free with the Steiner line and tags Scott. Scott runs wild and gets his own Steiner line and a nice double arm suplex, but Sayutto comes in to save Muda and that draws Rick in. With the Tori distracted, Muda chokes Scott. Muda and Sayutto keep advantage, culminating in a double team spike pile driver, one of them holding and the other jumping off the top rope.
02:24:00
Speaker
Rick runs in but gets spin kicked by Muda and falls out of the ring. Muda wanders around and kind of just gets annoyed as the crowd chants USA, so he climbs up the turnbuckle to glare at them. Saito grabs Scott in a sleeper, but Rick sneaks in a tag and jumps in with a sunset flip to take Saito down for the three, as Scott tackles Muda to hold him back. The Steiners win the tournament. Paul's alternate reality includes the crowd chanting Ja-pan, Ja-pan for the real heroes.
02:24:29
Speaker
For once, we actually get a full tag team match story in a show with, I assume, 26 tag matches, something like that, give or take a few. No, seriously though, it is surprising to see the full breadth of the story that we expect in a standard tag match of any normal length.
02:24:47
Speaker
finally showing up at the end. Yeah. So it's kind of a double-edged sword, because on the one hand, I'm glad that it's there. It also means that we didn't get it so long, so it does something about the other matches. That said, I really liked just how unpath-forthing was, and I liked that the story became, the Japanese team was so insistent on winning that they started cheating behind their freeze back. They became heels as soon as the match went about halfway through, realizing that
02:25:12
Speaker
What they were doing was not taking the Stiners down, so we got to start cheating. You know, take the intergalactic tag team titles, whoever they're calling them now, back to Japan for some reason. I, yeah, but I just liked the double teaming finally came a full thing and the healers manner. We had sort of a mix of where people double teams, but it's almost always faces doing it for the most part. And it was just, here's a neat spot as opposed to here's us hitting one guy's back turn, just like that. Yeah. There's definitely more healers attached to it.
02:25:39
Speaker
I did like the misdirection part of the victory. It really showed the Stiners being not just dominant like they had been in like hitting the power moves and in suplexes, but actually being a better tag team. Basically Dabney team got cocky. Muda's, you know, off celebrating in the corner while he thinks Saeedo's got it covered and they do a blind tag and pin him. There's finally actually a story in this match and I like it.
02:26:03
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of great teamwork on both teams. I didn't really take the Japan becoming heels so much, but I could definitely feel some cockiness mixed with frustration going back and forth that they had to resort to one thing or the other.
02:26:19
Speaker
I like that they had that part where they've shown multiple times during the match that they were like evenly matched, especially when you got Scott laying down on the ground. And they do the traditional work up the crowd while two people are trying to get to their tag. Seems more modern to me than this era, but maybe I'm wrong. If nothing else, it's cutting edge for this time period. Yeah.
02:26:43
Speaker
Yeah. So they, it had a good narrative. I definitely felt more about this match with the Steiner brothers than any of the other matches they were in, even though, you know, they had some nice definitive finishes. I always enjoy Muda. Definitely agree with you that they did a really good job of being cocky at the end and then, uh, just cost them the match.
02:27:04
Speaker
hmm I didn't I didn't get that he was being cocky I thought he's just kind of like wandering around for no reason that I could determine that he just climbs up on the turnbuckle and I all I could think was he was improvising annoyance at the crowd and I was like that's a weird way to end and his involvement in the match I just I didn't get that I guess
02:27:23
Speaker
It was only like the last like three seconds before he came down that I felt that way. It wasn't like it was anything leading up to that. It was just like, yeah, he was kind of off in his own land looking out into the crowd and everything, not fully aware of what was going on behind him.
02:27:38
Speaker
Yeah, but if you look at the story of the match in the latter half, they isolated Scott, they done the double team spike piledriver, they had all this stuff. Saito seemingly has control. Essentially he's getting ready to celebrate the victory that he knows is forthcoming. I guess so. You could definitely argue maybe his timing is too long because he has to be looking away for all that, but the idea at least that guy got pretty fine.
02:28:01
Speaker
I think I wouldn't have thought of him being cocky at the end if he hadn't had, you know, they threw him into the ropes and he kind of lost his footing for a second, but he just didn't seem like he was too worried about anything. Yeah. He probably just figured he had in the bag. Yeah. That's why I viewed it anyways.
