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Episode 55: Beach Blast 1993
31 Plays2 years ago
It may or may not be safe to go back into the water, but it definitely wasn't safe to board Sting's boat in the leadup to Beach Blast 1993! It may involve entirely too much attempted explosive homicide, but the match between the Superpowers and the Masters of the Powerbomb is surely epic. Plus: Can NWA champion Barry Windham prove himself against the Man? Can Arn Anderson and promising (?) new Horseman Paul Roma claim tag team gold? Rick Rude has another go at becoming WCW's Iron Man! And...just what is that goop on Tony Schiavone's nose? For all this and more, let's go to the ring!
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/letsgo2thering , or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LetsGo2theRing/
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Transcript
Technical Setup Challenges
00:00:00
Speaker
When I was setting up the cast room, generally when I was setting it up, I would direct the show audio's listening track to my computer's default audio driver. But that was when I was using the desktop computer that didn't have internal speakers.
00:00:19
Speaker
So this time I set it to my default audio driver on my laptop, but my laptop has speakers. So I'm like, Oh crap, my voice is coming out of the laptop too. So, uh, figuring out what I could use. I finally, I think it was like a steam streaming speaker or something like that. I put it on the, I knew wouldn't actually come out of the laptop itself. So hopefully that's not doing anything to whatever's getting recorded here. If it does, we may do this again.
Introduction to 'Let's Go to the Ring'
00:01:12
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 joining me is a piece of you know what with something to pay, Alec Bridget. I feel like I'm being insulted, but I'm not really sure. The missing words are pretty vital to that description.
00:01:36
Speaker
I'm gonna go with thanks. Yeah, I mean it could be a piece of absolute treasure with $20 to pay for dinner. I'm good with that. Yeah. Yeah. That was a good night, Al. Pretty well. Pretty well with you. I'm doing all right now that the audio difficulties we were having are hopefully sorted. Fingers crossed. Yeah, fingers crossed on that.
Beach Blast 1993 Overview
00:02:03
Speaker
Tonight, we are taking a look at Beach Blast 1993, a day at the beach, a night for revenge. I don't know. Personally, I'd rather do the revenge in the daytime than have the evening off to spend time at the beach. And if you spend the whole day at the beach stressed out about your coming revenge plans, you wouldn't be able to enjoy yourself properly, you know? It's true. Maybe this is foreshadowing Baywatch nights. Maybe, maybe that might be. Because by day, he's helping rescue people and or fighting aliens.
00:02:31
Speaker
And by night, he's a detective and sometimes also fighting aliens. Right, yeah, I mean, those things are so different. Exactly, yes. Incidentally, this year, Beach Blast replaces WCW's traditional July show, The Great American Bash, which was not held in 1993.
00:02:50
Speaker
I guess America was canceled. I guess so. From 1994 onward, Bash at the Beach will be the July show and the returning Great American Bash will shift to June. That despite quintessential American holiday, the Fourth of July being in, you know, July. I was a little more fond of the July 5th personally, but that's just me. That's a that's a personal thing, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, a little bit. We have have Fourth of July and then we have Alec Bridget day. Yes.
00:03:20
Speaker
I sub with that every year, obviously. Well, yeah.
Event Details and Match Previews
00:03:24
Speaker
Beach Blast 1993 was held on July 18th, 1993 at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum in Biloxi, Biloxi, Biloxi. I think it's Biloxi. I think it's Biloxi. They say it a million times on the show. You'd think I would have figured that out. Yeah. In Biloxi, Mississippi, in front of 8,600 fans, 4,000 paid.
00:03:46
Speaker
The Mississippi Coast Coliseum is recorded as seating between 9,150 and 11,500 people, depending on the seating. So while WCW certainly didn't fill up the arena, it at least got more than halfway there this time. Right. They didn't actually sell more than halfway there, but they filled it. This is true. Baby steps out. That's true. Okay.
00:04:07
Speaker
They'll do better at filling in where it is officially later, obviously. Yes. Beach Blast 1993 earned 100,000 pay-per-view buys, which is quite solid for WCW in 1993, tied for second place with two other shows and only behind Starrcade 1993's 120,000. Not bad then, yeah. So is it, in fact, safe to go back into the water? To find out, let's go to the ring.
00:04:37
Speaker
The beaches of Biloxi are hot and the action will be explosive. You say Biloxi right there. Happy and Chips and Pride are on the line. Can Paul Orndorff defend his television championship against Big Ron Simmons? Is WCW's Iron Man ravishing Rick Roode or Young Lion Dustin Rhodes? Will the trash talk in Hollywood blondes withstand the challenge of Horseman, Anderson and Roma?
00:05:00
Speaker
Who holds the ultimate power in WCW? The evil masters of the power bomb or the superpowers? And will history be made tonight as nature boy Ric Flair attempts to walk that aisle one more time? World Championship Wrestling presents Beach Blast!
Opening Match Highlights
00:05:22
Speaker
A similar intro video to last year brings us in, building up our TV title match, Iron Man match, World Tag Team title match, and Ultimate Power match? That sounds important. Does, doesn't it? Yeah. Or like something from He-Man. Yeah. I think Ultimate Power is one of the many series in the Ultimate comics as well. That's true. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. God forgotten all about those. Oh, and the NWA title is on the line too. Yes.
00:05:50
Speaker
Eric Bischoff, dressed like a 40-year-old doing his best to dress in those hip clothes that hip teenagers wear, complete with a woeful attempt to look cool in a backwards baseball cap, intros the show alongside Missy Hyatt. Missy cannot wait for the first match and for piรฑa coladas. Eric builds up several of the matches and throws to our commentary team for the night, Tony Schiavone and Jesse the Body Ventura.
00:06:16
Speaker
Tony's dressed somewhat similarly to Eric, but with the addition of orange sunscreen on his nose. With his sunglasses, it looks like he's wearing one of those pairs of novelty glasses with the big fake nose and mustache and googly eyes. I was thinking that too, yeah, yeah. For sure. Tony says he can't locate Jesse, but here's that he's been found. Turns out he's up on stage with some attractive ladies. Tony notifies him that they're on the air, and Jesse, as the arena lights briefly go out,
00:06:43
Speaker
agrees to come host, but says that afterwards he and the ladies have other things to do. He and the ladies make their way to ringside as Tony suggests that they keep the ladies and send Jesse back. That'd be interesting commentary for sure. It would, yeah. Tony gives us a let's go to the ring as we head to our first match. Let's go to the ring as we begin Beach Blast from the Lexi!
00:07:09
Speaker
Yeah, I guess let's go the ring as we begin could be like our official name of like parentheses as we begin there. Yeah, maybe that's the unofficial title of our first episode. You know that that would have been good. Or if we branch off to reviewing, you know, the first episodes of things. Yeah, but they have to be exclusively like boxing or wrestling or other sports that take place in a ring or wedding series.
00:07:32
Speaker
I'll say we could do every first episode of The Bachelor. That covers for a while. It's like, yeah, the downside is we would have to watch any episodes of The Bachelor. That is true. I mean, everything has its ups and downs. So our first match is Ron Simmons versus Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff for Orndorff's WCW World Television Championship. The referee for this one is Randy Anderson.
00:07:59
Speaker
So back in March, Paul Orndorpe became the WCW TV champion after winning, guess what, Bob? A tournament. A tournament, of course. Yes. The tournament happened because in the final months before he left, they gave the TV title to Scott Steiner thinking he wanted to be a single star. He did not and left the company. That's leading to the 1993 run him and brother Rick have in WWEF. Gotcha.
00:08:24
Speaker
So in recent times, he's been facing off with the challenge of Ron Simmons on television. Not on pay-per-view, mind you, just on television across Saturday night and worldwide, which is sadly missing from the network in Peacock. I don't know why worldwide, which is such a big part of these years, is just not available.
00:08:41
Speaker
Anywho, the warning story there is that Ron Simmons is challenged for the title. They would have DQ finishes, and then they would have these really weird parts of the rules where Ron Simmons could challenge for the title, but if he won after the 10 minute time period, which is the time they give for TV title matches on television, as far as the pay-per-view, which is 15, the win didn't count for in the title. So he did that as well. He beat him like 11 minutes into a match.
00:09:07
Speaker
So they keep wrestling after the 10 minutes, but if he wins after the 10 minutes, he just, I guess, theoretically, they never really say this, but theoretically, they're also for money or something, so. Yeah, they occasionally say how important the winner's purse is in everything. Yeah, so I guess, in theory, he wins something, just not the title. I mean, it was me, personally, if I got a match like that, and if I, you know, 10 minutes goes by and I just throw them over the top rope, they screw it. Yeah, you might as well. Yeah. Just find the nearest chair and waffle the guy.
00:09:37
Speaker
Exactly. The closer these guys had to having a proper match on a big event besides television was on the previous Class A Champion show and built up to this. However, at the time, Paul Wonder if his champion was injured, so his buddy Dick Slater came in and substituted for him in that match, which of course Brian Simmons won. Simmons does a much better job representing FSU this year, wearing their school colors and with a Tomahawk logo on his tights.
00:10:07
Speaker
He's also got the wonderfully silly Don't Step to Ron theme song this year. Just amazing, amazing work. I noticed throughout the show, there's a real step up in the ridiculous theme game. Yes. Everyone's got their proper 90s silly themes. Yeah, this is the year, I think, when we started hearing it at Stargates as well. So I think it's between 92 and 93 Stargates when everybody starts getting their actual lyric songs.
00:10:34
Speaker
Yeah, because yeah, we have we also we have man cults being we have natural we're here later. Yep. Johnny be bad has his. Yep. I'd forgotten Barry Windham's theme. Yes. Watching that. Yeah, that was that that one's amazing as well. The vocals aren't even improper rhythm at points to that, because they're trying desperately to keep with the song rhythm, but they are kind of cram cram in all the words that they wrote. Yes.
00:11:10
Speaker
Paul Orndorff for his part has a quite nice dark blue and silver robe. Fans greet him with chants of Paula and he grabs a Paula pennant from ringside and rips it up.
00:11:21
Speaker
Tony and Jesse discuss the special stipulation for the match. If Orndorff gets disqualified, he loses the title. This because he's been willingly getting DQ'd to retain the title using the normal champions advantage rule. Correct. Orndorff yells at the crowd, so Simmons knocks him off the apron. Back in, Simmons earns two with a dropkick, and Orndorff retreats to endure more chance. Orndorff's tights, by the way, are great. They read, Mr. Number One, Durfel. Yes.
00:11:50
Speaker
Brilliant punning Simmons works the arm with big clubbing blows, headbutts, arm ringers, and a hammerlock, but Orndorf responds with strikes and a sleeper hold Simmons tries to drive Orndorf to the turnbuckle to break, but Orndorf slips free, shoves him into the turnbuckle, and suplexes him on the rebound Great ring veteran move from Orndorf there
00:12:13
Speaker
Simmons dodges a top rope Orndorf knee drop. Top rope moves are no longer DQs now. That lasted very little time. And works the knee with kicks and knee smashes. Jesse claims he, unlike Simmons, was a sportsman in the ring, drawing laughter from Tony.
00:12:33
Speaker
Simmons puts a figure-four leglock on, but he's too close to the ropes and Orndorff immediately grabs them and retreats outside. Simmons follows, so Orndorff rams him into the commentary team monitor, then beats Simmons up outside and inside the ring, and works around a chinlock, interrupted only by a brief Simmons escape that ends when Orndorff boots him on a charge for two.
00:12:54
Speaker
The exchange blows as Jesse gets confused about Tony's nose, and Tony explains that he burns easily, so he always puts zinc oxide on his nose when he goes to the beach. Jesse doubts he ever goes in the sun at all. He will play a weird kind of vampire monster thing on a future Halloween Havoc, so there's that. That's true, yeah, yeah.
00:13:13
Speaker
Simmons earns two counts with a power slam, a sunset flip, a back elbow, and a suplex, but Orndorf pokes his eyes and tries a pile driver near the ropes. Simmons counters with a back body drop, but that sends Orndorf over the ropes to the floor, so Anderson rings the bell, disqualifying Simmons, and Orndorf wins. Simmons, not realizing that he's been disqualified, sends Orndorf back in and lands a top rope flying shoulder block for zero, as Anderson informs him of the DQ.
00:13:42
Speaker
Simmons is distraught. Orndorff, inadvisably, retrieves his belt and tries to hit Simmons with it, but Simmons ducks, decks him, and grabs the belt. Orndorff beats a hasty retreat, as Anderson retrieves the belt from Simmons. Tony sympathizes with Simmons while Jesse says he got what he deserved. Thoughts on this one? That is pretty good. My one complaint I would say is the pacing on this one. It's not a slow match, because I think slow is probably one it's ever used as a complaint about wrestling matches, but
00:14:12
Speaker
I'd say methodical is probably more accurate. Oh, okay. Cause it was one where kind of last year we had a more experienced veteran, obviously in this case, an even more experienced veteran than Orendorf than last year with Simmons. It's definitely them working Orendorf pace. One of probably leads the match out. I would, I would assume in the back as part of that.
00:14:32
Speaker
So for better or worse, this definitely is an Orndorf match, just with Ron Simmons, sort of getting his big power moves in. I do like what he does with his times he has. His power slams are nice and his good power displays are good. One thing he's definitely picked up between this year and last year, he's picked up a lot more little things in the ring, just from experience. He sells stun really well before he takes the back suplex. Yes. To explain why he doesn't like, punch his way out or try to counter it.
00:15:00
Speaker
Yeah, he has definitely like he wasn't bad last year at all. But he has definitely improved this year. You can tell that's a very good point. Yeah, he gets a lot more of the little stuff completing his performance style. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So first part, I think he does fine. For me, the pace is a little slow, which is to be fair is kind of thing with the Wonder of matches.
00:15:21
Speaker
I don't think it's like he can't work faster than I think it's he chose to. That's kind of his style he's used to. I think Wonderf really works well with faster guys or people that do more with like sudden bursts of speed. Like that match he had with Muto, I recall being quite good. That was a good contrast. Let me ask you on that. Do you think that that's bugging you a little bit just because it's the opening match? That's probably a factor, yeah. I think it's part of it.
00:15:49
Speaker
I mean, it isn't the first time I've noticed that Nordorf match was not like it's suddenly changed. But yeah, I could I could see that being a factor. Yeah. Just because to me, I was actually thinking when I was watching this, I was thinking these are bigger, slower moving guys, but they're actually keeping a pretty good pace. So I so I kind of wonder if it's just that there's an opening matches. You normally get such a quick pace because it's important to get the crowd charged up. Right. That this kind of highlights the difference because I felt like they were actually moving faster than I'm used to for these guys.
00:16:18
Speaker
Hm, okay. Because I think they kind of recognize over the opening. Gotcha. I obviously generally don't like DQ finishes, but this was at least a creative way of doing it. It's because, for what reason, they didn't want Ron being champion. It's funny because he already was world champion briefly. You throw down Luz.
00:16:37
Speaker
But this packs in pretty well because the way it's done, his head is bent down in the Paldar position so he can't see where he's at when he's doing the move. So it's not like with Steve Austin and Muda again, weirdly enough, where he's typically throwing him out of the ring to get up a move or to get rid of him. He's just actually getting a basic counter out of that. And Orndorff takes advantage of that and makes sure he goes over.
00:16:59
Speaker
Yeah, I I go both ways on on that. I think overall, I think like you, I'm not generally fond of DQ finishes. I agree that this one was was a good way of keeping Simmons strong in a loss. And the other thing I kind of do like about it is that, you know, the idea of the match is that if Orndorf gets disqualified, he'll lose the title. So they kind of build to the idea of
00:17:24
Speaker
Oh, this this match is more dangerous for the heel, but that's the face that actually gets disqualified. Right. So it's kind of a nice inversion of expectations. The only problem that I ended up having with it was that they didn't really tease Orndorf potentially getting DQ'd any time earlier in the match. Like, I think if they'd use that a little bit to build up the stipulation some more and then had this happen, it might have had a bigger impact. But yeah, as far as the ending goes, I don't have as big a problem with this as I do with some other DQ finishes.
00:17:55
Speaker
It's the execution, I think, is what makes it work. As much as it's going to work for me, this is a good way of doing it. Yeah, yeah.
00:18:03
Speaker
I generally felt this went pretty well.
Opening Match Analysis
00:18:06
Speaker
Like I said, I think it maintains a little bit of a quicker pace than you expect from these guys, though not as quick a pace as you normally see in the opening slot. Kind of feel like if they'd switch this with the second match, then you might have had a faster paced opening and then this would be perfectly acceptable in the second slot. Yeah.
00:18:26
Speaker
There's some nice little touches to this match that show their familiarity with each other. They're definitely ready to counter each other's big moves and even ready with counters of counters at times. Yeah. The DQ finish is a nice twist ending. I just wish that they'd played with the idea of the DQ a little bit before that, having Orndorff toe the line and get a warning or two, get all nervous about it, and then managed to pull off getting Simmons DQ'd instead would have helped.
00:18:53
Speaker
Well see, the problem is they didn't have Nick Patrick doing it, and you need Nick Patrick and his big belling voice to threaten people to make that kind of thing work. Yeah. But still, I thought it was a solid opener. Mm-hmm. I agree. So, Baseline and Permo will cover shortly after this. They build up to a match between Paul Orndorff and Ricky Steamboat, which would happen on the August 18th Clash of Champions event, which is about a month from this one, where Orndorff would lose a title to Steamboat.
00:19:35
Speaker
We cut to Tony and Jesse, and Jesse pokes at Tony's nose, still somehow confused despite Tony's earlier explanation.
00:19:44
Speaker
Tony builds up the upcoming matches, in particular highlighting the night's main event, Sting and Davey Boy Smith versus the Masters of the Power Bomb, Vader and Sid Vicious. Jesse says Sting and Davey Boy should have taken a retirement offer from Harley Race and Colonel Robert Parker and gone to Tahiti instead of fighting Vader and Sid. We're back to our second match.
00:20:07
Speaker
which is Marcus Alexander Bagwell and two cold Scorpio versus Tex Schlesinger and Shanghai Pierce.
