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Episode 70: Capital Combat: Return of Robocop
82 Plays9 months ago
It's finally time! Bob and Al have been looking forward to this show since the start of Let's Go to the Ring, and finally, at long last, it's time to take a look at Capital Combat: Return of Robocop. Yes, unbelievably enough, WCW actually did a tie-in pay-per-view for the film Robocop II, but rather than do something sane like get Peter Weller to show up as Peter Weller and guest referee a match or do some commentary or something, it instead turned out that the Man Called Robocop was really real and was best pals with the Man Called Sting. At least, he is until the midpoint of the show, after which everyone starts pretending that angle never happened and Robocop turns into El Gigante. Some other stuff probably happens too, like a whole load of really good tag matches and a title match between some guys named Lex Luger and Ric Flair, but let's face it, you're here for Robocop. To serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and uphold the law...let's go to the ring!
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
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Transcript
Robocop's Dramatic Entrance into Wrestling
00:00:00
Speaker
You are looking live at the return of Return and Robocop's lopper. Ally Robocop with as he comes up through the lake.
Introducing the Hosts and Setup for Capital Combat 90
00:00:37
Speaker
And ladies and gentlemen, the nation's number one law enforcer, he serves the public trust, protects the innocent,
00:01:33
Speaker
the pageantry of Capital Combat 90, the return of Robocop.
Humorous Anecdotes and Event Context
00:02:09
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 has just donated his car to be used in some kind of contest between Vader and Eligante, Alec Bridget.
00:02:26
Speaker
I probably should have made sure I had a second car before I did that because I don't think I'm getting that back. I'm very sure I'm not getting it back, in fact. Didn't check the fine print on the contract. I thought it was be like i one of those fun, you know, mismatched detective movies where they drive around, you know, like midnight run. I kind of want to see that now. I know, right? How's it going with Niall? Going right for me. How about you? Doing good.
00:02:51
Speaker
i am a really looking forward to this, have been looking forward to this for a very long time.
Cross-Promotion of Robocop 2 with Wrestling
00:02:57
Speaker
I think we both have. As tonight, we are going to take a look at a a infamous show in WSW canon, that being Capital Combat Return of Robocop. I don't think there's any joke that I could make that is funnier than that subtitle. So let's move on. Okay.
00:03:19
Speaker
Capital Combat Return of Robocop was held on May 19, 1990. Why the subtitle? Because this was cross-promotion with the movie Robocop 2, which would release June 22, 1990. Logically, that meant that science fiction movie character Robocop should make an actual appearance on a wrestling pay-per-view that had nothing else to do with the themes, characters, or even location of the Robocop films.
00:03:45
Speaker
Yeah, sure, because the film films are Detroit. Right, yeah. I could at least understand if this was taking place in Detroit, but sure it isn't. Yeah, it makes you wonder about... how Robocop got to here. it's It's a pretty lengthy drive, i I would imagine, from Detroit to D.C. Yeah, I mean, we know he has a good car, but sure still, even now, this nation is not exactly set up for electric charging. I imagine that Robocop himself probably needs ah needs a charge every now and then. Maybe in another 10 years or so, we'll have electric car chargers around that he could use, but but true. Yeah, yeah.
DC Armory's Role and Event Description
00:04:19
Speaker
So instead of Detroit, it was held at the DC Armory in Washington, DC, in front of 7,500 fans, which is recorded as a sellout. The Armory, initially a training facility, headquarters, and a literal Armory for the DC National Guard, is listed with a capacity of 10,000, but that's likely without taking into account the parts that would have to be cut off for the entrance ramp and such. So I think that that's a fairly legit number then. Sounds fair, yeah.
00:04:48
Speaker
Opened in 1941, the Armory has since hosted many events, including inauguration balls for many, many presidents. Its website also lists a roller derby team, basketball festival, Capitol Police vs. Congress football game, National Day of Service event, a boxing event, and even an eSports tournament. Not listed, Capitol Combat Return of Robocop.
00:05:14
Speaker
It's almost like that's not something you'd want to admit you were ever involved with if you wanted to keep your dignity. It is, however, on its Wikipedia article. Yes, yeah. Unfortunately, the tickets for this show were printed with an incorrect start time. So the first hour of the show is missing part of the crowd. It's not even the first time this has happened to a WCW show. How do you remember what other show we covered had the wrong start time printed?
00:05:42
Speaker
I believe that's the Bunkhouse Stampede, correct? Yes, yes. 1988's Bunkhouse Stampede, which we covered way, way back in episode 20. Oh, wow. It has been a long time. But at least pay-per-view fans probably got to watch the full show.
00:06:01
Speaker
Capital Combat, Return of Robocop, no, I will not let that go, earned 195,000 pay-per-view buys, which, incidentally, means that it did better than 33 of the shows that we have covered. ah Wow. Including 11 Starcades. Including Starcade 1990, of the infamous Black Scorpion angle, which only got 175,000. That Robocop is apparently quite a draw.
00:06:26
Speaker
So, what kind of exciting match will Robocop have on the show? A ladder match? A battle royale? A scaffold match? To find out, let's go to the ring. Our video opening features a computer-generated folder marked Top Secret, which opens to reveal a note on a top of pile of news clippings. The note reads, from the desk of unreadable scribble signature.
00:06:51
Speaker
We need to discuss the ramifications of the recent Stingflare altercation involving the role of Sting in the Four Horsemen. This unfortunate event has, regrettably, misspelled, brought to light some classified information that we were unwilling to release to the public." I really pay attention to inconsequential details. I was going to say, I didn't read any of that stuff. And you know, I'm obsessed with minutia, and I didn't even read any of that.
00:07:20
Speaker
Underneath are a photo of f Lex Luger, a newspaper article about a mystery sighting with a picture of Robocop, a newspaper article with the headline of Sting injured with a video of Sting pointing at the camera in the place of the picture, which is actually kind of a cool technique for the era.
00:07:36
Speaker
maps and other photos that turn over to be other video clips. The Capitol combat poster featuring the Road Warriors. Wrong movie franchise. Yeah. Shown sideways. And finally, a pretty crappy CG photograph of the Capitol building with searchlights behind it, which looks like it would be used in the intro to a Sega Genesis video game, maybe. Perhaps with that, but we're a cop, maybe. and Maybe.
00:07:59
Speaker
a hand stamps capital combat 90 on the photo, which suggests that WSW thought that there might be another capital combat pay-per-view that we might confuse this with later. Ambitious, WSW. Ambitious. I do like the logo, though, which replaces the I in capital with the capital building top. Oh, yeah, yeah. Mm hmm.
00:08:19
Speaker
Evidently, that does make one question why they spelled it C-A-P-I-T-A-L, like the type of city, rather than C-A-P-I-T-O-L, like the building, then. Yeah, that's true. But never mind that. The magic begins as we get a subtitle in green computer screen text, Return of Robocop. Ah, yeah.
00:08:43
Speaker
Incidentally, the Sting newspaper article has another article under it that says, man bites dog then self. So someone is a fan of journalism sayings. I guess so. Tony Schiavone welcomes us to the show in what I believe to be his first show after returning from some time in the WWF. I can only imagine how it felt to come back to WCW and immediately be told that you have to speak the words, as we present Capitol Combat 90, the return of Robocop.
00:09:11
Speaker
cut to the and many gifts from Resident Development with Joe. I made a terrible mistake. Yes. He has to say that multiple times in his intro, by the way, like WSW is getting paid by the Robocop, which they may have been. Who knows? Yeah. He builds up the various title matches and throws to a performance of the national anthem in honor of Armed Forces Day. The band and the people holding the flag are dressed up like Minutemen.
00:09:36
Speaker
Unfortunately, many of them are pretty hidden under the entrance setup and the lighting isn't great, but it's the thought that counts, I guess. There's been far worse presentations of the anthem on WSW shows. It finishes up with a shot of the ring where you can really, really tell that they printed the wrong showtime on those tickets as like a good half of the seats are empty. It's not a good image for WSW here. Ew.
00:10:02
Speaker
Back to Tony, who gives us another Robocop. Notable pause before that one, like he's rethinking all of his life choices. Tony throws to the commentary team for the night, JR, and Bob Coddle. Yeah. It has been so long. Do you remember the last time we ah had Bob Coddle on a show, Al? I think we discussed something we were watching it. I think I must have been one of the Wrestle Wars. That's right. It's Wrestle War 89, which was episode 21.
00:10:32
Speaker
Wow, I go in order, 2021. Yeah, yeah. Should have kept looking to see if we had other debuts that were around like 22, 23 and such. JR and Coddle discuss the title matches quickly and you can catch a satisfied smirk on Coddle's face as JR notes that Jim Cornette will be in a cage tonight so that he can't interfere on his team's behalf. JR also slips in that Robocop mention as WCW needs the money and throws to the first match.
00:11:00
Speaker
So our first match is Kevin Sullivan, Cactus Jack Manson, and The Beast from the East, Bam Bam Bigelow, with The Big Garuna, Sir Oliver Humberdink, versus The Road Warriors, Hawk and Animal, with Paul Ellering, teaming with Norman the Lunatic, of all people, in a six-man tag match. The referee for this one is Randy Anderson.
00:11:25
Speaker
So a while back, Kevin Sullivan formed a group, specifically trying to get all the dangerous, crazy individuals together. And so he had the team of Jack, Bigelow and himself. Notably that group also included Buzz Sawyer, who we saw at the previous Wrestle War, as a word, 90, when fortunately ended himself. Unfortunately, he was a career ending injury right in that match. So presumably he would have involved somehow had that it happened.
00:11:49
Speaker
Yeah, I remember he he did that, like, beautiful dive off the top rope, but it just just had that really bad landing, right? Yeah, like, I think he had had his his hand down or something, and it just jammed on the rake or something like that. but Yeah, I remember that looking so painful. Yeah. Also, at that same show, Cactus Jack fought Norman the Lunatic, which is your sort of bridging connection to him here. Gotcha. It is still weird seeing the Road Warriors and Norman together, admittedly. Yes, it's it's an odd combination.
00:12:17
Speaker
My note referred to the World Warriors, by the way, as the the Mother Revan Road Warriors. I was feeling very inspired when I wrote that, apparently. I don't know why.
00:12:28
Speaker
I love, by the way, that our first show after the New Japan series starts with a six man tag. Yeah. Oh, the things I do to myself. Presumably this six man tag won't be as one sided as the last six man tag we covered. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. That poor man being kicked over and over again.
00:12:46
Speaker
That poor guy. Sullivan, Jack and Bigelow make a pretty normal entrance. The road warriors then come out riding on the back of some guy's motorcycles. Oh no, it's hog wild. It is weird. They don't just ride their own bikes at the rig. I don't quite understand that. Yeah, I guess they figured it was get them in and out faster because the guys can just turn around and go back rather than having to take a hand off. Maybe I don't know. It does look pretty awesome with them like standing tall on the back of them though. That's fair. Yeah.
00:13:17
Speaker
Norman follows riding a little red scooter, because of course he does. He comes out wearing a WMZQ shirt over another t-shirt of his own face, and he can't get the WMZQ shirt off, so the World Warriors helpfully rip it in half to tear it off of him, which I'm sure that WMZQ loved. Yeah. That appears, by the way, to be a country music radio station in DC. Oh, okay. I thought you'd say it's the worst gravel hand ever. ah That would be pretty darn bad.
00:13:45
Speaker
Norman throws another t-shirt to the crowd as JR slips in yet another return of Robocop. Cha-ching! Animal and Jack start, and Jack attacks, only to be overwhelmed by Animal's power. Awkward Animal Big Boot as he's a little too far from Jack. We trade out to Hawk, who hits a clothesline so hard that I felt the reverberations 34 years later. Mm-hmm, same here. That was perhaps more legit than it should have been. Yeah.
00:14:14
Speaker
Tag to Bigelow, and Cawtle hands him a backhanded compliment, noting that he has a lot upstairs, but you would never know it looking at him. I hope for Cawtle's sake that Bigelow did not listen back to the commentary. Right? Hawk and Bigelow absorb everything each other does until a Hawk high-angle dropkick sends Bigelow to Tag Sullivan, who tries to get Hawk trapped in the corner, but Hawk fights free, and clotheslines the ever-loving crap out of him too.
00:14:38
Speaker
tags to Jack and Norman, but they quickly tag out to Bigelow in Animal. Animal can't knock Bigelow down, but takes him out of the ring with the cactus clothesline of all things. Bigelow looks annoyed. Really, it's Jack who should look annoyed for his gimmick infringement there. What if they get dressed in the back? It's like, hey, that's kind of my thing. Yeah. Well, I said that you're talking about moving to Animal. I'm not sure anyone's going to have really question stuff like that at a certain point. Fair enough. Yeah.
00:15:06
Speaker
Tag to Jack, and Bigelow whips him at Hawk, but of course Hawk ducks, and Jack splats on the floor. Hawk expresses sympathy by diving off the apron to clothesline him, chucking him over the barricade, nearly into a poor fan's face, and chucking the wooden ring steps at him. JR notes the ref is being somewhat lenient. I would say that's an understatement. Yeah, yeah, that's definitely an understatement for sure.
00:15:31
Speaker
Tags to Norman and Sullivan, and Norman attacks, but Sullivan gets a boot up on a charge and stuns him, then trades off with Jack and Bigelow to wear him down for a while, including an impressive Bigelow suplex for two, and an absolutely insane Jack flipping deckbreaker over the ropes that sends Jack himself to the floor for zero, because why pin someone after wrecking your body fully? Yeah, yeah. The man is insane. Mm-hmm.
00:15:58
Speaker
Sullivan goes for a distraction by calling Animal a son-of-a-beep at one point. That would distract me. The triple-teaming continues, but Norman eventually fights free with a very awkward punch-slash-elbow to Jack's face and tags Animal. Animal fights off all three foes and shoulder blocks Jack for who knows what as the camera doesn't catch the ref. Everybody in, and Norman fights Bigelow as Hawk hits another bonkers clothesline on Sullivan, but Hawk gets chucked out.
00:16:27
Speaker
Jack grabs Animal and Sullivan lands Chops, but Hawk comes back with an extremely painful top-broke clothesline to Sullivan for the three count in the win. 0% legal men in that finish, by the way. Oh, I'm sure. As the legal men were Cactus, Jack, and Animal, not Sullivan and Hawk, no matter what JR tells you. Hawk gives the camera what a rush, and we get a replay of the diving clothesline. Thoughts on this one?
00:16:53
Speaker
The match is very chaotic, for sure. I did really enjoy it, I will say. I was wary because obviously the whole gimmick of Norman Lunatic is a little weird. It's, as I mentioned, I couldn't last time make it, I'm probably at Wrestle War. The whole gimmick appears to be based on something we call the Dream Team, about a bunch of people from a mental health care award, but that way, that go in the sea, have an adventure.
00:17:17
Speaker
It's kind of previously to Eugene, which I guess it's more excusable in 1990 to that than in the 2000s related to Eugene. But that aside, he actually is a pretty decent worker. So it's not like it's a bad gimmick and a bad worker, which there are plenty of those combinations.
00:17:35
Speaker
As you talked about before, six-band tags are good to really let people shine and it keeps the flow going nicer. You can still have the, you know, it's what's isolated, but it's not one guy, you know, works the arm for five minutes isolation. It's, you know, a guy is tagging and now beating him up, then he makes his escape. So it always feels a bit more dynamic to me than a regular tag match, which is a nice little bonus you can get from those. Obviously, if you do a show with too many of them, you kind of lose the appeal. So having just one or two of those is a nice extra feature on the show.
00:18:04
Speaker
Yeah, it gives it more variety just innately than a normal tag match. Just about anyone you can kind of put into a six man tag and you can get something out of it because you can just constantly be trading off who they're working against or anything. Yeah. Like Norman's actually in this for a good long time. True. Yeah. But the other team is like really trading out frequently. So the situation still feels like it's changing all the time. Exactly. Yeah. The frequent tagging at least makes it more dynamic than just a couple of guys working holds over and over again.
00:18:34
Speaker
The best and worst parts of the match are probably the clothes lines. They are. They're they're best in the sense that they look hundred percent legit. So as i as a fan, you're like, oh, wow, that's a really powerful, cool looking move for the guy, you know, who takes it in the face like Cactus Jack, for instance, or Kevin Sullivan at the end. I'm sure eating soup instead of solid food is probably not as fun. Yeah, I believe you and I both when we were watching the show just asked, do these guys owe Hawk money?
00:19:04
Speaker
Yeah, it it does feel like that. Yeah, it's the thing that they've always talked about. If you work with a friend, they tend to beat you up more because just the weird thing about wrestling. and You're fighting a guy you don't like. You're probably not going to stiff him to use wrestling terminology because you can stiff you back. Whereas if Foley and you Terry Funk wrestling each other, they both kind of expect you to do that. So it works out.
00:19:28
Speaker
Yeah, you know, he's not going to be mad at you for it. So that does make so a weird kind of sense. Right. Yeah. I think my only real issue with the match is, well, when we get half of it, we don't really get a doomsday device, which is kind of a shame. But as a whole, I do like the sort of the idea that even if he's not a legal man, the hawk sort of jumps in and hits the move and it's a pen like that. It's a cool and it's a cool finish. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
00:19:55
Speaker
Yeah, I thought this was a perfectly acceptable opener. The action kept a good pace and the Sullivan Bigelow Jack team tagged in and out frequently to keep things interesting. Plus all of these guys are beefy and or crazy. So we saw a lot of very hard hits, especially from Hawk, who I think forgot that wrestling was an act judging from those clotheslines. Yeah. And there's some frankly insane bumps, mostly from Jack. I can't believe still that he went for that over the ropes neckbreaker. That was nuts.
00:20:25
Speaker
Yeah, I'm very glad that that is not a regular spot of his his normal regular spots are dangerous enough. Overall, just really nice, fun, fast paced match with a lot of variety to it. So I've got nothing to complain about. Yeah, same here. It's definitely enjoyable match. it's I don't know if like, say six months and now or we don't 50 episodes, I guess. So now we're so you remember it other than those clotheslines. That's true. Yeah, it's definitely enjoyable.
