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Episode 71: Halloween Havoc 1989
76 Plays7 months ago
It's spooky season, so time to...wait, what do you mean it's December? Okay, we're a little behind - but still, it's time to take a look at WCW's most ghoulish and horrifying series...no, no, not Souled Out. It's Halloween Havoc! First up, Halloween Havoc 1989: Settling the Score, in which WCW puts on a largely normal wrestling pay-per-view and trusts in a fun intro video and some basic party store Halloween decorations to convince us it has a scary theme. The Steiners face a mysterious new team, the Road Warriors remind us of a favorite AWA promo, the Freebirds are apparently faces now (?), and somebody at WCW has been watching Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, but can't do math. For all this, plus the Great Muta's firefighting demonstration, let's go to the ring!
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
Follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LetsGo2theRing/
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
I was freaking out a bit because you know i always have like a word count in my word count was like. close to 14,000. I was just like, man, I know this has a fair amount of matches and promos and stuff, but that just that's 3,000 more than I normally have for even like a fairly long show. What's going on here? Realized I hadn't done the summary version for Luger versus Billman yet. Oh, gotcha. I had somehow completely skipped that when I was doing my summaries.
00:00:29
Speaker
and That brought it down to like 11,500 ish, which is more in the normal range for a longer show anyway. yeah I was just like, oh my gosh, this is going to be the the longest recording we've had in a long time.
00:01:09
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to Let's Go to the Ring, where we take a look at the good old days, and not so good old days, of World Championship Wrestling Series by Series. I'm your host Bob Moore, and tonight my co-host Alec Bridget has challenged me to a strap podcast, in which we both record a podcast with belts kind of vaguely at our houses somewhere. We don't have to use them of course, they just have to be there.
00:01:31
Speaker
Yeah, I am wearing a belt, if that helps at all. You are wearing a belt? I've got one hanging just to my left. So we're both qualified for this podcast. Is that what I meant by the Freebird rule, by the way? Having a strap near you somewhere? Could be. Yeah. Yeah. Like three straps near you and you could think of any two of them at a time. like Again, you didn't have to actually make contact with any of them. No, no, of course not. Because goodness, who would who would actually touch one? That'd be far too exciting. Yeah. Yeah. How's it going tonight, Al?
00:02:01
Speaker
Alright, how about you? Oh, it's going going good, going good. We are starting our very spooky next series, Halloween Havoc. Yes, I know. You'll be hearing this in December. Blame two people for that. Helene and Milton. Yeah, right? Uh, the month of October basically vanishes. Just consider it our version of A Nightmare Before Christmas, I guess. That's true. Yeah, I'm good with that.
00:02:26
Speaker
On the bright side, with 12 shows running from 1989 through 2000, the series is long enough that we will be able to release an episode next October. Oh, nice. As a side note, this is one of the WCW series that has actually been revived by the w WWE NXT brand with an additional five shows so far stretching from 2020 through 2024. But we are a WCW podcast. So for the moment, those are not part of this series. But who knows? Maybe we might look at one or more of them at some point in the future. They did bring in Rick Steiner for not actually wrestle, but they am on a show or two. That's cool. At that time, his son was on NXT before he moved to Raw.
00:03:06
Speaker
Oh, gotcha, okay. Yeah, I mean, it might be interesting to see what wwe WWE did with the General Halloween Havoc theme in the future, potentially. Yeah. But as for what we're covering tonight, we are starting off with Halloween Havoc 1989, settling the score. That's
Halloween Havoc 1989 Event Details
00:03:23
Speaker
the spookiest tagline you could come up with, WCW? Yeah, right? At least the poster has the Road Warriors on it, two of the scariest looking dudes in WCW, posed in front of a creepy pumpkin-carving face.
00:03:34
Speaker
Oh, I got it. Maybe you're supposed to sound like a ghost selling the score. That doesn't make it significantly better. You know, it helps, though. I think it helps. It helps a little bit. It helps a little bit. Yeah. The poster looks like a combination of post-apocalyptic action and supernatural horror movie genre fusion. I'm absolutely sure must exist.
00:03:54
Speaker
I'm pretty sure, yeah. Yeah, it's kind of appropriate, I guess, since this does feature the Thunderdome match, one of wrestling's many references to the Mad Max franchise, much like the Road Warriors themselves. I do know that Sting himself has appeared in, I want to say two movies that are technically post-apocalyptic action Christian movies. Yes, yeah, I've heard of those, yeah.
00:04:17
Speaker
Halloween Havoc 1989 was held on October 28th, 1989 at the Philadelphia Civic Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in front of 7,300 fans. The center is recorded as holding about 9,600 for basketball games, so WSW seems to have done fairly well here, but it's not recorded as a sellout.
00:04:38
Speaker
It is, however, considerably better than the last time we saw WCW at this arena. How do you remember when that was? Oh, gosh, I do not. It was Slamberry 1994, which only got 4,000 fans. Oof, ouch. So yeah, beating it by 3,300, not bad. Not at all, no.
00:04:59
Speaker
Aside from a few WSW wrestling events, the center has held concerts by The Beatles, The Grateful Dead, The Jackson Five, and The Rolling Stones, and been used for sporting events for a variety of Philadelphia teams, and played host to
Success Metrics of Halloween Havoc 1989
00:05:12
Speaker
the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, and President Lyndon Johnson. Now, not at the same time, right? Not at the same time, no. Okay, just just checking.
00:05:24
Speaker
I'm sure that hosting Halloween Havoc 1989 will prove just as illustrious as those honors. Oh yeah, absolutely. Halloween Havoc 1989 also got pretty good numbers on pay-per-view with 215,000 buys, which at the time was WSW's largest number yet achieved. Nice. All prior shows have been below 200,000, including of course WSW's very first attempt at pay-per-view Starrcade 1987, which got a mere 16,500 due to Vince McMahon's sabotage. Ah yes, I remember that show.
00:05:57
Speaker
So, will Halloween Havoc 1989 be scarily good, or leave us horrified by awful matches? To find out, let's go to the ring.
00:06:08
Speaker
We start off very strong, with an intro video showing a drawing of a moonlit graveyard with many tombstones. Four names are on tombstones in the center. Flare, Sting, Funk, and Buddha. Notably, other tombstones read Mother, Fido, and Brock, which leads to a couple interesting questions. Does this cemetery allow both human and animal burials, or did somebody actually have the name Fido?
00:06:34
Speaker
And did Brock Lesnar travel back in time to try to stop a Terminator or something and find that Suplex City didn't work very well on Metal Skeletons? I believe there's actually a zombie film called Fido, if that helps or hurts this case. Not surprised.
00:06:51
Speaker
Setting the bar so high that there is absolutely no way the rest of the show can live up to it, the ghostly figures of Flair, Sting, Funk, and Buddha rise from their graves and wibble and wobble in the air before flying off, presumably to possess the living and force them to wrestle each other. The Halloween Havoc logo, which is quite nice with orange melting lettering, closes it out.
00:07:13
Speaker
I adored that intro. Oh, it's it's great, yeah. That was very fun. They just immediately were like, okay, yeah, we can play with with this theme. You don't see as much of that for the rest of the show no on this one, but that that intro, someone had a lot of fun making it, you can tell. who Jim Ross welcomes us to the show alongside Bob Coddle as we get some panning shots of the arena that show a fair amount of open seats.
00:07:39
Speaker
given it seemed like they did a pretty good job with filling it. This may just be another case where people are still trickling in.
Match Analysis: Z-Man vs. Captain Mike Rotunda
00:07:44
Speaker
It doesn't sound like they got the show time wrong this time at least, but I feel like this is kind of just an early shot. Yeah, it's very possible. Caudal says this night could have a huge impact on the wrestlers careers. JR mentions Gordon Soli and Christopher Cruz will be doing backstage interviews tonight and throws to Soli, who is in front of a Halloween backdrop like you might buy for 20 bucks at a local party store with netting and a skull.
00:08:09
Speaker
Yeah. True to form with WSW, his microphone audio doesn't come through at first. Soli welcomes us to the show as well and builds up some of his future interviews. Back to JR and Caudal, and they talk over the Thunderdome match and how unique it's going to be before JR throws to Cruise, who is in front of some bare trees that probably cost as much as $30 unless WSW just picked them out of a dumpster somewhere when they were cut down. He too lays out some of his future interviews.
00:08:37
Speaker
It's ah interesting to get the backstage crew getting to build up their future interview segments. I don't think we've had that happen too often. Yeah, I can't think of that up top of my head. I'm trying to get that before. Yeah, I kind of liked it actually. like it's It's one of those moments where it felt a little bit more like they were doing sports announcing.
00:08:53
Speaker
Yeah, so this thing they started doing on Raw recently, it's kind of similar. Usually like on the top of the hours or after like the halfway points, they have a good little graphic on the bottom of the screen that lists the announcers, as well as the backstage interview later, and then the rig announcer. Nice. So just sort of, hey, say no here. Boy, it would sure be nice if WSW had ever done that, so I didn't have to look up people's names so much. Yeah, right. Especially when they only appear in, I think, two shows, like the one on the show. Yes.
00:09:23
Speaker
Cruz throws to the world's best ring announcer, Gary Michael Capetta, as it is time for our first match. So our first match is the Z-Man, Tom Zink, versus Captain Mike Rotunda. Referee for this one is Nick Patrick. Tom Zink is fairly new to the company at this point. He debuted at the previous class of champion show a little less than a month ago. He had a brief run in the AWA, where he was a perennial contender, but never holder of the world championship there.
00:09:52
Speaker
He had a big shot at Battle Royal after one of many times that they too had to vacate their world title. and Every company does that a few times. That would say we'd have to do it a few times in one year and 2000. Yes, this is true. Tom Zigg's big debut match with against the Cuban Assassin, which he won in about three minutes. Oh, not the most exciting introduction for him, but still winning on your first show and sort of building up. how He's got this female fan base is nice. Mm hmm.
00:10:19
Speaker
Mike Rotunda also rests on the same classic champion show where he lost to Dr. Death's Steve Williams. So one's looking better going to the show than the other. Yeah. I will honestly say, uh, Mike Rotunda versus Dr. Deathmatch sounds interesting to me. Yeah. I'd be down for seeing that. Yeah. They both have the legit sort of credentials. Yeah. And then I was, Dr. Death has that sort of Brock Lesnar gear. Like we'll see a lot later in the show where he could just suddenly be very energetic and throw people around, which is great.
00:10:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I feel like that would be ah ah quite an interesting, like very technically sound, but quite exciting match, most likely. So I may have to look at that one up. Z-Man and Rotunda were both already in the ring at the start of the show, but Z-Man does at least get his nice red and silver sparkly jacket with a big Z on the back. Notably, both guys get booed. Yep, we're in Philadelphia. Yeah.
00:11:15
Speaker
It's a few years before extreme championship wrestling rises, but a Philly crowd is a Philly crowd, apparently. Z-Man escapes Rotunda's holds and overpowers Rotunda on some headlock whip sequences. Rotunda flees outside after a Z-Man dropkick, then uses a cheap shot and eye poke to register his frustration. The crowd amuses themselves with a Syracuse sucks chant, which Z-Man occasionally encourages.
00:11:41
Speaker
Z-Man gets two with a sunset flip, but Rotunda claims that he pulled his tights. JR, of course, brings up the punt pass and kick competition that Rotunda won when he was nine again. So this time he at least also mentions that he won it when he was 13, so that's closer to relevance. yeah right Still probably a good five years earlier than any sporting achievement you should actually be bringing up every time you need to build up an adult pro wrestler though JR.
00:12:07
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I played T-ball when Uncle Bracken about it. You mentioned that, but he actually does say something like he's been a star athlete since Little League. I know, I know. We joked about that last episode, and then he actually brings up Little League this episode. I just about died. I think at some point, it's going to escalate to the point in where he's talking about Makratunda. He goes, you know, his mother said he kicked really hard in the womb. Even before he was out, he was he was so strong. Would not surprise me.
00:12:37
Speaker
Z-Man keeps outmaneuvering Rotunda, including a nice arm drag into a hammer lock, but after a headlock takedown for two, Rotunda counters into a head so there's some really cranks on Z-Man's neck, shifting positions so that he can use the ropes. Patrick catches him and forces the break. Z-Man repeatedly works headlocks. He should be called H-Man. Ah.
00:12:58
Speaker
Rotunda chucks in through the ropes and Z-Man sails nearly to the entrance ramp. The crowd actually cheers that, I think they've been getting a tad restless with all the holds. They go back to Syracuse sucks chance, as Rotunda wears Z-Man down, getting two with a vertical suplex and using the ropes on an abdominal stretch. Patrick catches that, so Rotunda switches to a reverse chinlock, but Z-Man escapes only to eat a diving clothesline.
00:13:23
Speaker
Z-Man dodges a drop kick and builds to what's almost a pedigree, but without the actual drop to the mat. Yeah. He like puts redundant his head between his legs and just kind of like jumps on it briefly. Yeah, I've seen version of that where it's supposed to be like it's twerking on the neck or something, but it wasn't really even that. This looked more vertical than twisting momentum or anything. Yeah. Yeah. It's like I'm holding your head with my legs and hopping. So the shaking of the mat, I guess, or two of not really super clear on that one. Yeah.
00:13:53
Speaker
Rotunda rakes the eyes, but Z-Man reverses a corner-to-corner whip. Rotunda rebounds out with a crossbody, but Z-Man rolls through for the three count and the win. The crowd boos. Yeah. Z-Man spits a little and gets some spit a lot on his face. It's not out of rudeness. I think it just seemed like he had something to deal with there. Trust WCW's camera crew to be on target only when someone is doing something gross. Yeah, right?
00:14:19
Speaker
Z-Man's music sounds like something that would play in an 80s sports movie for sure. Oh yeah, absolutely. Thoughts on this one? It's a decent match, but it's pretty slow paced if we're being honest.
00:14:31
Speaker
It's really basic. Like, uh, Mertanda always fundamentals are good. We know he has credentials, did wrestling as we make fun of the, you know, so he's a baseball credentials when he's, you know, like a teenager, but he has all this stuff that you expect from a wrestler. But this feels like a match where like you bring one, like the first year or like when you have a like pro football player or like a, a non wrestler transitioning to sport.
00:14:58
Speaker
But Tom Zake had been resting a few years, and like I say, he was resting the AWA at the top level. Yeah. So it's weird that it's like, you know, we're going to do real basic stuff. We're not going to try anything and a complicated. Even like the finish is more on rotunda doing the move than Z-Man. So it really does feel like, you know, I'm going to do all the hard work. You just sort of go along with me, which feels really strange. It really does. I remember from when we watched it years ago that this, I think, had been my first impression of Z-Man.
00:15:27
Speaker
And at the time I was very unimpressed. Yeah. Then obviously later on we saw him in like his matches with Pillman and such and I came to recognize that he's quite a decent performer. But I kind of had the same feeling I recall back then even. It kind of feels like the Z-Man guy looks good but can't really do that much. And Rotunda is doing the hard work but also not doing too complicated of a match for him to keep up with. And like you said, it's weird because Z-Man has been wrestling for some time now. And especially if you came from the AWA, where you know that Vern Ganyev was all about like, you got to be a wrestler. Yeah, I would imagine he he was held to a pretty good standard there. So it's surprising to see this match be so simplistic in it in its design. Yeah.
00:16:15
Speaker
The thing with this match is the contrast is not that great. Like you get the heel doing real basic but strongly done stuff like headlock spots, leg scissors, abdominal stretches, that kind of stuff, which is designed to build up to the big flurry of offense. And the flurry of offense is not that amazing. Yes.
00:16:37
Speaker
I'm not necessarily expecting someone 1989 to be doing planches or, you know, 450 splashes or anything like that. That's obviously the extreme degree, but like his drop is never fine. But it's not like, oh, I've been I've been watching this whole for three minutes. Suddenly you get this big comeback and you're like, oh, it's okay. Yeah, it's a very underwhelming performance in general. Yeah.
00:16:57
Speaker
When the thing they really said to me, I said before and I'll say it again, the finish seems like it was done backwards. This kind of finish where person A dives at the corner or the cross body and traversed, that's usually a heel thing. That's true. Yeah. If if you're broking zinc to lose this match for some reason, you'd have him to the cross by at the corner and we're time to like rolls through and like grabs the tights or puts feet in the rope or something. I'm virtually sure that we've seen either Ricky Steamboat or Dustin Rhodes lose a match in that exact way.
00:17:27
Speaker
Well, I'm sure we have, yeah. Yeah. So it's really weird to see the face like, aha, I countered your move like that. I'm like, oh. I guess in fairness, it's not like it's a cheaty ending or anything like that. It's just, it goes back to what you were saying that it's not like a big show off spot, especially given that Z-Man is a very new performer to WCW. You would think that if they wanted to establish him, they'd have him do his wonderful finisher, the dropkick off the top rope.
00:17:52
Speaker
Yes. That he's the expert at, right? Mm-hmm. It's just a less flashy ending than you're expecting for you know a new face that is trying to be established. I could see you do the setup where Pretender runs and dives at the corner, but he just moves instead of catching him and going through. As Pretender recovers, he goes to the top rope and gets him off guard. Yes.
00:18:14
Speaker
The other thing is that, so for this finish to really make a ton of sense, it kind of has to be a healish thing, or you'd have to be a ah much larger guy, like a Paul White, you know, big show kind of guy. Like if he could reverse Sting's crossbody, for instance, you'd be like, okay, there's no way you're pushing him off of you.
