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Episode 64: Beach Blast / Bash at the Beach Retrospective
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We've finished our sixth series! Now, join us as we take a look back at WCW's annual beach party! See how you do remembering series stats, and hear our selections for series awards. Plus: Which matches made our Ultimate cards? And - six series in, is Tully Blanchard still in our top ten recipients of Match of the Night awards overall? For all this, plus news on our next series...let's go to the ring!
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
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Transcript
Introduction of Hosts and Theme Music
00:00:00
Speaker
You're asking me to challenge my short term memory, which is not good.
Nostalgia for WCW Beach Series
00:00:32
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Let's Go to the Ring, where we take a look at the good old days and not so good old days of World Championship Wrestling Series by Series. I'm your host, Bob Moore, and I'm joined by a man who is accompanied at all times by haunting flute music that only he can hear, Alec Bridget. I do wonder how you know that, because I don't really talk about that, because it's, you know, very haunting. Hell, I know everything. Oh, even that.
00:00:59
Speaker
I should have known that by now at this point. I haven't picked it up yet. How's it going tonight, Al? It's going right. How's it going with you? It's going fine with me. We have finished our sixth series, Beach Blast and Bash at the Beach. There were some really, really fun shows on this series, and I loved the theme and the atmosphere that they maintained through almost the entire series. So close. Looking at you, WSW2000.
00:01:27
Speaker
As always, I mean, seriously, not one beach umbrella or beach ball. I know, right? It's amazing. Tonight, we're going to take a look back over the beach blast and bash of the beach shows, play some guessing games and hand out some awards. So I hope you'll have fun listening and play along.
Top and Bottom WCW Beach Shows by Pay-Per-View Buys
00:01:46
Speaker
So first up, we're going to take a look at some of the overall show stats. So, Al, you ready to do some guessing? Sure, I'll do my best.
00:01:55
Speaker
All right, Beach Blast ran from 1992 through 1993, and Bash of the Beach took over from 1994 through 2000, covering a total of nine shows under two different names. First up, we're going to look at the top three beach shows in terms of pay-per-view buys. So Al, what do you think is number one?
00:02:17
Speaker
Generally, it's safe to say 97, I would say. Although 98 is a good year too. So I'll go with 97. It's the safe bet usually. Well, in third place, we have 1994. Okay. With 230,000. In second place is 1997 with 250,000. All right. And in first place is Bash of the Beach, 1998. Okay.
00:02:47
Speaker
with 525,000. Wow. The only show that we've done that had more pay-per-view buys than that was Starrcade 1997 with 650,000. Yeah. I believe 1998 is legitimately the second biggest show WSW ever had. That sounds like it. Yeah, from what the shows we cover and the numbers I can think of that sounds really high. Yeah. All right. The bottom three. What do you think was the lowest pay-per-view buy ever in the series? Ooh. Um,
00:03:17
Speaker
Generally with every wrestling company, you generally want to say 95 just because even with Hulk Hogan, it's just a down in general trending for wrestling. Although I could see 92 as well. Um, I'll go 95. Uh, 95 is not on the list. Actually, in this case, it was pretty good for the series actually. But, uh, the other one that you named 92, I think you said that is on the list. Okay.
00:03:44
Speaker
Third place so the highest of this set of three is Beach blast 1993 which has a hundred thousand mm-hmm in second place is Beach blast 1992 with 80,000 oh and in first place The the first place nobody wants mm-hmm is bash of the beach 2000 of course yeah with 75,000
00:04:12
Speaker
Wow, they were well into decline. Yeah. Cause I mean, I mean, obviously 98 is kind of a crazy outlier because of the whole sports aspect of it. So many non-rusting people tuned into that show. And maybe after the main event, never watch wrestling again. That's true. Yes. So maybe, maybe it's not a fair comparison, but when you have 500,000 98 and you have 70,000, 2000.
00:04:38
Speaker
That's not good. Yeah. 97 also had Rodman. True. But 98 also has Karl Malone in there. So I would imagine you got a little bit more for that. And then also that's happening just in the wake of the Goldberg title win. Right. So I imagine that also is kind of responsible for some interest there as well.
Attendance Figures and Celebrity Involvement in WCW
00:05:00
Speaker
I think they, they mentioned quite a bit in the buildup that I think it's just after the playoffs. Yeah. Or conveniently both of them were in it and their protective teams, the jazz and the bulls. So that definitely helps. Cause if you, all the people were aware of this sort of rivalry in one arena, essentially. And then go another one. So that definitely helped them out.
00:05:22
Speaker
Like if hallway and havoc, for instance, 90 with 98 at that, I don't know if they would hit 500,000. I'm not sure if you had numbers with Rodin and the names they have there, but I can't imagine they hit that without the proximity to the event as well. Yeah. The recency probably helps out quite a bit. Yeah.
00:05:40
Speaker
Well, the series took place in seven different arenas in four different states. We had shows in Alabama, California, Florida, and Mississippi. California had two shows in two different places, one on an actual beach. And Florida had five shows in three different places, with the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, the only repeat arena, receiving three of those shows.
00:06:06
Speaker
So top three beach shows in terms of attendance. So Al, what do you think is the number one attended show? So the question is how you count and how they counted 95 because they claim some crazy numbers with that one. That's true. Because people hanging around the vicinity of a public beach, it's not even a fence in that thing.
00:06:28
Speaker
You just walk up and they go, counting you, counting you. Helicopters just like the tally count. Yeah. I will let you know that I don't have 95 on there. Okay. Gotcha. Give you a hint on that because that one is, is crazy to try and figure out. Yeah. I feel like the two that they, we got in the same arena, which is, I believe is 96, 97.
00:06:49
Speaker
Cause I make a point of saying, you know, just last year at the same place, Hulk Hogan, blah, blah, blah. I read them saying that a bunch throughout the show. I don't recall that being like a massive arena.
00:06:59
Speaker
So I'm thinking probably maybe in conjunction with how well they did on people watching separately, maybe 98 got to be a top one for sure. I know it's not 2000. Good bet. Yeah. All right. So top three. Okay. In third, we have bash of the beach, 1998. Oh, okay. With 10,095 in second.
00:07:23
Speaker
Bash of the Beach, 1999, with 13,624 people that regretted all their life choices. I was gonna say, those four people, yeah. Yes. At least they didn't watch it in the junkyard. This is true, yes. And in first place, Bash of the Beach, 1994. Okay. With 14,000. Yeah, looking back, I remember that being a surprising number when we were discussing that.
00:07:50
Speaker
And the bottom three. So what do you think is the worst
Betrayal and Mystery Themes in WCW Beach Series
00:07:53
Speaker
attended show? It's gotta be 2000, right? Well, let's find out. All right. In third place, we have bash of the beach, 1997 with 7,851. Okay. In second place bash of the beach, 2000. Oh. With 6,572. Mm hmm.
00:08:14
Speaker
I believe that that's one of the ones that's in the ocean center. So we got to see the decline. Oh, yeah. From earlier shows in the same building. Yes. And in first Beach Blast 1992 with only four thousand. Okay. Match counts for this series ranged from six to eleven.
00:08:36
Speaker
So the top three match counts were, and I won't make you do a guess on this one. Okay, that's fine. In third place, we have a tie. Bash of the Beach 1996 and 1997 both had nine matches. Okay. In second place, we have Bash of the Beach 1998, which had 10 matches.
00:08:56
Speaker
And in first place, we have Bash of the Beach 2000, which has 11 matches. Now I should clarify that that does count the Hogan versus Jarrett quote unquote match. It has an opening bell. It has a pinfall. I'm counting it. Yeah. It qualifies for a few things that'll show up. I'm sure throughout this episode.
00:09:17
Speaker
We've spent several months covering The Beach Blast and Bash of the Beach shows individually, but what can we say about this series as a whole? What traits or themes stand out? Is there something that unifies the series, or is there anything that changes notably from 1992 through 2000? Al, you have any ideas? Yeah, I've got a couple things I wrote down as possible themes. First one I have, it's the most obvious theme, and we talked about before when we decided to do this series and when to do it.
00:09:48
Speaker
The most obvious theme and through line throughout pretty much most of the run of the show is Hulk Hogan. Yes. It's like the most pivotal series for him because his debut and his first world title win is 94. He's part of cross emotional stuff with Baywatch 95 as another world title match.
00:10:09
Speaker
96, of course, he's not officially on the card, but he's a third man. So that's kind of a big thing for him. 97, 98, of course he's involved through the celebrity aspect with Rodman. 99 he's absent, I believe because of his injury, his knee injury, he's out for that. So that kind of throws a loop over a little bit, but obviously 2000, for better or for worse, is most remembered for his appearance and then his exit. Yeah.
00:10:36
Speaker
It's crazy to think one series has his debut and his very not so friendly exit from the company. It's amazing, isn't it? Like you could not have planned to do that. No. That's one of those crazy coincidences in life. Absolutely. Yeah. Another one I had is an again kind of obvious one, which is the use of celebrities to draw people into wrestling. That's a good one.
00:11:02
Speaker
Interesting. So when wrestling is not doing well, or at least, you know, not at the peak. So we're looking like 94 through early 96.
00:11:10
Speaker
really before the individual takes over. And that whole thing really builds the intriguing and outside popular wrestling. You bring in celebrities to give your show more clout and bring in people that might not watch wrestling. Oh, I heard, you know, we had the one where they brought in the hockey player as the guest ring enforcer. That's right. Yeah. I remember that one now.
00:11:32
Speaker
So you bring them in, you get people tend to be not on their, like at the high point, because they're willing to be involved in wrestling. Because they want to be somewhere those cameras, but their options are limited. And I don't mean that negatively, it's just a fact of life. But then what happens, weirdly enough, when wrestling becomes popular, like with anything, suddenly everyone wants to be a part of it.
00:11:53
Speaker
So then you have all these people that really, they want to be on nitro and they want to join the NPO. It'd be actually, we have a race car driver part of the group. As I've joked before, the tubular host did her own movie on TBS, joined the NPO. That is an official thing that happened. You know, we have an excuse to cover that episode at some point, like properly. We've referenced it a couple of times. Yeah. Yeah. You get people to help you guys in popular. Once you're in popular, they all want to become involved. Mm-hmm.
Performance Analysis and MVP Selections
00:12:22
Speaker
And you can kind of see how that then goes away in this whole series. Cause 94, you've got people that are coming in because of Hogan. That should be me. I'm looking at the picture of him right in front of me. I mean, Mr. T, for instance, you know, kind of riding coattails of Hogan to get on television, you know, he ends up wrestling on Starrcade of You Covered, which is, uh, something. Not good. No. He's also guest ref at Hollywood Havoc, which we have not covered yet, I believe the cage match. Mm-hmm.
00:12:50
Speaker
But then you see, again, you see people that suddenly want to be involved. We want to be around Hogan because he's pauper, not because he's Hulk Hogan. So you have people that aren't just his buddies. Like he had Rodman, Rodman not going to be there in a low period. He's going to show up with Hogan for 95, for instance, Bash of the Beach, but he's not going to, he wouldn't show up on like 1990, like one on WCW show. It seems very unlikely.
00:13:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's interesting. That's one that hadn't really occurred to me is the sheer amount of celebrities that show up on the series. Like you said, there's 94, you've got Shaq, you've got Mr. T, 95, you've got Rodman, and then you've got the link to Baywatch. Yeah. 97 and 98, of course, Rodman and then 98 Malone. There's a generous number actually of celebrity appearances over the course of the series. That's a good one. Oh, I forgot to mention Judge Mills Lane, 99. Oh, right, right, right. Yeah, I can't forget Judge Mills Lane, of course.
00:13:44
Speaker
And again, just because this fun dunk on 2000, I mean, look who's not there for 2000. Like, I mean, there's not big celebrities, like, you know, guest referee matches or, you know, commentary or like, you know, managing people. That's true. I can't think of anyone, there might've been a celebrity mentioned there, but there's, it's like a sudden absence of that. Yeah. Yeah. We were like, ah, I got other plans.
00:14:09
Speaker
Well, much like you, my first theme was the career of Hulk Hogan. As you said, we feature the first show, the pivot show and the final show in his WSW career all in one series, which is absolutely incredible. Yeah. The fact that one single series can cover Hogan's basically his entire WSW career. Yeah.
00:14:31
Speaker
If you watch nothing else in WCW, ever, you can still actually get a perfectly good view of nearly everything important that happened with Hogan in WCW. The series even features the Dungeon of Doom, Hogan paddling around with Dennis Rodman multiple times, and Hogan's matches including Celebrities and Diamond Dallas Page. It references Hogan's loss to Goldberg in 1998.
00:14:56
Speaker
The only major Hogan event or theme that I could think of that I don't recall being notably reflected in the series is Hogan vs. Sting at Starrcade 1997. True, yeah.
00:15:06
Speaker
There's a period where they'll have like teases of stinging, like they'll have fake stings and such. But there's a period where kind of even after that, like there's like no stain. And occasionally references, like there's one show where like Hogan says they won't come on wrestle if unless you guarantee stings and not in the building or something. Yeah. I think that's the only thing in this series that doesn't get at least memorably referenced. That is what I would call a major WSW Hogan event.
00:15:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, other than that, I think if I asked you to chart the course of Hogan's career in WSW and you had only seen this series, you'd be able to give me a perfectly good depiction of his narrative and his arcs. Yeah, even him and Flair for the very first show. Yes. Yeah. I knew going into the series that we had the beginning, middle and end on there, but I would never have called going into this the extent to which Hogan's career arcs are all contained on this show. Yeah, it's crazy.
00:16:04
Speaker
The first real theme I would say that I noted is probably just being a beach party. Almost every show in the series just feels like a big party. There's fun set designs, some of the best in WCW history, an easy going atmosphere, and the commentary team just having a good time and often dressing up in beach wear. Everybody seemed to be having a lot of fun on most of the shows. If you gave me my choice of series to join the commentary team on, it would probably be this one.
00:16:34
Speaker
in part because there's a pretty good chance I wouldn't have to wear a tux, which is a definite plus. That's fair, yeah. What's quite neat as well is that the series managed to effectively use the contrast between its easy-going fun atmosphere and some quite serious career-changing events at times. Mm-hmm.
00:16:52
Speaker
Bash of the Beach 1996 was actually a pretty cheery show with commentary basically cheerleading for WSW and just enjoying things until Hogan's shock betrayal completely changed the mood and Tony even ended the show by telling him to go to hell. Yeah. Bash of the Beach 1997 again felt cheerful and not too serious until the commentary team was giving a heartfelt salute to Kevin Sullivan as his career came to an end after a brutal fight.
00:17:18
Speaker
Beach Blast 1992 would never have been the show you'd expect would contain one of the most stunning displays of athletic endurance we have ever watched. The Steamboat Rude Iron Man match. The series could use its theme to emphasize shocking moments and contrast just as well as it used it to give you an easy watch. Speaking of shocking, the next theme that I found is kind of stunning for a series with such a breezy atmosphere. Betrayal.