00:20:54
Speaker
So, have you ever watched a match and then realized that half the people in the match leave the company? But then a month of it happening? Wow. Guess what? That's what we get. Dang. The Road Warriors would leave the company in June. Their issue was with Jim Hurd apparently, something about pay and travel and the like. The other one to leave was Cactus Jack, who left because he did not get along with Ollie Anderson. As we know from covering their shows,
00:21:23
Speaker
They probably would be back a lot sooner than the Road Warriors would be. Road Warriors end up going to WDF, of course, having a decent run there, whereas Skyktor Jack would be back before the end of the year, and then hang around for quite a while after that. As for Norman, he would not be a lunatic much longer. Curiously, they kind of pivot his character a bit. So instead of fully rebranding him and just making him someone else, like, well, WF did him a couple of times in his short run there,
00:21:49
Speaker
They actually keep character continuity, although it makes very little sense. The way it works is, they sideitate its gimmick and they make him a long haul trucker. Oh my gosh, I forgot about that. Yeah. So the way it works in the official WSU cannon is that his father, who apparently is a long haul trucker dies. And he decided he could do that as a career.
00:22:13
Speaker
I guess he's certified for those trucks and passes all the tests you'd have to do for that. ah Somehow. Seems unlikely, but you know, maybe. Yeah. It would not really go well for him. Not really much as for this point. He makes no other appearance in the pay-per-view the rest of the year and he leaves at the end of the year. At least he gets this match as a send-off, you and you know, that's not actually how it was planned. Yeah, yeah.
00:22:39
Speaker
Interesting though that's that the road warriors leave that soon considering they're on the poster for the pay-per-view Yeah, like clearly WSW is highlighting them and then they're gone. Yeah, it creates issue which I will discuss later as well Our second match is Johnny Ace versus mean Mark Callis with Teddy Long the referee for this one is Mike Atkins and Poor Mark. ah He got to replace the latest of Vicious as one half of the skyscrapers in WCW and then Dan Spivey quit the company. That led to the very strange blow-off match producing the Road Warriors and the skyscrapers in which neither the skyscrapers they originally were fighting, that being Spivey and Vicious,
00:23:23
Speaker
or even in the team anymore. Wow. It's me and Mark and a masked wrestler. Only a period of this one show just to lose a five minute match to the road warriors. And that's the last of the skyscrapers. Which I believe was Mike Enos. I believe that's the case. Yes. I believe I've discussed the time was a weird thing where he's, I think he's actually a tag team in the A to B way. I think he's actually a tag champion. And it'd be A to B way. We're like, yeah, we need a tall person. Put a mask on. We don't really care what you're doing here.
00:23:53
Speaker
So now, me and Mark is a singles wrestler, although he has carried over his location. I guess he's still from the same place, even if he's not a skyscraper anymore. So now they are trying to kind him to rebrand him, see what they can do with him as a singles wrestler. So they gave him my dynamic challenger, who was one tough dude.
00:24:16
Speaker
Sullivan is still leaving the ring as the entrances begin. Johnny Ace has an entrance theme that sounds like it should be in a random dance scene in Grease or something. He does have a really nice moment on the ramp, though, as a little kid seems too shy to give him a high five, so he patiently waits a moment so the kid's dad can encourage him, and then the kid slaps his hand and looks absolutely thrilled. It's a really cute and night nice gesture.
00:24:40
Speaker
Interestingly, Johnny Ace is wearing a new generation jacket a couple years before the ww WWF will make that its tagline as they start switching from their 80s stars to the 90s crop. True, yeah. Speaking of future 90s WWF stars, mean Mark Callis. Mark Callaway will of course later be The Undertaker.
00:25:03
Speaker
It is incredible that WSW had the Undertaker and let him go to the WWF. Later this same year, in fact, I believe as a virus here in 1990, the big debut. Yeah. Apparently he was told by Ollie Anderson that no one would ever pay to watch him wrestle. That's true. That's what he says anyways. Yeah. Ollie, good tag wrestler, crappy judge of talent. Apparently. Apparently so. Yeah. It's really funny seeing Callaway as mean Mark.
00:25:33
Speaker
Unlike Steve Austin, who is nearly unrecognizable in his early WSW appearances with like long blonde hair and neon trunks and everything. Callaway is very clearly still the same guy as later in the WWF, just dressed more like a generic cowboy wrestler and actually emoting. True, yeah. I really like Teddy Long's silver jacket that he comes out with tonight. It looks really classy. But of course, it's funny, too, that the future undertaker is meant by the guy who famously would make his gimmick where he would If you offended him or did something wrong, he would make you go one-on-one with the Undertaker. Right, right, when he was, was it SmackDown GM? Correct, yes. Yeah, it's you wonder if that started because they knew each other from way back here, or if it was just just a coincidence. It would be a pretty massive coincidence, but wrestling is full of them, so. Yeah, that's true. Who knows?
00:26:24
Speaker
Callus gets in Ace's face, and they trade shoves. Ace can't move Callus with shoulder blocks, and Callus counters a hip toss with a clothesline, but Ace drop-kicks him out of the ring and dives out onto him. Back in, Ace works the arm with a wrist lock and elbows to the shoulder, and gets two with a crossbody, as Caudo notes that Ace is out-quicking Callus. That's a word. I love that phrase. I'm gonna steal that later.
00:26:50
Speaker
Callus sneaks in a cheap shot on a corner break and boots Ace out of the ring, then distracts Atkins so Long can lay in kicks. Callus runs Ace into things at ringside, takes him back in, and beats him up including a nice stalling suplex for two, a Booker T style wristlock sidekick, an Undertaker style jumping clothesline for two, and some punches from Teddy Long. Chinlock but Ace keeps the arm up on the third check.
00:27:16
Speaker
JR notes, importantly, that we will go back to Sting and Robocop's dressing room in a bit. Why does a metallic cyborg who only wears his metallic cyborg body need a dressing room? The little girl at Small Wonder lived in a closet, so it could be like that. It's where she charged. you' youre you're You're just in heaven, aren't you, from getting to reference Small Wonder on a wrestling show? I am, yes. That doesn't even involve Jesse Ventura. Not yet.
00:27:45
Speaker
Two counts off a terrific callus leg drop, ace rollup, and callus dodge of an ace dropkick, and callus and long both engage in some choking. JR tries praising the WSW camera crew getting great shots, but cuts himself off and corrects to unique. Even JR could not call the camera camera crew great.
00:28:05
Speaker
Ace fires back with a monkey flip and dropkick, then goes up top, but Long warns Kalis, who dodges the diving clothesline and hits the heart punch, then goes up top himself and hits a rope-walking elbow drop for the three count and the win. Kalis celebrates with Long and wants to challenge for a belt. We get a replay of the finish, which is, eventually, after a very long delay, rated an 8.2 on the slam-o-meter,
00:28:33
Speaker
Well, it's still calibrating. That's what J.R. says. It needs time to calibrate. Yeah, I know. It's a simple graphic and they take forever to put it on the screen. J.R. and Coddle audibly have to stall for the graphic to appear. Thoughts on this one?
00:28:49
Speaker
That was a pretty decent match. Obviously, the goal of this match is to make Mark look good. Ace, to his credit, does a pretty nice job at that. He's never been considered the greatest wrestler of all time, obviously, especially once you realize he's played to, to World Warrior Animal. I still can't believe that. It's amazing. You know, that comparison is, unfortunately, it's hard for anybody to get over that kind of comparison. That's true. Yeah. Including the other brother who we only seen once on the database show. Right, right.
00:29:18
Speaker
I think he's a he's a decent opponent for Mark in this case. I could see if this was 1993-94, they would have found a cruiserweight guy to bump forward to would really nice as well. But I think it's a decent enough story that a guy close to his size is fighting him so he can some more reasonably knock him down with a big move but can't control him. That works pretty well. As you know, remember watching it, it's really weird watching Mark a moat all the time, like selling pain and being annoyed because we're so used to stone face. I don't take care for like the next five years, six years, the character. It's like when you see Leonard Nimoy in something other than Star Trek invasion of the body snatchers. He's in that. And oh, yeah, actually like using facial expressions and smiling and laughing and stuff. And you're like, what? What? That's that's this isn't right. who Yeah. Who is this person? Yeah.
00:30:15
Speaker
What I think that really comes through here, I think is if he doesn't necessarily have the move said down at this point, you can tell the natural gifts that Mark has at this point. Mm hmm. Because he's very flexible. He's got a bill, but he also moves faster than you would think to his modern guy. And he's like a broad breaker. where He's gonna You know, run 23 miles an hour and tackle a guy, but his sort of reaction speed and quick motions and like sudden responses is really good. Yes. The way he he drops out of the cross body for the finish, for instance, a lot of people could do that finish, but they would often do it too early and and they do it before he even jumps that would make him look bad.
00:30:52
Speaker
Right. Yeah. he His timing is really good. Yeah. He drops after the jump, so there's no way for Ace to counter it or to recover himself. Yeah. I'm not going to say that, man, yeah me and Mark is this great wrestler in 1990. He should be a world champion, yada, yada. But for Oly to go, no one's going to pay you watch you wrestle. And this guy just is a Roblox diving elbow drop.
00:31:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, they clearly had to write a right idea initially bring him in with the inspiring they can work together and you know, have a veteran they can work, he can come into his big spots, but he doesn't have to like, control the pace of a match. And obviously, you don't quite get that much when singles wrestler but still, as such a ah gift to Vince McMahon, when all Anderson's part there.
00:31:40
Speaker
It's amazing that they didn't think, you know, we could put him with a experienced singles guy for a feud for a while. Somebody that people are going to just naturally be mad at him for beating up, like, say, Sting, maybe change the name so he's not mean Mark Callis anymore. You know, give him a better name and then just have him fight a popular babyface in a, in a feud. And you know, you can have an experienced guy kind of manage the flow of the match for him a little bit more.
00:32:07
Speaker
He seems to be doing fine and getting better just in the few appearances that we've seen him. We saw him in the Wrestlemore 90 that was before this and he did fine there, but in this he seems better. For sure, yeah. So like you said, clearly the guy has talent. He has some really dynamic and interesting moves. He has quickness. He has surprising agility for his size. It's incredible that they could not figure out how to do something with this man.
00:32:36
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I can see, think of a bunch of people that are in and around this time period that, yeah, you can make a simple feud where he's just violent and dangerous. A Ricky Dragos Deebo, were you a great example? Yes. These guys have a couple of really good pay-per-view matches together, I think, if given the chance. But yeah, you're like, nope, no one likes this guy.
00:32:55
Speaker
You've got a really tall guy here who can do great jumping leg drops, rope walking, jumping elbow drops, and arcing kick off of a wrist lock like Booker T does. Yeah. And and that and that amazing like jumping clothesline that he does and everything. You've got a a tall guy that can do all that kind of stuff. You're like people aren't going to watch you. Now we're going to bring in Eligante. Yeah, that's true.
00:33:21
Speaker
I mean, sure, considerably taller, but recognize when you've got a like full package type of wrestler. Yeah. Not to a Lucas gimmick of total package, but someone who's got all of the various parts and you just have to figure out how to put them together, right? Mm hmm. So yeah it it just boggles the mind. Absolutely boggles the mind. Talk about his like athleticism. So he's finished the survey, take a couple of steps up out of the corner and then do a diving elbow drop.
00:33:51
Speaker
That's currently being done by Xavier Woods right now, right? Yeah It's like much smaller lighter weight wrestlers that you like expect that level of balance from yeah And obviously when he goes on to be taker, he'll be doing like longer rope walks even. Mm-hmm I it it is impossible to say enough about how stupid the decision is to yeah toss Mark Galloway. Mm-hmm Yeah, for my part, this is a pretty simple match, but it's definitely really interesting to look back at given just how notable Mark Callis ended up being to professional wrestling. As you said, it's it's just fascinating to watch him here with him actually showing emotions and moving a lot quicker and actually selling for people and stuff, which is going to spend the better part of the next decade completely avoiding doing. Yeah.
00:34:38
Speaker
The match itself is perfectly fine, with Ace showing really good baby face fire, and Kalis showing off some of his quite impressive moves. As a match, this doesn't do too much of note, but wow, is it a special thing to look back on nowadays. A little bit of accidental foreshadowing here as well. You commented on Johnny Ace's jacket. Yes. That's his jacket he where he whistles in all Japan. Oh, okay. If he knows the Japanese writing in the back, yeah.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah, so he's wearing his all Japan gear to this match, which will be important in a moment. Gotcha. Well, Mark said he won a challenge for a title and he would get his wish. At the next victory, which is the Great American Bash, he would challenge Lex Uger for the US title. Fittingly, Mean Mark is from Metropolis. And of course, Lex Uger, as we know, is Superboy.
00:35:31
Speaker
Oh my gosh. And I look that episode does take place 1990, so not far off. Oh, wow. Yeah. So Johnny Ace, at this point, he was working kind of like a Vader situation. He's working for two companies and get his two page takes in. He was working for All Japan Pro Wrestling, the rivals of New Japan we spent the last four months talking about. And they had a cross-motion deal where he could work there and then work over WSW.
00:35:56
Speaker
However, that deal fell apart for various reasons. Nothing real serious, just, eh, money, pussy money. Gotcha. So this would be his last televised match in WCW. He'd work a few house shows, but he'd eventually, he had to just make a choice. I could only work at WCW or we're all Japan. He chose all Japan. Probably the better choice, I think. I mean, he's coming up being a dynamic dude with Shane Douglas, so yeah, I don't blame him, honestly. Yeah, yeah.
00:36:22
Speaker
So that's interesting. So WSW had a deal with all Japan pro wrestling at this point. Yes, it falls apart in 1990. And then within a year, they're doing stuff with New Japan. Yeah, probably not an accident.
00:36:36
Speaker
Over the course of the rest of his active wrestling career, which would go through about the year 2000, if we're becoming a road agent for WWE. So he would, he is technically around in the later shows you've covered, just not on television because he's backstage producing matches. He would win six tag team titles and get two five star matches from Dave Meltzer, the wrestling observer, which notably is two more than Kurt Angle has in his the entire career. Wow.
00:37:01
Speaker
I won't get into the whole thing, but there's a whole thing about Karate Angle has no five-star match as according to Dave Meltzer, which doesn't make a lot of sense. Yeah, that feels unfair, but a bit. Yeah. But good for Johnny Ace, you know, that's. Yeah, yeah. I think he shows here and occasionally in some of his other appearances with it that he does he does have it you like he has what it takes to to be a good performer. ah And I think he he demonstrates that, you know, several times over his career in WSW, he's just another guy that they can never get quite the gimmick they really need to do with him. He has one of those like what might it have been, I think type of wrestlers. That's fair. Yeah.
00:37:40
Speaker
we cut backstage to poor Gordon Soli, who has somehow gotten roped into having to mention Robocop. For some bizarre reason, the entire time that he is speaking, WCW has chosen to put in weird little audio effects in the background, like someone is trying to get a signal on a radio or walkie talkie. Yeah. Is that what WCW thinks science fiction sounds like?
00:38:03
Speaker
Is it like Robocop's in the back and he's like transmitting a Wi Fi signal that's interfering with the transmissions? Maybe? Yes. Maybe. I guess that might be might explain some stuff that happens later too. Maybe. yeah Maybe. Soli points out the no admittance sign on the door and explains that he can't get access at the moment because as we'll see later, that Robocop outfit ain't gonna hold together for long on camera. It is kind of curious that there's guys keeping you forget to Robocop. Yes.
00:38:32
Speaker
Not like keeping Robocop into you. Yes, it feels backwards. Yeah, considering that Robocop, as we'll hear in a moment, his entire purpose is to be here to protect people. Yeah. Why are people standing there protecting him? Yeah. To be fair, he is out of a jurisdiction because he's not in Detroit. But I think he still out ranks two security guards to work for the armory. Probably. Yeah, I would think so.
00:38:54
Speaker
Soli goes over the feud between Sting and the Four Horsemen and says Sting has had surgery to repair a tendon but isn't yet ready to compete again, but he's come here to protect the little Stingers. i.e. to protect Sting fans, who would only likely be at the show in the first place because Sting was going to be there. Sting, I don't want to tell you your business, but maybe just stay home rather than hiring Robocop. Seems less expensive.
00:39:20
Speaker
Well, I mean, I guess he figured if I don't go to the show, then they won't go to your point. But then they won't get to enjoy this great action. There's there's this thing called pay-per-view. Oh, yeah, it's true. And yes, that appears to be the story Sting has brought in Robocop to protect the fans. Soli says that Sting should be world champ, but was injured by the Horseman. But his heart's bigger than that. And he's concerned about the little Stingers who were threatened by the Horseman.
00:39:48
Speaker
The sincerity with which Gordon Soli delivers this ridiculous segment is quite admirable, I have to say. Yeah, sure is. JR throws to Tony, who is with the Rock and Roll Express, who want to cut a normal wrestling promo despite what we just heard.
00:40:06
Speaker
Okay, Jim Ross, it's not too hard to figure out what's going to go on in a Corporal Punnishman match. All four men will have leather straps, and Robert Gibson will be able to use those leather straps anyway at all. That's right, Tony Givoni. First of all, I'd like to say to you, me and brother, we're all fired up. We'd like to say hello to all the nice fans out there that stood behind the rock bridge for us through thick and thin. Let me tell you something, Freebirds. Tonight, this strap here is going to be in our corner, and it's going to be a strap from Freebirds' corner. And Tony Givoni, brother, now, we forgot the weapon that they gave us.
00:40:33
Speaker
The free birds tonight is paid by time. We'll go whip your hands like your mama should have done a long, long time ago. Hey, Ricky, your partner here is prepared. That's right, Tony, but you know a lot to talk about one thing first. You see, we have been down many, many highways, but every road we took, let us run back here to NWA.
00:40:51
Speaker
Now we know that our good friends the status brothers have a world tag team title match tonight with dude. But like we told the people we're here for one reason, let us become the NWA World Tag Team Champions for the fifth time brother. And that's what it's all about. That's what it boils down to.
00:41:08
Speaker
But then again, I wanna change the subject a little bit and talk about The Four Horsemen. You see that Ollie Anderson has come out here, brother, and regrouped The Four Horsemen, telling the whole world what he's gonna do. But you see, I will say one thing about you, Ollie Anderson, you're the kind of guy that even sacrificed your own brother to win the World Tag Team titles. When you see things gonna change, this is why I'm talking about this, Tony, cuz it's stuck in my mind all day.