00:18:32
Speaker
Or you have to be, again, it's like you're just rolling through it and grabbing him. So if you roll through and grab the tights, or you roll through and grab the ropes, that makes sense. But for this finish, I mean, he rolls through the guys and then to him and just sort of lays on top of him. And the guy's like, well, can't get up. Yeah, I can't remember if he actually even hooks the leg or anything, but yeah that would help. It's really like, oh, I'm down the ground. I can't get up now.
The Thunderdome Match with Bruno Sammartino
00:18:53
Speaker
Oh, well. Yeah, fair enough.
00:18:56
Speaker
Yeah, i I think I'm generally in agreement on this. This was solid, but the pacing was really poor. Z-Man just did not feel like he had enough variety in his offense for the amount of time that he was in control. I lost count of his headlocks. Rotunda was considerably better in control, particularly with the vicious headsets, but it felt like there just wasn't enough action and movement for this match's length, especially with this being the opening match of the show. It could easily drop like four or five minutes, much of it from holds that are not very active.
00:19:25
Speaker
Yeah, it definitely didn't help that the crowd seemed generally uninterested. I think that hurt the performance, which further bored the crowd creating a bit of a vicious cycle. It's not an awful match. It's just a bad choice for an opener. I think I wouldn't mind this near as much if this were like match two or three.
00:19:43
Speaker
I would still find it underwhelming, I think, but I would be like, OK, you know, that that was fine. I can live with it. But with it being the opening match as well, you just expect even in this era, a little bit more of a pop to the match than we got here.
00:19:58
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like my initial impressions of this of this match from when we watched it before hold true, but thankfully I know now that Z-Man goes on to be quite a good performer that we enjoy in later shows. I felt vaguely guilty for having this impression of this match for the past few years after having learned that Z-Man was a good performer, but now having seen it again, I'm like, no, no, this this was not a great match.
00:20:21
Speaker
Yeah, and I feel for him in this sense, too, that this is his biggest exposure to date. I mean, I'm sure the clashes do big ratings, but the pay-per-view is where you want to get your shine. And it's a shame he didn't really get that much of it here. I genuinely do wonder just with that little coughing bit after the match if he might have been a little ill or something. And that could potentially explain the difference between this performance and the other times that we've seen him. It it could be that or it could be a number of things. It could be how they react to the crowd, because sometimes on shows, any sport or even like live event, like giving you can see a concert where the crowd's booing. Some band might get off and like, you know, Axel Rose might just leave state because he's off at the crowd. Or you might have a band go, you know, like in the song and they'll stop and they'll switch like their big number one hit song. And we're like, you'll switch to it like a big loud sing along song and get the crowd back. I wonder if maybe he was thrown off more from that reaction.
00:21:20
Speaker
especially with it happening basically immediately. Like the the crowd did not give them a chance to start even wrestling first. They were audibly booing during the introductions of both men. It wasn't just like them booing the heel. No. Something was a little off with the crowd's reaction starting out to this even. And I could see that kind of demoralizing you to the point that you just can't quite ever get back in the game.
00:21:44
Speaker
And if you're throwing up or something like that, that can make you sort of defer to the more experienced guy who's being rotunda and you lead in a more spot to where you to work a headlock and you kind of figure out, okay, you know, like, what are we going to do? We're in the crowd. We're losing in the crowd. We're about to react. Yes. But unfortunately you, then doing that hurts the crowd as well. So it's a catch one too. Yeah. A vicious cycle. Like I said, yeah, exactly. Yeah. We know we can and has done better. Yes, absolutely.
00:22:13
Speaker
Neither man is on the next clash, which is in November, nor are they on the Starrcade due to the complicated system they have with the whole Iron Man single the tag tournament thing. Yeah, there's a limited set of people on that Starrcade to begin with, yeah. We cut back to Christopher Cruise, who is with Bruno Sammartino, who has stuffed his massive muscular form into a referee shirt and bow tie like a mob boss trying to pretend to be a high school librarian.
00:22:38
Speaker
Is that or take an undercover boss situation? Yes. Hi, I'm the new Stockboy. Thank you, Jim Ross. It is indeed a personal honor to be standing next to my hero, Bruno Sammartino, the living legend. Bruno, welcome back to Philadelphia. Thank you, Chris. Nice to be here. Bruno, you have faced many challenging and difficult situations in your nearly 30 years in the ring. Have you ever faced anything as difficult as refereeing in a Thunderdome match? Not quite, Chris. This match is very unique. You know, you have these four individuals and in there and practically anything and everything goes. Actually, it's a very dangerous match. You might say, well, what's your role in there? Well, anything and everything goes. So my role basically is that make sure that, for example, Lee Anderson and Gary Hart don't come in, don't get these guys any kind of a weapon. And when somebody throws the towels, of course, it's my job to stop this whole thing and to declare a victor. And anything else that might happen in that ring that shouldn't, I'll be aware of. Can you see anything happening in that ring that might maybe make you stop the match instead of the Terminator? I really don't think so, because this is a match that's going to be fought to the very bitter end, and it's going to be up to the to the to either Anderson or Gary Hart to bring the conclusion to the match. All right, Bruno San Martino, good to be with you, and glad to have you back in the ring. Good to be here. All right, fans, let us now go back to the ring. Gary Michael Capetta is standing by for the introductions to that big six-man tag team match.
00:23:56
Speaker
Let us now go back to the ring. It would be the very polite version of our ah podcast, I guess. Yeah. If we were two proper like you know lit majors, that'd be our wrestling podcast.
00:24:09
Speaker
Sam Martino did a good job building up the Thunderdome match here as a chaotic and dangerous match. I would have liked a little bit more description of how the match works on the show before this, but I imagine that was something that had probably been done on the TV programs building up to this. So audiences at the time would probably have had a little coverage of the workings already. In brief, it's a match in a huge electrified cage, two men on each team, and each team has a designated terminator who can surrender on their behalf by throwing in a towel.
00:24:37
Speaker
The match is no disqualification, but Sam Martino, recognizing the obvious question about the role of a referee in that case, nicely notes that his duty is to stop outside interference or weapons being snuck in. The implication being that he's not there to disqualify someone, he's there to break someone's face at the interfere. That works, yeah. He is very large. Yeah. Yeah, I thought this was good work by Sam Martino overall.
Spotlight on Six-Man Tag Match
00:25:00
Speaker
I was impressed, honestly, that he was so familiar with the workings in the match.
00:25:05
Speaker
It's very easy for guests, whether they're wrestlers or non-wrestlers, to just sort of show up and work the thing, but they're not gonna be able to tell you how the match was to work. They just know, I'm supposed to come here, do this, X, Y, and Z, and that's it. He seemed very informed on it. Yeah, yeah. He clearly did his homework or or said to someone before coming on, like, okay, what's this match layout? Let me help you actually build up the match concept.
00:25:28
Speaker
That is nice. Yeah, I can think of other cases where we've had kind of a guest referee come on and they just made some very generic comments. But Bruno seems quite familiar with how the match actually is going to work, which is I think shows you his his professionalism. Yeah, it feels like there's a level of commitment on his side. And maybe he's treating refereeing a match like this when he's not even really refereeing. He just sort of there to call a thing the same way he would treat if he was actually working the match itself, which is nice. Yeah.
00:25:58
Speaker
Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, ah that's it. I hadn't thought about that, but that is a very good point. Yeah. Obviously for us, it's kind of funny as well because I'll just talk of the quote designated terminator. Yes. After we just did the Robocop show. Yes. I do wonder if there's there's a better name they could have come up with than designated terminator. Yeah. For guy who throws a towel in.
00:26:21
Speaker
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, especially because I think there's a comic series and there are something like Robocop for the Terminator. Oh, yeah, it was a video game as well. Yeah, I was ever caved on. Oh, yeah, that's great. Now I'm just picturing the scene from the original Terminator with Schwarzenegger, where he goes to the police station as they all be backline and then crashes the car through. And instead of shooting, he just like throws a towel on the ground and walks out. Like, I'm doesn't need to open it. Here's your towel. Bye. San Martino kind of sounds like Arnie a little bit, too, so.
00:26:50
Speaker
I got that as well. Yeah. Yeah. It's not quite Schwarzenegger. Obviously, he's Italian and, you know, sort of good Austrian. And that was sounded more to me like when Dana Carvey and Kevin Neal would do the two guys that act like Arnold, they want to pump you up. Oh, right. Right. Yes. It's someone doing impersonation of s Schwarzenegger. That's great.
00:27:16
Speaker
Our second match is Dr. Death, Steve Williams, and the Midnight Express, beautiful Bobby Eaton and sweet Stan Lane, with Jim Cornett versus the Samoan SWAT team, Fatu, Sam, and Samu, with the Big Kahuna, Sir Oliver Humberdink, and a six-man tag match. The referee for this one is Tama Young.
00:27:38
Speaker
I knew someday I would pay for deciding to call Sam, Sam instead of the name WSW gave him and today is that day. Good luck saying the right name between Sam and Samu, me. The Samoans would come in as the new clients of Paul E Dangerously, aka Paul Heyman, when the feud between the original Midnight Express and New Midnight Express ended a couple months back in, as we'll cover later, less than stellar fashion.
00:28:05
Speaker
Yeah, so kind of keeping the story going without all the people involved. And it's a good way to bring in new clients as well, because you have, weirdly you have established Face Team in the Minute at Express. And we clear their face not even just with this filthy crowd. I believe they are actually playing faces.
00:28:20
Speaker
Yes, this is the point where Cornette is also managing the Dynamic Dudes. And so WSW has turned him in the Midnight Express effectively face to allow for that situation. Yeah. Though the Philly crowd treats the Midnight Express as faces, but do not treat the Dynamic Dudes as faces, as we will see. Yeah, you could maybe argue at this point, they're starting the slow turn of the Midnight's but at Cornette at this point back to heels, but this point they are visually faces. Yeah.
00:28:48
Speaker
Notably as part of the feud, both teams were part of a war games match at the Gary American bash this year alongside the road warriors and the free birds. Oh my gosh. Mm hmm. Okay. Want to see that. Yeah, right. So be the free bird in this and the Simone SWAT team versus the night express, the road warriors and Dr. Death. That's pretty good. Dang. That sounds really intense. Mm hmm. And obviously given that we're having this match tonight, then things were not settled in that previous match.
00:29:20
Speaker
We get gold and black for the Midnights today. Williams did not get the sparkly memo. No. Cornette gives the rare face version of his intro for the team, as right now he's a good guy. Though he notes that the Midnights have, quote, wrecked more homes than Hurricane Hugo. Hurricane Hugo, which hit in September 1989, so one month before the show, killed 107 people and caused $11 billion dollars in damage. So maybe it's not the best thing to include in your intro, Jim.
00:29:48
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there's some danger of being topical. At least in that way. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, of course. Where you're comparing yourself to the hurricane. Yes. Lane has spectacular hair today. I think he far outdoes his otherwise twin brother Lex Luger later on the show. Yeah, I'd say so.
00:30:09
Speaker
The Samoan SWAT team gets a very cool entrance doing a fire dance, though they end it by acting like they're going to either do fire eating or fire breathing, but just kind of stop instead. Unfortunately, they are also currently acting like they don't speak any English and are acting all barbaric. Yeah. We have not quite dropped that part of the gimmick yet. It's also a confusing thing about their manager being really into being Hawaiian. Yes. I know they're fairly close geographically, but they're not the same place.
00:30:40
Speaker
Eaton scares Humberdink during the entrance, and he trips, which was pretty funny. J.R. notes that Humberdink used to manage the Hollywood Blondes. That's not Austin and Pillman, who have not formed as a team yet, but Buddy Roberts and Jerry Brown. Notably, Samu and Fatu are presently a tag team, and Sam has recently been added to the act. So Fatu and Samu have white outfits, and Sam has a black one. It's pretty cool.
00:31:08
Speaker
While the camera is focused on a guy in the crowd painted up for Halloween, something happens and the Samoans in the Express and Doctor Death end up facing off outside the ring. Young threatens to throw the whole thing out and finally establishes some order. The Express do well against the Samoans to start, but we get another couple face-offs and Young again threatens to disqualify both teams.
00:31:27
Speaker
JR tells how Lane and Eden got their starts, and Lane's sounds like a Baywatch episode. Oh yeah. A karate instructor and lifeguard. He was discovered by Ric Flair at a beach party. If only Lane had still been in WSW in 1995 for the Baywatch crossover. Oh yeah, there you go. Oh my gosh, now I want to see Lane as a singles wrestler coming out to the Baywatch theme. Yeah, I can picture that.
00:31:53
Speaker
The Samoans stun and beat up Eaton a bit, but he tags Dr. Death, who beats the crap out of all three Samoans, and Lane helps dispose of them. We almost get another face off as people get back in, but Young makes sure that order is maintained. Williams beats up Fatu, then Samu, then beckons to Sam, who is too smart to get in. Cornette makes chicken noises at Humperdink. Eaton and Lane try to keep control, but despite some excellent Lane kicks, Fatu soon clotheslines him flat.
00:32:23
Speaker
Lane escapes from Samu later and tags Williams, who demonstrates that it isn't time for a face imperil segment yet by clotheslining the ever-loving crap out of Samu. Eaton and Lane continue against Samu and Fatu, earning two often Eaton jumping clothesline. Fatu impressively really goes for an elbow drop on Lane, who dodges. Credit to Fatu for going full force on that fall.
00:32:46
Speaker
yeah Eaton takes back over, but a Fatu eye rake stuns him, and Sam later counters a bulldog by just carrying him across the ring and crotching him on the ropes. Now we have a face imperil segment. There we go.
00:32:59
Speaker
Though Eaton earns two off of a sunset flip, the Samoans overpower Eaton with a wide variety of moves, earning two counts with a diving Fatu headbutt and a Sam sidewalk slam. There is, unfortunately, a bit of the questionable old booking of Samoans, as Fatu no sells a facebuster because his hat is apparently super hard, and Sam bites Eaton. But save for a couple nerve-holds by Fatu, the action is fast and intense, and Cornet gets the crowd clapping for Eaton.
00:33:27
Speaker
Even the nerve hold has some good storytelling as Fatu carefully positions himself so that Eaton would have had to get past him to make the tag. yeah After some epic selling, Eaton dazedly crawls along the ropes and manages to tag Williams with the last of his strength. Williams beats up Sam, disposes of Fatu with a press lamp then slam, then slams Samu, picks Sam up, and throws him into Fatu and Samu before getting two with a power slam on Sam.
00:33:54
Speaker
Tag to Lane and he and Sam briefly miscommunicate on the neckbreaker. Everybody in, to Brawl and Young, distracted by trying to maintain order for the umpteenth time and dealing with Humperdink, misses Lane going for a pin after hitting Enzagiri on Samu. Cornette nails Humperdink with his tennis racket, but Sam shoves Lane into the racket for the three count in the win. Cornette, who was also knocked off the apron, dazedly checks on Lane as the replay shows Lane colliding with the tennis racket.
00:34:24
Speaker
Thoughts on this one? I thought this was a very fun match. It was definitely very chaotic, which is, I think one of the things that worked really well in a match like this, as long as you had the right people. Yeah. Because you can have, you know, six people in a match, but I think it's chaotic as in they sort of all start wandering around the ringside area or a fight at the crowd. You lose track of it. The sort of a nice controlled chaos where people are coming in and out, people try to help from the corners, from the outside.
00:34:51
Speaker
I liked the contrast we had with the people involved as well. You had the really strong tag formula with Eaton and Lane, and then after this comes in to throw people around or body slam them. He never seems scared of this moment, which is a nice character thing.
00:35:07
Speaker
Yes, he's always ready to go. Yeah, there's one point early on where they are facing off outside the ring and he is screaming in their faces like a maniac. It is seriously scary. It is a nice bit at some point where you can see he's doing the little shuffle that is like the Brock Lesnar shuffle and he's like ready for action, which is a nice thing to see even back here. Yes.
00:35:30
Speaker
What I found interesting as well is sometimes the standard tag formula kind of breaks down with six man. You have more regular action. Like that AWA match never really quite broke down into a full face and peril. Right. Whereas this one definitely did.
00:35:46
Speaker
You still got the bonus of a six man tag, which is you have more people coming in on the heel side and changing up the offense. It was not just guy put in by different arm holds or fighting in headlocks and then they escape. So right. He was nice there.
00:36:01
Speaker
I get the idea of the ending is that it's so much going on that it does protect everyone involved. X the express and Dr. Death, who obviously doesn't isn't actually pinned. It's interesting, too, that the idea is playing off the standard heal tactics of cornet where he loads the racket. And it's time to use it again to raise a face. Yes. My only real question this match is why wasn't this the opener? 100%.
00:36:27
Speaker
Yeah, there's a few bits that you know what they're going for. Like the bulldog counter, it throws them into the corner. It doesn't quite work. You're supposed to hold them and run the whole distance, but obviously that's easier said than done with even a 220 pound man in your, in your arms. So I'm not trying to downplay it like, Oh, that'd be easy. But it's disappointing when you know what they're going for. Are you like, they got like 98% there. You go, Oh, just this little thing off, but it's pretty minimal. All things that are.
00:36:54
Speaker
I am totally in agreement with you. This should definitely have been the first match. It was a lot faster, a lot more complex, a lot more interesting and entertaining. The six-man tag formula, as usual, meant that the match could change up frequently, and we got a lot of variety of wrestler combinations and moves. Lane's kicks are always great, and I like the variations in offense from the Samoans. Fatu seemed to use his weight and overpower his opponents. Well, Samu had some nice kicks, drop kicks, and the like, and Sam had some good martial arts strikes.
00:37:23
Speaker
The only slowdowns were a few nerve holds by Fatu, during which not much happened, but again, there was some good storytelling during them. And by and large, this had good, fast action and a solid plot that built really well to Williams charging in and decimating people and make great use of Bobby Eaton as face and peril. He was terrific, selling well for the duration and even making his dramatic tag look almost like luck, like he didn't know where he was and just happened to fall the right way. Yeah, I can see that.
