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Episode 9: Starrcade '91
28 Plays6 years ago
The Lethal Lottery has WCW all mixed up! Starrcade hosts a night full of unusual tag team action, leading up to one (just slightly overcomplicated) battle royal - it's time for Battlebowl! Can Sting endure against the onslaught of evil champion Lex Luger's henchmen and the Dangerous Alliance? Who will win when Freebird faces Freebird? What bold new hero will rise to capture the crowd's loyalty? All this and a bold, definitely totally original new wrestler that does everything an, uh, arachnid can! Let's go to the ring!
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Series Overview
00:00:24
Speaker
The first person that they announce is Ricky the Dragon Steamboat.
00:00:38
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 the world's leading authority on the possibility of drop kicks from the top rope, Dr. Alec Bridget. If you have questions, I don't have answers. And the world's leading authority on the mental health effects of fabulous free birds matches, Dr. John Mullins. They go on forever.
00:01:08
Speaker
Maybe it should be the leading authority on the time-space dilation effects of free birds matches, huh? Yes. It is all sense of time and space.
Starrcade 91 and Lethal Lottery Format
00:01:19
Speaker
Tonight, we're taking a look at Starrcade 91 Battle Bowl, the Lethal Lottery.
00:01:26
Speaker
Starcade 91 was held on December 29th, 1991 in the Norfolk Scope in Norfolk, Virginia in front of 7,600 fans with 140,000 pay-per-view buys. Now interestingly, we were last at the Norfolk Scope in Starcade 88. At the time, we saw about the same number of pay-per-view buys but had 10,000 fans in attendance. So same building, less people. That's probably not a good sign.
00:01:54
Speaker
They probably got rid of chairs to save money. Tonight, 40 of the top WCW wrestlers will be picked at random to wrestle in a unique tag team format. Then the winners advance to the Battle Bowl where only one man stands as the winner in Starrcade 91, the Lethal Lottery.
00:02:20
Speaker
The show opens with a CG animated ring, which tilts up to reveal the WCW logo. WCW is on the cutting edge of technology here, at least in, like, five-second increments. I shudder to think of how long a five-second CG thing took to make in 1991. Those are taking, like, six hours to render. Yeah. At least. Yeah, I think very generous. I think... is this about the time the Abyss came out?
00:02:48
Speaker
Uh, sounds about right, yeah. I think it took him, like, six months to render the entire movie, so... Whoa. It was something unreal. I'd have to look that up, but... Yeah, and I forget when Reboot came on for the first time. That was a little later in the 90s, I think. I think so, yeah. Man, I love that show. Not least because the hero was named Bob. Mm-hmm. I imagine there was two of them. Yeah. A rare case of Bob as a hero instead of an evil, vile businessman.
00:03:17
Speaker
That's true.
00:03:20
Speaker
We cut to wrestlers fighting in the background as the names of wrestlers participating in the lethal lottery flash on the screen. Except oddly, Oz, Kevin Nash, is listed, but he sadly never shows up on the show. Aw. More understandably, the diamond stud, Scott Hall, is listed, but he's injured, so someone else will be taking his place. It's kind of a weird coincidence that it's Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, who are both listed but not actually participating, isn't it? That's true, yeah.
00:03:50
Speaker
It's two wrestlers and it just happens to be one of the most famous WCW tag teams in the future, the Outsiders. Now, I will admit though, the name scrolled by pretty fast so it's entirely possible that I missed somebody else. The Starrcade 91 logo spins onto the screen and away we go.
WCW Event Production and Wrestler Introductions
00:04:07
Speaker
JR welcomes us to the show alongside co-host Tony Schiavone. They build up the Lethal Lottery concept, will have 10 tag matches, I guess I've been a bad person, and the winning competitors will advance to the final Battle Bull event, which is a 20-man battle royale of sorts, every man for himself.
00:04:26
Speaker
The competitors for the tag matches tonight will be decided by a, quote-unquote, random drawing. For Battle Bull, we have two different rings set up next to each other. I'm gonna call the one by the ramp Ring 1 and the other one Ring 2 if it matters tonight. So you're better at separating different names in the rings than you are with Doom members. I'm only good at separating between members of Doom or Russian assassins when JR is good at it. That makes me sad.
00:04:55
Speaker
USA Russian Assassins were on the show? I didn't say that. Okay, good. JR and Tony throw to Eric Bischoff with Missy Hyatt and tonight's commissioner, Magnum TA. Eric will be a very, very big name in WCW in time and we'll see a lot of him in the future.
00:05:18
Speaker
Eric, in his best sleazy used car salesman voice, tells us that they'll be drawing the names for the randomized tag teams. We get a shot of the stage as sparkly pyro goes off and a curtain slowly, slowly raises to reveal the wrestlers participating in tonight's event. It's kind of a cool display with them all lined up on platforms in front of the WCW logo. It'd be a cooler display if the WCW logo was actually, you know, centered.
00:05:48
Speaker
Yeah, I don't understand what's going on with that logo. It might partially be the camera angle, but it definitely looks like it's off a little bit.
00:05:56
Speaker
Is that a full WSB logo? It's designed to sit... look like it's sitting flat against the floor. It's literally the same thing that they used last year, I think, on the stage where it looked... slightly weird, but fine. You know, with it set a current to the floor, but because it's got this, like, upward tilt. So the first W is cut off a little bit, but it looks like it sinks into the floor when you're on the floor. When it's suspended in the air, it looks like, no, you just took a katana or something and sliced off a good, like, quarter of the W.
00:06:25
Speaker
Yeah, you can sort of rhombus or something, I don't quite get it. Branding. Yeah. Eric introduces Missy Hyatt and Magnum TA, and Magnum reaches in to get Missy Hyatt the envelopes to select the first teams. I'm so declared why he's only the commissioner for the night. Like he's not regularly the commissioner is what it sounds like? I guess not.
00:06:48
Speaker
So our first match drawn tonight is Michael P.S. Hayes and Tracy Smothers versus Marcus Alexander Bagwell and Jimmy Jam Garvin. We're starting right out tonight with the Freebirds, John. Nothing like starting on a high note, huh? Yeah, well, I just hope they don't fly away. I'd think you would hope for them to fly away after last time. Yes, it's true.
00:07:18
Speaker
It's kind of like if in Willy Wonka, instead of like walking through several rooms, they didn't go on the boat ride, they just walked in right on the boat ride. You just go right to the boat. And also right away, it seems pretty darn unlikely we'd get this particular matchup at random. Not impossible, but pretty unlikely. Tony points out that Garvin seems totally fine with fighting Hayes, while Hayes seems somewhat more reluctant.
00:07:43
Speaker
Smothers and Bagwell start with a stalling match, followed by Bagwell largely dominating as Smothers generally stalls by yelling at the crowd and accusing Bagwell of cheating. The crowd chants for the DDT, which is used by both Hayes and Garvin. Be clearer, crowd. I noticed a weird green stain on the mat in Ring 1. Did they not clean these things, or is it just impossible to get what I assume might be Muta's mist out of the mats?
00:08:10
Speaker
Which is weird, because he hasn't been on a show in months when I understand. Yeah, I assumed they'd... Maybe it's just that impossible. There's a weird spot after Bagwell hits a lot of moves where Smothers, unprompted, does this big theatrical fall. It kind of looks like he was taking a dropkick that Bagwell didn't throw or something, but it could just be him selling fear of the fired-up babyface. It's a weird spot, anyway.
00:08:33
Speaker
Smother's stalling continues against Garvin, though we get a little more content with Hayes reluctant to support Smothers against his usual partner. Garvin atomic drop Smothers over the top rope, but there's no mention at all of over the top rope DQs tonight.
00:08:48
Speaker
Bagwell is tagged back in, and Hayes is finally tagged in, doing better, but once Smothers is back in, the match turns against his team again. There's a kind of nice bit of commentary as Tony points out that the teams have to be careful, or they might win early matches but go into Battle Bull injured, and JR adds that teams in the early matches have an advantage as they'll have much more time to rest.
Match Dynamics and Strategies
00:09:09
Speaker
That's true. Sure.
00:09:11
Speaker
The Freebirds eventually do get tagged in against each other, and the crowd gets really excited. They have a friendly competition just grappling and trying roll-ups, nothing that risks injuring the other, and they do a lot of strutting and applauding for each other. Back to Smothers and Bagwell, and we get some actual action out of the two until Bagwell slugs Hayes, for unclear reasons, and an angry Hayes jumps in and slugs Bagwell hard. Garvin gets in to try to calm things down, and Hayes instinctively slugs him too.
00:09:39
Speaker
The Freebirds argue as Smothers tries a weird rotating splash off the top rope on the prone Bagwell, but Bagwell gets his knees up. Bagwell hits a fisherman's suplex for the pin. The Freebirds make peace after the match.
00:09:59
Speaker
From what I understand, Trish's mother, who's one half of the young pistols, had recently turned heel. So maybe he's just not good at being a heel. Like he's been faced so long he doesn't know what to do. And he's like, well, the only thing I can think of is to just stall and just complain. Which I guess makes me hate him, so in a way that worked. It just didn't make the match interesting. I will say at least the hook of the free birds battling each other did pay off.
00:10:28
Speaker
That said, it's kind of weird that the ref sees them all staying in the ring of the corner and just lets everything go on like normal. It's like, eh, yeah, you know, rules, rules. This is an important show anyways. It just took way too long to begin. This is just an odd way to start the show. Yeah.
00:10:45
Speaker
I think they were just buying time to get everyone set up for everything else. Yeah, could be. You know they had some spots where they were trying to get the crowd involved. It was just a warm up. I think towards the end they had some crowd participation so that match progressed normally until there was an outcome.
00:11:07
Speaker
Yeah, this one I felt was a pretty poor opener, and I'm attributing that mostly to Tracy Smothers, who spent the majority of the match doing little more than stalling. Hayes, Garvin, and Bagwell all did their parts, but Smothers just kept slowing things down for me.
00:11:21
Speaker
I did enjoy the Freebird versus Freebird segment though. The Freebirds did a nice job of competing with each other, but in exactly the way you'd expect to see tag team partners who didn't want to hurt each other compete. So they don't do impact moves, they don't do strikes, they just use, you know, arm drags or lever each other over for pins. I enjoyed the sort of mutual admiration society they had going on too. It was pretty funny.
00:11:45
Speaker
It just took this far too long to get to an acceptable level for an opener. I have big compliments for the Freebirds here, honestly. Their personalities lifted this up a lot and stopped it from being a total waste. But poor match.
00:12:01
Speaker
this was like larry matching the show where it's just four singles wrestlers that have no connection to each other at all and go okay when they know how to do a tag match at least with each other but this is this point three of the four people are really long-term regular tag team and Bagwell at this point is basically it's all he does because he's really new to the industry so they put him in tag matches um obviously there's a lot of
00:12:25
Speaker
stuff to sort of made up in this confusing way this whole show was built with random tag partners, but I just thought the coward people will all be handled better than they actually did. Yeah. That's all. Yeah. Tracy Smothers is, this point is part of the Young Pistols, who are the current US tag team champions.
00:12:46
Speaker
Which doesn't matter in the show because there are literally no titles on the line anyway, so you perform. Their career sadly ends in WSW in the lovely month of January. Of course. As nearly everything bad seems to happen. Basically in a two week span, they appear under class champions, which we're not going to cover, to lose their titles and then do one more show and they're gone. Okay.
00:13:10
Speaker
After that thrilling opener, Tony and JR talk up how unique it was to see the freebirds fight each other and throw back to Eric for the next drawing. This time we get shots of the two locker rooms the faces and heels are now in to see the reactions to the name draws, which is kind of a nice touch. It gives a little bit more of that sports feel again, I always like when they do that. Our second match is stunning Steve Austin and ravishing Rick Roode of the Dangerous Alliance. Great name. Oh yeah.
00:13:40
Speaker
accompanied by Paul E Dangerously versus Heavy Metal Van Hammer and Big Josh. Yeah. That is a 90s name. Oh yeah. That is a 90s name. Van Hammer is not a family name? Probably not. That'd be Von Hammer.
00:14:06
Speaker
Yeah, if it was the late A's he'd be like, he'd be Eric Von Hammer. Yeah. Now it's the 90's Van Hammer. Yep. Yeah, so in our first match we had a tag team just happening to be drawn against each other, and in our second match we have teammates just happening to be drawn together. Yeah, I'm kind of starting to doubt the randomness of these draws.
00:14:28
Speaker
Rick Rude kisses the camera on the way down and I am crushed that he doesn't have his old film noir music. I think we all we all love that theme and or needed to shower after it. It's memorable getting that. Yes. Yeah, I wish he'd used that for the rest of his career. I don't know why he doesn't. Yeah. It is also enormously weird to see the future stone cold Steve Austin like this.
00:15:04
Speaker
I feel like when they were coming up with the WWF look for him they just looked at this and said, let's do exactly the opposite.
00:15:12
Speaker
Yeah, pretty much. If you're used to Stone Cold Steve Austin bald, goatee, black trunks, leather vest, Flip the Bird and all that, it's nothing like this where he has long blonde hair and bright multicolored neon tights. Yes. What'd you call them? The Saved by the Bell pants, I think they did? I believe, yeah. They look like the Saved by the Bell logo, yeah. I think that's appropriate.
00:15:35
Speaker
John, had you ever seen Austin with this look? No. In fact, for a long time during the match, I was just sitting there incredulously, like, this is not him. This cannot be him. But, you know, the mannerisms and the movements, they all line. Yeah, you can tell once you watch him. But when he first comes out, you're like, who's that? He has the same name as Stone Cold. Are there a second Steve Austin?
00:16:03
Speaker
And if you're telling me there is, that's the six million dollar man, but still. Yes. He was not a wrestler. He just has a different body type. Yeah.
00:16:12
Speaker
And part of that may be due to the neck injury and everything that he ends up with in the early part of his WWF career. I'm sure that changed his routines and everything. So his look ends up a little different there too, but he's a markedly different wrestler during this period in his career. And both look and the actual moveset, his mannerisms are similar, but a lot of the moves that he does, there's a much more wrestling focus where the later Austin is brawling one.
00:16:40
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah, it's an interesting transition to see. You'll see it throughout the shows of less and less hair. Yes. And then it slowly goes, okay, now, okay, I could see it now. A couple years from now, you'll be able to see the spine more easily. He just has such nice hair. Yeah. I'm sure he misses it.
00:17:00
Speaker
Hammer has control with his raw power to start, with Austin unable to use his better technical skill to get advantage. Hammer even counters out of a front face lock into a hammer lock. A van hammer lock? Mm-hmm. A me lock.
00:17:16
Speaker
Austin eventually uses speed and a ton of snap mares to disorient Hammer and gets Rude in to take solid control. Rude and Austin trade off to keep Hammer down, with Rude using heavy strikes and Austin hitting a nice gut wrench suplex. Rude tries to keep Hammer from getting to Big Josh, but Hammer lifts Rude up and pushes him back to get the tag.
00:17:36
Speaker
There's a great bit, as Big Josh knocks Rude down and runs on his chest. The log roll, that's called. But Rude no-sells due to his chiseled abs. Josh tries a few punches to the abs, but Rude ignores those two. That got me laughing pretty hard. Yeah, I would remember to that aspect, the character, yeah. Just like, fluxes. You can't stop me. That would not work with my abs.
00:18:04
Speaker
He knows the iron shirt technique. Yes. Josh eventually gets smart and clotheslines rude in the face instead, and he does well against both dangerous alliance members, keeping them off balance and even dropping Austin onto the top rope, a move Austin himself likes to use. Hammer gets back in briefly and gets another Van Hammer lock, as JR notes that he's, quote, keeping it very elementary.
00:18:28
Speaker
With Josh back in, he grabs Austin from behind, but Austin charges to the ropes and ducks for Root to hit a nice clothesline. Pretty cool spot there.
00:18:37
Speaker
Austin and Rude trade off giving Josh a beating, working together and using hammer to distract the ref. They even fake a tag with Rude just theatrically clapping his hands behind the ref's back. Josh eventually catches Austin on a leapfrog and slams him, but makes the mistake of trying an elbow drop before tagging and Austin dodges. Austin chokes him on the ropes, and Paul holds Josh for Austin to try to jump on his back, but Josh dodges and Austin hits Paul.