00:41:33
Speaker
You see, I was talking to Lex Luger earlier. And Lex Luger, if anybody don't know, the fans don't know that he was just released to the hospital today. He's not supposed to be here. But he guaranteed me and all these nice friends that brother, he's not gonna let him down. It don't matter what the forehopper do brother, he's gonna take care of the business. All right, let's go to the ramp. First show back in WSW and are already helping us out. Thanks, Tony.
00:42:01
Speaker
I just think it's funny. There's a recurring themes of the shows. We'll talk about later, uh, people talking about what happened next. Luke, you're in how brave he is and how, you know, he's doing X, Y and Z. We never hear him say that though. Well, he is very humble. Oh, okay. But he doesn't like talk about, Oh, you know, we have people telling us, Oh, he got out of the hospital from this injury and he's going to bravely fight. He never comes out and says anything like that. Himself.
00:42:27
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know if he had a promo on like a TV show recently where he said some of that stuff or if it's just them inserting that and for some reason they're not letting Luger cut a promo tonight, but it just feels odd. The whole show is, despite the title the of the pay review is building to him and flair. And it's like, let's all talk about what lu would Luger would say if he was here. Yes. Even though he is here, he's just in the back.
00:42:49
Speaker
Gibson's side of this was straightforward and set up the match that they'll have later perfectly well, which allowed Morton to genuinely spend far more time talking about other matches, ah which I don't think I've ever seen before. Certainly we've had wrestlers mention other matches in their promos, which I love, but Morton almost entirely talks about other matches, which might be maybe a tad too much since he never really circles back around to set up his own. That's true. Yeah, that's fair.
00:43:15
Speaker
Still, he does some good commentary on the Four Horsemen, and makes Luger's match sound very, very important. So for the overall show, this is a really helpful segment. Odd side note, though. Gibson spends part of Morton's promo doing hand gestures. I couldn't quite get what he was going for, other than it appeared to involve whipping and 1s, 2s, and 4s. He points at Tony for some reason, too. I'm not sure what that was about, but maybe Tony should be worried.
00:43:41
Speaker
Our third match is Wildfire Tommy Rich and Captain Mike Rotunda versus the Samoan SWAT team, Salofa Fatu Jr. called Fatu, and of course later Rikishi in the WWF. And Samuel Larry Anawai Fatu called something quite offensive, so I'm just gonna call him Sam instead, see our Starrcade 89 episode for my extended thoughts. The referee for this one is Randy Anderson.
00:44:08
Speaker
I couldn't really find I guess why this match is happening. I did find out why a different match is not happening. So the story that they've tell is that the original plan building up the show was that it was going to be the Simone Swat team challenging for the US textiles, the match we'll see later.
00:44:28
Speaker
But apparently for various reasons, not really clear answer. They missed the TV tapings about four weeks out where they would set up the angle. Like, you know, they would attack Tom's, they can brand pill mode or something. Gotcha. So like, well, we got to start booking this angle now. So then then they pivot to the team that does fight them on this show instead. Okay. Yeah. I couldn't find anything as to why these guys are fighting each other. Just find out why they're not fighting somebody else.
00:44:53
Speaker
Yeah, just probably a match to keep the SST out there, you know, and keep them built up. Yeah, pretty much. The Samoan SWAT team is often referred to, as I just did, as the SST, meaning that the second S in the acronym SST itself represents an acronym. I can't think of too many other cases like that. Incidentally, they don't bring weapons with them. What's the W in SWAT again?
00:45:20
Speaker
Well, much like Mel Gibson, they they are lethal weapons. Oh, OK. I will accept the answer. As Rich and Rotunda come out, Ring Announcer Capeta first announces the winners of the Capital Combat Dine D sweepstakes, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Banner, then goes right into announcing the team. We will get this announcement again later and actually show the two on screen, which suggests to me that maybe they were some of the people that got mixed up by the tickets with the wrong showtime, oh so they weren't there for this match. That might be, yeah.
00:45:53
Speaker
Rich has a WMZQ shirt on and doesn't rip it to shreds taking it off, so I imagine that the radio station was happier with him than with Norman and the Road Warriors. I'd say so. The Samoan and SWAT team make their entrance, and JR suggests that they have the advantage as they have more experience together than Rutunda and Rich. The crowd, which is filling in by this point, though there's still a lot of empty seats, clearly do not like the Samoans, who get in several arguments with them. Got a bit of a hog-wild 96 aura here. A little bit, yeah.
00:46:24
Speaker
Fatou and Sam repeatedly tried to do their pre-match ceremony and get booed intensely for it, because different is bad, I guess. Yeah, it's a riff on the whole, Russians will stop when they brush their nasty anthems thung before their match kind of thing. Yeah, Fatou kind of, like, complains about it at one point, but is his frustration does not seem entirely in act. Yeah. And also, to be fair with the comparison,
00:46:50
Speaker
Samoa is totally part of the United States as well, and not Russia. Yeah, yeah. they're They're not a place that we have been yeah yeah at least Cold War with relatively recently. Correct, yes. After roughly two-thirds of eternity, they finally get through the ceremony as JR and Caudal discuss the signing of a very large athlete, Heligante. What does a seven-foot-seven band look like, Caudal asked? Quilt JR, tall. That's the way he's leading now, sir. Yes.
00:47:20
Speaker
insightful commentary like that. Sam versus Rich to start. Rich gets two with a crossbody, but Sam claims hair pulling. Anderson turns to Rich, and Fatu switches in and goes on claiming his hair was pulled, but Anderson does a double take as Fatu is not exactly Sam's twin. Rotunda in, and Fatu offers a handshake, and that goes on for quite a while.
00:47:43
Speaker
Rotunda later dropkicks Fatu out, and Sam switches with Fatu outside, trying to claim to a visibly disbelieving Anderson that he was the one that got dropkicked. Okay, that was pretty funny. Anderson forces Fatu back in, so Fatu tags out. The four trade off against each other, and Rotunda and Rich mostly get the better of it, and concentrate on working the arm. Rotunda fakes a hard landing after Fatu dodges a charge, only to ambush him from behind while he's bragging.
00:48:11
Speaker
Later, Britannda and Rich trade places behind Anderson's back when the SST again claim hair pulling, turning the tactic against them. Fatu accidentally hits Sam on a double team, but they hug it out, and switch places, though JR and Caudal note that technically the punch could count as a tag.
00:48:28
Speaker
J.R. notes, as I think he did on an early Starrcade, that Rotunda was a punt, pass and kick competition champ when he was nine years old to prove that he's a natural athlete. There have to be better, more recent stats that you could bring up, J.R. I was going to say, how old is he in this year takes place? I'm going to look at that because I'm kind of curious. Yeah. Is born in 1958, so he would have been 32. So it's been a while. Yeah, a little bit.
00:48:58
Speaker
I don't remember which Stargate it was on, but I remember that stat coming up before and I was being like, wait, what? Yeah, it's it's one thing to go, oh, so and so, you know, it was a football pro or, you know, college, you know, and they're in their like their're mid 20s. Like, yeah, sure. They're 19, 20 years old in college. Now they're a few years older. Yeah, sure. But that's a stretch. Yes. It's like he did really well in his land as little league baseball games. I mean, I was pretty good at the league too, but I'm not wrestling. Man, you should have seen him at T-ball. Wow.
00:49:27
Speaker
It was like the ball was standing still.
00:49:33
Speaker
Sam catches Rotunda with a sidewalk slam and slugs Rich, using him to distract Anderson so that he and Fatu can double team Rotunda. Nice Fatu suplex for two, and he and Sam wear Rotunda down with big heavy blows, including some quite nice thrust kicks and a nerve hold. Rich tries to get the crowd clapping for Rotunda, but has absolutely no rhythm.
00:49:55
Speaker
Multiple times, Rotunda makes the tag, but the SST distract Anderson so Anderson doesn't see it. More two counts as Sam uses the ropes and off a double team back body drop, but Rotunda at last manages to fight back, tiredly but determinedly, trading blows and hitting a diving clothesline before tagging Rich.
00:50:15
Speaker
Rich runs wild with punches, a dropkick, and a fireman's carry, and Rotunda dropkicks Sam out. Rich puts a sleeper on Fatu, but as Anderson is showing Rotunda back out, Sam comes back and leaps off the top rope to club Rich in the head, and Fatu pins Rich for the three count and the win as Rotunda realizes what is going on a moment too late to save. The Samoans immediately walk out. Anderson actually has to catch up to them to declare them the winners. Thoughts on this one?
00:50:44
Speaker
As a whole, this is a pretty good match. Then they got a very old school feel, which does make sense when there's Tommy Rich on my Gratunda. Yeah. Generally speaking, they say he'll call the match, but I i would say in this kind of circumstance, it's probably not the case. I could see Tommy Rich is, you know, telling you, oh, do this, that, you know, if he knows him well enough, especially. Obviously, as you mentioned, the intro is way too drawn out. Yeah.
00:51:10
Speaker
I remember before we started watching it, you're like, oh, is this the one where they take forever to do their internship? I'm like, I hope not. And I, cause I, I wouldn't have seen a lot of SSD, always these out three times in one show, but.
00:51:22
Speaker
I was like, I know what he's talking about. And I hope he's in that one. And then, like, as it went on, oh, it is that one. All right. We've seen this show before watching it for our show here. Aside from RoboCop, that was like the one spot that I remembered from this show. So unfortunately, I had only bad memories of Capitol Combat, basically. Well, once a thing, I mean, we I couldn't possibly when we watched the first time, but it was a couple of years at least before he even considered doing a podcast. So yeah.
00:51:49
Speaker
it's It's been a while, so if that memory stuck with you, it's that's telling. Yes, yeah. Hopefully more positive memories stuck with you in the long term, let's say five years from now. I think they will. Yeah, yeah. As a whole, this match, has a if you count the intro and some of the parts in the middle, has a bit of a pacing problem. Let's say it's 1754. I don't know. I think that is still counting the the entrance teasing because the bell had rung at that point. Might be, yeah.
00:52:16
Speaker
Like it's not, it's never bad, but it's, it's kind of just stretched out for time. If that makes sense. They really, really stretch out the whole face in peril with microtund a bit. I don't think this was done like maliciously. I feel like maybe the idea was cause you have veterans like, again, like rich.
00:52:36
Speaker
you know, who was, was a world champion in back in 1982. And Rotunda, who's pre-experienced both outside of wrestling and in it, they're thinking, okay, let's let's really draw this out. When I get my big hot tag, it'll be really huge. And I really, really feel for the match. They might've already done a little bit, just me personally speaking. One thing is kind of funny to look back at is that his big escape spot, that running clothesline would become Rotunda's finisher when you go to WWF. Oh, okay.
00:53:05
Speaker
Which is kind of weird, his finisher is with a yeah running clothesline in 1995, but okay. It's a good clothesline, so. I mean, you know like Bradshaw would make that his thing in the ah in the acolytes and all too, so as long as it's a good, solid looking hit, and that one is, then I think it's fine. Yeah. It definitely better to do the clothesline from Hell than, I believe it's called the write-off. That's fair. Because you use Oren Arshayster. Yes. The finish is good. I will say, like they take a while to get to the buildup.
00:53:33
Speaker
So in the sense that they build up to hot tag and then it's turned around in the faces that works. I do kind of like the whole rough distraction thing. Although we will see similar stuff throughout the show. So perhaps it wasn't enough creativity in the back would prepping matches for the show. Yes. Given that as we'll see five of the eight matches or tag matches. Yes. Counting the six pin, obviously. So.
00:53:57
Speaker
Yeah, I'm a little torn on this one. It has strong action, hard strikes, good character moments, and quite nice workaround holds which, while not varied, are always active. The guy in the hold is always looking for a way to get free, but at the same time it gets quite repetitive. In particular, I lost count of the number, whipped to the ropes, dodged the clothesline spots that we had, but it was a lot. Rotunda, though, does a really good job in peril, showing himself getting more and more worn down and tired out, but still fighting back.
00:54:26
Speaker
does a good job of showing the impact on his moves too. He throws himself more into his punches later in the match to make up for his flagging strength. So overall, I liked this, but like you, I feel like maybe it could have lost about two minutes to get rid of some of the repetition. Mm-hmm. It's fair. This is the last pay-per-view for these moments watching the WQW. They will leave the company before the next pay-per-view, which is again, it's the Red American Bash.
00:54:52
Speaker
They would wrestle on the next class of champions, but they would lose to Tom Zink and Michael Tonto again. Okay. Game for Tunde, he would pre-tune after that match and then this match, obviously, become a heel, or become Michael Wall Street. That is the original version of Michael Wall Street. Yes. As we know, he would leave as I talked about, would go to WEF, we'd be IRS for a while. Then he'd come back to the part of the Monday Night War where he'd be Michael Wall Street again. This time part of the NWO, sort of kind of for a while. Yeah. He's one of those guys, he didn't get as bad, but he got a lot of
00:55:25
Speaker
gimmick retooling quite a bit. Yeah, he he never gets as bad as Brad Armstrong. Yeah, true. Yeah, it's interesting with him because and I guess with Brad Armstrong as well that both of them are quite talented in ring performers, but they keep getting gimmick after gimmick chucked at them. it's It's interesting with them that they never just try and pull like like they do with like a Dean Malenko or something just like his gimmick is athletic person that can wrestle really well. Why not just work with that? Yeah, right.
00:55:55
Speaker
We cut back to Tony Schiavone, who is with Rick and Scott Steiner.
00:56:13
Speaker
you know tough team got that day long du we got a light open for a lot of things out there be my brother we prepared for this man but we're gonna do whatever we have to do to win sure that's true scott you know tony toldny body when me my brother we went through a lot together and we were in college ah way american
00:56:38
Speaker
I could be wrong, but aren't collegiate wrestling matches all singles matches? I don't think I've seen a collegiate tag match. i I kind of want to. It'd be interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it meant like the over because I know there's like team competitions where like the number of wins and losses counts. So maybe he's talking about that. I can see him in the same rest. The school's wrestling team together. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. But there's a few matches that we lost. Scott gives Rick a look in a way that can only be interpreted to mean that he blames Rick for every single one of those losses.
00:57:10
Speaker
But believe me, when it was time to wrestle the Steiner brothers, that line was very short. But believe me, nobody's unbeatable and nobody's invincible. Do you wanna match with us, or you're not gonna get one? Because we came to to suplex you on your head. He came here to give you a clothesline. And and it's most clear, you're gonna be like everybody else, beat up.
00:57:51
Speaker
Let's go back to more action.
00:57:58
Speaker
Rick cut a simple short promo in his 80s style here, but the bulk of this was Scott, and it was weird. Yeah. Fixing Rick with a death glare about matches they lost in college, then telling Doom that they won't get a match, Scott comes off sounding like a heel trying to duck a match and blame others for his failings rather than a face proclaiming how tough he is, despite ending the promo on a face proclaiming how tough he is kind of line. He screws up Tony's name there too, calling him Tommy at first. Admittedly, Tony has been gone for a year having gone to the WWF a couple of months after Scott debuted.
00:58:30
Speaker
Well, Scott was just really entranced by the last match featuring Tommy Rich. Maybe it's entirely possible that he was like watching it and got Tommy stuck in his head. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to question Scott Steiner because he is still around to find me. So. And he could prove his point to you mathematically. That's true as well. Forgot to match for Forge worth noting that the last three matches we just covered had been hard to find for quite a while.
00:58:59
Speaker
This show would run a pay-per-view. It might get a replay. I think they started doing that at this point. After that, you wouldn't see it again. Unless you waited a couple of years and you go to your local blockbuster or family video store, whatever you had in your town. And you would go rent the tape version of Capital Kombat 1990, Turtle Verbal Cop. You would quickly find that the first three matches were missing because when they decided to put the match on tape,
00:59:26
Speaker
There's different between EP or extended play and the regular tapes. So there's three hour tapes and two hour tapes. And they're like, yeah, we don't really want to pay the mass beats a bunch of three hour tape for the show. So cut these first three matches and segments. And now we have a two hour show to more cheaply distribute everywhere.
00:59:46
Speaker
So essentially these matches weren't seen again outside of maybe if they were thrown on like a DVD compilation somewhere until 2014 when the WWE network launched, just when we started watching this stuff and they actually put the entire show on.
01:00:03
Speaker
That is that is amazing. Yeah. For 24 years, these first three matches, including the mat featured the feature Undertaker were essentially lost media. You think that's that might be the entire reason that WWF made sure, like, let's definitely track down the full show. I'm sure sure that was a factor. Yeah. Really rub it in. Look, look, look at you i a and gave away.
01:00:27
Speaker
We cut to the ring, where the ring announcer once again acknowledges the winners of Capitol Combat 90 sweepstakes, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Banner. We get to see them in the crowd now, and they laugh nervously. I think Mr. Banner has his ticket in his shirt pocket, but I can't read the start time to test my earlier theory. And also to be clear, it's Robert Banner, not Robert Bruce Banner. Right, yes. But I'm pretty sure you still wouldn't like him when he's angry. Yeah, I wouldn't like much more when they're engaged. That's fair, yeah. Yeah. A guy behind the two of them throws up the horns like he's at a rock concert.
01:00:57
Speaker
Yeah, good for him. Okay. So our fourth match is Precious Paul Ellering versus Theodore R. Sugar Ray Long in a hair versus hair match. The referee for this one is Mike Atkins. The two of them are our managers for rival tag teams, that being Legion of Doom slash Road Warriors and Doom. So I can see Legion of Doom and Doom obviously being at odds with each other. Fair enough, yeah. It's copyright law alone.
01:01:27
Speaker
So that's basically led to the dispute between the managers. And since they've already booked them in separate matches, let's have the managers fight instead. And for some reason, they decided to put both of their limited amounts of hair on the line. Yeah, there's probably a promo on a show I couldn't find. It talks about that. Yeah, yeah. Basically, none of the shows surrounding this are available on the WWE Network at this point. So Al is making the efforts he can to find out what went on. Yes, I do my best.
01:01:54
Speaker
We get a guest ring announcer for the hair versus hair match, Missy Hyatt, accompanied by hairstylist Jay Tapper, apparently world-renowned. Hyatt has a very sparkly dress. Ella Ring is already in the ring. Teddy Long gets an actual entrance, dressed like a boxer, complete with head guard, boxing gloves, and long entrance robe. JR notes that if Sugar Ray Leonard is watching, calling Long Sugar Ray was all Long's idea.