02:28:19
Speaker
For a little while, this really looked like it was Scott's revenge for all the times that Rick accidentally distracted the ref to let him get beat up last year. Oh yeah, that's true. Lots of that by the signers this time, and it again got a little comedic to see just how often they do it, especially when Hattori did seem actually kind of pretty on the ball about dealing with Muda and Saito trying to cheat otherwise. Let the ref try to handle things first, guys. He seems pretty good. Otherwise, though, this was a very good tag match. It definitely suffered from being the 10th tag match on the show,
02:28:49
Speaker
It made it hard for me to get into it, but I did a rewatch of it later on its own and taken that way, it's good. Both teams pull off some impressive strength spots, and I liked how the wrestling focus of the start gave way to brawling and big hits as the Steiners got more upset about the cheating, and Saito and Mira saw they needed to do more to take the Steiners down.
02:29:07
Speaker
As much as I'll make fun of it, the accidental distractions by the Steiners did work with the storyline, too. They're just getting too hot-headed. It's only once Rick is kind of forced to cool down via spin kick that he gets focused and is able to surprise Saito to win. I thought the ending spot itself was great. Really well timed dive by Scott to block Muda especially.
02:29:27
Speaker
In the slow-mo, it looked really believable. I mean, he was picking Muda up in between those steps, so even if you really wanted to get over there, you could see how it was effective. Yeah. But to me, like I said, it was a little awkward having Muda just kind of wander around for a bit. I'll have to take a look at it again and see if I get more of you guys' version of it. Good end to the tournament. Just one that would probably play better if there hadn't been a tournament.
02:29:57
Speaker
Yeah, I really feel like if they could have narrowed this down to three matches, pick the four best teams rather, whoever won those two matches fight in this longer match. Yeah. That would have been good. Cutting a little more than a half would have been really good for me. Oh yeah. It would have been much easier to handle this show then.
02:30:16
Speaker
The Steiner's that they hint at will have a very great 1990, and 991 rather. They go into this show, the US Tag Champions. As I mentioned, they win the World Tag Titles later in the year. About a month later, at the WWE New Japan Super Show, which is sometimes called Starrcade in Japan. Just to be confusing.
02:30:38
Speaker
They win New Japan's World Tag Titles as well. So very brief period of time, they'll win all three tag titles. They eventually relinquish the U.S. tag titles because they can't defend all three, but that brief period of time is pretty impressive for them. 1991 is definitely their year up until, I believe there's an injury to Rick later in the year or earlier next year. So they do really well through 91.
02:31:00
Speaker
Muda is one of those guys. He would just kind of come and go in WCW. He had a solid home over in Japan. He's huge over there. He was practically their Hogan, just depending on who you ask.
02:31:13
Speaker
He would briefly come in 1991 for his sporadic matches. Weirdly enough, he's back for a match Luger has to win to qualify for World Title Shot later in the year. He will sadly not be around in next year's show, but he does come back later. We will see him many more times in different iterations throughout the years. As for Mr. Saito, we won't see him again until 1995 when he reappears for one of the weirdest arcades. Yes.
02:31:41
Speaker
Having seen that one before, I can attest it's a strange one. Looking forward to it. Oh, I actually. We go to the stage where Jim Hurd joins Tony and the Steiners for the awards ceremony. Let's hear it for the Paddle Connor family this time! And now, ladies and gentlemen,
02:32:05
Speaker
To make the presentation to the Steiners, the Executive Vice President of World Championship Wrestling, Mr. Jim Hurd. Mr. Hurd. Thank you, Tony. First, I'd like to congratulate and thank all the countries that sent participants to this first Pat O'Connor Memorial Tournament. And I'd like to thank those wrestlers who participated. And I'd like to thank you, great wrestling fans in St. Louis, for this great turnout.
02:32:38
Speaker
But most of all, most of all, I'd like to congratulate the greatest two super heavyweights that I've ever seen, the Steiner Brothers. Scottie, congratulations, Rick. Thank you very much, Toreshibani. Me and my brother, we're very proud to represent the United States and the great rest of the times for Luke Norris.
02:33:06
Speaker
But you know there's other warriors that are representing the United States and Kuwait. My great grand, my uncle, both my uncles fought in Korea and Vietnam and I'm proud of these guys over in Kuwait. Hey, I got one thing to say, you guys over there kick some butt.