00:17:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. There are loads of betrayals on this series
00:17:53
Speaker
We have Arne Anderson betraying Dustin Rhodes on Bash of the Beach 1994 for money. We have Headig appearing as a mystery partner betraying DDP on Bash of the Beach 1997 out of anger. Jacqueline turning on Kevin Sullivan for poor treatment on the same show. Deborah betraying Mongo to join Jared on the same show. Actually, that show was pretty bad for relationships. Yeah, I'd say so.
00:18:18
Speaker
The themes reflected even on 1999, with Nash worrying over whether Sting would betray him, and Ric Flair mistreating former horseman Dean Malenko. Yeah. You could even wrap in the fracturing of the alliance between Vader and Flair at Bash 1995, and Daphne fighting to avenge a betrayal by David Flair and Miss Hancock in the awful wedding gown match on Bash 2000.
00:18:41
Speaker
And then, of course, there's the quite likely real events between Hogan and Russo on the same show, which led to a definitely real lawsuit. Yeah. Considering how fun loving this series is, it's amazing just how often it deals with broken relationships and people being stabbed in the back by their friends. Yeah. I'm guessing WSW's booking committee had a lot of bad breakups on the beach. Mm hmm. It does seem like it. Yeah. One more interesting repeated theme. We have mystery partners or opponents.
00:19:11
Speaker
Yeah. That concept gets used over and over again on this series. The big one, of course, is the mysterious third man joining the outsiders at bash 1996, which turns out to be Hogan. Right. Beyond that, we've got headache joining DDP at bash 1997, Mysterio showing up to fight Jericho at bash 1998. Yeah. And Norman smiley and Ralph is as dual singular mystery opponent at bash 2000.
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. And of course, you effectively had a whole slew of mystery opponents in 1999's Junkyard Invitational because they never bothered to list who was in the match. Dang it. Yeah, you get the random brief return of Public Enemy, the return of Steve Riegel, a couple of the people as well. Mm hmm. Yeah, I have to say mystery and betrayal are not the things I expected to be discussing when we talked about a beach themed show. It's like it's a summer blockbuster or something. Yeah, that's true.
00:20:02
Speaker
One other thing that happens throughout the series that's a bit at odds with the beach theme as well, and seems to happen with increasing frequency as the series goes on, official ceremony or intervention. Okay. So we've got the presentation to Inoki and the ceremony around Hogan vs. Flair at 1994.
00:20:20
Speaker
Okay, yeah. The whole N.W.O. vs. W.C.W. thing with the company taking an actual stance on the match in 1996. Right. J.J. Dillon coming out to set up Jericho vs. Mysterio in 1998. Flair as W.C.W. president, laying out matches and actively interfering on his son's behalf in 1999. Flair again interfering in a match in which his own vice president is participating again on 1999.
00:20:47
Speaker
And finally, Russo throwing the whole world title picture for a loop on 2000 alongside a match about Scott Hall's WCW contract and Ernest Miller's heavy involvement in various storylines and matches as commissioner. Again, considering this is a series full of beach parties, the increasing frequency of official action and intervention is pretty surprising. Yeah, I can see that.
00:21:10
Speaker
All told, I think the contrast between expectations and the actual events of the show is often a pretty neat part of this series, even on the, shall we say, less exceptional shows in the series. Yeah. WCW did a pretty good job of playing with their theme here and using it to add drama and tension by breaking the mood when it would benefit the story. And it made it one of the more interesting series we've covered. Absolutely.
00:21:38
Speaker
Well, we've had a look at the overall show stats, but now it's time to take a look at some interesting data that I've gathered on the performers who appeared on the shows. So this will include matches from all wrestling shows we covered in this series, so it does not include the Baywatch episode. Ah, okay. Admittedly, the matches featured in that episode are pretty much just the matches from Batch the Beach 1995, but still. Yeah, it's fair.
00:22:04
Speaker
So first up, we're looking at who appeared as a competitor in the most matches. Now as a quick aside, while I recognize there could be some variance on this, I am considering Hulk Hogan a competitor in the outside of versus Sting, Luger and Savage at bash 1996. Okay. As the third man, he is a build participant, even if he's only there for moments. And I'm also counting his match against Jarrett at bash of the beach 2000. Right. That makes sense.
00:22:34
Speaker
So any guesses on who had the most appearances as a match competitor in this series? Okay, well then to that point, okay, so Hogan is wrestling 94 against Flair. He's wrestling 95 against Vader. He's technically wrestling against Sting, Luger, and Savage at 96. 97, 98 are both the tag matches. And then two years later, 2000, if you're counting that.
00:23:02
Speaker
That's most of the series, obviously not you missed 99, you know, 92 and 93, but that's six out of nine is pretty good. It seems like a pretty fair bet. Huh? Yeah. All right. So top three appearances as a match competitor. Here we go. All right. In third place, we have a five way tie with four matches each. Okay. Arne Anderson. Yeah. Yeah. Marcus Alexander Bagwell.
00:23:28
Speaker
Booker T, Steven Regal, and Randy Savage. In second place, we have a three-way tie with five matches each for Ric Flair, Diamond Dallas Page, and Sting. And so, yes, you're right, in first place with six appearances as a match competitor is Hulk Hogan. Yeah.
00:23:54
Speaker
But that's matches overall, so now we'll look at who was a competitor in the most main events. As normal, I'm only counting actual main events, that is the final aired match of the show. What's your guess? Okay, well okay, Nomekta Hogan. Hogan is main eventing 94, 95.
00:24:16
Speaker
Pedeline 96 as discussed, uh, 97, 98. And obviously his match 2000 is not the main event. I don't think it's technically even billed as main event. Cause they still act like if the whole turn and all that nonsense isn't planned, they still have the Goldberg Nash match left afterwards. So you that's yeah. Yeah. So he, he's gotta be up there still. I mean, he's losing the one match, obviously.
00:24:43
Speaker
but that's a pretty good ratio there. Five out of nine, I would think has gotta be up there. All right. In third place, we have a six way tie with two main events each for Lex Luger, Kevin Nash, Dennis Rodman, dang it. You had it, right? Randy Savage, Vader, and Sid Vicious. Oh yeah.
00:25:08
Speaker
I didn't remember Sid until I remember. Oh, right. Masters of the power bomb. And then the one that he has versus Nash and Sting. Yes, that's true. Speaking of Sting in second place with three main events is the man called Sting. And in first place, indeed with five main events is Hulk Hogan. He gets every main event from 1994 through 1998 with the aforementioned caveat about 1996. Gotcha.
00:25:37
Speaker
But a show is not just about competitors. There's all sorts of other roles to fill. So next up, the commentary team. We're going for the most matches called by commentator. And I'm not sure that we really need to have you guess on this one, do we? I mean, yeah, it's obviously Tony. Yeah, it's obviously Tony. Thankfully, it's not Madden. Thankfully, yes. So in third place with 18 matches called is the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes.
00:26:07
Speaker
In second place, with 46 matches called, is Bobby the Brain Hienan. And in first place, with 67 matches called, it is, of course, Tony Schiavone. All right, now this one's a little more in doubt. What about managers? What's your guess for who managed people in the most matches on this series?
00:26:29
Speaker
Hmm. Usually it did my heart to a good guess. I'm trying to think up top of my head. I mean, he's got, but I remember seeing him a number of times throughout. I know he's there for the retirement match and he's there with big Bubba and a few other times do that. I think other countries manager. Yeah.
00:26:49
Speaker
Sherry's obviously got a few, she didn't have the multiple clients generally. She's ended. She's got a certain period where she shows up where Jimmy's more extended. Yeah. Yeah. He'd be my guest I think. Yeah. All right. In third place, we have a nine way tie with two manager appearances each. All right. For Asia. Ah yeah. Bill Dundee as Sir William. Mm-hmm. Rick Flair. Lodi. Sherry Martell.
00:27:19
Speaker
Deborah McMichael, Sonny Ono, Kimberly Page, and Harley Race. In second place, with three appearances, is Colonel Robert Parker. And in first place, with seven managerial appearances on the series, is Jimmy Hart. All right. I will note that it was little unclear what his role was in the Junkyard Invitational, but I counted him as a manager for that because I never saw him punch anybody.
00:27:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. He kind of cheered people on. Yeah. You know, with that match, who the heck knows who was the participants? Really? I've done my best. It's funny. Even the few people that we've like covered in the show, they've actually met. Oh, cool. I guess he must live somewhere in the air because I've seen him twice and now it works. So. Excellent. Well, that's, that's neat. Yeah. First time I was like, wait, is that Jimmy Hart? Like your brain's like thinking that can't be right. The second time I'm like, Oh, it should be hurt. You know, he's a guy that comes in the store. It's become a regular thing now. Yeah, I know. Right. Yeah.
00:28:17
Speaker
No, that's genuinely cool. Yeah, absolutely. Next up, referees. So, who refereed the most matches? Now, this one I'm considering any referee appearance here, whether they're the initial assigned ref, came out to replace the ref after a ref bump, or came out to rectify a referee's call. Any guesses?
00:28:38
Speaker
So I generally go Nick Patrick on these, just cause that senior referee, he tended to show up a lot and he'd be the first, if not one of the first one to come out when they like have ref down. But it makes sense. He's a senior referee. He'd be the one like, Hey, you know, I gotta take care of so-and-so or Hey, you guys gotta stop that. Yeah, I think he's, he's generally a fair bet on these. In third place, we have a three-way tie with six each. That's Mickey J, Jimmy Jett and Billy Silverman.
00:29:07
Speaker
In second place with 16 appearances, 10 more than the third place guys, is Randy Anderson. And in first place with 20 referee appearances is Nick Patrick. If you only count initial referee appearances, that being the first assigned referee for the match, Nick Patrick loses two appearances as replacement ref, but the standings don't change as all.
00:29:33
Speaker
This series featured a couple of guest referees of particular note. We had Ole Anderson and Judge Mills Lane, of course. Yes. It bears repeating one more time that they brought in world famous boxing referee and then had him count a pinfall in a boxing match. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you, you can't say that enough and emphasize that weird, weird fact enough for my, my taste. It is, it is absolutely amazing how that went.
00:30:03
Speaker
Oh, and the fact that obviously because it's pre-planned and they went over the thing with them, he seems extremely unsurprised. Okay. Didn't pinfall now. Yeah. Yeah. Like presumably the only pinfall he's ever done, I would think. I think I said this when we recorded for that show, but I would really love to see backstage footage where they first told him what the finish was. Yeah. Just be like, wait, wait, what? Yeah. Okay. You're paying me. Yeah.
00:30:31
Speaker
We've talked a lot about the people who had a ton of appearances, but what about the people with the fewest? So there's 82 people who by my records only show up for a single match in any capacity on a beach blast or a bash of the beach. Of the 82, five of them actually took home match of the night honors as competitors for their single appearance. We had Bam Bam Bigelow, the British Bulldog,
00:30:58
Speaker
Hector Garza, Liz Mark Jr., and Viano IV. I didn't count Viano V as a competitor for that match, even though he's actually the one that takes the pinfall. Because he's not technically in the match. That's true, yeah.
00:31:12
Speaker
Some other interesting people on the list include Shaquille O'Neal, Mr. T, Ciclepe, the actual Ciclepe at this time rather than Dean Malenko, Terry Funk, The Great Muda, Bret Hart, and Altimo Dragon. All right, last but not least, it is know thyself time, Al. All right.
00:31:37
Speaker
So who has taken home the coveted match of the night and MVP awards? So first up for each host who took home the most MVP awards. So Al, I will let you know you never voted for the same person twice. That sounds like, that's like me. Yeah. So there's a nine way tie for your MVPs. I'm going to give you five guesses to name at least three. All right. Uh, DDP is actually not on there. Oh, okay.
00:32:07
Speaker
So, um, let's see what I've done. Did I do Eddie? I think I did Eddie. Very close. Oh, I didn't do Chavo, didn't I? Yes, you did. That's right. At Chavo. That's right. Yeah. Yep. So that's one correct on your third guess. Okay. I kind of Booker T at least Booker T for 2000, right? Yeah. Yep. He's on there. Gotcha. All right. One more guest. Can you get one more, right?
00:32:30
Speaker
Okay. Let's see. Oh, um, steamboat, right? Yes. Yes. He is definitely on there. So here's your full list. You ready? Okay. We have Booker T, Ricky, the dragon steamboat, Sting, Steve Austin. Oh yeah. Chavo Guerrero Jr. Chris Jericho, Ray Mysterio Jr., Dustin Rhodes, and Randy Savage. Okay.
00:33:01
Speaker
Now I, on the other hand, did give MVP to one person twice. So who do you think it was? Hmm. I'm trying to think if this is the series you would have given it to Sting twice or not. Sting is not as much as we would think. Or prefer, frankly. Or prefer. Yes, exactly. Yeah. I would say, yeah, save as bad as usually. I think you probably did DDP twice. That is it. Yes. Excellent. I chose Diamond Dallas Page two times.
00:33:31
Speaker
All right, so with all that in mind, who do you think got the most MVPs overall? We have a 10-way tie for a second, so I'm only going to ask you to name first place, which only means naming four wrestlers. Okay. Some got one from each of us, and there's one that got two votes from a single person. All right, you ready? Six guesses. I'm guessing it's probably Steamboat for an 22 show. Okay, Steamboat's one of the ones that got one from each.
00:34:01
Speaker
Okay. Gotcha. Um, let's see. Oh, Booker T. I think probably right. Yep. From 2000. Yeah. Cause he has two matches
Overall WCW Series Insights and Sting's Performance
00:34:10
Speaker
in that show. That definitely helps. Um, let's see. Sting on there. Sting is on there. Yes. You're just missing the one that got two votes from a single person. Okay. Um, which has a hint you may have guessed earlier.
00:34:28
Speaker
You're asking me to tell my short-term memory, just not good. My brain is designed to intake effect once and then lock it away forever. More so than remember things I said five, 10 minutes ago. I remember very obscure references to jokes made, you know, 15 years ago or movies I saw 22 years ago, but not necessarily a movie I watched yesterday. That's just how my brain is wired, apparently.
00:34:56
Speaker
Okay. It was a sting. It was not. You've named sting already. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Again, at the point, uh, God, who is it? Diamond Dallas page. Of course. Okay. Right. Right. Yeah. Of course. In second with one each, we had Steve Austin, Rick flair, Kevin green. Oh yeah. Chaffer Guerrero, Jr. Hulk Hogan.
00:35:20
Speaker
Chris Jericho, Ray Mysterio Jr., Dustin Rhodes, Randy Savage, and Kevin Sullivan. And in first, we had the four-way tie. So with one vote from each of us, it's Booker T., Ricky the Dragon Steamboat, and Sting. And with two votes from me, it's Diamond Dallas Page. Gotcha.
00:35:42
Speaker
All right. Match of the night participations. So we're only looking at competitors here, not the referees, the commentary team, managers, anyone else, just the competitors. So who do you think competed in your match of the night choices? The most L you only have three people. I'll only make you try and name one of them. Okay. Um, I know obviously I picked rude and steamboat. I know I picked the Luta six man match.