00:37:52
Speaker
a good, hard-hitting match that I very much enjoyed. Agreed. Was it the last show where or maybe just a couple of shows back where they had the Samoans and they really stretched out that intro where they kept trying to do their tribal dance? Yeah, Capitol Combat had that, yeah. Yeah. I was really worried we'd get that again.
00:38:08
Speaker
And we didn't like, okay, so maybe that was just a one off incident. I think there's one other point on Starrcade 89 actually, where I remember there being a moment like that. And it's yeah, because I i was so mad at Rick Steiner. Oh yeah. He like drags out the intro to the match so long, just like, you know, making fun of the celebration thing. That and Capitol combat 90 are the two times that I recall seeing that very strongly, that annoying extension of that, because people just can't accept that that's something they do.
00:38:35
Speaker
Yeah, right. So I was I was glad to not see that happen on this show. They just. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Got right into it. And dang, did they get into it? Mm hmm. Sadly, the human express would not be on the next show, as noted and if you've listened to the episode already from way back when.
00:38:52
Speaker
The formula of Sarcade 1989 is a dual tournament, because WWE loves tournaments. There's a Iron Man tournament with the top four contenders slash champions, because Flair's in it. And there's a similar thing with the tag teams. So for acting to make the cut, The Minute Express does not make it. As I recall, there is an in-character excuse for that by Cornette, who if I remember correctly is calling all the tag matches with JR, correct?
00:39:20
Speaker
They have Terry Funk on commentary with the singles matches and cornet for the tag ones. Yeah. I think he makes some zero line about like not wanting to be in it because they're already like champions, like they're US tag champions or something. Something like that, if I recall correctly. Yeah. Yeah. Now the other half of this match, the Samoan would have done in the show, but the reasons why they get there a little complicated. I'll get to that later. Oh yeah.
00:39:48
Speaker
We cut backstage to Gordon Soli, who is with Gary Hart and Terry Funk. It appears that that reverse psychology, that reverse therapy is working on the Samoans. Gary Hart and Terry Funk have joined me just exactly how far are you willing to risk your men tonight in the electrified Thunderdome? Absolutely and totally. There is no quitting.
00:40:10
Speaker
in the J-Tex organization, and tonight for the very first time, Mr. J of J-Tex will be at ringside with us, Terry. You know, I want to say one thing. You know, Winston Churchill said, never say die. Gary Hart says electrify. And that's exactly what we're going to do. We're going to start a new dance craze here in Philadelphia. It's going to be the 10,000-watt boogie featuring Rick Flair and Sting here tonight. And besides that, we're going to introduce something new. Fried chicken. I'm talking about Rick Flair when we push him up against that electrified fence. Thank you so very much. And now let's go to Gary Capetta. I'm not sure why Gary Hart even had to be there. He barely gets to say a sentence. Yeah.
00:41:03
Speaker
Funk didn't get to talk for too long himself, but he made the most of his short time with a good quick promo, building up the electric cage, which will surely not be a massive letdown, and his own off-kilter personality, which, no sarcasm, actually is never a letdown, because Funk is hilarious. Yeah, it is funny that Funk talks about how he can electrify the guy, like, you gotta kill a guy, electric cage, and it's like, they're down, seriously, yep,
Tommy Rich vs. Cuban Assassin – A Critical Look
00:41:24
Speaker
thank you. Yes. I'm like real casual with the whole thing.
00:41:28
Speaker
I guess, I mean, Terry Funk just says that kind of stuff all the time. Anyway, probably. So that that's true. Yeah. Yeah. I thought this was short, but some pretty good buildup for the main event that highlights how different this match should be. It's rare that you fail with the Terry Funk promo, especially when it's condensed this much where it's just come in, say something crazy and then get out. Yes. It's a nice bite size Terry Funk promo. I definitely like his, uh, his line of a fried chicken. Yeah.
00:41:56
Speaker
Yes, that was good. edit I liked the rhyming, ah never say die, electrify. That was good, yeah. Our third match is Wildfire Tommy Rich versus the Cuban Assassin. Referee for this one is Nick Patrick.
00:42:13
Speaker
So back in 1981, there was a bit of a power struggle between the people that were on the board of the NWA, which decided who was champion and who gets booked where. As part of that, they had Harley Race lose the title to Tommy Rich, a young and becoming star. That rating lasted a whopping four days where I was given back to Harley Race and nothing like that ever happened close for Tommy Rich ever again, unfortunately. ah So that's eight years ago from the show.
00:42:43
Speaker
takes us to the game of 1999. We returned after a long absence, working various other promotions like world class and other local indie feds at the time. He'd come back with big dreams. They promote him as a former world champion. He's coming back. He kind of promised things coming for the US title. And then once he gets past his early push, he basically loses every match that's to a top or a big level star. it It came and went pretty quickly for unfortunately, but he made the show. So yeah, yeah.
00:43:14
Speaker
Assassin is already in the ring as we cut back to the ring. He waves a Cuban flag. Rich does get an actual entrance, wearing a pinkish-red sparkly jacket and coming out to gentle guitar music, neither of which seems like what you'd expect from someone named Wildfire. No. Someone briefly goes for a USA chant, but nobody takes it up. Assassin beats Rich up to start, but Rich slams him a few times and Assassin retreats outside.
00:43:41
Speaker
Coddle and JR discuss Rich having faded into relative obscurity in the mid 80s before reemerging as a major competitor. Yes, I can tell that he's a major competitor by how he's facing the Cuban assassin on pay-per-view. That is prestige right there. Yeah. Also, how much faith does it show it that ah the company has for you when the commentary team is openly discussing how you spent years in obscurity and have only recently reemerged into a promotion that anyone cares about?
00:44:11
Speaker
Yeah, that only works if it's like, oh, he was a rising star, then, you know, he was in a serious plane crash or like, had a disease, you know, he beat cancer, now he's back. But it's just, yeah, he kind of sucked for a while, but now he's back. You don't say went into obscurity. I'm sorry, that's not building the guy up at all. Correct. Rich tries to get a USA chant going, but the crowd does not care.
00:44:38
Speaker
They do, however, end up chanting communist suck a bit later. Assassin beats Rich up some more. Rich reverses a corner whip, and the assassin rebounds out with a crossbody for two. Rich works around an armbar with a somewhat clumsy sunset flip in between for two. Assassin continues landing slow strikes, and Rich keeps working the armbar. Considering how short this match is, there is a ton of repetition here. yeah We're several minutes in, and it feels like we're still in the introduction.
00:45:07
Speaker
Assassin does have a nice variant grounded wrist lock where he kneels on the arm, but the crowd is so uninterested that they don't even respond to him calling them American pigs. yeah Assassin does finally go for some more variety with a pile driver, countered by Rich, and a vertical suplex, but when he climbs up top, Rich shakes the ropes, and Assassin crotches himself. Corner to corner whip, and Assassin tries the rebound crossbody again, but Rich isn't there. Presumably he dodged off-camera.
00:45:36
Speaker
now Rich hits, and I use that as tentatively as possible, a Thezpress for the three count and the win. Well, it's not it's not ah it's not a loot Thezpress, it's a Joey Thezpress, it's his cousin. There you go, yeah. Like like Joe Estes. Yeah. Rich immediately leaves, though he does at least get one high five from a fan.
00:45:58
Speaker
We get a better angle on that dodge of the crossbody in the replay where we actually see Rich dodge. The Thespress still doesn't look that good, but I hesitate to blame Rich. I feel like it's just not smooth overall though. Mmm, no it's not. Thoughts on this one?
00:46:13
Speaker
I mean, it's not a bad match. I've, I've definitely seen far worse, even though it's the earliest arcade run or so. I'm sure I'm going to get in the later hallway havoc run when to get to like 98, 99, 2000. Fair enough. The thing is, so the match has no crowd involvement. There's a point where they maybe could get the crowd interested, but then once the crowd turns in the match, they basically start working slow holds and punches. So they clearly you don't give a crap.
00:46:39
Speaker
It's not like them being thrown off, like we think might happen in the first match. They didn't care before they went through the crowd, they carried on less. Yeah. You know, obviously i live I love wrestling because I'm doing wrestling podcasts. I love watching wrestling, but I almost think given that the show has so little Halloween about it, you could have done a five minute video package either in one piece or spread out that the show where, you know, wrestlers talk about Halloween, like who they're going to dress as or, you know, Halloween memories or something to really enforce a Halloween theme. I mean, I wish this match was notable enough for me to want to see it, but honestly, putting other footage in and would have helped me.
00:47:18
Speaker
Yeah, this was not good. It's an extremely repetitive match, and worse for the amount of time both spend working the arm. They never make use of any kind of arm injury story. True. It's just there to fill time. I do like that they built to the late match counter of the rebound crossbody with an earlier successful crossbody, so there's some decent storytelling there. But unfortunately, we earlier saw quite a similar spot in the Rotunda Z-Man match, which dampens the impact.
00:47:43
Speaker
Yeah. Otherwise, this was short, but it didn't have the content to fill even at short length. The assassin in particular is dull. He does not put any weight or emotion into his moves. So it feels like he's just going through the motions rather than fighting. As you, Al, I don't understand why this is even on the show.
The Freebirds vs. Dynamic Dudes - Tag Team Drama
00:48:02
Speaker
You could easily have chopped this match off the show completely. And I would not have felt like I lost anything.
00:48:08
Speaker
Yeah. Now I don't think it's the case where both men are bad. Well, I don't think they're great. I haven't seen much commit assassin and I was in a bit of time of reach here and there. I think it's just a matter of apathy. Honestly. Yeah. They're doing much in autopilot and autopilot is not that exciting. Some people, you know, flair autopilot is one thing, but these guys, it's not the same.
00:48:28
Speaker
Yeah, I just feel like I do know the difference between them and that, like, Rich at least still feels like he put some oomph into his moves. He tries to look like he's in a fight still. Yeah. It's not a very exciting fight, but he is trying to look like he's in a fight. Assassin just does not feel like he's trying to look like he's in a fight. He feels like, like I don't feel anything from his moves. I don't feel any kind of, you know, when he does punches or strikes or anything. It's the motion of a punch. It is not a punch. Yeah, I get you.
00:48:55
Speaker
Hey, who knows? Maybe like Z-Man, there's another show where Cuban Assassin is like amazing. And I'll look back on and on this as like just a blip in his career at some point, but not having seen him in other situations that I'm aware of yet, unless you are aware of him being someone that we've seen on other shows then like that um one time with- The Rocko Rock? Yeah. Yeah. Unless you're aware of something like that, my impression of him at this moment is not very good.
00:49:20
Speaker
I think this is his high point, honestly, in WCW. Ouch. That's not good. No. He wants to come up on some other show because some reason I was looking this guy up like early in the start of running the show and it mentioned that he he owned a sports bar in Largo. I'm like, wait, that's pretty good. It's a rhymes. I like Googled it and it was actually fairly close to where I used to live. ah Far as I can tell based on Yelp, it's close in 2019. That's the most recent reviews they had. That doesn't make me too much different about the guy as a wrestler, but it's interesting that he Soon we lived somewhere near to me for a while. I had no idea. That is always interesting to find out that there's a closer connection than you think, right? Absolutely. We cut backstage to Gordon Soli, who is with the Freebirds.
00:50:06
Speaker
Tommy Rich looking mighty good with that vertical press. Was he? gentlemen Just about 60 seconds. It all goes on the line. Let me tell you And we're going to be the greatest tag team in the world in the morning. and Take it, Michael. Well, you know, it's like this. So many women, so little time. And like Prince said, it is a sign of the times. The Dynamic Dudes are a great young team. But when they meet the Freebirds, in just a matter of moments, you're going to find out why they call us fabulous. You're going to find out why they call us Bad Street. You're going to find out why what Mama and Daddy warned you about a long time ago. And Gordon, you've seen it rolling and rocking for many years. I have indeed and I'll tell you what, their palace could turn into a mansion of misery tonight, that's for sure. All right, time for this World Championship match. Let's go to the ring. Hey, Gordon. a Thank you. Gordon gives us a let's go to the ring there. I know I liked you.
00:51:17
Speaker
um I tried looking up Mansion of Misery, thinking that it might be a song reference, given given the Freebirds. But the only one that I found that mentioned Palace and then also Mansion of Misery was one by a band called the Miniature Tigers, who formed in 2006. So unless Gordon Souley is a time traveler, and I'm not saying that he's not, given that he does know Robocop, that probably wasn't the reference.
00:51:38
Speaker
you had funny we You and I did the exact same research. It's funny. I was like, I like i like i don't think I really didn't mention that because I couldn't find anything interesting. But then then you said it. So yeah, that's that's I had found the exact same the information. That's hilarious. maybe Maybe the Tigers were fans of Gordon Soli, though. Very possible, yeah. It it was so specific, the way he said it, that ah it it felt like it had to be a musical reference, but couldn't find one. Yeah.
00:52:02
Speaker
This was a perfectly good arrogant promo by the free birds, making sure to work in a music reference of their own to fit their theme. Hayes nicely builds up the dynamic dudes just a little as a great team. I always appreciate when wrestlers take a moment to build up their opponents as it helps build suspense for the match. I really liked Garvin's take though. Yes, the titles are on the line, but they're always on the line and they'll just come out the winners again. Like they always have. It's a good way to acknowledge the stakes of the match, but still look arrogant.
00:52:29
Speaker
Yeah, for me, it's notable just how much more energy you get in this brief backstage promo compared to the last match, by the way. Yes. Yeah, that much is so listless. And then suddenly, yeah, maybe you want to. Whoa. Yes. Yeah. Someone's awake. It's an indication of the wrestlers that like concentrate on their character, at least a little bit versus the ones that don't. Yeah.
00:52:52
Speaker
With Tommy Rich and with The Assassin, there's limited character work. It's all just like, let's do the ring action, which is fine if the ring action is particularly good, but it it wasn't. So it felt like it lost everything. Where with the Freebirds, you've got really, really strong characters, even in matches of the Freebirds that don't end up as good from an in-ring standpoint. You know that you've got the strong character work to pull off of still.
00:53:16
Speaker
So I know there's there's been cases where we've been like, well, that wasn't that strong as far as the ring work is concerned, but you still got a lot out of them. When I was thinking too, Garvin, you know, when he went out of wrestling, he became an airline pilot. I like to think he had the same energy for his like post-flight, you know, bit where he speaks over the radio to everyone on the plane. Oh my gosh, wouldn't it be great? Yeah. but Honestly, and if the guy in my next flight talks with him, I'll often feel really happy. Yes, yeah. Fingers crossed.
00:53:44
Speaker
By the way, this is a turning point backstage from a wise, because with his first bit doing interviews, Soli was real cordial to the heels, but like from here on out, he just gets really sardonic with that closing line. And like, you'll see that other ones. Yes. Yes. Something turned. Someone's like, Hey, you're so boring, Soli or something. It's like say something to him. He's like, okay, I'll show you. He gets real sassy. Yes, he does. He does very much so. Yes.
00:54:13
Speaker
maybe Maybe he was just scared of funk after that electrify line or something. Fair enough. Our fourth match is the Dynamic Dudes, Shane Douglas and Johnny Ace with Jim Cornette versus the fabulous Freebirds, Jimmy Jam Garvin and Michael P.S. Hayes for the Freebirds NWA World Tag Team Championship. The referee for this one is Tommy Young.
00:54:37
Speaker
So the dynamic dude would debut in early 1999, gathering a pretty decent win-loss record. At this point, out they have not been champions, but they win the squash matches on TV and they do decently against the big name teams. Notably, the reason that the footbridge are tag teams right now is they want a tournament to win the, say with me, vacant tag titles. Different reasoning this time.
00:55:01
Speaker
Notably, the finals of that tournament involved the freebirds beating the Midnight Express. And I believe along the way, like in this and the semi or when the opening matches, they beat the dynamic dudes as well. I'm sure by cheating. So you have a personal cornet connection, besides just when the tag tells off, it's like he always does to a team that has been his men on two occasions when it really mattered most. Gotcha. Okay. That makes sense.
00:55:32
Speaker
The dudes are out first in very 1990s, brightly colored outfits, carrying their skateboards to the ring. Their music choice is bizarre. It sounds like music for the bad guys in a children's movie. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, it's it's like got some slight distortion, but it sounds like quirky. The music is telling us these are bad guys, but they're not really scary.
00:55:57
Speaker
My thing is that their music sounds like it's really trying to be surf rock. Yes, and they are skateboarders, not surfers. Yes, exactly the point. Yes, a little confusing. They pose with a little kid by ringside and Ace gives the kid his hat. They're ah facing the wrong camera at first, but Douglas realizes it and gets them turned the right way so that WSW can get the shot since the director wasn't, you know, just cutting to the camera that obviously already had the shot. Yeah, that'd be silly.
00:56:25
Speaker
Cornet gives their intro to considerably more booze than when he did it for the Express. The Freebirds come out to Bad Street, USA to a much more positive crowd reaction than the norm, as the crowd seems solidly with the heels. Yeah, massively cheering Hayes' strutting and moonwalking as we get started. Hayes and Douglas start. JR notes that Douglas and Ace have college degrees and encourages kids to get an education.
00:56:52
Speaker
Hayes tries a sunset flip, but Douglas reverses for one, and Hayes goes to get advice from Garvin, who styles Hayes' hair. Hayes ducks a clothesline and jumps at Douglas, who was clearly supposed to grab and slam him or something, but, um, didn't. No. So Hayes just kind of falls down himself. Douglas and Hayes trade off against Garvin and Hayes in turn, working the free bird's left arms, especially on Hayes, who JR points out is a south ball. And there we go. The arm work is immediately more important than in the last match. Yeah.