02:33:28
Speaker
All right ladies and gentlemen once again congratulations the Steiner brothers winning the international tag team tournament the Pat O'Connell Memorial Tournament. Right now though let's go back to the ring with Jim Ross and Pauli Dangersley for our main event. Okay they kind of flubbed their lines a bit but... A little. Grom uncle yeah my great uncle both uncles yeah but
02:33:54
Speaker
This was a nice enough tribute to the troops I thought from the Steiners, unlike the WWF, who will very shortly be running an angle where Sergeant Slaughter idolizes Saddam Hussein, and they try to link burning Hulk Hogan merchandise to burning the American flag and hold matches in hilariously tiny ballistic masks. USA? I didn't mind this. I could have done with some mention of the actual tournament or their competition or something, too. It feels like they're just kind of done with that story and ready to go home. Mm-hmm. It was like, yeah, we were proud.
02:34:24
Speaker
All Japan Pro Wrestling briefly had their own international tag team titles. Okay. Also from like 1965 through 1988. Wow. And they were once held by the Road Warriors. Oh, there you go. So now it's an international tag team tournament, but is this still for the intergalactic tag titles or whatever the hell it's supposed to be at this point? Champions of the Universe, yeah. Thank you, yeah.
02:34:48
Speaker
I hope they don't have Jim Herr talking too much anymore. Oh god, no, that was terrible. It's like medicine for insomnia there. Alright, we're at the final match, finally. It went quick. Yeah. No, it didn't.
Sting vs The Black Scorpion Main Event
02:35:05
Speaker
Our final match is Sting versus the Black Scorpion. Dun dun dun. In a cage match for Sting's world heavyweight title or the Black Scorpion's mask.
02:35:17
Speaker
So, from that nice tribute, we go to JR and Paul discussing whether they'll find out who the Black Scorpion is. It's a bit of a jarring transition. Paul says that they're gonna have a new world champ, because Sting is too busy trying to figure out the Black Scorpion's identity. The world's most dangerous announcer, Gary Cappetta, introduces the world's most dangerous wrestler, Dick the Bruiser. Paul notes that Dick the Bruiser looks like Popeye the Sailor, and whistles a bit of the Popeye theme.
02:35:43
Speaker
Rick Flair would lose the world title at Great American Bash in July to Sting, finally giving his big victory. That would set Flair in a different direction, going after tag titles and other such ventures. Coincidentally around the same time, a serious black scorpion appears, who seems to know information about Sting. He's a mysterious hooded figure. He shows up and does weird magic tricks, like teleporting people across the stage and turning someone into a tiger.
02:36:09
Speaker
leopard, I think. Well, they call it tiger. True. I'm going with that Mississippi cannon on this. Oh, okay.
02:36:15
Speaker
earlier in the year there's a match where Sting battles a black scorpion and he actually beats him defending his title but then a second black scorpion dressed like a super evil monk from a movie about the dark ages shows up to reveal that he's the real black scorpion so all that didn't matter. There then proceed to be many many black scorpions in various outfits and various guises that will appear.
02:36:39
Speaker
All of this leads to Sting being confused and befuddled and just generally bothered by what's going on. The point where he's willing to put a title along against this guy who has literally not won a match to qualify for a world title. He just exists and does magic so you get to fight Sting.
02:36:56
Speaker
Yeah. Behind the scenes, there's some reason for this to all be a bit confusing, and that things don't quite go the way that WCW wanted them to with this angle. They had a few choices in mind for who the Black Scorpion would end up being that were actually legitimately people from Sting's past.
02:37:16
Speaker
I know Al Perez is a choice at one point, and a wrestler, I believe his name is Dave Sheldon, who goes by the Angel of Death. Yes. Both of whom Sting had worked with in the past, and the Black Scorpion drops a lot of clues that could apply to them. He says that he was a former tag partner of Sting's, and he mentioned cities like Syracuse and somewhere else.
02:37:34
Speaker
WCW, I don't think actually ever seriously thought that they could get him since he's WWF champion at the time, but a lot of the hinting is clearly like trying to suggest to the crowd that it might also be the ultimate warrior. Similar face paint. Well, they were actually tag team partners when they started out. Yeah. Yeah. Before the UWF was bought out by Jim Proctor promotions, they were a tactic called the blade runners who both were face paint and were big, muscly, scary dudes.
02:38:01
Speaker
Ultimate Warrior, then called Dingo Warrior, moved to WF briefly as Dingo Warrior, but quickly became the Ultimate Warrior and shot to superstardom. Yes. All the way before we saw the UDF tough come in. All it took was a name change. Yep. Yep.
02:38:17
Speaker
In any case, I forget exactly how this goes, but I believe Al Perez backs out. Dave Sheldon just actually thinks the crowd's not gonna actually know who I am, so he thinks it won't actually be a good reveal if he does it. So WCW kind of stumbles around and tries to figure out who to put under the mask. Who will it be? Let's find out. I still think Al's in New York. She has no alibi.