Tag Team Matches and Commentary
00:20:15
Speaker
Referee for this one is Nick Patrick. So the duo of Tex Schlesinger and Shanghai Pierce came into WCW in late 1992. They came over from Sinton, Memphis where they were tag teaming. Tex was Leatherface. Really one of many wrestlers playing Leatherface in companies. That's a big one in Japan that was Colonel Kirchner, or Corporal Kirchner, excuse me.
00:20:38
Speaker
And Pierce was there as Master Blaster. Yes. I don't know if he had a little person riding his shoulders, but I would assume he had at one point.
00:20:49
Speaker
You can thank Jerry Lawler for that booking because that was his territory in Memphis. Yeah. As to why these two teams are fighting, I don't have any story, unfortunately. The Peacock slash network version of The Waste of You Saturday Night has the episode, thankfully the one with the infamous mini movie we'll cover later, and a little buildup, but then the other like three shows are just not there. Okay.
00:21:12
Speaker
Bagwell and Scorpio come out to Scorpio's theme, which is a little weird since they're a full-fledged tag team rather than a one-off pairing. I like their tights, though. Each has the same color pattern and their name, but the names are on the opposite colors from each other. It's a nice little touch. By the way, you know why they have that specific color pattern, right? I do not. This year took place on July 18th. July 25th was Mardi Gras. Gotcha. Gotcha.
00:21:37
Speaker
The Texans enter to some very nice cowboy film music, but Shanghai's name is misspelled on screen. Yes. That must be stock music that they have from the Turner Library. It's gotta be, yeah. It's too good to be an actual WCW composition.
00:21:53
Speaker
It does say something about the tag team rankings, though, if you think about it. Because Two Coast Scorpio's got his pretty famous song where the lady's singing about him. Yeah. And how great he is. And then these two guys have just generic Western music. Doesn't even see their names at all. And Bagwell has nothing. Well, yeah. Well, he can at least coast on Scorpio. Yeah, I guess so. Shanghai, of course, wears a mask, reportedly because Dusty Rhodes felt he was too good looking and would get cheered as a bad guy. Yes, this is true. You have to wonder how Tex felt about that.
00:22:25
Speaker
Hey Dusty, should I wear a mask too? Nah, you're fine. Yeah, you're good. Don't worry about it. Jesse claims that if Tony hung out with him more, he'd get to meet more babes like the ones from the start of the show. Tony asks why Jesse doesn't invite him. Silence. Don't bring up topics you don't want to discuss, Jesse. Yes.
00:22:54
Speaker
Bagwell and Pyrrhus start. Pyrrhus yells about Texas and gets booed. The mask worked. Yeah. Bagwell yells Biloxi and gets big cheers. Bagwell can't shoulder block Pyrrhus down, but takes him down with a flying body press for zero. Pyrrhus rolls out and Schlesinger charges, but eats a double face buster from Bagwell and Scorpio. Bagwell kneels for Scorpio to jump off his back, but Scorpio screws up his footing and Pratt falls over the ropes onto the ramp. Yeah, I thought, I agree.
00:23:22
Speaker
The Texans quickly cover with stomps. Scorpio redeems himself a moment later with a nice rebound crossbody to pierce.
00:23:30
Speaker
Slazinger and Scorpio now, and Slazinger beats him up and gets him up top, but Scorpio kicks him away and lands a second rope crossbody for two. Tagged Bagwell, who earns two off a double team hip toss, works the arm and earns another two with a suplex, but Pyrrhus hits Bagwell from the apron. Slazinger and Pyrrhus trade off beating Bagwell up, working the arm, though Bagwell earns two with a sunset flip. Slazinger punishes him with a massive clothesline for two.
00:23:57
Speaker
More two counts off of Pyrrhus Knee Strike, Pyrrhus Monster Power Bomb, and Double Team Schlesinger, Shoulder Breaker, and Pyrrhus Elbow Drop. In between, they draw Scorpio in to distract the ref for some cheating. Bagwell dodges a charge and crawls through the Texan's legs to tag Scorpio. Scorpio beats up both Texans with punches, a flying sidekick, turnbuckle smashes, and a standing sidekick, and lands a top rope splash for one.
00:24:22
Speaker
Everybody in and Scorpio and Bagwell fling the Texans into each other Scorpio dropkick Schlesinger out over the ropes and Jesse notes that really should be a DQ He has a point Also, it looked like Bagwell was going for a dropkick too, but either he was late or Scorpio went early So Bagwell just kind of awkwardly stops. Yeah, he did like a little half jump like he's better to go Yeah, he's clearly prepping for it. But he's like, oh, oh you already hit
00:24:51
Speaker
Bagwell backs Suplex's Pyrrhus, and Scorpio hits a top rope 450 splash for the 3 count and the win. Bagwell and Scorpio celebrate quickly, then beat it before Schlesinger can get after them with his bull rope. Thoughts on this one?
00:25:08
Speaker
It was a decent to good tag match, I think. Kind of like with Orndor, if there is a very old school feel to it, which I think stands out more in a tag match because, you know, the tag formula is very well established through 70s and 80s and now in a 90s wrestling. Yeah. The long control spots, the hope spot, you know, the only thing we're missing was the sadly was the commando role. Although the crawl through the legs is a good backup. That's a good, that's another good classic spot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:35
Speaker
knowing that the career of these guys, Slash and Repierce have, because they had them in WWF for a while, and then WCW to some degree later, I can see why they worked as long as they did. Well, they're not great wrestlers, like they do have little bits there. Like, I think it's Shanghai who does that nice sort of governance powerbomb move, which I really liked.
00:25:54
Speaker
At the same time, I could see why they never quite got to be like big stars. They're good, but there's nothing really stand out with them other than just, you know, you don't get the crowd about Texas or they don't like do any extra things that like they heal to tag teams would do like we'll see later in the show. We've said this about a few people over the past few shows. They are very solid performers. Yeah. But not the ones that you're you're going to build the card around. Right. Exactly.
00:26:25
Speaker
I thought the pacing was pretty good here. Again, this is the old-school style. It's much more about the Heels controlling the match and eventually leading to Scorpio's big hot tag. To his credit, he really does shine quite well here. They keep mathering a long time. He gets good kicks. His splash is underrated because he jumps and does a quarter turn to land properly. Yes. Yeah.
00:26:49
Speaker
And it's 450 where the, what is it? Was it Jesse calls like a one and a half, I think, or something weird. I think it's like, I think it's like a one and a half flip or something. Yeah. Cause I think I think it's like a diving thing. It's 450 looks quite nice. You could see why he gets famous for doing moves like that for sure.
00:27:07
Speaker
And a way to finish is a very telling example of Bagable and Scorpio, because Bagable does a nice solid back suplex, which is right in the right spot, which is good, but not flashy. And then there's here's Scorpio doing this cool flip and win the match. Jesse loves to refer to Pearson Schlesinger as Texicans. Yes. Did you count any times he said it? I did not. I did not. Four times. Okay. Four times in one match, he refers to the Texicans.
00:27:35
Speaker
Well, that's that's still better than they got it like that count from New Blood Rising. Well, yes, that's true. Yes. This didn't do very much to vary from the normal tag formula, but it was a perfectly fine example of that tag formula. Yeah. Bagwell does a good job as face imperil, and I liked how long it took the heels to actually get him meaningfully stunned, even like fakes them out a couple of times early on, acting more hurt than he is to retain advantage. Yeah, I can see that.
00:28:02
Speaker
He's almost, dare I say, likable in this match. He is. I feel dirty for saying Buff Bagwell is likable, but... I will say during the intro, I feel like I can say, as a white guy, I can say this. He has very white guy rhythm. Yeah, he's more on rhythm with Scorpio and the dance than the public enemy ever are with each other, but... They're on rhythm with themselves, Bob.
00:28:29
Speaker
with each one individually yes yes exactly marching to the beat of their own drummer yeah yes not listening to their music at all no no too busy i think the heels needed a little bit more hold variety for their arm work but they tagged in and out quickly so the match never really got slow
00:28:47
Speaker
There's a few minor botches here and there in the match, but nothing that really spoils it. The ending is nothing surprising, but Scorpio's 450 gives it a very nice, impressive actual finish.
Promos and Character Development
00:28:57
Speaker
Yeah. So perfectly acceptable tag wrestling here. Nothing special, but no complaints.
00:29:04
Speaker
So going back to what I said before, the tag team with Paul Orndorff and the Equalizer, that match is a fact evolving to go Scorpio and Marcus Bagwell. Sadly, it's not Denzel Washington replacing the Equalizer in that one as well. Again, would it be better match? Oh yeah, that'd be better. The Texicans, as they are well known, would take part in a singles match. Interestingly, they picked Shanghai Pierce for the singles match, which probably already picked as well, to be fair, at least on this one match.
00:29:33
Speaker
I mean, he has the sexy one, so. Obviously, yes. He wrestles a singles match against ice train at fall roll same year. OK. Tony throws to Missy Hyatt, who is with Paul Orndorf and The Equalizer, later to be known as Dave Evad Sullivan, because he's dyslexic, you see. It's hilarious. There's that sensitivity training WCW.
00:30:03
Speaker
here with Mr. Wonderful, Mr. Television Champion himself and the equalizer. But you know what? It looked to me in the first match that Ron Simmons almost took that title away from you. And as a matter of fact, I know there's a lot of men in WCW that want a chance of taking that title away from you. Listen, Missy, now you know why they call me the John Wayne of professional wrestling.
00:30:28
Speaker
First of all, I play straight down the middle by the rules. And if it gets tough out there, I'm just a man that could do it. And you know something, Ron Simmons ought to be fired. He ought to be paralyzed. He ought to be kicked out of the WCW. He deliberately threw me out over the top of the rope.
00:30:50
Speaker
He knew I had a beat when I picked him up for the pile driver. And he's not a man, he chokes just like I said he would. Florida State always choke, and they're gonna keep on joking. And you know something, right here is my friend, the Equalizer. And you saw exactly what Rob Simmons did. Well, this man right here is gonna get even with a lot of people, because he's my good friend. And another thing about you saying a lot of people are wanting a shot at this type.
00:31:19
Speaker
Yeah, like Mr. Ricky Steamboat, maybe? You mean the old man with the gray hair? Matter of fact, we call it the old man at the sea, because he's gray-headed, he's got to put black stuff all over his head, he's balding, or the other is championship belt. Okay, the champion for a long time. Well, now let's go back to the ring to Gary Michael Cabana.
00:31:45
Speaker
The equalizer had absolutely no idea what to do with his hands during this interview. No. He keeps swinging his right arm like he's trying to swat an annoying house fly through the entire interview. It looks ridiculous and it is very, very distracting.
00:32:04
Speaker
If you want to picture listening to this review, go back, listen to the interview again, and have a friend stand just off to the left side of your vision and continue swatting with their arm for the entire thing. It will be impossible for you to pay attention to anything that Orndorf is saying. Yes. That may potentially be a little bit of a good thing, though, because as for the promo, it's not Orndorf's best work.
00:32:31
Speaker
He starts off fine with his riff about Simmons and his foe offense at how horrible and evil Simmons' tactics were compared to his noble and honorable self, but his Ricky Steamboat, Old Man in the Sea joke goes absolutely nowhere, and then he seems to get pretty flustered towards the end and kind of loses train of thought on there. Between that and the Equalizer's antics, this didn't go horribly, but it didn't go very well. He also sees a John Wayne of pro wrestling. Is that a thing people have ever said about him?
00:32:58
Speaker
I guess it is now. If by people you mean Paul Orndorff himself. Yeah. This is the guy who refers to old Ricky Steamboat, who is in fact four years younger than he is. Yes. And this is the guy who I believe our friend Garrett refers to as muscle grandpa. Yes, that's correct. When he starts showing up a little bit later. That's, yeah. He comes back in like 2000, I believe. Yeah. That one match. Yeah.
00:33:20
Speaker
Cause he has a very old man face. Then he he's as jacked then, to be fair, he's as jacked like seven years later. Yes. If not more than he is now. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a little bit rich for him to be criticizing Ricky steamboat for being old. A little bit. Yeah. I kind of feel bad for equalizer, which is a few times I'm going to say this like ever, because I don't think it's necessarily his fault.
00:33:48
Speaker
Like they gave him, they seem to give him no notes.
00:33:51
Speaker
It's here that he's never been on camera before, which is also it does sound like that. I mean, Tony, when he intros, the segment says he's there with Paul Orndorff and someone I don't recognize. Yes. So I feel like this is very, very early in equalizers run. Yes. And yeah, I agree. It feels like they gave him basically no direction other than stand there and kind of look angry. But I still don't know why he went to and swatted the camera or swatted an annoying bug three feet in front of your face.
00:34:19
Speaker
Well, that's the beginning to keep the narrative straight. Because Tony says, this person I recognize, the misty introduces him as the equalizer. And then, at the end of the promo, I wonder if he introduces his friend equalizer if Mickey didn't say his name.
00:34:32
Speaker
I mean, to be fair, I think Missy introducing him as the equalizer is fine, because you can picture they came out on stage and said, oh, who's this? And he said, oh, that's the equalizer. So, yeah, I guess. I think it's because it comes so quickly in sequence. Yeah. Yeah. Tony goes, I don't know who this person is. And he goes, here's the equalizer. Oh, OK. Our third match is Eric, that dropkick, Watts.
Watts vs. Regal Match Discussion
00:34:58
Speaker
versus Lord Steven Regal with Sir William. The referee for this match is Randy Anderson. Jesse oddly suggests that Watts will struggle to get to the ring because they don't have a beach in Oklahoma where Watts is from. What? Okay. Watts hands out tiny American flags to fans as he walks down the ramp.
00:35:20
Speaker
Sir William brings out Lord Regal, who as ever during this time has his amazing red, blue, and gold cape. Oh, yes. Absolutely terrific. Regal looks besmirched by the very concept of wrestling in Mississippi as Sir William waves a tiny Union Jack. Watts waves a slightly larger US flag in response. It's the Battle of the Tiny Flags. Yes.
00:35:45
Speaker
Tony says, however this ends, Watts will learn something wrestling Regal. Hopefully, that'll be how to throw a dropkick. Regal gets a series of arm holds, but Watts reverses a wrist lock into his own and holds on through a Regal monkey flip. Jesse says they have great scientific wrestlers in Oklahoma because there's nothing else to do there.
00:36:07
Speaker
They continue trading arm holds, sneaking in rare strikes, until Regal flips Watts to the mat and forces his wrist down for a couple two counts. Watts bridges free, but Regal levers him down from a top wrist lock for a couple more two counts, then flips him to the mat again for two. Watts rolls over for one and Regal rolls back for two. Jesse and Tony both criticize the crowd for not applauding. Yeah. I agree. This is actually really good.
00:36:33
Speaker
Watts works around a hammerlock and gets two with a roll up. Regal ankle lock, then several hard European uppercuts and forearm strikes, but Watts dodges a knee drop, kicks the leg, and slaps on the STF. But, he's too close to the ropes, and Sir William sneaks in a vicious slap to the face, while Anderson isn't looking. Watts yells at Sir William, so Regal forearms him from behind and rolls him up, pulling the tights for the three count and the win.
00:37:03
Speaker
Regal celebrates with Sir William in the ring as Tony decries his tactics. Thoughts on this?
00:37:10
Speaker
So this is kind of what one of those matches could be of two minds of, I think. If you really want to see the fundamentals of how you can work armholes and leg holes, you know, work through holes, and you're really into that catch can British wrestling, which obviously Regal is very familiar with, then this is a really amazing match. If you're into traditional pro wrestling, then it's a match where they just kind of roll around and ability creative holds to unfortunately zero heat from the ground.
00:37:39
Speaker
Yeah. The problem is that this match is like seven minutes long, and like five minutes of that match is this. And because the crowd is not into it, it just really suffers the whole thing. Crowd interaction really is a factor in match. Yeah. The thing is, so once it actually gets into would be second gear, that's when they go right to the STF and then the slap in the pin. They went to the match is really starting, you're like, oh, it's over.
00:38:07
Speaker
I will say on the fundamentals there, they did a good job of positioning where the hold was so Sir William could hit him. Rainier said actually did a good job in this match of clearly not being aware of what's happening because he's looking away from it. They just did everything really well. And even just the basic thing of Regal when he does the roll-up
00:38:27
Speaker
He pulls him at a slightly higher angle, if you notice. So it's not just the normal grab and roll spin over. It's just a higher angle, so it's even harder to get out of. And of course, having the types helps as well. Yeah. And Sir William Slap is a really good one, too. He does a nice, solid-looking slap there that you can see being like, oh, OK, yeah, I'm breaking the hold for that. No, absolutely, yeah.
00:38:51
Speaker
It's a shame there's just no heat for this match. Once they get past the Channing USA at Regal for a bit, they don't seem to have any interest in Eric Watts doing anything. Even when he's doing good, legitimate, fundamental wrestling with a guy who can also do good, legitimate, fundamental wrestling. I'm a bit surprised to say that this was quite a good mat wrestling match. With Regal, I expect that, but Eric Watts really surprised me here, keeping up with Regal quite nicely and showing a good variety of holds and escapes.
00:39:20
Speaker
They kept this almost entirely focused on counterwrestling and holds, but with enough different tactics and holds to keep it interesting. Though the crowd, as you said, the lack of the crowd response really does hurt it. I think if you can get past that and find your own enjoyment in the match, it's really, really good.
00:39:38
Speaker
I still maintain that they didn't really get the match going though. I don't know. They did four to five minutes for me of let's build up how the two people are even, or if anything, Watt can outwrestle Regal. Then let's get into the faster paced, more aggressive, non-chain wrestling part of the match, then build to a finish.
00:39:58
Speaker
I think I agree that there needed to be a little bit more build before like the STF, but I feel like the chain wrestling was the match and I don't have a problem with that in this one. I think if they'd done it as that they chain wrestle and they just like didn't go for the STF part and actually had like one of them finally get a roll up on the other during that and get the pin, I would have been totally cool with that because they'd done such a good job of building a great counter wrestling thing.
00:40:26
Speaker
because it's like in contrast to the normal pro wrestling style, because the normal pro wrestling style is, you know, you do that stuff for the first two to three minutes of the match and then somebody hits somebody else and you get into the normal pro style stuff. But this, they decided to make it more of a amateur slash, you know, scientific map based wrestling match. And I wouldn't want every match to be that way, but it made it quite unique to see them just saying, no, that is our match.