01:02:21
Speaker
Long charges as Ellering is taking off his jacket, covering Ellering's head with his jacket and landing clubbing blows. Ellering and Long both look in quite good shape for this, which was surprising being manager versus manager. Ellering is actually pretty ripped, and Long looks quite athletic himself, honestly. Ellering fights back, but Long earns a couple two counts.
01:02:44
Speaker
JR and Cawtle theorize that the gloves might be loaded, which is proved right when Ellering wrenches one of Long's gloves off, hits him with it, and discards an object that was in the glove before pitting Long for the three count and the win. Tapper comes into the ring and does an awful, awful job of shaving Long's hair, shaving off just a few strips before he just kind of stops and goes away. yeah Did they not pay him enough for a full shave or something?
01:03:12
Speaker
It really feels like this segment is like really locked in a time. Like you can't go more than let's say five minutes total. Yeah. Do you, do you imagine the post match thing? Oh, Brad, time just leave. And this happens a lot actually with hair versus hair stuff. I think that we've seen in the past that you get to that point, which is like the thing that people have presumably been waiting to see. Cause normally hair versus hair match is like a wrestler versus the manager or a manager versus the manager. And you're not really watching it for the match itself.
01:03:41
Speaker
You're watching it for the the humiliation afterwards of the character that you don't like, right? Right. Yeah. But a lot of the time, the actual haircut is just like perfunctory and not actually in any way complete. And it's really, really bizarre to set up something like this and then not give that payoff. Yeah. Well, they joke in the buildup that along doesn't have a lot of hair left. Yeah. Yeah. But then, yeah, he doesn't even cut all of it off. It's very odd.
01:04:12
Speaker
Long hides his head anyway, like he's been shaved bald, and hugs Atkins as both go backstage. Thoughts on this one? I mean, it's pretty nothing fair. It's obviously was not booked to be a lengthy, complex encounter. It's interesting how much of the match, if we're calling of that it is too long in control. But obviously that's part of the whole gimmick is because he has that vague thing where you're up piece of metal and put in your glove and somehow you strike super hard, apparently. Yeah.
01:04:41
Speaker
So no, it's a very old school wrestling thing. I will say I was reading up on Ellerig as part of this. He did wrestle for quite a few years up until the early 80s when he segwayed to managing. So you get a glimpse of his ability to do that kind of stuff here, which is nice. Yeah, I think he has a body slam at one point during it that looks quite respectable. Oh, yeah, and absolutely. He has a good body slam. He has the build of a wrestler as well, which he still maintained.
01:05:06
Speaker
I don't know for sure, but I could see if I was, you know, if it was me and I'm managing the road warriors, I'm next to them all the time. I would feel the need to compete a bit. I could see that. It's like, I don't want to feel even smaller. Yeah, exactly. We're just, you know, just discussing how they cut the first day matches for the tape. And I'm thinking, you thought this would on though. So presumably you bought the tape. This would be the first thing on the tape.
01:05:31
Speaker
Yeah. And I guess it actually does make a little bit of sense that they left it on because there's bits in the later match that has Teddy Long at ringside where his impromptu haircut is referenced. Yeah. You wouldn't have like the story content building up to that. And it'd be a very confusing moment as hard it is hard to cut out. It kind of like comes up periodically throughout the match intermingled with other stuff. So I can see them thinking, well, we'd like to cut this too, but we can't.
01:06:02
Speaker
I suppose so, yeah. Long and Ellerine did fine with what they were given, but this was not really worth putting on the show. It's only about two minutes and there's nothing to it. And again, the haircut at the end is so short and limited, it might as well have not have happened. Ellerine and Long were fun though, but this really should have just been on the weekly TV show, not on a pay-per-view. Yeah, I could see you do it on like the final show, even your Saturday show or something, yeah, build up.
01:06:29
Speaker
I don't think they did any for this show that I recall, but I could see this as a dark match before the show for the live crowd. And then you just show a clip of the finish and Teddy Long being shaved before you go to the Doom match or something. Maybe. Yeah, that worked too, honestly. Yeah. As I mentioned, the road warriors would leave the company before the end of this month. So naturally you would assume that Paul Ehrling is going with them as well. Well, no. Oh, interesting.
01:06:56
Speaker
His contract was actually, you know had another six month on it and he decided he did want to burn a bridge. So he stayed in, he'd manage other teams and, you know, work dark batches and house shows until then. I mean, credit to him, you know, he could have, he could have left and it probably wouldn't have been a big reprisal when the roadways come back in 95. I don't think that he'd go, ah, don't bring Paul Erwin back because you guys left in bad terms. But yeah, it's a credit to him. I suppose that he didn't want to just leave the company. That shows a decency.
01:07:23
Speaker
Yeah, and good business sense that you're like, you know I don't want to screw up future prospects and everything. But I think there is a fundamental decency there. like if you're Make the best attempt you can to leave peaceably if you're in a situation that you're not as pleased with your employment, basically. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, it's definitely looked this up as well. So they referenced at one point during the match that Ellering really wants to do to run the idea rod.
01:07:49
Speaker
Well, he actually did. Oh, cool. In 2000, he yeah did the dead rod. In fact, the thing I read was that in 2004, I was another person that wanted to do the race and notably they were visually impaired. So the way you do that is you have someone with you that can sort of coach you at an event and say, you know, turn right here, turn left here, et cetera. He did that for somebody else. That is really cool. Yeah. Good for him. Mm hmm.
01:08:18
Speaker
We cut to Tony, who brings in some of the four horsemen. Ollie, Arn, and Sid Vicious. Ollie will shortly thereafter bring in Flair as well.
01:08:40
Speaker
Everybody's been talking about how great Lex Luger is and what a courageous man. As far as we're concerned, only an idiot would do what Lex Luger is doing. Talk about a hospital, Luger. Well, you make it out here. And I guarantee you, your last breath is gonna be taken right out there in that squared circle. All you gotta to do is realize this, the horsemen, I mean the horsemen have never, ever allowed a title to leave the hands of the World Heavyweight Champion, Ric Flair. And we're not gonna let it happen.
01:09:44
Speaker
that You are half the man that I am every day as your world heavyweight wrestling champion, right double A. Look at, sure words have never been spoken.
01:10:14
Speaker
working together to keep what belongs to the horsemen. And as God is
01:10:32
Speaker
Unsurprisingly, this was a really intense and fun promo from The Horseman. It's funny, though, seeing Cid standing there behind Flair as Flair gives his half the man line. You can't help but think of Cid's half the brain flub later on. That's true, yeah.
01:10:46
Speaker
Only does some terrific buildup of Flair's appearance. Flair is excellently arrogant and threatening. And Arne, I love you, man. And you were super intense, but that was about the most confusing and overly technical way that you could have expressed your ah sentiment. It's a wrestling promo, not an instruction manual for machining. Still, I thought this was a terrific segment. Yeah, it's nice that buildup made a vent for sure. And I think I'm going to turn down a Flair promo. No, no, yeah.
01:11:17
Speaker
We cut to JR and Coddle who talk over the Luger Flair match and the Horseman's threats. Coddle notes that it's a cage match and that's going to keep the Horseman out as Bob Coddle has apparently never watched a wrestling show before in his life. JR slips in another Return of RoboCop as we've gone a while without one NWSW consensus client considering dropping a zero from the check.
01:11:41
Speaker
Our fifth match is the Midnight Express, beautiful Bobby Eaton, and slim Lex Luger, I mean, sweet Stan Lane, with Jim Cornette versus Brian Pillman and the Z-Man, Tom Cenk, for Pillman and Cenk's NWA United States Tag Team Championship. The referee for this one is Randy Anderson.
01:12:01
Speaker
So back in May of 1989, the US tag champions were Rick Steiner and Eddie Gilbert, but they quickly segued from Gilbert and Steiner to, well, Steiner and Steiner. As such, they banned the titles because they didn't really want to, I guess they want to lose, but they kind of just weren't important anymore. Recently, mind you, recently they have this show in 1990, that is, just to clarify, they held a big tournament to establish new champions.
01:12:29
Speaker
And of course that was say, can Pillman now. As I mentioned before, this match was really going to be the Simone SWAT team challenging the component, but they didn't tent the show where they're supposed to tape the angle. They had presumably them attacking Pillman and Zinc. So now we have the magnetic express who at this point are still one of the most decorated tag teams currently running. So it's an easy team to slide in that match. Yeah, it's not not exactly a downgrade.
01:12:54
Speaker
No, no. And of course, they're very famous for cornet interfering, as we've covered multiple times. So I know Shark Cage so it can interfere. Gimmick makes natural sense. The Midnight Express's music should be in a rhythm action game. Mm hmm. They've got quite nice red, black and gold robes tonight. Cornette, of course, does their ring introductions. But Capeta does Cornette's this time instead of Lane taking over, as I believe we had on another show. Yeah.
Pillman and Z-Man's Cage Match Victory
01:13:22
Speaker
Pillman and Z-Man cross paths while circling the ring to slap hands with the fans, and they look like they're going to do a really elaborate high-five sequence or something, but it turns out to just be one high-five, which made me a bit sad. Cornet, as usual in cases like this, acts like he's just now hearing that he has to go into the cage at ringside.
01:13:42
Speaker
He refuses, and a brawl starts between the Express and Z-Man and Pillman. Z-Man and Pillman win that, and Cornet flees from an approaching Pillman, only to get clotheslined by Randy Anderson, of all people. Cornet, bless him, sells like he just got taken down by Hawk. Pillman and Z-Man throw him into the cage, and Doug Dellinger locks him in. JR and Coddle take no small amount of pleasure in seeing that.
01:14:08
Speaker
Pillman vs Eaton to start. Rapid exchanges go Pillman's way, and Stan runs in, but Z-Man helps Pillman fight off the Express, ending with a Pillman double close line on the Express that sends them rolling out. Lane tries to switch in without a tag, but Anderson catches him. Come on man, didn't you watch the SST match?
01:14:27
Speaker
actual tag to Lane, and Z-Man repeatedly arm drags him. Eaton grabs Z-Man from behind, but Z-Man dodges, and Lane nails Eaton, and Pillman helps Z-Man dispose of Lane. Lane goes to Cornette for advice, but Cornette just wants out of the cage. If I were Lane, I would not get out of the ring tonight. The horsemen have it in for Lex Luger.
01:14:50
Speaker
The faces continue to dominate, working the arms of the Express, the lane gets in good kicks and Eden starts using hair pulls to get advantage. Pillman misses a top rope sunset flip by a mile, yeah but Eaton generously falls anyway for two. We get a nice shot of a WSW hotline banner hanging in the rafters. 1-900-909-9900 Lane holds Z-Man for an Eaton charge, but Z-Man ducks, which makes Lane duck, which makes Eaton spill out. Caudill says the ref must have regarded it as unintentional. I would say so, especially on Lane's part. Yeah? If you throw your own partner out, do you get a DQ credit? I would think so, yeah. Can do one illegal thing later in the match. Yeah, absolutely.
01:15:38
Speaker
Lane and Eaton keep getting caught with a move charging after a tag, like Eaton getting slammed right away for two. Maybe come in a little bit slower? Nah. We spend maybe a little too much time watching Frustrated Cornette, though he is very good. Eaton finally gets two with a hair pull takedown, but Pillman monkey flips him and charges, but Eaton ducks, and Pillman spills over the top rope as Anderson goes to check on Z-Man for no apparent reason other than to not see that. Yeah, right.
01:16:07
Speaker
The Express trade off wearing Pillman down, including an eaten neck breaker, lane rope neck snap into leaping clothesline, double team flipping neck breaker and elbow drop for two, eaten slingshot back breaker and more. Loads of two counts, including multiple times off a massive eaten top rope elbow. Again, multiple from a lane slam and finally a huge eaten top rope leg drop. Z-Man is elated to see that last kick out and Cornette is absolutely disgusted.
01:16:38
Speaker
Pillman gut wrench suplex, and he makes the tag. Z-Man runs wild on both express members, but when he locks on the sleeper hold on Lane, Eaton clubs him, and Lane hits a Russian leg sweep. Express rocket launcher for two. Z-Man gets one with a crossbody, but Lane saves, and Pillman charges in, only to be shown out by Anderson, leaving Lane free to hit an enzigiri on Z-Man, so that Eaton can roll him up for the three count and the win.
01:17:05
Speaker
Lane drags Eaton out of the ring before there can be any retaliation, and Cornette is freed from the cage to celebrate with the Express and their new belts. A sign in the crowd proclaims that Jesus loves wrestlers. Thoughts on this one?
01:17:18
Speaker
I thought this was a really great showing from both tag teams. I feel like at this point I was saying that the Manet Express, especially at the Eaton Lane version, are really good. Yeah. They worked it out so long. They had the central chemistry, even without the extra ah impact of Cornett at ringside to interfere or do his whole thing, like at the one show where he goes up to Nick Patrick and he wants to fight him and then he changes his mind. Oh, yes. That was that. ah That was Russell Moore, I think. I believe so, yeah. Forget if it's 90 or 91. Think 90.
01:17:48
Speaker
That sounds right. Yeah, I believe so. Yeah. In which case episode 22. There we go. It all works out. It's interesting because the question I would assume if you were a fan watching the time is what are the Express going to do without Cornette? The answer is but mostly the same.
01:18:06
Speaker
I could see to your point the bit where the ref misses Tom Zink being thrown at the top rope. That probably works better with the cornet because he could actually antagonize. Pillman the film would do something or something like that. Yeah. More natural distraction. One thing I found fascinating. I didn't think it was a match at all, but it's still a fun kind of funny is that. So the gimmick is that cornet can interfere because he's the cage and they typically put him in the cage with a tennis racket. Yes. And he treated it like him being the cage fully eliminates the possibility of use the racket.
01:18:36
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You could clearly fit through the bars. Yeah. I'm glad they don't have to resort to that, but it's still funny. Like, Oh, I can't give you this racket because I can't fit it through here. Like, yes, you can. I will tell you, I showed this match to my folks and that was also mom's first comment when he went to the cage. It's like, why didn't you just hand the bracket through the bars? There we go. were might take a like Very good point. Yeah.
01:19:02
Speaker
one thing I really like this match is the pacing. It's hard to really explain to kind of have to see it. But they would do this thing where they would have a tag,
Match Analysis and Pacing
01:19:11
Speaker
do a real quick sequence, you know, like a body slam arm drag, etc. And they'd have a short pause, not like a long pause, we're like working a hold or anything. Just basically a short pause, let the audience react and go, Oh, wow, look how good this was, or react to, you know, the heels gonna come up in or There's this Tom Zink being in trouble. He'd take, you know, a body slam and they would wait a couple seconds and then re-rest it again. It's one of the things that old school wrestlers, especially the really talented ones like all four competitors involved, really have down. For the most part, they know how to pace a match really well. They know, build up to a big move, let the crowd really anticipate the move, then deliver, let them react, let them cheer, boo, what have you.
01:19:53
Speaker
and then do the next spot rather than boom big slam and pick them up do a dt you know that kind of thing Yeah, compared to like the later 1999-2000 cruiserweight spotfest in WSW, where yeah everything being pulled off is genuinely amazing, but you can't absorb any of it because they don't let a single move breathe for a moment. Exactly. You see this spinny flip, and by the time you realize that it's happened, someone else is flying off of something into into someone else.
01:20:24
Speaker
But even, to be fair, it's it's not even just a Cruiserweight thing. Right. Yeah. Yeah. This mindset definitely seeped in. I think it's from Nitro and Thunder, where at certain point Nitro and Thunder matches were really short. Wrestling very recipe. You got four minutes between enterances in this to do all this stuff. You know, this is the wrestling show. We don't have time for wrestling. To do this thing real quick, we can get out so we can do 15 backstage segments. Right. So I really like seeing it done perfectly here.
01:20:51
Speaker
One thing, actually, it's funny, I didn't catch it the first time. I only caught it on my rewatch. Did you notice the reason why the back kick by Lane wasn't more effective? Uh, no. If you watch out to back, he does the old school three foot taps, like you're loading your boot. Ah. And then he kicks him. Gotcha. The old iron chic thing. Yeah.
01:21:14
Speaker
Nice. I was like, wait a second. oh like i was yeah I was thinking, I remember the finish, I like the idea again, we saw in a previous match, referees attracted, heal his from behind, but I didn't catch the yeah the idea they somehow loaded a shoe for that kick for the finish. Nice. Yeah, really great match as a whole.
01:21:36
Speaker
Yeah, this featured really fast action from both teams and some really excellent innovative moves. That slingshot backbreaker by Eaton in particular was just so cool. Yeah. But there were a lot of complex and interesting spots throughout. The Express are very, very smooth with their tag work and healish tactics. so Striking can just the right balance between moving fluidly and making sure that the audience actually understands what happened. Both teams used a lot of quick tags too, often switching places move by move, which made this feel intense and intricate.
01:22:06
Speaker
That said, I did again find that this got a little bit repetitive at times. For instance, I lost count of the number of times an express member tagged in only to get immediately armed dragged. Yeah. It got a little bit ludicrous that they kept making that same exact error over and over. So again, I feel like this might have benefited from having maybe like one minute trimmed, but all the same. It was a absolute ton of fun to watch. I was worried going into this match with the stipulation of the manager locked in the cage that they would lean too heavily on that.
01:22:36
Speaker
Really? I think they did a good balancing act of that. The first, let's say five, 10 minutes of the match. If things didn't go the way they would go and try to get advice for him. Yeah. from After a certain point, they just realized a character at least we got to do this on our own. Cause he can't help us. Cause again, these bars are just too, too close together to get this test racket in here. Yeah.
01:22:55
Speaker
After they basically fully negate him as a factor even for advice, it just becomes a straight tag match with them being heel-ish and taking advantage. It's really well done. In terms of the Ring story, I think they did the right amount of going to check with Cornette. In terms of the camera pointing at Cornette, I think they did a little too much. Yeah.
01:23:14
Speaker
cut like three or four of those camera cuts to cornet. There's a couple of points where we like miss something that feels rather important in the match yeah because they're too busy watching Jim Cornette react to the thing that is really important in the match. It'd be a great use of like picture in picture. Oh, yeah, I can see that. The Benet Express at the next year review will defend the US titles against the seven boys in KFA. They would win a match against the fabulous free birds at Clash 11.
01:23:43
Speaker
which served as a essentially a number one kind of match. So that's why they get that match of the pay-per-view. Gotcha.
