Kevin Ridge

I really disliked this match on original watches. Sabu takes a crotch drop on the barbed wire which is insane and gets his arm ripped open which he has to tape up. Funk starts raking Alfonzo's back with a piece of barbed wire. Sabu's hair gets caught in barbed wire. Sabu is getting messed up. Terry ends up getting wrapped up in barbed wire which looks awful. Hard to judge the reaction to crowd after. Whether they are disappointed that Funk lost, shocked by match violence or didn't like match. There is a quick Funk chant but they are quiet except for a cheer or clap here and there. Sabu and Funk are locked together by barbed wire at the end and need to be cut apart. Match isn't as bad as I remembered but for reasons I can't really explain I'm still not a fan. We have seen 4 World Title changes in the US in less than a week.

Again, where are the WCW guys to fight off all the NWO interference? With the amount of distrust WCW announcers and officials have been showing Sting the last year plus, it's surprising he ever joined their cause against the NWO. Rodman sucks at spray painting as he he makes the N and W too large and has trouble fitting the O in.

Where did this come from? Well Florida can be very dislikable but not for your face World champion. He left the Cubans and old people off the hook.

Taz taps out the Team Taz members at the Extreme dojo. He tells the guys good job before finally snapping on one of them with the Tazzmission. Same thing will happen to Candido.

The ECW Tag titles are required contractually to be defended at Hardcore Heaven. Mustafa is in the hospital and New Jack has his own issues. The bow tie around the neck brace is a nice look for Gertner. Dudley's are holding The Gangsta's belts for them.

Yep, these guys aren't taking a night off for a non TV matches taking big bumps and chairshots to the head. Funk wins with a powerbomb!! Not the crowd atmosphere as the Douglas match. Post match has Sabu getting hit in the head by an object from the crowd. RVD/Sabu were setting up a table but security got Sabu and RVD to get the hell out of there.

I don't like the Title change itself because Hogan won it back days later at the PPV and bigger things were ahead with Sting. Hogan needed to go into Starccade holding the belt for a very long time. I thought Hollywood was great here just mugging for the camera after every move he did. He carried the whole match. This finish reminded me off all those Hulk Hogan matches where he would be getting beat up and then Hulk up at the finish and put his opponent away after a couple moves. Always enjoyed Randy Anderson's reaction to Hogan's submission where he's completely shocked but ecstatic that Hogan gave up and Luger won. WCW guys rush the ring after which makes me wonder why they didn't do that during match to cut off the NWO. But it all leads to a big celebration in the lockeroom which is cool with me as they put over how big it was to win the WCW Title.

JJ wants Sting to return to the ring against a free agent. Wouldn't JJ want Sting to be a WCW guy facing an NWO guy? Isn't that obvious from the start what Sting wants. Sting isn't interesting in facing Curt Hennig and walks out. Not sure why Curt would sign an open contract to face Sting after all that ring rust.

Bad guy DiBiase would not have made that mistake. Steiners will take those World Wrestling Fed... (looks to Okerlund to bail him out). DiBiase finishes his promo to make sure they everyone knows they are going after the WCW Tag titles.

One week before the PPV and you don't have a set main event? Hogan says it will be him versus Hall which is interesting that they would even tease NWO guys facing each other.

Pillman pops his head through the curtain but Slaughter forces him to go down to the ring to wrestle. Holly still doing his race car driver gimmick. Pillman's dress stipulation is he must wear it until he wins a message. Lots of whistles from the crowd at Pillman. Goldust and Marlena end up distracting Pillman who gets counted out. So he has to continue to wear dress.

Shawn/Undertaker is way more interesting than Bret/Patriot. Michaels goes full heel. I think they needed to at least wait a week before this promo. Have him come out on this Raw with the boos from the crowd and just walk out at the reaction. Then the following week he can cut this promo. He was way too quickly agitated here when we were just 24 hours after PPV and not enough time for the fans to be turning fully against Shawn. Anyways, Shawn attacks the WWF fans to solidify his turn.