00:40:54
Speaker
If this wasn't Eric Watts fighting Regal, and you got someone else that's a more established star, if anyone else can keep that same kind of pace and that sort of style. Or that had a personality. Yeah. Right, yes, exactly. Someone where the crowd cares about doing the same match, I think it's a different story. Yeah, or someone who aggressively did not have a personality, such as if you did this three years later, and it's Lord Regal versus Dean Malenko doing exactly this match,
00:41:23
Speaker
then I think the crowd is more into it. And, yeah, it maybe has a better. But I mean, I really feel like I can't fault the wrestlers for that. I actually have to fault the crowd for this one. I mean, I agree to a point. It ultimately is still Eric Watts doing all this and, you know, not to brag another guy, but he never made that connection with the people. That's true. Yeah. Ultimately, people booking the match and the people really, I guess, simply watch and regal laying out the match and whatever it is to help them.
00:41:52
Speaker
had to know what they're dealing with, and they chose it as matches. So better or worse, they picked this style of match. It didn't work with the crowd, unfortunately. Yeah. I really do feel like it's a little bit more on the crowd on this one, just because I've seen other cases where you had the crowd not being into someone starting out, and they're not doing necessarily any appeals to the crowd or anything, but the crowd does come around to them just because the action is good. And for me, that was the case with this match.
00:42:20
Speaker
I really did feel considerably better about Eric Watts after this match than before it. I will say this. This is one of the cases where I do try to think of ways that this could work better, like I want it to work better. Like if Wats has a good popular face manager, he hasn't made it to come out because they know Sir William Cheat, for instance.
00:42:43
Speaker
They could lay out a challenge to read this thing. You know, you say this is a great technical wrestler. Well, my, my protege, Eric Watts here, he's an expert, you know, he can beat you at your own game. Making clear to the crowd, this is the match we're going to do. He's going to try and out actually wrestle this guy scientifically. Yeah. But I think it's because they just went in and did this match on the show as front by other people, not doing anything else like that. For better or worse, it suffers and thrives by comparison. Yeah.
00:43:12
Speaker
Yeah, really, I think my only actual complaint about it is just I felt like the STF needed a little bit more build. Even Jesse notes, it feels like he tries that quite quickly. Yeah. He kicks the leg once or twice, I think, and then goes right for it. Where if he'd done one or two more leg holds before it and then went to that, I think it'd be better.
00:43:30
Speaker
It's funny, actually, to that point, Tony in the next match, actually, with different wrestlers, retroactively tries to defend watch, it seems like, because, well, that's for the match, but he's talking about the arm bar, Max Payne says, and he says the arm bar, like the SDF is a quick submission hold. Yeah, true. Yeah. So he's like, I think he realized, he's like, you know, what if I could help him a little bit here? He's doing his part. Yeah. But yeah, for the time they got, I thought they built a unique and fun match here that stood out nicely, and I really enjoyed it.
00:44:00
Speaker
Yeah, like I said, the actual action is fine. It's just, for me, there's stuff missing here. They start to build up to the next part of the match and then it just ends. As noted, the next TV champion post August would be Ricky Steamboat. Well, his next challenger would appear and that would be Steven Riegel. Okay.
00:44:19
Speaker
It is worth noting, there's a certain bit of irony here because the finals of the TV out tournament back in March was Paul Orndorff was Eric Watts, and Eric Watts lost. So to clarify, the guy that beat Eric Watts is then challenging for the TV title. Against the guy that beat Paul Orndorff? Yes. Regal is challenging Steamboat, and Steamboat beats Orndorff, who beat Watts. So there's a certain... Yeah. It's like, you know what it's like. It's like they've held a mini tournament again.
00:44:49
Speaker
They did, kind of, yeah. It's an unofficial tournament over the course of several months. Yes. As far as watch goes, it's a mixed-string mixed bag, so bringing up on him. So on TV, he would start, unfortunately, he would basically lose every match he had for a while. That said, on the Houser circuit, he wrestled a series of matches against Chris Benoit. Oh, wow. In which he won every single one of them. Okay. So at Houser shows, he's beating Benoit, and on TV, he's losing to, you know, Paul Orndorff and, you know, random people.
00:45:18
Speaker
Before I saw this match, I would have zero interest in seeing that match. After seeing this match, I'm like, that could actually be kind of good. Just don't let him throw a drop kick. But yeah, I could actually see that kind of working. I did notable that Watt does have a dark match before Fall Brawl, which he wins. But it's also a dark match. So if you win a match, no one sees. Yeah.
00:45:47
Speaker
Till it isn't straight gimmick if no one actually sees you win a match. Right, yes. Tony advertises Fall Brawl featuring Wargames, the match beyond. Note that Fall Brawl isn't for another two months, but apparently we already know something will get serious enough for someone to challenge someone to a Wargames match. Price of having to advertise early, I guess.
00:46:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's a thing, it's like people talk about recently with WWE, they announce their calendar schedule and they say, you know, October, for instance, is Hell in the Cell, pay-per-view. Yeah. So then hopefully, and then not every year they did a great job with this, that you'd have to build up a feud through the next two, three months to make it logical that someone goes, let's go to Hell in the Cell match. Yeah. Because no matter what the story is going, at least two people were going to have Hell in the Cell matches.
00:46:33
Speaker
That's the struggle with those like, event matches should be things like the Royal Rumble where there doesn't have to be a straight storyline for them other than everyone questing for the title shot. Yeah, you build on the existing story, you build feuds with that inside the match, but they don't need them for the match, correct? Matches like War Games or Hell in the Cell should be ones that grow naturally out of an existing feud. So you really can't advertise those months and advances. Yes, we will definitely have this match type at the show, or it kind of calls into your question your storytelling a bit.
00:47:04
Speaker
As promised, Jesse interviews the winner of the last match, Lord Stephen Riegel, accompanied by Sir William and his tiny Union Jack. A sign in the crowd proclaims, Biloxi welcomes the WCW. They've even got the crowd doing it now, Al. I noticed, yes. I noticed. I didn't catch that on the first watch and then I was like, oh no, there it is.
00:47:37
Speaker
with Lord Steven Rego, who has come to us all the way from England. And Lord Steven, it is indeed my pleasure to have a blue blood to be able to interview here at Beach Blast in Biloxi, Mississippi, Lord Steven. Right, honorable Mayor Ventura, am I correct? That's correct. It makes a change from that imbeconic fool, Giovanni. Now,
00:48:05
Speaker
Eric Watts was supposed to be the all-American athlete, some kind of brilliant amateur career. I didn't even break a sweat beating him. I noticed before that Mr. Wonderful Paul Andoff retained his world's TV title. Now, as everybody knows, I, his lordship of manner, a mission, I should say you could call it, from the Queen and
00:48:32
Speaker
I am going to take back the world's TV title, so Mr. Wonderful, I'd watch out. Because as the great Winston Churchill said, we will fight them on the beaches. We will fight them in the trenches. Nowhere is safe when the Queen has sent his lordship on a mission. And William, I hope you have those crumpets toasted well. Let's go.
00:48:55
Speaker
Thank you, Lord Steven. Lord Steven Riegel, all the way from England. Let's go to you now, Eric Bischoff. Quite a nice short promo from Riegel here with a ton of personality. Oh, yeah. I love how he managed to claim with a straight face that he did not break a sweat beating Watts while visibly dripping with sweat. It's great. Yeah, that is some willpower, dude.
00:49:22
Speaker
I also loved him taking a moment out to completely unnecessarily insult Tony Giovanni as well. Yes. Yeah. I was talking to the point that Tony didn't say anything. Yeah. He's like, Oh, okay. He's just used to perceiving abuse from people now. I guess that's true. But after spending time with Jesse Ventura. Yeah. Stockholm center at this point.
00:49:41
Speaker
It's interesting to see a heel cut a promo against another heel, too. A Regal Orndorf matchup would have some interesting dynamics. It would. I could see Orndorf getting cheered as the American, but I could also see Regal ending up cheered just for sheer technical prowess. And either guy's good enough to then take that and start wrestling more face or heel, depending on the reaction. Yeah, for sure. That would genuinely be a fascinating match to see. No, agreed, yeah.
00:50:06
Speaker
I like that his gimmick here is that he's on an official mission from the Queen to go win wrestling titles. The British crown cares so much about WCW that she wants him to go and win specifically the world's TV title.
00:50:23
Speaker
Not the world title, not the, you know, other world title, not the tag titles or anything like the world's TV title. I guess she just watches a lot of television and she really, really wants that specific belt. Yes. The queenship. She he watches lots of telly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that he does this while like following a match like that. It's quite impressive. Yeah. Yes. I was thinking of that, too, that, yeah, this was
00:50:51
Speaker
quite a energetic match that they just went through. And Jesse meets him at ringside immediately after the match with only the length of the fall brawl ad between that match and this promo. And Regal, I mean, sure, maybe sounds a little bit winded, but like he's capable of doing that. I was thinking watching this, like if someone came to talk to me right after that kind of match performance, all you would hear is,
00:51:18
Speaker
Well, I want the title. Yeah. Well, you see at a time when the big marathon, like the Boston Marathon, New York Marathon, they're waiting at the thing and they try to talk to the person right afterwards. They usually give them a little break. Yeah.
00:51:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So impressive work in that regard and being able to not only talk, but also put together a pretty good and a promo that actually makes sense as a promo. Yeah, because yeah, he's got a member. He's my character. Here's like goal. Yeah, I had the reference to Churchill because I'm British. Yeah.
00:51:56
Speaker
We go back up to Eric Bischoff on stage and he throws to a brief video package, setting up Max Payne versus Johnny B.
Johnny B. Bad vs Max Payne
00:52:03
Speaker
Bad, showing Payne firing Bad's own Bad Blaster into Bad's face. That's Bad. So our fourth match is Max Payne with Norma Jean, his guitar, versus Johnny B. Bad in a grudge match. Referee for this one is Nick Patrick.
00:52:20
Speaker
As noted at the previous Class A Champion show, there was a matchbook between Max Payne and Johnny B. Bad. But instead of having the match, they had a conversation on stage, and Mr. Payne, who's actually the next to be called, fired the confetti gun in his face. And I guess the dry ice involved in that apparently burned him, is the idea we're going with. I know it was each time with the confetti gun, the most dangerous of weapons. Yes. Maybe he got a little bit of confetti in his eye and- Oh, jeez, yeah. Nasty paper cut.
00:52:51
Speaker
It always felt bad when, like, your eye is, like, in severe pain, you go in, like, he draws, there's, like, a single eyelash just fell off your, onto your eye, like, oh, was that with all that, all that was? Maybe that's what happened. He, like, it's, he got blasted with the confetti gun, and that blew his eyelashes out of alignment, so one got in his eye, and he's just, oh my gosh, yeah, the pain. Yeah, there you go.
00:53:14
Speaker
But yeah, so that's the buildup to why there's this rematch now as opposed to happening earlier. And as we'll see, Johnny Bad has some new gear in relation to the injury he apparently got. Yes. Max Payne, introduced as from the state of Euphoria, plays his own guitar riff for his entrance music. He is quite good. They even sync it up to his pyro, which is a nice touch. That was nice, yeah.
00:53:41
Speaker
I may not be the biggest fan of Pain as a wrestler, but he genuinely is a pretty good guitarist. Bad for his part comes out to his ridiculous theme song with a pink feather boa and a hilariously over-the-top feathery mask. Jesse oddly claims that Johnny Dow has a real live boa, which would be a snake, not feathers. Yeah, I noticed that. I think he was trying to say like he
00:54:08
Speaker
their real feathers or something. Yeah, like he had the cheap stuff you buy from the costume store. Obviously, back in the day, he would would wear a lot of themself. Yeah. I do like Jesse taking the time to note the feather boa, considering, yeah, like you said, he used to wear those himself. But but, yeah, it's just a weird depiction of it, Jesse. Yeah. Well, he's missing a giant bad with takes Nick Roberts. It happens.
00:54:33
Speaker
Bad fires off the bad blaster and sadly takes off the feathery portion of the mask, leaving just a flowery pink one. I really wanted to see him try to wrestle in that huge thing. Yeah, I kind of want to see him get like when like the punches start to see if the feathers come off. Yeah, yes. That's it's like it's full on crazy Mardi Gras mask again. Yeah, he's he's he's a week early. Yeah. Yeah. The most elaborate type of things you see for those. It's almost past Mardi Gras in full carnival. Yeah.
00:55:01
Speaker
Bad takes Pain down and lands punches, then earns two with a crossbody, but Pain dodges another, and Bad flies over the turnbuckle to the floor. Bad crawls back in, and Pain wears him down with a suplex, a slam, an eye poke, an armbar, and brack breaker per Tony. Glad it's not just me that flubbed my lines.
00:55:21
Speaker
Pain locks on the Painkiller, but he's too close to the ropes, so Bad easily reaches them. Pain holds on nearly to the 5 count. Pain earns 2 with a suplex, but Bad sunset flips him for 2.
00:55:41
Speaker
Pain easily catches a crossbody and slams Bad. Bad hits, if we are generous, a dropkick to send him over the top rope to the floor, then vaults onto him, but Pain flings him to the ring post. Bad, though, dodges the clothesline, so Pain hits the post. Back in, Bad goes up top, but slips off, but quickly gets to the second rope for a flying body press for the three count and the win. Good quick recovery by Bad there, as he only had a moment to work before Pain was gonna be in position.
00:56:11
Speaker
Bad celebrates like he just won a much longer match. This was less than five minutes long. Jesse says he got lucky. Thoughts on this one? Yeah, as you said, it's definitely a pretty rushed encounter, but ultimately it's just all right. It's weird because I get the idea of the fast start for sure. Even as silly as the idea that you shot him a confetti gun in the face, they're still playing it up like it's a blood feud. This is a vengeance match. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the official term they use for it again? It was a grudge match. Yeah.
00:56:40
Speaker
But then there's the special grudge. Did they say the special grudge match? That probably did. I think we know that. Like, what's a special grudge match? Well, and also that's weird because it's like they list it as a grudge match or special grudge match or what have you. This is clearly not actually a no DQ match either. Correct. Because they're threatening DQs through the entire thing. Yeah. So I get the deal at the fast start and absolutely have no problem with the counter. They get it to you where you can act on the side and then Max takes control.
00:57:09
Speaker
Max still, at this point, doesn't quite have the complete look he's going for. He looks really good coming to the ring, but once the jacket's gone, the guitar is gone, everything's kind of slightly mismatched. It's like regular t-shirt over actual ring gear for the pants. Yes. Yeah, he needs something different for the top. Yes, for sure. Or to commit to the full rock and roll look he's going for, not the wrestling. It's like singlet bottoms, basically. Yes, exactly.
00:57:36
Speaker
And his shirt's also very busy. It has like a name and logo and like, it has like five logos in the front. Fashion victim and stuff. Yeah, yeah, there's too much going on in that shirt. Yes, you are a fashion victim and it's clearly your vault. Yes, exactly. You can't focus on any one thing he's wearing. It's too much. Other than the ending, I thought they worked fairly clean. The landing of the outside was a little off.
00:57:59
Speaker
The problem with the ending, I feel like Max must have been late. That is ready to go, and then Max kind of takes a couple steps in that direction. If he jumped off and he was ready, he'd probably have been fine. And he's not ready, so then he sort of adjusts quickly. To me, it looked like he went up, but he went up a little bit too fast and lost his balance. Like he got up there with too much momentum still and kind of slips. But then he really, genuinely recovers really, really fast. I was impressed with that, that he didn't let it rattle him.
00:58:26
Speaker
Yeah, I wasn't sure if it was that or it looked kind of like Max was there and then he sort of took a step away. So then he could like, I suggest there, but not totally sure. He was the fault in the story of this. The question I have about the ending is why does the cross body suddenly work as a super effective move? Yeah. Cause he just caught one like a minute and a half earlier and like negative and nothing. He just caught him and slammed down. Yeah, I guess. I mean, you can say he does look like he's reeling a little bit at that moment, but yeah, it is a little weird for that to be the finishing move.
00:58:55
Speaker
If this was like a tag match, you could add over been bad partner, do the classic, you know, getting your hands and knees behind him thing. Yes. That, or you do the really impressive cross body. Like you do a Ricky Steamboat cross body or, you know, a young Randy Orton cross body. Then I get that as a finish. But yeah, it's just weird that like suddenly this wins the match for me. Oh, okay. Yeah. You could have sort of lead into the boxing thing fringe. Like you could have like Max Payne goes to power bomb him. And once he's got him up, you know, he gets a good like right hand and knocks and now he falls over something like that.
00:59:25
Speaker
Yeah, and that's where they kind of start going with him when it's later in his run in, like, 95. You start seeing them building up the, hey, he's actually a Golden Gloves champion. Correct. Yes, he is, yeah. Yeah, for me, this was short and not terribly varied with a lot of punching, but it was quite good punching. As I noted, Bad is a former Golden Gloves champion, so he does know how to make his punches look good.
00:59:48
Speaker
Pain moved slowly, but the size difference helped make him look quite powerful, and his easy catch of the crossbody mid-match was cool. Nothing really special here. This needed to either be more vicious or more complex, but as short as it was, it didn't overstay its welcome. I would say I was surprised. I was doing a little research on Max Pain. I didn't realize he had a much, like, legit wrestling background before he shows up here.
01:00:13
Speaker
He actually trained in New Japan. Oh, okay. Back in the 80s, late 80s, with the enough that a guy come up, not in the show, but he's come up twice in the reference, Chris Benoit. Okay. It's weird because he has a legit shoot sort of rustling background. He has his size, but then they lead him to his rock and roll stuff and he has all these patterns and things going on and you kind of lose what he could really be doing well, unfortunately, and all that. Yeah, he kind of feels like a guy where they've got a lot of ideas for what he could be, but they never quite settle on something.
01:00:43
Speaker
Yeah. Fittingly, there would be a rematch on television a few weeks later, which would be a no DQ match. That would have made sense tonight. Yes. That match would go to Max Payne. So that would lead to the next Clash of Champions show, which again is in August, which would have a mask versus guitar match, which bad one that's stripping Max Payne of his guitar. Oh, Norma Jean, no. He can buy a new one with all the money he apparently won off the lawsuit over his name.