00:36:10
Speaker
Not a lot of them sadly care about it. As of all, I'll say often there's not enough of the parka on this show. Yes. I know I picked Eddie Chavo from 98. I don't think I, I know, I've seen him where you picking the tag match in 93, but I don't think I picked that.
00:36:30
Speaker
I mean, a few times you, you put, see it in a, in a match the night. I gotta, I gotta think. Yeah. It's unusual. It's unusual for sure. Yeah. Yeah. But he was, he was actually, I will say he was good in that one. No, he was. Yeah. He was genuinely good in that one. What do I have? You have named matches with the people on the list. Okay. You have a three way tie. Each of these people got two match of the night awards from you. Okay.
00:36:58
Speaker
You have Psychosis, you have Ric Flair, and that brings us to the third member of your happy crew, which is Ricky the Dragon Steamboat. Of course. All right. So for me, there's one person to name who got three awards from me. Who do you think it was? Okay. So go back through those. I believe you can make the main event, not before. So it's not Steamboat twice.
00:37:26
Speaker
I think we both actually picked the main event from 2000, like the actual main event, the, yes, that Jared, uh, poker T one. Yes, we did. Uh, I know we both just thought we loved DP and stuff. He does, but a timber, if he ends up making it twice or not, because unfortunately he's well, he settled with Rodman one year, which is not great. Although it's nice seven. He's got the tag match, which is good for what it was. Uh, for sure. Is it being flare or no?
00:37:54
Speaker
Uh, that's, that's close. He was definitely a participant in one of them and an adjacent to another. It is with three awards. Hulk Hogan. Oh, right. I picked the main event on 94, the main event on 95 and the main event on 96, as I recall. That sounds right. Yeah. I am admittedly slightly dated towards 95 main event because it's Hogan yet again, not putting up a Vader.
00:38:18
Speaker
to this day irks me. That's fair. It just, it had the helmet spot. Oh no, I get it. Yeah, which was absolutely magical. So yeah. So who do you think competed in the most matches of the night then? Is it Sting?
00:38:35
Speaker
It is not. There was actually a 17 way tie for second place. Oh my gosh. And a 10 way tie for third. So I'm not reading those because that's entirely too many names. Yeah. So we have a four way tie for first place. Okay. So with three votes each we have with two votes from you and one for me, for all these people, it's Rick flair. Okay. Psychosis and Ricky the dragon steamboat. Okay.
00:39:04
Speaker
And then with three votes, all from me, Hulk Hogan. Okay. So that's the stats for this specific series. Now we're going to update our overall stats.
00:39:19
Speaker
So these are the stats for every wrestling show that we have covered, not including movies like Ready to Rumble or Universal Soldier or First Daughter. We've done a surprising amount of movies at this point and of course not including Baywatch. Right. So appearances as a match competitor overall. You got a guess for who's first?
00:39:46
Speaker
Hmm. Okay. Oaken definitely moves up a bit, but I feel like he's still, at least in shows we've covered. He's not as high on lists as you would think. We did so much of, you know, 83 to 93. Yes. And 94 where he's just not around. So he's definitely moved up the ranks and I'm sure, but.
00:40:07
Speaker
One of our regulars, like Sting has moved up a fair amount of matches as well. DDP is up there. Blair, of course, having semi matches. He is again, he has that sort of buffer from the eighties and early nineties, but not a Michael buffer. No, no. All right. So what do you think is first? Uh, let's go with Blair. All right. So in third place with 32 match appearances as a match competitor, it's Lex Luger.
00:40:37
Speaker
Oh, yeah. In second place with 39 appearances as a match competitor, Ric Flair. Okay. And in first place with 44 appearances as a match competitor so far, this is Sting. There we go. All right, so appearances as a match competitor in main events only. What's your guess for first? Okay, main events only.
00:41:07
Speaker
I feel probably staying because he's he has early main events. Obviously, Hogan takes over from that. He's probably still got a pretty solid lead there. All right. In third place with 14 appearances as a main event match competitor. Hulk Hogan in second place with 16.
00:41:28
Speaker
Sting. Okay. And in first place with 19 Rick flair. There we go. So we had a sting and Ric Flair trade places from the just plain old match competitor to the main event match competitor. Likely due to flares kind of early lead on the Starkades. Yeah. When we get to some of the shows where there's more direct sting and flair, which you can see how, then both appearing made events. So that sort of affects things.
00:41:55
Speaker
Commentators, so first place is probably pretty obvious. I think second place is probably also fairly obvious. No, but he is still, yeah. How about guess number three? Ooh, okay. My gut says dusty. Obviously there's a nice chunk of time where they're together.
00:42:15
Speaker
Someone like to nay kind of pop in and out. Yeah. Sometimes he doesn't even get to appear on screen. He's just a voice in the closet somewhere talking about Lucha stats. It is always fun for him. He lives in the Lucha closet. Yes. You open it up, pull him out, plug him in. Oh, nice. You going with it. You going dusty? Yeah, let's go dusty. All right. In third place with 111 matches called. Good old J.R. Oh, yeah.
00:42:41
Speaker
We happen to have covered a number of the earlier shows where he is a big part of them. Yeah. I was really worried. You're going to see Scott Hudson. I'm like, Oh, no, no. And definitely not Mark Madden as well. So to be fair, it's got us and he's the least terrible chains they made in commentary. Yes. Mark Madden of C significantly more terrible. Yes. Yes. He go denial there. Yeah. And a second place with 218 matches called so far. Bobby the brain. He none. Nice.
00:43:11
Speaker
And in first place, with 349 matches called so far, 131 more matches than Henan. Wow. Unsurprisingly, Tony Schiavone. No. They get a lot out of him. That's true, yeah.
00:43:27
Speaker
All right, referees. So looking at all referee appearances, again, whether they're initial ref, replacement ref, or the referee coming out to rectify a call, I think number one is probably fairly obvious. Can you guess number two?
00:43:42
Speaker
I'm trying to think whether it's Anderson or it's Mickey J. I feel like it's probably Anderson, I think. Randy Anderson, that is, yeah. You have named the other two names on the list, which is great. Nice. So in third place with 35 referee appearances so far is Mickey J. Okay. In second place, quite a bit higher with 78 is Randy Anderson. Okay. And in first place still in the lead with 107 referee appearances is Nick Patrick. There you go.
00:44:10
Speaker
The top three positions don't change if we use only initial ref appearances. We have Mickey J losing one replacement appearance to hit 34. Anderson loses one replacement and one rectifying appearance to hit 76. And Patrick loses six replacement referee appearances to hit 101. All right, MVP choices. So Al, there's only one name.
00:44:39
Speaker
Who do you think you have chosen the most for MVP across all of the shows that we've watched? Wow. Oh, man. I feel like volume wise, for me, it's got to be DDP or Sting, because I love Steam, but obviously and justifiably so. But he has a weird level of staying power in and out of the company. And we started covering a lot more shows post 94, where he's not around, unfortunately. So I don't think it'd be him.
00:45:08
Speaker
Likewise, Eddie's Guerrero, that is obviously so good in the period. He's there, but he's really only there in a major way, consistently, like what, 97 through late 99. Cause he leaves in 2000, you know, January with the radicals. Hmm. I feel like it's probably, I don't, can I just not a huge difference, but probably DDP.
00:45:32
Speaker
You were so close. Ah, okay. It is in fact Sting. Ah, okay. You have chosen him nine times. Nice. And for me, there's actually two names. They're tied. So name either one of them. Is it also DDP? DDP is on there. Yeah. That's a pretty fair bet for me, isn't it? Yeah. These two both got six votes from me, Sting and DDP.
00:45:56
Speaker
There you go. It is funny to me that those were the two that you were mentioning as, Oh, these are probably the ones that would be on my list. And yeah, we both like them. Right. So yeah, absolutely. And for John, just as a reminder, he did three votes for dusty roads. Yes. So all of us together, John included, who do you think got the most MVP votes? I guess they staying on that one. In third place with nine awards, we have Rick flair. Mm-hmm.
00:46:25
Speaker
In second place, with 10 awards, just as his binders decreed it, we have Diamond Dallas Page. And in first place, this is Sting, an amazing 17 MVP awards. Yeah, I mean, obviously he's consistently good and he's amazing throughout these shows.
00:46:44
Speaker
as a statute show, but he has his ability sometimes to be, when they give him a chance, they give him like an actual match, like not a 90 second squash of somebody or, you know, we're on the show for no good reason.
00:46:58
Speaker
He can stand out and show that really need someone to stand out. Yes. I think back to springstand beat 3000 where he, he's got a little bit of a life at least, you know, he only gets the two matches, which is a shame. Yeah. That's the, everyone loses their character to be generic angry person. Right. Yes.
00:47:16
Speaker
Oh, no, wearing a red and yellow. He's wearing a F U and B vest flare is, you know, come right off the golf course to fight people. I mean, sting is just sting. Even the nonsense they attach to him, but he's still staying throughout all that stuff. I think that's that's actually an interesting insight. That's a comment I think you can probably make about all three of these guys, that they are the ones that when the show is bad,
00:47:39
Speaker
will tend to stand out as good. Yeah, that's fair in the midst of it. Because yeah, Ric Flair has rescued some shows for us. Diamond Dallas Page, I definitely remember a few shows where I was like, Oh, thank goodness for DDP. Yeah. And Sting. Yeah, similarly. There's definitely times on the series where you're like, Okay, this show was bad. But that Sting match, or at the very least, that Sting performance, that Sting personality you still love.
00:48:03
Speaker
Again, going back to like 98, for instance, or DDP's gotta do a match with a really well-intentioned and interested guy in his side and Malone. And then Hogan, who just can't enter, won't put every combination he wanted side work like he used to. Cause he's full healing and do, he can do one, one hold and walk out. So they're going for three minutes and go back in. And if Rodman, who's literally in one show, not really conditioned to perform.
00:48:32
Speaker
So again, DP stands out with someone like that when he's like, even like the match, the whole is not good because he can only do so much. He can only be in it so often. Or were they him where he's tight team with Leno again, just in case of where he can stand out by doing what he does well. And hopefully putting a match together around everyone involved in that. Yeah. Just being dependable. Exactly.
00:48:55
Speaker
All right. So finally, let's look at the match of the night competitors from across all the shows that we've watched. So again, we're going by host first. So Al, who do you think that you picked the most for match of the night so far? Hmm. Okay. I think it might be staying in this case just because I think the route he is in stronger matches the whole, I think, but I'm not really sure. All right.
00:49:24
Speaker
With nine awards from you, it is indeed Sting. Oh, right. Interestingly, he did not actually pick up any more awards from you this series, but he was far enough ahead that nobody caught him. Yeah, he definitely good in his matches. I just, for one reason or another, I had picked something else on his show. The shows where he was in a really good match, oftentimes there were other people that were in really, really good matches as well. Yes, exactly.
00:49:49
Speaker
All right. Uh, for me, so it is a tie. So I'll ask you name either one of them as a flare. Rick flair is definitely one of them. Yes. All right. So with nine awards each, I have given it to Rick flair and diamond Dallas page. Okay. Ever John, his, uh, match of the night competitors were a tie between the two road warriors to no one's surprise ever. Yeah.
00:50:17
Speaker
Hawk and Annabelle each got four votes from him. Nice. So for all of us together, who do you think has gotten overall the most Match of the Night awards across all the shows that we've watched? Based on what you're saying and the fact that I know he has connected with them, I'd probably say it's going to be Sting, because obviously you have Sting Broadway connections throughout. True. That's very true.
00:50:41
Speaker
All right, in third place, we have a tie with 15 votes each, Diamond Dallas Page and Ricky Steamboat. All right. In second place with 18 votes, Rick Flair. And in first place with 20 votes, once again, the man called Sting. The co-founder of the Scorpohawks, does it recall? Yes, yes.
00:51:07
Speaker
It's been a while since we've referenced the Scorpox, actually, hasn't it? It has, yeah. Yeah. I just got a warm feeling. Well, it's time for our traditional Tully check. Ah, yes. You ready, Al, to find out where Tully Blanchard is on the match tonight listings?
00:51:22
Speaker
Is he even in the matches of this series? I don't believe he has any matches on this series. No. Okay. Because he snuck in on the one series for the random legends match. Yeah. Slamboree. Slamboree. The legends one. Yes. Him and Cemetery Funk popped in. Yeah. Yes. All right. So last time Tully was tied for seventh place. Okay. Do you want to hazard a guess at what place you think he's at now?
00:51:47
Speaker
Um, okay. So yeah, it hasn't gone any matches. So I feel like he's probably down, but I can't imagine he's out of the top 10. Is he, is he like nine or 10? All right. Let's find out. All right. So in fourth place with 14 match of the night votes, Chris Benoit in fifth place with 12 is Vader. Yes. Sixth place with 11 Ray Mysterio Jr. Mm-hmm.
00:52:15
Speaker
seventh place with 10, Jeff Jarrett. That's fair, yeah. Eighth place we have a tie. With nine each is Arne Anderson and Lex Luger. Okay. And in ninth place we have a tie with eight each, Barry Windham and Tully Blanchard.
00:52:35
Speaker
That's fitting. Yeah. So thanks to a couple of ties, Tully is still hanging on in the top 10. Oh, right. It's amazing to think we've done six series. He was only a part of like the first quarter of the Starrcade series. Yes. And he still is in the top 10 for match of the night that we've ever covered. Yeah. Yeah. That is an impressive feat. It is really tells you just how good he was. Absolutely. Yeah.
00:53:04
Speaker
All right, with the data out of the way, it is time to give out some series awards. So each show we have awarded our match of the night at MVP, but now we're gonna look at things across the entire series.
Critique of Least Valuable Performers
00:53:18
Speaker
So to start off, we're gonna go for our series MVPs. So you need to name three people, but in no particular order. Okay. Who are your series MVPs, Al?
00:53:30
Speaker
Okay. So first off, I have Booker T, even though he didn't have a huge presence in this series, if you look at like total matches and like, if you look at the series as a whole, he does have a good form into the Bret Hart, which unfortunately matches what it is and booked the way it is. But what really puts him on here is 2000. Okay.
00:53:50
Speaker
He has the best two matches on 2000 and the sort of arc they give him at the end where he becomes world champion, that great field game moment, in spite of all the nonsense and all the bollocks surrounding what belt he's actually even holding. True. Where the Hulk Hogan retirement belt actually is at this point.
00:54:14
Speaker
He forms really strongly in an earlier show and then comes back out and wrestles again and wins the world title, making history and all these things. You can't, no matter how bad the show is, you can't deny his importance on the show and the series.
00:54:30
Speaker
going back to our discussion on people that have gotten the most MVPs from us and how they are all like the the show saver type of people. I haven't looked at where Booker is on that list, but I would not be at all surprised if he's quite high up as well, because he's he's that type of person. Yeah. Even if the show is poor, he does well. Absolutely. Yeah. So second, again, is not going to be surprised. I have sitting. Yes. So again, what sting does well is he performances his character, his energy.