00:57:23
Speaker
The dudes double team Hayes, then double dropkick a charging Garvan, and the crowd chants for the Freebirds. The Dynamic Dudes experiment is not working at all. No. JR notes that the Freebirds have their share of fans. Yes, JR. That share would be all the fans. Yeah, right. 90% of the fans is a pretty good share. Yes, yeah, pretty good.
00:57:46
Speaker
Douglas grabs a wrist lock and as Hayes slowly pushes him to the ropes, it definitely seems like Hayes is having a bit of a discussion with him. Yeah. And Douglas visibly nods a couple times. I kind of wonder if any little bits of rebooking went on there given the crowd reaction. It seems a bit more extended than a normal spot call. Very possible. They start up again with Douglas dodging a Hayes dropkick and setting up an Ace Facebuster and elbow drop for two.
00:58:12
Speaker
JR credits Cornette for the dude's teamwork. The crowd, meanwhile, chants for the DDT, the Freebirds move. The teams try to keep it going normally for a little bit longer, and Ace, head-locking Garvin, counters a charging Haze with a back body drop, then heads Scissors Haze and takes Garvin down with a headlock takedown at the same time, two massive boos from the crowd. yeah Which is a bit of a shame as that was kind of a good spot. It was. That's a move that Eddie Guerrero would do a lot in later years. I was trying to think of of ah where I'd seen that before, yeah.
00:58:41
Speaker
it With the crowd openly chanting, you suck at the dudes. Jeez, Philly. All right. Garvin kicks out of an ace pin and sends him into Haze, devastating left, swinging the match towards the free birds. Garvin and Haze trade off wearing ace down and start playing to the crowd, recognizing that they are the crowd's choice for faces in this match, no matter how heelishly they keep wrestling.
00:59:04
Speaker
Hayes is absolutely loving it, selling his amazement and enjoyment of the cheers he's getting. Like finally, finally someone gets him. Yeah, right. It's heartwarming, really. The crowd boos every attempt to come back by Ace and chants insistently for the DDT. So Hayes plays up going for the DDT, but Ace counters and tags Douglas, who runs wild and gets viciously booed the entire time.
00:59:30
Speaker
Ace does get a couple cheers when he runs back in for a double clothesline of both freebirds, as I guess it just looked cool enough. The dudes go for the wipeout on Garvan. That's a double team rope-assisted back suplex, it appears. But Hayes grabs Ace's leg from outside and pulls him out of the ring, and Garvan falls on top of Douglas for the three count in the win. Garvan and Hayes celebrate outside the ring as Jung awards them the belts. Gornet complains mightily in the ring and looks like he's lecturing the dudes on their loss.
00:59:58
Speaker
The replay gives a much better angle on Hayes's interference. The replays denied in general have been very helpful in clarifying. There's occasional moments where they'll show something from the main camera angle for the match and don't quite get a good shot, but the replays they've been doing a good job of selecting an alternative angle that shows what went on a little clearer. Yeah, it's true. Thoughts on this one?
01:00:20
Speaker
I thought this is a really well-worked match for the most part. And one thing it really did, especially in contrast to some other match in the show, is it really got the crowd involved. Unfortunately, it was for the heels against the faces, but it got way more reaction than, again, that last match or even the first match got. So fair play.
01:00:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting watching them because you can tell the reaction they have on both teams to how the crowd reacts. Garvan's reaction is quite good. Hayes really plays it up as well. One thing I did appreciate, it's a little thing, but there's a brief bit where the dudes are in control with Ace. He actually does act a little heelish, wouldn't I afraid, which I think it's Hayes trying to make the tag out. He's like kicking at the hand to the other guy so we can't get the tag. That's fair. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't really thought of it that way.
01:01:09
Speaker
Countering that way, not like, you know, doing a suplex really feels like a healers thing. Hmm, okay. It's the same, we don't get more of that. This isn't like the famous Rock Hogan match from WrestleMania 18, where Rock just goes full heal for the one match, just says, screw it. You guys are going to boo me against Hogan, I'm going to be the heel then. My issue is a little bit is the finish, because I'm confused. So I got to give him a back suplex.
01:01:33
Speaker
Nia's are going to kick him off the ropes for after a leverage sort of bounce. So he has a suplex hurts him more. Right. That's the idea. Like you're sort of throwing him back more in the wrestling logic. Bouncing him off the ropes gives you more more momentum. Maybe he hits a higher speed. Exactly. Yeah. okay So I'm with you there. So when Hayes grabs the leg.
01:01:54
Speaker
Johnny Ace really should just fall back for the move like he's already doing. But instead, he twists sideways to end up on his stomach, just so the finish can happen where somehow this frees Garvan from being held. I guess I guess the one hand's not on him anymore. And he floats over and in that instantly knocks out the other guy in the match. I don't quite follow the logic.
01:02:19
Speaker
I can see it as, okay, so the idea is that it's a two man back suplex. So one man's grip is not what it would be if he was doing a back suplex on his own. They're sharing the load and therefore one of them going away suddenly changes the balance entirely.
01:02:34
Speaker
But he actively twists going down. Oh, yeah. I mean, obviously that's a weird wrestling portrayal of it necessarily. But I think like the logic of the move is the balance of the move is thrown off by the fact that one of them goes away all of a sudden and then Garvin kind of lands on top because of the twisting in momentum. And that stuns him enough to get pinned.
01:02:56
Speaker
But yeah, the actual execution of it, you you can kind of more visibly tell that there's some intentional twisting going on and all. Yeah. But I think the logic of the move anyway is that, I think. Yeah, cause I understand what they're going for. I just don't quite see like this sort of rule over counter at the suplex being all that impactful.
01:03:14
Speaker
Hmm. I still see it as like, it's similar to him hitting a splash from the ropes. Yeah, I suppose he got a, he lands pretty solidly on him. I guess what I, what I use it would pair that move too is when someone like a Scott Hall or other people that will occasionally do the usually second report top rope back suplex and the guy does the, where he sort of flips over and you know, lands on the guy. So they're following from like the second rope and you're splashing the guy. Yeah. I get why that knocks you out. I just don't think he really did all that much.
01:03:44
Speaker
Visually not much of a splash I guess is for me. I can see that I can see that I guess yeah and in terms of the storyline of the move I mean again go back to the idea of he's been bounced off the ropes so he has extra momentum Yeah, I think the storyline of the move works fine. Maybe the portrayal of it on screen is not ideal yeah Yeah, I'm trying to think of how you would do it otherwise. If you flipped it around, like if it was Hayes being given the suplex and Ace is pulled off and he can do his punch again, then splash. That makes a little more sense to me, but I totally get the idea. Like, oh, we kind of move and that threw him off when he won. But the more I thought about it, the less sense it made to me personally. Maybe maybe Ace just finally gave up. It was like, nope, the crowd hates us. I've i've given up and he just lied there.
01:04:28
Speaker
After an awkward start where Hayes and Douglas were not quite on the same page, they got the action cleaned up, and this developed into a good little match, as far as the action went anyway. The moves are fine, it's just that the crowd was absolutely not accepting the dynamic dudes, and decided to get totally behind the free words, the heels, rather than the dudes, the faces. Hayes and Garvid tried briefly to correct the course, but soon just accepted that the crowd was cheering for them, and started playing to the crowd even as they still acted like heels tactically.
01:04:55
Speaker
Now that I think about it, I see what you were saying about Ace kind of acting a little bit more heelish. I felt like they, as you I think said, didn't do as much of that as you would hope. They seemed maybe a little bit thrown by the reaction that they were getting and by and large kept working as they normally would. I don't want the faces to suddenly act entirely as heels. They're there' still faces. Of course, yeah. But they should have stopped posing for the crowd and pausing like they were going to get cheered. And I felt like they they still kept going for like The crowd's going to go yay here, right? And they didn't. Yeah. And they never quite adapted to that. So I think it shows that the free birds have an experience and an instinct for performance that the dudes hadn't really quite acquired yet. But again, action wise, the match was good. The dudes have good double teams and exciting moves. And the free birds are a solid, dependable team to work with. There's some good natural turning points. The match. The ending is fun with some chaos leading to a double team that got reversed by the free bird sneakiness, but not in quite a super healish way.
01:05:55
Speaker
It felt like they went with the crowd's preference and the characterization of the ending bed a little bit as well. I am definitely curious if any of this was changed on the fly and the ring. It kind of feels like it goes how I'd expect the freebirds versus the dudes to go. But there's definitely a point where Hayes has a bit of a long chat with Douglas. And I wonder if he was laying out at least the mood changes that they were going to incorporate, if not actual move changes. Very possible. Yeah. Yeah. Just kind of a, Hey, we're going to acknowledge that the crowd is cheering for us now.
01:06:25
Speaker
I will say if if you were going to do that, it definitely good if you're going to consult with the other team. Yes. Because if I was ace or the guy in that match, I think I'm this, you know, homecoming hero and a big booed mercilessly these guys and suddenly they're preening. Yes. Preening opposing. I'd be really.
01:06:45
Speaker
Yeah, I would not be at all surprised at that brief discussion that we saw was, hey, saying like, hey, if this continues, I'm going to start going with it. Is that OK with you and Douglas kind of going? Yeah. OK, go ahead. Yeah. It's a little funny in hindsight as well that the one person of the dudes to really really briefly do the heel thing is Ace and it's not Douglas. Yes. Who's very famous for being a very angry heel. Yes. And fading any Ric Flair dramatically.
01:07:14
Speaker
So yeah, action was fine. Booking the Dynamic Dudes experiment has clearly, completely failed and WSW needs to make a change soon. The change is ultimately going to be to pull the plug entirely rather than see if they can rework the gimmick or give these guys who do honestly work quite well together a different thing to do. I think that's a little unfortunate. It might have been really interesting in particular, not to delve too much into life fantasy booking or something, but I could see the Dynamic Dudes being a very interesting like late 90s gimmick.
01:07:45
Speaker
where their self-righteous heels who think that their faces. Yeah. So they're like wrestle dishonorably, but they're always justifying it somehow kind of play off the disingenuous faking nature of the gimmick.
01:07:58
Speaker
Yeah, the fact that they always just run down to the ring with their skateboards rather than riding them that they never quite seem in tune with the gimmick, make that the gimmick. And I think that actually genuinely could have worked. Yeah. The fact that they they just kind of break them up and don't really do anything with them going forward ah as ah as a unit is a little sad because they actually do kind of work well together. Yeah, I can see that for sure.
01:08:23
Speaker
So the next class of champions in November, the blow off to the whole who will Jim Cornette support angle comes out. The dynamic dude wrestled the Minute Express during the match. Cornette turns heel on the dudes and rejoins formally with the express.
01:08:41
Speaker
Of course, the crowd, which by the way, it's not a Philly crowd, but it's just another crowd cheers him like he's the homecoming hero for turning on the dude. So just in case there was any doubt that, oh, maybe Philly just doesn't like them. but Everyone else did. Uh, no. Yeah. Oh, well, getting more of this later, but notably the free birds would lose their titles between this show and Starrcade on tape delay. I'll get more of the details of that later.
01:09:09
Speaker
It's a weird little thing that happened quite a lot in these times where they would pre-tape shows and do all sorts of stuff that we like to do at the time. All right.
Steiner Brothers' Promo and Match Against Doom
01:09:20
Speaker
We cut back to Cruz, who is with the Steiner brothers. It's a surprise there. Much of the wrestling world thought this would be the night the Dynamic Dudes took home the gold. It was not to be, but there is who a big... Who thought that? Cornett?
01:09:36
Speaker
match the world will see doom of course the Steiner's will see them inside the ring my question to you Scott Steiner is how are you going to fight a team you have never seen before we have no strategy we have we need no strategy tonight it's total records abandoned that's when you're playing our game Because when there's no rules, no anything, you play in our ballgame, you play in our game. That's the way we like it. Yeah, you we got dude. That's a good name for those guys, dude. Because when we get double, it's going to be fish. oh are We like a good fight. Who cares what happens? Who cares what happens, man? As long as we get in, we get to fight. We get to beat up, so we just do what we got to do. Rick Steiner, many voices thinking that woman will be able to distract you and cause your defeat.
01:10:21
Speaker
No, she did it to me one time. If I get her chance to get in there, if I get her chance, I'm gonna take her and get it to her. All right, fans, back now to the ring live in Philadelphia. Uh, pretty poor Steiner's promo here overall. Scott seemed really unfocused and stumbled a lot in his promo and Rick made several very confusing statements as well. Though at least in his case, that's kind of in line with his character at this point. Yeah. I did like his line about not caring what happens as long as it gets a good fight though. It's much more of a likable, innocent warrior than his next line implying that he's going to beat up or at least do a wrestling move to a woman.
01:10:57
Speaker
Yeah, two women, not a woman. This is true. His motion implies a suplex. It's still not OK. Yeah. Your faces, ladies and gents. Yeah, it's weird. Like Scott's not too bad, honestly. He doesn't exactly say a whole lot, but at least he's fairly coherent. He does have some kind of like statements that wrap back in on themselves, though. Is that something like ah when you're playing our game, you're playing our game or something like that?
01:11:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's that's not his best work, obviously. Yeah. It's less a weird, homeless, drunk guy in the subway yelling at you than Rick is. This is true. and Actually, what he's really thinking and reminding me of is William Murderface, the bass player from Metalocalypse. You just say really crazy things. Then I could find a clip of that I can splice through our Facebook page for reference. But yeah, it's suddenly thinking of what William Murderface. It was a way weird sort of way he spoke.
01:11:53
Speaker
Yeah, it was odd. It was odd. I might defend their promo, obviously, but I feel from the sense that obviously legit, they know who they're wrestling. I'm sure they practice it. I don't know if they didn't actually house show matches before and look that up, but obviously they know the two guys are fighting. Oh, yeah. But in character, they can't go, oh, I can be this guy because he's going to do this. Yeah. They have to play at the whole mystery angle. So it's it's definitely a harder approach than to go like, you know, Ric Flair cutting the 15,000th promo on Ricky Steamboat. Yes. But the execution.
01:12:25
Speaker
There's plenty of generic ways to do it. You could do the whole, it doesn't matter what fighting is, we're the greatest tag team and we're going to beat whoever she brings out there and we're going to win the titles. You could do that and you could put your own character spin on that. You definitely don't have to sound like your mouth is the head of your brain by like three sentences.
01:12:47
Speaker
So our fifth match is the Steiner Brothers, Brick and Scott, versus Doom. That's Ron Simmons and Butch Reed, and unnamed, with Woman in a special grudge tag team match. The referee for this one is Nick Patrick.
01:13:02
Speaker
As sort of into that in the promo, women, not then known as that, known by a real name as you since rebranded herself, debuted earlier in the year. She seemed to be interested in Rick Steiner, but then turned on him, you know, tripping him and costing him a shot of the tag titles early in the year for reasons that are not quite clear to anybody really. She came in already hating the Stiners. It's not like she sported them and then, you know, they just something she didn't like. She just already hated them just from the get go.
01:13:31
Speaker
So she acted nice to them, then turned on them and then promised to bring doom to them. And this case is for two guys that are called doom. I guess it's better than if she said, i mean I'm, I'm going to bring misery to you. And then, you know, now you're called misery. There's a much code in the misery. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess you could be doing a reference to the Stephen King thing, but I'll say, unless, yeah, unless you're both dressed like Kathy Bates, then sure.
01:13:58
Speaker
Oh, my gosh, can you picture Ron Simmons and Butch Reid dressed as Kathy Vase? Yeah, I mean, that would be a weird tag team. I could see in like, wow, or whether, you know, many different names they had over the years getting to older lady wrestlers and, you know, dressing like that character and calling him Misery. Fair enough. Yeah, that that could work.
01:14:18
Speaker
The Steiner's music is seriously rockin' this time. Really rapid guitar riffs. It goes a little bit brighter a little bit into it. Kind of feels like it should be in Street Fighter 2. Yeah, yeah, I could hit. Doom also gets a really cool intro with hard rock and thick fog coming out in cool hooded cloaks and accompanied by a woman who is in a super duper sparkly black dress. They look awesome. They feel like the most Halloween thing on the show. Yes, that is true.
01:14:48
Speaker
Because they're two masked guys, their whole identity is hidden, and then they have the extra hood and the entrance is like the fog and everything. Like this is like the peak of this show past the intro of being Halloween themed. So if you're trying to tell Doom apart, because they're both masked at this point, one of them has an elbow pad, the other does not. The one with the elbow pad is Butch Reed. The one without the elbow pad is Ron Simmons.
01:15:14
Speaker
JR will call Ron Simmons Doom 2 and Butch Reed Doom 1. He will, however, switch at multiple times during the match. but Yeah. I'm going to just use the numbers because that is the characters right now. Sure.
01:15:30
Speaker
As Doom gets in, the Steiners immediately attack and the teams brawl. The Steiners hit simultaneous back suplexes and Doom rolls out, where the Steiners send them to barricades as the crowd barks for Rick. The match proper starts with Doom 2 versus Scott, with J.R. already mixed up and calling him Doom 1. Despite a cheap shot on a break, Scott lands a clothesline and knee drop for 2. Rick takes over and Steiner lines Doom 2 and a charging Doom 1, who insists on being tagged in.
01:15:57
Speaker
Rick gets two off a forearm, as JR and Caudal note that Kevin Sullivan was involved in finding doom for Woman, but then she kicks Sullivan out right after. Woman, of course, is Nancy Sullivan. Later, the commentators will call Woman a taskmaster, Kevin's nickname.