01:01:11
Speaker
Oh, right. Yeah. Over the Rockstar game. Uh huh. Yeah. Back Spain. Yeah. They didn't really settlement, but the fact they didn't with settlement tells you it's probably a lot. Yes. That's usually how that works.
01:01:24
Speaker
As Jesse pokes at his nose, Tony builds up the upcoming Iron Man match and tag title match. Tony says this edition of The Horseman may be new, but if he were in a tag match, there'd be nobody better to have on his side than Arne Anderson. Jesse says the Hollywood Blondes will still retain their titles. And Tony gives us another Let's Go to the Ring. He's so generous.
01:01:47
Speaker
What is this stuff on your nose, Siobhanie? Would you get off of this? It's gross. Look at it. Somebody get the hook. Let's go to the ring. It's nice inflection on that one, too. That's the ring. Upward deflection on the end. It's so aggravated. Yes.
Tag Team Championship Match
01:02:07
Speaker
Our fifth match is the Horsemen, Arne Anderson and Paul Roma versus the Hollywood Blondes that's studying Steve Austin and flying Brian Pillman for the Blondes WCW World Tag Team Championship. Referee for this one is Randy Anderson. Storyline.
01:02:22
Speaker
I guess at the last pay-per-view, which we've already covered thanks to our weird schedule, we were introduced to the new four horsemen, which included the addition of Paul Roma. Fresh off being a mid-card heel, pretty much his entire career in WWF, which was definitely not a choice that he's suddenly in the, I guess, top faction in the company. Brought in in the, I guess, will everybody notice the Randy Orton role as the young up and coming guy that's going to lead the company, win all the world titles and do super well.
01:02:50
Speaker
I mean, to be fair, when you're bringing someone in to get him exposure, you probably don't choose a guy that already has exposure. Yeah, I suppose. So the idea is now that the trip has been reformed, their goal is to, of course, win all the gold, because that's what they're known for. At their peak, they'd have, you know, world champion, Ric Flair, TV champion, Andre Anderson, tag champions. You'd have, you know, some of you have some version with Wyndham and... Oh, it's a blank on people now, but yeah.
01:03:19
Speaker
At their peak, they'd hold all the gold, they'd have the top manager and JJ Dylan. So they're just going for the glory again, which is shown in the show because they're going for both the tag titles and the NWA World title in one show. Worth noting, at the last class champions again, there'd be a tag team title match between the fourth men and the Hollywood Blondes. Although this case, it was Ric Flair and Anderson against the Blondes for the titles.
01:03:45
Speaker
Both teams would have a pinfall, so the final decision is what mattered. And unfortunately, some would run in and cause a DQ, which would technically give the final fall to the Horsemen, but apparently because that third fall was disqualification, that means they didn't win the titles. Champion's Advantage still applies even in a 2 out of 3 falls match. Yeah. I guess at least it wasn't the first fall, and that, like, the rest of the match is pointless. Right, yeah. Like with poor Ron Simmons in the 10 minute time limit.
01:04:12
Speaker
Yeah, right. It just seems weird that you have one pin fall. That doesn't matter because the second one is too. Yeah, it is. It's a strange. It's a strange rule interaction where you kind of feel like maybe that should explicitly be waived for a two out of three falls match.
01:04:25
Speaker
Right. I mean, you could have him lose via countout. You have flare be distracted by what happens and the call of the ring. And then they definitively lose a second fall. It puts in this topic, but it's in a way that doesn't really hurt them. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's just weird that you can win a two or three falls match, but because the second fall is so cute. Yeah. It's WCW. The horsemen are out first wearing t-shirts that look more like advertisements for a horse riding camp than a tag team. Yeah.
01:04:54
Speaker
A person in the crowd has a way better shirt, referencing the return of the four horsemen that looks like very apocalyptic themed. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's like it looks like a metal album cover kind of or something. It does, yeah. Yeah. Their theme song is pretty good, but nowhere near the epic mid 90s theme that they'll later have. Oh, yeah. The Hollywood Blondes have a great look with their starry vests. Crowd signs cannot agree on whether you spell their name with or without an E in blonde.
01:05:23
Speaker
I was wondering that too, because on the back of their trunks, there's no E. Yeah, officially, according to their vests, it's without an E. Okay, there you go. I love Arne Anderson, by the way, but he really needs to rethink pure white short tights as a wrestling outfit. Yeah. It looks like either underwear or a diaper.
01:05:43
Speaker
Yeah, it's because if it were to say, but they're not tight enough because they have a little bit of bagging issue and that's why you get that effect. Yeah. I think if he just added some red stripes on the sides to go along with he's got red on like his knee pads and stuff. Right. If he just added some red stripes on the sides of the tights, I think it would look way better. It complete the look. You know, he needs really sad together. Have a four on the left and right side of the trunks and then have a four on both of his boots.
01:06:12
Speaker
There you go, yeah. He's a 4x4. Exactly. He's reliable and steady. Roma and Austin start as Pillman yells at the crowd. The crowd chants for the horsemen and Austin mockingly directs them. Austin antagonizes Roma and Roma slugs him hard in the face. Jesse wonders what he'd done, quote, in this matchup to deserve that.
01:06:38
Speaker
I think we just saw. But nice setting of conditions there. He's very careful to say, during this match, what has he done? Yeah, there's a brief pause too where he says, what has he done in this match? In this match. Yeah. And Tony's like, yeah, nothing. And Jesse said, all the other matches are totally independent. Every match is unique. You can't punish him for other things. That kind of kills the whole let's build these feuds over multiple matches and multiple shows, doesn't it? Yeah.
01:07:06
Speaker
Every show is a Tabula Rasa, blinks like- So what such wonderful Hiola excuse making though? Oh yeah, no. He commits to it, I'll give him that. Pillman in, and he tells Anderson to check Roma's elbow pad, then seems to hide something in his own tights. Tag to Arne, who mocks Pillman's trademark rolling cameras taunt, and counters an Austin charge with an angry glare. Oh yeah. I love that he just looks at Austin, collapses in the corner, is like, oh my gosh, don't hurt me, he runs away.
01:07:35
Speaker
Arne pulls Pillman's hair to throw him down, and the crowd denies Arne did anything. Should not have made the crowd your enemy, Pillman. Speaking of the crowd, one dude is dressed just like Scott Hall will when he shows up in 1996. Yes. Even has kind of similar hair. It's really weird. Yeah, that denim sleeveless vest and everything. Yeah, I swear that when I first caught a glimpse of him, I thought, oh, it's Scott Hall. Yeah, like, wait, it's way too early.
01:08:00
Speaker
Way, he's a friend of the WWE. It's either too early or too late. True, yes. Pillman tags Austin, who immediately gets arm dragged. Arn dragged? Yeah, I'd go with that. Austin back body drops Arn and hits forearm drops for one count and a two count. Jesse jokes that Arn is like Jaja Gabor because he's had so many tag partners like Jaja had many wives. Tony notes that Gabor had husbands.
01:08:29
Speaker
Austin offers Arn a handshake, and Arn agrees, then immediately beats him up. Tag to Roma. The commentators note that Roma and Arn, the less experienced team, are actually showing better teamwork right now, and also cheating with closed fist punches. Horseman gunna horseman. Exactly.
01:08:48
Speaker
Austin pulls the hair and gets Roma in a shoulder-mounted bear hug, but Roma awkwardly levers over for a sunset flip for two. I'm not actually sure if that was even intended to be a shoulder bear hug, or if Roma just didn't get enough momentum to complete the flip at first. It's just Austin doing a great job covering. Now that you say that, I'm not sure myself. I ain't talking about that, but yeah, that's a good point. Because it looks like an actual move that Austin ends up doing, but it kind of feels like that was supposed to be a smoother flip. I don't know.
01:09:18
Speaker
Yeah, no, I could see he would have come up, yeah. Roma counters a powerbomb with a backslide for two, but Austin dodges a crossbody and Roma eats Matt. Pillman in and he leaps over Roma in the corner, but while he's bragging, Roma clotheslines him down for two. Arne and Roma work together to wear a Pillman down and Pillman collapses on a whip. Jesse claims that Pillman's knee is hurt.
01:09:43
Speaker
What? Tony says in the flattest possible voice. Yeah, that was great. Pillman's tights have now shifted to expose one butt cheek. Pillman shoulder blocks Arne in the knee and flings him outside and fakes him out on a dive, but Arne dodges the real dive too and Pillman eats barricade. Pillman barely makes it back in at nine and he blocks an Arne suplex so Arne quickly tags Roma whose sunset flips in for two.
01:10:11
Speaker
Austin saves, and Roma goes after him, so Pillman knee strikes him and distracts the ref so Austin can dump him on the barricade. Back in, Pillman and Austin trade off wearing Roma down, expertly preventing his escapes. Austin pretends to ride a horse to taunt him. They use Arne to distract the ref and do an interesting double team rope choke. Austin holds Roma's legs to elevate him, and Pillman holds his neck to the ropes. Meanwhile, a sign in the crowd praises Brett the Hitman Heart.
01:10:40
Speaker
I'm sure that WSW was thrilled to see current WWF performer, Hart, praised on their show. If you notice, the camera starts to zoom in a bit to try and hide the sign, but it can't quite get it out of focus. Yeah, it's funny. Roma eventually smashes Pill Moon to the turnbuckle and tries a top rope dropkick, and Pill Moon counters with his own dropkick, but both miss. Both of them make the tag.
01:11:08
Speaker
Arne runs wild and counters a Pillman back body drop with a DDT. Arne goes for the pin on illegal man Pillman, and Austin axe handles him for two for still illegal man Pillman.
01:11:20
Speaker
Tag to Austin, who was legal anyway, and he and Pillman trade off wearing Arne down and get two counts with Austin elbow drops, and Austin smashing Arne's face into Pillman's boot. Arne tries the DDT, but Austin drops him on the ropes, and the blondes sneak in double teams whenever the ref is not looking. Arne almost gets to Roma, but Pillman decks Roma, who charges, distracting the ref so the Arne's roll-up only gets two. Austin belly-to-back suplex also gets two.
01:11:46
Speaker
Arne ends up on the apron and suplexes Austin outside, and Tony claims that's not a DQ because Arne was himself outside. Jesse points out that Austin still went over the top rope. Again, he has a point. Yes, he does. Pillman double axe handled for two. Butchik is still hanging out. FYI. Yes. Arne hits a diving Pillman with a double axe handle and tags Roma, who runs wild with punches, back body drop, and press slam, and everybody gets in.
01:12:14
Speaker
Arne flings Pillman out and Austin dodges a Roma clothesline but runs right into Arne's beautiful spinebuster for two for Roma. Roma rolls Austin up, but with the ref getting Arne out of the ring, Pillman clotheslines Roma and Austin rolls on top and pulls the tights for the three count and the win. Austin collapses to the ramp as Arne checks on Roma and the blondes celebrate with their belts exhausted. Thoughts on this one?
01:12:38
Speaker
I enjoy this match quite a bit. I think in talking about this compared to the second match, the other tag match, this really nails the more advanced tag formula. And this is people that are really used to tag wrestling, especially aren't obviously wrestling tag mentioned for a long time. So it's a really good use of this formula. They do all the tricks, you know, they miss tags, you know, the different the refs distracted. They definitely nail all that stuff.
01:13:01
Speaker
I will say they take a while to really start, don't they? To be fair, does character work? It's, you know, the heel stalling, like, take a move, go outside, oh, my face, sir, you can check on me and everything. Yeah, fair enough. This match feels maybe, I don't know, what do you say, like five minutes too long?
01:13:17
Speaker
I think so. I think like it's not huge, but it just feels like between the start and maybe they go a little bit too long on each of the face and peril moments. There's just not enough to break them up or something. I don't know. It's not major by any means. No. I think it's still a very good tag match, but it just definitely feels like you could trim it a little bit here and there for sure. No, I can actually see that.
01:13:40
Speaker
Uh, for me, I thought everyone, for the most part, did a really good job. Aren't obviously has his character down and he has all the fundamentals in the world to look really strong in this match. Yes. Pillman, other than the fact that he's half exposed for more than half the match. Well, if you're watching, I, I made kind of when the time was like, when it happens, it's like an hour 16 in the show and it's there throughout the rest of the match. So it's a good more than 10 minutes, close to 15 minutes. Yeah. There is no way you did not realize that this had happened. Billman it's.
01:14:10
Speaker
In fact, there's a brief bit on the outside. I think when they're both out there and they're attacking, I think it's Arne. Austin's out there, he does a bump, and he just his own types. Like, just very quickly. And it's like, so you guys can do that. Yes. No one deserves that to. I think the one that doesn't really truly shine, I don't think they do terribly here, but Roma doesn't really have a big moment for me, or moments that stand out as being really, really impressive.
01:14:39
Speaker
He has solid fundamentals there, but those weird things, like the way he does the backslide, it's like he almost necks himself doing it. Yes, yeah. He does give himself a, thankfully, slight head bump turning over. He doesn't go on the shoulder like he's supposed to. Yeah, fortunately, it's just him kneeling down for a backslide, not doing a Hurricane Rotter or something like that. Other than that, he doesn't really botch anything. He does get punched and he serves decent cross-bodies.
01:15:05
Speaker
The only other point that I noted is just that bit with him doing the flip over Austin, where I'm just not sure if they were actually intending to do the bear hug bit or... Oh, yeah. But if that is a botch, it's so well covered. I mean, they do an excellent job of making that look like what was supposed to happen. Yeah. I will say it looks pretty good in his missed cross body, although he is out cross body in the next batch by a mile.
01:15:27
Speaker
As for the finish, I totally get why they do this finish. You have the classic thing with the Heels cheat. It kind of works because it's the reference attraction. It's still one of those ones where a basic move ultimately wins the match. It's just a clothesline, but of course they end up pinned, so you kind of give it a little bit of a pass.
01:15:45
Speaker
Yeah, you can reason that it's like he's not, it's totally not ready for that hit. So it has more impact than normal. Yeah. Right. And it's not like he's close aligned. And then like Austin wasn't least down for a pin. He like knocks him into a pin. So it's a little more. And he also does hold the tights too. So yeah. Yeah. For me, it's a very minor bluish that they went that direction, but they also don't mess up the finish. So it's like the bad finishes. It's not what I like.
01:16:08
Speaker
The timing is very good on it, and I mean, it's a genuine finish. It's not a DQ, it's not a countout. It's an actual pinfall. It's a definitive ending to the match. It is, yeah. I don't prefer that finish, but I don't critique them for how they did it.
01:16:21
Speaker
This had some excellent tag team action from these teams. There's a lot of subtle little moments and perfectly timed close calls on tags and great teamwork on both sides. There's a wonderful moment where I believe it is Pillman going for the tag on Austin and Arne manages to stop it. And Austin still swings just an inch away from being able to actually make contact with Pillman's hand. So it's like an absolutely perfectly timed moment. They're really nicely done.
01:16:49
Speaker
There's several of those over the course of this match where they do an excellent job with these close calls on tags. Yeah. We got some really classic tag spots, in some cases some Anderson style tag blocking being used against Arne's team, which is neat.
01:17:03
Speaker
And some good face and peril segments where either Arne or Roma kept fighting keeping the crowd into the match even as they got worn down. I do feel like, like I said, this went a tad long for what it had, though just cutting a couple minutes from those bits would have helped as we kind of get some repetitive spots as the match wears on.
01:17:21
Speaker
Also, they do set a few things up in the early match that never really pay off, most notably the bit where Pillman seems like he's hiding something in his tights, but then there's no hidden object that ever appears to get used. Unless maybe that's happening during that final clothesline, but I didn't notice anything like that. And they don't build up, oh look, here's the thing you missed, you didn't notice this before, yeah.
01:17:41
Speaker
So it occasionally feels like this hasn't quite been fully thought out as a result. But regardless of that and the persistent Pillman buttocks, it ended up a good fun tag match, as you'd pretty much expect with the Hollywood Blondes and Arne Anderson in there. To his credit, like you said, Roma did his part well enough as well. But if there's any question of where expert tag work comes from, I think we all just credit Arne Anderson more. Oh, yeah. Has a bit of a history there.
01:18:08
Speaker
Just to talk on Roma for a second, I agree. I don't think he did anything wrong on this match. I think he did all the basics perfectly well. That's really the thing with him, I think. People will talk about Paul Roma as the worst of the horsemen. I don't know if I totally agree with that, but he's definitely among the lower ranking members anyway.
01:18:27
Speaker
It's not because he's like an actually bad wrestler. I think what it is more to me is it feels like he is an average, generally acceptable wrestler that seems to think that he's more than that. And maybe maybe this is actually a storyline thing that they were going for, but maybe not. But there just seems like there's certain matches where it feels like he thinks he's building up the group rather than the group building up him. Yeah. Like they're lucky to have Paul Roma in the group, basically.
01:18:57
Speaker
But I mean, when people talk about Paul Roma and say like, oh, the worst of the horsemen, Paul Roma, you can take that to mean this guy's an awful wrestler and he's not. He is a perfectly acceptable performer in the ring. He just doesn't have that extra bit that really puts someone over the top. That's my take on Paul Roma as a horseman.
01:19:18
Speaker
I mean, yeah, if you're going to talk about like the worst person objectively based on in ring work, it's obviously Sid Vicious. I mean, no question. And I defense if it is way more than you do, but that's objectively true. Yeah. Sid Vicious and Mongo, I think are the two worst in ring workers that they ever have. Just both of those guys do have more personality than Roma. And I think that's what kind of saves them.
01:19:40
Speaker
They have big moments that really rescue them one way or another, either Mongo's delightfully weird promos or just sheer impressive size and power and everything. Right.
01:19:51
Speaker
Roma really is, you know, you took an average template kind of wrestler and put him in the Four Horsemen. And there's nothing wrong with him. And maybe, you know, they would have eventually hit on the right point and been able to run with it. But he kind of does feel a little bit weird, even though what they're trying to do here is take a guy that's relatively low on the card and build him up by inclusion in this group. It just feels like it just never quite clicks.
01:20:16
Speaker
He's heard by his introduction as well. Because as we covered on the show that happened before, where he's introduced, Tully Blanchard was supposed to come back. That's the guy who, man, well, he blanked on earlier. But yeah, he was supposed to come back. But- How did you blank on- I don't know. Match of the night specialist Tully Blanchard. It's weird. I was like, I know there's one more person, they could not think of it. I can remember Barry Windham, but go be fair, he's on the show. Yeah, I came up with, I did that. But anyways.