00:55:00
Speaker
It's the shame that he's not featured more in the series to get worth noting, but where he's featured, we get the surfer sting doing really well at his part. You know, the match, the power bomb tag match, him and Davey boy, at least the spirit and make MVP for being in the mini movie for three. I mean, and don't forget those amazing entrance coats. Yes, exactly.
00:55:25
Speaker
Yeah, and he's present in this drawing as a whole for one reason, whether it's because they're keeping away from TV for the ankle in 97 or a step above 98. He's back in 99. It's a shame that they try to build a whole match around Will he paint his own tag partner? As if that's some odd thing you can do.
00:55:45
Speaker
Even with that silliness, even with people that unfortunately for more than they can't perform at the level they used to, like your savages and your nashes, he's still staying in that match in 99. So you can't take away from him there. He doesn't really lose anything in that match.
00:56:07
Speaker
So those are my first two, those are my obvious ones. One that might surprise you, I have series repeat is Hulk Hogan. Okay. So much of what makes this series successful, like the actual pay-per-view series and business wise,
00:56:19
Speaker
is Hulk Hogan, him coming there is this huge boon. They get attendance up for 94 or they get all this press from wrestling press and outside press. Cause Hey, I'll go into the back and there's this big celebration to his credit. He over delivers 94 boys surprised me. And he can still maintain that sort of match appearance in 95. Even if the booking is silly and they have him going over Vader.
00:56:46
Speaker
Likewise 96, he takes the riskiest career chance that anyone really can take going against guy that point was 13 years of character. I'm 12, 13 years of character. Yeah. Well over a decade. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And becoming heel. And regardless of my feel about his actual performances, I've, I've said, I'm not great in 97, 98. He's the name. He's the marquee value that brings outsider people, or at least friends, people into wrestling to watch it, whether they love.
00:57:16
Speaker
the NWO where they know his name. And again, he's so vital for good and bad reason to the series, whether it's all the unfortunately negative attention that comes with 2000 and his appearance there. And as you said, this series is a really a series that defines Hulk Hogan. So I can't take that far away from him. All right. Well, I clearly agree because my first name is Hulk Hogan. Okay.
00:57:46
Speaker
This is mostly on the strength of his 1994, 1995 and 1996 appearances, which I think we're all genuinely good. 94 is probably the best Hogan match I've ever seen in WCW and featured, of course, an absolutely bonkers backstage promo. That's true. I didn't even forgot about that one. Yeah. 1995 was good, solid fun and featured the tremendous spot where he wore Vader's helmet, which I will never forget.
00:58:11
Speaker
Fairly. Yeah, I get that. In 1996, his match appearance is short, but incredibly consequential. And his excellent promo literally changes the course of the company. And as you said, was a tremendous risk for him as a performer, actually. Oh, yeah. 1997 and 1998 do go downhill, unfortunately, though credit where credit is due, those matches are better when Hogan is in them. That's fair. In part because when he's not Rodman is. Yeah.
00:58:39
Speaker
And 2000, well, let's say this is partially a sympathy vote. That's fair. Plus, he was a big part of the funny half of the Baywatch episode, which while not good was enjoyable. Yes. I never lived down the jump from his celebratory title defense running out to the beach. Everyone's so happy. And then it's uncut to your skin cancer.
00:59:03
Speaker
That's the end. Why? Why did you juxtapose those things? Yes. Yeah. So good. Oh, yeah. Overall, as with you, this is just such a Hogan centric series. And that really had me leaning his way to begin with. But then additionally, he's just actually a notable positive for much of it. Yeah. So yeah, he he ended up getting my first vote. OK. My second one. I'm going with Tony Schiavone. OK.
00:59:31
Speaker
I really appreciate Shivani on the longer series, as I think you really get to see how good he is at keeping the storytelling on track.
00:59:38
Speaker
And Bash of the Beach especially has some of the more critical storytelling moments in WSW history. Yeah. It's not a flawless performance. Tony is dragged down sometimes by having to say, build up Dennis Rodman as an incredible wrestler. Yeah. Or by not being told what's going on in segments of Bash of the Beach 2000. But overall, this is a really strong series for Shivani, especially Bash of the Beach 1996, where he gets personally invested in the story beyond any show before or since. Yeah.
01:00:07
Speaker
at him having a lot of fun just playing with the beach theme on various shows, and a lot of fun between him and the other commentators, and he was responsible for a lot of the moments I really enjoyed on the series. Yeah. And even on the horrible 2000, Tony showed how important he was to the company, as the team very clearly looked to him to take the lead during the more confusing moments on the show. And my third one? I'm gonna go with the set designers. Okay.
01:00:34
Speaker
From 1992 through 1999, this series has some of the best sets that WCW has ever done. They are so good that we have actually decided to add best set as a category of awards for this series. That's true, yeah. And it was a tough choice. Yeah. Only Spring Stampede has gotten even close to the level this series reached on emphasizing theme through set. And the set gets used for matches on a lot of the shows, so you get to see a lot of the detail. Yeah. Plus, there's a crab camera.
01:01:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, bonus points for that. The set design here added a ton to my enjoyment of the series. So I really feel like the team earned an award here. Gotcha. Yeah. I think there's only one more series we haven't covered yet. The more spooky series. Yes. That will come down for that as well.
01:01:23
Speaker
honorable mention is always to be with the VP is Vader. He's so good. The problem is he's just not on enough. Yeah. But he got a 93 in that tag match, which he's really great in. He's able to do his big moves. He goes up for a suplex from British Bulldog, which is amazing.
01:01:41
Speaker
And then of course we have, of course 95 for you. He brings the helmet out, which therefore it could be used by Hogan. And obviously he looks amazing. Come out with the helmet. He does. He does. Yeah. Plus he crushes the basketball with his bare hands in the Baywatch episode. Yes. Yeah. Vader is one of those guys that I think is very easy to give a show MVP too, but often hard to give a series MVP too, just cause he's so localized. Yeah. If he had one more show appearance, not counting Baywatch, I'd probably have to fight over where they keep stinging. But otherwise, yeah.
01:02:12
Speaker
All right, matches of the series. So three matches, no particular order. What were your favorite three matches? And please name the shows they were on as well. Okay. We've already talked about a bit, but first off is the Rick Roode, Ricky Steamboat match. The Petalda Ricks. That is from 1992 Beach Blast.
01:02:29
Speaker
That for me is a great example of what a, an Iron Man match really should be. It's not just, Hey, we have a 30 and or a 60 minute match and we're going to build up the drama of one pinfall. Cause you get that in flare matches like for 20 plus years. This one, they build up the drama where he takes multiple losses and he's got to fight away from that from Neath. Somebody's got to literally fight his way up, Rick roots by to get out of a move. Mm-hmm.
01:02:55
Speaker
They really milk all this drama that last 30 seconds when he's suddenly ahead, recruits triangle on the pinfalls. There's no way you can excise that match from best of the series. Absolutely not. Second is the lucha six man tag match, which is from Back to the Beach 1997.
01:03:15
Speaker
It's a great example of how you can really bring something different to a show and really excite an audience at a hundred percent is a crazy stunt show match. I don't say that negatively at all in this connotation because you only get one match like this on this show and really throughout the series, because we're not a series where we have a 2000 show where they have a bunch of cruise away to always flipping off ladders and stuff.
01:03:41
Speaker
So this match really stands out on its own and also within the series. It really shows, Hey, look, you have all these interesting people you can bring in from the companies and other countries and localities and give eight, 10 minutes, do whatever you want. Here's a finish. And they just truly over deliver and make everyone go, man, I really want to Lucha now. Makes me want to let Lucha again, just thinking about it.
01:04:06
Speaker
Lastly, I have the match for me did a great job of mixing comedy in a match, which is hard to do in a serious match.
01:04:14
Speaker
with actual drama and character and just general match quality. So that of course is the Eddie Gwarev. It's a Chavagรผero match from Bastion Beach 1998, the Hair vs Hair match. I've seen it recalling that match a little better than you, but I obviously both love Eddie and both love Chavo. So it's not a haters and lovers kind of situation. Oh, no, no, no. I still regarded that as very good. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
01:04:39
Speaker
I think because they work in comedy early and then they don't go back to it and they just establish like a hard sort of cut where the comedy ends and there comes a regular match without being like a full reset. I think that really, that match is great. Plus again, it's Eddie and Chavo. So again, give them X number of minutes, free reign, do what they want. All right. For me, this was really, really hard.
01:05:05
Speaker
Mm-hmm. There were 13 matches I was picking from for this series and even after a rewatch, I really struggled. Yeah. Except for my first choice, which is entirely obvious. Okay. Beach Blast 1992, the Iron Man match Rick Rude versus Ricky Steamboat. Absolutely. As you said, there is no way that I could leave this off. No.
01:05:27
Speaker
One of the greatest single feats of athleticism and stamina I have yet witnessed for this show, and an incredibly well-plotted match to boot, with clear strategy and excellent tactical wrestling that took full advantage of the Iron Man rules. Both performers put everything they had into this match, but never lost a step, even though they must have been exhausted. If anything, they kicked it into overdrive for the closing minutes, with an emotional and exciting finish, long after they'd already well earned their way into my matches of the series.
01:05:57
Speaker
When they do so well in this match we talked about, they will work what essentially would be just be rest holes, but they're constantly shifting the rest holes or getting drama from them. Like you'll lean on it more or let go.
01:06:11
Speaker
Rude will push down his team, but we'll try to push up again. So they are resting your covering so they can do the next arduous bit, like the crazy lizard spot. That's all you like to refer to it. Scaping the tombstone pile driver bit. Yes. But they don't make it like, Oh, here's the rest spot so they can do really cool stuff. It's all that are doing interesting stuff while we're also resting. Every moment of the match feels like a fight. Yes, exactly.
01:06:35
Speaker
Yeah, it was absolutely brilliant. One of my favorite matches that I have watched for Let's Go to the Ring. I think you said it best on our Beach Blast 1992 show, Al. Okay. When our biggest critique is, why is this not for a title? That should tell you something. Absolutely.
01:06:51
Speaker
My second one, Bash of the Beach 1996, Psychosis versus Rey Mysterio Jr. That match was amazing. Psychosis and Rey Mysterio Jr. provided a great stunt show with some excellent storytelling, going beyond the expectations for an opening match, supercharging the crowd with a high energy, exciting performance, and also telling a tale of two wrestlers who learn from fighting each other and counter each other at their best.
01:07:19
Speaker
The ending spot is one of the most incredible things I have ever seen, and I'm still shocked that they had the guts to, one, come up with it, and two, say, yeah, we're sure we can get the timing right. And match three, Bash of the Beach 1994, Hulk Hogan versus Ric Flair. Okay.
01:07:39
Speaker
This is on here in part because it's so important to WCW as a company and to WCW's overall story. It deserves consideration for that alone. When you think about Bash of the Beach, you're going to think of this match. Yeah. It's Hogan's first appearance and his first world title win. But what really earns it its spot on this list is that aside from being important, it's also dang good.
01:08:02
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. This is Hogan and Flair doing their absolute best to prove that this longtime dream match really could be done and could live up to expectations. Is Ric Flair doing something totally selfless for the good of the company? And is Hogan working his butt off to justify his hiring? It's one of Hogan's absolute best WCW matches and is very entertaining. Yeah.
01:08:25
Speaker
Honorable mentions to, well, pretty much every one of the 10 matches that I didn't pick, but especially to the Masters of the Power Bomb versus the Superpowers, which nearly earned inclusion on the basis of Sting and Bulldog's amazing entrance outfits alone. Not to mention the best pinfall save in wrestling history. There were just so many good matches on this series. I love having this problem.
01:08:47
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Something that when I was kind of do mine, I was like skimming through the show, especially because obviously I haven't watched either beach blasted quite a while because of the order of the show has gone. I was like, Oh, right. They're going to see a rude match. Obviously that's going to be there. Like boom set. And then when I was skimming through, I'm like, Oh, right. The lucha six band match. Obviously that's gotta be there. Boom. So then it was just really what's in that third spot. And for me that being at each level. Now the awards that nobody wants.
01:09:16
Speaker
First up, we have our least valuable reformers. These are the people that you either felt didn't add anything or actively took away from the shows. So with this one, I'll let you pick up to three. All right, now I've got three, don't worry. We generally don't have too much of a problem with that. No.
01:09:33
Speaker
Okay, so let's get the average one out of the way. Dennis Rodman. Yep. Matter of fact, the guy personally in, you know, stuff he's done in the last 20 years or, you know, his public persona or anything. He shows up in the 1997 show, does real basic stuff that they teach you in the first week of wrestling school.
01:09:51
Speaker
Hell, the first day of wrestling school practically, that he has obviously an advantage on because so much is built around his natural athleticism and his trained skills. Like, wow, you taught a guy who jumped in the air all the time for late basketball, had to do a leapfrog. Amazing. Yeah. Widen your legs a little bit. Perfect. This thing you do, you do every night. Perfect.
01:10:13
Speaker
If it was just 97, he wouldn't make it. Doesn't like hog slash road wild where 99 is so bad. He makes it regardless. It's 98 really that seals it for him because he was in no condition to perform on that show. I don't know for sure he was drunk or whatever he was on, you know, not gonna speculate what he would have done and did do. And he's talked about it his past, but I mean, he seemingly falls asleep a couple of times waiting for his tag in the corner.
01:10:42
Speaker
My favorite, it's like, it's always, it's so bad. It comes back around to being good in the sense when he holds, I think it's a page for Hogan to punch and Hogan hits the guy and he falls down. Yes. Forgot that bit. Yeah. It's like the dim mock, the force goes through the person and he's hitting and knocks him down. He messes with one of our favorites in DDP because he clearly forgets stuff from the binder.
01:11:11
Speaker
You know, he's on page 13, we should be on page 12 or, you know, annoying perfectionist in, you know, someone who gets results with that perfectionism. Right. Yeah. Page obviously doesn't help.
01:11:22
Speaker
Second is one that I know it's not a truly terrible performance throughout a series. Like I almost gave it to Renegade, but it's only the one show. It is terrible, but it's only one show. But for me, it's a combination of not having great matches, but also feels like a big ego thing. So my second pick is Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Oh, okay.
01:11:46
Speaker
95, it has him Kamala, which as worth wrenching again as a weird repeat of a match I saw in person back in 2003. But I suddenly remembered when I watched my five, like, why does that feel so familiar? So you're just getting back kind of grunge then, right? That's part of it. That's fair. But no, if that was a good match, if that was like a really bad tip, like, wow, they got so much worse than that in 2003, but no. But you also, 1996 is show.
01:12:12
Speaker
the taped fist match with DDP. So yes, he takes what maybe at that point, a less rare pinfall loss, but he takes a pinfall loss DDP and completely no cells, a diamond cutter. Yeah. To be the good seed back 10 seconds later and walk away. Like he just won the match. If he had a good match for instance, either match and did that, maybe he gets by, he'd be just this hard to mention like, you know, he's okay, but don't do that again.