02:38:43
Speaker
There you go, it's true. Yeah, yeah, he doesn't have that was the condition that was the condition Intimidating music starts up the black scorpion comes down the ramp then the black scorpion comes down the ramp then the black scorpion comes down the ramp then the black scorpion sans sleeves comes down the ramp none of them go to the ring instead taking up positions around the stage and
02:39:09
Speaker
A UFO comes down from the ceiling to the ramp, and closes into kind of a pod, and the scorpion's gravelly voice greets us.
02:39:29
Speaker
There is only one true black scorpion, and it is I. J.R. them repeats the promo in case we didn't understand Christian Bale's Batman voice
02:39:48
Speaker
I was getting maxed-position, Dagda, but... Oh, gal. I was hoping you'd say, I'll get you next time, gadget. Oh, yeah. Dr. Claw, yeah. Yeah. That's even more on point.
02:39:59
Speaker
The Voice is actually done by Ole Anderson. Yes. I would give a lot of money to see the actual recording sessions of this just to see whether it's like really enjoying it over the top like supervillain stuff or if he's just like humiliated to be doing this. I don't know. I have to picture him like being super serious and like sitting down with his herbal tea like he has like a neckerchief on and he's like, ahem, Steve, I will destroy you.
02:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, you know, moving the wine glass around. Yeah, exactly. Smoke covers the ramp and the UFO opens to reveal a particularly sparkly caped black scorpion with a suspiciously familiar chin and his poor nose smooshed up against his mask. Pyro goes off as the scorpion slowly walks to the ring, and Starrcade's stats come up just basically listing things the scorpion has said before. Ironically, the blurry dark photo of the scorpion silhouette is one of the best stats photos we've had tonight. It at least looks intimidating.
02:40:55
Speaker
So who cornered him backstage and got the picture? Dunno. Maybe he provided it himself. He's pretty good at publicity. It's unknown. Just like his identity. Sting comes out in front of a bored-looking picture of his face, but the awesome green and gold jacket makes up for it. He glares at the scorpion as he gets ready for the match. Sting doesn't rate Starrcade stats. He's only the World Heavyweight Champion.
02:41:21
Speaker
As the match starts, some of the fans chant Nature Boy. Yeah, I'm kinda sad we didn't get a flare match, too. Wait, you know, it could be Buddy Rogers. Ah, maybe. Or Buddy Landell. I have not seen him in a while. Yeah.
02:41:34
Speaker
Scorpion uses punches and hammering blows and tries to ram Sting into the cage, but it's blocked. Sting fights back and hits a big clothesline. Someone in the crowd gives a big Stinger call and Sting kind of looks taken aback. The match turns against Sting as the Scorpion lands bigger hits and a side suplex. People in the crowd start wooing. Scorpion gets a figure four kind of move around Sting's head instead of the legs. The crowd finally stops goofing off and cheers for Sting as he fights the hold.
02:41:59
Speaker
Sting gets free, but Scorpion keeps landing blows and flings him from corner to corner hard enough to shake the cage. JR hopes the cameraman perched on it stays safe. Bruiser won't let Scorpion put his feet on the ropes during holds, though. Sting reels, but finally manages to start a comeback. But Scorpion dodges a crossbody, and Sting crashes into the cage hard. Scorpion gets a one count off of that.
02:42:19
Speaker
Scorpion gets some choking, but Sting kicks him in the face for two and gets a suplex for two. They brawl around the ring, but Scorpion smashes Sting into the cage several times. Pile driver on Sting for two. Sting fights back and throws Scorpion face-first into the middle rope. Sting takes another cage smash, but comes back with a one-handed bulldog and a stinger splash and Scorpion flops. Sting puts the Scorpion in the Scorpion death lock, which is just a weird thing to say. We think that would power him up almost. Yeah, almost.
02:42:48
Speaker
But Scorpion gets Sting off-balance to slip free. Sting flings him into the cage and rips the mask off. But there's a silver mask underneath. So is he the silver Scorpion now?
02:43:00
Speaker
Also, what would happen with the match if he didn't have a second mask on? He cheated to win, basically, at that pace. Yeah, kind of. Because you had to win the match to get his mask off. That's the idea. And he was like, screw it. I'm ripping off anyways. Yeah. That's why it didn't reveal. You need to fulfill the right conditions. Yeah. That's the other thing to note as well. In an earlier match, I think it's the one where Al Perez is wrestling as a Black Scorpion when they actually fight the first time. He rips his mask off in his second mask on as well. But yes, ding a surprise when it happens again. Yeah.