01:16:14
Speaker
yeah JR and Kottle have an odd discussion about Rick's new bulldog tattoo, with JR noting that Rick said he got the tattoo because he wanted a dog, and Kottle theorizing that it's easier to bring a tattoo with you than an actual dog, and he can just pet it by rubbing his shoulder. Some larger there? That's an opinion. Yeah. The signers generally get the best of it, earning two off a Rick Whip of Doom 2 into a Scott Second Rope diving clothesline that looks painful.
01:16:43
Speaker
Doom one eventually hits Rick with a clothesline that Jr claims knocked him 360. 180 Jr. A half circle is a 180. I don't know why this is so hard for wrestlers and commentators all the time. Do you get the way the clip from last action hero? Yes. Doom one gets two with a rope drop. That wasn't confusing to say at all. Yeah.
01:17:08
Speaker
Scott in, and he gets two counts with a front suplex and a German suplex, but Doom 2 whips him to the ropes for a Doom 1 to club him, and Doom 1 and 2 team up to wear him down, making frequent use of distractions purposeful or inadvertent, as JR and Caudal discuss the difficulty of keeping track of which Doom is which. I sympathize.
01:17:27
Speaker
Two counts off a Doom double team back elbow, Scott sunset flip with bunch from Rick, Doom 1 spinning neck breaker, Doom double team suplex, and double team stump pile driver. That last would have done it had Patrick not had to take time showing Doom 1 out of the ring. Scott kicks Doom 2 on a whip, and both make the tag.
01:17:47
Speaker
Rick runs wild with punches, a back body drop, and Steiner lines for both dooms, and Scott reenters for a Frankensteiner on Doom 2, which the camera mostly misses because it's filming Rick and he's blocking most of the view. Scott and Doom 2 end up outside, and Rick hits a scary power slam, nearly dropping Doom 1 on his head.
01:18:05
Speaker
yeah yeah Woman climbs on the apron, and Rick yells at her, but catches Doom II trying to ambush him. While he's dealing with Doom II, Woman puts something in Doom I's mask, and when Rick returns, Doom I headbutts Rick with the object for the three count and the win. The crowd boos mightily at that ending. They really love the Steiners.
01:18:27
Speaker
Doom 2 roars at the camera as we cut to a replay. And in contrast to the norm tonight, it's a drastically worse camera angle that shows nothing of what happened, cutting off both wrestlers' heads when the final move is a headbutt. It's true, yeah. It's bizarre that they even used that shot. It was terrible. so Thoughts on this one? One of the expressions I use to describe matches a lot is hard hitting. If any match really qualified for that, it is definitely this one.
01:18:57
Speaker
From the get-go, they are just throwing their bodies at each other or throwing the other person's bodies around the ring. The story of the match is pretty good, honestly. The idea is that, you know, the Steiners don't know who Doom are because they can't recognize Ron Simmons, who worked at the company before, or Butch Reed, who's wrestled all over the country for ah nearly a decade at this point.
01:19:20
Speaker
So because they don't know who these guys are and don't know what their style is or how they work, they just run in and attack them right away, hoping to beat them up real quickly and get the win. Yes. With a different team, this could look bad because the idea is, you know, you're bringing in, here's these two really real tough bad guys in Doom. And first time I see them, they're being thrown around, but it's a stinder. So I really give them a pass on that one. Fair enough. Yeah.
01:19:45
Speaker
The overall match is good. I guess that it's very hard hitting, striking, and lots of that. It's not the most exciting back and forth face and peril bits. Admittedly, you're on a show with the Minute Express, who are very good at working, as you see now, both sides of that angle.
01:20:02
Speaker
It's good, but it's it's definitely more of a classic Steiners versus big guys match. i dom And and them are multiple times over the next you know year or so. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if you can credit some of that to Doom still being relatively new to these gimmicks and figuring out exactly how they want to do the characters. Sure. So you maybe don't have as much dynamism from them as you will later get.
01:20:30
Speaker
Obviously I can't, how does this confirm this? Because it'd be hard to ask most of the people involved with this match. That said, I'm 99% sure that this match was booked and produced by Jody Hamilton, AKA assassin number one. yeah They blatantly use his whole gimmick finish of insert object and mask and hit guy with head and pin.
01:20:53
Speaker
wouldn't be surprised. and And his son refs it, so. Exactly. ah Honestly, if if if it came out that he had no involvement whatsoever, I would be extremely surprised. What I could see is if he didn't have involvement, Nick Patrick may have suggested the finish. It's very possible. Just like, oh, we've got mass guys. Here's how you guys can end it. Because my dad used to do this all the time. Yeah, very true. We're all quite enjoyable.
01:21:18
Speaker
Yeah, I would say this wasn't as big and burly and cool. It matches the later Steiner's versus doom matches, but it showed a lot of the potential in this pairing. And there were still a lot of big oomph moves. They just clearly weren't as used to fighting each other quite yet, which makes sense. It's like the first one. So this felt a little bit slow with a lot of pauses for chin lock, so they could probably plan things out. Still, it was a good fun tag match with big, heavy impacts. And Scott made a very good face in peril as usual.
01:21:45
Speaker
This stuck close to the standard tag formula, but it worked. It's just that this is the third tag match tonight and it doesn't really do much that's unique. The ending is pure early 80s throwback with the improbable object in the mask headbutt that somehow doesn't injure the person doing the headbutting. But I get that you don't want the signers to lose clean here. Still, if this was my first experience with these teams, I would definitely want to see more. ah Agreed. Yeah.
01:22:08
Speaker
One credit to this over one of the latest Steiner's doom matches at Capitol combat. This one did not start out looking like Scott could have handled the entire match on his own. That's fair. Yeah. It felt like it took both Steiner's to keep control early on. So it felt much more natural when doom took over. So while this isn't as strong as later matches overall, it did at least have a better story in that aspect. That's fair. I'm just glad that doom eventually lost the mass. So it was easier to keep track of which one was in the ring. Yeah.
01:22:37
Speaker
So at the next clash, if you clashed 9, these tyrants would fight the skyscrapers, but Doom would attack them again, thus keeping the feud going. Also worth noting that Class of Champions 9 took place on November 15th.
01:22:51
Speaker
And the match was a non-title match because officially the champions were the Freebirds. However, technically the champions were the Steiners as they won the titles on a pre-taped show that was done on November 8th. Okay. So a week earlier, they'd won the titles, but it didn't air until about a week after this Clash show.
01:23:14
Speaker
So the Freebird match is both for the title when it shouldn't be, and this match is non-title when it should be. Also notable, of course, is that as part of the Iron Man tag tournament, these two teams, which are both top tenders, would of course be in it. We cut backstage to Gordon Soli, who is with Lex Luger.
Lex Luger vs. Brian Pillman - Championship Clash
01:23:37
Speaker
be one thing and the Philadelphia Civic Center is not brimming full of brotherly love tonight as we just discovered. And in just moments from now, the total package himself puts the U.S. Heavyweight Championship on the line. You know Gordon Sully.
01:23:53
Speaker
This is the real deal, Brian Pillman. Your little exhibition skirmishes are over with. This is when you've got the butterflies deep in the pit of your stomach, when it's all on the line. Big money, big reputations, a big match for all the marbles, for all the gold. This is when you see Brian Pillman why I am the premier wrestler alive today. Why I stand above the wrestling world. The wrestling world is at my feet.
01:24:24
Speaker
I am the champion of the 90s. How many times have you been champion? Gordon Solly, I will be champion for as long as I want to be champion. Brian Pillman, that's what you find out right now. He's been champion more than once, which means he can be beat. Let's go to the ring. Another let's go to the ring. Gordon, you're too good to me. He is. Okay, Luger Promo here, despite a mid-promo verbal stumble for Arthur Marbles.
01:24:53
Speaker
but Yeah. To his credit, he just keeps moving. I'm torn on the bed at the end where Soli asked him how many times he's been champion. He says he'll be champ for as long as he wants. That's obviously not an answer to the question.
01:25:07
Speaker
Yeah, I like i like the answer as a guy playing a heel, though. But yeah, that's what why I was thinking is I i think that's been on a botch mania. Yes. But I'm not sure that it's a botch. I'm not sure if it's no Luger mishearing the question or if it's Luger just actually kind of knowing where Soli is about to go with this and not giving him the pleasure. Yeah, that's kind of what I took that one. Yeah. It's an interesting moment anyway. Yeah.
01:25:31
Speaker
But I do like that that point got made by Soli in this promo, that Luger has been a multi-time champ, and that means he has lost the title before. Everyone always talks about multi-time champs, and is like, wow, what a record. Flair's like, what, 16-time champion? Yeah. And I'm sure that that gets said in a promo later, too. We probably highlighted it at some point, but that does mean you lost the title at least 15 times. Correct, yes.
01:25:54
Speaker
It'd be much better if people regularly held up the total length of title reigns as the staff that they constantly quote, rather than the number of frames. And obviously flair is very impressive from that standpoint as well. Yeah.
01:26:07
Speaker
I liked the whole idea that Luger said he's rising above the wrestling world, but also that everyone's at his feet. Yes. That would make sense. That how works. Yeah. that That works. Yeah. Yeah. You're above then. Unless you can actually fly, in which case they'd be below. Presumably Luger hasn't grown wings yet. So yeah, they'd be at his feet then. Yeah.
01:26:28
Speaker
And he had another sassy, sassy, silly moment. Yes. Yeah. He is. He's getting bold. He's getting bold. It generally must have been that he was just afraid of Harry Funk. Yeah. He was holding some sort of sarcastic comment in for Funk and now yeah everyone else is going to pay the price.
01:26:49
Speaker
Our sixth match is the Total Package Lex Luger vs. Fly and Brian Pillman for Luger's NWA United States Heavyweight Championship. The referee for this one is Tommy Young. So Luger won the US title earlier this year from Barry Windham just before the latter's exit for the company. He would go on to be a fighting champion, but of course he's a heel, so he'd always find ways to take shortcuts, all the usual heel stuff.
01:27:13
Speaker
So it's the contrast of I'm going to fight you, but I'm also going to pull the tights or hold the ropes. so Right. Yeah. Notably, Pillman is coming in as the underdog, being a notably smaller guy than Luger, and he's sort of building up the idea that he can beat a guy Luger's size. Luger, of course, as you heard from the promo, does not believe it. Brian Pillman comes out with cheerleaders and his song 100% sounds like a Shonen anime theme song. Yeah, for sure.
01:27:41
Speaker
He's got a very silver vest with a plane and stars on it, but it's really thin fabric on that thing. I don't know why that stood out to me, but it's just like it looked a little bit weird. Luger gets really cool lighting and smoke for his entrance. JR starts going over his football history at Penn State in Miami, but gives himself a little mixed up and Cottle makes the save by taking over briefly. Good teamwork there.
01:28:05
Speaker
JR finishes up with some comments on Luger's time with the Canadian Football League. It is too bad that Ron Simmons is still masked at this point, as there's another fun tidbit about Luger's football history that might have come up otherwise. Toward the end of his football career, Luger played in the United States Football League with the Tampa Bay Bandits, the same team as Ron Simmons. Oh, interesting.
01:28:27
Speaker
JR praises Luger for holding the US title on three occasions in his three years in pro wrestling. As Soli might note, that means he's lost it twice. Yeah. JR notes that in fact, both of these guys are former football players and in fact, both played for Miami. Just that Pillman was in Miami, Ohio. Yeah.
01:28:49
Speaker
Luger overpowers Pillman early on as JR and Caudal have a cute discussion about wrestlers hitting their prime later than athletes in other sports. JR asks Caudal if that goes for announcers too, and Caudal agrees the two of them are still coming up on their prime. Luger slaps Pillman and chucks him outside, but Pillman charges back in and tackles Luger for rapid punches to a big reaction from the crowd.
01:29:11
Speaker
Pillman keeps up the quick offense with dropkicks and lands chops outside, and even lands on his feet when Luger dodges a springboard, but makes the mistake of chasing Luger around outside, which lets Luger ambush and stun him as he gets back in. Luger, of course, sells a ton of his own offense. Naturally. Pillman recovers and gets a rebound crossbody for two, then starts working Luger's arm with grounded wristlocks and armbars, fighting off brief spurts of Luger's offense.
01:29:38
Speaker
JR and Cottle note that Pillman had said his strategy was going to be keeping Luger off his feet as much as possible, which prevents Luger from using his size advantage. JR notes that Luger is not comfortable wrestling defensively, so it's a good strategy.
01:29:52
Speaker
Pillman stops one escape by landing on his feet off a hip toss and returning fire with a quick drop kick and hip toss of his own, then back to the armbar. Really super fast spot there. Luger gradually gets frustrated as JR and Cawtle note that his strike focus strategy intended to injure and slow Pillman has not worked so far. Really great commentary on this match. yeah They also highlight his expression noting that he knows he's in a real fight now.
01:30:19
Speaker
Two count off a Pillman crucifix hold. Luger gets agitated as the armwork continues, and he yells at the crowd, but the tide turns as Luger dodges a Pillman top rope splash, and Pillman eats Matt. Luger beats Pillman up, taking occasional time to yell at the fans between press drops, high-velocity clotheslines, rope drops, and a lengthy vertical suplex for two. Luger yells at Young, and Young gives a terrific, dude, that's your fault kind of expression.
01:30:49
Speaker
Young later almost gives us our title as Luger and Pillman brawl outside and he tells them, let's get in the ring. Awkward spot with Luger seemingly losing his grip on Pillman as he charges across the ring carrying him. It ends up a bit of a shin breaker, but looks unintentional. Yeah. He picks him back up and puts him up top and visibly whispers to him before Pillman counters with a top rope sunset flip for two. Pillman takes back over and hits a springboard clothesline for two as Luger just makes the ropes.
01:31:18
Speaker
Pillman stuns Luger with a neckbreaker and goes up top, but Luger dodges his dropkick at the last moment, then whips Pillman to the ropes. Pillman ducks a clothesline and goes for a body press, but Luger grabs him and stun guns him into the ropes for the three count and the win. Presumably, Pillman would later remember that move when future partner Steve Austin was trying to come up with a finisher. Yeah. Luger goes to walk up the entrance ramp with his belt, but Doug Dillinger redirects him to a different exit. Yeah, with about JR and Kottle point out that one move can make a big difference and that missed dropkick took the match away from Pillman. Thoughts on this one?
01:31:56
Speaker
That was just a very fun match. I think for me that really stood out as very competitive. Yeah. I was worried the whole strength versus speed thing could be lopsided. We see matches like that where they get really into working armholes or leg holds or, you know, head locks, chin locks, and then then wait long sections for the high flyer slash fast guy to make us come back.
01:32:19
Speaker
This didn't really do that too much. You had a little bit of work and hold, but it was mostly counter wrestling and continual motion for the most part. They kept the pace going really well, which I liked.
01:32:34
Speaker
It took about half the match before he really got Luger selling. He starts kicking and shouting at the top of his lungs. So it was worth it was worth the wait. Yes, it was. Yeah. I think it's like a knee strike that he does first and does the wool himself. And I'm like, ah, there it is. There it is. yeah good boy like he's he's got He's got to do it some way. There we go.
01:32:52
Speaker
The only negative thing for me in this match, I think, is it feels like they ran out of moves. Mm-hmm. Because at certain points, like, let's do this clothesline again, or let's do a sunset flip again, or let's try and do a dropkick spot again. Other than the one bit where Lure can't quite get him in the right spot at the right time, they still nail everything properly. they They get the timing right on leaping away out of the wave of splash and that kind of stuff.
01:33:17
Speaker
So what they do is ultimately, I think is pretty much well done. It's just at a certain point, they're repeating a lot. Yeah, to be fair to Luca also on that one spot, what he's trying to do there is really hard. Oh, sure. Yeah. He like grabs Pillman in one corner of the ring and carries him in like the inverted atomic drop position straight across the ring. Pillman just kind of like seems to slip sideways a little bit in his grip and it throws his grip off. I think that's what happens.
01:33:45
Speaker
What he's trying to do there is basically charge all the way across the ring and put him up in the other corner. That's one heck of a tough thing to do, I'm sure. Yeah. Like with the Bulldog spot, they didn't work in the six men. I'm so not underselling how hard that would be to do in real life. I feel that pick on one guy, but just to be on a match. So.
01:34:04
Speaker
I feel like maybe it's just the case of Luger not having as much move variety as the Pilma does. So when they're calling the match, you know, what do you do next? um How about this again? You know what I mean? I can see that, yeah. It's not like you're doing a repeated spot simply to counter it. Like Flair, you know, gets his, a rare case where he gets his top rope dive to work and he does it again, you counter it because you know it's coming. They don't invert the spots with the repeats. They just kind of do them again.
01:34:32
Speaker
I was wondering to myself a little bit, because actually even JR mentions, oh, it's Luger's concentrating considerably on striking here. yeah I wasn't sure if one, they might have just actually made that the match storyline that Luger's trying to injure Pillman so he's not doing wrestling moves, he's doing strikes. The other thing I could see being a consideration is them maybe be being worried because Luger I think even at this point does have a few more moves than he uses here.
01:34:55
Speaker
I could see them just thinking like, oh, we don't want him to do the really big power moves because we do want this to build up Billman. So holding Luger back just a little bit and it's not necessarily the right decision. Yeah. I could see that being the idea there. That's like we can't have Luger get something that looks like he just actually dominated. Yeah, I suppose. And some of those big power moves can take away from a small guy when you use it on a on a small guy, potentially.
01:35:22
Speaker
I mean, I will say I'm definitely glad that this didn't end with him doing the torture rack, which I don't know if that was his main thing yet, but yeah yeah, they definitely talk about him trying to build to it. So yeah. Okay. So I'm i'm glad it did it didn't end with that. I like the idea that the, to your point, the one big power move is the deciding factor in the match. Yes.