01:12:42
Speaker
He didn't didn't do well. And then he did that. So, yeah, I didn't mind the 1996 match overall. I thought that it was pretty well plotted. But yeah, that ending spot, the fact that he just immediately gets up from the diamond cutter is you just don't do that. Yeah. I mean, I also get into the weird logic of his whole thing as a face, as we discussed before, is taping his fist up. Yes. Knocking out then never hide the evidence from the ref, who just doesn't seem to care, apparently.
01:13:10
Speaker
It's just talking. It's what he does. Yeah. Yeah. So then his big gimmick match to go get DDP is a match. Hey, do that thing. You do every match anyways. It'd be like if you were a Cruiserweight guy and let's say 99, 2000, and they only dragged you up for ladder matches. And then it's like, don't worry. I'll come back with a new match. I'm going to do a ladder match. You're like, Oh, okay. Sure. I guess. Um, I do have one more.
01:13:37
Speaker
might be stretching the rules a bit, but also for Lisa, I have a former, I also have Hulk Hogan. Okay. For as good as he could be when his match and it's crazy promo 94 and some of the spots in 95. There's still that sort of taint of ego that he's got to go over Vader every single time. So it's a mixing of your positive and negative. So 97, 98, he gets a lot of attention with them by getting Rodman involved.
01:14:05
Speaker
The problem is him and two involved, you know, Savage is there too, doing his best. Can't wrangle Rodman.
Hogan and Rodman: Egos and Match Impact
01:14:13
Speaker
So as good as it is for the pay-free number to bring in Rodman, he's still Rodman. That's fair. 98. Again, he does okay. He does the usual heel Hogan stick, but someone put so much of the match around Rodman again. You can't pivot the plan a little bit given the way you clearly saw him backstage.
01:14:35
Speaker
You had plenty of time to go to page and like, look, this guy's not doing well. Let's, let's change spot 26, spot 29, you know, all the numbers that's, that's changing the round. Malone can come in and I'll do it. We'll, we'll figure it out. We'll call it in the rain. 98 is especially worth because side drop and performance level in possible intoxication. There's no Savage there to, as he noted, remind him of the spots and 97's match. Yeah. 98 is notably less organized than 97, despite having DDP in it, which is amazing.
01:15:03
Speaker
Yeah, any situation, I think I said even that show in a situation where you replace Randy Savage with Ed Leslie, not good. Never an upgrade. Never. And let's talk about 2000.
01:15:14
Speaker
whatever side you think is right, whether he pulled an angle and wanted to win the title and he shouldn't have, whether it was all a shoot and it went awry. Even with this positive spin that I got from the Dark Side of the Ring, it's double turn. Hey, Hogan should come in and win the title and let's spend like the next three months building up to someone competing world champion to meet the of Hogan coming in and then go, wait a second. I'm X champ brother.
01:15:40
Speaker
Yeah. So for every good he does, bringing people in and bringing attention, he doesn't deliver good matches after 90 five, really kind of six. He can't really count. Cause again, he does, he does leg drop and then throws a ref out. Maybe that's your break point there. He doesn't know anything bad in night six, but he also does almost nothing in it. So yeah. So Hogan for me is both series MVP and series, uh, at least LVP, I guess.
01:16:07
Speaker
I will honestly say, he got a consideration for that for me as well. Oh, there we go. For similar reasons, yeah. We both could have broken the rules, so it'd be fun. I think, technically, I actually might have done that for Road Wild. Didn't I do the crowd and then the crowd? Oh, maybe we did. I think I actually did, yeah. But yeah, I think that's entirely fair. He does so well in certain ways that he has a massive MVP for the series. Yeah.
01:16:35
Speaker
But at the same time, he is involved in so many things that go poorly. It's entirely fair to view him the other way at the same time. Yeah. Cause it's like 98 again, 98, it brings in so many outside people to watch. I just wonder how many outside people stayed after watching that main event. I really do. So for my least valuable performers, number one, Dennis Rodman. Yeah.
01:17:02
Speaker
Last series I felt kind of guilty for picking Rodman because he only had one match. Though make no mistake, it was awful. Yeah. This time I have no guilt. No. His 1995 appearance is just kind of odd with one of the strangest promo deliveries in recent memory. Yeah. But his 1997 and 1998 appearances in the main event tag matches no less are showstoppers as in watching them makes you want to stop watching the show.
01:17:29
Speaker
In 1997, I was inclined to be a little forgiving because he was new and the match was structured to give frequent chances to give him some direction. At least there was kind of an explanation for this slow stop-start pattern that I had. In 1998, though, Rodman simply put in an outright poor performance with surprising stumbles considering his obvious athletic talent and seemed consistently out of sync with the other performers and the match plan.
01:17:54
Speaker
Every time Rodman appeared, he took away from the show and his fellow performers, so that makes him an easy pick here. Yeah. Second, Vince Russo. You know, I didn't think about that, but yeah, that's fair. He's only responsible for one show on the series, but what a horrible show it was. Yeah. Badge of the Beats 2000, and I think this is probably too obvious to serve as a spoiler. He has one of my worst shows of the series. Obviously, yeah.
01:18:23
Speaker
Now I'm not certain how much of the show is purely on Russo as Booker, as he was part of a team at that point, but he is clearly a big part of the debacle around the world title, including a promo that went over so poorly with Hulk Hogan that he, one, left the company for good, and two, sued the company.
Criticism of Vince Russo and Hardcore Hack
01:18:41
Speaker
Yes. So yeah, it might've just been one show, but I think that's enough. Absolutely, yeah. Number three, Hardcore Hack. Okay.
01:18:52
Speaker
I'm going to admit this is somewhat unfair. I don't know how much Hack was involved in planning the junkyard invitational. It's just the face of it. The guy that they showed promoting it on screen. Yeah. But honestly, that was one of the worst matches I've ever watched. So I got to chuck somebody involved in the match under the bus. Yeah. And I throw in the park over Steve Riegel. Thank you. So sorry, Hack, you're the guy. Also, he does blatantly call spots live on camera in that match. He does, yeah.
01:19:21
Speaker
Hey, get over here. And he's involved in the laughable spot with Finley and the car crusher. So I feel a little bit bad about this choice, but only a little. Yeah. Worst matches on the series. Pick up to three.
01:19:38
Speaker
I know we've discussed whether this is a match or not, but it's not an official one of mine because of everything surrounding it. But so I got to say, let's just call it one a. Okay.
Disappointment in Hogan vs. Jarrett Match
01:19:48
Speaker
Hogan Jarrett. I can see that. Yeah. Regardless of how plans went or plans changed. The way they do that is just terrible. They would have like an unknown match and then things change. They just do that. And it's so bad. Yeah.
01:20:02
Speaker
is technically a match for accounting. I'm not going to pick that where there's so many matches on in a series of nine shows like that. I'm not I'm not spoiling for choices. Yeah, unfortunately. Yeah. Now, to be fair, I think I did pick Eric Bischoff versus Vince McMahon once. So I think you would be entirely within your rights to count that as a match.
01:20:21
Speaker
Yeah. So yeah, if that's one a, then one B or the proper one, depending on your point of view is unfortunately D Malenko versus David flair. Oh, okay. It's D Malenko and they do that with them. That's fair. Yeah. You have D Malenko and you have all these people around him. You have flair and Anderson and all these people will roll out the angle. Pay him. You know, I'm sure a good chunk of change to.
01:20:46
Speaker
come out, make David Flair look bad, and then get beaten by someone else off camera. You're, you know, well, they're either off the back rather, and then lose the match. It's just a complete and utter waste of Demo and Go. Okay. That's a personal, personal aspect of that, that makes a very forgettable, let's call it an angle anyways, that bad. So those are my match slash angles combined together for 1A and 1B, if you want to call it that, for worst match series. Okay.
01:21:16
Speaker
Second worst match of series for me is the graveyard match. I'll go into a bit more, um, for a little, it'll come up again, but for me, there's no salivating this.
01:21:29
Speaker
I know you're gonna have the junkyard match and I probably should, but I wanted to cover more terribleness. And I can think of ways where you could take the general idea of the junkyard match and go, okay, light it properly, do this, do that, and you can make something work from this. The graveyard match is the same jump-scared knockout guy spot
01:21:55
Speaker
Like three times it's in the dark. They almost hurt themselves by turn tipping the weird sword candle over. Yeah. By the way, if I give you the sword candles, terrible. Again, it's another case of ruining good things to everybody. That should be, this is a cool thing and it's so bad.
01:22:12
Speaker
Yeah, nearly accidentally burning your fighting arena down is probably a good indication that this is a bad match. Exactly. For me, there's no salvaging the idea of this. It's just guy wandering around the dark. It's also weird. I know it's just a timing thing. It's just when they're in the angle, but it's weird to do a graveyard match on bash at the beach. Yes. Take some time and build up to this for Halloween havoc. I mean, still don't do this match because it's terrible.
01:22:40
Speaker
But at least the theme would make sense. Yeah, it would make sense. Ooh, it's a spooky thing for our show, but it's just so weird that they appear in the demon, the non kiss because they're not paying us anymore. Demon match is on this show and it's not good. It's just really not good. It makes everyone involved not look good. So yeah. And again, just I won't pick their current match because I know you'll point to say about it and I had pointed to say on the show.
01:23:08
Speaker
I will say I nearly picked the Renegade Orndorf match that was on there for a while. It's not great in the big spot of all storing sand, but looking at more recent stuff we covered and matched that, the more I think about it is just poorly booked. And again, makes everyone look bad. It's the Rick Steiner versus Van Hammer match from 1999, Bachelor Beach. Oh, okay.
01:23:30
Speaker
Because it's like, OK, you built up this mini thing where Van Hammer is being low card guys on Thunder and Saturday night and even Nitro. And then Rick Steiner is this, you know, her make up to do bad guy. Now that you need work to make Rick Steiner a bad. Let's be clear. But they have this match where it seemed like hard legit strikes. The big Vammer looked really dumb and really bad. And the ref looks bad because he ignores multiple low blows like right at him.
01:23:58
Speaker
You can kind of excuse things from, you know, 98 posts where they're like, oh, the reference I'm leading to see, you know, he saw Nash do a low blow once. They're like three and it's like a full on like penalty kick, you know, low blow. And it'd be one thing if this is like a really cool squash match.
01:24:17
Speaker
like a Vader one or like a Dr. Steve Williams or a Terry Gordy one where he just throws around a guy and looks really cool. But he doesn't really look cool doing this either. Yeah. It's weirdly a book where it's not fully squashed because Vader has to get some offense in, but then he looks terrible when he takes so much bad offense and is always knocked down and locked out of control so easily. And yeah, it's like no one wins here. And it's the shame. It's also a sad sign of where the TV title was at that point, which is why they
01:24:46
Speaker
literally threw in the bin not long after this, unfortunately. All right, my first one, you have quite accurately predicted.
01:24:55
Speaker
is Bash of the Beach 1999's Junkyard Invitational. This was horribly executed, plain and simple. It's one of the worst matches I have ever watched. I can see someone coming up with the idea and thinking that it might be neat. There is a lot of opportunity for interesting stunts and dramatic battles towards the fence to win.
01:25:18
Speaker
Plotted well, performed well, and filmed well, this could perhaps have been pretty neat, or at least a wild spot fest like a table's ladders and chairs match. Sure. This was not plotted well. No. Not performed well. No. And not filmed well. Also very much no, yes.
01:25:36
Speaker
It took place in the dark with very poor lighting with blatant setups for moves and pretty unsafe stunt executions that resulted in at least one clearly unplanned injury. And to be frank, I'm not sure it was plotted at all, given how little anyone appeared to be trying to actually fulfill the wind condition of getting over the fence. I would call it borderline unwatchable. Second match.
01:26:00
Speaker
Bash of the Beach 2000, the graveyard match. All right. Demon versus Vampiro. Speaking of borderline unwatchable. Hey, it was so successful to have wrestlers fight outdoors at night with next to no lighting last year. Let's do it again. Yeah. But this time, make sure both dress in black so they're extra hard to see. And hey, for good measure, let's have one of them get knocked out and need a referee to pull a Baywatch and save them from drowning. Yeah, that's the beach theme, Bob. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, that is the beach theme. We found it. There we go.
01:26:31
Speaker
Oh, and let's make sure the actual win comes like three or four segments after the match and only features one of the competitors just to drain the last bits of any possible excitement out of this one. Yeah, absolutely awful.
01:26:43
Speaker
The way they handle Asia's in that is so weird as well. Yes. I mean, everything about that match is strange as heck. Let's, let's, let's be honest. The one thing I can say with this match as well, like what sort of benefit of like sort of modern horror aesthetics, I could see if you did it where like there's like a street, an actual like street lamp and not just carrying the torch. And then they've like dramatic effect. The light goes out. Maybe you're going to like turn the lights out somehow. Yes. So you have that sort of lights out lights back on effect. That can be interesting, but they don't even do that.
01:27:13
Speaker
Mm. And my third one? Batch to the Beach in 1998? Hulk Hogan and Dennis Rodman versus Diamond Dallas Page and Karl Malone. I want my third pick as well. It was a very close call for me between this and the wedding gown match from 2000. You know what saved that one from being picked? Mm-hmm. Crowbar. Yes, same here. That match was awful, but it was short and it had one funny moment. Yeah, that's true.
01:27:40
Speaker
This one was also awful and extremely long. Yes. Its faults are many, mostly revolving around Dennis Rodman, who frequently seems unclear on what he's meant to be doing and is, along with Harold Malone, in the match for much longer than was a good idea. This should have been mostly Paige and Hogan who knew how to maintain the match flow and keep things moving. Look, Rodman and Malone are gifted and exceptional athletes and play at the highest levels of basketball,
01:28:10
Speaker
but they are not experienced pro wrestlers. This match seems set up with the expectation that they were. They took two complete rookies and threw them into a 20 plus minute match. Frankly, WCW should not have been surprised by how this came out. But for the series overall, we've got some other awards to hand out. So first up, the best commentary team.
01:28:38
Speaker
Which commentary team did you enjoy the most? And if you can pick a particular show that you're highlighting, add that as well. Okay. It's, we'll come in there surprise. It's obviously not 2000.
01:28:50
Speaker
Honestly, if there's ever a 2000 Joey watch that doesn't have terrible commentary, I will say it. I'll be like, you know what? This isn't the worst thing I've heard. This is the best commentary of 2000. We'll see if that comes up, but, uh, who knows? No, um, for me, it's kind of a fairly obvious pick. Just the tried and true classic pairing of Tony Dusty and Bobby Heenan. Hmm.
01:29:14
Speaker
I think if I'm going to pick one with them, I go 96. They have a lot of fun as a team. You have Tony and Bobby working together. Dusty carries that weight, of course, but they also get the shock and betrayal thing as well. So they show they can do more than just the fun comedic trio with the betrayal at the end. So I think that's like the best combination of the two, I think. For me, I am in total agreement. It's Tony, Bobby and Dusty from Bash of the Beach, 1996.