Team Breakup and Future Matches
01:23:50
Speaker
Unfortunately, this seems to be, for the most part, the end of the Zinc Pillman tag team. It's kind of a shame that they have a nice December of the tag titles. And then once you lose it, we just stop being a team. Yeah, yeah. It happens a lot in wrestling, sadly, especially in this era, but it's a shame. That said, they will both be on that pay-per-view whenever we get around to the Great American Bash.
01:24:11
Speaker
They'd be a match between Brian Pillman and Buddy Landell. Should be Nature Boy, Buddy Landell. I think he's still doing that at this point. Well, Tom Zink would have the unenviable task of being the man in the debut match for Big Fan Vader. oo It is fridge time. Yep. I'm trying to remember which Russell Warrett is that Zink and Pillman have their really, really good match.
01:24:36
Speaker
The Pillman's Zigma matches the rest of the world in 1992. 92, okay. so So they clearly, like, stay together for, like, angles and things even if they're not, like, a going tag team anymore? Yeah. That's fair. JR throws back to Gordon Sully. The doors of the dressing room have opened. And RoboCop is briefly seen walking out of Sting's dressing room.
01:25:01
Speaker
A security guard, sorry, again, as we asked before, why does Robocop need security guards? Isn't being a security guard his entire job tonight? Anyway, a security guard puts his hand over the camera, which for some reason causes the camera to go on the fritz, showing static and glitching to front 2A and back 2E as we get a series of shots of Robocop from a series of camera angles that cannot possibly have all been caught by the same cameraman in that length of time.
01:25:27
Speaker
I don't know if maybe the front and back stuff is meant to be that WSW is trying to cut to different cameramen to get a shot, but in that case, every camera is glitching and every single cameraman has been knocked down. Robocop works very efficiently, man. As a reminder, Robocop is supposed to be a face here, allied with Sting, who doesn't make a habit, to my knowledge, of hurling cameramen around. Yeah. Robocop appears entirely unbothered by this blatant assault of innocent civilians.
01:25:52
Speaker
Isn't Protect the Innocent like his first directive or something? That's the lead number one, yeah. Meanwhile, we cut back to the entrance ramp and Sting makes his entrance beneath some nice pinwheel fireworks. He slaps hands with the fans. As Robocop is being announced by Capeta because WCW needs money, Sting is attacked by Oli, Arn, and Sid Vicious and thrown into the cage that Jim Cornette was in. But wait. Seriously, wait, Robocop moves real slow. Mm-hmm.
01:26:21
Speaker
He slowly, robotically meanders down the ramp and appears to nearly trip midway down as the leg plates quiver in the sort of way lightweight plastic might when moved in a way that lightweight plastic does not prefer to be moved. The horsemen, bless them, have to back away like this is the most terrifying thing that they have ever seen in their lives. Ole tells him he'll be a bucket of bolts when they're done with him, but Robocop ignores him and rips the door off the cage with the kind of superhuman strength that Jim Cornette could only dream of.
01:26:51
Speaker
Sting celebrates, and lightly bumps Robocop's arm, and the armplate quivers in a manner uncannily like lightweight plastic might if carelessly bumped by a large muscular man. Sting slaps the chestplate at the costume, and Robocop looks down like, oh crap, please tell me he didn't break anything, because that costume is so very fragile.
01:27:12
Speaker
Oli, Arn, and Sid back away, doing an amazing job of looking nervous instead of, you know, laughing their heads off. It's genuinely impressive. Yeah. J.R. and Cawtle give a hard sell of how much the horsemen are terrified of Robocop, which would be great if this were leading to a match, but there's absolutely no way that that costume would survive three seconds of ring action. Yeah. Sting stands confidently by Robocop and says something to him, perhaps apologizing for nearly destroying the costume with a light tap. They walk backstage. Robocop appears to be holding onto his left leg plate, which flops loosely when he lets go of it.
01:27:47
Speaker
JR says Sting looks 100% and ends confusingly with, the horseman wanted no part of either of those, especially the Stinger and Robocop. You can't especially and then name both guys when there's only two guys to pick from JR. That's fair, yeah. Oh, thoughts on this segment? Okay, so small positive. The whole angle was built around the shark cage.
01:28:13
Speaker
which is organically there from the last match. Very true. Yep. So even if what they're going for, or a cop walking out and bending bars from big doors of a cage is silly and ridiculous, which it is, they at least have a good reason for the cage to be there. So that's something kind of find positives in this.
01:28:33
Speaker
I will say the the spot of him ripping the door off the cage does not look bad either. No, they made that look pretty pretty good considering they're having to work live with effects and stuff. You know, what I mean, not CG or anything, but like they had to have a gimmick door of this cage so that the guy could lift it off. And it does not look terrible when he does that.
01:28:53
Speaker
No, no, yeah, whatever they did to make the cage door actually out of because he could lift it because obviously he didn't have a big range of motion in that suit. Right. It doesn't look like obvious rubber or, you know, plastic, whatever it be. I like the way that the bar he's on the cage itself bends a little bit as he does it. Yes. I don't know if it's supposed to do that, but it does look kind of cool. I feel like they get picked up for that. Yeah. I'm wondering if I could find Cornette talking about this.
01:29:21
Speaker
He's absolutely told you go in a shark cage. You're not don't do anything. If he like, you know, a character got mad and like bumped the door, it might just fall off. Yeah. I imagine that it was like one part of the cage is gimmicked. Yeah. They probably said you can freely touch these three. Do not touch this one. Yeah. Don't. Yeah. Don't like grab the bar where we're going to grab because it's going to bend. Yeah.
01:29:44
Speaker
It's funny because he is a big part of, at this point, in my favorite match on the show, the last match he had. But yeah, he's also so organically connected to the one of the silliest moments in WWE history. Yes, true. They do a decent job here of making everything controlled.
01:30:02
Speaker
Like, Robocop does this his robo-walk, I guess is what we described that. Very slowly. It's a shame they don't have the sound effects in, like the movies have with a sort of grinding gear and metal bending kind of side effects. It's really cool when he walks in movies. Oh my gosh. Can you picture WSW trying to sync that up? Yes. There is a zero percent chance that that would go well.
01:30:24
Speaker
Oh, I know. That's why I really wish they did. I know, yeah. I will say, it's funny, there's a lot of discussion to the silliness is the fact that Robocop, a fictional character, is involved in this angle in a big way. It is also kind of funny how the big moment is them attacking Sting from the cage. We mostly missed the actual attack. Yes, you see just the end of it. Yeah, Robocop's coming in and suddenly he's just been shoved in the cage. I would assume they're being not gentle but maybe more gentle they would normally be because the last thing I would do is actually interesting again why he's recovering from surgery because the game plan here is he comes in beat flair for the title as soon as possible the last thing I do is injure him again before that and make like three more shows happen without him
01:31:09
Speaker
and i And I'm sure that like, I know they're talking earlier on the show, like Sting's not fully recovered. I'm sure by this point, like he's fully recovered. Yeah. You don't put him in the actual action angle. Oh, yeah. Until you're sure he's good. If if yeah even if he's 95% there, he didn't know he made your activity. So he's not stress testing the leg at this point, which is good. Yeah.
01:31:31
Speaker
I will say that we're winning here as well as Sting because he keeps it cool and he he really seems, he's totally in it to win it on the scene. Because other people can, you know, as the famous one will discuss, we do fall for all. Some people lose their composure when silly stuff happens. So credit to him to really keep it together even when he might might have loosed the suit as well. Yes. This is justifiably one of the most infamous segments that WCW ever did. And it is phenomenally goofy.
01:32:01
Speaker
The very idea that Robocop exists in the same universe and time as WSW's professional wrestling action is Best Buddies with Sting and is having a face-off with the Four Horsemen is completely ridiculous. If this was at least building to a match, it'd be stupid but at least understandable to put it on this show, but there is absolutely no way that they can get Robocop in any kind of action. The costume barely survives a walk to the ring and Sting passing by it, so one worked punch and that would be it.
01:32:28
Speaker
It does absolutely nothing for WSW, absolutely nothing for the angle between Sting and the Horseman, and absolutely nothing for the Flair Luger match. Neither of them is even in the segment. It exists purely as a means of saying, hey, there's a new Robocop movie coming out. It doesn't matter that the four Horsemen are scared of Robocop because they're never going to meet again, even later on this very show when something happens that you would really think would draw Robocop back out. Yeah.
01:32:53
Speaker
It's incredible the amount of time that WSDB has spent building up to this utter nonsense, but it's even more incredible how quickly they're going to just drop it like it never happened. I remember when, I think when I first got the move, and it wasn't like when we were watching it, but I was ah around at some point, I think, oh yeah, I remember this show where a book op shows up, and I tried to like skim through to find it before I actually watched the show properly, so I don't know where to look for it.
01:33:16
Speaker
So I'm like, skimming through and i's I thought here, like, like, did I miss? I legit thought they cut it because it's so quick on the show. Right. Yeah. like I'm skimming. I'm skimming through the show. And then, nope, it goes mad, just match. I'm like, I don't see it. Like, did they maybe they cut it from this version. But no, it's it's there. It's like I made it long. Yeah. This segment cannot last more than maybe two minutes tops. Yeah.
01:33:37
Speaker
to give it some minor compliments. Oli, Arne, Sid, and Sting all do terrific jobs of staying in character despite the inherent hilarious lunacy of this angle. And the guy playing Robocop, when he's not nervously checking to make sure his costume is holding together, does a respectable job of acting like Robocop, moving robotically, but in ways that feel like they have some emotion and confidence to them. Because Robocop's walk in the films is, it's robotic, but it's not quite fully robotic.
01:34:02
Speaker
Yeah, there's always the background of this used to be a human. Mm hmm. And I think you do get a little of that from how he moves in it, which so clearly he's he's like kind of looked at how this works. This is a bad segment, but it's bad because of the concept, not because of the execution at all. I will say to his right about compliment.
01:34:21
Speaker
I actually like this first Robocop suit with the more sort of burnished ah metallic look, the more shine to it. That you get in this one versus the original Robocop where it's much more plain silver. So I'm glad they did it for this Robocop and that Robocop one. fair Fair enough, yeah. Basically when he's not moving, the costume looks really good. It does, yeah. So companies would make, they spend a lot of money making the suits they use in movies, like the Robocop suit, for example, or the very advanced suit with the electronics they use in the Ninja Turtles movies. Right, yeah. One, two, and the less said three. However, that said, there was also companies that made cheaper, more flexible versions of the outfits.
01:35:04
Speaker
There's famously a cheap 4TV version of Ninja Turtles outfits that look the same if you really squint, but otherwise look much cheaper and sillier. You know, warned from when they would do live appearances at malls or when they apparently had a concert tour or as silly as that whole thing was. ah Yes.
01:35:22
Speaker
I think that's what we're getting here. This can't be a legit Robocop suit because they don't do elaborate motions in the Robocop suit, the film, but it moves much more naturally in this. And I can't imagine they're cutting around like the legs falling off from contact.
01:35:37
Speaker
Right. Yeah. So that this is this is a TV version of the suit. And it makes sense. Like you don't want to send your highly expensive, fully tricked out Hollywood model suit yeah to a wrestling pay per view where a fan might spill beer on it. Exactly. Yeah. So it makes perfect sense.
01:35:54
Speaker
But yeah, I think that's the thing that I found just very interesting about this segment is the amount to which everyone involved just actually did throw themselves into it, which I think is quite admirable, honestly, that yeah you're backstage and you're handed this absolute piece of crap idea. Like, let's be honest, as absolutely terrible idea. yeah And you're like, you know what? I'll go for it. That's fine. I'll throw myself into this. I'll do what you're asking me to do.
01:36:22
Speaker
It ends up oddly endearing, I think, because of it, that you've just got a bunch of people. there They're not like acting like they're in on the joke or anything like that. They're just know yeah they're going for it, and it's fine. Yeah.
01:36:33
Speaker
I will say too, as a last bit on this segment, the whole idea of doing the Robocop interaction, obviously with the film, it's a bit confusing tonally with the market of Robocop. Yes. Because at this point, they have not done the full transition to Robocop as like a kid friendly character. That's Robocop three. Robocop one is ridiculously bloody. That's the thing. Yes, I was saying. So when I think of Robocop, the first thing I think of is Robocop shooting the guy in the I mean, that's the first thing that comes to my mind. Then it's probably, there's probably a guy that was in the chemicals where he's on mutate and he gets hit by a truck. Yes. Yeah. Or, you know, from a cop, how he comes from a cop, you know, he's shot a million times and like his arm is blown off and his legs blown off.
01:37:19
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Beyond the sci-fi character in a modern context concept, it's bizarre that Robocop is paired with Sting, the most child friendly of the characters in WCW. Yeah. Who has the kids painting their faces like Sting and all this stuff.
01:37:35
Speaker
And you're bringing in Robocop as the character to pair with him when the original Robocop is one of the most like horrifically bloody movies. It's a hard R, yeah. Really, really hard R, yeah. And then Robocop 2 that they're promoting, one of the major characters is a like murderous 10-year-old. Yes, that is true.
01:37:54
Speaker
You're pairing him with with the most child-friendly character that you've got, but Robocop 2, even, is not going to be a very kid-friendly movie at all. So, it's a very interesting choice on their part. And I don't know that there's necessarily anyone on the card, other than maybe, I don't know, The Road Warriors. That would have been a better pairing, but it's an odd choice.
01:38:15
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And what as I was thinking, like, if you look at this before it happens, like on the show, you go, okay, well, look, we're WCW. I'll, you know, I'm a fan of FCP at this point. I'm like a, let's say I'm 15, 20 years old, what have you. I'm the more adult fan. I'm like, yeah, that would be used for young adults and adults. Whereas, you know, that would be up for this time as kid friendly Hulkamania. That's all kitty stuff. We're gonna have RoboCop this hard R sci-fi character. But then it's presented exactly like it would been if it's seven WF.
01:38:44
Speaker
Right, yes. Hogan has to be rescued from, you know, the Heenan family, let's say. For some reason, Robocop helps him out. But he played it exactly the same way, in WBF. Yes. This is very much a cartoonish 80s WWF angle, but it's to set up one of a movie and one of the bloodiest franchises of all time.
01:39:04
Speaker
Yeah. And again, they they did not segue from RDP to 13 until we were cut three. It's not even like this was when they did it. They hadn't done that yet. So especially fascinating. Oh, boy. Capeta takes a moment to advertise the great American bash at which Sting will make his return and throws to Tony Schiavone, who is with the junkyard dog.
01:39:44
Speaker
everybody got something they got to look forward to. and I done been all over this world, Puerto Rico, Japan, and everybody have a downfall. But I went to the mountain one time, two minutes.
01:39:56
Speaker
But now I'm back here in World Championship Wrestling. I'm looking for you, the four horsemen. Me, Mark, and anybody else that's stiff in the Doll Yard. Playtime is over, baby. I'm here to stay. So you just bring them on down. And like I said time and time again, every doll needs a bone to chew on, and I found my silver ball.
01:40:44
Speaker
what they said couldn't be done, said the Express Where have you been
01:41:20
Speaker
talk to that guy like that. When Dog looks, Cornette tries to hit him with the racket, but Dog catches it and takes it, and Cornette plays.
01:41:31
Speaker
you know that's why stop so because i don't like re and i'm not here to play i'm here to say so you tell endly the dog is back
01:41:49
Speaker
This was fine. It has basically nothing to do with anything else going on tonight. So it could easily have been saved for the next night's TV show. But it was cool to hear a junkyard dog specifically namedrop mean Mark Callis alongside the four horsemen. Yeah. See, only junkyard dog recognizes that Mark Calloway as a draw. Yeah, right. The sex joke about Cornett's mother was completely unnecessary. But Cornett's attempt to trick junkyard dog with the look over their move was pretty funny.
01:42:17
Speaker
And Dog's rhyming conclusion was a neat bit of variety. Yeah. I like the way Cornette sold when he gave him the address first. Yes. There's ah there's a few seconds pause. He says that. He goes, wait, that's my mother's house. Like he he has to remember that. Talk about timing. He lets that, as as dumb as that joke is, he lets that joke freeze for a second before going through with it. Like the previous segment, bad idea, good execution.
01:42:43
Speaker
Yeah, that's a weird thing throughout the show where they're like, Oh, we need to make sure people know that so-and-so is back. But also we want to have pre and post match interviewed for everyone except except like Slooger. How do we have them both sort of stuck together? Yeah. Our sixth match.
01:43:02
Speaker
is the Rock and Roll Express, Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson versus the Fabulous Freebirds, Michael P.S. Hayes, and Jimmy Jam Garvin in a Corporal Punishment match. The referee for this one is Mike Atkins. Well, Rock and Roll ate noise pollution, but it is worth fighting over. Both teams represent the musical genre and can't stop fighting each other over it.
01:43:25
Speaker
They're both famous tag teams that have worked all the territories and circuits. So you don't really need a lot of reason for a team like this or the Midnight Express to fight. I'm guessing there was some sort of angle on television when they couldn't find where they, I would assume the Freebirds pull out their their belts and whipped the Rock and Roll Express thus in this matchup. Yeah, I know. um I think Gibson or Morton, I think it's Gibson does reference like being whipped before by the Freebirds. So at least there's that. Yeah.
01:43:54
Speaker
It's funny, I had a brief thought when you were talking about the way the spelling with capital is, when you with the cap building and all that. And I was thinking about this match. I had a quick thought and they realized that didn't make a lot of sense. Cause I um, they're having a corporal punishment match on capital combat. They can really things together, have a capital punishment match and like, wait, no, that's much worse. No, don't do that. It's very true. A little more dangerous than a strap match. Yeah. Yeah.
01:44:24
Speaker
The Rock and Roll Express's entrance music has an intro very close to Johnny B. Bad's. It's just the first few notes, though. They ride out on a platform with a jukebox, which turns out to be pretty dangerous, as a fan grabs Morton's hand as the platform rolls by, and he nearly falls off. The free birds come out to Bad Street, USA. The ring steps are super wobbly as they walk up, so maybe they got damage being thrown around earlier. Oh, yeah, actually that.
01:44:53
Speaker
JR lists the big events of the evening so far, making sure to slip in another Robocop mention. Cha-ching. Coddle says Ollie always investigates whatever he doesn't understand and figures out what makes it work. So I assume that by next show Ollie will have built his own robo-horseman. I mean, he could bring in Ed 209. Oh, yeah. ah let's See? Speaking of capital punishment. Yes, exactly.