00:19:04
Speaker
Josh tags Hammer, who gets a pretty nice power slam and a belly-to-back suplex, as J.R. notes that there's little finesse in him. Hammer continues dominating, but Rude sneaks in the tag when Hammer whips Austin to the ropes. Unaware, Hammer goes for a move on Austin, but Rude comes in and hits the Rude Awakening for the pin. I'm kind of wondering why this was in the opening match of the show? Because, I mean, you have a strong story, you have the Ninja Alliance actually together, you have a very strong team dynamic.
00:19:33
Speaker
really fits into this whole story. They're trying to go for ignoring the statistical probability of the two being on the same here together. Yeah.
00:19:42
Speaker
But you get that contrast of the well-oiled machine, to use a cliche, and the two singles wrestlers together. Personally, I liked everyone but Van Hammer in the match, which is being very nice. Big Josh didn't have a whole lot going on, but what he did was done well, and his little log roll thing, he had a whole spot there. So he gave his parts to the match.
00:20:07
Speaker
i definitely liked the uh... he'll issue uh... victory they did the blind tag and track every and all that that really played to their character they well and if i think that in our team when
00:20:21
Speaker
I was glad that, you know, out of pure randomness, those two were there. I enjoyed seeing Rudigan and the proto stone cold. And I'm really glad that the match ended the way it did. I thought the hidden tag was perfectly executed. Oh, yeah.
00:20:39
Speaker
Rude's finisher, Rude Awakening was probably the best I've seen him perform it.
Dangerous Alliance and Battle Bowl Potential
00:20:44
Speaker
It was a nice finish to a match that really should have been first, and I agree with you there. Part of that might be because it also felt like there was a natural progression for the whole match rather than stalling. It was by and large 100% improvement over the last one.
00:21:04
Speaker
It's a pretty simple match overall with several moves that get repeated. Austin hits a lot of snap mares, Hammer goes back to the Hammer lock, and there's a lot of basic striking, but it really keeps moving. Like you guys were saying, it really builds. There's a decent story there. I think you were mentioning Al of Josh and Hammer.
00:21:23
Speaker
not really knowing how to work together, but Austin and Rude really have had a lot of practice. So Hammer and Josh seem to really just try and fight individually and only tag when they get in trouble, but Austin and Rude keep up more of a steady stream of tags and use them tactically and work together.
00:21:38
Speaker
And, yeah, they worked in a few very fun ideas for spots. Rude's Invulnerable Abs being the highlight of the match and possibly the highlight of the night. That was really a great idea. A fun, but pretty basic match. Nothing exceptional, but not bad. Really good ending, though. I will definitely agree with you there, John. That was impeccably timed and very, very smooth, especially by Rude on it. I actually almost missed the tag the first time. He snuck it in so well.
00:22:07
Speaker
Yeah, so I think I'm with you guys. I have no idea why this was not the opening match. It's like, this one got me charged up. The actual opening match, I was like, I think you could testify to this how we were watching that one together. I was like, oh my gosh, do something. It's still going, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, much better match for the second match tonight.
00:22:29
Speaker
Did either of you feel like Tony and JR were really disingenuous when they were complimenting Hammer though? Oh yeah, extremely. There's something about their tone. It's like, particularly that first Hammer lock, Tony's like, oh, great move! But it's an exactly that kind of tone where there's a silent, I honestly didn't think you knew how to do that. Do it.
00:22:51
Speaker
It's like the kid's first drawing, you're like, oh, that's amazing. Yeah, basically. Not that you would know anything about that, I'm sure. No, I wouldn't. No, absolutely. 100% genuine at all times. Maybe I didn't pick up on it that much, but you know, I'm sure it was like that. Every now and then I'm like, I don't think you believe that.
00:23:13
Speaker
JR, you see his history, he's a repeated use of certain expressions. Like if someone does a suplex, but they like sort of fall to the side or do something wrong, he'll be like a modified suplex or a form of a suplex. So he has ways to sort of soften the blow on that a little bit.
00:23:32
Speaker
I mean, I guess that's a good way of just saying like, oh, maybe they're trying stuff new, you know, trying new stuff, even if it's sarcastic. Yeah. What's interesting with this match is that we obviously had Rick Roode one time before, but we got him like a year and a half, maybe two years into his career. Yes. I'll be with, that's part of the group though. I just, but this is a much better group for sure. And obviously with much, my opinion personally made a much better field to work with.
00:23:59
Speaker
So the very first show with him and Wyatt McDaniel, we get fairly untested, but natural heal. The recruit was just always a natural heal. You could see it in that match. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, if he gets to shine that match, you can only see that. And then we have him left there. And, you know, I said Hogan wrestled, uh, warrior wrestled all these people really tested himself. And now he's back as a fully formed record that we expect.
00:24:26
Speaker
Yeah, this is the polished Rick Rude. We saw the potential last time, now we're saying, oh yeah, this is what he's capable of and yeah, he's really good. Absolutely. There's a several year gap and suddenly he reappeared and you're like, wow, he is a lot better and he's got everything down. Yep.
00:24:43
Speaker
So after you caught this before, you actually have seen Big Josh before. Big Josh was previously wrestling as one half of the South African team. Ah, right. He was the guy that wasn't in rock or rock. He was the guy that didn't crack his head against the floor. Correct.
00:25:01
Speaker
But yeah, the slightly bearded, but not fully bearded guy in the South African team is now the fully bearded, Dick Josh. Okay. Who will still, as I mentioned before, we're going to become a clown. Yes. So it's South African general to log rolling, you know, lumberjack. Yeah, I'm jacking you to clown. Okay. There's definitely a four step somewhere in there. That's career progression there. Yeah. It's versatility. Yeah.
00:25:30
Speaker
JR points out that the Dangerous Alliance now have two men in Battle Bowl, and there's three more Dangerous Alliance members in the tournament. Bobby Eaton, Arne Anderson, and Larry Zabisco. He hopes for some of them having to face each other. Tony hopes that it's Zabisco versus Anderson because they've been a great tag team and that would be an interesting fight. Meanwhile, we see a sign in the crowd that says, quote, gobble gobble torch turkey. I have no idea what that means.
00:26:00
Speaker
Yeah, I'm very perplexed by that as well because we are past the point where this is taking place around Thanksgiving. Yeah. This is four days after Christmas. This is clearly not a Thanksgiving reference. Yeah. I don't think we're on an Olympic year. I feel like those are evens. So I don't know. Maybe it's someone that doesn't like isn't one of the magazines, the pro wrestling torch. Maybe maybe really doesn't like the torch. I don't know.
00:26:28
Speaker
It's just, it's one of those weird signs. It's not quite up to the level of strangeness of the Sting and Luger or cow hips, but... Cow whips. Cow whips, cow hips. Cow whips. I'm still not sure. Cow whips. Cow whips don't lie. Also a guy in the crowd brings up a sign requesting that Medusa come to room 269 in the Holiday Inn. The key is under the mat.
00:26:55
Speaker
Just, wow. Fortunately, a security guard rather quickly runs him off. Yeah, this fan interaction is not always a good thing on shows. Yeah. Our third match is The Natural, Dustin Rhodes and Richard Morton versus The Cruncher, Larry Zabisco, accompanied by Medusa, and Eligante.
00:27:18
Speaker
Uh, Dustin Rhodes, son of Dusty Rhodes, was clearly hoping that his buddy Ricky Steamboat, uh, would be his partner. I mean, wouldn't you? Yeah, but definitely. Even now, I'd wish for that. Dustin Rhodes and Ricky Steamboat are now the current WWE World Tag Team Champions having bested Larry Zabisco and Anderson. So there is that dynamic in there. Dang, I'd like to see that match.
00:27:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a clash. We might not get it, but we'll find it somewhere, I'm sure. Yeah. This is Evil Heal Ricky Morton. Yes. As Richard Morton. Yeah, apparently, go by your full name. That's how you tell people you're evil. If you're Terry, you're richly informal, but Terrence, oh, oh, Terrence, that's a bad dude. They were from Terrence. If I come on the show and call myself Robert Moore, I've clearly turned heel. Absolutely. Yeah.
00:28:09
Speaker
And, of course, Zabisco, as mentioned earlier, is a member of the Dangerous Alliance. So this match determines whether they have a third Dangerous Alliance member in the ring for Battle Bull tonight. Eligante is one of those guys I always felt who's big, but not really impressive big. He's more elongated than he is massive. You sure it should be El Elongante?
00:28:35
Speaker
Yeah, there's certain people. Yeah, I mean like Manubol, you know, was seven foot four or five, whatever he was, but he wasn't built like Shaquille O'Neal, who we'd seen a few years from this show, or like an under the giant situation. But he's tall, but it just, as far as blocking like doorways, he's great at that. But I mean, yeah, I'm not nearly intimidated by, by him as I would be other people.
00:28:58
Speaker
Yeah, like you said, you have Andre, you have Big Show, those two are like, you feel the giant about them, where it's just like everything about their size is just impressive. And then you have guys that are very tall, but they don't have that sense of weight or that sense of power about them. That's where I think Eligante kind of lacks.
00:29:23
Speaker
I mean, he's a little less imposing, but when you see the comparison, when he does, when he picks him off the ground, it does, the effect is there. Yeah, true. As they're coming down the ramp, Medusa taps Zabisco on the shoulder and points out Elegante coming behind them, and Zabisco flips out and scampers into the ring.
00:29:41
Speaker
Zabisco talks strategy with Eligante before the match, and amusingly climbs up on the ropes to be closer. There's clearly some kind of disagreement, and a frustrated Zabisco goes in to start the match. Weirdly, I noticed they used different corners of the ring than usual. They did, yeah. I don't set two. Yeah. It doesn't affect anything, really. It's just... I mean, I guess maybe they got confused because they're changing rings every other match, too. Yeah, if possible. I don't think it was an intentional thing.
00:30:10
Speaker
Zabisco struggles against Rhodes starting out and tries to convince Eligante to slug Rhodes from outside, but he gets ignored. Rhodes tags Morton and Zabisco tags Eligante, so Morton quickly scampers back to his corner and tags Rhodes. Rhodes gives a resigned look and gets back in.
00:30:26
Speaker
Rhodes can't knock Elegante down and Elegante slams Morton when Morton tries to quick run in. A slam to Rhodes too and JR notes that Zabisco is yelling almost sage-like advice. Get him! Tag back to a reluctant Zabisco and he keeps advantage including a nice swinging neckbreaker that nearly gets three until Morton saves. Nice unexpected spin kick too.
00:30:49
Speaker
Yeah, true. Zavisco keeps yelling to Eligante to help from outside, but Eligante just ignores him and yells at Medusa when she weighs in. Rhodes hits his dad's bionic elbows to stun Zavisco and starts fighting back. But Zavisco throws him away on a bulldog attempt and tags Eligante. Zavisco yells at Eligante to get Rhodes while he's down, but Eligante is far too honorable for that, so Zavisco slaps him in the face.
00:31:15
Speaker
Realizing his mistake, Zabisco drops to the floor, but Elegante reaches way down and grabs him, throwing him into the ring. Elegante whips Zabisco into a slightly mistimed double drop kick from Morton and Rhodes, and that gets the win. Elegante shakes hands with Rhodes and tries to shake hands with Morton, but Morton walks away. This is an interesting match because it's definitely
00:31:37
Speaker
built around Larry Sibisco trying to make everything work, I feel like. Eligante definitely doesn't have a whole, he's not, amongst the, he's worthless. He's definitely not worthless. I'm trying to, I'm trying to pin this in the way. I don't think he was very good.
00:31:51
Speaker
And to be fair, he's an Argentinian basketball player, hired for the Atlanta, I think it's the Atlanta Hawks, I believe it is, the basketball team. I'm bad with this. Basically, he wasn't good at running back and down the court because he's seven foot tall and his knees run great. So they're like, well, we have this guy, we pay him what some money we're gonna do with him. Oh, let's just slap the tinfoil on him and call him Eligante.
00:32:15
Speaker
So I don't blame him for not being good because I clearly wanted to use him. So it's not like he didn't try to be good, it's just he didn't have an opportunity for that. They work around him really well. They let him do a couple spots he can do, but the bulk of the match is keeping him out of it and building the story around him not wanting to be in and not doing things. When he actually does his stuff, it's good. So I'll give him that.
00:32:38
Speaker
But it's definitely the Bisco that drives the whole thing. He has to be arguing with him, trying to get him to do stuff, and obviously doing the workload of the match on his side. Kind of ashamed that everything but the actual timing on the double drop, he gets really good.
00:32:53
Speaker
The Pullman of the Ring sold low as Bisco and he thrown in. Obviously, the issue is that Richard Morton and Dustin Rode, as opposed to Richard Morton and his normal tag partner, I'm sure even now, literally just had a match like two weeks ago, the enemy way, probably have the timing down to perfection. Because you mix these people up and wanted to do a spot they don't really do together, it doesn't work as well.
00:33:18
Speaker
Like we had with the last match with the sort of mismatched Rock and Roll Express with Thomas Rich, we have the inevitable comparisons to the Rock and Roll Express, which are just hard to look to. Yeah. Hey, you guys are way too rough on El Gigante here. Again, it's the first time me seeing him, so my expectations are being formed. I have no preconceived notion of what he's capable or incapable of. Sure.
00:33:48
Speaker
Zabisco reminds me of just like an agitated animal. Like something that was just yapping at you. And I appreciate, we've had another Starrcade where we had respect between some other members and they allowed them to get up. So I respect that. I'm cool with that. And there was a lot of spots where he just picks up people and tosses around. I enjoyed that he just picked them out of the ring.
00:34:17
Speaker
like from the outside and threw him in and everyone won except for Zavisco.
00:34:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think they use Eligante very, very well. This one, I think, is booked to perfection, using him in exactly the right way. Like you said, Al, they give him exactly what they know he can do. They use his size very well in this one. That spot, John, like you mentioned of him dragging Zabisco back in the ring, even though Zabisco dropped to the floor, that is...
00:34:48
Speaker
a real highlight tonight, honestly. It's a great bit. For me, this was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed this match, almost all in my case due to Larry Zabisco. There's not a ton of actual action, but it comes off way better than the first match because there's a story to the stalling.
00:35:05
Speaker
It's all about Zabisco not knowing how to work with a good guy as his partner, and it's genuinely funny seeing him get more and more frustrated trying to get Eligante to do anything even remotely heel-ish. It doesn't come off as strong as it might do in part to Eligante not really emoting that much. In part, the announcers sometimes passing it off questionably, as Eligante not understanding due to poor English skills, the story might have come off stronger if they sold it as him just entirely refusing. Yeah.
00:35:32
Speaker
And honestly, it's a little weak because the stuff Sibisco's trying to get him to do sometimes seems pretty minimal, telling him, hey, hold your knee up, I'll slam the guy into it, which we see other face wrestlers do across the night. But he refuses even that. I think it'd be better if Sibisco were doing things like trying to fake a tag or things like that. But still, Sibisco's performance is really great.
00:35:55
Speaker
Elegante is basically a very nice prop for the rest of them to act around, and Rhodes and Morton are fine, but largely just play the role of the other team in
Performance Highlights and Wrestler Journeys
00:36:04
Speaker
this match. Their characters don't matter that much to this, though Morton does get a funny spot or two. It's the Zabisco show, but fortunately for me the Zabisco show was really fun. No, I can see that.
00:36:17
Speaker
larry's disco does not uh... staving rep regressor much longer but mid-nineteen eighty two sides retire become a commentator which obviously we will see in here from a lot more on that that's it he is kind of brought back in once a month for matches will make we didn't see it was one of them on start a rough thing but i think it started ninety seven he has one but for the most part he he's retired to do commentary play golf in conflict with the fact that he plays golf on commentary
00:36:49
Speaker
J.R. and Tony talk again about the Dangerous Alliance's chances tonight and whether the remaining members, Arne Anderson and Bobby Eaton, might end up together. We go back for the next draw, and as we do, we see Zavisco going back to the locker room and arguing with Richard Morton. Our next match is the world's strongest man, Bill Kazmaier, and Jushin Thunder Liger, versus Diamond Dallas Page and Mike Graham.
00:37:16
Speaker
We last saw Mike Graham competing with Jesse Barr for the Florida heavyweight title back at Starrcade 84. He had a very nice mustache at the time, as I recall. I believe that's correct, yes. By this point, I understand that he is more commonly working as a road agent and a trainer. I'm guessing that's probably why he's in the match here, since we have a relatively new performer in Bill Kazmaier and a very, very new one in Diamond Dallas Page. Right.