01:29:41
Speaker
What a great performance as a commentary team. Besides just being fun to listen to as usual, they did a great job here in balancing the need to tell the stories of individual matches with the need to set up the biggest story of the night, the outsiders and their mysterious third man, without ever letting the latter actually overwhelm the former. Yeah.
01:30:01
Speaker
They had a lot put on them for the evening. It's up to them to get perhaps WSW's biggest story in years across. And they did an amazing job with it, especially in the final moments of the show when they nailed the feelings of betrayal and the crushing disappointment. The story called for Tony's Hulk Hogan. You can go to hell straight to hell. Sign off is incredible and exactly what the show needed in that moment. Absolutely.
01:30:30
Speaker
best promos or non-match segments? Were there things other than matches that stood out to us across the series? You can name up to three.
01:30:39
Speaker
We sort of mentioned before, there's the completely bizarre end of the show promo with Hogan 94. Yes. It's funny because we talked about theories that there's no Hogan at all. There's not a Hogan pre-match promo. Cause I think they wanted maximum effect. You don't see Hogan get a big cheer and then Hogan's back, you know, 15 minutes later for the match. Hogan's like first appearance outside of video package is I'm here for the match. Let's get the maximum amount.
01:31:07
Speaker
So that said, they squeeze what should have been a pre-match promo and a post-match promo into one glorious package. Yes. Where he just like wanders to the backstage area. He runs across shirtless friends of his. He's like, Oh, how are you doing here? It just says this bizarre nonsense. Yeah, I think my favorite bits are him getting into the belt and going, Holy Moly. That's good.
01:31:32
Speaker
And the bit just as they're fading out where he compliments someone's hairstyle and we still have no idea who's. Yeah, it's the greatest missy of a series so far. Who is he complimenting? I can also point out that I build they do with the faces in the 1996 show. Mm hmm.
01:31:52
Speaker
They get across the good mix of, you know, excitement for finding it to take on the outsiders, subtle fear of, we don't know who the third man is. It's a, you know, the mystery and the danger of it. And it's the really, we're strong thing for this company, raw WCW aspect to it. Plus it's interesting mix of the trios as well.
01:32:12
Speaker
Obviously, and this is not fair. Parrisons, but Luger is obviously not the strongest of the three, given the two were staying in very savage, but he does his part fairly well as well. So he gets a little bit. He does that. He's not an anchor on the on the same, which is good, but it's staying savage. So it is no dishonor to say that you're a third place in a promo involving staying in Randy Savage. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:32:38
Speaker
I guess we guys go back again, the the send off getting talked about with Tony is a great send off. Mm hmm. That's a great show for him. In a sort of weird as a weird comedy there aspect, the long cutting to the commentary team following the whole debacle of 2000 and like telling us. I genuinely consider picking that one as well, honestly, just just because of the honesty. Yeah.
01:33:05
Speaker
So for me, here is my three. Bash of the Beach 1996, the post-main event formation of the NWO. That's good, yeah. This absolutely had to be on there for me. And not just because of his historical significance or even the massive change that it brings to the company. It's also just an amazing segment in its own right. Hogan playing heel for the first time in over a decade absolutely nails this segment, ripping his Hulkamania persona to shreds.
01:33:32
Speaker
Yeah. We talked about this on the show and earlier tonight, in fact, but Hogan deserves a lot of credit for fully diving in here. He could have left himself an out, given that this was a big risk for him creatively, but he didn't. Yeah. It's a great segment that redefined Hogan and WCW. My second segment is Bash of the Beach 1994, Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan pre-match commentary segment for Hogan versus Flair.
01:34:02
Speaker
Mm, okay.
01:34:03
Speaker
This is an amazing, amazing bit between Tony and Bobby, showcasing both of their talents, with Tony building up the importance and magnitude of the upcoming dream match between arguably the two biggest stars in pro wrestling, and Bobby agreeing with him while also delivering a fast-paced rant about how badly he wants to see Hogan humiliated and how much he's going to celebrate when Flair wins, memorably ending by saying that he'd go have champagne while Tony could go home and have, quote, a little warm cup of Ovaltine and a cookie.
01:34:34
Speaker
Terrific bit. And third for me, Bachelor of the Beach 1998. JJ Dylan goads Chris Jericho into accepting a match against a quote, local talent. That's a good one too. Yeah, absolutely.
01:34:47
Speaker
Absolutely brilliant segment here. Dylan, proving that he remembers well how to be a master manipulator from his days with the Four Horsemen, goads Jericho into believing that he's accepting an easy match against an inexperienced out-of-practice local wrestler before revealing that it's in fact with the returning Rey Mysterio Jr. All the more impressive Dylan manages to never outright lie in the entire segment, letting Jericho mislead himself instead.
01:35:14
Speaker
Jericho, of course, does his part exceptionally as well, excellently portraying a delusional, self-important fighter, pleased that his nefarious plans have eliminated the challenger he was supposed to face, until his mouth and overconfidence get him into just as much trouble as he thought he dodged. Honorable mention to the mini-movie to set up Beach Blast 1993, which I couldn't pick because, one, it's not actually on one of the shows, and two, it's just so incredibly stupid and terribly acted.
01:35:42
Speaker
But yeah, it's stupid and terribly acted in such an endearing way. Yeah, that I absolutely love it.
01:35:50
Speaker
I was saying that I want to mention, can't really be included because it's technically during a match, but Bobby Heenan not forgetting that he had character hates Hogan. And when Hogan comes out, was he looking for the save? Oh, yeah. And that's 96 where he goes, whose side is he on? And they go, wait, what are you doing? I still can't believe that people give him crap for that. Yeah, it's just it's so good in character moment. Yeah.
01:36:12
Speaker
Yeah, of course he, of course he thinks that Hogan is coming out. What do you think is happening? He's got to say what he says every time that Hogan comes out. Yeah, exactly. Not all matches are the usual sort of singles or tag match. So Al, what was your favorite gimmick match on the series? It was surprising when I was going back through, I was expecting Fessy with one Russo era show on here to have a lot more gimmick matches than we actually do.
01:36:43
Speaker
Obviously, we have a lot of singles matches and a lot of versions of tag matches, mostly fairly straight. But the one that for me that was good the first time, actually was great the first time, and was still quite good the second time, even if the second time was as good, that for me is the Iron Man match. Okay, we got that at both beach blast 1992 and 1993. Obviously, the through line is Rick Rude and the US title.
01:37:07
Speaker
It's still weird, again, that the US title was not online in the first match. That's such a specific nitpick for an otherwise amazing match with Rude and Steamboat. Again, even though it's not as good for various reasons, like, pacing is just weirdly different in the 93 match. I guess with them trying to do different stuff and trying to play the Dustin versus Steamboat, it's still a good match. So ultimately we have one repeat gimmick match.
01:37:36
Speaker
on here and half of them are good. One is really, really good. So for me, it's our main match. Yeah, I.
01:37:45
Speaker
Honestly, really should probably say the same thing, but just to be different. That's fine. I'm going to go with the Lucha six man tag match from bash the beach, 1997. Okay. Just an absolutely tremendous spectacle and a crazy stunt show. Very well performed with some really, really fun creative spot concepts, a terrific showcase for all the guys involved. And I had just a terrific time watching it. Worst type of gimmick match.
01:38:12
Speaker
All right, I kind of gave mine away a bit, but for me, obviously the worst gimmick match is the graveyard match. So like I said, I can think of a bunch of ways on top of my head. And I thought a bunch of more, obviously, we're prepping to cover Bastion Beast 9.99 of how you could make a very, at least a watchable version of the junkyard match.
01:38:33
Speaker
and actual lighting, a more solid storyline through line with the spots. I had people constantly go for the fence and get distracted or attacked and pulled away. Mm hmm. Make Jimmy Hart's parents actually the reason why people don't go for that until they do.
01:38:48
Speaker
All these things that they don't do in a match. But again, I could think of ways to defend that and ways to improve that. I can't think of much you could really do to improve the graveyard match without changing it fundamentally different from what it is. Mm hmm. I mean, it could be fun in a cheesy way if they found like an interior studio to do it in like, you know, like when those haunted house attractions you do, but it would make it more of a Halloween havoc attraction, not a bash to the beach. But the Baywatch spot, Al.
01:39:18
Speaker
I know, I know. But yeah, the thing with me is they don't really explain the rules. As far as I recall, they really just set up the match on Nitro, like before the show. Vampir was mad because he loses via distraction to the demon in a regular match due to a possible sting appearance. So he's like, I mean, graveyard match. And then they just don't explain what that is. And that really explained the commentary is all that well.
01:39:44
Speaker
And then to the crowd watching, even as much as the commentators do their best to cover it, the crowd obviously is just watching a screen. They don't have the benefit of the commentators. So I just think there's no way to salvage this version. I think you could salvage the junkyard match. And yes, that pun was intentional. All right. Interestingly, I think I have a similar reasoning, but a different match. Okay.
01:40:05
Speaker
Mine is a multi-team single-fall tag match where anyone can tag anyone. Yeah. I.e. the triangle tag match Blue Bloods vs. Nasty Boys vs. Harlem Heat from Bachelor of the Beach 1995. Mm-hmm. Other matches were definitely worse in terms of the action. See my selections for overall worst matches. But that's actually why I'm picking this one. Mm-hmm. This match is bad specifically because of its gimmick. Yeah. It just makes no sense.
01:40:35
Speaker
It is impossible to discuss the strategy of the match in a way that makes use of its unusual rules because anyone willingly tagging out to someone not on their team just hurts their chances of winning the match. Even the junkyard invitational for all its many and varied flaws, the lighting, the action, the fact that no one really goes for the win condition. Okay, I'm stopping listing those before I change my choice here. But even the junkyard invitational is something that could be done in a way that you could follow.
01:41:04
Speaker
Yes, they didn't, but that's on the execution, not the basic match concept. Correct. But this, the basic concept of the match is senseless. The commentary team could not figure out how to discuss the tactics because doing that at all causes the whole concept to break down. So yeah, other matches have worse action or execution, but with the triangle tag match as shown here, the gimmick itself is what's bad.
01:41:30
Speaker
I've forgotten that until looking through the list of gimmick matches like, Oh God. Yeah, that I don't want to rewatch that, but I remember that being bad. Yeah. Here's a fun one. The best performer with a single appearance on the series. So who was it that you really would have loved to see again the most.
01:41:51
Speaker
All right. So this is what I'm kind of torn on. Cause I, I have what is a fairly obvious one, especially for me, but I feel like there's also not a second pick that in their own right deserves that I think. So basically it comes down to two people that absolutely I think deserve it. One of them, I will never get a chance to give them this kind of praise or reward again. And one guy, again, absolutely deserves it, but I will at least see a few more times.
01:42:20
Speaker
So I'm trying to decide which way to go with that. What do you think? Um, I'm in favor of going further rare. If you have that chance. Okay. That's kind of where I'm leaning as well. I have a whole thing written for, but I was like, I could absolutely make a perfect case for my other man. I don't, I'll, I'll say this after I'm done, but okay. So for me, again, cause it's the only chance I'm going to get to do it. And I think he deserves praise for trying to do stuff in a match. Even if he's maybe should have been that less that is Carmelone. Oh, interesting. Okay.
01:42:49
Speaker
I'd say be the third best performer as a whole in the match. Cause obviously DDP, then Hogan and him just because of the natural experience they have wrecking matches. But seeing him both on this show and the buildup, he is really into this whole thing. He really did seemingly hang around a lot with Paige and really try to learn the match and try to be ready, try and do all the spots.
01:43:14
Speaker
The condition you can give him, which is that they gave him way too much to do in the match and they kept putting in much Rodman. I don't think is the most fair thing to say about him per se. Okay. And you look at the booking of it as well, the way the confusion with the finish kind of works with him as a character. Cause you know, the whole thing with the pinfall and he doesn't realize what happened. So he tries to keep going at the match and then gives the rough a diamond cutter.
01:43:42
Speaker
The thing and ultimately the thing for me is that he does his best, does a good job I'd say as a whole, and he only has this one match, this one appearance outside of a random nitro where he saves DDP for a beatdown I think like a year and a half later because they're in Utah to do this. Whereas Rodman got, let's be honest, three attempts
01:44:01
Speaker
Too many attempts. Let's put it that way. Yeah. I got three attempts between the two in this series and then his one off in road wild. And we're all owned in a single appearance does better than anything Robin did in three appearances. And it gets a melee chance. In case you're wondering, my person who absolutely deserves a single appearance, but I will get more chances to praise him is the British bulldog, David Boy Smith.
01:44:26
Speaker
Fair enough. Yeah. I think we've picked him on an earlier series for that. At least one, one of us did him suplexing Vader. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's brilliant. Delayed vertical suplex to Vader. I know how this spot works. I know how you're helping when you pivot on the leg and everything, but.
01:44:45
Speaker
You got to be able to get him up. Even if, even if I accept, okay, you know, the guy's helping you stay up for the vertical part of it. You've got to get him up and your legs got to hold out and your back's got to hold out. Cause you could, you could get him up with them, helping you a bit. And then you're just, your back is how you just fall down and badly for everybody involved.
01:45:04
Speaker
Yeah, ultimately, you know, he can help by keeping steady. He can kind of support himself in certain ways. He can help, like you said, get into the position in the first place. Yeah. But at the end of the day, it's you standing there as straight as you can, holding a massive heavyweight over your head.
01:45:22
Speaker
I think there's a lot of parts of wrestling where people, like once they, they know some of the gimmicks of it and how like the little tricks of the trade, I think they undersell the physicality and what you need to be able to do for that. Like when you learn, Oh, the guy sort of pushed off of his feet and helps go over upside down for power bomb. You go, Oh, I am going to do that. But then you watch people fail at power bombs.
01:45:46
Speaker
And you go, Oh, maybe, maybe not. Yeah. You can get started, but you've got to, you're lower back and your core has got to do all that work to rotate them over. We saw poor Kevin Nash always get dropped in his head. Yes. And we've, we've been courageous, getting dropped in his head. Really don't try to undersell what they do. Even if you know the little tricks to make things easier, it's still a lot of work and it's still something I know I cannot do.
01:46:11
Speaker
It is a deeply athletic and technically complicated act. Yeah. It's important not to undersell what someone is accomplishing in the ring. Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. For me, this was quite hard, especially as quite a few of our favorites only had a single appearance. Yeah. So it was really tempting to say, you know, pick Ultimo Dragon because why wouldn't I want more Ultimo Dragon in my life? Sure.
01:46:36
Speaker
But in the interest of picking somebody different, I'm going to go with Hector Garza. Okay. From the lucha six man tag. Okay. He's just as easily say Liz Mark Jr. Two for many of the same reasons. So consider him an honorable mention, but I'll take Garza for my actual pick. Anyone else you could possibly pick from that six man match? Maybe, uh, Viana. Where's the mask? Uh, Viana four.