01:45:20
Speaker
Ekans places leather straps in the corner, as unlike most strap matches that we've seen, this is one where the straps can just be legally used as weapons. The wrestlers aren't actually tied together, and they're not trying to drag each other around the corners. Otherwise, it's a normal tag match. Yeah, that seemed to confuse the commentators who were expecting it to be a strap match. Yes. Understandably, it's rather confusing. Yeah. Yeah, because the area talks about them being like strapped together, and then he watches Ekans put them on the corner. He's like, oh, they're not doing that. Okay.
01:45:48
Speaker
I wasn't briefed. What else is new? Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, it not exactly surprising that WCW didn't explain the match to the commentary team. No. Hayes and Gibson start. That goes poorly for Hayes. So he just strolls over and tags Garvin in the most casual manner you possibly could. It was great. Garvin challenges Morton, perhaps wagering that Morton always ends up in trouble at some point. So surely it'll go better. Sure. Morton mirrors Garvin strutting, upsetting Garvin.
01:46:15
Speaker
Morton sends Garvin to a Gibson clothesline once, but Garvin dodges a second, bragging as Hayes bellows, Jimmy, behind you! Jimmy, behind you! So loud that the 73rd row could have hurt him. Garvin, however, does not, until it's too late, and eats a Morton clothesline.
01:46:30
Speaker
Garvin gets advantage with an iRake, and soon goes for the strap, but Morton takes it and whips him, and Gibson gets in to whip Hayes with the Express's strap. Hayes dances about, selling in about the most cartoonish way you possibly could. Yeah. Rather than keeping the weapons, the Express just put them back for some reason, but they continue to dominate, even switching without a tag, as Hayes accidentally distracts Atkins, and the crowd supports the Express.
01:46:54
Speaker
Both JR, all spare in love and corporal punishment matches. Sure. Garvin hurts his knee on the turnbuckle on a dodge knee strike, so Morton locks on the figure four, and Gibson locks it on a entering haze as well.
01:47:07
Speaker
Cleverly, with Garvin unable to escape, Hayes manages to rake Morton's eyes to free Garvin, which forces Gibson to let Hayes go to avoid getting attacked by Garvin. I like that little bit. Garvin gets Gibson into the corner for Hayes' punches, and Hayes gets in with the strap to whip Gibson, but Gibson gets his own strap and gets back at him for more cartoonist selling.
01:47:28
Speaker
Morton gets Haze's strap, and the Express drive the Freebirds from the ring again. The Express give up the straps again, but quickly regret it as Haze and Garvin soon double team Gibson. JR mixes up Gibson and Morton, perhaps because normally Morton's the one who gets in trouble.
01:47:43
Speaker
yeah Two counts off a Garvan D drop, but before long Gibson boots Garvan in the face and tags Morton, who gets two off a float-over roll-up. Garvan's kick-out, however, sends him straight into a solid Haze punch, and Morton is out. Saved only by Atkins checking the interference before counting the pin for two.
01:48:03
Speaker
Morton gets beaten down, as is his want, selling Hay's left-handed punch as super powerful. Two counts off a Hay's top rope punch, Hay's elbow drop, and Hay's bulldog. They even choke Morton with the strap.
01:48:18
Speaker
Morton fights back, but is too stunned to make tags until he shoves free of a Hayes Bulldog and rolls to tag Gibson. Gibson, like Rich and Z-Man before him, beats up both guys and puts a sleeper on Hayes, only to be stunned by Garvin. Faces, stop using sleeper holds tonight, okay? yeah Garvin disposes of a charging Morton and kicks him straight in the face when he tries to get back in. Hayes DDT on Gibson, but he struts instead of pinning.
01:48:47
Speaker
Garvin goes out to Bulldog Morton, but Morton shoves him into the ring post, and when Hayes goes for the DDT on Gibson again, Morton sunset flips him for the three count and the win. The timing was a tad off on that. Hayes clearly had a chance to see Morton coming, but it's a complex spot. Gibson and Hayes were legal.
01:49:08
Speaker
Morton grabs the strap and whips the free birds until they flee. Caudal and JR agree that Hay's showboating cost him the match. Thoughts on this one? I thought this was a pretty enjoyable match. It's a classic pairing. I mean, you have very famous Southern tag teams or I guess Southwest, if you're going to be picky about what the free bird, she affairs from working in Texas with world class. Unless a dealer is in full body cast, they're going to deliver regardless of what the stipulation is. Yes.
01:49:36
Speaker
They definitely know each other quite well. They have this quick, subtle way you can work someone over and, you know, get your advantage and everything. So it's very classic tag team match formula. Worked by two classic tag teams. So not like complaining there. That said, they do promise us a gimmick match. The core opponents match and it factors so little into the match. It's kind of frustrating. and It's shocking how little the straps get used. Yeah.
01:50:02
Speaker
It feels like, and I don't know so for sure, but it feels like the gimmick was like pushed on them. Like, Hey, you guys should work a strap match. And, you know, maybe they worked a house show or two like that. Like they're working a straight draft match. Maybe without the, you know, the touching the corner spots. Cause that's hard in a tag team strap match, but do it like the ah tag team strap match with the public enemy and a nasty voice.
01:50:25
Speaker
one where they're actually tied together. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I would almost bet the either considered that or even worked a magic that I just didn't like it. So they said, yeah, have a witness instead. And with classic WCW inconsistency and no one choice is in charge, they got away with it. Pretty much. I thought it's a bad match at all, though. Yeah.
01:50:46
Speaker
I think the thing about it that bothered me the most is that there's never a reason for them to give up the straps. Like no one says the rule is that you can only use the strap when X happens and then you have to put it back or anything. They just always use it for a little bit and then just kind of set it aside, but not because they're like trying for a pinfall or something. Like in other matches where a particular weapon is legal, like ah a chairs match or something like that. Yeah, sure. like Sure. There were better examples. Singapore cane match.
01:51:14
Speaker
Right. You'll use the weapon, you'll smack the guy with it, set it down to go for the pinfall. Sure. And it makes sense why you've surrendered the weapon for a second. And then like after the kick out, you'll either go back for the weapon and get interrupted or you'll just go on fighting for a bit and then someone will grab it again. So like there's a ah storyline explanation for why the weapon is given up in this. It's always like we whipped the guy for a little bit. And even though it would still be to our advantage to keep these in our hands,
01:51:41
Speaker
and we don't have a reason to be dropping them because we need our hands for something else at this moment. No. We're we're just going to set them in the corner again, and you're like, why? I'm like, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's a bit of distraction for the match, which is a shame because a straight match for these guys is really good, and that's mostly what we get. Yeah, absolutely. like If you ignore that plot hole, this is an excellent match. ah Agreed.
01:52:08
Speaker
Yeah, I still found it good, solid fun. The Rock and Roll Express know exactly how to get the crowd on their side, of course. And after a hot opening segment filled with fun character bits, making fun of the Freebirds and some surprising, charming rogue behavior from the Express, cheating more than the Freebirds, each does a terrific job in peril, letting the Freebirds look really, really good beating them up.
01:52:27
Speaker
Mm hmm. There's some quite nice double teams in here and some good sudden surprise ships. I particularly like the bit where Garvin kicked out of the pinfall to send Morton into Hayes's punch. It was really smooth, just perfectly executed. Yeah, he's a great snap on those punches. That said, the holds are not as active as I would like, though they aren't super long. And like we said, the straps get involved much less than we expected. Overall, though, this was a lot of fun and had a good flow and a story leading up to a nice feel good end with the free birds paying for their arrogance.
01:52:56
Speaker
Yeah, it is a little weird that he hit his big finish and then they go for a pen. So he's like, I'm going to pick him up and just stand around for 15 seconds. Just enjoy you looking at me and then do my fish again. Yeah. I'll have a return on him. Yeah. The timing was just not quite there. They've got a little miscommunication about the exact timing of that spot, unfortunately, but yeah, it works out. It's just like you can tell like, okay, he really should know that something's about to go wrong. Yeah. Or at least he would have just hit the DT again. Right. Yes.
01:53:25
Speaker
the The credit I will give them is at least Hayes is an arrogant enough character that it's not completely out of character for him to like stall like that. No, yeah, I'm for sure. In what feels like accidental synchronicity, the rock and roll express would challenge the winners of the upcoming tag team battle match. While the free bridge would challenge the losers in a non title match at the ramer can bash. If they plan that, that's very impressive. That's neat.
01:53:53
Speaker
I did some look up on cage match on the rock and roll express for you, Bob. Do you want to guess when the most recent match they had together was? Uh, 2021 June, 2024. Oh my gosh, this year. Yeah. Awesome. Oh, it gets better. I find any, I find any more recent matches interesting as well. So Robert Gibson without Richard Morton, he won a tag title for a Hawaii indie fed. I was in late August.
01:54:22
Speaker
Wow, okay. yeah So yeah, they're they're working. Okay, well, look, I can imagine they probably slowed down, but I also can imagine that they're still very good at getting people's sympathy, so. Yeah.
01:54:33
Speaker
Oh, I almost i forgot to mention Gibson's partners was not Morton, it's Tommy Rich. Oh my gosh. He's also so wrestling. Okay. You know what? Do what you love, guys. Exactly. As long as long as you're you know safe and healthy doing it, do what you love. Yeah. and was thinking I knew they worked recently, but I was like, I didn't realize it was that recently. That is amazing. We cut to Tony Schiavone, who is with Doug Furniss, the world's strongest man.
01:55:16
Speaker
the situation. Well, that's right. Thank you, Tony. Yeah, I just saw him back in the dressing room a while ago. You know, if for a guy that's been in the hospital for two weeks, he looks pretty good. I think he's going to be ready to go. Really a courageous man. when you saw It's incredible. you know The guy who was in the hospital for two weeks taking on the world's best professional wrestling. Greatest ever heavyweight champion. I wouldn't be real surprised if we had a new world champion tomorrow. We'll be seeing a lot of Doug Furness in the weeks to come here. World championship wrestling. The world's strongest man. now Just a few moments ago we all witnessed.
01:55:47
Speaker
the stinger and let's bring him
01:56:11
Speaker
experience with The Stinger. Get that title from Ric Flair, The Nature Boy. The bottom line is, like I said, it's Lex's body, it's Lex's decision, and I would do the same thing if I were Lex Luger and get in the ring and take the title once and for all from The Nature Boy, so you're gonna see him do it, period.
01:56:46
Speaker
Furnace came off like a darn nice guy here, and he actually helped to set up Luger's heroism quite well. It sounds like this is his first WSW appearance, but he seemed quite comfortable in front of the camera. Sting, of course, was Sting. Blessedly, Tony didn't make him address the Robocop angle at all, as I suspect Tony and Sting want to focus on that even less than most fans did.
01:57:08
Speaker
He gives a good coverage of the need of an athlete to face a challenge, even if the risk is perhaps inadvisable, which honestly seems to hold true even in regular sports at times for good and ill. Yeah. He does get a tad muddled in the middle of the promo and he makes this up Rick and Lex, but he just gives himself a moment, gets refocused and finishes strong. Good segment. Yeah, it's fine.
01:57:31
Speaker
Our seventh match is Doom, Ron Simmons and Hacksaw Butch Reid with Theodore R. Long versus the Steiner Brothers, Rick and Scott, for the Steiner's NWA World Tag Team Championship. The referee for this one is Randy Anderson. Storyline.
01:57:50
Speaker
Yeah, so this match has been somewhat of a long time coming, as we saw back at Starrcade, of course, the times were tag champions then as part of that complicated, uh, tag team tournament with all the other teams, including Doom, of course.
01:58:03
Speaker
ah In February of 1990, they had a pay-per-view match where the masks of Doom were put up against the titles held by the Steiners. And as you can probably tell from watching the show, the Steiners won the match. of Of course, they're still champions and Doom is not wearing a mask. It's a tremendous shame the Steiners don't come out wearing them. You know, yeah yeah that's they did win them. That seems fair. Yeah, yeah.
01:58:29
Speaker
Now they did build us up a little bit as well. There's a non-titled match where doom beats them. They've proven that they even obviously he wasn't straight. They can beat the Steiners, right? yeah And obviously doom has also proven the stars could beat them and previous match in February. So this is essentially the rubber match, like the big blow off match from these teams. Teddy long has a do rag on to cover up his very incomplete haircut.
01:58:57
Speaker
Simmons does some very intimidating flexing as Doom enters, spoiled slightly by the smooth jazz entrance music. The Steiner's are sadly not yet coming out too Steinerized, but their dark guitar entrance music would be great for like a montage in a buddy cop movie where one of the cops got hurt and the other is taking out his frustrations by roughing up low level bad guys to figure out who did it. Oh, yeah, I could do that. It gets brighter later on. So maybe that's when the hurt cop gets back to the force. Oh, there you go.
01:59:27
Speaker
Cottle suggests the two teams are even on strength, so that will not decide the match. JR suggests it might be decided by Teddy Long. Cottle agrees, but adds that it'll matter which team gets the match in their chosen pace. Rick interrupts the serious commentary by stealing Long's do-rag, revealing his not very shaved head. Even JR notes that it doesn't actually look that bad. Yeah.
01:59:52
Speaker
Anderson kindly returns Long's do-rag to him, and Long ends up arguing with fans, and Reed says he'll beat up the Steiners, or the fans, but anyway, somebody's getting beat up. As we get started with Scott versus Simmons, JR notes that Simmons' jersey number was retired at FSU in honor of his achievements. This is true. It was retired in 1988, and was the third retired number at FSU. Hello. Scott versus Simmons to start.
02:00:20
Speaker
Scott actually shoves Anderson out of the way. Scott tries a shoulder block, Simmons no cells, and tells him to try again, and Scott does, and it works! Scott largely dominates with a power slam and a released German suplex. Reed in and he does a little better, but as Simmons before him challenges Scott to try a shoulder block after resisting one. Reed dodges the second attempt, but Scott dropkicks him and Steiner lines him, then c Simmons.
02:00:47
Speaker
Kind of feels like Scott could win this on his own at this point. No bet. Doom goes out to consult with Long and Reed could really do to wipe the spittle off his chin. Tag to Rick. So now it's Rick versus Reed. We've got S versus S then R versus R. Yeah. Reed lands strikes to Rick and they collide on a Styroline attempt. I'm not sure that was intentional, but Reed chucks Rick through the ropes. Yeah.
02:01:14
Speaker
J.R. and Coddle build up the enormity of someone managing to effectively block a Steiner line, so if it was a botch, it ends up used quite well. Yeah, I'm still not sure what happened now. I watched it a couple times like, oh, he said it again? Yeah, I'm still not sure. Rick gets revenge with the Steiner line, and Reed goes out, so Rick slams him on the floor. Simmons protests, and Anderson shows him away, so Scott actually runs out heelishly to send Reed to the barricade. It's interesting about tonight, of faces acting just a touch heelish in their matches. Yeah.
02:01:45
Speaker
Rick and Scott continue to dominate until Reed hits Scott with a jumping knee strike and chucks him over the top rope. Simmons beats him up outside and taunts the fans, asking them if Scott is their champion. Simmons and Reed trade off beating up Scott, as JR claims Simmons is Burt Reynolds' favorite wrestler.
02:02:04
Speaker
Great timing on one deer tag as Scott stumbling towards the corner is stopped in the nick of time by a Reed jumping double ax handle. That spot's neat because there's no way that Scott can see where Reed is because he's facing completely towards Rick at that time. yeah So he just has to like manage his pace quite well. I'm sure like maybe Rick gave him a nod or something to indicate he was on the right pace or something. But it's interesting the good timing they have on that. Makes you that. Yeah.
02:02:32
Speaker
Two count off of Reed's swinging neck breaker, and Doom brutally beats Scott down, redeeming themselves for the opening, including an absolutely devastating Simmons-charging knee that sends Scott through the ropes. The impact on that. Long even gets involved, and Doom earns two off of his punches. Scott muscles Simmons into a single-leg Fireman's Carry takedown, but is too battered to take advantage, and Simmons is up first.
02:03:00
Speaker
two off a Simmons clothesline. Scott manages counters, but takes a real beating until at last he back body drops Simmons, then hits the Frankensteiner. Huge reaction from the crowd for that. And both make the tag. Rick power slam for one, double Steiner suplex for two, but Simmons chucks Rick out and Reed lifts Scott for a Simmons second rope clothesline, but Rick saves. Scott tackles Simmons through the ropes. Come on Simmons, you played football.
02:03:30
Speaker
Rick goes for a top row belly to belly suplex, but Simmons runs Scott into the ring post and long distracts the ref, so Simmons can double axe handle Rick and pull him down with Reed on top for the three count and the win. Scott is seconds too late to save. Simmons and Reed celebrate. Reed is trying to act heelish here, but he's too happy about the title win. So you catch some really genuine smiles from him looking quite emotional.
02:03:56
Speaker
The replay shows some nice work by Long, as while he's arguing with Anderson, he blocks Anderson's vision with his hand subtly. Anderson kind of like glances towards the corner for a moment in Long, makes sure to put his hand in the way. Yeah, yeah. So it's a really, really nice touch by Long there. Very cool. Thoughts on this one? I thought this match was really good. It was quite enjoyable and like the opening match this show was very hard hitting. Mm hmm.
02:04:21
Speaker
It's definitely felt like these are guys again, talk about they've wrestled a bunch of times. I think they really expect each other to just go all out. Like, it's almost like if you don't just run full speed of the guy and hit him, he's gonna be offended. Really feels like with the Stiners and you hear these stories about them. Right? Yeah. Like, oh, you you know, what, I think I'm too weak or something, you know, that kind of weird macho mindset that some guys definitely had back then.
02:04:45
Speaker
Yeah, I knew when you figure like Simmons and I think read to being former football. Yes, they're both there. They're used to guys running full force into them and landing hard on hard surfaces and everything like that. So I imagine they were they were like, yeah, let's let's just do it. Yeah. Their experience data together definitely shows. It's definitely not like the first or the second time you guys have fought each other. Like they have the rhythm down, they have the timing down, all these little things, the little subtle things that really make matches good. They have them.