02:43:29
Speaker
Scorpion tries to flee over the cage. Sting follows, but Scorpion knocks him down. Sting collapses on a different side of the ropes, and Scorpion generously loses his balance anyway and crotches himself. Sting smashes Scorpion into the cage twice, then military presses him, and hurls him face-first into the cage, hard. Scorpion blades through the mask. Through the mask. Yeah, I've never seen an unbladed mask before.
02:43:55
Speaker
and his blood coats the front. The blood scorpion would be a cool name. I'm gonna look that up. Sting hits an awesome leaping clothesline then slugs scorpion hard and climbs up top. Scorpion groggily gets to his feet and Sting leaps landing a jumping splash for the three count and the win.
02:44:14
Speaker
The Scorpion's messengers charge the ring, and Sting and Dick the bruiser fight them off, ripping their mask off, though we're not told who any of them are. Doesn't matter. Scorpion tries to crawl over the top of the cage, and Arne Anderson and Barry Windham come down for some reason. That's curious. Beating up Sting and Bruiser. Arne DDT's Sting on a steel chair, as Scorpion comes back down. Anderson hits Sting with the chair, and Scorpion joins that fun. JR thinks, you know, it might be another horseman under that mask. But who? Sid, obviously.
02:44:44
Speaker
Z-Man and Ricky Morton charge down to try to save Sting. Terry Taylor joins in too, but none of them can get in. Sting boldly fights back against the odds inside, and the Stiners finally come down with bolt cutters and fumble with them for a bit, but finally get in. Sting gets a hold of the Scorpion and grabs the mask, finally taking it off to reveal... Short-haired Ric Flair!
02:45:05
Speaker
Or rather the back of short-haired Ric Flair's head. He escapes the ring quickly alongside the horseman and nobody really gets a shot of his face, so it's left to JR to tell us that yes, that was Ric Flair. I think helpless laughter is exactly the right response to this match, John.
02:45:29
Speaker
I can sometimes match up in four words. This should be better. If you really can't figure out that trick Flair going into this, like you're watching this live and don't recognize a pattern, it's understandable if you're like, who's this mysterious guy? He's doing all these different moves in Flair. So maybe you're not rating it like a Flair Sting match.
02:45:48
Speaker
But obviously it's 2019 when we're recording this, and I know the outcome of this show already, because it happened a long time ago. So I'm going and just watching, I know this is Flair. So on one hand it's impressive that he does disguise his mannerisms and moves honestly pretty well for the most part. Obviously his face squishing that mask is hard not to notice. I'm sure that was very very pleasant to work through.
02:46:10
Speaker
I like the finish that it's a strong sting victory. It's just everything following that is so muddy because it's everyone in it and then there's no big payoff. This still hasn't been going for like four or five months at this point I believe. It's been going for a while and the payoff is a guy with blonde hair you can kind of see crawling away while the camera does not get a shot of him. Yeah. It's disappointing sadly.
02:46:32
Speaker
Well, the hair's unmistakable, at least the front of it, you know, like if he chopped off the rest of his mallet, so be it. Yeah, I thought it was flair when the scorpion came out of its pod or whatever is chrysalis.
02:46:48
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know how you describe that, honestly. No, it was just a, you know, little geodesic thing. You know, and I was like, okay, they're obviously gonna have them come through the floor and they're gonna do some something to either smoke or lights or whatever so they could come through the bottom. Ooh, it's magic. I'm sitting here thinking, like, before I can, the 90s footage, can you discern what the face is? I'm like, that overcoat, that shiny thing, only Ric Flair has something that gaudy.
02:47:18
Speaker
There you go. Period. I wondered, yeah. I was gonna ask you that's because I didn't know if you had heard anything about this storyline before. No. So I wondered when exactly you were certain that it was Rick.
02:47:31
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, like, I mean, I didn't notice it from the face, like when he was coming by, but I had a good feeling just a few minutes into the match. I'm like, oh, that has to be him. Yeah. Because, you know, there's a certain cautiousness. I don't know how to describe it. Like Rick always has like a paste match. Yeah, absolutely. And that's what this was. Even though there were different moves, it didn't really fit any other character. I was hoping they would introduce someone new.
02:48:01
Speaker
That was my hope. Yeah. Or Tony Schifani. Supposedly before they finally settled on Flair, they had really considered it being Wyndham. Yes. But he had done a disguise at anything very, very recently, and Flair basically bit the bullet on him figuring he could overcome this stupid angle. And he did, so.