01:35:43
Speaker
I always say the high point in that for me is when Pillman goes and does the Dropkick spot, but Luger moves, but Luger still takes the back bump like he had Dropkicked. He does, yes. so i Though I did like that. Cawtle pointed out what I think it was Cawtle pointed out what you pointed out about Taker on the last show that Luger makes sure to only dodge once Pillman is already in the air.
01:36:05
Speaker
yeah Which, as you said last show, is the the way that that spot should work. You can't start to dodge when the guy hasn't jumped yet because he obviously might be able to do something then, but Pillman's already in the air doing the dropkick when Luger does his, ah admittedly, still taking a back bump out of the way of it.
01:36:22
Speaker
Yeah. It reminded me of when you play the WWE games and they get a little glitchy. Yes. You did a drop kick and I like it moved the guy off like three feet off to the right and they, but they still take a drop kick and they take the back bump, just not in front of you. And it looks really weird. Looker animation glitch. Yeah, exactly. Ultimately, I did like the match. It just, at a certain point, it feels like I was expecting more move writing. It's never quite got it.
01:36:47
Speaker
Yeah, I felt like this was a little bit of a hard one to evaluate for me, because as you said, there's not a ton of variety from Luger. Even JR points out that he doesn't do much power wrestling concert anymore on strikes. But that said, those strikes were absolutely massive, especially some high velocity clotheslines. And it let Brian Pillman show off his stuff and look much more dynamic and interesting. And clearly that's a good portion of the point of this match. Use established star Luger to build up Brian Pillman in the losing but hard fought effort where he looks like he really could have won.
01:37:17
Speaker
In that light, it is very successful. Pillman maybe works an armbar a little bit too much, though again, thanks in part to commentary, there's more point in him working the arm, as his goal is to keep the stronger Luger on the map where he can't use his strength. But aside from that, both guys had great velocity on their moves, and Pillman really got to show off with good agility, some nice move variety, and dynamic jumps and springboards. Pillman got a great little showcase match, especially some spots in the middle, like that flip out of a hip toss into a drop kick.
01:37:46
Speaker
hu The real stars of this match to me are JR and Caudal though, who absolutely nailed their commentary with detailed tactical analysis and personality discussion. They've done pretty well all show, but in this match especially, they just zoomed in and hyper focused on the details and drastically enhanced the match. Overall, I thought it was a good strong match that kept Luger strong and built up Pillman, showing why Pillman would be a major force in WCW for the next several years. Agreed.
01:38:16
Speaker
At the next flash, there will be rematch between Pillman and Luger. Unfortunately, it's less about building up Pillman for future title defenses and more about building up the match between Sting and Luger, which we have at Starrcade, because he runs in to stop Luger from being Pillman up with a chair or something like that. And of course, yeah, they would be one half of the four-man tournament there, too, being Rick, Flair, and Gunmuda, who we'll see later.
01:38:46
Speaker
We cut back to Christopher Cruise, who is with the Road Warriors and Paul Ellering, the last cloaked in shadows in the
Dominance of the Road Warriors
01:38:53
Speaker
background. Very Halloween, Paul. It's clearly unintentional. He's the lights blocked by Hawke's massive body. Oh, yeah.
01:39:03
Speaker
Thank you, Jim Ross. A big surprise. Thought Brian Pillman would finally wear the gold tonight, but apparently that is not to be. We are standing by live here in Philadelphia just minutes away from the Road Warriors skyscrapers match. Hawk, you are considered the best tag team in the history of professional wrestling, but can even the Road Warriors defeat the skyscrapers?
01:39:21
Speaker
Well, you know, we've been underdogs all our life. And there's some critics out there that think we're underdogs tonight. Well, the people out there aren't stupid. They know better. The skyscraper, hey, who builds Billy's Hall? People do. And who tears them down? People. Well, we're a couple of people. We're gonna reduce them to rubble. Snack on danger. Dine on death. Dead men don't make money. Tell them, Adam. You know, a lot of people in our sport today judge themselves on how much they can take by the hands of the road warriors, not by anybody else, fans, let's go back to the ring now. Road Warriors and skyscrapers live from Philadelphia.
01:40:14
Speaker
ah Hawk clearly had his coffee before starting this promo. Yeah, let's go with coffee. Yes. Pretty good promo here, I thought, despite Hawk kind of arguing against his own point at the beginning there. Yeah, I was really confused. Are they underdogs or not? Yeah, he's like, we've been underdogs. People say we're underdogs. We're not underdogs.
01:40:34
Speaker
We're the greatest tag team of all time. We both think of Ryder Dogs. Okay. Yeah. I do like his ah demolition analogy, though it does make me think of our favorite AWA promo a bit. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Let's swing Hammers vaguely to the background and watch his building fall, fall apart. That was us. That is, that is gold. That is still gold.
01:40:53
Speaker
Oh yeah. I'm not quite sure how his motto about snacking on danger and dining on death works into all of that, but that's the fun of a Road Warriors promo sometimes. Yeah. Animal's point about people using the Road Warriors offense to measure how much punishment they can take is a great way of building up how central they are to the tag team scene at this period, and indeed for the majority of their careers. Yeah, it's very similar to how people measure bleeding a match based on Muda. Yes.
01:41:20
Speaker
That was a terrific line from animal. They're just the we are the measuring stick, basically. Mm hmm. Yeah, they they got a little confused as to whether they were, again, the greatest tag team of all time or underdogs, but it's still the kind of promo you expect from them and quite enjoyable.
01:41:36
Speaker
It is really funny, by the way, if you want to get ever so slightly panicked, watch crews during animals portion of the promo trying desperately to stay out of the way of those shoulder spikes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. He's like leaning so uncomfortably back and kind of weaving around. It's very tense. I bet. Yeah.
01:42:00
Speaker
Our seventh match is The Skyscrapers, Dan Spivey and Sid Vicious with Teddy Long versus The Road Warriors, Hawk and Animal with Paul Ellering. The referee for this name is Nick Patrick. Early in the year, Teddy Long was a referee. As people kind of forget, he was a rep before he was a manager. However, he tended to start favoring heels in matches and making bad call so that he was fire of being referee. So naturally, if you're fired for bad conduct, they let you hang around and be a manager instead.
01:42:30
Speaker
That makes perfect sense in every business. Yeah, so he would go on to form his sort of mini stable. He had recruited Dan Spivey, Norman Lunatic, back when he was still a bad guy. Hence the giant golden key we'll see later. I was going to say, I thought that was a Norman the lunatic thing. Yeah, it's weird that he's not there. So just a gold key without context. Long would get the duo of skyscrapers together.
01:42:56
Speaker
The idea was there was a match on a pay-per-view where there's a big battle royal, whoever won would get $50,000, which if he does for inflation is a lot of money, 1989. However, he convinced the last two people on the match that being danced by Vincent Vicious, hey, you guys shouldn't fight each other, you could just split that prize and we'll be a big tag team together. Okay. So now you have these two big scary guys and obviously the other two big scary guys are the road warriors, so it's only a given that these two would face off eventually.
01:43:25
Speaker
And I think there's a storyline at this point that the skyscrapers have just not yet been pinned, right? I believe so, yes. Long wears his nice silver jacket as he leads the skyscrapers out. Some idiots in the crowd shove Vicious and Spivey, who give them looks that could kill. Long cuts a promo to the camera, but the skyscraper's 80s inspirational sports movie montage theme, a weird fit for the bad guys, is far too loud to hear him.
01:43:52
Speaker
The Road Warriors come out to Iron Man by rising out of the stage on a platform. Man, WSW went all out for the entrances tonight. They don't normally do that kind of thing during this period that I recall. I do wonder how this escaped the redubbing to avoid paying people. I don't know. It was on Starrcade 89 as well. Yeah. Hawke even says like we come out to Iron Man every night.
01:44:19
Speaker
Yeah, I have no idea how this is still the music in the Peacock version of the show. I would have thought for sure it would have been redubbed. Yeah, it's gone through two different companies checking for rights issues and not going to pay money. And that's the amount it's just made through so far. Yeah, it's crossed. Coddle says that the skyscrapers aim to be the team of the 90s, but the Road Warriors have ruled the 80s. JR credits the Road Warriors as the first wrestlers to wear face paint.
01:44:46
Speaker
that Can't be right, can it? I feel like the missing Link wore face paint before them. Unless they were so deep in kayfabe that his green face is supposed to actually be his face. Maybe, I don't know, yeah. Great Kabuki wore face paint, didn't he?
01:45:00
Speaker
Yeah, he wore a face paint and a mask. Yeah, okay. So there you go. for Probably. We get some great shots of hawk and animal having to look up at the skyscrapers. And JR notes that the road warriors are very tall. So that should tell you just how tall the skyscrapers are. The camera shows a fan wearing a hawk mask in the crowd. And caudal wonders if it's Halloween already.
01:45:24
Speaker
I mean, that that is kind of the point of the show, Coddle. Yeah, right. JR somehow thought that that was a great mood, a mask. Yeah, I was like, wait, what? It was clearly Hawk. No question. Yeah, right.
01:45:39
Speaker
Animal versus Spivey to start. We get a bit of awkwardness at a couple points with Spivey not going over the ropes properly off an animal clothesline and Vicious awkwardly swinging way too high on a clothesline at Hawk and Hawk running into him. But the theme starting out is Animal and Hawk repeatedly trying to knock a skyscraper down only for the skyscraper to resist until they put some real extra oomph into it. Caudal notes that might do some real psychological damage to the Road Warriors as their power just is not as effective here.
01:46:09
Speaker
Long gives Vicious advice holding the giant gold key. Hawk faces Vicious in a test of strength. Vicious forces him down, but he fights back and Monkey flips Vicious. The two teams trade off until Vicious counters out of a Hawk head scissors hold with a kip up, clotheslines him, and hits an airplane spin.
01:46:28
Speaker
That was good. hu Let it not be said that I can't praise Sid Vicious when he deserves it. There you go. JR jokes that they could give him frequent flyer miles and he still wouldn't take that flight. Spivey in for two off a sidewalk slam, and he and Vicious wear Hawk Down, including a cool low angle Spivey drop kick to knock Hawk outside, a Spivey vertical suplex for two, a double team clothesline knee strike, and more.
01:46:53
Speaker
In a front face lock, Hawk carries Vicious to his corner and tags Animal, but a distracted Patrick doesn't see it and forces Animal out. Fortunately, Hawk soon gets a boot up on a Spivey charge and clotheslines him flat, then tags Animal for real. Animal hits a monster drop kick and a flying shoulder block to Spivey, and Vicious comes in. Animal gives him a, what, you want some too? Kind of gesture, and they trade blows.
01:47:20
Speaker
Hawk comes in to stop Spivey from interfering, but Spivey beats him up in the corner. Animal power slams Vicious, but Patrick is distracted trying to break up Hawk and Spivey. Spivey stuns Hawk. Animal pounds Vicious's face on the mat. Long comes in to try to interfere, but Ellering grabs him, so Long clocks Ellering with the key and throws it to Spivey, who clocks Hawk with it right in front of Patrick, so Patrick rings the bell, disqualifying the skyscrapers.
01:47:48
Speaker
Spivey flings Hawk outside and bonks Animal with the key and they beat up Animal, but Hawk returns via a top rope clothesline that Kevin Sullivan fears. Hawk gets the key and clubs Vicious and Spivey running them off. Having lost by DQ, the skyscrapers have still never been pinned.
01:48:07
Speaker
The replay is a great shot of Hawk doing his diving clothesline, but it also reveals this might be visibly through the key instead of just dropping it, which is pretty funny. It looks like when you um get attacked at the campfire in Golden Axe, the little gnome thing steals your potions. Oh yeah. And you like smack them and it goes flying high up in the air. Yeah, right. I can see that. Thoughts on this one?
01:48:29
Speaker
Well, like the previous tag match we had with the Doom in this Diner is this is also very hard hitting. Yes, it is. There's teams that, for better or worse, only know how to hit you really, really hard. You hear that with like, Nick Foley talking about he wrestled the British Bulldogs and he was a jobber before he became a star and they just beat the crap out of him.
01:48:51
Speaker
In this case, though, it's not quite the same because it definitely feels like it could be wrong when it feels like with both teams, they really want the other one to hit them hard because it's like a we're big macho guys. I can take it and take it or you just have kind of thing. Yeah. So it's less them taking liberties with the other team as much as we're all this is what we're doing. We're just going to hit each other really hard and everyone's going to react to it as long as they actually can take it. It benefits the skyscrapers for the road warriors to go all out against them because it makes the skyscrapers look really, really tough.
01:49:21
Speaker
to take the road warrior's offense and be able to, you know, shrug it off as often as they do. And one thing, even if, you know, Dan Bobby wasn't thrilled about taking, you know, several hard clothes lines, there's sort of this mindset when you're a guy like his size in a wrestling club like this, like you're you're not going to complain. You're going to go. Right. And know some would be worse for you to complain about being too hard. This is this is fair. Yeah.
01:49:44
Speaker
Thinking of which, there are a lot of clotheslines in this match. This is true. I lost count of how many there were. But yeah, if you love clothesline, this is an amazing match. This is a true five-star classic. As far as the action goes, there were neat little glimpses of really interesting stuff. Like you highlighted with Sid Vicious doing the kip-up and his airplane spin. But ultimately, there's not too much variety. You're still clothesline, you know, body slam, like literally throwing your body at the guy.
01:50:13
Speaker
It definitely delivers from what you expect, but if you're looking for any extra sort of nuance, it's really not going to be there. As I say, it's exactly what you expect and nothing more. I totally understand this simply why it would be terrifying for me to watch and terrifying when it evolved, but I was hoping they would at least tease the doomsday device. I can't picture how they would doomsday device, you know, Sid Vicious, for instance. Oh my gosh. Yeah. But the fact that they don't even tease it is the point of like,
01:50:41
Speaker
Like going to pick them up and like spider runs and hits them. Like you could, you get you didn't really sell. Like this move is legitimately super scary and dangerous can take you out. So if you just start setting up and you immediately the attack and to break it up before you get a chance to do it, I think that would really sell that move to everyone else.
01:50:59
Speaker
The one thing I could see on it, and I haven't seen the rest of this view quite, but yeah obviously we know it goes some weird places because of personnel changes and stuff. What I could see is if you tease the Doomsday Device now, the crowd is going to want to see the Doomsday Device later. So if you legit feel like it's not safe to do the Doomsday Device to these guys, then you might just not try and set it up at all.
01:51:26
Speaker
I get it. At the same time, if you don't even try it, it stands out. It does. It does. Yeah, I agree. Uh, that's for the finish. Oh, what a bummer. Yes. Sorry. I don't have the voice to do that animal tonight, or I would. I mean, I get it, but still. Eh, boo.
01:51:44
Speaker
Except for the DQ finish, I thought this was really fun. There's big, hard-hitting moves, beefy collisions. It does get a little repetitive with repeated shoulder blocks and closed lines that can't move the skyscrapers, but with the Road Warriors doing those spots, they do feel like big notable moments, so that's forgivable. I generally enjoy Spivey, and he had some good Anderson-like tag moments, like getting knocked down and grabbing to prevent a tag, plus some excellent expressions.
01:52:10
Speaker
Uh, there's one bit where one of the road warriors is holding his arm for another one to hit. He just gives this like, oh crap, no kind of expression. It's great. Yeah. Vicious surprised me with some really good moves in this match, like his kip up an airplane spin. I don't normally have so much fun watching him, but he was really good here.
01:52:29
Speaker
My only complaint, like you, really is the DQ ending. Not so much because it's a DQ in my case, I get why you'd want to avoid a definitive ending here, but because of how just perfunctory it is. Yeah. It makes no sense for the skyscrapers to want a DQ there. Yeah. Vicious has already avoided being pinned, thanks to the ref's distraction just fine, and Spivey has Hawk stunned, so he could easily go over an attack animal and continue the match.
01:52:54
Speaker
It doesn't feel like the heals are necessarily faltering to the extent that they would feel like they needed to stop the match. It felt like they could totally still win legit or mostly legit if they kept going. There's just very little justification for them going for the DQ at that point.
01:53:09
Speaker
And I get that their heels, the entire thing with heels, they don't need much justification to do this. But in the conceit of wrestling, you get paid more for winning the match. The pay window. Yeah. And therefore, in theory, the character wants to win the match until he feels like, oh, I can't let's lose it in the least bad way possible. Yeah.
01:53:33
Speaker
So so it doesn't feel like in the story of this match that they should have made that transition yet. It doesn't feel like they gave them enough of a justification for wanting to end it there. I could see. I mean, the cliche one is, of course, they both find the outside and no one can get in. Yes. You could do that if you want to be a little more creative and sort of give new edge to the skyscrapers and but also maybe a little bit of characterization to the road warriors instead of the interference spot with Long and their manager involving just the key being thrown and then going right into Q. Maybe L-ring is knocked down and Spivey goes to beat him up on the outside and Hawk or Animal or both even stop fighting enough to go check on him and they're counted out. That way, maybe there's more concern about him. Something else you could do besides just, oh, ending spot, throw key, immediately swing and get disqualified, yeah.
01:54:24
Speaker
Yeah, it feels like the match just ends because it's time to end, basically, rather than for a storyline reason. Absolutely. Overall, though, this was good fun. Unfortunately, as I'm sure you'll probably get to, we know that this feud will not really get a solid ending thanks to multiple personnel changes that mean it ends with the Road Warriors facing two completely different wrestlers. Oh, I'll get to that. Yeah. But as with the Steiner's versus Doom match before, this really shows the potential that this feud could have had if they managed to keep the original skyscrapers in it fully. Absolutely. Yeah. So in a perfect world, these two teams will be the other half of the Iron Man tag team tournament to declare who is the greatest tag team, I believe to say in the universe on that show. Correct. Doesn't that they say that might be the next year's one, but it's hard to hurt for me to remember because they both were massive tag tournaments.