01:20:43
Speaker
Supposedly, as a story told, he supposedly offered a ridiculously low ball salary according to him anyways. And it wasn't even, it was like a pro show appearance or something. It wasn't even like a contract apparently. So we heard it down the lake. Oh, who can we get? And then they went to this direction with Paul Romer. So it's like the horse went on her back and here comes Paul Romer and people were like, what? Yeah. Yeah. So from the get-go, he had that to overcome and he fortunately never did.
01:21:06
Speaker
You do kind of wonder, based off of that, like, do you think it might have gone better for him if he hadn't been second choice, if he had been the plan to begin with? You know, there's no implication that they're building towards Tully. Even in the lead up to building up the Horseman, maybe Flair is saying stuff like, we're bringing in the new generation or... Right, we're going in new direction. Like really building up, there's going to be an unexpected person. Like, do you think it's disappointment that really cripples it and it would have gone better without it?
01:21:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, um, they're going for what would be the template for evolution later also with Rick Flair. But to your point, if they had built a revolution and they hinted that someone really big was going to come back and join the group, like a Hulk Hogan level or a Scott Hall, that kind of wrestler was going to come back and become part of the evolution. And then Randy Orton, the guy who barely knew from SmackDown, he'd be like, Oh, then he'd be like, Oh, he's that disappointing guy. We thought we were getting someone cool. Yeah.
01:22:02
Speaker
A number of things just happen, unfortunately, and he never really pulls ahead and pulls out something really big. He goes, oh, this is why you need to watch Paul Roma. Solid guy that performs well, but he doesn't have that extra thing that you need to be part of the most elite group in wrestling.
01:22:22
Speaker
On the same kind of show that I'm coming up with quite a lot in August, there would be another match between the Horsemen and the Hollywood Blondes, which would be won by the Horsemen as they get to win the tag titles. Okay. Slight issue, though. Brian Pillman would have minor injury and thus not perform on that show. So this is the show where the Hollywood Blondes are Steve Austin and Steven Riegel. That's about as far from Hollywood as you can get. Yeah.
01:22:49
Speaker
They really should have gotten like a big Florida wrestler because you could have done that angle because you get Hollywood Florida. Hollywood Florida, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Or like if there's a place that is blonde in the name or something like, I'm from the blonde or something. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Regal not being blonde or from Hollywood is definitely interesting. Bring him Max Payne and say he's doing their soundtrack. There you go. Yeah, sure.
01:23:11
Speaker
Between that show, and this is in August, and the next show, which is known as Two Months Out, there's a whole kerfuffle of all the end of the way, which I think we've covered a little bit, and we'll cover more for sure, probably when you cover Fall of Brawl, because that's when a lot of that happens. As to why there are two tag team titles on this show, and there's one tag team title on Fall of Brawl. Speaking of Fall of Brawl, the Horsemen will be defending their singular tag team title against our favorite team, the Nasty Boys.
01:23:37
Speaker
Oh. Well, if anyone can make something of it. I'll bet if Arn's in that match, maybe he can pull something out there. We'll see, yeah. We cut to Eric and Missy, and it emerges that Missy is going to party with the Hollywood Blondes.
Iron Man Match: Rude vs. Rhodes
01:23:53
Speaker
Eric builds up the Iron Man match, and Missy declares it a dream. Eric advertises fall brawl and throws to the Iron Man challenge.
01:24:02
Speaker
So our sixth match is ravishing Rick Rude versus the natural Dustin Rhodes in an Iron Man match for the vacant WCW United States heavyweight championship. The referee for this match is Nick Patrick. Another beach blast, another Iron Man match with Rick Rude. But this time it's actually for a title. It's true.
01:24:23
Speaker
at the time around Starrcade of 92. The US champion Rick would be injured and fortunately he got to be stripped of the US title. This would lead to, you guessed it, a tournament.
01:24:40
Speaker
To be fair, this tournament would come down to a finals match between Dustin Rhodes and Ricky Steamboat, which sounds really good. And thus, we would get US champion, Dustin Rhodes, getting his first big title push in WWE. Cool. Obviously, he helps having your dad being Booker there, but he gets the- Fair enough, but yeah. Yeah. He gets your foot in the door, but you still got to stay in the door.
01:25:00
Speaker
Yeah, he's an interesting case because you can certainly credit the fact that Dusty is Booker for maybe being the reason that why he gets some of the breaks in his career. But then he actually is a genuinely good wrestler as well. Yeah. He probably gets breaks because of his dad, but then he proves that he actually did kind of deserve him. Exactly. Yeah. It's a really interesting case. A little bit later after that would happen, Rick would return from his neck injury and he demanded title back, apparently forgetting how this whole title thing works.
01:25:30
Speaker
He's assuming he's just handed back to him for some reason. There's got to be at least 12 tournaments before that happens. Yes.
01:25:36
Speaker
On the build, there would be a bunch of confrontation between them. Dustin was defending a title against someone else and he'd be attacked by where he would steal the belt. And obviously eventually he would get it back. But ultimately they'll come down to a match between the two of them where there would be a contested ending where both the shows were down and then up as like, as he's talking with commentary, it matters like how quickly the show is being up happens. So it's conscious enough that the title is upheld. So after all of that, a guy strips a title, a turn happens.
01:26:06
Speaker
And then once a guy comes back, they hold the title up again. Rude makes his entrance first to his ridiculous theme song. We see a sign in the crowd that reads, Ravishing Rick Rude is the Iron Man, but he will never be the man. Jesse reads it, but cleverly cuts off at where it says is the Iron Man to turn it purely into a compliment. Nice. Rude asks for respect as the next United States champion.
01:26:34
Speaker
Rhodes' tights today feature bionic legs, which is awesome. Yes. The character I think is supposed to be him, but it looks more like Freddie Mercury. A little bit, yeah. Like, is Freddie Mercury a Terminator? Rhodes comes out in his usual awesome sparkly jacket. He only has one, but it's a good one. That's true, yeah. Jesse is not a fan of Rhodes' The Natural theme song. Yeah, quite a bit about it being on the goat warping music or something. Yes. It's a very specific, confusing complaint.
01:27:05
Speaker
They get in each other's faces and grapple around the ropes, forcing Patrick to interpose himself to break them up a few times. Jesse praises Patrick for that, astonishing Tony. Rude cheats early and often with eye rakes and swivels his hips. Rhodes hits a back body drop and lands hard strikes, then slaps on a reverse chin lock and mocks Rude's hip swivels. Rude constantly searches for leverage during the chin lock and a nice touch. Rude's drops on Rude to keep him in the hold, but Rude eventually gets his knees up. Ow.
01:27:35
Speaker
Yeah. Rude clotheslines Rhodes and he gives a great spinning cell. Rude top rope axe handle and he swivels his hips, but his back hurts, so he decides I must suffer for his pain and puts on a bear hug. Makes sense. Rhodes fights back, but Rude turns the bear hug into a belly-to-belly suplex for two. Rude works a reverse chinlock, but Rhodes hits an electric chair drop, but Rude gets his knees up on a splash.
01:28:01
Speaker
The exact same spot with Steamboat last year, as I recall. We have now hit the ten minute mark. Rhodes works the leg with kicks, a knee drop, a vicious ankle hold, an apron smash, a standing ankle lock, a leg drop, and even sort of a seated sideways figure four. Earning one and two counts when Rude slumps from the pain. Some really excellent variety of holds there from Rhodes. Yeah, it's almost, I think it's called the Indian Death Lock, I think? It's similar to that.
01:28:27
Speaker
Yeah, it might be, although isn't that the one where they, like, stand up first and kind of do the fall back into it type of thing? I think so, yeah. It's to the JR thing, which is a modified uncertainty. Yeah, there you go, there you go. It's a modified any of that luck. Rude finally manages an i-break to get free, earning a warning from Patrick. Rhodes lands punches and whips Rude to the Rose, but eats a knee strike, backbreaker, and the Rude Awakening for three. So that's one to zero for Rude. To this show's credit, they pull a little graphic up that tells you about it.
01:28:55
Speaker
Yes, they do, admittedly, about two minutes too late. Right, yeah. And then there's a bit of squiggle vision. It's like somebody realized, oh, crap, we meant to have that design before the show and forgot. So they do a quick Microsoft paint drawing. Yeah, I think I noticed, because I watched his mask most recently, is Tony praises the graphic. But he says, and it's somewhat sarcastically, so I'm not sure if he actually likes it or not. Like, I really get press the graphic we have here, guys. Like, to go back, like, thanks, I think.
01:29:24
Speaker
Rhodes wonderfully stumbles all over the ring once he's up until Rude hits him with a diving clothesline for several two counts. He really made the Rude Awakening look impactful there. Oh yeah. Rude beats the crap out of Rhodes who rolls to the ramp as we hit the 15 minute mark. Rude snaps his neck across the ropes. Patrick starts counting Rhodes out and Rude counts along but gets bored around four. Yeah.
01:29:49
Speaker
Rhodes makes it in at seven. A beach-themed scorecard appears, as you noted, but it's several minutes late. Yes, that's true. Rude goes for a tombstone pile driver, only for Rhodes to walk up his body on his hands and reverse to his own for two. It's another spot from last year, but it's still cool. Rude ducks a crossbody, so Rhodes sails out to the floor and barely makes it back in at nine. Yeah. Rhodes' crossbody misses are epic. It just does an amazing job when someone dodges those.
01:30:19
Speaker
I do like this at the Break the Count to get back in one better than the previous one, because the previous one, he's on the ramp. He's like inches from the ring. It's like he's not really that far away. He still sells the drama of trying to grow in in time at like seven, but it's not like you're on the floor and you suddenly get your strength and dive in. Right, yes. To take one step over the ring, you're fine, buddy.
01:30:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. You can literally just keep crawling along the ramp because it's even ground with the ring on that one where this one he actually has to get himself up off the floor. Yeah, exactly. It's just less dramatic is all. Rude earns two counts with snap suplexes as we hit the 20 minute mark, but Rhodes counters with his own suplex for two. Rude pulls the tights to send Rhodes to the turnbuckle to stop a comeback and tells Rhodes, you wait.
01:31:07
Speaker
The pitfalls of live TV, Tony notes. He is very loud, I should say, yeah. Yes. Rude land strikes, works a reverse chin lock, and slaps on a sleeper. Dustin excellently sells with a great dazed look, but raises his hand when Patrick checks. Rude's jawbreaker as we hit 25 minutes and five to go. Rude decks Rhodes and blows his nose at him, for which Tony apologizes. Yeah.
01:31:35
Speaker
Rhodes drags himself up by Rude's chest hair, which could not have felt great. No, no, no. Rude lands strike after strike, but Rhodes blocks a turnbuckle ram, spits on Rude, and lands massive right hooks. Rude breaks the eyes, lands punches, and dodges Rhodes' strikes, but Rhodes fakes a punch, runs behind while Rude's ducking, and lands the bulldog for three. We're tied up, one to one, with only three minutes and five seconds to go.
01:32:03
Speaker
Rhodes earns two counts with the bionic elbow, a pile driver, a huge dumping elbow drop, and a rapid clothesline combo, one minute left. Rhodes slaps on a sleeper hold, 30 seconds. Rude jawbreaker's free and goes up top, 10 seconds. Rhodes dodges a rude leap and hits a DDT, but Patrick only reaches two as time expires.
01:32:27
Speaker
Rhodes thinks he's won, but Patrick signals it is still one-to-one as he could not complete the three count. The match is a draw. Rhodes is distraught at ringside, staring sadly at the title belt. He did a good job there, actually goes over, picks it up, and looks longingly at it. And then sets a really just excellent moment there from him.
01:32:48
Speaker
The scoreboard pops up again to show the final one-to-one score. Again, several minutes too late. Yes. The US title is still vacant. Thoughts on this one? It's a solid match. Obviously, as we're going to cover, the big comparison this match has to overcome is to last year's match with Ruud and Steamboat. Yes.
01:33:12
Speaker
To be fair, it's not unwarranted. It's not like these are two random matches years apart. It's not like, you know, bring every Iron Man match to the original WrestleMania 12.1 by everything that happened between. This is the same event the next year. It was one of the two competitors in it. So yes, there's plenty of reason why you'd be comparing these matches, understandably so. Yeah, I think it's totally valid to make that comparison. Yeah, there's no leaf of logic to go, why are you so hung up on this match? I'm like, because it's one of two people. It's the next year. Yeah.
01:33:41
Speaker
To their credit, they do tell different stories in the match. They don't do the 4-3 finish where you have the super fast start and then Steamboat's way down behind and has to work his way back up throughout the match. They also cleverly invert the ending. It's Dustin Rhodes this time who really needs to get a pinfall.
01:34:01
Speaker
Dustin, I think does a really nice job here. He really sells everything quite well. He has good day sell. He sort of thermals around the ring, stuff like that in his big cross body dive that always seems to miss. Could definitely be comical in different matches, but down at the finals, though, like the way someone's around could look silly, but he really, he commits to it so well as like little, little details talked about.
01:34:27
Speaker
And it's earned here. I mean, he just took a really big move. So if he did that off of like getting a normal clothesline done or something, it'd be comical. But it's off of the guy's finisher and he's trying to continue the match. So it makes sense. Yeah, you just got knocked out basically and are trying to get back to consciousness while walking. Yeah, no, absolutely. The way he does these things really is really good. It could easily look stupid or it looks silly or cartoonish, but he does a good job there.
01:34:55
Speaker
What I liked because of this format they did where it ultimately ends up being a one-to-one, not getting into the finish part yet, but this layout really makes it a lot more back and forth than the other match was. The Steamboat Rude match is Steam with the head. He's just like dramatically attacking and then suddenly he's taking that one below and gets his big deficit. He's got to earn his way back up. He gets Rude. This one is definitely a more even match and really, I think both of their characters shine through. Much like he did last year with Steamboat and Rude as well.
01:35:24
Speaker
Rude really nails his cocky character, even to the point where the commentators, both the heel and face commentator, are saying that they wish he was more aggressive on actually doing moves and not, you know, blowing his nose at him or taunting the crowd and everything. Yeah, I know Jesse at some point says, I don't know if him taunting that much is a good idea, he's only up by one. Exactly, yeah. This is one of the matches really aided by commentary, because they really do sell story. Uh-huh. Now, so the ending.
01:35:50
Speaker
I get what they're going for, but for me, if you've done all this build, you've had a, you know, you've had to catch up with the title, you've had a tournament, you've had a fighting champion, and then you even have a contentious match or two where the title is held up and made vacant, and then build the pay-per-view match where you have a draw. I would have done that. I don't like it. I'm in agreement on that, yeah. I just don't get what they get out of it.
01:36:17
Speaker
Either way, they'd went, couldn't find. You could have Rude doing something really devious to get a title back, and then you could build up to the next pay-per-view sample fall brawl, and have Dustin have to earn his title back, which he really should have lost. You can have Dustin have his big blow-off win, which given the direction they go, seems better to you anyways. And ultimately, again, you have a vacant title, and you have a big match, which could have multiple pinfalls in it, and you just don't have a finish.
01:36:47
Speaker
It's oddly foreshadowed if you listen to commentary as well. Because they're talking about the match and the rules. And I think Tony says something like, if there's a winner. Like, oh. Oh, OK. Don't say that. I don't necessarily think it's him giving the finish away. I mean, half the time it sounds like they don't tell him what the finish is. Right. So I don't know if he actually do it. And it's just a turn of phrase, but it's just with this finish, it's funny. So he says, if there's a winner.
01:37:15
Speaker
This was clearly not as good as the Steamboat vs. Rood Iron Man match, and it definitely suffers from the fact that we watched that one on last show, rather than having a year's worth of shows between them like fans at the time. Though, as you noted, it is entirely justified to compare the two. Oh, yeah. It doesn't really help also that several of the big spots in this match are pretty much lifted wholesale from that one, either. Yes. For what it is, though.
01:37:40
Speaker
It is a respectable Iron Man match, particularly considering that Dustin Rhodes has considerably less experience than Ricky Steamboat. He's about five years into his career versus about 16 for Steamboat at the time of his match. True, yeah.
01:37:56
Speaker
Both Rhodes and Rude absolutely put in good work here, and there's a lot to love. Rhodes's variety of leg holds is great, as is his mockery of Rude's dancing, and Rude has so much character and showcases a similar great grasp of Iron Man match tactics as last year, getting ahead and then working hard to stop Rhodes from getting momentum. I didn't like the flow as much this year, each guy only getting a single pinfall is much less exciting, but
01:38:21
Speaker
I do appreciate that they made this match different from the prior one, as you noted, Al. Even, as you said, inverting that Final Furious flurry to be about Rhodes trying to get ahead, rather than Rude trying to come back. I don't love the tie ending, either. An Iron Man match should be definitive, even if it has to go into overtime. Still, taken purely on its own, this was a good match. Yeah, absolutely. It just has the misfortune of being in the same series as a better example of the same type.
01:38:48
Speaker
I don't want it to sound like a back-ending compliment, I feel like it's going to, but Dustin Rose is noticeably more in shape for this match, I think. He looks good, yeah. It speaks to him civically turning both ink and out of character knowing he's got to wrestle a 30-minute Iron Man match with this kind of rule where there's no break against a guy who rolled pinfalls. So it is a compliment. I mean it as nice as I can.
01:39:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I get I get exactly what you're saying. OK, good. Make sure how that can sound like back anything. But no, yeah, he's he looks like he's specifically prepared for a 30 minute match. Yeah, that was going to be intense. He has a very good look for this match and seems to have good stamina for it. I mean, that's it's impressive work. I will say one thing on the ending, the actual timing on the last like 30 seconds that they did really well. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The jumping over and hit the thing and then go for the pin.
01:39:40
Speaker
they do at that point have the clock up on the screen. So you can actually be counting down with the clock and they get it exactly right. Yeah. I think I noticed for rewatching this, I don't think there's necessarily a PP on the curtain thing. It could be a thing just that refs do, but I noticed towards the end, when they're doing the super spot, you can hear new Patrick Blinney tell them six minutes guys.