02:48:24
Speaker
So Al, last year you asked if a Sting versus Flare match could be anything but good. Yeah. I guess we found out. This wasn't actively bad, I don't think. No. But it definitely wasn't good. No.
02:48:38
Speaker
It's pretty slow, and it lacks the personality and the chemistry that these two traditionally have. It's easy to understand why. Flair's having to pretend that he's not Rick Flair, so he can't let his personality shine through like he usually does. Sting does his best to keep up the emotion, and he does at least manage to get the crowd behind him despite everything else. He is still Sting, after all. Yes.
02:49:00
Speaker
If this lost like five minutes of the slower portion, I think it could actually be pretty good. The intensity really ramped up in the last couple of minutes, basically from the Scorpion Deathlock on, and the ending is good. And dang, that face-first chuck into the caves that Sting does is amazing.
02:49:17
Speaker
Otherwise, I really found this quite dull. Flair does do an impressive job, though, of fighting almost entirely like he's somebody else. As you mentioned, John, the pace is kind of similar, but he's really doing a lot of different moves that you don't see from Flair. There's only one or two spots where I felt like he moved like Rick Flair or did something the way that Rick Flair would do it. As Paul points out at one point, he spends most of the match avoiding making any verbal noises at all, which had to be kind of tough.
02:49:43
Speaker
Some of the crowd clearly did figure it out, or maybe they found out from The Observer or one of the other wrestling news magazines that I think were really coming to their own about this time. I don't know. But I actually don't think I would have figured it out if I hadn't already known. At least not right up until around the end. So... interesting performance, but not a good match.
02:50:05
Speaker
Honestly what I would have done, first thing you do, take away the mask versus title thing.
Ric Flair's Departure and Show Conclusion
02:50:10
Speaker
I would have had the Black Scorpion do a big promo on Sting, maybe at the Clash of Champions, and basically say, I will reveal my identity to the world if you sign the dotted line first and put your real time in the line for my match.
02:50:22
Speaker
and they go into this show you have the fake black scorpion to keep the ruse going even do the silly alien pod thing black scorpion like it's like tucked down in one knee you know like terminator coming out of the portal and then slowly stand up and rip the mask off and reveal that flare and like run into the cage and throw the match yeah so you get all that prestige and silliness out of the way and have a flare sting cage match
02:50:49
Speaker
They could just have a good match then. Yeah, I think that would have worked better. And those who like flair could actually cheer for flair. Yeah. I probably would have had them unmasked in the middle. I know that they did that with a secondary mask, but. Yeah, I could see that working too. So after being a solid world champion with all sorts of silliness, Sting titled run eventually and pretty abruptly at a house show in January. Oh. Two?
02:51:19
Speaker
Rick Flair. Whoo. Which is weird. Is his hair back? No, I think this is pretty much Flair's haircut for the rest of his career, actually. Yeah, so Rick, after all this elaborate ruse, doesn't win the title in the big match and just wins at a house show by cheating. Stingtor takes his loss in stride and starts telling him for the US title. Oh, and some other thing happens. Flair leaves the company.
02:51:43
Speaker
Oh. Yeah. Yeah. So he'll have some shows we'll get to from 1991. But yeah, before the next Starrcade, Rick Flair heads off to the greener pastures of the WWF. We'll go into the details of that at a later date. I think we should save that for when we're doing a show closer to that time. Or do a Great American Bash. Yes, where the show happens. Yeah. But for the next two years, no Flair. Nope.
02:52:09
Speaker
Now Flair will return and will consistently wrestle for the company once he does, so we've got many more Flair matches in the 90s, but it's still a pretty shocking loss for WCW. Flair has been in the main event of every single Starrcade so far.
02:52:25
Speaker
All eight shows from 1983 through 1990, it is impossible, I think, to name anyone more central to the Star Cades that we've seen, or the companies that made them, than Ric Flair. It's a pretty stunning break, and I honestly wonder how the next shows are gonna feel. Will Flair's absence be felt, or will someone have stepped into his place? Will it be an opportunity, or a gap? I guess we'll see.
02:52:50
Speaker
It's going to be hard, but I have, I have a feeling that the people coming in will make it less painful than it sounds. I had so many alternate stories of a work ago, not knowing, you know, I think they could have really done some more with the black scorpion angle could be flares alternate personality. Yeah. And, or maybe black scorpion is just, uh, you know, the mask and in the chooses it's avatar or whatever.