02:05:15
Speaker
This match for me really is a great example, like a masterclass in heel tag team wrestling. Cause once they get the advantage, they find all these ways to keep the advantage. And on top of that, I thought Scott made a really good face in peril. He did an excellent job. Yeah. That's the thing. Cause again, this is the fifth of five tag team matches on this show.
02:05:35
Speaker
So it's got a lot of competition on this show, more than most other shows. So he really stood out even with Morton and with Zinc and Pillman. I like the way that, like we saw into the same with, with Nakatanda, he's constantly fighting to get away. Yes. He's not just like, once he goes down, he starts crawling. He's mixing both him and he his big partner, like he would do, he was in control of the match.
02:06:03
Speaker
but also working them in just to get a separation. Right. Yep. Like the fact that he just pulls out basically basically a stunt pile driver, the sort of Jay Lawler style pile driver to try and escape and get a hot tag is that's something you see very often.
02:06:18
Speaker
or the one where he does the I think it's basically a T button suplex to try and get away to get this big tag. Yeah, he gets still to hit his really big power moves, but he does a good job of like, OK, but that was all I had. Exactly. You know, and he and he slumps afterwards and just cannot get going again. Yeah. Yeah. He does an excellent job of like showing the impact that the match has been having on him and the buildup of injuries and everything. It's it's an excellent performance.
02:06:47
Speaker
I will say everyone does a really good job here. Reed like early on surprised me when he does he does a leapfrog. Yes. he's ah He's a big guy and leaping over either Rick or Scott, whichever one it is, I forget, which at that point is really impressive. Yeah, absolutely. They're going to duck for you, but you still got to clear a good five, six feet on a frame like that. You do point a long the way interferes is really well done. I will have to point out that.
02:07:13
Speaker
There's a bit of a lack creativity, if you look at this show as a whole, with how the finish plays out. So as a refresher, the finish to the Simone Swat team versus Rich Rotunda match is that the one Swat team member is in the ring while the ref's distracted, the other one jumps out the top rope with the double axe handle so they can pin the guy.
02:07:36
Speaker
And this one, Rick is up on the second rope slash top rope with... With Reed. Thank you, with Reed. While the ref's distracted, Simmons runs in, hits a double axe handle, and then pulls him down from the top rope to the floor. Yes.
02:07:51
Speaker
It just entered the same finish, just slightly reworked. Yeah. Now, to their credit, though, this is one of only two tag matches on the show that does not involve the face putting on a sleeper hold as part of the finish and getting hit. That's true. We got three of those in a row. Yeah. I believe this is a third match on the show as well that has the spot where the bad guy tries to hip toss the face and just gets clotheslined. Yeah, I think it is. um One time it is the heel doing the final clothesline. I think it's Callus does it on Ace, but yeah.
02:08:21
Speaker
It's a very exact spot to see three times. And it's a case of having five tag matches at a show. Yeah. One, there's a lot of matches and two, there's a lot of quite long matches. So you do end up seeing some, some repeat spots more than you normally would, I think. Just think there's a great American bash show that literally all tag team matches. So we'll see how often that show repeats. But again, my critique of repeated spot threat or show aside, I really liked this match. Like a lot.
02:08:50
Speaker
Yeah, this was a really big, tough, hard-hitting match between two big, tough, hard-hitting teams. There is a lot of oomph to this match, particularly with the Stiners just muscling Simmons or Reed up for some moves, but Doom were no slouches either. Those knee strikes in particular were vicious. Oh, yeah. The Stiners do maybe come off a little too powerful at first, but Doom recover and look like a real threat as the match goes on, so it turns out fine.
02:09:19
Speaker
A lot of really big powerful hits, some really nicely timed tag attempts, and a chaotic but fun ending sequence made this a really fun watch. I do wish that maybe the ending spot had been a little more impactful, like an actual slam from the top rather than just, you know, pulling him down. Yeah. But still, a guy the size of either member of Doom landing on you would not feel good. No. So really good beefy tag match. Mm hmm.
02:09:44
Speaker
All they needed was like a third team of Scott Norton and ice train. And this would just be the highest beef content in the wrestling history. Probably. It would be USDA approved. Yes.
02:09:57
Speaker
The team that lost the match, that being the Steiner brothers would fight the free birds while the rock and rock express who won the previous match would challenge doom for the tag titles. I am genuinely interested to see both of those matches, honestly. Oh yeah. But i yeah, rock and rock express and doom is a match I do want to see.
02:10:14
Speaker
Can you imagine what Ricky Morton will get up to? I will know too. This is not fully the end. They do have a rematch at class champions, 11 and into the international publication. So they keep the tiles on doom. Basically have a blow up match because the starters in doom, as good as attack duo, as they are, that being a duo of tag teams, it is.
02:10:37
Speaker
They have far tethered a lot and this feud has been going since December, December of last year. So it's good to give a little breathing room out. Especially with all these types that they have. Yeah, yeah.
02:10:48
Speaker
You were talking about Scott to do the performance and how he's acting a little bit heelish. Well, that seems to play into booking that would go on a little bit in this year, 1990, and then in the 90, 91, 92. They started a thing on the TV show where they would have a three show challenge where they take a wrestler and he's got to beat three different people, like big stars and its successive shows. And if they win, they get $10,000, like a bonus. And the first person that should do that to beat all three was Scott Steiner. So clearly Madman's like, you know, nothing against you Rick, especially if Rick is there, but Scott is the guy at this point, even 1990, this guy really did be a single star.
02:11:31
Speaker
Yeah, isn't that why they part of why they end up leaving that Scott's just like, I don't want to be a single star. I want to tag with my brother. Yeah, exactly. But that's not for a couple of years, though, I think. That's by yeah by late 92, which probably shows why every time we saw them on the new Japan shows, it's diners together because that's just what they want to do. Yeah, yeah. Which I get. I mean, look, number one, they're good at it. Yeah. And number two, their brothers. And it's probably really, really fun to hang out with your brother doing this kind of thing. So, I mean, I wouldn't want to give that up.
02:12:01
Speaker
No, exactly. I get that. We cut to JR, who notes that we've had two title changes tonight and throws to Tony, who is with Teddy Long and Doom.
02:12:41
Speaker
the tag team champions of the world. Everybody, you thought we were just a couple of five by nighters. Well, we're real professional athletes. And let me tell you something, people. I told you, I told you
02:13:09
Speaker
belong go will be the world tag team champion. And with a good green fight, we didn't make no rule, just like we promised it would be. And we took it like a man, you understand? We told them bucks we were gonna take it, and they're home. How sweet it is.
02:13:41
Speaker
more action.
02:13:44
Speaker
darn good promo by these guys. It's almost face-like, but it's ever so slightly disingenuous enough to be heelish. Especially on the part of Simmons claiming that they broke absolutely new no rules despite you know massive amounts of choking and their manager providing a distraction in the finish. My favorite line was definitely the one from Long where he says a he lost a little hair but gained the world. That's a great line, yeah. Just incredible, really brilliant line.
02:14:12
Speaker
So our final match is Lex Luger versus The Nature Boy Rick Flair with Woman in a cage match for Flair's NWA World Heavyweight Championship. The referee for this one is Mike Atkins.
02:14:27
Speaker
So back in February, as part of the continuation of the horseman letting Sting enter the group and then turning on him once he wants the world title shot, he would try to get into a cage, if I didn't mean enough, to get at Flair and company. But while climbing, he would actually, didn't really injure his knee. It's a real, like, sort of freak accident, just taking a step the wrong way and landing wrong, just why he messed him up.
02:14:51
Speaker
So that put a stop to what would have been obviously a main event of the next show. Flavors of Sting. So now it's a nice for a while. So he had to pivot a bit in Luger, who I don't think was like full on heel, but definitely wasn't full on face has to go full on face as really, you know, the fact that he stings friend, obviously they go into Cohen and Jim together for a while that later. So.
02:15:13
Speaker
That's legit thing. So fair play to bring that into the story. So in the previous show, Luger got a title shot. However, those shenanigans happened. As such, he was going to rematch.
02:15:26
Speaker
And since he got a rematch, the horsemen obviously don't want him to win the title. So they did an angle on television where they attacked him. So they get targeting his leg and the knee the same way that they quote unquote injured Sting's knee is in Cape Fabe. They attacked him. That caused injury, not just a freak accident climbing, but yeah, I mean, obviously his storyline, you don't go, yeah, I was going to fight you, but actually, you know, slip in the shower. So I can't fight you. You want to go, Oh, actually you beat me up. That's what happened. So it makes sense why they would do that.
02:15:57
Speaker
As he mentioned throughout the show and commentary, they're really selling that he was in the hospital for a long period of time. Like he had an infection. Yeah. Sepsis and all these things. And he's fought through it. And even though he's not a hundred percent, he's going to challenge for the title. Win it for Sting tonight.
02:16:16
Speaker
Sadly, Luger does not yet have his mid nineties, incredibly catchy theme, just a generic slow rock guitar track. He does, however, have terrific hair tonight. He does. Yeah.
02:16:27
Speaker
Luger has a title belt as he comes out. I believe he's US champ at this point, but his title is not on the line, only flares. Luger has amazing neon yellow-green trunks. It is so the 90s. It is, yeah. JR says that Luger got out of the hospital this morning, but decided that he couldn't let the fans down. He says Luger is courageous, but can he be the man to beat the... legend? Oh. Interesting twist on the usual line there.
02:16:56
Speaker
Flair gets sparkly pyro and has a black and silver robe and equally great hair. Yes. Woman also has a nice pink and silver dress. Kottle says Flair has been the wrestler of the 80s and may be declared the greatest champ of all time. JR just has to sneak in one more Return of Robocop as the cage starts to lower. Pay me. Gotta add a few more dollars to that check. Absolutely.
02:17:21
Speaker
The large cage lowers down. It is a bit oversized, covering the ringside area as well as the ring itself. I'm not sure, but this might actually be the cage used in the Thunderdome match that we're gonna see on Halloween Havoc 89 next time. I think it might be, yeah. You know, we'll have to see when we get to that. In any case, this is a WCW-style cage match, meaning that it's still just pinfall or submission to win. There's no escape rule. The cage is just there to stop interference. I'm sure it'll be successful at that.
02:17:51
Speaker
JR makes a very big deal out of us maybe getting to hear Atkins' instructions to the wrestlers. We don't really hear them at all because the crowd is too excited and Atkins is quite quiet. We do get a great shot of the big gold belt, though. Atkins checks each man for any hidden weapons, but Flair argues with him when he goes to check if Woman is hiding any. He almost gets away with it, but Luger insists that the check go through, and Atkins does finally discover a hidden object in Woman's Long Glove.
02:18:21
Speaker
Luger overpowers Flair and sells his own shoulder block. Flair whips him to the corner, but Luger charges right back out with a clothesline for two and nine tenths. Great way to build up his power. Luger suplexes Flair, and Flair rolls out. Back in, Flair asks for time, and Luger gives him a, oh, come on, Rick, kind of look. Flair knees him and tries a shoulder block to no effect, and Luger military presses him twice. JR is surprised at how well Luger's knee is holding up.
02:18:52
Speaker
Luger no-sells Flare Chops, and J.R. says it's like chopping a cement pillar. More chops, and Luger responds with a Peck Jiggle as one does. Sure, yeah. It's been a long time since we've seen the Luger Peck Jiggle, actually. Yeah, yeah. Flare runs out and climbs the cage, so Luger climbs after him but gets kicked. Stunned, he eats Flare Chops and cage rams with lots and lots of wonderful Luger selling. But back in the ring, he no-sells a suplex and clotheslines Flare flat.
02:19:22
Speaker
Luger flings Flair to the corner, and Flair goes up and over, sprints to the turnbuckle, and leaps off, but Luger close lines him. Flair lands on his feet, then Flair flops. Flair flees, and repeatedly tries to climb, but Luger runs him into the cage over and over. Flair is bleeding. Back in, Flair tries a jumping forearm, but Luger just stands there, and Flair bounces off and crumples.
02:19:48
Speaker
four guys in the crowd have Lex painted on their chest. L E X exclamation point. J.R. says Lex has a legion of fans and the Lex Legion or Luger Legion would have really been a great fan group name. So they're not fans of the sci-fi show Lex that has two X's in it. Yeah. We were talking about this on the show that like Lex doesn't work with four guys and Luger doesn't work with four guys. You either have to have two letters on somebody or come up with a another thing to add. Yeah, exactly.
02:20:18
Speaker
Luger tries a superplex, but somehow injures his knee despite it in no way making any kind of contact with the mat. He rides around, doing a tremendous job of selling, I'll give him that. Flair works the knee with knee drops, kicks, and more, and Luger tries to scoot away, but Flair drags him back to the center of the ring and slaps on the figure four leg lock.
02:20:40
Speaker
Luger writhes and slumps for a couple two counts as Flair grabs the ropes, even the top rope, for leverage. But Atkins catches Flair and forces the break. Oli, Arne, and Cid come to ringside as Luger revives and repeatedly clotheslines Flair. J.R. asks where Barry Windham, another horseman, is. Oli shouts desperately as he and Arne try to find a way into the cage.
02:21:07
Speaker
Luger demolishes Flair, and Sting charges down the ramp to fight the Horsemen, but gets triple teamed. Suddenly, Sting's best pal appears. No, not Robocop. That's so one hour ago. Yeah, right? It's Elegante! Admittedly, he looks pretty cool being taller than Sid. He does, yeah. He chases the Horsemen off.
02:21:30
Speaker
J.R. sells that in almost exactly the same language that he used for Sting and Robocop earlier, saying the horsemen want no part of Sting and the biggest man that I've ever seen. Yeah. And the horsemen both both time do the so back away through that side part of the crowd go back to the backstage area as well. It's like they had planned on using that to introduce Ellie Gante. And then someone came to them with the Robocop cross promotion. Yeah. So they're just kind of repeating that now.
02:21:59
Speaker
Makes sense, yeah. In the ring, Luger gets Flair in the torture rack, but the cage suddenly raises, as J.R. says only must have gotten to the controls. Windom charges into the ring and hits Luger to break the hold, and Atkins rings the bell to disqualify Flair for Windom's actions. But Flair keeps the title.
02:22:21
Speaker
Wyndham and Luger brawl, but Arne runs in to boot Luger in the knee and DDTs him. Arne, Wyndham, and Flair beat Luger down, and J.R. says they might beat him to death. Sting returns, but the cage has been lowered again. J.R. calls for the cops to get Oli away from the controls. If only we had a famous law enforcement officer on site who was pals with Sting. I mean, he's recharging backstage a moment to tell you. He's in his closet.
02:22:49
Speaker
Eligante returns, and the cage is somehow raised again, allowing Sting to drive the horseman off, as Eligante stands there looking impressive. Thoughts on this one? I think it's a pretty good match, all things considered. I mean, they tell a very simple but very strong story. Luger is very strong and powerful. Flair is afraid of him. And ultimately the only way Flair can really get a control is attacking the knee. That said, the match is very repetitive in a lot of ways.
02:23:18
Speaker
I lost count of how many times Lure clothesline Flair, for instance. True. Or how many times Flair left the ring and tried to climb up the cage to get away. Yeah. We're going to follow him and then climb back down softly. That's, that's the part that makes very little sense in this match to repeat, because like one time you can see it being like, Oh, it's a panic moment or something on his part. But yeah, the rest of the times is like, you blatantly have nowhere to go by doing this. The cage actually has like a sloped roof. Yeah. It is open on the top, but it has like a sloped roof. So it'd be really, really hard to climb out. So yeah. Yeah. yeah Do you go once you can go all climb up and you look from that angle? Oh, wow. It's like freaking out of this thing. Yeah. But he just keeps doing it and it gets to the point where we're like, okay, that makes no sense. Yeah. He needs to do like the royal side and reset bit, but like all they can think of is check on the cage again. It'd be fun. Yeah. Yeah.
02:24:10
Speaker
It's also weird that woman doesn't really do a whole lot after, after I guess after her chance to stash the weapon fails, she's like, well, that's all I had. Yeah, true. She never like tries a little blow blow Luger or anything like that, or any sort of everything. You like distract him so far can like show him the Kate or something. Yeah. There's a funny bit even towards the end, as the horsemen are leaving, they're all walking by Eligante and looking all like nervous about him and everything. And she just kind of like casually strolls by him. No bother. Mm hmm.
02:24:39
Speaker
Lucre is this match is very much a all extremes, no middle ground. He's either no selling everything or when his leg is somehow damaged, he's super selling everything. But then, oh, we're we're to the closing sequence now. His cue is, you know, he sees Arne and Oli go out towards the cage. Now suddenly I'm recovered. It means that he's standing up already, but He was just selling like, oh, I can't walk. I can't walk. Oh, they're here. I can run in clothesline now. That's entirely fair. I think there could have been more of a bridge there where he at least did like some sort of super face power up in fairness. That may have happened off camera. Maybe. Because W's W's camera ah crew again is focused entirely on the horsemen outside. And we miss, I think probably a good 20 to 30 seconds of action in the ring. Yeah. You get the idea like the ref had broken up the hold.
Injury Contradictions and Match Continuity
02:25:34
Speaker
and flares hit him a bit toward the corner. So he's still setting up right. But again, a minute earlier, he was like, oh, I can't move my legs. My legs broken. And and they just bolt out of the corner like Usain Bolt, the clothesline. On top of that, he does the military press after his leg assembly looks to be damaged. Yes, yes. Lex, what are you doing, honey? What is this? Yeah, they didn't quite think through that ending sequence with him there. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, I know my spot. I'm going to do them.
02:26:03
Speaker
and And admittedly, they're trying to set up for the torture rack. So we can't really keep acting like the leg is is critically damaged and still do that move that well, I think. So maybe they're just thinking, ohll let's just drop it. But yeah, it feels less to me like he forgot and more like they intentionally planned that the spots would go that way.
02:26:22
Speaker
Oh, yeah, no, I don't think he forgot that his legs must be injured. It's just that the structure of the match meant that, Oh, here's the part where you come back. So do your, do your moves. Right. Exactly. He remember exactly what he told him to do. Cause okay. Even if you're going to say that he forgot, flair is there. And flair says, Hey, do this though. Right. Yeah. He's not wearing autopilot here. Ultimately it's a fairly repetitive match with the shame. It's got great crowd energy. The crowd really does love it.
02:26:48
Speaker
And I liked the idea that I always booked this match so the heels can interfere. And in fact, throughout the show on commentary, they tease it. They're like, the air is like, oh, I saw Ollie hanging around by the cage controls, you know? Cause I always got stuff to plan in mind. So then when he takes over, he's like, oh, okay. That's what he was doing.