01:40:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of telling how much time they have, but I could see it for up doing that otherwise as well. Yeah. If it wasn't an Iron Man match, it would be really obvious what's going on. But I could see like in an Iron Man match telling the competitors how much time it actually does make kind of sense that that would be a referee role. Yeah. Yeah. And it is also Nick Patrick in his big, moving voice. So I'm sure he was probably whispering it, but it just came through.
01:40:28
Speaker
So the title situation would be resolved shortly after this. Surprisingly, it is not in the same class show I've mentioned, but it feels like 100 times now. They actually would have a blow-off match on WCB Saturday night in late August. One final match, a regular match, weirdly after an Iron Man match, where Dustin Rhodes would finally beat Rick Roode and become the U.S. champion. Okay. As for Rhodes, he is required legally and by blood to be in a War Games match, which is taking place at Fall of Raw. So that's what he's doing.
01:40:59
Speaker
More on Rude later because he fought from their people.
Flair vs. Windham: NWA Title Match
01:41:03
Speaker
Tony notes that the controversy remains between Rude and Rhodes and builds up the upcoming NWA title and the Masters of the Power Bomb versus the Superpowers. He goes over Flair and Wyndham's history and throws us some footage of several brawls between Flair and Wyndham. During one of the clips, Tony name drops Jackie Crockett as he and Crockett are trying to find Flair and Wyndham who end up brawling in the parking lot.
01:41:28
Speaker
Our seventh match is The Nature Boy, Ric Flair versus The Lone Wolf, Barry Windham, for Windham's NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Referee for this one is Randy Anderson. Barry Windham would win the NWA title on the same peer review that Ric Flair officially returned to the WCW since they're all saying it, might as well too.
01:41:49
Speaker
As a show of respect, because he was at ringside, he came in and was going to put the belt around Windham's waist. Windham didn't see him come in and thought he was doing something else. So that started this mindset of where you just think of Flare as his enemy. This also lead to a part I mentioned earlier where Flare and Anderson were challenging for the tag titles on the Clash show. But Windham interfered and caused them to tend to win by disqualification, which again, means they didn't win the titles.
01:42:16
Speaker
So they're trying to build a story of basically that Wyndham, he sees himself as the lone wolf. Obviously he's most known being associated with Four Horsemen and before that Lex Luger and part of his family association as well. But here he's on his own. He doesn't need his help. He's got to really prove that he's the man in WCW. And to be the man, you got to beat the man. Yeah. He's got to defeat Flair to prove that he is truly the champion, even though obviously he is in fact the champion already.
01:42:43
Speaker
Yeah. It's an interesting dynamic that they will highlight throughout the match that Wyndham is the champ, but it feels like he is the one with something to prove. Exactly. Yeah. On the previous clash show, Wyndham had his only major title defense, which was oddly against two cold Scorpio. Oh, okay. I can actually see that being kind of neat. Oh yeah. I don't mind the match. I'll just, it is just kind of a random, seemingly a random pick. Yeah.
01:43:11
Speaker
Flare is out first in a tremendous gold robe. Weirdly, his music cuts out very early, only getting the opening notes out. Wyndham is out to his theme, and he gets it the whole way to the ring. Interestingly, in the video package, he had like a goatee, but he has shaved since then, which is kind of a shame as the goatee looked really cool. Yeah, I thought it did as well.
01:43:36
Speaker
A fan in the crowd has a homemade cardboard replica of the big gold belt. It is actually not bad. They put a lot of love into doing that. I appreciate it. They trade strikes until Wyndham levels Flare with a clothesline. Flare kind of forgets to sell a Wyndham punch. He like stumbles back but doesn't show any pain. It's rare from him. Just once, but yeah.
01:44:00
Speaker
Flair lands chops and gives a woo. Jesse notes that even if Wyndham is champion, it feels like he's the one who has to prove himself. Wyndham whips Flair to the corner, and Flair flips over the turnbuckle and falls to the floor. Wyndham mows him down with a closed line. Jesse claims Wyndham is, quote, pulling out no stops. It's all the stops, Jesse. Yeah. Pulling out no stops would be not trying at all. Yeah, yeah, right? Yeah.
01:44:29
Speaker
Wyndham suplexes Flair back in and no-sells his chops, so Flair pokes his eyes and wears him down for a sleeper hold, but Wyndham rams him face-first to the turnbuckle, so Flair flops. Wyndham earns two counts, with a power slam, a leg drop, and a huge flying clothesline, but argues with the ref and walks into a couple of Flair right hooks for two.
01:44:48
Speaker
Flair dodges a closed line and crossbodies Windem out of the ring. It seemed like something went slightly wrong there. Windem didn't catch Flair like you normally do, and he threw himself backwards quite visibly. And then he also drags Flair out moments later, which probably means both guys were supposed to go out originally.
01:45:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well. Maybe it's tricky thing because of his size, even as big as flair is, people kind of forget flair is a normal size pro wrestler. He's somebody that they're all giants. Yes. But when them is taller and lankier, when them is a very, very tall guy. Yeah. Yeah. So I can see if maybe if flair hit him too low on the chest, maybe he'd bounce off the ropes and not go through. Whereas you got to hit him higher up towards the shoulder and they both go carry over. So that's what happened.
01:45:32
Speaker
They brawl outside as one fan yells, Flair, you're too old, get out of wrestling. Buddy, if you're expecting Flair's career to wrap up in 1993, I have some bad news for you. Yeah, yeah.
01:45:48
Speaker
Back in, Flair hits an atomic drop and a knee drop, but Windham blocks a suplex, puts him up top, and hits his superplex. He stuns himself as well, though, so he's unable to pin. He eventually drags himself to his feet and goes up top, but Flair dodges an elbow drop. Both men are down, but Windham eventually crawls on top for two. Come on, Harry! Someone yells. So close. Yeah, yeah, who's here?
01:46:16
Speaker
I think there's like one slightly drunk guy in the crowd or something during this. I don't know. Yeah, it could be. Flare gets two with a roll up. Windom flings him to the turnbuckle, but Flare goes up and over, sprints along the apron, springs up top, and hits a flying body press, but Windom flips it over for two. Flare kicks Windom in the knee and goes for the figure four.
01:46:38
Speaker
Wyndham fights it off several times, but Flair eventually locks it in. Wyndham stretches for the ropes, but can't reach, and his shoulders are down, so Anderson counts three. Flair wins. Neither Wyndham nor Flair seems to have realized that the match is over, as Wyndham is still fighting the hold and Flair still has it locked in. Anderson audibly tells Flair, you've won, and a stunned Flair releases the hold and celebrates to loud cheers as the bell belatedly rings. Thoughts on this?
01:47:07
Speaker
That was a quite good match, although I will say it's surprisingly brisk. Yes. I got that really weird. I didn't notice that as much watching it before, but then looking at the timestamps and like, oh wait, yeah, this is over way quicker. This match is technically shorter than the second match of the show. Not by much, mind you, but still it's weird that an underway title match with Ric Flair is like 11 minutes long. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's quite short. Yeah.
01:47:31
Speaker
With the time they're given or the time they work, however you want to look at it, I think they do a good job of telling a nice story throughout. Wyndham obviously can use his strength and size eventually on. Flair has to counter that eventually. If it was also going to counter the fact that Wyndham knows him very well having been teammates together and colleagues even not on the same side.
01:47:51
Speaker
So it's nice to see that certain moves that might work for Flair and other people don't work for Wyndham because, you know, he's seen it before. He's worked with them while he's doing these moves. Yes. He notably gets several counters with the figure four at the end, even before it gets locked in. Yes. Which I really liked that. Yeah. I think this is, that's why I just completely mismembered it. There's a few times they don't do the Flair goes for the figure four and immediately is rolled up and kicks out a two spot.
01:48:17
Speaker
Yeah, Wyndham does counters with, like, kicking him away and levering him around with the legs, but I don't think he ever does the roll-up, no. That's just weird, because that seemed like that's a rule to even carry it over to Charlotte players' matches. Yeah. Almost always, the first time he tries it, they roll her up and she kicks at it, too. It's interesting that they both know counters and also don't do the most famous counter. Yeah. At some point, I'm not clear when Wyndham is legitimately injured during this match.
01:48:42
Speaker
Oh, OK, it actually does happen during the match. I I read various reports on this and there was a lot of disagreement about whether he had it coming into it or it happened during the match or it happened after the match or like just that it happened around this point.
01:48:56
Speaker
That could be a case of when I've read it happened during, but again, it's, it's the arc of the reports around it. So I'm wondering if that affects the match length. I'm wondering if he's coming into your, did they work a shorter match or did he like not feel right during the match? So they go to the figure four spot and then go for the pinfall one rather than, you know, going from that and doing the reversal and then wrestle more match. I don't know. I'm not sure that they meant the match to end when it did. It's very possible.
01:49:23
Speaker
But yeah, I'm just wondering if the injury plays a part in the match being short or if they booked it that way from the get go. Yeah, could see that potentially being the case. For me, this was a good match, but not near as good as I was expecting with these two.
01:49:40
Speaker
The overall plot is fine, and I like that they plotted this one out to show, like you said, that they knew each other very well, with Wyndham in particular getting some notable counters for Flair's biggest spots. I also thought that they brought some really good emotion and intensity. They made it feel like a big fight. Absolutely, yeah. Unfortunately, there are just some moments that get a bit awkward. There's moments where they just don't quite feel to be on the same page, like the bit where Flair doesn't seem to sell a punch and the cross-body bit where they don't go over the ropes right.
01:50:11
Speaker
And the ending is just odd. Like I said, I've heard it variously reported that Wyndham either got any injury prior to this match or during this match, but I wasn't able to clearly confirm the details as reports disagree. Whatever the case, it felt to me like a mistake. Like Wyndham accidentally left his shoulders down too long on the count, so he clearly had been counted down and Anderson just had no choice but to go with that as the finish, he's clearly counted three.
01:50:36
Speaker
I've not been able to find clear confirmation. Even Tony Schiavone on what happened when just says he thinks it was a mistake. Right.
01:50:43
Speaker
I could see that being the case. I could also see that being the plan finished. And so Flair just selling the deal that he doesn't know the match is over. Yeah. But but it is just the entire way that that plays out is a little weird. You have both Wyndham and Flair seeming surprised that the match is over and even the timekeeper clearly is not on the ball and brings the bell several seconds after the end of the match. So the crowd doesn't react either. Not realizing that the match is done. Yeah. The whole thing feels oddly done.
01:51:12
Speaker
The timekeeper guy, I mean, he's waiting for the ref to do his, you know, figure gun salute to tell him when the match is over. So he's, I could stand him being late if the ref isn't signaling fast enough. That said, I feel like if you did that finish with Windham reaching for the ropes for too long and getting counted down, clearly intentionally highlighting it immediately and getting immediate reactions from the wrestlers, it's actually kind of a neat finish.
01:51:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think you said we were watching the first time together. Well, this has to happen at some point, right? Yeah, exactly. Like at some point, you constantly see people going down and getting counted down, but kicking out at the two. At some point, someone does have to get pinned by the figure four. And the way in which it happens is kind of cool if that actually is the intent or even just by accident.
01:51:55
Speaker
that is explicitly because Windham is reaching for the ropes so much that he's stretching back and putting his shoulders on the ground to do that, rather than him being passed out from the pain. I feel like this is an accident, but I also feel like it's a cool finish. It's weird.
01:52:12
Speaker
There was a thing that we did probably a few years back now where Baron Corbin, he was putting his mission on and he was reaching for the ropes and he actually taps them out a couple of times and the ref counts that. What he's actually doing is reaching for the ropes and missing. He had to slap the mat. But it looks like he's tapping out so the ref counts as a tap out. Yeah, that was fun.
01:52:33
Speaker
All told, this was a match with a good outline and generally good performances, but it's just dragged down by a few awkward flubs and a bit of a strange finish, preventing it from rising to the level that you'd expect from Ric Flair versus Barry Windham. It's still not bad at all, but it's nevertheless a little bit disappointing.
01:52:50
Speaker
I'm less disappointed by it to be fair. I liked the idea that as part of the story, Wyndham was real aggressive from the get-go. Oh yeah. They don't do the slow work build-up bit with Flair wooing and people get mad and yada yada. Those are all good, but it's nice to see a match where Flair is attacked quite strongly from the get-go and that throws his whole game plan off.
01:53:12
Speaker
Yeah, no, no, again, I love the actual story of the match. I think it's it's it's brilliantly done there. It's just that there's these little points where they just don't quite seem to be working as well together as you would think. But these two.
01:53:25
Speaker
No, I get that. I'm just saying, for me, those little things, I think, give it a little more leeway in my mind. But I could totally see that. There's a match to you picture when you hear about it. Yes. And there's something that happened. I think it's their last match against each other. There's a match where it's Chris Babaugh and Eddie Guerrero. And I think it's the ACW one night stand. And it's not terrible, but it's not great. And you're like, this is 2005 Eddie Guerrero and Chris Babaugh, what happened? And there's all these people, like what happened?
01:53:54
Speaker
It's that kind of situation. You know can work for the other and know are good workers. So when they don't deliver a amazing knockout match, you wonder, like, is something going on? And again, this is still good. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't get me wrong. This is still good. Yeah. Right. But but if you're picturing this great clash of champions in its epic encounter, and then if it's not quite that, it's hard not to think, oh, this could be better. Yeah, I could get that. Yeah. Yeah.
01:54:24
Speaker
As we'll go over later, there's a whole lot of nonsense involving Flair not being the end of the way champion by the time the next picture comes around. Yes. And coming as the WCW international away champion at fall roll. At that show, he will defend his title against Rick Rood coming off of not win the US title.
01:54:46
Speaker
Unfortunately, it's noted, uh, Wyndham is either injured before the match or during the match or some combination of both. So he actually does not appear on TV again until. Slamberry the next year when he's the mystery opponent. Which I believe if I recall correctly, he then re-injures his knee. Correct. And he's out of wrestling for two years before he comes to the WWF. Yeah. Poor guy. Poor guy. Jesse is at ringside with Ric Flair.
01:55:17
Speaker
Nature Boy, I'll tell you what, I had my doubts. I didn't think it could be done ten times. But you proved me wrong, and you proved like I think George Foreman proved to a lot of people that you get better with age. Ten times, Nature Boy, Ric Flair, World Heavyweight Champion.
01:55:42
Speaker
Most importantly, I beat a great champion and very win them. But now, as they say, it's time to style and profile.
01:55:58
Speaker
It's time once again to look at every wrestler in the world today and say, guess what?
01:56:17
Speaker
Read what you want to read, believe what you want to believe. But go to bed every night of your life knowing there's only one world heavyweight champion today. And it's the Ninja. So whether it be, baby,
01:56:46
Speaker
Adolescents, teenagers, yuppies, or the old, whatever it is that makes me get up and go. Someone like Big Van Vader, Barry Windham, Rick Roode, Steamboat, lineup. I live and die for this, and I live and die for someone to prove
01:57:17
Speaker
You gotta beat the man. You gotta beat the man. Well, there you got it, Tony Shabani. Let's go now to Eric Bischoff and Missy Hyatt standing by.
01:57:34
Speaker
a moderately confusing statement about age groups aside. Yes. This was a typically great Flair promo. Oh, yeah. He nicely credits Wyndham as a great champion, seems excited at the prospect of new challenges, and lists off loads of potential challengers, including again, Wyndham, to build up not just himself, but the title and several other wrestlers. Flair is a master of using his celebratory promos to make lots of people look better. And this is a prime example.
01:58:03
Speaker
There is one minor flub in the middle, though. Flair declares himself the one World Heavyweight Champion, but there's actually a second world title in WCW at the moment. The WCW World Heavyweight Championship currently held by someone Flair lists later in this very promo, Vader. Maybe Flair's just a little bit thrown by the awkward ending of his match. Aside from that, though, great promo.
01:58:25
Speaker
Instead, classic flair stuff we're getting, like I said, he builds up his competition while also putting himself because he's so great because he beat people that are great. Again, we talked about before, it's not always thought about by people. If you beat someone that's so amazing, that makes you all the better. Exactly. I beat a great champion in Barry Windham.
01:58:46
Speaker
That means I'm great. It's a nice thing, but I love that. I love that he lists all these contenders he's excited about facing, which sells that he genuinely believes these people have a chance to beat him and he wants to see if they can. It's such a great promo style. Absolutely. You look great by beating great challengers.
01:59:08
Speaker
And just, I mean, to excite the crowd, like he's listing off all these possibilities, like, and people are going to be thinking, oh, my gosh, we might get Flair versus Vader. We might get Flair versus Wyndham in another match. We might get Flair versus Steamboat again. Oh, wow. Yeah. He's one of the best promos in the business because of things like that. Absolutely. As funny as he can be and as clever as he can be. I think these are the best thing. It's about his promos where he's just able to build up everybody. Yeah, I see that.
01:59:39
Speaker
Back to Eric and Missy. Missy thinks that Vader and Vicious will stomp the pants off of Sting and Davy Boy. Eric says it remains to be seen. This was valuable. Yeah. So you're saying the match hasn't happened yet, hasn't happened yet? Yeah, yeah. That's a good no. Mind blown, man. Yes. The next match brings us our first encounter with something truly special. WCW's early 1990s mini movies.
WCW Mini-Movies and Storylines
02:00:09
Speaker
For a few matches in the early 90s, WSW produced these very, very strange short films. Yes. That set up the match and stakes in ways that went way, way beyond the norm for wrestling promos. Things like Sting versus Vader in a potentially lethal tug of war in a castle. Uh-huh. Or Sting and Jake Roberts shooting laser beams from their eyes. Yes. And then there's, well, this. Yes. Al? Alrighty.
02:00:38
Speaker
So to set things up, we have the unholy alliance of Vader, Sid Vicious, and their respective managers Harley Race and Colonel Robert Parker. They are in a boat, and they are traveling to an island, and they are discussing things they already know to each other, as characters do in movies.
02:00:53
Speaker
they are still upset that Stingray Boy turned down their chance to fly off to, quote, anywhere in the world to a retirement facility of their choice. Instead, they want to take this tag match at Beach Blast, which has zero stakes for the world champion Vader. They're discussing their plan and they're a bit coy about it. They say that the plan revolves around someone named Cheetum. Yes, his name is Cheetum. C-H-E-A-T-U-M. Cheetum.