01:46:59
Speaker
Big fan of Skeletor, anybody else? I believe you'll recall from our conversation offline that he did not show up only one time, Al. I believe in my headcanon, he does only show up once. I don't care what anyone says. Al is living in denial about La Parca being in the junkyard invitational. Yes, yes. He sent me a heartbroken text message.
01:47:22
Speaker
I, I, I really thought it was like a trick. Like you, you didn't put them in the list. Cause like you think, Oh, well I'm going to put La Parque. He's got to pick La Parque and I'm like, Oh, right. There was another. Yeah. Yeah. I would never rob you of the chance to pick La Parque. I know. We're two good friends for that. I appreciate that. But yeah, I'll pick Garza. He got some really nice highlight points in the match and he impressed with great acrobatic moves that were really fun to watch. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Great drop kick and standing moonsault to close out the thing too.
01:47:54
Speaker
Honorable mention as well to Crowbar, whose heroic effort and comedic timing managed to save the wedding gown match from being listed in my worst three matches of the series, if only just. That's fair as well, yes. Alright, most improved. Is there anyone that you thought wasn't necessarily too great when they first showed up, but later on they really improved and turned things around?
01:48:17
Speaker
This might seem weird given how much you praise the guy as a whole, but obviously I'm looking at it from this series perspective. So going in with the early shows, you get the real rough prototype version of diamond dials page. Uh-huh. Where he's not sure where to put the diamond on his outfit, for instance. Yes. Yeah. Should be at the back to him on my crotch. Maybe not. He's not always working with great people. See, uh, you've had Sullivan.
01:48:45
Speaker
But over the course of the series, he goes from that, he works the way up, he gets a notable, if not made event appearance, full storytelling with him and Kurt Henig in that tag match with Savage and Scott Hall. And ultimately he becomes the guy they go to twice in a year, both interviews now covered, to be, hey, we have the celebrity guy in the match.
01:49:09
Speaker
We know you're really good. We know you plan things out. Can you make this all work? And on top of that, he's obviously very popular as well. So it's not like they're just picking him to fix the match, right? He is absolutely a top face in the company. The point he's earned that position. Yeah. It's just a great example of someone can be in a real down the card match.
01:49:29
Speaker
And then, you know, the fact that he's on the show on ninety five, I believe it is. And then sort of also just thrown out and put in the in the lifeguard matches, one of the random guys in the canyon, paddling around, having a great time. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And goes from that to being a main event guy with Hogan is impressive. Absolutely. How about that?
01:49:53
Speaker
he gets what could be a demotion in the sense that he goes from being a three-time, three-time, yes, three-time world champion, in a very short amount of time admittedly, to being the tag team guy.
01:50:07
Speaker
with Canyon and Bigelow, but he does so well of that role. It doesn't feel like the emotion to credit him because that definitely can make it look like, oh, this guy will champion. Now he's, you know, he's second match in the show with the tag tiles. Oh, that's a shame. He's still the EP and he he maintains that air and he makes that match really enjoyable, if extremely overbooked, as we've discussed. Yes. This could be declared as ironic. OK, because I'm giving this to Dave Sullivan.
01:50:37
Speaker
Really? Yeah. I have never particularly enjoyed Dave Sullivan's work. All right. I don't think we've actually had him as a competitor in a match before for the series, but I recall seeing some before we were doing, let's go to the ring and not being thrilled. Uh-huh. And his non-competitive roles in matches on the show before have tended to be awkward, like the promo segment with Orndorf on Beach Blast 1993, where he just kind of keeps swinging his right arm at random.
01:51:03
Speaker
Yeah. But his match against DDP at Bash of the Beach 1995 was genuinely fun for me. Yeah. OK. And while it's tempting to give DDP a lot of the credit there, and I do, Dave Sullivan had to do his part and he came ready to do his best for the match. I wasn't really ready to give him much of a chance and I ended up having fun watching him.
01:51:24
Speaker
I mean, I don't hate that match for sure. Plus do the research lobby to unearth the forgotten original appearance of disco inferno. Oh, right. Right. Right. Playing the singing telegram. The guy dressed as a bunny. So I can't be too mad to solve it for that. That what I picked, but I know it's a fair pick with that. All right. Now it's time for our special award for this series, the best set.
01:51:53
Speaker
There were some amazing sets on this series, so we've added this award. Which show had the single best set design in the whole series? Now a note on this. The beach, at Bash of the Beach 1995, is the arena, not the set. It'd be the decorations and such that are the set there. That's mainly to keep it interesting. I don't think you can really beat holding a beach show at an actual beach otherwise. Agreed, yeah.
01:52:23
Speaker
I am genuinely curious what you've picked on this, Al. Not that I'm not genuinely curious, but especially on this thing, I have no perception of what you'll pick. Up until now, I'm not really that invested in what you have to say, you know, it's really, this suddenly, after all these episodes, suddenly, my interest has suddenly been peaked. As the dark side of Let's Go to the Ring here, folks.
01:52:45
Speaker
No, no, I get what you're saying. I totally get that. Yeah. I went back there. I tried to skim through them a bit. It's one of those things where there's not a major, major difference, like throughout the beach sets, they sort of tweak them here and there. I think the one that reached the peak for me, I think, cause it does get used a bit for surroundings and it has sort of the most accoutrements and just the right amount of cheesy. That'd be the 1996 fascist beach set. Yeah. That's a really good one. That's a really good one.
01:53:13
Speaker
Yeah, there's a weird air when wrestlers come out for their regular, you know, tag matches and such, or, you know, the match that's apparently supposed to decide the future of the company. But, you know, there's no stakes in the main event. And when they walked by the parrot and the sand and everything. Yeah, I don't think this other than 2000, where they abandoned everything about it, which is a real shame. It could at least, you know, projected a beach backdrop on that horrible black mat they just put in there. It's shocking how little work they did on that show.
01:53:43
Speaker
Yeah, not major, major things, but yeah, I think I like 96. I think it reaches the third peak for that for me. Okay. Yeah, there's a ton of great examples on this series. I narrowed it to top four first, which was 1992, 1993, 1996, and 1997. Although 1998's Skull Pyramid almost got it on the list too. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that one. Yeah.
01:54:10
Speaker
I think this is ultimately between 1993, which is really set up to look as much as it can, like an actual beach rather than an intentional set, and 1997, which is just a great beach themed wrestling entrance set that blends the two purposes, in my opinion, the best out of the more framed ramp style sets. I like 1997's more legit looking plants, where 93 has some fairly obvious fakes, and I love that it gets used pretty extensively during Benoit versus Sullivan.
01:54:40
Speaker
But I think I'm gonna actually go with Beach Blast 1993. Okay. The blue sky backdrop is really nice and pleasant, outdone only by 1992s, which is the only one that actually includes ocean waves. Every show uses a boardwalk entrance ramp, but I really like 1993s because it doesn't just extend from the entrance ramp, it actually bends and continues along the beach for a bit. Hmm.
01:55:02
Speaker
And the beach elements look more naturally laid out rather than intentionally framing the boardwalk. So despite the weaker plants, it gives more of the impression that folks on the stage are just strolling down an actual beach rather than walking on a set that happens to look like a beach. Plus it's really bright and open and it features the great flexing wave logo of the early shows. That's true as well. Yeah. And now the best and worst shows in the series. So Al.
01:55:32
Speaker
What are your best three shows in no particular order? Okay. So I've got 1992 beach blast. That's a great example of they're sort of, we're wrestling as a sport versus wrestling as a circus. Um, as they're obviously being against WWF at this point.
01:55:52
Speaker
Obviously has really good matches on there. Our favorite ones on there. So that does help with a bit, but it's not a one net show. So for me, that really helps. And again, yeah, that's the settings. Nice. I believe 92 is also the one has the bikini contest, but I can kind of ignore that. Yeah. For all the right reasons. Likewise, I picked night 94. I thought they did a really good job of putting a real strong show together, knowing, Hey, we're getting this outsider audience.
01:56:22
Speaker
That's going to come in for Hogan's big debut. We know we were in Tigertate Parade. We promoted on TBS and D&D and all this stuff. So it's a really solid show.
01:56:32
Speaker
Anchored by Hogan and flair really over-delivering in their match. So that's definitely a good thing. And lastly, for me, I'm going to pick 1997. Again, it's got really strong matches when I was going through picking my matches, the series, and then what I'm using for my ultimate blast later. I realized how much that comes up and I'm like, okay, that's fair. 1997 is a really good show. Let's go with that. We are so close to total agreement. Oh, okay.
01:57:01
Speaker
My first one, Beach Blast 1992. One of the easiest watches we have ever had. Beach Blast 1992 is an absolutely terrific show with multiple great and long matches and not a single match that I disliked. No.
01:57:18
Speaker
It would be notable if all it had was the Iron Man match between Rude and Steamboat, but that's far from all this show has. The only mark against it is the bikini contest. Admittedly, that does take a considerable amount of time on the show, but it is not enough to drag this one out of the top three by a long shot. It's one of my favorite shows we've watched. It is very enjoyable, yeah. Second, Bash to the Beach 1994.
01:57:43
Speaker
Bringing in Hulk Hogan, WSW had a shot at gaining a new audience. So man, did they put on a great show. Every single match was fun. Not a bad one in the bunch and several were excellent. There's a sense of energy and excitement across the show and it has a really positive mood. Much like 1992, this was just plain easy to watch and it holds up against some of the best shows we've had from other series. Yeah.
01:58:11
Speaker
And for me, my third one, Bash of the Beach, 1996. For perhaps W.S.W.'s most consequential show, they could have coasted on the strength of their storyline, but they didn't. They put on a really good show with strong character work, mostly entertaining matches, and some of the best commentary the company ever had. It's a show that folks should watch for the NWO formation, but it holds up very well beyond that. It's funny, as soon as you said, we're almost in agreement, like, oh, he's big in 1996, isn't he?
01:58:42
Speaker
And you were, yeah. You know me so well. I do. Yes. No, I can, I have to see that. I just, as a whole, I got more enjoyable matches than 97. It kept popping up when I was putting my stuff together. Like, okay, I can't ignore that. Yeah. All right. And your worst three shows again, you don't have to put them in order.
01:59:03
Speaker
Outside of the fact that it has a very unique setting, that is the outdoor beach one, 1995's card, while mostly enjoyable, has a real feel of they're not willing to move forward and do what would be then a modern wrestling, which they got around to 96, 97, et cetera. There's a real dated feel to how they booked certain people on. I mean, Kamala's wrestling in 1995 on your show on a beach.
01:59:31
Speaker
a bunch of the enjoy the sting main matches, something else for the rhyming of it. That weird, silly, where they dress mangas bizarre. And that that intro video package. Yes, yeah. Or the fact that he forgets a form of martial art between a buildup package and the commentary. He goes from seven in the promo to six by commentators.
01:59:54
Speaker
But yeah, 95, it's not a bad, bad show, but with stronger shows, either they'll have a couple of really strong matches and the rest are fine. 95 just feels like they're not willing to get, not willing to move forward, which they obviously would by 96 in a really drastic way. Okay. Yeah. I think if, if this was like a star K where there's so many other things that can make it worse that may not squeeze in, but I feel like it's worth noting this, the sort of data aspect in 95.
02:00:24
Speaker
A second would be pretty sure this is where we're all going to line up. $9.99 back to the beach.
02:00:31
Speaker
It's not a good show as a whole. We've discussed quite a bit. It features the junker, educational features, a lot of stuff that's just not good. It features a weird story where again, can't help but mention this. So Kevin Nash is tag teaming with Sting. Kevin Nash is the world champion and it's against Randy Savage and Sid Vicious. And commentary has been the whole show building up. What if Sting pins Kevin Nash?
02:01:00
Speaker
Which is literally impossible in a normal tag match. Which this is, like, yeah, it's not a tornado tag match. There's not any way that you can explain how this is even physically possible. First thing to be able to pin Kevin Nash, he would have to be legal in the match, which would then make Kevin Nash not legal in the match, and therefore the pin wouldn't matter. Right. So yeah, 99 is just not a good show for so many reasons. And lastly, as you could probably guess,
02:01:28
Speaker
Very bottom of the barrel is Basha's Beach 2000. So much Russo, both literally on screen and behind the scenes off screen. It's just, I mean, the graveyard match, the wedding gown match, and the over silly booking they do makes it hard to enjoy people like Chavo Guerrero Jr., who are really good.
02:01:53
Speaker
Or, and it robs you of both DDP and Sting officially on the show, not counting the druid appearance. So the fact that you took them off the show, as you've heard from listening to this, we really liked DDP and Sting. It's saved from being one of the worst shows absolutely ever because it's directly important with the good main event. But yeah, it really struggles to hold any interest outside of Booker T.U. Peering, whether it's in, in the Canyon's match or his main event match.
02:02:22
Speaker
My worst three? Bash of the Beach 1998. This show was fine. A lot of acceptable to good or even great matches until the last match. But as I noted on our review, while that sounds fine if you're looking at it as just a count of better versus worse matches, the truth is that the terrible main event accounts for almost one quarter of the show's total runtime.
02:02:50
Speaker
When a full fourth of the show is simply dreadful, it is hard to avoid dropping that show into the bottom set of series rankings. Furthermore, what is good on the show is largely outdone by matches elsewhere on the series. It does have some great moments with Jericho, JJ Dillon, and Mysterio, but it starts as a missable show, then plunges headlong off a cliff.
02:03:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. That said, there is a massive, massive canyon of quality between it and the other two picks. And I don't mean canyon with a K. Obviously, no. Now we get to the two shows that just started at the bottom of the cliff and still decided to see if there was a crevice in the earth they could fall into deeper. Yeah. Bash of the Beach 1999.
02:03:38
Speaker
1999's offering was truly awful, one of the worst shows that we have watched. A couple standouts accepted, there were a ton of forgettable matches with frequent plot holes. And then there was the stuff that was actually memorable, but not for the reasons WSW would have hoped, like the junkyard invitational. I've complained about that enough tonight, so let's move on. Yeah. Bash of the Beach 2000.
02:04:03
Speaker
To absolutely no one's surprise, 2000 closes out my list of the worst this series had to offer. Booker T's efforts accepted, this show was bad. Made all the worst by the drab design, overly caffeinated pace, and of course by being derailed to such an extent that it actually got the company sued by its own performer. When you're listing worst shows for a series, resulted in a lawsuit is a pretty strong argument for a show's inclusion.
02:04:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Even something simple as having people have a cake fight as terrible as the whole wedding gown fiasco is, they managed to screw up cleaning up cake as we've been setting the show itself. Yes. They take like 10 minutes it feels like feels like an eternity where they're trying to like mop it up or like use paper towels and ultimately they just flip the ring mats over which I said like right away just flip the mats over dummies.
02:04:54
Speaker
Yes, it's so very bad in so many ways, even before you get to the weirdness around the world title on that show. And that just no pun intended takes the cake. Yes.