00:37:41
Speaker
Diamond Dallas Page, who will become one of the biggest stars of WCW later on, started out as a manager in 1988. Notably, back in 1990, before coming to WCW, he was at WrestleMania VI to bring tag team Rhythm & Blues to the ring in his own pink Cadillac.
00:38:01
Speaker
In 1991, the year of this show, he came to WCW as a manager, but on the advice of Magnum TA, he became a wrestler as well. Note, however, that his first match was actually in 1989 during his run as an announcer in Florida Championship Wrestling against Dick Slater. Still, he's 35 years old here and still a rookie, getting in quite a bit later than others.
00:38:23
Speaker
Jushin Thunder Liger is currently, at this point in the show, the WW Light Heavyweight Champion. She wanted a house show on Christmas Day. So yeah, Chris is good for you, but he also dates when Elsa is her title, so kind of mixed blessing on that. Yeah. Jushin Thunder Liger looks absolutely awesome. Oh yeah. Yes. Yes. It's an outfit like nothing else that we've ever seen on the show. It's like something right out of one of Japan's transforming hero shows.
00:38:52
Speaker
He is, in fact, a common writer, yes. Yeah. As it turns out, there's a reason for that, because he was, in fact, based off of the main character of the anime series, Jushin Liger, which ran from 1989 to 1990. He doesn't transform in this one or grow 30 feet tall, which is very disappointing. Yeah. Sorry to spoil that for you. People are going to stop listening now. Thanks, John. Yeah, yeah. Oh, well, he might.
00:39:23
Speaker
Liger and Graham start out with quick wrestling encounters, mixed in with some snappy spin kicks from Liger. Graham seems to miss time his fall on a head scissors and comes down pretty badly, but Tony nicely covers by saying he was trying to keep his vertical base.
00:39:37
Speaker
Liger tries a cartwheel into what looked like either a flipping kick or another head scissor, but Graham just steps back and lets him flop, then tries a pin for two. Liger seems frustrated and tags Kazmaier. Kazmaier throws Graham around, and Graham tags Page, who offers a test of strength, but then just smugly kicks Kazmaier in the gut. Things quickly turn against him as he can't even move Kazmaier with anything he tries, and Kazmaier catches him on a crossbody, carries him around, and dumps him on the mat.
00:40:05
Speaker
Paige finally manages to throw Kazmaier over the top rope, but Kazmaier grabs the ropes and flips back in. Really impressive to see a big guy do that. I was the only surprised to see that happen. Yeah, you and I, both our jaws kind of dropped while we were watching that. Oh my god, I didn't actually see that coming, yeah.
00:40:22
Speaker
That move, incidentally, is called skinning the cat. I've not been able to find out why. It's a calisthenics move, but sites I read also had no idea why it was actually called that. It just seems to be one of those names that's always been around and no one has a clue when it- where it came from. Yeah, I can't think of a context that makes a lot of sense in. Tony rightly notes that with his size and ability to flip back in like that, Kazmaier might be a favorite in Battle Bull.
00:40:49
Speaker
Kazmaier continues dominating, but Paige dodges a splash and wears the big man down. The teams start trading off with Liger and Kazmaier mostly dominating. Notably, Kazmaier has no problem raising his knee for Liger to ram Graham into it. I bet Zabisco wishes Kazmaier was his partner now. At one point, Paige impressively hefts Kazmaier up, but Kazmaier falls on top for two.
00:41:11
Speaker
Liger and Graham have fast counter sequences with both grappling and Liger's kicks, and Liger gets an amazing lifting surfboard submission move. They shake hands in respect after a series of pin attempts by both. Tony at one point notes that Liger may have the quickest kicks he's ever seen, quote, from a human. I wonder what else Tony has been watching kick things. Actual Liger's. There you go. Yeah, very quick.
00:41:41
Speaker
Graham falls out of the ring on a mischarge, and the camera nearly entirely misses Liger hitting a flipping dive out onto him. Back in via Liger's suplex, and Liger gets a moonsault for two as Page saves Graham. Kazmaier comes in to beat up Page, and Kazmaier and Liger fling Page and Graham into each other. Kazmaier lifts Liger and flings him onto Page, and that gets the pin.
00:42:03
Speaker
I didn't ever see Paige actually tagged in mine, so I'm pretty sure that Graham was actually still the legal ban. Yeah, that's true. I'm pretty sure that's correct, yeah. I think Paige actually just runs in and is totally in the ring for the rest of the match, so there's no point at which he could have actually tagged Graham. It's a mixed one for me. Honestly, hearing about it, I was worried it'd be really lopsided because I love Liger.
00:42:29
Speaker
really good former, but I was worried that everyone else essentially would not be up to par. That's somewhat true in the sense that Graham definitely is not used to his silo offensive seems. That or maybe he hasn't done it in a long time. Maybe he's wrestled people that size, but he doesn't do it regularly, so he's just out of practice with it. Regardless, it hurts to lie against himself a little bit when he, you know, just a bit of timing on the pitchers as he noted and stuff like that.
00:42:56
Speaker
That said, Liger does still really impress me in here. Kazmar surprised me a lot. That's getting the cat thing aside. Because, kind of like with other people like Legante, for instance, he doesn't do a whole lot, but what he does is he actually does really well and he knows his character of being the big and movable guy who can throw people around really well.
00:43:18
Speaker
It's not exactly the most complicated thing in the world, but he does that. I quite, DDP is, in ring form, which is not quite up there yet, because obviously he's got a lot more years of practice and performance into it. But he really does the heal, especially the cowardly heal, very well in this match. He has his character down already, like immediately, yeah.
00:43:41
Speaker
Basically, he's ready to go. Yeah, exactly. It's half of the DDP performance, as the heal anyways, that you expect. Just wanting to get the full package would be even better. I also like that, just like the previous match, it was a double team or a tag team move that did it. I like that they're building, that tag team moves are winning the matches and not just single wrestler moves that don't really build the story. Yeah.
00:44:07
Speaker
Okay. We saw different matches because this is amazing. It's team cosplay. Like you have the most human version of a Goron and some Japanese robot fighting two humans. True. Yeah. I enjoyed a lot of the athleticism. Thunder Liger Hasmir was impressive. I mean, just the physicality of the character. No, sure. The, you called it an elevated surfboard.
00:44:34
Speaker
Yeah, where he kind of like wraps Graham up and lifts him above his head with a...
00:44:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Liger does that. And I'm wondering the whole time, I'm like, why isn't the ref counting him? Because his shoulders are down while he's doing this submission. We're doing this little table press or whatever it is. And like his shoulders are down. I remember, you know, other matches where the guy that was doing the submission hold got counted out. And I was just curious why this one specific move wasn't part of those same rules. Cause they knew he wasn't supposed to lose via pinfall. Yeah, probably.
00:45:06
Speaker
You know, but like a lot of great teamwork for, is this the first time they've ever paired up? I would imagine so. To my knowledge, this is the first time, yes.
00:45:15
Speaker
Yeah, they did a great job with throwing two people from the ropes, having them collide together, and having another duo finisher. It reminds me of... Honestly, it's like a Chrono Trigger multi-attack for those things, where if you just happen to do the right two super moves, then they have some sort of finisher. That's what I got from this. This is totally some RPG stuff. So I enjoyed it.
00:45:41
Speaker
to say the least. Just to be clear, I did like the match. My point was that I thought it was going to be really bad because Bill Kazmaier is someone that's not talked about highly. So seeing the actual match surprised me because it was so good. Okay. I just didn't think you had the level of excitement that was needed.
00:46:00
Speaker
Yeah, this was the best match so far tonight from a technical standpoint by far. Graham has slowed down a bit since we last saw him, but he clearly knows what he's doing in there. And Liger has a billion and one awesome moves to pull off. They do seem to have a miscommunication or two starting out, but they quickly get used to working with each other and they have a number of really nice exchanges. The one complaint I think is I could sometimes see Graham getting ready for the next spot, like prepping to make sure his hold is right or to let Liger flip over him.
00:46:29
Speaker
in a way that's a little bit more obvious than normal. I think it's just a matter of, you know, being out of practice or having slowed down a bit with this being later in his career. He was still, I think, a very good choice among those that they had to go up against Liker. At Starrcade 84, I remember he had a lot of pretty good mat wrestling technique and everything during that match too.
00:46:51
Speaker
Kazmaier was used really well and looked really strong. I loved him just carrying people around as they tried to put holds on him and he had some really good power moves. And that bit when DDP is first in there where he's just like trying to even move him and Kazmaier just standing there is great. DDP didn't look anywhere near as green as I thought he would. In part, like you were saying now, I think he just already has a really really strong character. He's got great posture too. Here's the yoga.
00:47:18
Speaker
And it covers that he only really does some very basic moves during the match. He just has enough persona to kind of cover all of that. Even this early, he played a really good part in the match, and it's easy to see why he became a big star later on. So yeah, this was a very, very fun match. So as you noted, Graham was not a regular wrestler at this point, so he mostly was a trainer and a road agent.
00:47:46
Speaker
He did work in the power plant, helped train a lot of people. Yeah. On the latest note, DDP, basically he was told that they're going to be a wrestler, but they weren't really going to highlight him because they didn't think he had that sort of magic thing that you need to have. So for his part, he kept managing people. He formed his own stable in 92 with Scotty Fumingo and Vinny Vegas.
00:48:10
Speaker
Basically, every free time he had, he went to the power plant or the equivalent of that at the time and trained to be the best person you could. DDP is a fascinating case to me, I think, as we'll look through his career, that guy's a story and dedication, I think. Absolutely. That he starts out late and resolves to, you know, I'm going to work and work and work and work and work until I get to a level that they want to use me.
00:48:38
Speaker
reliably and, you know, on the upper tiers. And we will see him doing things in various ways over the years. And finally, I think it's like mid-96 that we'll actually see DDP come into his own. But yeah, it's fascinating to me to see how good DDP is at his character right from the start. Double Dragon Page is pretty sweet. Except for he doesn't have a partner yet that's exactly like him.
00:49:08
Speaker
If he had only paired with Liger, he would have some sort of transformation. They have some more hair value, for sure. Yes. Yes, they do. Baseball has the World Series. Football has the Super Bowl. Professional Wrestling has Super Bowl. World Championship Wrestling presents an event of such magnitude
00:49:52
Speaker
We get a quick Super Brawl ad that notes that it's WCW's version of the Super Bowl or the World Series.
00:50:00
Speaker
It's nowhere near as awesome as last year's Russell Warad, unfortunately. It's interesting how they build Super Brawl up, though, that it definitely seems like an argument against WCW thinking of Starrcade as its biggest show at this point. They're selling Super Brawl like the biggest event of the year, not Starrcade. Meanwhile, Starrcade is getting a random bunch of tag matches with no particular storyline attached.
00:50:25
Speaker
Yeah, one thing I was thinking about too, Superball is the only series, to my knowledge, that is simply numbered. Right, yeah, all of them get, all the other ones get like, Starrcade 89, Starrcade 90, Superball gets Superball 1, 2, 3, yeah, which is how they do WrestleMania. Yes, it's really only until the very last one they sort of break that numbering trend. Yes, yeah, Revenge is apparently a number. Yeah. Well, it's after 11.
00:50:54
Speaker
I think they were going after something that was like, they clearly drew the line with Super Bowl, so they're going to have to use some sort of naming convention that uses the number. This is the second year that I want to see whatever they're advertising.
00:51:12
Speaker
They've got a bad habit of that with you, don't they, John? Well, either the commercials are too good or you just need to up what they're doing in Starrcade. Yeah, they need to stop advertising shows that look more interesting than what's going on in the middle of a show.
00:51:29
Speaker
I would like to see a very literal usage of the Super Bowl concept that they're saying, which is the Super Bowl and the World Series together. So like, you know, people wearing full pads, batting, or, you know, people wearing full pads and charging towards the bases. Yeah. I want like a full combination of those two things together. Yeah, yeah, that sounds good. Oh, and it's going to be taking place on Leap Day 1992 as well. It's Lethal Leap Year. Yeah, there you go. All pins have to be done from the turnbuckle.
00:52:00
Speaker
What I would love to see, though, is if they're gonna put these great ads in there, they need to have a match right after that ad that will determine some outcome in that Super Brawl. That's a great idea, yeah. If you did it as like, you know, watch Super Brawl coming up and then you use that, you reinforce that by saying, and here's a match that's determining who's in this and this at Super Brawl. That's a terrific concept, yeah. See, John, if you had worked for WCW, they would still be around. They would not listen to me.
00:52:30
Speaker
I will say one thing in Superball as well, if it is on Leap Day, and this is WWE, we know they love hiring celebrities, they should have had Scott Bakula as a guest ref. Yes. Yes, they should have. I'm in favor of more Scott Bakula on any show, basically. Oh, yeah. I don't know if that's enterprising. We get to our next draw. Eric looks way too excited on this one, honestly.
00:52:55
Speaker
Our next match is The Total Package Lex Luger with Harley Race and Double A Arn Anderson versus Terrence Taylor and The Z-Man. As the drawing completes and we go to the entrance ramp, we hear someone, I'm thinking it was probably Missy Hyatt, saying, I can run now, right?
00:53:18
Speaker
Well, we know it's not the guest commissioner because he didn't get to talk the entire show. No, it's just a guest. He just sort of smiles and has a mustache. I think he says one word at one point, but not on the microphone. They should give him the final word like the David Gordon Solio. Well, cut away.
00:53:38
Speaker
Lex Luger is currently World Heavyweight Champion, and turned heel to win the title, and gained the aid of former champion Harley Race, so he's now using Harley Race's pile driver as his finisher, rather than the torture rack that we still have not actually seen successfully used once. When you know Luger's a heel because he has not only Harley Race, he also has Mr. Hughes, so he has two managers. He's doubly evil.
00:54:03
Speaker
And of course, Terrence Taylor, as we mentioned last time, has turned heel since the last show. He's formerly Terry Taylor. He's now Terrence Taylor and has been part of the York Foundation as the Taylor Maid Man.
00:54:15
Speaker
Now the thing with him is apparently the last few months they're teasing a face turn. Like he doesn't like working with the York Foundation, but he also doesn't quit the York Foundation. Yeah. So that affects his match in a lot of ways because he's, I think the crowd is not sure he's a good guy or a bad guy. And they definitely play with that during the match.
Teamwork and Storylines
00:54:32
Speaker
Yeah. The announcers mention that a lot. Yeah. Taylor on the ramp looks back to see Z-Man coming out and gets a great almost pained expression on his face. Kind of a, oh no, not that guy.
00:54:45
Speaker
Taylor and Z-Man yell at each other as Race discusses strategy with Anderson. Luger has banana yellow tights tonight. They really need like a logo or something to work better.
00:54:57
Speaker
Anderson and Z-Man start off as Anderson just slugs Taylor right off the bat and rolls out of the ring on a Z-Man whip. Anderson congratulates himself, but Taylor taps him on the shoulder and slugs him in the face and rolls him back in. Z-Man and Taylor pinball him back and forth with punches. Luger saves and everyone brawls with Anderson and Luger retreating. Tag to Luger and Z-Man and Taylor trade off fighting well against the World Heavyweight Champion.
00:55:22
Speaker
Knocked out of the ring, Taylor comes back in with a sunset flip, and Luger repeatedly shuffles back and tries to punch free, only for Taylor to keep trying to bring him down. Luger makes it all the way across the ring, shuffling backwards slowly, and finally falls but tags Anderson. Pretty hilarious spot there. Yeah, he learned how to stay upright to avoid a sunset flip by teaming with our Anderson. Yes, yes. He is the master of that. Yes. The famous aloha iron spot. Wave your arms to keep your body straight upright.
00:55:53
Speaker
Tony says that Taylor's refusal to give up was like a bone in his cap JRS if Tony means a feather, but Tony says no a bone as in bonehead Kind of reaching a bit for that one, but I'll give it to him Yeah, all I can think of in that description is the cliche caveman like the caveman wife with the bone through her hair Which is not the comparison I think you're going for I hope
00:56:21
Speaker
Anderson gets in some hits, but Taylor and Z-Man trade off to take control again and get a few pin attempts with surprisingly good teamwork, until Harley Race trips Z-Man and Anderson hits a nice DDT for two as Taylor saves. Anderson and Luger wear Z-Man down, including a massive screaming suplex by Luger and some classic Anderson tag work to prevent Z-Man from getting away even if he gets a hit in. Anderson eventually gets kicked in the face trying a second rope move.