02:01:23
Speaker
Rayce asks Parker if he could trust Cheetahm. And both Vader and Sid offer to do the job instead. Parker explains that he trusts Cheetahm, quote, like he is my own, he says. We then cut to an island where Stig and David were playing beach volleyball with a bunch of kids and I'm guessing their parents? Could be the youth group thing, maybe? Can you imagine a soup wait camp and like an island that's being in British Bulldog in 1993? Yeah, yeah.
02:01:52
Speaker
That'd be interesting. That'd be interesting, yeah. So we first look at Cheetham. Cheetham is, as we describe, a little person who is wearing a wetsuit, has a goatee and an eye patch. Yes. You know he's evil. For someone where there's another version of Cheetham that's, I don't know, be nice him, that doesn't have a goatee and wears glasses and an eye patch, maybe, I guess. He swims up like a shark right up to the... Their boat is parked on the shore.
02:02:22
Speaker
like with a very shallow water. Kids are standing in there, so it's very shallow water. And to be clear, by like a shark, you literally mean he has a shark fin on the back of his wetsuit for some reason. Yes. And they play a rip off with the Jaws theme, yes. He pops up by the two kids that are staying by the boat, pops out, and he scares them off. And he's carrying what looks like a big thermos. He opens up the thermos, and there is a time bomb in it. Yes. I believe the thermos was to heat the time of getting wet, so at least that kind of makes sense, as much as any of this makes sense, obviously.
02:02:53
Speaker
Can I pause for a moment to psychoanalyze this plan? Sure. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. So first off, we have the idea here is he's being sneaky, right? Yes. He's trying to get there without being noticed and get to the boat, which he does by intentionally wearing a shark fin on his back.
02:03:11
Speaker
so that it looks really terrifying that he's getting close to two small children playing in the water. Honestly, he's really lucky that no one noticed and ran over to try and get the two girls out of danger because that would have blown the entire plan. Yes. So maybe next time go without the shark fin. Yeah, yeah. But it wouldn't be as funny, Bob. Yeah. You have to understand, you know, jokes have to be layered to the point of ridiculousness.
02:03:34
Speaker
He has to be a little person, he has to have a goatee so he's evil, he has to have an eye patch, and he has to be dressed like a shark. Take one of those things away, like you take a goatee away, it's just not funny at all. I don't want you to get up on comedy, Bob.
02:03:46
Speaker
So they planted a time bomb on, on the boat. This is not a remote trigger device. No, this is a time bomb and Parker and Harley race are going to offer staying in Davy boy in a moment for the chance at retirement again, paid travel to the retirement destination of their choice. Not clear if they also will pay for the retirement resort fees on a regular basis or if it's just the travel. But anyway, what are they going to do if they accept?
02:04:15
Speaker
If Sting says, yeah, oh, that sounds good, but they've already planted a time bomb on their boat. Are they just gonna say, oh, oh, you agreed. Oh, well, hold on a second. We just have to go over to your boat for no particular reason. Oh my, what's this? I'm sure it's nothing. I'll just get rid of this for you. Counterpoint, Bob. They are evil. So they're just gonna blow them up either way? Is that like the idea? Yes. Yes, it's like the idea.
02:04:42
Speaker
But she's like, why go through the trouble of making the offer? Just plant the bomb. Well, because of the way they place out, the bomb was planted before they even actually arrived on the island. So it's not like they need to show up on the boat to distract them from seeing Cheetah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They could literally just plant the bomb and just that's it.
02:05:02
Speaker
And the boat just explodes at some point. Yeah, it's the most nonsensical thing. It's like I would get it if they used a remote trigger device where they'd be like, OK, we planted the bomb. And now if they say no, we'll go back to our boat, pull out the probably absurdly large like Paul Heyman style cell phone remote trigger device for the time and and press the big button on it to blow it up. But it's a time bomb. Correct. It's got to go off no matter what.
02:05:31
Speaker
Maybe the idea is like if they accept the offer, then they were going to like party with them on their own boat all the way back because they're being. Don't worry about that. That'll boat you left there. Oh yeah. After all of that happened.
02:05:47
Speaker
The heels storm the beach like it's Normandy with this little boat where the front part drops down and they walk on the beach. Sid Vicious is wearing his wrestling gear, which to be fair would be, other than the boot, would make sense on a beach. That's a perfectly fine beach wear, yeah. It's a Speedo, yeah. But he's wearing flip-flops on his wrestling boots. Whereas Vader is wearing his full gear and, yeah, screw that, I'm not wearing flip-flops.
02:06:09
Speaker
So, yeah, they come out and they approach the faces who seem nervous. They march to the Twitter show like it's spaghetti western playing some music they have from the, again, from the Turner catalog that sounds like a showdown between the man with no name and someone else with to happen.
02:06:23
Speaker
They again give him the offer of the first class trip to the retirement facility of their choice and Sting plays up the idea that, you know, maybe, maybe we should go along with it. I mean, look how big they are. They're strong. They are like, maybe it's a good idea. Davey boy is incredulous. I can't believe that Sting is saying this. Him saying this makes the group of bad actors they cut to really sad.
02:06:44
Speaker
They are the worst actors ever. It's like, oh. The editing is amazing. There's like six of them on the beach. That one thing does his lines. They cut to like eight people and it's a totally different location. Yes. And like, oh, I can't believe it.
02:07:02
Speaker
I think it wouldn't have been so bad in this segment if they actually had that crowd in shot reacting live to the promo. But because they cut to another shot, you can tell they're not actually reacting to that thing. They've just been told, you know, someone probably holding up a sign like go. Oh, yeah. It's like the flashing sign for the audience that is taping the TV show. Yeah. Will Sting accept this offer and retire? You know, in fact, he's not retired as of 2023 somehow.
02:07:32
Speaker
Nah, he says. And they then see to say their very elaborate line, mostly in sequence. They do their best. I think Dave Boy is like a split second behind Sting here. Like, nah, we'll see you at Beat Blast. So they reject it again. That makes the bad actors I cut too happy. Yay!
02:07:54
Speaker
It really gives me great respect for the big cheering crowd from the end of UHF. Not that UHF is this amazing Oscar-winning film, but they actually nail that. And it's a big news and they all cheer moment for a comparison. After being berated by the faces, the heels make not at all a vague threat about not being able to make a debate blast. Somehow our heroes cannot figure out this is a threat. I mean, it is staying. Yeah.
02:08:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's worded so ominously, there's no way any human being can go, wait a second, are you trying to kill me? But they don't see that. We then get an abrupt cut, which is not on TV, like it's not like they got to commercial and then cut back to the mini movie. They're just a sudden abrupt cut of some time has apparently passed. Staying no longer with the crowd is suddenly talking to those two kids that saw Cheetah arrive.
02:08:45
Speaker
These poor kids are not old enough to deliver dialogue properly. It is 100% not their fault. Yes, no, yeah. It's like a kindergarten play. Yes, that's that's what I was thinking is kindergarten school play with Singh as the teacher on stage kneeling next to the kids and gently prodding them to deliver the line they've been taught, you know, repeated to them roughly three seconds before the camera started rolling.
02:09:09
Speaker
And also, to his credit, I will say, Sting does a nice job here. He seems very gentle and kind and good with the kids. That was kind of a heartwarming moment, aside from being part of a bad movie. Yeah. They sort of kind of tell him about the funny man pissing on the boat, so he runs off.
02:09:27
Speaker
seconds later, like he had just walked up behind and there's like a ton of time has passed for him not to have clearly heard this. Yes. It's like seconds later, David boy walks up the exact same kids and they started telling the same story again, but they simply mentioned the ticking sound, which they didn't mention the sting for some reason, but it's not clearly. So suddenly we get this dramatic shot of crying between sting, looking around top of the boat and British bulldog right on the beach. Like it's the training montage and Rocky three. Or an episode of Baywatch. Yeah, yeah.
02:09:58
Speaker
Dave Woy does what's obviously like a dive from, not even like a diving board, just something from like a pool into the water. Like he jumped from the sand into the beach, but they cut about three seconds before he would hit the water. And then it suddenly cuts to him in mid like diving clothesline where he just hit Sting like Windham hit Flair on the outside of the ring in their match earlier, which caused them both to fall into the water next to the boat.
02:10:25
Speaker
suddenly cuts the boat in the outside in a completely different shot where there's nowhere to be seen. The explosion is very lazily interposed in front of the boat because they didn't blow up a real boat for this. Oh no! Are they dead? No! They pop out and just kind of raise their arms in the air, posing for a free swing that does not happen.
02:10:43
Speaker
They really, they really, you just stand there with their arms up and this stone faced and it's clearly not a freeze frame. Cause you can see him sort of moving and like blinking. It's bizarre. It really is. It's like the, the joke I think they would do to police squad. Oh, right. Right. Yeah. Where one for either they'd all be free. Sometimes one guy or there's one with the month where the monkeys not freeze framed and they ignore it. They just stand there so long. It's a second, but it feels like hours to them. You watch them like the car. Hey.
02:11:12
Speaker
And then it says to be continued at beach blast, which somehow they'll reach without a boat. Yeah, those swim there. It's fine. Oh, yeah. Mercy, mercy me. This is amazing and terrible. I'm so glad they did this. I love with that jump that they they simultaneously cut.
02:11:34
Speaker
really quickly and yet somehow too late. Yes. Where you can clearly tell that he is starting to go down into the water at the time they cut. So it looks so awkward when they cut to another shot and it's so good. His body is rotated downwards already and suddenly it's forward again.
02:11:52
Speaker
And that's not clear how much distance he had to clear to get there. He's got to jump from the sand, and he's got to like turn in mid-air and hit Sting. But then up fourth, they both clear the boat, so we're not killed in the explosion that happens right next to them. Yeah, yeah. You were making comparisons to the movies we've watched recently, right? Yes. Oh, yes. That's the thing. Yeah. Yeah.
02:12:12
Speaker
Going back a few episodes, we had First Daughter, which had the hilarious scene where it's the person standing on a landmine slash wired explosive, what have you. They do a light jump, and suddenly they're 20 feet away from the front of the house, which is obviously the digital effect, and it blows up in the background on the screen. And they're OK, even though they were at the doorway. An enemy of the immediate following contrast, which is watching First Assault of the Return,
02:12:40
Speaker
when they do actual dive from an exploding building with real stuntmen. And I guess it's really two shots. It's them in front of the house and then a far away side of the explosion. But clearly, stuntmen actually dump away from an exploding building. So yeah, this is definitely worse signal for the solid to return, but arguably better than first daughter.
02:13:02
Speaker
It's just so much distance in first daughter. Yes. That it's just like there's no explanation other than they teleported. Yeah. Where with this one, you can you can at least maybe kind of get close to buying that Davey boy could have covered enough distance for that to matter. And the explosion is not particularly huge. So right. Yeah. Being a decent distance from it is all you'd need. Right. Because in the two of examples, it's, you know, a whole cabin building or a building building. It's a whole huge detonation. Yeah.
02:13:31
Speaker
Yeah, this is a relatively small time bomb placed on a speedboat. But yeah, that is a good question of how they got back. I guess they just swam there. Although, I guess they had to call the Coast Guard for the families, didn't they? Yeah, no, they left them. There's a whole civilization on that island now. Oh. Yeah. I found this simultaneously amazingly stupid and just amazing.
02:13:53
Speaker
Yeah. I will say I'm disappointed that they didn't just show this on pay-per-view. I wish they had just run this as the actual promo package for the show. Yes. This totally should have been on the show. Yeah. It makes a great juxtaposition, I'll say, with the rest of the show, which, I mean, they have people that are a bit over the top, like, you know, the power of blonde over the top and then their mannerisms. When Pillman gets punched, he goes aside and has Austin checking his face, you know, like that. You have some silliness here and there, but nothing to this level.
02:14:22
Speaker
No one has tried to detonate a boat. Nothing on this show feels like this mini movie at all. Right, yeah. Yeah, I'll discuss this a little more. I feel like there's definitely them trying to market their company, that being WCW, to a couple different audiences at once and not really being sure how to do that properly. This is a great example of how that works.
02:14:46
Speaker
So our eighth match, and final match, is the Masters of the Power Bomb, Big Van Vader with Harley Race, and Sid Vicious with Colonel Robert Parker and sadly not Cheetham, versus the Superpowers, Sting and the British Bulldog, Davey Boy Smith. Referring for this one is Nick Patrick.
Main Event: Sting & Bulldog vs. Vader & Sid
02:15:07
Speaker
Vader and Vicious have one heck of a rockin' guitar theme, and do look very intimidating as they come out, as is right and proper for dangerous criminals who blow up boats. Sting and Davey Boy come out to Sting's theme in about the most epic trench coats they possibly could.
02:15:25
Speaker
Both are red, white, and blue with loads of glitter and tassels and decorated with their respective nation's flags on the shoulders. And Sting, of course, has red, white, and blue face paint. Absolutely epic. The show could have been absolutely terrible, and it would still have been worth watching just for those coats. I can see that. Sid nicely helps Vader do up his mask before we start. Vader's tights have folded over the V, so they read,
02:15:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's I think that would happen because he has the pants as one part. Yeah. And then he has like the trunk parts he pulls over and sometimes they don't get in the right spot, unfortunately. Yeah, it happens a lot with that particular outfit of his. Yeah, it does. Yeah.
02:16:09
Speaker
Sting and Vicious start. Vicious shoves Sting, so Sting takes him down and lands heavy punches, a back body drop, and a one-handed bulldog, dodges a punch counter to a sunset flip, and sends Vicious butt over teakettle with a clothesline. Vicious gets tired of all that and chokeslams the crap out of Sting, then spits at Bulldog. Vicious and Vader double-team Sting while Bulldog accidentally distracts Patrick.
02:16:34
Speaker
Vader and Vicious fling Sting and Bulldog out, but they immediately climb back up top and hit simultaneous top rope clotheslines to the heels. The crowd is exultant. Tags to Bulldog and Vader, and Vader asks, who's the man? Vader pounds Bulldog's face to mush and asks the crowd who the world champ is. Tony notes that Flair would say it's him.
02:16:58
Speaker
Vader tries a suplex, but Bulldog floats over and counters with a massive stalling suplex on Vader for two. Holy crap. Vader flattens Bulldog with his leaping double forearms, and a small portion of the crowd does actually cheer for Vader.
02:17:19
Speaker
Vader and Vicious trade off destroying Bulldog, but Sting slaps Vader. Vader angrily rips his mask off and punches Sting, who charges in. Patrick forces Sting out, and the beatdown continues. Odd bit, as Vicious goes for a double axe handle while Vader holds Bulldog, and Patrick starts warning Vicious, but then Sting gets in so Patrick goes to yell at him so he can miss the double team. Got the order a bit wrong there, guys. A little bit.
02:17:47
Speaker
Bulldog fights out of a nerve hold and slams Vicious, but Vicious tags Vader and lets the unaware Bulldog pin him, leaving him open for Vader. But as the ref is getting Vicious out, Race grabs Bulldog, but Bulldog dodges Vader, and Vader nails Race. Bulldog makes the tag.
02:18:04
Speaker
Sting pelts both heels with punches, and lands a great dropkick to Vader. Stinger call. Vicious nails sting from outside, and Vader and Vicious trade off pounding Sting to a fine paste, with Vader landing such heavy strikes that they blow right through Sting's guard. Vader lands the falling fridge. Yes! Vader goes for a superplex, but Sting strikes and bites to escape, but Vader stops the tag with a no-bow drop.
02:18:31
Speaker
Not long after, though, Sting dodges a vicious elbow drop and makes the tag. Bulldog gets vicious reeling, but Vicious tags Vader for a Samoan drop for two. Vader and Race protest the count. He kicked out at two. I can count real well, Patrick responds.
02:18:49
Speaker
Second rope Fader bomb for two as Sting saves, but Vicious shoves Sting to the ramp. Sting slams Vicious on the ramp as Vader hits his amazing moonsault to Bulldog, but Sting sprints all the way down the entrance ramp and leaps over the top rope to hit Vader in the face before Patrick can even count. And perhaps the most epic pin save in wrestling history. It's gotta be up there, yeah. It's an amazing spot.
02:19:17
Speaker
Sting leads the crowd cheering for Bulldog, and Bulldog dodges a Vader clothesline and swings up for a crucifix pin, levering Vader down as Sting holds Vicious back for the three count and the win. Sting and Bulldog get to the ramp, celebrating as Race looks dejected. WCW gets a great replay of Vader's moonsault and Sting's brilliant dive as part of the post-match replays. Thoughts on this one?
02:19:42
Speaker
I like this one quite a bit in a lot of ways. The big spots, like the amazing Grover suplex, Sting's comeback, Sting's long sprint dive save. Even Sid doing some of this good Sid stuff, like his choke slam looked really nice. Vader's often looked extremely painful and it probably was. A lot of stuff looks really good here.
02:20:04
Speaker
I think for me, certain things didn't quite get enough time. For instance, the suplex that Bulldog does is amazing. No question about it. Even if you can tell that Vader's helping, there's still a lot of work Bulldog's doing on his own. Yeah, Vader can help get himself up there and hold still, but then it really is Bulldog doing the work of lifting him. Right, right.
02:20:25
Speaker
But so the way it plays out, that's an amazing spot. But within 20 seconds of the spot, Vader's back up and knocked Bulldog down. And you're like, oh, like no one really has time to process. Wow. Okay. Just guy did to this amazing powerhouse, this guy, because he just knocked back down again so quickly after.
02:20:41
Speaker
I still enjoy the spot, but it didn't quite have the same effect. The way I like this is, you know, like the suplex, maybe Vader like rolls out, you know, or race pulls him out or something. And they really sell, look what happened. Look at this big thing. Instead, it's, as far as the next move, there's a rushing aspect to it, if that makes sense.
02:20:58
Speaker
I can see that. I don't think it bothered me that much because I felt that it helped to emphasize the match's theme, actually, that as many times as Sting and Bulldog managed to make an opening for themselves, Vader and Sid are just too strong.
02:21:14
Speaker
It really takes the combination of everything to go over the entire match to finally get just enough time to get the win. To me, it's less of a improper emphasis on Bulldogs thing and more an emphasis on just how strong Vader actually is. That even when this happens, it still doesn't take him down. I'd say I like spots like that when the crowd really has time to react, though. It's not like a real major thing, but it's like stuff like that happened. Like I feel like they get just a little better.