01:55:13
Speaker
I definitely call making a He-Man joke at one of the shows. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Unfortunately, life doesn't always work out how you plan. I've been with that down. That's a really deep saying. I just said, yeah. Yeah. and So what happens is at clash nine, there's another angle with the skyscrapers fighting again. Unfortunately during that fight, s Sid legit gets hit really hard in the side and punctures one of his lungs, which is very serious. ah That leads to the very late replacement of the skyscrapers with the aforementioned Samoan SWAT team. yeah Oh man. My sympathies to to sit there that having at one point had a collapsed lung. Oh yeah. That's right. Which is unbelievably painful. I bet. I imagine that's even worse. So yeah. Oh, can't even imagine what you went through in that.
01:56:03
Speaker
ah Notably, there would be an official rematch between these two teams. That would happen at the next Clash, after that would be Clash 10, which takes place in February. Unfortunately, Sid Vicious had not actually recovered yet, so what they did was they put Mean Mark Callus in his spot, so it's Spivey and Callus against the World Warriors instead.
01:56:25
Speaker
Sadly, this match is a great tease for what we could have gone and maybe we we got some of them on the house so circuit if you were lucky enough to be in the area at the right time between this show and that clash. But it was great. What if it's like what if they had a longer series? Yeah, definitely. We cut backstage to Cruz, who is with Sting, Flair and their designated terminator, Ollie Anderson. Well, if Ollie is a terminator, he shouldn't have had much trouble facing Robocop. That's true.
Thunderdome Match - Flair and Sting vs. Funk and Muda
01:56:54
Speaker
Sting's face paint is every possible color. Yes. It's like he fell face first into a box of Milton Crayola. Thank you, Jim Ross. That is not the last we will see of the Road Warriors, Dan Spivey and Sid Vicious. Well, what can you say? We are ready for that big Thunderdome match. Ole Anderson, my question for you, at what point will you throw in the towel? You see this towel wrapped around my arm about 10 times. yeah cruz You better get ready, Gary Hart. This towel is gonna be like glue on my right arm. When I get out there, the only thing I'm gonna be doing is watching Sting and Flair knock the crap out of Mr. Muda and Terry Funk. Get ready because your towel is gonna be dropped in that ring, I guarantee. Rick Flair, are you willing to risk your future in professional action? I'm amazed. Throw the towel in. Here's how it goes. This is the Thunderdome.
01:57:48
Speaker
This is the is the National Wrestling Alliance and Sting and Ric Flair stand for a cause tonight. And the cause is the end of Terry Funk and the Great Muda. Electified, yes, 10,000 people, yes, nationwide, yes, tonight, Funk and Muda.
01:58:12
Speaker
Whoo! Pay their dues, right, Steve? It's Halloween! And guess what? It's gonna be full of hammock. It's gonna be different because we're talking something different than a regular wrestling match, and I love to be different. You know that. Halloween hammock and electricity. It's just seconds away now, Nature Boy. Whoo! All right, fans, here we are. Let you know now live in Philadelphia.
01:58:37
Speaker
Three pretty fun promos here, even if poor Cruz basically got ignored by Flair entirely there. yeah Which is a bit of a shame, as this question actually was a good one. yeah It's all well and good for Oli to say he's never gonna throw in the towel, but is Flair okay with potentially ending his career as a result? Unexplored angle aside, Oli, Flair, and Sting are a ton of fun as usual. It's funny how dynamically Sting can effectively say nothing, though.
01:59:02
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. He basically just says the name of the show and that he's in a match, giving no further revelations, but he does it in such a fun and energetic way. Also quite fun. Flare quite notably rounding out the number of fans in attendance, claiming it's 2,700 higher than it actually is.
01:59:19
Speaker
I will say this promo is very good for testing your speakers because flare goes from like 20 to 70 and like half a second. Yes, yes, he does. It reminds me of like in the early days of like DVDs when they were like really pushing THX sound, like we're mastering your sound to get bigger, more dynamic sound. And there's a little thing you could run your DVD where it would test your speakers like and play like soundtrack stuff.
01:59:44
Speaker
The escalation, like the sudden sharp escalation in volume. This is promo. Yeah. Yeah. It is funny that it took to the very last promo segment of the night for someone to say Halloween havoc in a sentence other than literally saying the name of the show. Trusting to be the one that does that, right? Exactly. Yeah.
02:00:04
Speaker
It felt like, like, okay, we have, you know, 90 seconds for a promo, Oli, Flair, and Sting to what they're going to say. And if Chris Drew hasn't talked fast enough, it doesn't matter. Yeah. I think when you're on there with those three guys, if you don't get it out fast, you're going to get overrun because they have such strong personalities and such shouty personalities, so especially Flair and Sting, that, um, it's easy to be overwhelmed by it. Yeah, for sure.
02:00:34
Speaker
So our final match is The Nature Boy, Ric Flair, and Sting, with designated terminator The Rock Ollie Anderson, versus Terry Funk and The Great Muda, with designated terminator Gary Hart, in a Thunderdome match. The referee is The Living Legend of Professional Wrestling, Bruno Sammartino, on the inside, with Tommy Young on the outside.
02:00:57
Speaker
So, Ric Flair has a face. It just feels so weird, right? It does. It's not even just face in Philly, it's legit playing a face. He become a full on face when there would be no Horsemen due to the exit of Tully and Arne, the WWF, which would end pretty quickly yeah oh right after this point. They come around very quickly back.
02:01:18
Speaker
So Gary Howard formed the Jay Techs Corporation, which is ah also a wrestling staple. You know, it's also a publicly traded company, which is a little confusing. The group included Dick s Slater, Terry Funk, and Chris Creighton-Nuda. Surprisingly, given their even this point short, but very generic history, Sting would join Flair's side. He sees Ric Flair in trouble when he's Sting, so he helps anybody. Beautiful, stupid Sting. He trusts everyone, no matter what logic should dictate.
02:01:48
Speaker
But notably the two would become friends and allies, or it's not just, I'm aligned to get to them to help you. I've like, they legitimately are a unit, which is nice to see. Yeah. They legit feel like they've healed their relationship. Yeah. I do have an issue with the Thunderdome match because my understanding of Thunderdomes is two men enter, one man leaves. How is that going to work with four people? ah Six people, technically. Yeah. Yeah. Six for the termators. I mean, seven, if you count Bruno San Martino. That's true.
02:02:17
Speaker
The ending is going to be more dynamic. Throws the Thunderdome math to clean off. yeah Yeah. I mean, it's true. Apparently like six of these people are going to have to spontaneously combust. Yeah.
02:02:30
Speaker
And obviously, this is also following from Wrestle War 89, where following the match between Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat at Wrestle War 89, Terry Funk lost his dang mind and beat the ever-loving crap out of Ric Flair after Flair refused to give him a title match. One of the coolest segments that we've seen still. Oh, yeah. That was amazing.
02:02:49
Speaker
There's also a segment that happened at the previous Clash, there'll be Clash 8, that was recently referenced to varying responses online, where, as part of a tag match for Dick s Slater and Muda because Funk was officially injured, but obviously he's recovered for this match now, the ending would involve Terry Funk putting Flair's head in a plastic bag trying to suffocate him. Oh, okay, yeah. Yeah, so pretty pretty heated exchange between the four people involved. Yes.
02:03:17
Speaker
As a refresher, the Thunderdome match is a tag match in a big cage that covers the ring and ringside with a top that bends inward. I'm fairly certain that this is the same cage from Capital Combat. Yeah. It looks very similar to it anyway. Mm-hmm. It isn't much of a dome, mind. More of a box. But Thunderbox would not have been a Mad Max reference, so there you go. Yeah, it's true. Thunder is at least slightly more applicable as the cage is electrified.
02:03:47
Speaker
It is no disqualification and the wrestlers fight until one of their designated terminators throws in their towel to surrender on behalf of his team. Sam Martino is introduced first. Muda is next in red and black ninja gear accompanied by Heart and a bodyguard who seems to be dressed like Abjab. Next up, Terry Funk with the most western soundtrack piece you will ever hear. Sting is next, sadly pre Man Called Sting song.
02:04:13
Speaker
He is very, very colorful despite not bringing a sparkly jacket. Goodness that face paint. I had forgotten, by the way, that this was the era where Flair had fanfare for the common man before also Sprock Zarathustra. Oh yeah. He comes out in a sparkly blue robe and JR manages to call him all business regardless because he doesn't have ladies with him. Yeah.
02:04:37
Speaker
I love that that is what Jr pictures as all business for Ric Flair coming out in a shiny sparkly blue robe. Right? Yeah. We get scary heartbeat, breathing, growling, and siren noises coming over the loudspeaker as the massive cage lowers. As it lowers, Caudal and JR note that a normal person would throw in the towel for their team if they were getting beaten up because of human compassion, but the team terminators are of heart and only, so probably not happening. No.
02:05:09
Speaker
Sparks shoot out from the top of the cage as it gets down towards the bottom, and we see that the top is covered with spooky Halloween decor like gargoyles, spiderwebs, and grave cloth. It reaches the ground and Terry Funk decides to climb up it a bit, and then does the splits to the ropes because Funk is Funk. Yeah. JR hopefully notes that the wiring for the electrified portion is higher up.
02:05:30
Speaker
Suddenly, we pan up to outside referee Tama Young and a member of the ring crew who are trying to put out some of the Halloween decorations on the cage, which were lit ablaze, probably by the sparks that some genius decided it would be a good idea to have shoot out of a cage draped in flammable material. What are we talking about? They get it under control, but Muda makes extra sure by climbing the cage and spraying mist on the smoldering decorations to put it out for good.
02:05:54
Speaker
Absolutely awesome. Oh, yeah. I've remembered two things from this show over the years before we watched it again. One was my disappointment with Z-Man. Yeah. And the other was Great Buddha's firefighting technique.
02:06:08
Speaker
Flare takes a swipe at Muda, but we start with Funk and Flare because this is apparently using normal tag rules for some reason. Admittedly, this match has a better reason for people to follow normal tag rules than most no DQ matches, as if you don't, Sam or Tina will just put you in a hold and break something.
02:06:24
Speaker
Speaking of no DQ, Flair nicely demonstrates that element by chucking Funk out over the top rope. Flair and Sting trade off against Funk, then against Muda, as JR gets a cheap shot at the ww WWF by saying that Sting's former Blade Runner's partner hasn't had Sting's success. For the record, that partner, the Ultimate Warrior, was currently the ww WWF Intercontinental Champion and well on his way to facing Hogan for the world title at WrestleMania VI, so that's not quite accurate. Though I do agree that Sting is way better.
02:06:53
Speaker
Hey look Bob, if WCP got a chance to put a Hogan and Warrior together, they make a much better match than Hogan Warrior WrestleMania. Guaranteed. ah Yeah, I was thinking it it is hilarious that on the series that Hogan Warrior 2 eventually is on, on the very first show JR is referencing the Ultimate Warrior. Yep. It's like they knew.
02:07:14
Speaker
We gradually lose the tag rules as the two teams start to battle more simultaneously, and the cage gets more and more involved until Sting goes for the Scorpion Deathlock on Muda despite having tagged out to Flair. Funk saves before he can get the hold locked in and everybody brawls, with Flair vs. Funk and Sting vs. Muda out by the cage. Muda is the first to try to climb, pursued by Sting, and Muda climbs too high and gets an electric shock to his hand.
02:07:39
Speaker
Coddle notes that he's not sure why Muda is even climbing, which is a very good point, though maybe not one Coddle should make, given his job is to promote the match, not give reasonable critiques. Yeah. Flair and Funk climb too, ending up super high and not electrocuted as we're just kind of ignoring the part of the match concept from now on. Apparently so. We get an absolutely horrid camera angle blocked by a gargoyle decoration, and Flair swings at Funk on a rope.
02:08:03
Speaker
we get a charming shot of Funk dangling from the cage with Snot dripping from his nose. You shoot that right WCW? It's Z-Man all over again. Yep. They trade partners and Sting fights Funk on the cage as Flare puts the figure four on Muda. Sting awesomely swings on the rope to kick Funk, but Flare's body is blocking most of the shot. Snot yes, awesome rope swings no, apparently. Yeah.
02:08:31
Speaker
A second swing earns a better view, as Flair lets go of the figure four for no apparent reason. Maybe he wanted to go watch Sting be awesome. Muda kicks him hard in the head, as Funk dodges another swinging kick, and ties Sting's leg to the cage with the rope. Muda puts Flair in that cool deathlock-chinlock combo that Ultimo Dragon uses, and Funk comes in to double team Flair, as Oli goes to help Sting.
02:08:57
Speaker
After a while, Oldy gets Sting free, and Sting saves Flair with an amazing diving splash from high on the cage to Funk in the ring, then beats the crap out of Muda, who flees outside and climbs, as JR says there is actually just one wire that's electrified. See, it makes total sense. Stop asking questions. Yeah, right? Sting chases Muda as Flair works on Funk's leg. Muda gets the better of Sting with kicks and a backbreaker back in the ring, but Sting shakes the ropes when he goes up top and he crotches himself. Flair puts the figure four on Funk.
02:09:28
Speaker
Sting goes up top and hits a top rope diving splash to funk in the figure four, then does it again because why not? Yeah. Flare, as a nice touch, clearly lifts his leg out of the way of the falling Sting then locks the hold back in. Mm-hmm.
02:09:42
Speaker
Muda climbs in and grabs Sammartino, who decks him. Hart tries to interfere, but Oli gets in and decks him, and Hart loses his grip on his towel, which falls into the ring. Oli points out the towel, and Sammartino accepts that it was definitely Hart intentionally throwing the towel in, declaring Sting and Flare the victors.
02:10:01
Speaker
Ole nicely shakes San Martino's hand, very polite of him. Ole has some Halloween decorations caught on his shoe. You can see it when he's climbing out of the ring, there's like a strand hanging from his shoe. It's very funny. Oh, gotcha. I don't know how he got it on there. He wasn't doing, I guess he does climb a little bit when he's helping Sting. Yeah, I guess where, yeah. Flair and Sting exit as Funk throws a fit, throwing chairs into the ring.
02:10:27
Speaker
Coddle says that he doesn't think this is the end between Flair and Funk. Something big will have to happen for this tremendous hatred between them to end. Considering Funk is a commentator at Stargate 89, maybe that something big was Funk deciding to take up broadcasting. yeah Thoughts on this one?
02:10:43
Speaker
It's an interesting match because they're trying a lot of new stuff all at once. Obviously cage matches aren't new, but I feel like having four people in a cage, like in a tag team format, I don't think this is the first time, but it's definitely not a common thing. Yeah. We definitely saw a Anderson's versus rock and roll express one that was in a cage, but it was obviously like the normal cage, not this cage. Yeah.
02:11:07
Speaker
And I would say war games don't really count because it's a whole other thing entirely. Yeah. That's a separate concept. Exactly. Yeah. On top of that, they're trying all this other stuff like, Oh, what if this parts electrified? What if there's the rope you can swing on? What if you could, isn't that this match looks amazing on paper? Cause you have four really talented people. No question. And you have interesting structure. You have this big cage and all this stuff on it.
02:11:33
Speaker
For me, it gets kind of hard to follow the middle part where they're just kind of trying stuff. Yes. Where it's like, let's climb the cage and walk around on the outside for a while. And then the other one goes, why? like There's no escape from this cage. It's not like the heel thing where you're trying to get away and they got to pull them back. It's generally baffling in character why what they're doing half of what they're doing.
02:11:56
Speaker
Now from their point of view, they're like, Oh, this is fun. Let's climb this cage. And I think people made this point about other cage matches. I think actually one we'll see later in the series, if my memory is correct. Yes. Where I think the case someone makes is that, look, if you're up there climbing a cage, it's really exciting.
02:12:12
Speaker
Yeah, your heart is racing. You are super high off the ground. Yeah. Yeah. So you're really excited. And you're thinking everyone's gonna feel the same way I do, but, um, not, not really most of the time. There's obviously some tension there where someone's hanging, you're like, what's going to happen? But yeah, it's the whole bit of part where there's kind of trying stuff.
02:12:29
Speaker
They get to a good point with the rope swing, for sure, but a lot of it is just kind of time wasting, it feels like. You and me, let's find the ring for a while while they do that stuff. Oh, out now it's our turn. We'll go out there and you'll swing around a bit.
02:12:44
Speaker
I think there's a lot of good ideas here. I just think if we had like a previous class, a champion show, maybe not the one right before this, it would kind of kill this gimmick if you got to see it in TBS and then pay to see it, you know, three weeks later. But find a way to test this match out before just doing it live. Do a rough version of this match at like a local house show, so you're not really transforming the cage around that much. So you can kind of try it and then go, hmm, this climbing bit didn't work. Let's not do this on pay-per-view.
02:13:14
Speaker
So instead we're really seeing the first draft of this match. Exactly. Blimishes and all. That said, I did like the rope swinging part. Everyone involved is really good. The finish where they're beating up Terry Funk is good. The way they did the ending is really kind of odd. The faces accidentally cheat to win.