00:56:47
Speaker
Tony says we don't often see our try high risk maneuvers, and that's probably why.
00:56:52
Speaker
Z-Man gets the tag to Taylor, and Taylor fights off both Anderson and Luger as JR and Tony note that he's fighting well without York, and he seems to have something to prove. Taylor even gets a gut-wrench powerbomb on Luger. It looked a bit worrisome, but they made it work. And that gets two. Anderson and Luger stun him, and get a bit muddled trying a double suplex. But Z-Man saves. Ref Nick Patrick is distracted getting Z-Man to leave, and misses a Taylor roll-up.
00:57:18
Speaker
I'm sure it's not as mistaken as part, to be fair. Oh, definitely, yeah. I mean, it's Fitzpatrick. He hits a ref where you can trust. Yeah, he's the perfect ref. Absolutely. Taylor tries for the 5-arm on Luger, but Anderson hits him from behind, and Luger nails the Attitude Adjustment Pile Driver for the win.
00:57:39
Speaker
Oh, I seriously wonder if anyone like when they were naming Cena's move knew that that was Lucre's old move. Is he secretly a Lex Luger fan, you think? I could see that. He's very loud in the ring, apparently. Yes, that's true.
00:57:56
Speaker
My main note for the match is Luger makes everyone look good. I mean, the story of the match is that Luger has to be both strong and vulnerable. He has to be strong as a real champion, but also he has to make it believable that Terrence Taylor and Z-Man are able to knock around and that he really needs to escape. It's a tricky balance to play being both strong and weak as a heal. And a lot of people try and they do not get it well.
00:58:24
Speaker
The match itself was fine, my only issue was I don't... I go back to the issue with Terrence Taylor again, which is that I don't think his character works super great, especially at this point, his character's kind of muddled. So I don't know, I didn't find himself as invested as I think I needed to be for this match. It's the kind of thing with Z-Man, he's... Zinko's a good wrestler, but he was never a great wrestler, and he was never a great character guy. He falls in that middle ground where you're like, you're fine, but adequate.
00:58:51
Speaker
So when he's with somebody that's really good, like I'm sure him and Arne is probably really good, like just in singles matches, but he needs that balance. I don't think he, I love it like Luger, I don't think he quite gets enough of that in this match, so matches just not as good as I'd hoped would be, given the caliber on one side of the ring because of the issues, talent aside on the other side. Okay. Okay, I, where to start?
00:59:19
Speaker
It's good to see Arne. Luger, you're right. I think he does play a critical role in this match where he is running all over Z-Man or he's begging for a tag. He sets up all the transitions for all the tags just about, I think.
00:59:41
Speaker
Z-Man has some miraculous moves occasionally. I don't think they should. The outcomes don't match the effort he's putting in. I'm not trying to downsell him, but he wins the night for Luger selling Luger. There's one punch where he hits him in the face and he turns towards the camera and his face is all contorted and he's going... And I was like, okay, at least he's teaching him.
01:00:13
Speaker
It was an okay match, didn't have any robots or Gorons in it. I still enjoyed it, and I think Luger really kinda made the match work. Wow, yeah, you guys are reacting to this one quite a bit differently than I am. I think it may just be my unending love for Arne Anderson, but... This was a good one for me. Anderson and Luger did a pretty good approximation of the old Anderson tag work. It's not quite as smooth as normal, but it was still good.
01:00:41
Speaker
Arne seems to work in smoothly as a team with just about anybody. He knows tag wrestling really well, so he can just plan out or do interesting spots with whatever partner he wants. And his tag matches just make sense overall. Z-Man and Taylor provided good athletic foils. Like you said, their character isn't really strong, but they both are more than capable of good moves in the ring. And both teams gave this a pretty hard-fought feel.
01:01:06
Speaker
Taylor in particular looked really good, and he had a strong performance against the current world champion. If they wanted, I thought they could use this match to give Taylor a really good push. It didn't feel like this devalued Luger at all, though. He got to look powerful, even hurling Taylor off of him on a pin at one point, and his massive screaming suplex was hilarious. There's a few awkward spots here and there, but this was a solid and very enjoyable match for me. Tony calls this the best match that they've seen tonight, and I really don't disagree.
01:01:37
Speaker
yes at the moment don't doubt the quality of the matter and i don't play that just i didn't connect as much as the story as far as the tailor and seem inside of it so i didn't as invested as i'd like to be
01:01:50
Speaker
Yeah, I do recognize Arnez as doing a good performance. There was some, some of the spots where like he would got the wind knocked out of him and he just pulled himself along the ropes, you know, because his arms working, I guess, and his legs weren't. And he was able to do a tag, you know? So I guess he didn't stand out to me as much because he, he was just a smart wrestler and everyone else I'm just paying more attention to because it's outside of their box.
01:02:18
Speaker
Actually, I think I thought of one of my reasons why maybe I don't like this match as you do. Does he do the spine buster on this match? I don't believe so. That's why. That's an extra point right there, because it always looks amazing. Yes. So I highlighted the story they were pushing that Terrence Taylor was going to come to face and break away with New York Foundation's solo run. That never happened. Aww. He hung around for a while doing this, and they put him in a tag team with Greg Valentine.
01:02:46
Speaker
Okay. Which is not a bad thing at all. The whole story is just kind of abandoned, basically. That's too bad because, like I said, they did a really good job, I thought, of building to a face turn here. They could have used this very effectively. As far as Z-Man goes, between this and the previous show and this, we've basically seen the full apex of his career trajectory. Not to be negative, but it's as far as actual results we have. Yeah.
01:03:12
Speaker
In the build-up to this show, the World 6-Man titles have been re-established, and it's him and two other people, I forget who it is. Big Josh and Dustin River, or something like that, I make it the wrong exact number. But, just like November, so about a month before this show, they decide, eh, we don't need these World 6-Man titles anymore, and just get rid of them. Aw. He didn't get any bigger than what we've seen before.
01:03:37
Speaker
JR and Tony go over the people that have qualified so far and talk about the potential of getting Rick vs. Scott Steiner tonight. We go back to Eric and company, and Missy Hyatt says whatever name she just drew is great.
01:03:53
Speaker
Eric I think says, oh I'm gonna hold on to this one for a moment. It's just like it's a weird bit. Is it like a picture of the person? I don't know. Assuming that the first name I'm gonna list is the one they saw, I agree that it's great because the first person that they announce is Ricky the Dragon Steamboat. He'll be teaming with Todd Champion versus Cactus Jack and Sergeant Buddy Lee Parker. Parker starts to stand up before his name is called actually.
01:04:20
Speaker
Well, there's only 16 other people it could have been, you know. He was pretty sure it was gonna be him, yeah. Hey, they always stand in attention. That's true, yeah. True, true, true. Abdullah the Butcher takes offense not being Cactus Jack's partner, and he beats the ever-loving heck out of Parker in the locker room, ramming him into lockers and smashing him with chairs and a broom. Jack celebrates as he sees Abdullah coming down the ramp with some kind of feathered stick, but all the refs run down to tell Abdullah to go back to the locker room he's not Cactus Jack's partner. He looks heartbroken, poor guy.
01:04:50
Speaker
What is my question? Dr. Jack, he heard who his partner was announced as, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, he's announced over the loudspeaker. Yeah. He should clearly be aware that Abdullah the Butcher is not Sergeant Buddy Lee Parker. But I guess it's easy to confuse him. Yeah. Jack goes into the match without a partner.
01:05:09
Speaker
Poor buddy Lee Parker is coming out on the ramp just as Abdullah is being sent back to the locker room, so Abdullah beats the heck out of him with a stick, knocks him off the ramp to the floor, and finally goes backstage leaving the corpse of Parker lying. The Cactus and Abdullah thing, they were strong heals, they were used by Lex Luger to try and take out Sting because Luger sees Sting as a challenger, so they were brought in essentially hit men to take him out.
01:05:36
Speaker
Jack trades blows with Steamboat and rakes his eyes to get control. Choking Steamboat on the ropes, Jack makes really disturbing noises like a distressed pig. It's pretty creepy. Yep. Steamboat fights back, and Jack throws him over the top rope, but Steamboat skins the cat. No offense to Steamboat, but it's a little less amazing to see him do that than Bill Kazmaier. And Jack sends himself out of the ring on a misclosed line. Steamboat dives through the ropes to tackle him down, and smashes him into the railing.
01:06:03
Speaker
Back in, Steamboat lands some nice kicks and tags Todd Champion. Champion uses some more basic wrestling to keep control, but hits a really nice leg drop, good elevation there. The fans chant for Parker as he crawls down the ramp. Jack gets free of a bear hug blessedly fast by raking Champion's eyes and throws him out, then climbs up to the second rope and hits an elbow drop all the way to the floor. These sorts of things are why Mick Foley does not walk too well these days. That is true.
01:06:32
Speaker
They keep fighting as Parker crawls through the empty first ring and finally makes it to his corner. Champion tags Steamboat, but Jack tags Parker, then throws him into the ring. Steamboat power slams Parker and climbs up top. The crowd chants for Parker as he fights to his feet, only for Steamboat to hit a crossbody for the pin.
01:06:54
Speaker
So this one is an interesting one because it's very strong on story. Obviously the buddy of the parker thing is kind of amusing because he has the fortunate timing of not only being attacked twice, but also having their match conveniently be in the farthest ring or ring two. Yes. So you can't even just crawl to the first ring, you gotta crawl through the second ring to get there. Yes.
01:07:14
Speaker
So taking into account that this is essentially a handicap match with Cactus Jack, it's actually still pretty fun. Todd Champion is certainly not going to win in Wrestling Observer of the Year awards, but kind of like with Tom Zink kind of thing. He's okay. He has a generally good look. He just doesn't have anything super special about him. But his drop is really good. He has a couple of slams that are good. Having him there is not a detriment. It's not Van Hammer, for instance. He's the litmus test. You're either Van Hammer or you're above that, basically.
01:07:44
Speaker
I liked the Steamboat as Jack interaction. I've never seen Steamboat do a middle rope dive like that. Yeah, that was surprising. That's what Seth Rollins does all the time. I'm used to that, which might be where he gets that from. I don't know. And the camera angle was good for that too. Like you just didn't expect it to happen.
01:08:03
Speaker
I also like that Cactus Jack did his second elbow as opposed to doing a second rope sunset flip he started doing later. Which is even he agrees is the worst thing he's ever made. And at least he hit the elbow this time rather than his usual method of the guy dodging and him landing on the concrete like knees first. Or being shoved off against the barricade as well.
01:08:26
Speaker
I find it funny, too, that he flips Parker into the ring. I know this is not how it works, but I like to think that that's his normal attacking strategy. He does that with dual the butcher. There's a picture in the visual of that. That would be hilarious. Terrifying, obviously. That would be hilarious. But I like that it builds up to the silly thing of this guy crawling in the ring, and then the thing you expect to happen happens. But it definitely catches Jack's match, taking another away from Steamboat, who formed really solidly, and Todd Champion also formed pretty well.
01:08:56
Speaker
Just going to take a second to talk about Mick Foley. He is a wrestler that I actually know a bit about. I was interested in his stint in Japan where he did nothing but crazy barbed wire in flaming things. Oh yeah. It was nice to see him against Green Pants, Guile, and Steamboat, Shatterstar.
01:09:21
Speaker
Until he did the signature bang bang or whatever, you know, like where he's pretending to do that. I still don't know what persona does what because he's sometimes towards the end of his career, he just starts blending them all. Probably legitimately given the amount of head injuries he's received. Yeah. Incidentally, neither one must mention the fact that they referred to as bang bang as a double bang commentary, which is like, no, don't ever say that again. Yeah.
01:09:46
Speaker
But no, Steamboat initially, I thought he looked a little bit overselling and less coordinated, but as the match went on, I guess he warmed up a little bit and was still able to do some of the finesse that I associate with him. That dive through the middle was executed perfectly. If not, it could have been a little bit better if they did a different camera angle, but it was a nice surprise.
01:10:09
Speaker
I was expecting a different ending. I was hoping that, like, for some reason, you know, he'd get himself up and win, you know, just because everyone's cheering for him and everything. I didn't think he was supposed to be a joke character or, you know. Yeah, I mean, I will say it would have been a good surprise if, like, Todd Champion was in there and he, like, tried to pick him up and got rolled up. That would be pretty fun. I'll give him that. Yeah, the Horowitz wins type of thing. Yeah.
01:10:33
Speaker
I don't know if he's not a respected character or a wrestler or what, but you know. He's not a major character in WSW at this point in time. He's really here to fill out because he had to have 40 people in the matches. I thought they just had to have one military-themed person on each team. Point. It was a nice finish. Steamboat finish is always good. I'm just disappointed he didn't run around the whole ring and do some more aerobatic stuff. I mean, what he did was great, but it's not what I was expecting.
01:11:03
Speaker
Yeah. For me, this was more of an angle than a match, but it was pretty fun. Cactus Jack is a good choice for this. He's a crazy enough character to fight on his own. He had a talented enough performer to make the match interesting. Steamboat got to show off some nice moves, but this definitely wasn't enough Steamboat content for me. Uh, like you, John. I didn't get to see much of Champion, but what we got here was basic but decent. Spectacular leg drop, though.
01:11:27
Speaker
The Parker angle was very funny and the crowd clearly got it on the gag pretty fast. I do have one complaint and that's that I think it would have fit Steamboat's character better to just not tag out until Jack actually had a partner rather than take a number's advantage. It feels a little weird for kind of the very honorable hero Steamboat to be like, yeah, I'll totally go to on one. You know?
01:11:53
Speaker
But it's a minor complaint, and it wouldn't have fit the storyline that they were going for here. Still, I would really like to see Steamboat versus Cactus Jack as a singles match. I think that could be really fun. It didn't get as crazy as I thought it would. Yeah. It was cool, good. We did get weird pig squealing, so there's that. Yeah, well, that's just, that's just, uh, it's like his calling card. You guys, uh, like he had his, uh, tight with the, uh, cactus on the side of a nice. Oh, yeah.
01:12:22
Speaker
Now we'll see his leopard boots as well. I did like the way he headbutted him at first. I don't know if they actually hit hands or anything, but it's totally in character for Cactus Jack to be like, oh, you want to get in? Yes. It was like, buddy.
01:12:42
Speaker
Yeah, I thought both of you would have liked the fact that someone tried doing a bear hug and they got very much punished for it by Hactus Jack. Yes. So you preached the repercussion for that move. Yeah, I was happy that got canceled really, really fast. I was all ready to be really angry at Todd Champion and then I was like, oh no, it's done. Okay, I'm good with it.
01:13:04
Speaker
You know, honestly, I didn't even make note of it because it was done real quick, you know. It's when it takes the two minutes looking longingly into each other's eyes while yelling at each other, it's just not, it doesn't do it for me.
01:13:19
Speaker
Obviously Cactus Jack will do plenty more in WCW and we'll see him for a couple more shows at least in this run.
Sting's Match and Interference Chaos
01:13:26
Speaker
Buddy Parker was not a big star at this point. He basically is used as an enhancement talent or a jobber, which I prefer, in both WCW and Ultrapan for wrestling. So he gets to both sides of the world to kind of get beaten up by everybody else. His bigger contribution is later becoming one of the lead trainers at the power plant.
01:13:47
Speaker
So a lot of people that will be very big later on, such as Goldberg, will go through him. Okay. We go back to JR and Tony, and they note that Abdullah has prevented his buddy Jack from getting to Battle Bowl, and then throw back to Eric and company.
01:14:03
Speaker
Our next match is Sting and Abdullah the Butcher versus Flying Brian Pillman and beautiful Bobby Eaton. Abdullah looks inordinately happy as he basically prances towards the locker room door as his name is called. Cactus Jack comes back in and he seems cool with everything. He didn't want him battle bull anyway. Yeah, yeah. Even he realizes there's no stakes in this show. Yes, yeah.
01:14:28
Speaker
Obviously, as I mentioned before, Sting and Dilla Butcher had some bad moments long had to jack between them. He used his hitman to take him out, and they played a part, anyways, in Sting losing his U.S. title to Rick Roode, and as part of the angle, again, that Luger is afraid of Sting and doesn't want to fight him. Sting sadly has no sparkly jacket tonight, but he does make up for it with awesome America face paint.