I had to listen to it again to hear him mention Helmsley. This feels like something belonging in 1990.

We are having audio problems. Bret will be facing The Patriot at the next PPV. Hart doesn't seem thrilled with this feud. He would rather talk about the rest of the Hart Foundation and some of the issues coming out of Summerslam. Owen is ashamed of himself showing compassion in his match against Austin. Sarge is the new commissioner and puts his foot down on the Harts. Austin makes a big surprise appearance at the end.

Execution on the finish was perfect. Though it is a good point to say if he was intending to hit Bret in the first before accidentally hitting Undertaker, why not hit Bret anyways after. Shawn was actually a pretty good referee for a wrestler. Probably one of the best actually. I remember his counts being very consistent. Bret wins the WWF Title for the 5th and last time.

Ross made remarks during match about Austin's previous necks issues as Owen was working on it throughout the match. It really is amazing that Austin was able to somehow get the pinfall. This match was even better than I remembered. Real strong performance by Owen. Hart was really disturbed by Austin's condition trying to stall for time when he could but visibly concerned for Steve. I wonder how this would have finished if not for Austin's injury.

Summerslam took place so early in August. Chyna enters the ring way too quickly and HHH has to tell her get lost. Mankind takes off his mask and does the big elbow of the top of the cage. Chyna hits her cue now to pull out Hunter but Mankind escapes first. The crowd goes nuts for when the Dude starts moving his foot to the music. Felt like this ended up being one of the last blue bar cage matches in WWF.

This seemed pretty heated with the crowd into it. Would have liked to seen the whole match as was final.

Good stuff. Chono gets involved but he doesn’t play a part in the finish so credit to Tenzan. I know these tournaments are completely planned out for each result but I would have liked if they called an audible after Tenzan got his foot stuck in the ropes. Like he’s on his way to victory and something bizarre like that happens which allows Hash to survive and then get the victory.

Funk knows his part here as the second he steps through the ring entrance he is playing a heel. Douglas seemed to casually acknowledge the fans, who were very much behind him in his hometown but then wrestled mostly like Franchise. We have seen the Harts go to Canada and play up more to their country. Shane could have done more to try be the face with the heavy fan support.

This has been a tough Indy gauntlet of matches to get through. The stipulation of only being able to pin someone by coming off the top of the cage is dumb. Adding a gimmick to a match that is already a gimmick in the first place.

And the fans got to pretend they were at Nitro with the garbage throwing.

Hardy has Misawa like green tights. Just him and another guy doing a bunch of moves on each other.

Sitting at work listening to this podcast which helps my day go back faster. Wanting to see all the TV title matches from 80's I've missed. Getting to remember some of the great TV matches from 90's yearbooks. Enjoying the back and forth between Will and Loss. And then... Arrghhh!! ... Loss has to attack the Bret/Owen steel cage match, for a World Title from a different organization! I'm not debating the merits of that match and I've read Loss' thoughts in yearbook post and am aware most other posters here disliked it/found it boring. I just don't agree with the comparison Loss is making about Larry/Regal series (which I thought was great too) to the cage match. That match of all the stuff from 1994? If you are trying to relate things to 1994, I would have preferred hearing it compared to other WCW stuff like either Flair/Steamboat, Flair/Hogan, Austin/Steamboat, Rhodes/Buck, etc. I do get the US and TV titles confused. Would be thinking how why they aren't mentioning so and so and then looking at title histories after and realizing person never held TV title. The audio clips of wrestlers promos through out were great. Okerlund interviewing Alex Wright was a total riot. Wright seemed to have huge potential at the time since he was so young, had decent matches and a good look. Plus his music/dance moves were great. After the history of TV through 80's and early 90's, it was pretty depressing finish. Nice that you both went back to your favorites to close out show. I wonder why WWF never had a TV title.

It's been a while since I've watch some of this and my notes are terrible. Couple stuff I've already upped on my rankings on rewatch. Still thinking my number one will remain the same which has been the case since I first watched it. Also, getting a kick out of two matches I have in top 20 which I never would have thought.