02:05:07
Speaker
It's not one of the worst three. Cause again, I have my feelings is why 95 99, 2000 are hovering outside it for me is 93 only because as a whole, it has a feeling of deja vu. Yeah. Booking wise and unfortunately it's not as good deja vu. So it's kind of a shame. It's not a bad show, but if you are format where you watch 92 to 93, you're like, huh?
02:05:32
Speaker
It's like the other match, but that watch is a little better. Yeah. I remember saying on it that I recommend watching 1993, but not immediately after you've watched 1992. Yeah. It pales in comparison to 1992. It's still a very fun show to watch. Yeah. And still has some really good stuff on it, but it is nowhere near the show that 1992 is.
02:05:55
Speaker
Yeah. If you watch wrestling, the reviews in a, let's be honest, I say in a way and not our format and just like watch chronologically by the time you get through. And sometimes there's not a lot of shows at this point. Well, how do you get to 93? I think enough time and distance is there. You're like, you might still get the feeling maybe during the Ironman match because it's Rick root again in the US title again. But I think as a whole, we'll definitely is better when you have that gap. Well, to be clear, technically it's Rick root again. It's the US title for the first time.
02:06:24
Speaker
Well, yeah, it's recruited as a US team for this. I'm actually defending his belt. We've given our awards and our analysis, but there's one more thing that we'd like to do here to have some fun with this. Our ultimate beach cards. Oh yeah.
02:06:41
Speaker
So here's the rules. Each of us designs a card featuring eight matches drawn from the actual Beach Blast and Bash of the Beach matches. We can only use each performer as a competitor once. So someone can show up as a manager or commentator or interference or some other role on some other matches.
02:06:59
Speaker
but you can only use them once as an actual competitor. For instance, not that I expect this, but if you picked Bagwell versus Piper from Bash of the Beach 1999, you couldn't use any match where either was a competitor elsewhere, but you could still use Ric Flair in another match since he's only a corner man in that one. Or Judy Bagwell. Or Judy Bagwell, sure. I'm gonna resist, sorry. You can use any match in any position. You're not required to pick an actual main event for your main event.
02:07:29
Speaker
One exception for this series, though I have counted Hogan as a competitor in Outsiders versus Sting, Luger and Savage from Bash 1996, for purposes of our earlier statistics, he shows up in the final moments of the match and never officially tags in. So even if you do include that match, you can include another Hogan match if you would like to.
02:07:52
Speaker
All right. So I'm trying to where I might flip where my main events are here, but I'll put a bolt in here anyways. So my opening match is the Lutador six man match with the parka starring La Parca. Oh, well, yeah. Well, who else would it be? Yeah. That's a great way to enter as a crowd and get them all excited.
02:08:12
Speaker
I have, of course, the Rick Roode, Ricky Steamboat match from Beach Flight 1992. I'd probably put it towards the middle if I really putting an actual show together. I just kind of wrote them as I was thinking them. Next I have the Eddie Guerrero versus Chavagรผero Junior match. They have a Sarah match from 1998. Maybe that'd be second instead of Roode and Steamboat, but I guess not that important.
02:08:31
Speaker
Next I have the tag team of Vader and Sid versus the British bulldog and it's Sting from 1993's Beach Blast. I really want to include Sting and I was like, for reasons I, I have, I'm not including 1996 as main event, plus it complicates things, but I thought this is a good way to use him and it gets Vader on the show. So win-win. Just to give a little more tag team action to mix it up a bit. Also having the Steiner Brothers versus NWO Japan from 1997. Okay. Yeah.
02:09:01
Speaker
Even at the, the idea that the ref is blocking the heel from coming in at the end is a little weird. I do enjoy the match quite a bit and I get to get started on the show, which is also good. So I think if I'm really going to put these as main events, I would probably do match six. It's going to be Hulk Hogan versus Rick flair. Okay. Questionable. If it's for the world title in this, the booking scenario, of course, but still that match has been included in that by William Clinton, Rick flair and William, including Hogan.
02:09:31
Speaker
So if this is truly a main event, then it's going to be Booker T versus Jeff Jarrett for the WSB title. I thought that's where you were going with that. Yeah. And in fairness, yeah. Flair versus Hogan doesn't necessarily need the world title to be part of it to be important. So yeah, I could see that being the argument on that. I will say I totally get the weirdness of doing bash the beach slash beach blast and not including the whole formation in the video thing.
02:09:59
Speaker
I could work it in somehow. If it's more of an angle on the show, have the faces come out demand that the third man reveal himself and they get a big fight so you can get a lot of the same action involved. And that's not the match. They keep an act like, Oh, the match, a match is broken out or something. But then you still have the Hogan thing. It could be somewhere after him. And I'm not sure. I haven't thought that much of it out, but
02:10:23
Speaker
I think it's fair. I mean, there are a number of huge things that happen on this series and going by the rules that we've set up, it's very difficult to include Bash of the Beach 1996 as main event. Yeah. Despite it being so huge. There's a number of very cool things that you don't get to include if you include that. Yeah, absolutely. I fought personal bias in nature to include Hogan and Flair because this is a really good match.
02:10:51
Speaker
It means sadly, I cannot have Randy Savage in the show because I can't have Randy Savage and Big Flair from 95, but I'll live with that. For my set, my opening match, the Lucha Six Man Tag from Bash of the Beach 1997, a cruiserweight spectacle to really charge up the crowd. My second match then is Gordy and Williams versus the Steiners from Beach Blast 1992. Okay.
02:11:20
Speaker
On Earth 9200, this is not for the titles, but instead for the number one contender spot. Okay. Match three, Sullivan versus Benoit, career versus career from bash of the beach, 1997. Just felt like too notable of a moment to not include. It's fair. Yeah. Match four, Ray Mysterio Jr. versus Chris Jericho from bash of the beach, 1998.
02:11:45
Speaker
Yeah. I can't include Mysterio versus Psychosis due to the lucha six man tag. And this also gives me a great return to bring the crowd back from the prior matches story of the end of her career. That's fair. Yeah. Match five, the Horseman versus the Hollywood Blondes from Beach Blast 1993. So this one's actually for the tag titles.
02:12:06
Speaker
And post-match the celebrating blondes get an unwelcome surprise when commissioner Bachwinkle announces that the next month they're going to face both the Steiners and Gordian Williams in a match with sane triangle tag rules, not the crap from 1995. Right. So me match six, the iron man match, Ricky, the dragon steamboat versus Rick rude from beach blast 1992. There was no way in heck I was leaving this off. It was amazing. Yeah.
02:12:34
Speaker
match seven, Booker T versus Jeff Jarrett from Bash of the Beach 2000. This gave us a great moment for a deserving wrestler and I think it needs to be included. Absolutely. Admittedly, I may also be imagining an idealized version of this where they have the full time to plan it out. But even if what we get is just what we got, it was still good. Yeah, absolutely. And match eight, the Outsiders versus Sting, Luger and Savage from Bash of the Beach 1996.
02:13:02
Speaker
I really tried hard to leave this off. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I really did. I wanted to include Sting and Bulldog versus Master of the Powerbomb or Sting versus Cactus Jack. Yeah, that's true. But for me, this was just so important. I had to put it on here to stop this from overshadowing Booker's world title win. I think that after Hogan's turn and promo, Booker comes out as the new face of WCW to stand up to him. OK, that works for me. Yeah.
02:13:33
Speaker
I love that we we so regularly end up this way, by the way, where you do the sensible thing and avoid putting the really, really complicated match on there that's going to eliminate half of the matches in the series. Yeah. And I get dragged into doing exactly that. Yeah. Russell War, I think I remember you didn't do a war games as well. I did not. And I did. And I was just like kicking myself constantly for the rest of the card.
02:14:01
Speaker
Now it's time for some re-gimmicking. All right. So each of us has been given a match from each other's card and we have to give that match a new gimmick or stipulation that would turn it into something new. We've provided our matches to each other ahead of time, but we have not actually heard each other's re-gimmickings. Nope. So Al, do you want to hear the one I did for you first or do you want to tell me the one you did for me first? You can go. I'll just go first. That's fine. Okay.
02:14:30
Speaker
So for me, Al provided Eddie versus Chavo Guerrero Jr. in a hair versus hair match from Bash of the Beach 1998. Now for this, I decided I wanted to keep the hair versus hair concept, but I wanted to add a beach theme. Okay. So I give you the hair versus hair beach volleyball. Oh, I like it.
02:14:54
Speaker
So Chavo and Eddie will face off in a heavily modified beach volleyball match to settle their scores the best way one can on a beach. Here's the rules.
02:15:05
Speaker
Chavo and Eddie start out wrestling on a beach in a ring on the sand, denoted by surfboards, beach chairs, beach umbrellas, and other elements of WCW's terrific set design from the series. At frequent intervals, other WCW wrestlers and referees standing around the ring work together to introduce a volleyball to the match, serving it, passing it, and finally setting it.
02:15:25
Speaker
Whenever the ball is set, Eddie and Chavo can legally use it. Oh, okay. Only by leaping in the air and spiking it as hard and dramatically as they can at their opponent. Of course, yeah. The opponent must then return the ball, as in volleyball, but it has to make it to one of the wrestlers and referees standing around the ring. Oh, okay. If Eddie or Chavo is simply hit by the spike or can't return it to a legal target, then the guest referee gets to shave a single streak out of that wrestler's hair.
02:15:56
Speaker
The guest referee, incidentally, is an aggrieved Stevie Ray, who was really excited to face Chavo in a surfing match earlier in the night and practiced really hard, only for Chavo to just jump off his board right as the contest began to have the energy to face Uncle Eddie. Ah, okay. Now obviously the wrestlers can use regular strikes, holds, slams, and all the usual wrestling stuff, especially to prevent a spike or return, but there are no pinfalls or submissions.
02:16:20
Speaker
Instead, the first wrestler to have their head completely shaved loses the match. But let's be honest, both probably end up looking pretty ridiculous. Yeah, well, that's how that match works, yes. Entirely optional to put the entire thing to the soundtrack from the Top Gun volleyball scene.
02:16:40
Speaker
I was going to say I was hoping your guest ref was Tom Cruise from Top Gun. It was close. It was close. They probably couldn't get him on the schedule. You know, it's Tom Cruise. He's he's busy. That's fair. Filming like five billion Mission Impossible movies. Yeah, you would have been a couple of movies at that point. Yeah. So for Al, I provided the lucha six man tag from Bash of the Beach 1997. Yes. So I bring you the Holy Diver match.
02:17:09
Speaker
Okay. Say not to Dio there. Are you rock fans? So the match plays out. Mostly as it does in real life, except there are no pin falls. Okay. Instead, competitors are scored based on the qualities of their dive in a 10 minute encounter. Nice. Also the score is cumulative. So the audience has to keep track.
02:17:32
Speaker
We'll bring up, we'll bring up the digital scoreboard from, uh, which circuit is that? Okay. 90, I think, or, uh, 89. I can never give those straight because there's two, they're both tournaments. I know it's, it's so hard to do. But don't worry if problems happen, we have judges. Specifically, we have three judges. The judges are Gary Jester, Patty Mullen, and Sandy Scott. You'll get it right this time, folks. Come on.
02:18:00
Speaker
So we don't have, uh, have five judges, but we're only going to count three. Correct. That's very good. I like that. Well, you're talking a different form of diving. Obviously you're using the format of a diving competition there. Yeah. I kept the theme. Yeah. I like that. We've, we've both done like a water theme for our matches or a beach theme in general. Yeah, that's true. We didn't make that a requirement book. So it was just, that just kind of happened. No, no.
02:18:29
Speaker
Yeah, I was curious where you go with the hair versus hair thing. Yeah. I was like, this could get fun with that. I was really thrown for a little bit. The other thing I considered was some sort of surfing match that involved them both having to wear surfer wigs or something. I kept the energy of that for the Stevie Ray reference in there, I guess. Yeah, I like getting tied back together. That's good. And that wraps up our coverage of Beach Blast and Bash at the Beach. So what have we got coming up next?
02:18:59
Speaker
Well first up, we're going to be taking one month off. There will be no Let's Go to the Ring release for April, but don't worry, we've got a really fun show to cover when we get back. For our bridge show, we're going to be headed back to the AWA again. Oh yeah. This time there's even a good reason for it. That's true, yes. We found one of Hogan's AWA shows, AWA Super Sunday from April 1983.
02:19:28
Speaker
Considering the Hogan-centric nature of this series, we thought it'd be really fun to take a look at how a different company managed or mismanaged Hogan. And now, our next series.
02:19:47
Speaker
Hello again, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan. I'm Jim Ross, along with Tony Schiavone. We'll call the action, ladies and gentlemen. This is the WCW Japan Super Show. Rumble in the rising sun. Over 50,000 fans have assembled in this tremendous facility to see some great battles between the WCW stars and the stars of New Japan Pro Wrestling. Tony, this is going to be a monumental event.
02:20:12
Speaker
Next up, we take a trip to Japan in video form for the WCW New Japan Super Shows. From 1991 through 1993, WCW held shows in partnership with Japan's New Japan Pro Wrestling. Of course, we've already watched their 1995 collaborations, including one of our favorite Starkades, 1995, and of course, Collision in Korea, which has to rate among the most surreal shows that I have ever watched. Absolutely, yeah.
02:20:42
Speaker
I'm thrilled to get to see the earlier years, which were much less likely to cause a diplomatic incident. Yes, it's true. Looking forward to seeing some of our favorites from shows past. We have Jushin Liger, Ultimo Dragon, Tatsumi Fujinami, Hiroshi Hase, Kintsuke Sasaki, and more. Now, notably, we won't be seeing all of the matches that were on the actual shows. Sadly. As the versions that we've managed to find are the ones edited for release in America. Yeah.
02:21:13
Speaker
It was what we could find. And really those are the WCW releases of the shows. So they are technically the proper ones for us to review. True. Yeah. He says minutes after announcing that they'll be reviewing, get another AWA show. Yeah. So our upcoming releases are in May, AWA super Sunday. And in June we start a new series with 1991's WCW new Japan super show. So look forward to them.
02:21:44
Speaker
If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can find us on Facebook as Let's Go to the Ring. A link will be available in the episode description. Follow us for episode announcements and other show details, and share your own thoughts about each show as we go through. You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Audible, iHeartRadio, Spotify, TuneIn, or Pandora. And please, if you've enjoyed this show, give us a rating or review, and share the show through your favorite social media platforms to help others discover us.
02:22:13
Speaker
Many thanks to OSW review for attendance and pay-per-view figures and to Gina Trujillo for our logo. This is Bob Moore for Alec Prigen, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling.
02:22:38
Speaker
You know, I really should have, if I had more time and thought this out better, just skim through my, just my notes, cause I was gonna have your notes and just remind myself of what I picked. It's so much more fun when you don't though. That's the thing. Yeah. I feel like I'm cheating when I, you know, do homework. Plus I agreed not to do homework once I left college. That's kind of a rule there. You say, say that you're right now. Yeah. I'm allowed to say no more homework. Thank you.