01:14:56
Speaker
Abdullah comes down the ramp and gives a big smile and waves at Sting, but he immediately uses his stick to beat the heck out of Sting. There's one guy in the crowd with a Sting is dead sign who's quite happy about that. Jerk. You really didn't like Duna, I guess.
01:15:15
Speaker
Pillman charges down and makes the save, and uses Abdullah's stick against him, but Eton saves Abdullah. So Abdullah and Pillman brawl at ringside as Eton gets Sting into the ring. Sting and Eton go back and forth, but every time that Sting gets the upper hand, Abdullah interferes against his own partner, at one point even jabbing Sting with a pencil stolen from the announcers. Pillman attacks Abdullah whenever Sting needs help, and the announcers compliment him for prioritizing Sting's safety over going to Battle Bull.
01:15:43
Speaker
The camera totally misses Pillman managing to body slam Abdullah. They do at least catch his monster diving body press to Abdullah though. Late in the match, Eaton tries to tag Pillman, but Pillman refuses. Eaton tags Abdullah instead, and Sting is clearly up for that fight, but ref Mike Atkins won't allow it.
01:16:03
Speaker
We get a scary spot, as Sting flips Eaton out of an abdominal stretch into an attempted tombstone pile driver. But Eaton struggles, and Sting loses his balance and falls, nearly dropping Eaton right on his skull. Eaton is thankfully okay, but that looks scary. I THINK that it was supposed to be that Eaton was struggled long enough that Abdullah could get in there and stop the move, but either Abdullah was late or Sting couldn't hold on with Eaton squirming around. But yeah, it looks terrifying.
01:16:32
Speaker
as weird as Abdullah is known for his lightning fast speed. You would have really expected it to be quicker on that.
01:16:50
Speaker
Sting dropkicks Jack, and Jack flees, while Sting climbs up top and lands a crossbody onto Eaton for the pin. The count looked pretty fast. Sting gets the heck out of the ring, sparing a grateful look for Pillman. Jack and Abdulab sprawl at the side of the ramp as security guards try to break them up, and mostly just get beat up themselves. The end of a beautiful friendship.
01:17:13
Speaker
Yeah. So you're saying before the previous match, that it was more an angle than a match. For me, this is that match instead, I would say. Cause I thought there was enough action in the last match sort of cover for that, where this was an often a sort of start and stop thing because of a dual interfering or a Pillman, not one team was a partner. So for me, that took away from the match to a lot of degree that even when they're sort of working together, it's a lot of fighting the outsides. There's a lot of action to getting what it's just fighting before the actual match starts.
01:17:43
Speaker
It says something that this is only an all-right sting performance. Yes. Because the barber sting is pretty high, so when it's not really really good, like with fortunately the last arcade match with him, and Flare with a really ill-fitting mask, it's notable to me when it's not that quality anymore.
01:18:02
Speaker
The whole thing was just kind of really weird booking. I get the ideas that they wanted extra tough odds for Sting, but I feel like they could have done a straight match where it wasn't broken down so much and a dual thing wasn't done so much. For me, it's hard to hold the match structure together because the way it's done. Yeah. It seems that I'm the only one that believes in the purely random nature of this lottery.
01:18:32
Speaker
I look at this match as sort of a continuation of the last one because we have a doula and cactus track in both of them and obviously they don't know who's, they just know they want to be partners. Yes. And I do think this is sort of a teaser for Sting that we see him struggle and we see him succeed, basically do a fair bit of wrestling on the side and the camera angles did not do any
01:19:00
Speaker
Service to them this time, especially when they're doing moves against sub doula But by and large, you know, it was interesting. I Was actually surprised to see cactus show up. So Mm-hmm good outcome And you're done. Yeah, he's out. He's when they're holding his hand. He's literally like running Yeah, take it out of the ring about you
01:19:26
Speaker
This was a really, really weird match. Like you were saying now, like the last one, this is much more of an angle than anything else. The actual match is really basic. Sting and Eaton do some fine work together, but like you guys were saying, they can't get anything particularly complicated going because the plot keeps interrupting them. You know, Dilla will get in there any time anything kind of starts to happen.
01:19:50
Speaker
So the match just doesn't seem to build any kind of momentum. It was interesting as a story, and it was interesting as just a spectacle of this guy's own tag team partner keeps attacking him, you know, but...
01:20:01
Speaker
I did appreciate the focus on Pillman and what he was giving up by helping Sting, but it all fell a little bit flat in the end. This is a case where it would have helped if there was a promo. If Sting cut a promo afterwards thanking Pillman for his help or something like that, I just felt like it needed more resolution to the storyline that they were going for. As it is, I do think it gets across the chaos of the Lethal Lottery.
01:20:26
Speaker
but it would have been stronger if we hadn't had another match with that exact purpose. I would have liked them to pick either this match or the last match to do that, not both. I like the visual that Bool is super happy and friendly as it's coming out for attacking Sting. It reminds me of that old viral video of the lady coming back to Africa after being gone for like 10 years or whatever it is, and the lion she raises the cub runs to meet her.
01:20:53
Speaker
But that one turns out good, just to be clear. Because it's like, they haven't seen it in ten years, and then they line up since they're tugging her. So, I'm picturing that, but obviously taking a dualist, taped, violent turn at the end. I don't know why that reminds me of that, what it does. Yeah, I think he did that part really well.
Wrestler Careers and Match Critiques
01:21:10
Speaker
I was actually fooled briefly when he's coming down there. I'm like, oh, he's just crazy and gonna be friends with Sting, and then he's like, oh no, he's going to brutally assault him. Okay.
01:21:21
Speaker
I hope that Cactus Jack and Abula get over their differences.
01:21:26
Speaker
Pillman, while he didn't get a whole lot through here, then biased him into a mostly in-camera shot, which was generally impressive. His focus is the heavyweight division at this point. Having lost his title to Liger at a house show, he has a rematch coming at the Super Brawl, which as I recall being a really good match. As for Bobby Eaton, he would hang around mostly being a solid guy who could serve their own tag matches or singles matches.
01:21:53
Speaker
But his match, his run rather, would end rather abruptly when he was fired by Bill Watts. Okay. And then we will start to hear many more times as we go on with these shows. Yes. He comes in next year, I think, as the head of WCW for a time, right? Correct. Early in 92, he's brought in, yeah, restructuring everything. Yes. Tony proposes that the next time we hold Battle Ball, we have a mental health test to not let psychotic people in.
01:22:27
Speaker
We go back to Eric and in just about the fakest way possible he says he's glad he wasn't down in the ring for that. He's not particularly believable at this point. He gets better. He's definitely a TV executive at this point. Yes. He's really the sales and marketing guy that they've just stuck on camera. We draw our next names and we get Rick Steiner and The Diamond Stud.
01:22:47
Speaker
That might be a good idea for the company in general.
01:22:54
Speaker
Replaced due to injury by the Nightstalker versus Big Van Vader and Mr. Hughes. So we just went from Scott Hall as the diamond stud to the Nightstalker. That is a big dang downgrade. Mr. Hughes is the former big cat. Yes.
01:23:16
Speaker
Also, Vader comes out with no mask at all, which just feels weird. He is never coming out without a mask. I mean, I know it always ends up falling off midway through matches anyway, but he usually comes out with it at least. Yeah, no mask. It's relatively clean shaven, I believe, as well. Yeah. And he doesn't have his amazing helmet. Mastodon helmet, yeah. I like his hairdo. Vader's? Yeah, it's like a ram jam.
01:23:45
Speaker
He was inspired by Hawk. Yeah, basically. Yep, there you go. Gotta get your road warrior somewhere. Quoth JR, the Nightstalker is no Scott Steiner. Yeah, no kidding. Rick and Vader start, with Rick grinning at him as the crowd barks. Vader just knocks Rick around and lays in the punishment, but Rick counters a charge with a Steiner line to take the big man down, then hits an amazing belly-to-belly suplex.
01:24:14
Speaker
A Steiner line takes Vader outside, and Rick follows with a dive for some brawling. Rick struggles on a more vertical suplex to bring Vader back in, but he guts through it. With Rick exhausted, Vader brings in Hughes to beat Rick up, but Rick fights back and manages a belly-to-belly suplex on Hughes. The announcers point out that Rick doesn't seem sure about tagging Nightstalker, but after Rick and Hughes collide and both go down, Nightstalker tags in on his own.
01:24:41
Speaker
He knocks Hughes down with a top rope clothesline, but Vader sneaks in a tag. Hughes charges Nightstalker, but Nightstalker dodges, and Rick dumps Hughes onto the top turnbuckle. Vader clotheslines Nightstalker down, and Rick, seemingly unaware of either tag, bulldogs Hughes. They aren't the legal men, so ref Nick Patrick won't count. It's a good call by Nick Patrick there, definitely. He's on the ball. He's honorable and accurate, yeah.
01:25:06
Speaker
Vader splashes Nightstalker for the pin. I guess I should note there that Vader splashes Nightstalker and Nightstalker sits up a little bit and darn near gets his neck broken. Yeah. Because he clearly has no idea how to take the splash properly. No. It was terrifying. Yeah, basically he took a slam and like started to get up like he was looking to look and see where Vader was. But Vader's about six inches above his head at that point. Yes. To fall on him.
01:25:35
Speaker
I think Vader put his arms down pretty quick. He did the move in the best way he possibly could to prevent Night's Dog from breaking his neck, but yeah, Vader weighs 400 pounds plus. You do not want to take that on your neck. Yeah, absolutely.
01:25:50
Speaker
it's definitely a tale of two people for me that would be rick steiner and vader first suplex is amazing to watch vader just floats over like it's nothing it's like simply surprised me it's so well second one is obviously a little scarier but it's a testament to the strength and technique of both men that they managed to not horribly mess that up yes poor vader is like halfway up
01:26:16
Speaker
and supporting himself on the ropes to keep him falling out. And Steiner rather has to sort of cut through the rest of the move and cover that as best they can. Yeah, with the second one it's a vertical suplex he's going for. Yes. Which is a lot more like lift over the head. With the first one it's a belly to belly so he can do it faster and he doesn't have to do like the full supporting the entire weight over my head at any point really.
01:26:41
Speaker
It's a quicker cooperative version of that move, which is why it's the easy to do. I definitely appreciated that they kept the nice talker out of the match until the end, because I was really worried that I'd be pulled away from seeing Vader or seeing Steiner and him instead. There's still too much Mr. Hughes, even though there's not a lot of Mr. Hughes. A little Mr. Hughes goes too far for me. He was arguably the worst match on the last show, and it was, what, 80 seconds long?
01:27:10
Speaker
That says something about it. The two scary spots for the suplex and then the splash. I was worried they'd pull me out of it but I liked enough of the match to sort of get around that. I'm glad that Vader got it through because I really do want to see Vader do more. I'm glad to see that.
01:27:26
Speaker
I disagree. I don't, I don't mind Mr. Hughes. The only thing I'm remembering that I thought was funny is like one of the few times I chuckled while watching this was like when they said he fell like a giant redwood. Yes.
01:27:41
Speaker
He does like, you know, this nice little like spin and he just like does have a pirouette and then falls down, which I thought was funny. At least they're having fun with it. Steiner, even more than Vader. I enjoyed watching Steiner during this one. Obviously those were the two big names here. Nightstalker, I don't know his background or anything. Nightstalker's little character is that he came up with an axe, which he didn't actually swing anybody like an axe. She did a career ending. Yeah.
01:28:09
Speaker
He reminds me of El Gagante in some ways. He is a giant character. He's a little bit slow, lumbering, can get some things done. I didn't expect much from him and frankly I was just more interested in Steiner throwing people around. But I don't hate him. I don't hate him.
01:28:31
Speaker
Yeah, while this was Rick Steiner versus Vader, it was really good. Yes. Vader's big heavy blows look amazingly real, I'm guessing because they probably mostly are. And Rick's ability to just fling a guy that huge around was absolutely incredible. Yeah, the one suplex looked a little dicey, but the rest of his moves this match were great. Rick versus Hughes was a little bit less fascinatingly brutal, but it was still fine. Hughes put on a pretty decent show tonight overall. No, yeah, it wasn't terrible.
01:28:59
Speaker
The ending was perhaps a bit overcomplicated. I'm not sure why we needed Rick to not realize that he and Hughes weren't legal as an added bit, but it worked alright, I guess, aside from Nightstalker nearly getting his full neck broken. Nightstalker was barely present, but what I saw of him was not really promising. Overall, a really nice showcase for Rick, Steiner, and Vader, but really short.
01:29:23
Speaker
It does make you wonder how different it would have been with Diamond's stud in there instead. Would they have done the same outline or would stud have been involved more than Nightstalker? I would figure he'd probably be involved more than that. But obviously, it's hard to say for sure.
01:29:37
Speaker
So in the upcoming months, there's a main story going on and a backstage story going on. The main story is that they're using Scotch Diner more in singles matches on Saturday night. They started the story where if you win three matches in a row on the Saturday night, you would win a purse of like $20,000 or something. It's a neat idea honestly, obviously not that remembered.
01:30:03
Speaker
Someone back to decide Scott Steiner is a more marketable person, so they constantly trying to pull them apart. The brothers did not agree, and when basically presented with that, they decided to leave. And certainly the man who decided they should be split was Bill Watts. See, I told you so. The Night Stalker, AKA Brian Clark, would leave WSW and wrestle elsewhere. It returned to Kiliman, California, I mean wrestle in WSW years later.
01:30:34
Speaker
See, Richard Ramirez joke, which I can't believe that made on the wrestling podcast, but there you go. I mean, I had to go for as long as he has to use it. Yeah. Yeah. Would have gone for Colchack, man. We have another wonderful commercial coming up brought to you by Super Brawl 2. Yes, true. And we, again, I think all were kind of wishing that we were watching that show.
01:30:59
Speaker
two. JR and Tony talk up that event. Then we go back to Eric and company. Our next match is Scott Steiner and Firebreaker Chip. I love that name. Versus Johnny B. Bad and Arachna Man. And oh man, do we ever have some things to discuss here. Oh yeah, okay. So first up, Johnny B. Bad.
01:31:24
Speaker
This is one of those gimmicks that just really wasn't a good idea. Let's just get this out of the way, okay? I know that the idea here is that he's imitating a specific performer, in this case Little Richard, but this is still very much a white guy, Mark Marrow, effectively dressing up as a black guy. This goes on for multiple years and it's kind of amazing that during that time nobody said, you know, this probably isn't a good idea.
01:31:50
Speaker
there had to be something else they could've done with Mark Mero. He's actually a pretty talented in-ring performer, but yeah. Yeah, no, it is. It's a, the level of, of basically blackface they do does vary by show. Early on, it's way more than it is here. Yeah. It sort of evolves into slightly, slightly more tame than he would normally do. But yeah, the implication that it's still, he's just like, look, little Richard, who is definitely not the same ethnicity he is. Yeah.
01:32:20
Speaker
So, not the best idea, you know, I think I'm just gonna leave it there. I never made the connection, but you should never portray such things. Yeah. I will say one other thing on Johnny B. Bad, which is that it's a pun on Johnny B. Good, which is not a song by Little Richard. Point. Now, a rachna man. Where do you begin with a rachna man?
01:32:46
Speaker
So this is a bad idea for all different reasons. Chief among them, how in the world did WCW think that they could get away with this just by changing the colors of the Spider-Man outfit?
01:32:59
Speaker
Brad Armstrong was put under a mask earlier in 1991 as Fantasia. Al, I think we said that that was Little Richard Marley's original name last year, but I think it was Armstrong instead. Correct. Yeah, we got mixed up. Yeah. Or Bad. Yeah. The character was renamed Bad Street to avoid trouble with Disney. So given that they just had to change a character to avoid legal action by Disney, how weird is it that they immediately made another copyright infringing gimmick for the same guy?
01:33:28
Speaker
Yeah. Poor Brad Armstrong. That's like, wow. Mm-hmm. What I feel is often overlooked is this gimmick briefly before either one of those, which is where he's a friendly guy throwing out candy to children called the Candy Man.
01:33:42
Speaker
which clears maybe for the Tony Todd horror movie. So he's actually just the Candyman from Waliwaka. Which again, I feel like they must have been sued over. Yeah. This poor guy keeps getting stuck with this stuff. He still has at least one more. Yeah. And also that mask looks horrible.
01:34:00
Speaker
Yeah. You're already copying the character, so at least get the mask right. If I worked for Marvel, I'd sue over how badly they copied Spider-Man, rather than just for copying himself. No, yeah. They're going from red and blue to neon green and purple. It's horrible. And they put the spider on top of his head. Yes. Rather than on the front of his outfit.