02:53:20
Speaker
He's Dr. Fate now. Maybe, yeah. But I was thinking more like they could have done something with Rick. Fireworks go off. We get a quick happy holidays in lieu of credits and Starrcade 90 is done. Thoughts on this? Show with a lot of matches.
02:53:40
Speaker
If you take it as one straight show, it is definitely long. The formulas tend to run together and which is a shame because it really takes away from good performances that are unfortunately on this show where there's 6,000 tag matches and they're all fairly short because there's so many matches on a show that's the same length as the last one.
02:54:01
Speaker
Given the network, you can just watch it any match you please. You can watch it in the order you want. You can dump around. It's honestly, I must say, better to do that.
02:54:10
Speaker
or at the very least taken sections. So watch a section, then watch another section. Basically, if you reach the point where you're distracted from what's happening because you feel like you're watching yet another tag match, that'd be where I would stop it. Think of it like a TV show. You can binge watch an entire show and get all of it, and then you're stuck for two years without another episode of the show, or you can watch it a little bit at a time and get more out of each section that way. That's what I would say with a show.
02:54:38
Speaker
Oh, where to begin. It is a bit of a marathon, but the show has a lot going for it in that you get some variety here and there. I could have done without the tournament, honestly.
02:54:54
Speaker
But then you wouldn't have a show. Yeah. I think that yes, this is something that this is a seven course meal. You might want to take a little bit of a break. I watched it in two show in two settings. And even then when I got to the final match, I was like, okay, all right, we're good.
02:55:12
Speaker
I mean, I was happy Sting was in the final match, of course, but it's going to be very difficult for me to choose a match of the night when there's so many matches. And some of them are only like a minute or two minutes long. So you'd think that it would be a little bit easier, but I'm glad I watched it. I wish I had had a little bit different resolution at the end, personally, but it wasn't bad.
02:55:38
Speaker
Yeah, this was an odd show, and not just because of the Black Scorpion angle. A huge array of tag matches, half the show without a real story because it's all a tournament with teams we don't know, lots of short matches, some of them really more squashes than anything else, silly 90s gimmicks like Michael Wall Street and the Black Scorpion, lots of old references, not that we have room to talk, from Paul E. Dangerously,
02:55:58
Speaker
Those bizarre banners in Luger and Sting's entrances, the increasingly unnecessary Starrcade stats that JR just basically reads verbatim, it all came together into a very strange experience. I'm still ticked off that there's 10 tag matches on this thing. The tournament is alright, most of the matches are short and they do have variety, but did we really need yet more tag matches outside the tournament?
02:56:21
Speaker
And honestly, did the whole tournament really have to be on this show? Could we just do the semi-finals in the finals, maybe? Maybe drop the Freebirds vs. Morton and Rich, and the Skyscrapers vs. Cat and Madman too. Give the Horsemen vs. Doom an ending. I did find myself actually, however, enjoying watching this all the same. It kept moving along pretty well. It has lots of interviews, but they're spaced out well and kept short, so they're consistently adding to the show and never slowed it down.
02:56:46
Speaker
I felt like the show was put together pretty well. Entrances were back to their full pomp and circumstance, so this felt like a big important show. If there had to be a lot of tag matches, or 14 matches overall, and there didn't, but if there did, the tournament was a good choice.
02:57:02
Speaker
Lots of unfamiliar teams meant everything felt fresh and it was easier to maintain interest. They didn't do much of the face imperil stuff either. The right two teams went to the final, though I'd have loved to see the Steiner vs. the USSR team as well. The show's ending feels... really flat. Sting just unmasked the scorpion, we don't get a good shot of Flair's face, and the show just ends.
02:57:23
Speaker
No Sting interview, no wrap-up of any kind. JR actually says we've got about two minutes towards the end of the show. They are pulling the we're desperately out of time as you're trying to conclude your big epic storyline. Plan it out so you can give it a properly big finish. A good Sting promo where he got really mad at Flair could have done a lot to salvage that mess for one. It feels really weird that we don't get one, but at least he doesn't start one and get cut off like last year, I guess.
02:57:51
Speaker
As for the announcers, I thought they worked alright, but I found Paulie pretty irritating at times, honestly. He had some good moments, like the skyscrapers promo, but his arguments with JR and his jokes were hit or miss. The team worked overall, but it didn't seem smooth. Paul's loudmouth act sometimes works, but sometimes just distracts. I can't call this a good show, but it is kind of interesting.
02:58:16
Speaker
Oddly, I think last year's was a higher quality show, but this one is actually a little easier for me to recommend, watching as a whole. Yeah. It just kind of flows better, there's no real spots where it drags, even if you drift in and out of actual interest. But don't watch this just for the Black Scorpion, the funnier stuff is all on earlier shows. True. Do not put commercials in your show that are more interesting than the show you're watching.