02:21:44
Speaker
But I get your point about the overall story of the match, that I'm going to wear them down. It absolutely is true, and I definitely nailed that quite well. A lot of the matches, like I said, it's just them being the crap out of Stinging Bulldog. Which is adorable, to a certain extent, but I'm turning to you with tag matches, because we have three on this show. There's a certain familiarity that comes with that. Fair enough. They didn't do quite enough to distinguish this tag match from the others.
02:22:09
Speaker
That said, I do like a lot of that spot. The thing is epic, the soup life is amazing, even knowing it's coming on the rewatch.
02:22:17
Speaker
I was like, oh my god, I can't believe this happened. So I enjoy a lot of this match. It's just certain pacing's off a little bit. It's more focused on them being up and eventually recovering. And even the ending is a little rushed. The sting dive in is amazing. The Vader's up before that's great. The fact that Bulldog, right after getting Moonstall, within 20 seconds is up and then does the crucifix pin. Even if they build up that he has to pull Vader down with leverage, that part seems a little rushed to me.
02:22:46
Speaker
It's just a little little thing on a match, but yeah. Okay. Overall, I still enjoyed it quite a bit. I thought this was a terrific spectacle. Exactly the sort of insane superhero slugfest you'd expect when you heard that Sting and the British Bulldog were fighting Vader and Sid Vicious. Vicious does some of his best work ever here, landing some really nasty strikes and showing off his power.
02:23:12
Speaker
Bulldog doing a stalling suplex on Vader was absolutely bonkers, and he looks great throughout, an excellent combo of might and speed. And Sting had the crowd hyped beyond belief, and kept the match high energy whether he was delivering or receiving offense. And then there's Vader, of course, who is scary as heck, putting on a dominating performance.
02:23:34
Speaker
The Master told a great story of Sting and Bulldog finding openings, but finding them cut off rapidly because of the foe's sheer might, until they finally managed to find the chance they needed to turn things around. The only real complaint I've got is that neither of the Masters of the Power Bomb ever actually hits a Power Bomb. I was thinking that too, yeah. Which perhaps calls their title into question just a tad.
02:23:54
Speaker
Yeah, maybe if you do the change to finish slightly, maybe Sting doesn't dive in to break up the pin. Him and Vader have a brief scuffle. Vader goes for a powerbomb on Sting. Bulldog runs over and hits him and then does the crucifix pin, counters, like he pulls him off of the powerbomb.
02:24:10
Speaker
could see that yeah that could be a way to do that yeah it's a tease that if he invited the power bomb because the moon salt didn't work because of things interference if he had had the power bomb we've been over but they were together and the brief window they had there to your point in the story that could have helped it but yeah that's a good point they didn't really attempt a power bomb
02:24:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's just kind of funny that that doesn't happen. Vader hits what is called the Vader bomb, but that is not a power bomb. It's actually him jumping off the second rope and landing on you with all his weight, flattening you into a spot on the mat. Yeah, he's dropping you like he's a bomb, but it's not a power bomb.
02:24:45
Speaker
Aside from that though, what an amazingly fun made event. I could not help but be all smiles after watching this match. I would characterize it as the closest thing to a Marvel movie that WSW will ever get. It is a superhero brawl.
02:25:03
Speaker
In contrast to what you said, this being the third tag match on the show didn't bother me as much as it normally does. Even the fact
Cactus Jack's Return and Event Reflection
02:25:11
Speaker
that they do two face and peril segments and it's the very normal tag formula type of stuff, I think the fact that it's Vader doing it
02:25:19
Speaker
made it feel more like this is Sting versus Vader, not this is a normal tag match. Because, I mean, whenever Sting fights Vader, whether it's a tag match or a normal match, there's an extended period of time where Vader is pounding the ever-living crap out of him. So it's just kind of, you know, that's Tuesday for them. Right, right. Being very definitely helps, yes. I will say that.
02:25:39
Speaker
And just the fact that honestly, me being astonishingly impressed with Sid in this match even was I think helping keeping me from thinking of it in normal tag terms and just the big spots as well. So I didn't have that feeling of repetition about this at all, where normally I very much would with a series of tag matches. So yeah, it's interesting we kind of switched position on that on this show.
02:26:03
Speaker
As a reward for getting the pinfall as Mac, David Wood would get a rematch. Overall, he fought as St. Marie for the title. For Vader's world title, which is oddly absent, both physically and stakes-wise on this show. I don't think he even had the belt with him. I don't think so, no. There must be a story behind that I don't know about. Like, why is he not walking with the belt all the time? Or at least, why isn't race walking with the belt? Like, I branch the world champion. Look at me. That's bizarre. Um, anyways.
02:26:31
Speaker
For contrast, Dave Boy gets to fight Vader for the world title, which is both a reward and a punishment, obviously, because you got to fight Vader. That's true. Well, Sting and Flair are oddly teamed up with Harley Race's newest clients, the Awesome Kongs. Wow. Yeah. That's your reward for being into a world champion, Flair. You get to fight with the Kong, with Sting. At least you get to work with Sting. Yeah. Yeah. And it at least kind of connects the story again, because
02:26:59
Speaker
They are racist other clients and everything, but it's still weird that, like it's not staying in sufficient fighting in some form of Clash of Champions. It's, no, no, it's with these guys in Tech Match. Yeah. Uh, as part of the drill that happened before this, we had the very infamous Cactus Jack is powerbombed and has amnesia. I get to see one of the Lost in Cleveland segments. Certainly there's more on the show they wasn't able to see. Boy.
02:27:24
Speaker
Yeah, as part of that, Cactus Jack, who's now a face, returns from his amnesia to become a problem for Vader, who of course took him out. That leads to Jack facing a hand-picked opponent for him as a hired gun in a quote-unquote bounty match on Fall Brawl. However, the big match from Fall Brawl is, of course, the War Games. Yes. Which involves the tag team of Sting, Bulldog, Dustin Rhodes, and their infamous mystery partner.
02:27:54
Speaker
We could absolutely talk about when we cover the tape review against the master of the power bomb, Sid, Vader, and of course, Harlem Heat, making their first real big showing here for us in that match. Tony and Jesse discuss the match, but Vader walks by behind them, smacks Tony of the neck, grabs his chair, and hurls it down, shouting about not being beaten. Tony tells him he's the man, and asks Doug Dillinger to get him out of there.
02:28:25
Speaker
Tony takes a few moments to calm down, and then he and Jesse stand up for the wrap-up since Tony's chair is now deceased. Tony builds up Fall Brawl and War Games, and Jesse says it's far from over. We get end credits over cartoony beach graphics, and Beach Blast 1993 is done. So your overall thoughts on Beach Blast 1993?
02:28:45
Speaker
That was a pretty good show overall, honestly. Going on the card, Wonder if I'm Simmons, while it wasn't my favorite match, was enjoyable. The tag match, while a bit former-like, was quite enjoyable. Nothing goes as a showcase for Too Cool Scorpio, with I thought Tex and Shanghai even Bagwell doing their part quite well.
02:29:04
Speaker
The actual work rate in Regal and Watch is good, even if the crowd didn't seem to care one bit once they stopped talking about USA versus England. Bad versus pain was a right, as mentioned. It really could have been longer or it could have been shorter, some awkward, too short, too long distance kind of. Tag match is quite good in a lot of ways, even with a screwy finish.
02:29:24
Speaker
Even an Iron Man match, well unfortunately not as good as Steamboat Root is still really good. I'd recommend for sure on this show. There's really nothing bad on this show I would say. There's stuff that doesn't seem to work for the live crowd like the Regal Watch match or some that I can critique certain things. You already have parts in the match like Bad and Pain match not being super great or some little miscues here and there in matches throughout the show.
02:29:50
Speaker
Obviously the most infamous part of the show isn't actually on the show as we discussed the mini movie. Yes. I want to add, I'm sad because it's not as ingrained in history as it should be, but at the same time, it definitely helps the actual quality of the show that it's not on here. This is true. Yes. The main event is definitely a great spectacle. It wasn't my favorite match. It's still very enjoyable. The thing is there's definitely some mixed marketing on here with WTV, which I think could be a good idea, but I think it's too much.
02:30:18
Speaker
They're seemingly making a very blatant disconnect between the end-of-the-way championship and people fighting for it, and the WCW championship and those fighting for it. Because Flair
WCW vs. NWA Storytelling Styles
02:30:29
Speaker
and Wyndham is a battle of respect. It's built on tradition, they wrestle together and against each other, and it's for this title that has this 50-year lineage and all this stuff.
02:30:39
Speaker
In contrast, the WWE champion is riding in a boat with Sid Vicious, Harley Rayson, Carl Parker, and they're hiring a little person to set a bomb on a boat. He's also not carrying the belt with them very much. Everything is very cartoonish and over the top. As enjoyable as Vader is beating the crap out of people, he's connected to such weird cartoonish stuff that feels like them trying to market to the WWF audience that's maybe leaving around this time because of the steroid scandal and people that had to leave like, interestingly enough, David Boy.
02:31:09
Speaker
They're trying to reach them, so it ends up a very jarring tonal thing where you have Flair and Windham, and then you have this craziness going on with guys, you know, that's the powerbomb, superpowers and everything. I think it could work, but it's maybe too much.
02:31:28
Speaker
I think if you did it without the mini movie thing, you probably wouldn't much bat an eye because without that, it's not that much different than a normal Sting Vader type of angle. Yeah. But when you throw in the mini movie, too, it's like, OK, when did we go to cartoon supervillains? Yes, you think them trying to reach that demo. Yeah. And obviously, as we see in later shows, especially when a certain red and yellow fellow shows up, they really lean into this stuff.
02:31:57
Speaker
So this is kind of both behind the times and also ahead of the time for what they plan to do. That's true. Both the whole Dungeon of Doom angle allows for what seems like 60 years, but it's actually like nine months or so. Yes.
02:32:11
Speaker
It's a very odd thing. The same show where like, hey, let's have Eric Watts and Dean Riegel wrestle, do chain wrestling in his real serious British style. And then let's have a story where the heels are kind of the faces to retire rather than wrestle in a tag match. It's just bizarre. Yeah.
02:32:29
Speaker
Like I said, the show is pretty easy to recommend. There's very few down points for me. Like I mentioned, when we do the final series rev up with this and Bash the Beach, I'm curious if any of the worst stuff is gonna even honestly be on these first two shows. I'd be surprised, yeah. I think in general, everything's been solid at worst on these. So credit card two, other than sort of trying to whiplash between their two world title divisions, which admittedly will be worked out pretty quickly.
02:32:59
Speaker
It's a good show. Yeah,
Overall Reception and Highlights
02:33:03
Speaker
I thought this was a pretty good show as well. I will say I don't think it was anywhere near as good a show as Beach Plus 92 was. No, it wasn't. But there's eight matches on the card and none of them are bad. A few do feel a bit disappointing given their match concept or who's in them. But even so, they're actually still good matches. Yeah.
02:33:22
Speaker
I was probably least enthusiastic about pain versus bad, and even that was fine for what it was. If it had been longer, it might have been a problem, but it's only about five minutes, so it's fine. All told, the show and some of its matches have the same problem. They're good, but just not as good as they could have been. Okay, yeah. There's good concepts across the board, but small problems, a flub spot here, a build that goes nowhere there, leave things good when they could have been great.
02:33:51
Speaker
Promo content similarly is mostly good, but features a few tiny flubs or weird statements that stop it from reaching its full potential. There's tons of energy across the show, and I think all the promos still got their points across, but most aren't quite firing on all cylinders tonight, and some are a little shorter than they could have been. Still, again, overall a positive.
02:34:12
Speaker
Commentary, on the other hand, was excellent. The Tony and Jesse team, save for Jesse's weird obsession with Tony's nose, works really, really well. And they have several great discussions over the course of the night, show a ton of character themselves, and even do some good work cleaning up or covering for some of the problems in matches, like Tony jumping in to quickly give an explanation of the end of Flair vs. Windham when it wasn't quite clear what had happened from just watching things.
02:34:37
Speaker
Not every joke or conversation lands perfectly, Jesse has a couple perplexing moments, but overall, the commentary team is a massive, massive plus for the show. Presentation-wise, the show's largely fine. It lacks the weird camera color depth and sharpness problems of last year's show. True. It has a nice beach set, and everybody's come prepared with good beach outfits again.
02:34:59
Speaker
There's a few shoddy camera angles here and there and that weird moment of the lights going out in the intro, but things largely go well. The one thing I'll complain about is the inclusion of Bischoff and Hyatt as secondary show hosts. They feel even less essential than Bischoff and Tony were last year. True, yeah. Bischoff and Hyatt barely ever do anything more than say, well, this is what's coming up next. And maybe highlight which wrestler Missy thinks is cute. Yeah. She does host one interview as well, but
02:35:28
Speaker
It's I mean, it's the worst of the show probably. That is true. Yeah. Not because of her. Not because of no. No, it just things get kind of flustered in that. Yeah, I just found the two completely unnecessary. But at least there was not a bikini contest. That is true.
02:35:43
Speaker
I will say it's funny how much stuff is built up. It's supposed to be long-term changes of the company, like all these rule changes that are gone. The guy in charge is also gone, but what is out of power at this point? Yes. Between these two shows, thankfully. Even this idea that Ole Anderson is the head referee is not even a thing anymore. Yes, that's true. Yeah. A lot of things that were really, really important on 92 are just gone for 93. That's funny.
02:36:12
Speaker
Yeah, overall, this was quite a solid show. It's just held back by some minor flubs here and there and by some comparisons to last year's show or other prior performances where it just comes off looking a little the worse for wear. It's absolutely still a fun watch and worth your time. And there's not really anything noteworthy to complain about on it. It just doesn't rise to the level of greatness. Give it a watch. Just maybe don't do it right after watching Beach Blast 1992 and you'll like it better. Agreed, yes.
02:36:42
Speaker
match of the night and mvp then so al what is your match of the night does the toss-up there's a few good options there for sure i don't think we're gonna agree on this but if me match tonight was actually the flare versus window match i actually enjoyed that quite a bit okay i like that they fully inverted the brick flare match formula with him being super aggressive in the get-go
02:37:04
Speaker
I do wish it could have gone longer. It's unclear whether he was working hard to begin with or got hurt during the match. I don't know that too much against the match because that's a factor that you really can't control. Yeah. I bet if anything, it's a credit that he managed to power through. Yeah. So I thought they made a surprisingly risk but fun title match that built off of story and really annoyed flair as the new champion going forward that that was really good. Okay.
02:37:31
Speaker
I really liked the Blondes versus the Horsemen, and actually Regal versus Watts as well really surprised me. Yeah. But I have to give this to the Superpowers versus Masters of the Power Bomb. Got it figured. It is just such an unmatched spectacle put on by guys who know exactly how to get their audience supercharged. And it features some absolutely epic stunts that make it far and away the most exciting match on the show. There's other good stuff on here, no doubt, but that's the match I'm going to remember coming off of this show. I got you.
02:38:01
Speaker
MVP? So a lot of people stand out in their own moments. Let's quickly go through. I thought that Scorpio looked really nice in his big hope spot and his shining moments in the tag match. To your point, Regal and Watch did a good job. Even if the crowd didn't seem to care for the most part, pretty much everyone in the tag match, even Roma to some extent, did a good job and that could stand out. Obviously
Conclusion and Next Episode Preview
02:38:23
Speaker
Anderson and the other two stand a bit more than him, but still nothing against him.
02:38:28
Speaker
Both Dustin and Rude are quite good here as well. Flare and Windham and everyone in the Superpowers match. The best power match are good. For me, I want to house someone that I couldn't pick his match at night because I didn't like the choices they made with the ending, but all his work in the match was really good. So for me, MVP is actually Dustin Rude's. Okay. He does an excellent job in his match. Yeah, absolutely.
02:38:49
Speaker
Again, it's the thing we had before with Flair early on. Flair is known for having these great matches, so you critique him higher. So it's like, Flair is a good match. You're like, eh, it's Flair. Of course he has a good match. So Dustin really coming out here, trying to fill in the Ricky Steamboat spot. Even if he's not as good as Steamboat, because he's just not experienced, he really rose to the occasion here and did his best he could and added his own little quirks.
02:39:14
Speaker
And he clearly made a special effort for this match. Notably, that leg hold segment is brilliant work for him in particular. Yeah. He really rose to the occasion. I thought he gives him love for that. Cool. In my case, I am giving this to Sting. Yeah. Everybody in the main event did an amazing job, but Sting has the crowd in the palm of his hand for the entire match and kept the energy level sky high for the duration.
02:39:42
Speaker
Watch him getting the crowd to cheer for Bulldog in the final moments of the match. Absolute masterclass. He works them into a frenzy. And the timing on that save after Vader's moonsault is picture perfect. Despite having to run the length of the entrance ramp to get there. Just more proof if needed that Sting is one of WCW's absolute finest performers.
02:40:04
Speaker
It's fun to watch that too, if you know it's coming. Because you can see him in the far distance, body slamming, see it looking over and starting to run. That's when it's all starting to happen. Yeah. It's really, really cool. And a rare compliment to WSW's camera work on that spot as well. That they managed to catch the entire thing in a single shot, which is great. Yes.
02:40:26
Speaker
I want to give an honorable mention as well, and that is to whoever made Sting and Bulldog's Coats for this show. Good job, that person. And that wraps up our review of Beach Blast 1993. If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can find us on Twitter or Facebook as let's go to the ring.
02:40:47
Speaker
Links 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 Podcast, Google Podcast, High Heart Radio, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, TuneIn, Verbal, or Audible. And please, if you enjoyed this show, give us a rating or review, and share the show through your favorite social media platforms to help others discover us.
02:41:13
Speaker
Many thanks to OSW Review for attendance and pay-per-view figures, and to Gina Trujillo for our logo. Next up, we continue the series but change titles, as we take a look at Bash at the Beach 1994, Hulk's WCW debut.
02:41:31
Speaker
Wow, and you know, I was just comparing that final match to a Marvel movie. It'll be exciting to see the Jade Giant in WCW. Maybe they'll also bring in Thor for an epic brawl, staring out of an Avengers film. I sure hope so. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. This is Bob Moore for Alec Prigen, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling.
02:42:06
Speaker
exact same spot with Steambot. Sorry, Steambot. Nice.