01:34:20
Speaker
Yes. Again, to avoid copyright, I actually thought it was the drawstrings for like the... I think it might be, yeah. But when you see them above, you see it's a full spider with the head and the body and the legs going over.
01:34:33
Speaker
It might be a function of something else too, but it's designed to be a spider logo on his head, not his chest. It's so bad. So, so bad. It really looks like you just, like, bought a Spider-Man costume at a Halloween store and repainted it, but then lost the mask and, like, made your own going-off-of-no-picture references whatsoever. It was like, eh, good enough.
01:34:58
Speaker
Are you implying that WSW would buy a Halloween mask and spray paint a different color and go to somebody else? Yes! They've only done that twice before.
01:35:08
Speaker
Oh my gosh, yeah. Oh, and Arachne Man is, of course, from Web City. Because, of course, he is. This is the stuff that comes up that I honestly like. This is so bad, but these are the moments that I really love WCW, where it's just like this absolute comedy of errors of making this character work.
01:35:32
Speaker
You're like, you're doing a copyrighted gimmick on a guy you've already done at least one, maybe two, arguably copyrighted gimmicks on, and you're also doing it in the worst possible way with the most horrible colors you could possibly imagine. It's... Oh! It takes real talent to be this bad at your job. Oh, yeah.
01:35:57
Speaker
And it's all because, apparently, Brett Armstrong was a very talented wrestler, but like Terry Taylor and other people, just didn't have a certain extra oomph that you needed, and especially going into the 90s when Sting is so prevalent and Luger is so vibrant, he's bigger than my personalities coming in.
01:36:16
Speaker
and they decided he wasn't good enough just being really talented but not that exciting. I just don't get why they couldn't just leave him as vaguely resembling Magnum TA like you did last time we saw him. No, yeah. That seemed to be working for him. I guess they like, you know, comic books. Because he got like a pseudo iron fist in this one too. I mean, I guess one of the outfits I think it looks like him.
01:36:46
Speaker
No, I can see that, yeah. Yeah. Now we have an actual match to discuss, too. Yeah, I know, I know. I thought we just did. I know, felt like it, right? JR, for some reason, says that we're going to see more continuity than in any match we've seen tonight. I guess maybe because it's four faces, so there won't be disagreements from that standpoint. I'm not sure what he means, really. That's certainly his point, yeah. He also compliments WCW's marketing, since lots of fans are wearing Starrcade shirts.
01:37:14
Speaker
Tony says that Bad has to be considered a top contender to Jushin Liger's light heavyweight title, and adds that the same could be said of a racking man. No, Tony, no, but it's nice of you to try. Yeah. Bad and Chip.
01:37:29
Speaker
have a quick exchange and challenge each other to box, but ref Randy Anderson warns them to keep their fists open. Chip asks the crowd if they want to see a fight, so Bad sucker punches him in the gut and batters him around the ring. JR tries calling Bad's elbow drop a power drive elbow like Muta's, but is nowhere near as awesome as that.
01:37:47
Speaker
Chip finally counters a bad whip with a spring off the turnbuckle into a crossbody for two, and we get tags to Arachnaman and Scott. I have a feeling that this isn't going to go like Spider-Man vs. Bonesaw. No, it is not.
01:38:02
Speaker
Scott hits power move after power move on Arachnoman, and easily counters his speed, finally sending him over the top rope with a Steiner line. Bad does a little better, hitting a few punches before Scott nails the double-leg takedown that JR points out his poor spinebuster, and runs Bad chest-first into the top turnbuckle. Tony says, uh, he's not just a bad man, he's a hurting badly man. JR kind of pauses for a moment, then finally says, is that like a bone in his cap?
01:38:34
Speaker
Or like a feather in his head, Tony replies. What does that even mean? Also, that is an actual thing people do. Put feathers in your hair. Yeah. So... I think Tony is reaching a little bit tonight at points.
01:38:51
Speaker
Back to Chip, and things get more even until a strange spot where Chip just kind of holds on to Bag's legs as the ref counts, forcing him to let go. A ractive man starts using his speed to stay ahead of Chip and dodges a charge to send Chip over the turnbuckle into the ring post of the other ring. Pretty cool spot there. Chip redeems himself with a cool slide under the bottom rope into a pin attempt for two. A later Boston crab leads to a few smooth pin attempt exchanges.
01:39:16
Speaker
Odd bit is Bad tags in just to grab a chinlock, but we go right back to arachnoman. Crisscross but Chip tags Scott and Scott nails the Steiner line and a tilt whirl slam before Bad runs in and gets slammed too. Chip fights off Bad and arachnoman kicks Scott on a Frankensteiner attempt, but gets caught coming off the top rope. Scott hits a massive overhead belly-to-belly suplex for the pin.
01:39:40
Speaker
So if you can get past all the silly outfits in Gimmick, and quite frankly all of the neon in this match, there is lots of it. As much as I love Scott Steiner, his outfits at this point are very neon. If you can get past that, there is some good action here. They've been trying to push this story. They mentioned a little in commentary that Genevieve Badminton first came in, had a manager, sold us he was a bad guy.
01:40:03
Speaker
But he broke away from that and started going more to his boxing, which is a legitimate thing Mark Merritt actually did. He was a Golden Globe boxer, I believe. Right, yeah. So he's putting that into his character, which thankfully gets away, a little away from the stuff like 2D Fruity and other stuff that is just weird for so many reasons. Problem is, for me, is that Fireburger Chip is definitely the weak lake and the Stars and Stripes tag team of Todd Champion. And Todd Champion is obviously not the highest bar to compare against, so that's not great for him.
01:40:32
Speaker
He doesn't really mess up a move other than almost faceplanting himself on that middle-y good set-up cross-body he does. He definitely over-shoots it a little bit and almost smacks his face on the ring, which I think even Dara mentions that he'll hurt himself more as well.
01:40:49
Speaker
Arachne man for his terrible outfit gimmick aside is still bright Armstrong. So his general wrestling board is really good He has the one hiccup where he clearly sees Scott Steiner The last bit of the crisscross and then runs anyways Yeah, the half stops looks at him then runs again and that is surprised when this giant man and neon appears in his path Spider senses didn't work. Do well there. Oh, you mean Arachne senses? No, okay Okay, just just checking
01:41:19
Speaker
I do like Scott doing the belly belly suplex for the win. I kind of thought it would be the side one. That generally looks more like a strong and pack full body slam one. But you get the interesting comparison of Rick Steiner doing that exact same move to Vader early in the show and him doing it to arachnoman, which is kind of funny. Scott drew the easier card tonight, I think. Absolutely, yeah.
01:41:43
Speaker
The magic isn't bad, it's just so much silliness and so much stuff that's just kind of okay, basically when Scott's dying in it. It doesn't quite elevate as much as I would hope. It's good porn for Scott Steiner and other people involved, but it's not as good as it could be. Okay, there's a lot to unpack.
01:42:05
Speaker
I'm going to overlook the fact that they look like an alternate version of the band that does YMCA. Most people. Sans Steiner would have to get some other outfit. I was very surprised at the lack of Steiner in this match. There was a lot of points where they hold a...
01:42:22
Speaker
submission hold for a while or, you know, run and do laps. Can I get your steps in, man? Yeah. I know. I just was not expecting him to stay out. When he came in, you know, there was a little bit of revival in action. I didn't mind. Mero's looked like MMA boxing kind of strikes and everything. They look clean and, you know, I had some energy to the match.
01:42:48
Speaker
Arachnidude was able to pull off some moderate skills here and there, but it all seemed like it was in slow motion or very measured out, which I do not expect that friendly wall climber. You know, it was nice to see Scott finish out the match, but I have this feeling that it could have been done a lot quicker.
01:43:10
Speaker
Yeah, I found this perfectly acceptable, but not really anything more than that. Scott Steiner's clearly the star of the show when he's in the match. He has the most impressive moves, but Chip did have a few creative spots, and while Arachna Man as a character is laughable, Brad Armstrong, the wrestler, is still quite good.
01:43:28
Speaker
He's just hobbled by the gimmick. It focuses his story on high-flying or acrobatics, and Armstrong, when we last saw him, was more of a smooth mat wrestler and counter wrestler. Matt was probably the weakest performer here, but he's actually only about a year into his career, so considering that, he did well enough and his punches looked really good. Not a surprise given his history, as you know, Dadel. Yes.
01:43:50
Speaker
I did know, kind of a surprising amount of rest holds as you were talking about, Jon. Considering this is a tag match, you'd really think they'd just tag out, but... They're coming in kick. Yeah, they use those quite a lot in this match. Things still never slow down for that long, so it ended up decent enough, but yeah, this was pretty disappointing. I think the rest holds are on account of bad and, to a certain extent, chip, even. They're not experienced enough and they need more of a... Okay, what are we doing next? The pause and reset, yeah, exactly.
01:44:20
Speaker
Scott can heal himself really well, and obviously Brad Armstrong's sterile outfit aside is a very common treasure at this point. Yeah, again, I feel like I'd really like to see Scott Steiner versus Brad Armstrong, not Scott Steiner versus Arachne, Scott Steiner versus Brad Armstrong, because I think that could be quite an interesting match between the two of them.
01:44:41
Speaker
yeah what's funny is that they mention arachnid being a strong contender for the lightweight title that didn't happen obviously because the marble got really quick on that one yes the bird i was showing actually is very connected to that division later on yes yeah they were half right as he should be absolutely
01:45:00
Speaker
Johnny Bad, this is the beginning part of the screen, he stays around for a long time. The next year is kind of interesting because they initially start pulling away from the over-the-top Johnny Bad stuff. And they really like what is boxing. So the way they do that is constantly putting them in matches on, clash, the peer reviews, where they're treated like boxing contests. So of course he loses every single one of them. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's a way to build a guy up.
01:45:29
Speaker
And have you noted, Brad Armstrong will thankfully be moved from this gimmick and actually have a pretty nice, um, teams actually perform the light heavyweight title division. You know, things don't, long-term don't work out for it, but short-term it's actually a better form. Are we getting close to the America jacket? I believe so. Ah, yes. That's my favorite Brad Armstrong look. Absolutely. We go back to JR who says that we're down to the final four and it's not even March. I get it.
01:46:00
Speaker
We go back to Eric and company for the final draws. So our final tag match is Ron Simmons and Thomas Rich, another York Foundation member. Correct. Versus Steve Armstrong and P.N. News. Amusingly P.N. News seems rather surprised that he's been drawn, though Tony points out that he's not sure why since P.N. News was literally the last person available to be drawn, and it had to be him next. Yeah, just a little bit clueless there.
01:46:30
Speaker
Tony notes that Tracey Smothers, Steve Armstrong similarly a tired partner, is still backstage dressed to wrestle, and he wonders if he might interfere during the match. JR agrees that it's possible. Just to say as they come out, I kind of like the bearded look for Thomas Rich. It's a little more distinctive than the last time we saw him, I think.
01:46:49
Speaker
My only issue was I think his overall look doesn't feel like the I'm part of this big business group organization thing. True. Yeah. Just feels weird to me. It's a good generic heel look, but it doesn't really look like businessman type of. Yeah. Yeah. Like everyone else had that look down at the top and it's just him. Yeah. Hmm.
01:47:09
Speaker
Simmons and PN News both seem rather disappointed with their partners, and Rich asks Simmons to trust him and looks for a high five. Simmons declines, but agrees to start off for their team. Armstrong ignores Simmons and mugs for the crowd, so Simmons taps him on the shoulder to get his attention, intentionally avoiding actually striking Armstrong there. Good face, he makes sure that he's in the match first, but shows his dissatisfaction.
01:47:34
Speaker
Simmons hits a big military press and dominates, but things get more even after a tag to Rich. They go back and forth, and Armstrong eventually gets advantage and holds Rich on a tag to News, but News makes him let Rich go. Rich vs. News goes about like Graham vs. Kazmaier, with News just throwing Rich around the ring, and the crowd chants for Simmons, so Rich obliges, and then tells the crowd to shut up.
01:47:58
Speaker
Simmons and Noose high five as Tony tells us that they're friends and they've tagged before. Simmons breaks clean in the corner, but Noose hits punches on his turn. They trade charging at each other and big power moves, and Noose tags Armstrong as Rich and Simmons argue over tagging. Rich accepts a tag after Simmons gets Armstrong dazed, and Rich uses his wrist tape to choke Armstrong. But Armstrong reverses and uses the tape to choke Rich instead. Rich flees and tags Simmons, who looks at him in pure disgust.
01:48:28
Speaker
Armstrong attacks while Simmons is arguing, but Simmons just takes him down with a big clothesline. Rich tags back in and he hits fist drops and knee drops to Armstrong, but tries to tag right back out and is denied by Simmons. Armstrong takes back over and runs him into PN News' knee, so Eligante is the only face that has a problem with doing that, I guess.
01:48:48
Speaker
News and Armstrong trade off against Rich. He nearly escapes a few times, including dodging an Armstrong stinger splash, of all things, but tries to get in another hit and loses track of his corner and keeps getting beaten down some more. Armstrong knocks him to the apron and stands on his neck, which brings Simmons and News in to protest. After a lax Armstrong pin, Rich tags Simmons.
01:49:11
Speaker
Simmons kicks Armstrong in the gut, power slams him, and slams news. Armstrong charges, but Simmons hits his awesome spine buster and gets the pin.
01:49:21
Speaker
This is definitely a great showcase for Ron Simmons. It's not a whole lot for everybody else, though, which is kind of a shame. Steve Armstrong definitely has less dawling and more action than his tag partner, which is good. Yes. It's also incidentally weird that the show was bookended by young crystals in tag matches. Point. I did not think of that until just now, which is weird.
01:49:42
Speaker
I feel a little bad for Ron Simmons, because at this point they're heavily pushing him, as they will continue to do for quite a while. I think he has to win this match to add the name value to it. So he basically left with whoever is still there, which is kind of the way it works for him, fortunately. One half of a low-ranking tag team on their way out, and Thomas Rich, who's not the most important former on the show, and PN News has his own issues to deal with.
01:50:11
Speaker
I'm glad that he's there in the sense that he definitely elevates this more than would have been if they'd swapped out, say, Terrence Taylor for him and put him in somewhere else. That'd have been a worse match, but I was kind of hoping for more with Bron Simmons, but it just, he can't do it so much.
01:50:29
Speaker
It was a really interesting match in that it was not interesting to me at all. Nice. Ouch. And well, it was. I mean, like, you know, everyone, everyone had like a few moments in the spotlight and then like, they just, I don't know.
01:50:52
Speaker
This is not the commentary I want to be giving, but I think it is appropriate for this match. I'm giving this level of commentary. I was just not impressed with anything specifically other than this is the first time I've ever seen arm tape used is a throttling or a garat. I will give them that for creativity, but other than that... Was it almost worth it for that spinebuster at the end?
01:51:16
Speaker
Well yeah, it was a good finishing, but that's about it. Honestly, I was zoning out even on the second rewatch of this. There was a point when I was watching the original ones. I think this was the match that I fell asleep during. It's 10 tag matches in. It was kind of hitting me like that too. It's like, this has been going on for a long time with all the same type of match.
01:51:40
Speaker
and this has to do something to stand out and it really doesn't. Was that kind of how you were feeling on it? Absolutely. Yeah this felt this felt pretty slow to me. We had several pauses as Simmons and Rich argued or Armstrong just kind of stalled not as much as his partner but still some. Those were relatively short and more story based than in our first match but
01:52:05
Speaker
The action overall just felt like it had a slower pace. They weren't stopping, they weren't using lots of rest holds, but they just didn't move quickly. When Simmons was in, things picked up quite a bit, and he definitely had the best showing for himself with some impressive power spots and good intensity. Nobody else really stood out, though. I did like the disagreements between faces and heels on the teams, but it was weakened a bit by news being willing to take cheap shots on his own. Kind of lose the moral superiority when you also club your buddy on a break.
01:52:35
Speaker
Yeah. It's not a bad match, but for the final tag match on the show, it needed to be better and more interesting than this. Simmons did great at the very last, what, 20 seconds of the match? Yeah. I mean, it looked smooth, you know, it looked powerful and, you know, it was really snappy, but I could have used that intensity at any point. Yeah, before.