02:58:45
Speaker
Not once, but twice. Yes. Fair enough. If they had done a promo in the show about an upcoming match or that they maybe had shown the commercial earlier, I would have loved that. If they had done a commercial with that much amped up thing for the Black Scorpion, I would be behind that. I would be like, I want to see this UFO thing drop, you know?
02:59:13
Speaker
All right, Match of the Night and MVP. Al, you want to go first? Sure.
02:59:19
Speaker
So what I had to do is rewatch the portion that I did last time, rewatch the portion of the show that I was uncertain about and see if I can give him the fair shake outside of this super long show that sort of runs together in my brain. So on second watch, I honestly got a lot more out of the finals of the tag tournament with the Stylers against Saito and Muda. So that for me matched the night because it has a tag match, it's well executed, it has a story, and has a clean finish. Okay. MVP.
02:59:49
Speaker
There's a lot of people, if they'd had more matches and more time, could have easily pulled ahead. I was actually very torn on whether I would do the two Russians because they had really great moments. The problem is their matches are too short. They don't quite get enough focus for me to really pick them. Likewise, I attempted to give Flair for just disguising himself. The problem is for me, he doesn't disguise himself and still do a good match. Yeah. At least what my standard for a Flair match is.
03:00:16
Speaker
So Ultimate came down to looking at little things they did that helped them stand out or they're hitting their big moves really well. So my MVP is Scott Steiner. I agree that's a good choice for MVP, yeah.
03:00:29
Speaker
John. This is uncharacteristic of me, but I did like the Four Horsemen versus Doom just because it had something with passion. It was different. Normally I'm put off by the cutting and whatnot, but it was pretty brutal. And there was parts where I was chuckling during the show and it was a nice, it was a nice break for me. The non-finish doesn't bother me as much because they kept at it. Yeah. I felt like in my mind, they were still fighting for some resolution.
03:00:57
Speaker
the person that stood out to me the most was Rick Steiner. And I keep on seeing his face after his second match. That grin on his face probably was the most powerful image for me for the whole show. Okay. Yeah, my match of the night is going to be an unusual one. I'm going to go with Conan and Rey Mysterio versus Dormin Smiley and Chris Adams. Okay. That would be good. Just felt fresh and new. There was a surprising amount of variety in the tag tournament.
03:01:26
Speaker
But this was the only match using a totally different style and spots that really stood out as unusual for this time. I suspect it's going to pale in comparison to some later Cruiserweight stuff we see, and I don't like the lack of real selling and impact, but there was an artistry to this one and a grace that was on another level from what we've seen so far.
03:01:43
Speaker
And my MVP is Aaron Anderson. He just brought the best intensity I saw tonight. He really got me excited for a tag team match, and that was going to be the ninth of 10 tag team matches that I was going to see. So that's pretty impressive. His performance in the actual match was great too. Aggressive, brutal, but also selling like a champ for his opponents. He was at the center of the chaos and felt most like a tactician in the middle of it. The others were fighting, but it felt like Aaron had a plan, if that makes any sense.
03:02:12
Speaker
He felt legit. Heck, he felt legit when he ran out as part of the ending brawl, and if you can feel legit as part of the Black Scorpion angle, you're clearly doing something right. There you go. Honorable mention to Ric Flair for just putting on such a different performance, but like you said Al, he didn't still have a great match, so that cuts it down a bit.
03:02:31
Speaker
And that wraps up our review of Starrcade 90 Collision Course. If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can search for us on Twitter or Facebook as Let's Go to the Ring. Follow us for episode announcements or other show details and share your own thoughts about the Starcades as we go through. And please, if you've enjoyed this show, give us a nice review on iTunes and share the show through your favorite social media platforms to help others discover us. Many thanks to OSW Review for attendance and pay-per-view figures.
03:02:58
Speaker
So join us next time for Starrcade 1991 Battle Bowl, the Lethal Lottery. It sounds exciting. Boy, I'll tell ya, after this show, I'll be glad to watch a show with way less tag matches and no ridiculous gimmicks. Yeah, absolutely. What were that whole Battle Bowl things about? Ah, who knows. It sounds like something to eat.
03:03:21
Speaker
Well, we'll find out next time. This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen and John Mullins, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling. I'm already asleep. I actually thought that I wanted one of those animated meteors to hit me.
03:03:50
Speaker
Wow. At the end of this. Like, come on, graphics.