02:27:06
Speaker
But then just so many just exist and he's like, sting comes back after sort of tasting off the horseman. And then they come back into the cage and he's got to do what they did.
Backstage Management and Commentary Humor
02:27:16
Speaker
I'm going to walk around the cage trying to find a way in. You know, I know there's no way in instead of, I don't know, going to the back and stopping only. Well, he assumes that Robocop's doing that. Maybe that's the case. Okay. Peter Wells in the back smoke a cigarette. What am I just doing here? I'm not even on the show.
02:27:33
Speaker
I guess it's kind of a Chekhov's gun situation. Like, well, this cage, I'd heave the horse from the refrain. Oh, nevermind. It took control of the cage. So, and as always, I don't like sort of abrupt DK finishes. I get the story and I get context, which is that this is a placeholder until Stink can win the title from Flare, but it's still a disappointing DK finish for me. Okay.
02:27:55
Speaker
For me, Flare and Luger put on another in a string of good solid contests between them. It's as usual focused on the contest between Luger's raw power and Flare's strategy and tricks. This isn't a, if you've seen one, you've seen them all situation, but you will definitely recognize the flow from other matches with these two. That said, this one changes things up in a few ways with the story of Luger's pre-existing injury, adding some tension from the start that the commentary team nicely builds up. And both guys making heavy use of the cage, perhaps a bit too heavy, as we mentioned, as it made very little sense that Flair kept climbing it when there blatantly wasn't any place he could go. Yeah. I enjoyed the Luger selling, of course, both as usual over the top and out.
02:28:36
Speaker
and his genuinely great selling of the knee late match. However, the spot where the knee actually got hurt didn't have much justification. I will never understand why they haven't happened by accident so much in flare matches when his entire strategy focuses around the knee. yeah Have him do it on purpose. Yeah, he never actually attacks the knee in the match. Until the injury. Yeah, after the injury, yeah.
02:28:59
Speaker
I know there's another Luger in player match where he does just like start off the knee assault by like blatantly whacking Luger in the knee with the chair or something like that. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm one of the Star Cades. I think it is at at that or might might be Wrestle War. Perhaps I remember. but Yeah.
02:29:14
Speaker
As for the ending, for my part, I know it's a DQ, but I really liked this one as it had some twists and turns with the horsemen apparently getting run off, but then managing to get the cage raised so their fourth member could get in. After all, there's some real effort put into this one. It's not just a quick, cheap DQ. They like actually build a full storyline around them getting to that DQ, which are for me makes it a lot better than the normal like jump in, hit the guy. Ding, ding, ding. Yeah, no, there are only worse ones. Yeah.
02:29:44
Speaker
So overall, a fun if unsurprising match. It was genuinely good to see Luger versus Flare again. and Yeah, I think for me, I think at this point was Luger, in his career that is, have Flare-Lugar match, it's gonna feel very similar to a Sting-Flare match.
02:30:02
Speaker
But there's slightly more nuance and move complexity and just little storytelling than variety in a Sting match. Fair enough, yeah. There's definitely some joy to be had watching, you know, young impression, a young young impressionable Lex fighting flair, just, you know, no selling things. When it comes down to it, this place at this point, he has about five moves that he does really well. So let's keep doing those.
02:30:28
Speaker
I will add, I didn't even, I didn't advise you to mention this. There is not a flare comber spot in this match. That's true. I think he gets close to it at one point, but, but yeah, that's when he does the sprint across the ropes climb up. He actually gets to jump off first. Yes. It still doesn't go well for him, no but we get a version of the flare comber spot in the rock and roll express with his free birds to match though. Yes. So maybe that's why you're like backstage, like, you know, it'd be fun. Let's do flare spot. That's all you won't do in the match. It would be a good rib.
02:31:00
Speaker
As mentioned, we would get a Luger, Mead Mark, Callus match out of the next show, which could be interesting. Looking forward to me covering that for the Grand American Bash series eventually in the future. And of course, Sting would return at the Grand American Bash fully to challenge Flair for his title. And of course, both might have backup ringside. So Sting finally figured, okay, look, this weirdly sloped Kate is going to stop them. Let's just bring actual people that it can reliably come out more than once. So no, we're broke off.
02:31:30
Speaker
Again, as much as I want to see Sting and Robocop come back out and like Flair with Ed.209, it doesn't happen. Yeah. Yeah. I bet you because Ed.209 is all a soft motion. That'd be really hard. Yeah. you'd You'd have some real difficulty. That'd be hard to do that live.
02:31:48
Speaker
JR throws to Tony Schiavone who is on the entrance ramp. He catches Flair and the Horseman minus Holy to try to interview them. Well, Tony Savani down there. it right
02:32:24
Speaker
Well, I guess you made your point and you still are the champion. Woo! Ha!
02:32:51
Speaker
and it is mine.
02:33:07
Speaker
Suddenly, Sting interrupts and beats Flair up, fighting off Wyndham and Arne, and the Horsemen flee as Elegante, called E. Agante, by Cottle, comes walking up.
02:33:20
Speaker
Flair is great at lunatic ranting. Oh yeah. He moved around so much in this that Tony could not keep the microphone reliably pointed at him, making it hard to hear parts of the promo, but it didn't matter. You could tell that this was a crazy ranting villain, and that was all that you needed from the segment. Fair enough, yeah. It is a little funny that one of Tony's questions is how the cage raised when JR apparently already knew how. Like, tell Tony what happened when you throw to him, JR. Yeah, that's fair.
02:33:47
Speaker
Sting's attack at the end is really well set up. You get the barest glimpse of him coming up the ramp over Flair's shoulder before he startles the horseman and starts to beat down on Flair. It's a good setup for the next big plot. Elegante, of course, only does a little bit more during his entire appearance on the show than Robocop did.
Robocop's Influence and Overall Show Impact
02:34:05
Speaker
He's arguably as mobile as well. I do wish that we'd gotten a little bit with Luger again, though, just to close out that story a little better. Yeah.
02:34:16
Speaker
We get the end credits, which feature the capital and Searchlight's logo again, and end with Robocop's appearance credit, just to get that in there one more time. And Capital Combat Return of Robocop is done. So overall thoughts on Capital Combat Return of Robocop? So there are two things about this show. The first is obviously the ridiculous bit with Robocop going from fictional character to real life, apparently. Fred was staying in the whole thing, as we discussed.
02:34:44
Speaker
The rest of the show, ah other than when they're talking about or teasing Robocop, is actually quite good. I'd say maybe the weakest point is the fairly pointless L-ring and long match, but that's also very brief.
02:35:00
Speaker
Honestly, between that and the Robocop bit, as funny as the Robocop bit is, that's at most 10 minutes. If you count all the time they talk about Robocop or like the backstage bits. Yeah, yeah. Around 10 minutes out of a over two hour show. Outside of that you get a lot of really great tag team matches. You see how deep the roster tag teams they have here is. We have Doom, we've got the Stiners, we've got Rock and Roll Express, Midnight Express, Freebirds, all of these great teams.
02:35:27
Speaker
Obviously, some of them, like the Road Warriors, will be around for the next show, unfortunately, but there's still a deep well to go through. There's also two really strong or very notable singles matches. The Me and Mark Kallis match is an interesting glimpse of the future and what could have been if WCW specifically Oli Anderson had been a little more future-cited and has some foresight, perhaps.
02:35:51
Speaker
Well, for me, the Cage match is a bit overbooked with the complexity of like seven people interfering. Cages go up and down. A second debut on the show already. It's still a very adorable match if basic as a whole.
02:36:04
Speaker
So it's hard to really root against this show. I could see if you're a casual fan or you're a serious fan of the casual friends in wrestling, like like we are, let's be honest. I could see pitching, hey, here's a show where Rick Kopp shows up. And by the way, there's also really good matches in the show. So weirdly, they the silly gimmick and the very dated aspect of the show kind of helps it. So yeah, it's a recommendation for me. Yeah, this show is infamous.
02:36:35
Speaker
It's one of the shows that gets brought up when people are saying, can you believe WSW actually tried that? What's interesting about it versus some others that we have covered and will cover though is that what gets capital combat involved in that sort of discussion is a tiny part of the show.
02:36:51
Speaker
Well, his name is mentioned pretty frequently. The Robocop appearance amounts to a matter of minutes, as you pointed out, Al. Yeah. Even including the buildup segments and basically doesn't affect the rest of the show at all. No. It's not a match. It's barely even much of a segment. But that tiny bit of airtime is still so, so strange. The capital combat gets included when people talk about the weirdest crap that WSW ever pulled.
02:37:15
Speaker
Yeah. And the thing is, it is so crazy in those few short minutes that I can't argue with that inclusion. Yeah. But outside of Robocop's odd inclusion, this is actually a really, really good show. Of the eight matches, I'm agreeing with you only the hair versus hair match felt underwhelming. But that was really short anyway, so I can't complain that much. Yeah.
02:37:36
Speaker
The show did have more tag matches than I prefer, but they varied up the styles of those a fair bit across the show, though not the endings, as we got the sleeper hold interrupted leading into the finish three times. Yeah. Plus, we got to see The Undertaker wrestle before he was The Undertaker, making this a really fun view historically. Yeah.
02:37:55
Speaker
Promo content was generally good, though there were some confusing bits, from Robert Gibson's impromptu hand gestures, to Scott Steiner's random death glare, to Arn's overly technical documentation of the horseman's plans. Plus, the JYD segment was pretty unnecessary, and of course we had the segments surrounding Robocop, can't forget that. Yes. Still, overall, we got a lot of good promo content tonight, with the wrestlers and managers doing an excellent job bringing forth the emotion of the various stories going on.
02:38:23
Speaker
it It was really fun to hear Bob Coddle on commentary again. It has been a very long time, and it worked pretty well with JR overall. The two were able to have good discussions about match tactics and get the storylines across just fine.
WCW Commentary Styles and Show Praise
02:38:35
Speaker
Much like the Super Show series, we didn't have an argumentative team like we'll get later in WCW. The two were polite and generally agreed with each other.
02:38:44
Speaker
It felt slightly different than the super shows though. Tony and JR on those felt like they debated a little bit more and felt more informal with each other. Mercado and JR felt mostly in agreement and more focused only on the match.
02:38:57
Speaker
Yeah, I think that goes to what WSBU for a while was going for, which is a sort of realistic sports presentation. Right. Like if you're watching a baseball game, they don't have a heel announcer in baseball right or football or any of these things. It's and just here's two guys that are experts, probably ones that are for a player, and they're just there to call and tell you what's happening.
02:39:17
Speaker
Yeah, I just think on on the super show, it felt like we got to see the people a little bit more. Yeah. Behind just the commentary where J.R. and Coddle keep it a little more strictly business, I think. That's fair. Yeah. And your mileage may vary on which you like better. I prefer Tony and J.R.'s approach to it. But this certainly was not a bad team up at all. No, not at all. For production, there is a few audio glitches where we don't get microphones on at the right time. But the camera work was stellar.
02:39:45
Speaker
at catching every single time a piece of Robocop's armor shook and quivered in a way that heavy metal definitely wouldn't. Overall, Capital Combat was a shockingly fun show with lots of really entertaining matches and some interesting bits of wrestling history thrown in the mix. Come for the few moments of Robocop insanity, but stay for one of the better WSW shows you will ever get to see in this period. Yes, this show briefly loses its mind in the middle, but it's nevertheless a great watch and well worth your time.
02:40:16
Speaker
All right. Match of the night and MVP. So Al, what is your match of the night? So lost on competition here. Um, I've really torn between a bunch of tag matches. Doing the stars is a really great match. The match between zinc and pilgrim versus the express is really good. There's a sort of enjoyable insanity of the six man match as well. And obviously flare in a match is always a very good tension for a match tonight, unless something really horribly goes awry, which thankfully didn't tonight.
02:40:47
Speaker
It's a really tough call, but a slight edge for the overall presentation and how it does tag matches goes to the Minute Express versus Tom Zink and Brian Pillow match. Okay. I agree. just This was a massively hard choice tonight, which I always love to be able to say that ah for for for good reasons. Yeah. not Not because there were no good matches, but because there were lots of good matches.
02:41:11
Speaker
I'm going to go with the Steiner's versus Doom. Fair. I really enjoyed just the level of oomph in that match and the big gutsy power moves. And though the Steiner's maybe started out looking a little bit too strong, it ended up with just a really good plot. Plus it was one of the few tag matches that did not use the sleeper hold interrupt finish that happened three times tonight. True. Yes. MVP.
02:41:35
Speaker
You know, I really want to screw up your database just by putting Robocop in there. Just because I've met you in like four or five series on the line, you were like, and still with only one VP Robocop. But I can't at all, at all get conscious, do that. Because obviously it's, it's so silly, but not the best part of the show when you're not a real person. No offense to the guy wearing in the suit. You're a real person, obviously.
02:41:58
Speaker
So I get a lot of good picks here.
Selecting Match of the Night and MVP
02:42:00
Speaker
I mean, Flare throughout is a really good is an easy pick. Both Diners think delivered pretty well, though I get a slight edge between those two to Scott. Haze and Garfin both really well. Again, maybe slight edge to Haze between those in that pair. I could argue to some extent just for at least a glimpse of possible future. I mean, Mark, but I don't think he's quite there yet.
02:42:23
Speaker
um Maybe Tom Zink or Brian Pillman, or even Bobby Eaton, because he's really good. Or just, you know, Cactus Jack for hating his body, apparently. And not waiting to walk past 40. But I'll go back to someone I had before who released it out to me for doing a spot that we saw a number of times throughout this show. But for me, I think he is the best is our delivery. So for me, my MVP is Scott Steiner. Okay. Well deserved. Mm hmm.
02:42:50
Speaker
There were a ton of really good performances tonight.
02:42:55
Speaker
I am so at war with myself on this one. Genuinely going to ask. I think we've done this before. Can I do a collective one? ah How many people are talking about? At least two, possibly four. I'd say two to three if they're joined at the hip, metaphorically speaking. and I'll name the collection and then I'll name one that I think stands out more. Okay, who won? On this show, but the Horseman. Thought so. I think I can maybe exclude Sid because he doesn't really do much other than kind of stand there on the show. He stares at me and backs up quite well.
02:43:31
Speaker
Though he kind of looks confused more than menacing to me, but, you know, and fair he is staring at Robocop at one point. So I understand the confusion. Yeah. But I think they do a really good job on the show in both the good parts of the show and the bad parts of the show. It's fair. Yeah.
02:43:48
Speaker
They have the excellent promo segment, including Flair, a really emotional and threatening promo there. They have a really quite emotional attempt to intrude in the main event where Arne and Oli in particular are just like racing around the ring trying to find a way in through the cage and Oli is like desperately yelling encouragement at Flair. Yeah.
02:44:09
Speaker
And then in both segments where they're trying to build up the in one case guest performer and in the other case new performer, they do a really good job of looking like just intimidated and scared by this person, but giving a false bravado. Yeah, sure. and It's weird to me to be using the Robocop segment as a reason to vote for someone, but I think their performance in that segment is genuinely terrific.
02:44:31
Speaker
Yeah, no, it is. This is a segment that is so goofy that you could see them doubling over laughing. But instead, they're doing just a absolutely wonderful job of just like backing off and looking scared, but trying to look brave and trying to look like tough guys in the face of something that they know they can't beat. It's a really interesting night for that performance. If I were forced to pick just one and this will be very weird given the other comments we've made tonight.
02:44:59
Speaker
If I were forced to just pick one of them, it's Ollie. He gives, I think, the best overall promo of the bunch in the promo segment. I could go back and forth between him and Flair, but Ollie's is like really, really good, just massively energetic and and scary promo.
02:45:18
Speaker
And then he's kind of the the focal point of where the camera's pointing on both of the retreat segments, yeah does some really good work, and as I said, vaults bravado with with yelling at the various people that are driving them off, and is by far the most emotional when they're trying to get to flair.
02:45:37
Speaker
My eye was drawn to his performance a lot on the show. Sure. And he never let me down in that performance. It feels very weird to be giving him the MVP because I believe he's Booker at this point. Yeah. And is therefore probably responsible in part for that Robocop segment. But for his performance on the show itself, leaving aside all the other comments we've made about him tonight and his possible involvement in setting up the weirdness tonight.
02:46:03
Speaker
he did a really good job job on the actual show. That's fair, yeah. So Horseman, collectively, or if I have to pick just one, Ole. Yeah, I mean, i i if you're going to do collective, I would say do Arne, Ole, and Flair. That's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Because Flair, as much as I thought there was not a variety in the main of event match, he really threw himself quite literally at Luger to try and make him look like the biggest threat in the world. He does an absolutely great job in that match. Yeah, I very strongly consider just him as a solo. but And yeah, I think Sid has a bit weaker performance, not so much because he's doing anything wrong, but just he doesn't have as much that they give him to do. Yeah. And Wyndham is just not in it for very long, though he does look absolutely bad when he comes out. I mean, like great look for him. He does. Yeah.
02:46:47
Speaker
And that wraps up our review of Capital Combat Return of Robocop. If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can find us on Facebook as Let's Go to the Ring. The link will be available in the episode description. Follow us for episode announcements and other show details, and share your own thoughts about each show as we go through.
02:47:04
Speaker
You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, YouTube Music, Audible, iHeartRadio, Spotify, TuneIn, or Pandora. And please, if you've enjoyed this show, give us a rating or review and share the show through your favorite social media platforms to help others discover us. Many thanks to OSW Review for attendance and pay-per-view figures, and to Gina Trujillo for our logo.
02:47:27
Speaker
Next up, we'll start our next series with a show that sadly does not feature Robocop, but does feature another blatant movie reference. Halloween Havoc 1989 featuring the Thunderdome match because wrestling loves it some Mad Max references. See also Kevin Nash's old tag team gimmick The Master Blasters and Sid Vicious's original gimmick of Lord Humungous. That's true. Sadly, they don't have the master blasters in the Thunderdome. It's about a year too early for that, unfortunately. Or fortunately, considering that might be a tad too much copyright infringement for WSW to get away with. Might be a step too far, yeah. This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling.
02:48:21
Speaker
So our fourth match is precious Paul Ellering versus Theodore versus wow. That screwed that name up. Theodore.