01:53:00
Speaker
I think the one other compliment I will give it is I feel like Thomas Rich has much, much more character here than he did the last time that we saw him. He was kind of this bland babyface type of thing where in this it felt like he was, it felt like he's a guy that enjoyed the heel roll more. Yeah, this is just not what we needed for the final tag match of the show.
01:53:21
Speaker
You maybe could have put this earlier in the show and maybe put that why I didn't like the match as much. You could, I would see more storyline for us putting the, the sting Abdullah thing as the last match. Yeah. Cause that would further emphasize the sting is fighting uphill and this, these scenarios to get where it's got to go. I could see that. Yeah. You could throw Steiner in this one. He might actually got more action. Yeah. Simmons versus Steiner would have been pretty cool.
01:53:48
Speaker
But without changing who's in what match, the placement of the match is where this way suffers. Yeah. Because it doesn't have any big wowing things to do. You're getting any of the better matches and put them here than with Liger and Kazmaier, for instance. But that at the end, you have something more interesting at the end of the show. If you have this in match two or three, I don't mind it really. If you have this as match number 10, I'm just like, oh my gosh, no. This is too slow. Absolutely.
01:54:17
Speaker
So as I noted at the beginning of the episode, Steve Armstrong with his partner is out of the company in January. Pea News is a different monitoring story. A few months before this show, Pea News was wrestling on a house show against an older wrestler named the Angel of Death. Dave Sheldon, who was one of the candidates for the Black Scorpion before, right? Correct.
01:54:41
Speaker
So he's resting Dave Sheldon on this show, and PN News' finishing move is the running splash when the Vader does. So obviously the way you do that is when you don't set up while that guy's doing it to you. That's a given, apparently, you would think.
01:54:56
Speaker
But for the person doing the move, you aim for the chest and just splash them on the chest so it's the least impactful. You have to win at them, but that's it. PN News for some reason misjudged his distance and his splash and splashed the guy's knees. His whole body weight in this guy's legs. So yeah, that guy was injured and out of wrestling for about a year. As a result, they quickly pulled PN News out of the feud he was currently going on with the thunnings Steve Austin.
01:55:23
Speaker
Thankfully in time for Austin, didn't have it to him, you know? Yeah. They pulled him mostly to house shows on Saturday night, except when they needed four people to fill a battle bowl, and suddenly he's available. Yeah. So that's surprisingly, he does not stay along very long after this. Got a lot of new faces tonight that we're never going to see again in a stargate, basically. Yeah. It's a weird night. Totally. Indeed. This is such a bad show.
01:55:54
Speaker
Okay, all right, but as I say the best is yet to come. Oh, did they say that? Okay One more thing
01:56:05
Speaker
Alright, we go back to the Announcers. And JR and Tony discuss the qualifications for Battle Bowl and whether Luger might still be paying Abdullah the Butcher since he kept going after Sting. They go over the rules for Battle Bowl, and we're gonna get to those in a moment. And they talk over whether the biggest men or the fastest men will have the advantage. Tony points out that Sting has a lot of his enemies in Battle Bowl, and he's going to need to watch out.
01:56:29
Speaker
We go to Eric and company, and he thanks Missy Hyatt and Magnum for their help, and then throws to Gary Michael Capetta for the announcements. So it's time for the final match, Battle Bowl. So here's the rules.
01:56:43
Speaker
We've got two rings. Twenty men start out in the first ring. Wrestlers are eliminated from ring one by being thrown over the ropes to ring two. No other sides of ring one matter. Wrestlers can start fighting immediately in ring two as soon as they're in there. Wrestlers are eliminated from ring two by being thrown over the top rope to the floor. The side of ring two that leads back to ring one doesn't matter. When one wrestler remains in ring one, he gets to rest while ring two sorts itself out.
01:57:12
Speaker
When one wrestler remains in ring 2, ring 1's finalist and ring 2's finalist get back into ring 1 and fight. And now a wrestler is eliminated by being thrown over the top rope of ring 1 to the floor.
01:57:26
Speaker
It's so simple. Yeah. So these are obviously really complicated, but also something occurred to me. So this is basically double elimination, right? Yes. You're thrown out of ring one, you get in ring two, and you're actually eliminated by being thrown out of ring two, right? Yes. Correct. Unless you're the guy that won ring one. In that case, in the final stage, you can just be dumped out of ring one to lose. Your reward for winning ring one is only having to be eliminated once to lose.
01:57:55
Speaker
That's fair point, yeah. But you get to rest. You get to rest, yeah. So there is that. And I guess we can kind of treat it as a separate match of sorts at that point, but it still seems kind of like a credit reward.
01:58:08
Speaker
You can almost call it the match beyond. And since, like, in theory, like, someone could be tossed, you know, when they're still sorting out Ring 2, someone could be tossed from Ring 2 to Ring 1, not be disqualified, and just start fighting the guy that's in Ring 1 who's supposed to be resting. Point. That could happen as well, yeah. That really should have come up at some point. Yeah. We don't know. Alright, so it's time for Battle Bowl.
01:58:35
Speaker
The wrestlers come out with what looked like some malfunctioning pyro, as only one sparkler actually goes off. The 20 men participating come down the ramp, so we've got... Big Van Vader Marcus Alexander Bagwell Jimmy Jam Garvin The Natural Dustin Rhodes Bill Kazmaier Jushin Thunder Liger Stunning Steve Austin Richard Morton Todd Champion Abdullah the Butcher
01:59:01
Speaker
Firebreaker Chip. Thomas Rich, who comes out grinning like a fool. The All-American Ron Simmons. Ricky the Dragon Steamboat. The cameraman nearly falls off the ramp as he's trying to film Ricky and Ricky gives him a look like, you okay there man? Just so in awe of Ricky Steamboat. Yeah, I guess so. Mr. Hughes. Scott Steiner. Lex Luger, accompanied by Harley Race, as the stage pyro finally actually starts working.
01:59:29
Speaker
Rick Rude, accompanied by Paul E. Dangerously, Double A. R. & Anderson, and Sting. All 20 men starred in the first ring and brawl, and it's pretty darn near impossible to follow. Yes. But I'm gonna do my best here.
01:59:45
Speaker
We get a whole lot of spots starting out where wrestlers struggle to dump each other out of ring one to the floor, even though that doesn't matter in this match. We get Kazmaier and Rude trying to dump Hughes. Hughes and Vader dumping Kazmaier to the ramp. Vader twice gets Steamboat onto the ramp, once via clothesline from outside and once by military press. Both look awesome, but both don't matter. Champion and Rich fight on the ropes. Kazmaier and Champion try to dump Luger out, and more, all on the sides that really don't mean anything.
02:00:13
Speaker
They're all used to normal battle royales. I'll say one thing on the Vader Steamboat thing. I think it's less that they didn't know the rules, because they wanted like three feet of space to do their own stuff. Yes, probably. So they fought to the ramp, like we're gonna fight here for a while, let's do stuff. That makes sense. Yeah. Tony makes a fairly good point that if you want to be the last man in Ring One, you should really just stay over by the ramp.
02:00:37
Speaker
Thomas Rich gets tossed to Ring 2 first by Todd Champion. Tony points out that Rich can rest until someone else gets in there, so it's not all bad. It doesn't take long before Bagwell gets thrown over there by Morton, though. The first time the crowd really reacts at all is Sting versus Luger, as they briefly brawl. Hughes hurls Firebreaker Chip into Ring 2 onto Bagwell, which looked pretty cool.
02:01:00
Speaker
Liger goes to ring 2, care of Morton, but Morton strangely just goes ahead and follows him. Technically, Morton, or maybe even both, went through the middle rope, and therefore they shouldn't actually be eliminated, but it appears that both count. They have a quick duel, including Liger getting a catch into a power slam, a front flip sentin, a moonsault, head scissors from the top rope, and a spinning wheel kick before both spill out of the ring on a Liger crossbody, and are eliminated.
02:01:25
Speaker
Mr. Hughes misses a dive against Simmons and flies nearly clear into Ring 2. How is it that Mr. Hughes has two of the coolest spots on the match so far? Things start moving faster and the cameras can't keep up with all the eliminations, so we miss Rich's elimination and we miss why Steamboat and Anderson enter Ring 2. Champion and Garvin enter Ring 2 through the middle rope, same as Morton and Liger. Steamboat ends up on the apron, but Anderson suplexes him back in, which seems like a bit of an odd choice.
02:01:56
Speaker
Rabbit transitions here as Austin and Abdullah end up in ring two. Abdullah drags Kazmier along. Garvan's eliminated by Firebreaker Chip. Simmons misses a tackle and ends up in ring two. Rhodes misses a dive and the camera misses him entering ring two. Sting and Rude brawl wildly and spell over into ring two. So Vader and Luger are last in ring one. Vader beats Luger up and you can actually hear Luger selling over all the rest of the noise. Yeah, it's amazing. It's pretty amazing.
02:02:27
Speaker
Luger darn near flare flops after a Vader splash, but Luger gets a nice running shove slash clothesline to throw Vader into ring two. Tony notes that Luger has a big advantage now as he's able to rest. Abdullah goes out and he drags Kazmaier with him, and now we cut to three different camera angles with two in picture in picture, and it's hard to decide what exactly to watch, and half the time it's showing the same thing anyway from slightly different angles. Yep.
02:02:52
Speaker
We get rapid eliminations as Anderson goes out via Rhodes' dropkick, Rhodes goes out dumped by Austin, Hughes and Simmons fall out together, Austin dumps Bagwell out, Sting and Steamboat double clothesline Vader out, and we cease using the two camera angles just in time to miss Scott Steiner's elimination. Exactly the moment when it could have helped, it goes away. This is Debbie Stappy, what do you expect? Yeah.
02:03:15
Speaker
So we're down to Sting, Steamboat, Austin, and Rude in Ring 2. When they team up, Sting and Steamboat versus Austin and Rude. We get some pretty cool spots. Austin and Rude try to hurl Sting and Steamboat into each other, but Steamboat dives to the mat, and Sting leaps up and clotheslines Rude. Steamboat and Sting beat up Austin and Rude, respectively, and Sting hurls Rude into Austin. Rude reverses a second attempt, but Sting just stinger splashes Austin.
02:03:40
Speaker
Later, with Sting dazed, Steamboat fights Austin and Rude. Austin grabs him and Rude tries a clothesline, but Steamboat ducks and Rude knocks Austin out of the ring. Rude throws Steamboat over, but he skins the cat back in and grabs Rude with his legs, pulling him over and out. He tries to skin the cat again, but Rude grabs him and pulls him down. So that means that Sting wins ring two. But Rude slams Steamboat into the railing and runs in, hitting the Rude awakening on Sting.
02:04:09
Speaker
Now we're down to Luger versus Sting and the crowd is really up for that.
02:04:14
Speaker
Luger grabs Sting as he gets into ring one and almost casually beats him up, taking his time and really enjoying it. Race tells him that he should end it now, but Luger wants to have fun. He taunts Sting to get up and throws Sting over the middle rope to the ramp, where Race tries to join in, but Sting body slams him. Luger knocks Sting off the ramp to the railing, but Sting fights back and slams him into the railing multiple times. He rolls Luger back in and keeps control, getting Luger propped up on the turnbuckle for kicks.
02:04:42
Speaker
Race tries to interfere again, but to get suplexed, but Luger dodges a stinger splash and Sting nearly goes out, teetering on the ropes before he falls back in. Luger signals for the end and throws Sting over the top rope, but Sting hangs on and falls back into the ring. He poses and yells, and it's rapid punches, breaking for an odd little dance, before a one-handed bulldog and a clothesline to knock Luger over the top rope. Luger tries to hang on, but Sting runs up and shoves him to the floor, winning the match.
02:05:11
Speaker
Yeah, this is very, uh, a lot. My first note was long and confusing. Nobody seems clear in the rules, constantly fighting outside and not trying to get eliminations.
02:05:24
Speaker
As I said, I think some of that is due to them, just their instincts taking over and trying to build the outside. And then they realize that it doesn't matter to obtain like they did them purpose. I think some of that's definitely just also trying to get space. Like it's been translated steamboat. I think they want space. There's a bit later where I think it's Dustin Rhodes and Arne Anderson, the outside brawl outside for a little bit. Yeah. So they, again, they did, I think they just want space. Yeah. Arne's like, let's get some room and let them sort this out. And we'll come back in a few minutes. Yeah.
02:05:55
Speaker
Yeah, the being thrown in the ring to thing is confusing because they're so close together. Some people try to go over both of them. Obviously it doesn't work out super well for Mr. Hughes. You almost made it over. Oh yeah, poor guy. And to be fair, I don't think that's the easy thing to do. It's a needlessly complicated thing to do, which is why you have like Morton do it just rolling in afterwards.
02:06:19
Speaker
Even Vader, Vader's thing is he's clothesline slash shoved over the rope, end up between them and sort of begrudgingly goes into the ring. I think that is actually the rule though, that as long as you're thrown over the top rope of ring one, it does count. Oh no, I get it. It's just funny from the idea that he's like, no way I'm going over both of these. Aww, I've got to go now. Yeah.
Battle Bowl Complexity and Event Critique
02:06:44
Speaker
There's two stories of the match. The latter part of the match, when it's down to five people, it's actually pretty good. Since we're the mini tag match, because we need more tag match in the show, with Stig and Steamboat against Austin Roode, it's actually really good. I'm sure it's the tag match we get at some point on a Clash or another show, which I'm sure is worth watching.
02:07:03
Speaker
I like that they serve with as well as Austin Roode were in the previous match. Their teamwork is used against them and they actually get eliminated. I like because I'm glad they don't sort of bury Steamboat. He gets cheated out of his victory by Paulie Dangerously and Rick Roode. And obviously the final part with Sting and Luke is really good. I like that Sting does his little dance to build up energy for that last punch. That was great.
02:07:31
Speaker
You just got a build-up kind of guarantee for that extra punch, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Don't you? Exactly. The final build with Sting and Luger is really good. They have really good timing, as you expect from their previous match to each other and working together to be friends. I like the sort of teases of the eliminations that Sting had where he's hanging on the side. And obviously when he's thrown out and he has this big celebratory taunt to get his advantage with Luger is good.
02:07:57
Speaker
The other side is the first, like, third of the match when it's 20 people in a small confined space. You can barely do anything. And the can't film it worth crap. No. We mostly get the one hard camera shot facing the right side of the ring. Everyone's just in a big clump in the middle.
02:08:15
Speaker
So we could have had like a, I don't know, cut it in half. Have like a 10 person battle bowl. If you're stuck with these rules anyway, some reason have less people and less filler and less clutter. Unless you can get to the good part quicker.
02:08:30
Speaker
as far as they're making your commentary that uh... there's a long long section which is not mentioned on counter but stuck in the front of the shot where it's bill kasmeyer and uh... to a butcher in a bear hug while there was this casual sitting on the second rope i just i'd i think i totally blanked out on that and and utterly ignored that that was even going on but that you have there is there is there is standing bear for like two minutes for a limited i guess i'd i just
02:08:58
Speaker
I didn't need a bear hug on top of everything else that was going on here.
02:09:07
Speaker
I get the premise, I know your explanation Bob was very good. You explained it much better than they did. Yeah. At the time. I really liked that Vader and the Steamboat kind of were, I thought they were playing smart rather than just playing, you know, to have their own spot. Just staying out on the ramp, you could probably just stay there forever until there's no count outs, no, no, whatever. Yeah, true. But they also had action out there, so that was nice.
02:09:35
Speaker
There's a lot of just standing around the first like half. It seemed to me more like cocktail hour at times because they were just like walking around and mingling like yeah like even Sting was just like yeah you know whatever he's just you know walking.
02:09:52
Speaker
Hey, Rick Rude, I haven't seen you in a while. How's the kids? Yeah. Even the part where the crowd suddenly gets excited because we see Sting and Luger fighting, it's almost the where's the wallow situation. Because you're looking, okay, where are they? Oh, there they are in the middle of this group of people. Yeah. Yeah. No, but in that moment, everyone is just going through emotions, kind of, and they actually look like they're actually fighting.
02:10:17
Speaker
Yeah. The only intensity on the screen was buried behind 15 or 16 bodies. Yep, pretty much. That's where those extra camera angles could have been good. Yes. You know, I think, is this the first time they've done this sort of thing?