02:13:38
Speaker
accidentally on purpose I would say like Oli's part there is clearly on purpose at least the pointing it out. Oh, yeah Yeah, but I mean it is Oli so he's one of those guys that even when he's kind of a face is never really a face There's a weird sort of serendipity to the whole thing as well because Oli hits heart and he throws his towel up in the air and it just lands on Bruno's shoulder like super cleanly and And he goes, Oh, what's that? Like it doesn't land next to him. It doesn't land like awkwardly on his arm or land right on your shoulder. It's amazing. That's hilarious. The only thing I could really critique is that the timing with Muda and Sam Martino, where he's supposed to like dodge the chop and hit him, he's a little off.
02:14:20
Speaker
Given that San Martino, and given that you're not going to have a match between these two, I would have said San Martino would like take a straight chop and no sell it. Just just because it's one and then hit him. Yeah. Yeah. Because dodging and timing with those two um we are completely different wavelengths. It still worked, but I think it'd been better if he just took a hit and then knocked him down instead.
02:14:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think you nailed it with your description. This was a good first draft of what could be an excellent match, but it didn't quite reach the heights that I really wanted it to reach. There's absolutely no problem with the guys involved. Of course, Flair, Sting, Buddha, and Funk are all great, and all of them know very well how to work with each other. They're quite smooth. The problem is the match plot, which needs a bunch of polishing.
02:15:05
Speaker
After a solid normal tag intro, the match devolves into a lot of disorganized cage-assisted brawling and climbing, and not much of it really makes any kind of sense. We said this in the Luger Flare match at Capital Combat, and it applies here too. There is no reason to climb the cage. It gets you nothing tactically, it's not part of any wind condition, and the cage is constructed to be hard if not impossible to escape that way.
02:15:28
Speaker
Heck, it's even worse in this case because the cage is allegedly electrified, though that comes up precisely once in the entire match. now Some thunderdome. As much as I don't like the WWF version of cage matches where the goal is escape, that's the only type of cage match where the brawling on the cage gets you anything in terms of drama for the crowd.
02:15:51
Speaker
because it actually is connected to the wind condition that if two guys are fighting near the top of the cage and one of them gets knocked down, the other one might win. So the crowd can actually get into that spot then. So as much as I don't like that version of cage matches, that's a compliment. I will give those as that is where that type of spot actually matters. so Yeah, see, as we discussed before, multiple times is outside of this, I fully get your point when it's escape, because it doesn't really make sense for a face to want to just run away from the bad guy. Yes. Which is why I like the ones where escape is an option, where it's pinfall submission or escape. Yeah. So therefore you have the good guy going to beat the crap out of the bad guy, and that guy just trying to get away. That's the twist I like on that. Yeah.
02:16:34
Speaker
Eventually things do turn around again and the end of the match is back to the kind of polished performances and cool concepts you expect from a match with these guys. Sting's rope swings, Flair's usual working of the leg, Funk tying Sting to the cage, Sting's epic dive, the cool double team splash in figure four. All of those are terrific and they're bound together by great emotional combat between the teams.
02:16:55
Speaker
For the finish, they painted themselves into a little bit of a corner with the two terminators who both have a reputation for not giving a crap about people. So one of them knocking the others' towel free was probably the only way this could have ended. I do like that Hart is coming in to interfere, giving only some more heroic justification for attacking him to suit his and Flair's current alignment. yeah Admittedly, claiming the guy threw in the towel when he very much didn't isn't very heroic, but there's only so much heroism that you can expect from the four horsemen.
02:17:25
Speaker
I thought they they started to set up an idea which didn't pay off, where they say, you know, Hart's meal ticket is these guys. So maybe he'll throw in the towel if they're too injured. To be really specific on it, interestingly, though, they say Muda is his meal ticket. True. And Muda is not the one in danger at the end there. So I could see them having done that. and And it would have been actually maybe an interesting angle if they had him definitely not even consider doing it when it's Terry Funk in trouble, but eventually they endanger Muda. Yeah. And so he throws in the towel on behalf of Muda and folks like, dude, but what's that about? Yeah, right.
02:18:01
Speaker
They kind of wrote themselves a little bit into a corner on on it, and this was the best way out of their ah their writing there. They do build off of this, so whether it's the best either or not, they do at least follow up on it. Okay, that's good. Probably this would have been a little bit better if it had regular pinfall or submission rules, but it didn't, so they did what they could.
02:18:20
Speaker
Mm hmm. Overall, I would call this a fun watch.
Event Critiques and Improvements
02:18:23
Speaker
It's just a little bit slow and disorganized in the middle. I'm glad they tried it. But like you, I kind of wish they'd had the opportunity to polish it up a little bit more first. Agreed. I don't think they really do. But if they did this match again in future years, I bet it would be a significantly improved version of it. Like you have before, I'm pretty sure they reuse this cage and ninety one all in Oh, and Havoc for a very different match. That's not what Thunderdome. It's just a big cage.
02:18:50
Speaker
So due to the murky nature of the finish, we would have a rematch routine, Frick Flair and Terry Funk at the next clash in November 15th. Cause obviously Funk can make the claim, I didn't give up, I shouldn't have lost. So that leads to an, I quit match between the two. Okay. Ultimately, Funk does in fact quit and give up, which leads to him being beaten up and attacked by his own teammates. Cause you know, wear heels and you're weak now. So of course, you know, you're not part of the group anymore. That would lead to the.
02:19:19
Speaker
weird dichotomy of really genteel calm Terry Funk calling the singles matches with JR as part of Starrcade. I remember that being such a wonderfully jarring transition between Wrestle War 89 and Wrestle War 90 as well where obviously it's been a full year in that case so you expect some stuff to change but it was just so funny that First of War 89 had this like psychotic attack by Terry Funk on Ric Flair. And then the next thing we see from Terry Funk on that series is fun, loving, jokey announcer, Terry Funk. Yeah. Working alongside JR. We're like, JR, hide, run. This man is not well. Yeah. So of course, as you know, before the Iron Man, single sermon take place to start at Stark 89, involving Flair, Sting, Nuda, and Luger, we saw earlier.
02:20:10
Speaker
This is notably the last big match for Referee Tommy Young. Oh, is this one okay? Basically what happens is there's a singles match involving our boy Tommy Rich. Weirdly throughout the match, this isn't part of the story. The lights go out, or like most lights go out, like virtual lighting is the only thing left on. During their match was this really weird thing happening in the studio, I guess.
02:20:31
Speaker
So there's parts of his ability, I'm saying this support for context, and they're doing a spot where the ref is trying to break up them fighting. So Tommy Ridge shoves the referee off and unfortunately he hit his head on the ropes going down. Ooh.
02:20:47
Speaker
Again, I think it's a combination of with low visibility, you know, he shoved him, I guess it was too hard or he he couldn't watch his fall very well. So you just neck. Unfortunately, he would come back and referee a handful of matches over the years. But this is his last paper view because that happens in mid-November. I think it's post-clash. So that's why he's not reffing a Starrcade 1989. Gotcha. Do the intro of our show. We'll see him in other shows that take place before this. But quite a lot of this is the last paper view he is a ref on. OK.
02:21:17
Speaker
It's here's a good ref just helping us tell the story of the match, largely staying out of the way by having good expressiveness when he needs to. Yeah. Like the bit I pointed out earlier tonight with him kind of gesturing at Luger, like if you're mad about him kicking out, that's your fault, not mine. Exactly. Yeah. He he did a good job of being part of match stories without ever overwhelming them agreed, which is nice. Yeah.
02:21:41
Speaker
We cut back to JR and Bob Caudill, who discussed the night's matches, particularly focusing on Pillman versus Luger and the Road Warriors versus the Skyscrapers. JR notes that the Skyscrapers have not yet been pinned, though the Road Warriors got a no disqualification victory. Whoops. That's the opposite of what they got. Yes. JR advertises the hotline, but the number is actually silenced on the Peacock version. Oh. I wonder if it wasn't the normal number, because they normally just play that. It must be, yeah.
02:22:12
Speaker
JR and Connell advertise Starrcade 89, thank the fans, and give a little discussion of the situation with Cornette and the Express and the Dudes. We get the credits with a spooky moon and forest, and Halloween Havoc 1989 is done.
Overall Event Analysis and Conclusion
02:22:27
Speaker
So overall thoughts on Halloween Havoc 1989?
02:22:30
Speaker
It's not the most holiday themed show like you would hope would be. It's got a fine opening. And like I said, doom, I think really fits the bill. But yeah, there's a real lack of Halloween theme on it. That said, most of the matches are quite good. There are some lower points, as mentioned the Tommy Rich Cuban Assassin match or matches that aren't as good as you'd hope they'd be like Tom Zink and Micro Tunde. Or, you know, there's obviously certain matches where they evolve disqualification for understandable, but still disappointing reasons.
02:23:00
Speaker
As far as actual match quality though, it's really a good show. Overall, it is very tag match heavy. Admittedly, you have a six band match and you have two teams in a weird electrified cage match. So it's mostly the same tag formula, but there's some slight wrinkles at least.
02:23:18
Speaker
As a whole, I'd say the big standout stuff doesn't quite deliver in between hope, as we discussed with the complications involved in the Thunderoom Cade match. But overall, it's a very strong show, as long as you understand that this is the first time in havoc and they just haven't quite nailed the whole spooky theme to it yet. It's still mostly a sports based wrestling show with cobwebs in the background and interview segments.
02:23:41
Speaker
I'm a little less positive than you, but not by a lot. okay I feel like Halloween Havoc 89 was a decent enough show. It didn't stand out as especially good, but there's only one match that stands out as particularly below par as well. It's just that for almost everything that I found that I liked on the show, I had to follow that up with but in major or minor ways.
02:24:02
Speaker
The Stylers versus Doom was good, but not as good as later matches and with a kind of silly ending. The Road Warriors versus the Skyscrapers was fun, but had a disappointing ending too. The Thunderdome was full of good stunts, but disorganized and with some big holes in its concept. Luger versus Pillman was a great buildup for Pillman, but maybe not as complex or interesting as it could have been if Luger had performed with some greater variety.
02:24:22
Speaker
And then there's the really major but statements like how the action in the free brochure says the dudes was fine. And it was fun to watch Hayes and Garvin change things up to work with the crowd. But it ended up as more of an interesting social experiment than a match as a result. Yeah.
02:24:36
Speaker
That applies to a lot of the promos as well as we get some good buildup for matches, but a lot of minor flubs or confusing statements as well. Still, as with the matches, the promos are generally a plus on the show and made the matches feel important and highlighted themes that they would explore quite well. But there's that word again. Sometimes they highlighted themes that the matches would end up abandoning, most notably with the considerable amount of buildup that the electric cage gets for the Thunderdome match when there's precisely one single spot in the match that even makes use of the electric concept at all.
02:25:07
Speaker
commentary is more of a fully solid good. JR and Caudal again make a great team, and this time I felt like I got to see more of the personalities behind the commentary, with the two feeling more free to joke around with each other than I've seen on some other shows and show some genuine camaraderie. They added a ton to matches, especially Luger vs. Pillman, working hard to bring out each match's storyline and each wrestler's individual character.
02:25:31
Speaker
I joke about JR's constant references to Rotunda's childhood athletic exploits, but the man is just a well of information about each wrestler, and it's genuinely impressive how he and Caudal kept such a good flow going throughout and worked together so well.
02:25:46
Speaker
Back to mixed bags. Production. Wow was tonight every variable. Lots of missed important moments in matches or bad camera angles for major stunts, but then the replays were almost, almost perfect. In each match save one, the post-match replay did a really good job of highlighting things from a better angle than in the match itself.
02:26:07
Speaker
Unfortunately, in the one that wasn't perfect, the replay instead made it completely impossible to see what was going on. It was like WSW was aggressively resisting getting any part of the show perfect. Hmm. Yeah. Plus, theme? Question mark?
02:26:24
Speaker
After a strong introduction, the use of the Halloween theme was pretty weak. We got the bare minimum of backstage sets that were probably picked up from the party store the day of the show, a little bit of ill-advised, quite inflammable decoration on the cage, and that's it. Future shows will have much improved sets, as I recall.
02:26:42
Speaker
Overall, Halloween Havoc 89 is good, but there's always going to be a qualifier about it. I think it's an enjoyable show to watch and I don't regret seeing it. I just wish there was more to the show that I could just praise without having to caveat it. Yeah, I think for me, I completely get your point on those. For me, it's there's a certain historical go-to-write of the show because you have the one big skyscraper Red Warriors match and they are the other first being of Doom. And you have a great example of how fans can turn on companies best wishes with the ah dynamic dudes.
02:27:17
Speaker
I completely agree. It's i I think when you get to the show, I don't know if this will make my top three or five. How are you trying to rank these? But right now I think it's a decent enough show. There's absolutely no way this ends up at the bottom three at all. No, no. It's perfectly decent. Like I wouldn't say middle of the road. So I think it's above middle of the road. Mm hmm. I just found myself constantly thinking, oh, this could have been better. Yeah, fair. The constancy of that happening kind of gets to you, I think on it. But yeah, I mean, perfectly good show. I think it's well worth a watch. Absolutely.
02:27:49
Speaker
match of the night and MVP. So what is your match of the night? ah So obviously this is going to come down mostly to attack matches because obviously the Pillman Luger match isn't contention, but that's really the only single match that is not a not given one to the Cuban assassin now ah in both Spanish and English. and english No.
02:28:09
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you have matches like the World Warriors skyscraper, which has a point if you finish, or you have sort of silly bollocks, you know, like the mask, uh, headbutt spot in the title where the Doom match. There's a certain morbid appeal, honestly, to picking the free birds versus an exude match, which was a generally well-worked match, but it's much more for the crowd of reaction to the match than the match itself. Mm-hmm.
02:28:34
Speaker
I think ultimately the match I find the least that I really have to question or critique comes down to the six-man tag match with the Samoan SWAT team versus the Express and Dr. Death Steve Williams. I just generally really enjoyed that match. It was quite good. We are in agreement on that. Nice. I am also going to pick the Samoan SWAT team versus the Midnight Express and Dr. Death Steve Williams. Like you said, it's the most purely enjoyable match on the card without notable caveats.
02:29:02
Speaker
is an excellent six man tag that kept moving, showed off everyone's skills really well, and it had a pretty good shock ending besides. and MVP. Yeah. So I had to go through and think of matches where I couldn't quite pick a match tonight, but did someone stand out to me in a big way? So, I mean, people would definitely be considered would be of course, Brian Pillman for his performance in a singles match, either the road warriors, but the sort of presence they bring to their match. Any of them bring a lot of move variety. You guys make a case for Michael Hayes or even Jimmy Garvin, how they really played in the crowd reaction to the match and their, obviously their actual match performance is quite good as well.
02:29:38
Speaker
I could easily make a case for Sting for how much he really made the most of the tricky spots they had in the Thunderman Cage match. Yes. Or Terry Funk's just sort of crazy character throughout. But you have to sort of ignore the fact that he was climbing a cage for no reason so much in that match.
02:29:56
Speaker
I think for me, I'm going to try and give it to someone that he's been in a bunch of shows, but I don't recall if I've given him too much praise as far as a VP. So for me, for standing out really well as match. And I think ultimately the reason his match is in match tonight is not him. I'm going with Brian Pillman.
02:30:13
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. I mean, he had a terrific performance. I would say close to star making performance for him there. He proved himself as a singles wrestler absolutely in that match. So I can definitely say that's a great choice.
02:30:27
Speaker
I would say a lot of the same people that you named were in contention for me. Obviously, again, um Sting has some amazing, amazing stunts in his match. I think the only thing that holds me back from picking him is that middle portion where it's just ah just not there, not really his fault so much. It's just like the way they've ended up plotting the match has nothing to do with his performance. I'm going to go with someone else you named. Okay. I'm going to go with Michael PSA's. Ah, okay.
02:30:55
Speaker
like you said, Garvin has some responsibility for this as well. But I think Hayes turns what could have been a disastrous match with the dynamic dudes into something watchable by recognizing the crowd's reaction and pretty quickly adapting, playing to the crowd and making that really, really fun to watch besides. Yeah. Credit to Garvin, too. But the sheer joy on Hayes's face as people actually cheered him was just so funny and it made what could have been a dead match really entertaining to watch.
02:31:24
Speaker
As always, he has a good spot with his real quick snappy punch as well. oh goll It looks so good. And I know part of that is like how someone sells it as well, but he always gets this like great snap on it whenever they pull the spot with it. So yeah, it's really fun. Honorable mention to the great Buddha for perhaps literally saving the show through his missed base firefighting technique. True. Yeah. Can't save the show more than stopping the arena from burning down. Yeah, that's true.
02:31:52
Speaker
And that wraps up our review of Halloween Havoc 1989. If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can find us on Facebook as Let's Go to the Ring. A link will be available in the episode description. Follow us for episode announcements and other show details, and share your own thoughts about each show as we go through.
02:32:09
Speaker
You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcast, YouTube, YouTube Music, Audible, iHeartRadio, Spotify, TuneIn, or Pandora. And please, if you've enjoyed this show, give us a rating or review, and share the show through your favorite social media platforms to help others discover us. Many thanks to OSW Review for attendance and pay-per-view figures, and to Gina Trujillo for our logo. Next up, Halloween Havoc 1990. Terror rules the ring.
02:32:38
Speaker
Oh, now that is a Halloween tagline WCW. Yeah, right. That sounds like it could be a movie where a resurrected evil former wrestling champion hunts wrestlers in ah in an arena until a face probably sting manages to defeat him in a wrestling match to seal him away for good. Yeah, which for the record is a movie I now want to see. ah Yeah, me too. This is Bob Moore for Ali Phrygian signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling.
02:33:18
Speaker
You can make a case for Michael Hayes or just how, or even Ronnie Garvin, how they really played into the crowd reaction for sure. Jimmy Garvin. Sorry. Yeah. Too many Garvins.