02:10:32
Speaker
I mean battle royales are a fairly common thing in wrestling, so I can't imagine WCW hasn't, I mean in fact the bunkhouse stampede was a battle royale, so we know they've done some, but I think this is the first actual battle bowl one. This is the first battle bowl, yes. Yeah. Okay. So I didn't think it was like the wrestlers not knowing what's going on, but it just seemed like there was a whole air of unfamiliarity for all involved.
02:10:57
Speaker
It's just too much to keep track of, to be perfectly honest. I would like to see a steady stream of people getting out of that first ring, and I would like to see two tag matches. I know that we've had plenty of tag matches, but I would like to have seen a four and four on each side, or something close to that, or even a two on one in the first ring, and then
02:11:16
Speaker
four on the other. And then two more people come across and you have everyone's weekend at that point and have another nice little mini tag match. But all in all, a good finish. I do like the Sting dance. And when they had the initial reaction with Sting and Luger, I was kind of like, okay, that's who it's going to be. Yeah.
02:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, the first portion of this match was utterly worthless. There were far too many men in the ring for me to even hope to pay attention. I kept trying to build tension by risking being thrown out of size that wouldn't eliminate them anyway. Once we started getting guys in Ring 2, it got easier to follow.
02:12:05
Speaker
You had fewer men in there at any one time, so they had the opportunity to put together some actual sequences rather than just brawling around the ring non-sensically. So no surprise that almost all of the entertaining bits of the match happen in Ring 2. Morton and Liger's duel was a nice bit. The best part of the match was probably Steamboat and Sting versus Austin and Rude. I wish that that had been a Lethal Lottery matchup, as it clearly would have been awesome.
02:12:30
Speaker
The final bit with Sting versus Luger was good and had a hot crowd, and Luger played the sneering, arrogant villain role to the hilt, and Sting did a great job desperately fighting back with the last of his strength. So if you watch this, fast forward at least until Rich and Bagwell are both in Ring 2, things start to actually happen then, until then Battle Bowl is a tremendous bore.
02:12:52
Speaker
I feel like Battle Bowl as a concept could work if you had one more rule. I know there's already plenty. If you had one more rule, this could work. And that's we do a quote unquote random drawing to determine the entrance order for ring one. And we do that like the Royal Rumble. There you go.
02:13:13
Speaker
and then people still have the get into ring two and then you can be actually eliminated but you have a flow that way you have a flow into ring one and from ring one to ring two and from ring two out and then finally end up with the final two and that's golden already that was fine yeah
02:13:29
Speaker
But the way they did it here is just like, until people start getting into ring two, it's so boring. Yeah. And I have no idea why they didn't just be like, okay, we've got three minutes of people just kind of brawling here. Okay, now let's get people into ring two and get this thing going. That's what they really should have been doing, I think. And it's just, they don't. So it's, it's amazingly boring. Yeah. Hmm.
02:13:59
Speaker
It should be a spectacle, but it's not. But we could even come in waves of five. Yeah. Five get over and then they're fighting and then you can't do two on two. There's always another person.
02:14:12
Speaker
Yeah, no, exactly. And then you have the next five come down randomly. That could have been cool. Yeah, something where there's some kind of flow or where you just, you never have 20 people in the ring at the same time, all competing for your attention and all without room to actually doing anything of a remote interest. Yeah. It's, oh, gal.
02:14:32
Speaker
the best summary for battle bowl is that shot of ring two where it's the hard camera and then two smaller picture in pictures showing people we can already see on the hard camera yes that sums up the problem with this match yeah pretty well good john i'm good okay there's just something in my eye i think it was a tear
02:14:55
Speaker
everyone and everyone want to join me in a deep sigh of despair for battle bowl it's a proper norman yes there we go so obviously the point of this show is clear to promote the sting and lugar match which sting is rewarded for winning battle bowl or for enduring battle bowl as the case may be
02:15:24
Speaker
And just to be clear, there was no actual prize for Battle Ball other than being declared the first Battle Ball champion. Which they tried to make it sound prestigious. I'm pretty sure that it was like, oh because he won, here's the title shot, but it was two separate things that happened basically. Yeah, well I mean because Luger's in Battle Ball, so you can't have the title shot be the reward for Battle Ball. That'd be ridiculous. Exactly.
02:15:48
Speaker
Outside of those two, the slightly lower-card feud is Rick Roode and Ricky Steamboat, as you can probably guess from the way their feud went. They would hit a feud over the United States title, which Roode stole from Sting, on his route taking up here. As for Vader, the other big person who survives near the end...
02:16:06
Speaker
He is working part time between New Japan and WWE. He eventually decided on a two. He's like, okay, I'm going to just, some reason he went through this match inside. I want to stay here. I don't know why, but he did. I guess they did cram a whole lot of people into the ring to let him beat them up. So, you know, there is that. But yeah, so he, he becomes a full time devastating performer in the months following this show. So we'll see a lot more of him thankfully. All right.
02:16:36
Speaker
Fireworks go off as Sting poses on the turnbuckle, and gives Stinger calls. Harley Race tries to sneak up on him as he leaves, but Sting dares him to come. Tony recaps Sting's trials tonight, and JR builds up that Sting vs. Luger for the world title is surely coming. Tony and JR wrap up, and thank the other announcers and the guys in the truck. Credits roll, and StarK91 is done. Thank God.
02:17:03
Speaker
Thoughts on Starrcade 1991? It's a very repetitive show. I feel like there's enough highlights in, like, say, match number two and match number six and so on and so forth to make it worth tracking down some parts of the show. But as a whole, it's not paced well, it's overly complicated, and it's just too long.
02:17:29
Speaker
And the main event is overly confusing, and eventually gets somewhere good. But like the whole show, you really have to sort of wait, wade rather, through a lot of stuff you don't really care about to get to the good moments. I think there's enough here to enjoy separately, but not together. John? I'm composing myself. Okay.
02:17:58
Speaker
There was a lot of drawn out matches here and there. Um, you know, thankfully there, there wasn't a bear hug or Rama, even though I miss, I totally missed the one in the battle bowl with the Abdullah. I'm just hanging out for two minutes. The only stalling that was really present for me was the first match. You know, it was just a very, very slow start and obviously the last match. So it was like another, they took the whole night. I mean, I guess the whole point, uh, it was like watching the whole show again.
02:18:29
Speaker
It started like a mini show at the end. It's like a recap. Who wins? And it goes really slow for the first half. There was a lot of great matches that I liked, a lot of new people for me. You know, some that I didn't mind, but you know, others might have
02:18:47
Speaker
It's worth watching, but I would not, having seen it all, I think you need to fast forward some when convenient or find some good highlight reels. Maybe watch the matches that really stick out to you. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to come out and say it for me. This was a bad show. Fair enough.
02:19:11
Speaker
Getting this out of the way up front, we had 10 tag matches in a row. That is too many tag matches, period. Much less all in a row. A few did differentiate themselves, Sibisco and Elegante versus Morton and Rhodes, Steamboat and Champion versus Cactus Jack and Parker, Sting and Abdullah kind of versus Pillman and Eaton.
02:19:33
Speaker
The rest all felt pretty similar, differences in style at times, but not in substance. And the ones that differentiated themselves were generally more angled than matched.
02:19:43
Speaker
Now, some matches were okay, some were even good. Many performances were fine, but it's ten matches with quote-unquote randomized tag teams, some of which work better together than others, and none of which put on a match that's of the level of quality that we've seen on prior shows. Few matches have much in the way of emotion or have any storyline beyond tonight. Some are fun to watch, but they all feel just flat. There's just not much to get into and no connection to make. There's no promos. None.
02:20:13
Speaker
It would have helped a lot to have some. Talk to the Freebirds about how it felt to be on opposite sides. The Steiner's about how it felt teaming with other people. Get some sneering from Austin and Root about them getting to team up. Maybe have a veteran like Steamboat praise a new guy like Todd Champion after working with him. And above all, let Sting talk! With everything he was going through, I really wanted to hear from him. It would have brought so much more energy to things. Yeah.
02:20:38
Speaker
emphasize this storyline that they're trying to bring out on the show, but the announcers can only do so much. Yeah.
02:20:45
Speaker
It's a really weird sort of experimental starcade, similar to when they did the Iron Man tournaments won in 89. Rather than being the culmination of storylines or any kind of major focus, it just feels almost inconsequential. It's a diversion, an interesting concept, but totally skippable. The only story development that seemed to matter was that Sting looked really strong, so he'd probably end up facing Luger. And let's face it, you really don't need Sting to win Battle Bowl to justify him facing Luger. He's Sting. That's justification enough.
02:21:15
Speaker
True. The announced team was actually pretty fun at least and Tony and JR often had some pretty insightful commentary Though Tony's attempts at humor tonight were a little bit off. He tried a few more biting comments and they tended to fall flat I kind of wonder if someone told him to try and play heal and he just wasn't really good at it. Very possible, yeah
02:21:35
Speaker
Overall though, the two worked really well together, and they did a good job of analyzing the night's weird structure and making things as clear as they could. So, this was a bad show, and it's one I really don't intend to revisit at any point. It's dull, it's lacking in story, and spends all its time building to a battle royale that just ends up being a confusing, overgivment mess.
02:21:56
Speaker
on some shows i could recommend you know track down this match or track down this match is you know go out of your way to watch this on this one yeah not really there's some that are decent but there's nothing that i would be like you have to see this you know we try and put a mildly positive spin on this as a side part okay so by my account we had three matches that would be across body correct
02:22:22
Speaker
think so, yeah. So we have the Lyre Kazmier, we have the Steamboat one, and we have Stings. Yeah. So among those, which was the best? Hmm. Yeah. I think the most interesting one is probably the Kazmier one.
02:22:41
Speaker
Just because it's a team spot, which really focuses in on the tag match concept that tonight's all about. Yeah. So yeah, I would find that the most interesting. What about you? I certainly see that side on that. For me, Steamboat's crossbody is still the best. It is beautiful. Yeah. It's nice. I'm trying to find a thing where three things are good on this show. I'm trying to be nice. John, you got a preference on crossbody moves?
02:23:07
Speaker
Ooh, it would be a tough decision between Steamboat and Kazmaier. I'm gonna have to go to Steamboat. He's just, you know... I didn't see him enough in the match, but it was a nice finish. Yeah. Alright, match the night and MVP then.
02:23:27
Speaker
So I almost went with the Lyre Kazmier Graham DDP match, but my only issue was that there was some miscommunication there and it didn't quite live up to the level I was hoping. It's definitely better than I thought.
02:23:42
Speaker
I felt that Liger was slightly hampered by certain parts of the match, so for me that took a little away from that. So what may surprise you, the one I'm actually picking is the one I felt most did something with the Battle Ball theme. And that is the Steamboat Champion versus Cactus Jack and Billy Parker.
02:24:00
Speaker
On this show, it actually built off the gimmick of this thing. Had a full story throughout. I don't like the Sting one, which I didn't like as much. I thought the actual action in the handicap match was good. I thought Champion and Jack worked well together. I thought Jack and Team worked well together. And it built to this silly moment where they got thrown the ring and pinned by Steamboat. It definitely unquestionably stands out a lot. So that's a really good thing, yeah.
02:24:25
Speaker
and that regard for standing out and doing the most of the time they have me repeat that you can't check fair enough about his voice and that's actually good his character work is really strong and adding to that he didn't fear in the sting match quite well built the angle they're going for with him in and uh... to work and more poorly he wasn't about a bolster than by that on varnished okay
02:24:55
Speaker
John match the night and MVP Match the night has to go to Casimir and Thunder Liger versus DDP and Mike Graham. Sure. I was just so stoked about that batch
02:25:09
Speaker
Like I said, they look like mythical characters from my childhood watching anime and everything. So it was good for me. Of course, it's the first time me seeing Thunder Leiger, so that was awesome. And I had a tough time choosing between this match and Al's match of the night, just because I like Mick Foley. And that's who I also choose.
02:25:33
Speaker
for my MVP. He fought multiple matches throughout the night. He was a tie-in between two different things. He did go from one ring to the other. He just spanned out. The only storyline that was going on was with Abdullah the Butcher. I think it was
02:25:50
Speaker
He was unhinged and I love his characters and I respect the man so he's again my MVP. Even though I love Sting and I love Lex and everything but the most performance through multiple matches, Cactus Jack. Yeah.
02:26:06
Speaker
I can I can definitely see that from from Boley. It's like he has a very strong standout performance there and uh and is like you guys are saying part of one of the very few actual story moments tonight so that's a good choice. I had a really really hard time picking a match of the night for this one and it's not for the usual reason. For me it was I almost didn't want to because
02:26:36
Speaker
I've wanted the match of the night to be something that really stood out or excited me, but looking at it purely as the match of the night, I can pick it as purely the best thing on this show, regardless of the level that I actually think it reached. So for me, that was Arne Anderson and Lex Luger versus Terry Taylor and the Z-Man.
02:27:00
Speaker
It had a nice enough match storyline, and I enjoyed seeing Luger fit into the Anderson tag work. Taylor looked good, and I felt like it built him up a bit without weakening Luger, which is a difficult balance. The match did what it needed to do, and it had some good spots in the mix, so I know that doesn't sound like a huge endorsement, but that's my match of the night. As for my MVP? Larry Zabisco. Alright.
02:27:25
Speaker
I had a feeling. He took the match with Elegante versus Morton and Rhodes and he made it his own. He stood out, he used his big personality to give that match probably the most story a single match had tonight that was actually still really a match. True.
02:27:41
Speaker
He worked well with Rhodes in the ring, and he did everything he could to build anticipation. He acted so wonderfully aggravating and arrogant that I really wanted to see things go wrong for him, and the payoff, well, slightly mistimed, was pretty great. Zavisco's expressions were great, his frustration and anger palpable, and his what have I done? reaction after slapping Eligante was excellent. He made the best of this situation, and that earns him my MVP.
02:28:07
Speaker
I do want to give a surprise of the night, though, as well for this one, and that's Bill Kazmaier skinning the cat. I never expected to see that. That was amazing. I thought you were going to give it to Buddy Lee just because he's got the crap beat out of him all the time. Yeah, he deserves an honorable mention, I guess, too. He did his best impersonation in the beginning of the Mighty Python show. Yes.
02:28:35
Speaker
yeah i will also say out there alone couple quix of our mentions to i'll stick with originally elected overall show story but they really thought i had to check it out he did extra stuff in his limited space also really wanted motivator i was picked him to some extent
02:28:52
Speaker
that mistimes Flash's side which I don't blame him for. I thought he really stood out in his part he had. He has a little part with Steamboat and I thought he did really well in what he had to do. And obviously Steamboat has been through four that did really well in his limited role.
02:29:07
Speaker
Yeah, there definitely are some good performances tonight. It's just you didn't like you were saying you have to work for it. You have to actually like look through the show to find them. Yeah, it's it's a lot more work to enjoy this one.
02:29:26
Speaker
There's a funny bit we didn't mention right before the final part of Battle Bowl, where it's after Root Attack Sting. If you can't, you should listen again. JR clearly almost swears.
02:29:38
Speaker
he starts saying that what happened staying is a bunch of and he quickly stops himself and is a little brief like ten second pause by is like yes but a garbage in his leg this is like agreeing with that yet it's always worth what's not part again if you catch that solar nice no i think it's uh... i did not catch that either that's great
02:29:59
Speaker
And that wraps up our review of Starrcade 91, Battle Bowl, the lethal lottery. If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can search for us on Twitter or Facebook as Let's Go to the Ring. Follow us for episode announcements and other show details, and share your own thoughts about the Starrcades as we go through. And please, if you've enjoyed this show, give us a nice review on iTunes, and share the show through your favorite social media platforms to help others discover us.
Event Summary and Sign Off
02:30:25
Speaker
Many thanks to OSW Review for our attendance and pay-per-view figures.
02:30:30
Speaker
Join us next time for Starrcade 92 Battle Bowl, the Lethal Lottery 2. Again. Yeah, they did this again. Why? You know, honestly, they were cutting to the crowd quite a bit and they were pretty excited. So maybe it was something good. I think it's called Stockholm Syndrome, John.
02:31:00
Speaker
Yeah. You had to be there, Bob. I will tell you that there are less tag matches on that show. Yes. Eight. That is less than ten, so yes. Oh my gosh. No, it's like six or seven, maybe. I forget the act number. All right. This is Bob Moore for Alec Bridget and John Mullins, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling. Insert key phrase.
02:31:37
Speaker
So that means that sting wins ring two. Oh my gosh. It's not that late. Yeah, it's a tongue twister.