DMJ

I watched this match not knowing about Z-Man taking Douglas' place or even being aware of the Dos Hombres storyline. With that in mind, I thought this was a fun match with Austin as the clear MVP. Him flying into the cage multiple times is great and I love the finish - whether or not it was a gaffe, the fact that the bell rang for a close nearfall added to the chaos in the closing minute. What his intention, whether Steamboat took off the mask because he wanted to make it clear he was not doing the job (as a poster said above) or he just wanted to make sure the spot would make sense on a highlight reel down the line, the effect is the same one and it is glorious: the crowd popped big for the reveal and his crossbody off the top is perfectly executed.

The line between "Mr. McMahon" and Vince McMahon has been crossed and re-crossed so many times, I'm going to confidently say we have not seen the last of Vince McMahon on Monday Night RAW, let alone all of WWE TV productions. Will he wrestle again? Probably not...but I could easily seem him making an appearance on whatever the next big milestone RAW is (I've lost count).

^ Great point about what Eaton could've imparted onto Benoit, but I think, even here, it is obvious that Benoit was a super serious worker and wanted nothing to do with that whole "entertainment" side of sports-entertainment. I also agree that, at this point, Bagwell was very serviceable and almost seems eager to bump for whoever he's in the ring with - whether its a relative no name (at the time) like Benoit or a true veteran like Eaton, Bagwell wanted to make the other guy look good. He's an example of a guy that I think gets a bad rep for being cocky/arrogant/prima donna when, really, that was his gimmick and, in the end, he might've played it too convincingly (if you've heard his most recent podcast interviews, he says as much about his time in WWE). Also, again, that finishing move looks absolutely nasty.

Recently, I'd say Daniel Bryan was about as good a "hot tag" guy as anyone from the glory days of southern tags. He was so good at it, I think it was one of the most important ingrediants into his ascension to the top of the card. Whether its at Dustin Rhodes in the early 90s or Goldust today, he definitely knows what makes a tag "hot." I'd also submit Shane Douglas into the conversation based on what I've seen of his tag work with Steamboat in WCW. Finally, I'd say Jim Neidhart too. I definitely haven't seen enough to say who the best is/was, but I'm curious who else people would think make a list of top 20.

That's a palm-to-the-face slip from Meltz. "Likely"? Did he follow-it up about the 20th anniversary of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman's deaths "likely" at the hands of OJ Simpson? Or that the sky is "likely" blue? That quote has me legit laughing.

I agree. A 3-4 month sabbatical for Orton would be awesome. He could ostensibly come back as heel or face and get a huge reaction. Hell, if this were to happen, it could reasonably lead to an Orton/HHH match that people would genuinely look forward to. But, as goc pointed out, the WWE doesn't know how to book a return properly. This is the company that had Brock Lesnar lose his first match back and then split wins and losses with Triple H. This is the company that spent months promoting Fandango, had him beat a former World Champion at WrestleMania, then ran out of storyline ideas for him by June. Their longterm booking is so laughably poor, CM Punk could come back next week and, by SummerSlam, they'd probably have him feuding with Kane or Del Rio.

I have never been a big fan of strap matches so, to be honest, I've kind of avoided watching/re-watching many of them, especially the ones in the WWE that I'm most familiar with (Austin/Vega and HHH/Rock spring to mind), but I watched this today and thought it was quite good. After watching 3 Sting/Vader matches from WCW PPV 92'-93', I'd rank them this way: 1) Starrcade 92' - This has found its way into my Top 10 matches ever. 2) Great American Bash 92' - Loved the finish and felt like it was indecisive enough to make it clear these two were only getting started. 3) SuperBrawl III - It might just be that the 9 year old kid in me came out while I was watching and just wanted to see Sting win, but I can see myself putting this at number two after I finish crying. As others pointed out, SBIII had several good-to-great matches (for example, Orndorff vs. Jack is really fun, but boy did I hate the finish), but it also had some real letdowns (underutilized Flair, Windham/Muta). The ending of this match obviously sends the fans home a little unhappy, but its still a good show to watch on the Network with the aid of hindsight and fast forward.

Never saw the Brisco match...now I know I don't want to. Watched JBL/Geurrero blood bath recently and it was heinous as advertised. Never want to see that again.

I'm a Snake Plissken mark, so that new attire looks sweet to me.

Ziggler was/is a hometown guy so he always gets big responses in Cleveland. I'd say bigger than The Miz ever gets too.

To get hot again, the WWE needs a mega-star on the level of Hogan in the 80s or Austin and The Rock. A character that people simply can't get enough of. Another Cena or Lesnar won't help - I'm talking about somebody that is so beloved, charismatic, and "must see" that ratings spike by a million viewers every time he is in a segment. Somebody with mainstream appeal AND at least a modicum of wrestling/athletic ability that casual fans and hardcore fans can agree about his greatness or, at the very least, begrudgingly respect his abilities as a performer in and out of the ring (you don't sell out arenas for years with 1-star matches, no matter what workrate nerds think of The Rock or Hogan's wrestling ability or how much Steve Austin "fell off" after SummerSlam 97'). Someone so entertaining that not even the WWE's terrible booking and creative writers could hurt him. Sorry D-Bry fans, they also need to be marketable in the sense that when they appear on Fallon, they are larger-than-life, if not in size than at least in some sort of character way (think Savage on Arsenio or how Austin's look said "bad ass" even in a black tee and blue jeans). I'm not sure this person exists, but I'd kind of love it to be Dean Ambrose, who has been compared to Roddy Piper before. To me, though, that goes back to my first point - I'm not sure the next Roddy Piper is enough to make things hot again. I think you need Hogan and I'm not sure anyone, even a personal favorite of mine like Ambrose, is him.

Just saw this match for the first time and I enjoyed the hell out of it. I must admit to thinking that Steamboat and Douglas was an odd pairing at first, just because Steamboat was so experienced and so beloved and, when they started teaming, Douglas was kind of the opposite - not a bad worker, not unpopular, but obviously not a star like Steamboat. As I've seen more of their work, I've been super impressed by Douglas and now know why Austin (on his podcast) called Douglas one of his favorite babyfaces to work with. I'd cite the finish of this match as the perfect example of the "good kind of disappointment." Sure, a match this good would benefit from a clean ending (which would make it a MOTYC in my admittedly limited view), but instead, you get a DQ that leaves the audience clamoring for more. You just know that everyone leaving that arena, Thundercage or not, was talking about this match and what was going to happen to the tag belts. When's the last time that happened in today's WWE? Sometime in the 90s *maybe*?

I don't think 06' holds up match-for-match, but I will say this about it - I think the stretch from WM21 through SummerSlam 06' (roughly 16 months) was one of the funnest times to ever be a fan and that what hurts 06' most is that things really petered out after that PPV. Prior to SummerSlam, though, I absolutely loved ONS II and was really excited by the potential of the return of ECW (for example, the debut of CM Punk). In that same time frame you had the debut of Umaga, Extreme Big Show, Edge's rise to the main event, the return of Jeff Hardy, the Foley/Flair feud, and Michaels/McMahon feud. I personally disliked the DX reunion, but will admit to liking the DX vs. McMahons & Big Show cage match from this time. Again, match-for-match, I don't think 2006 should rate very highly and I do think part of my enjoyment of 06' was based on my interest picking up considerably due to Hogan/Michaels at SS05' and Eddie's death that fall, but when the WWE ran a campaign about how the "Power" was back "On," I think they were right. There was so much crazy stuff going on in that 05'-06' stretch that it made being a fan almost as cool as it was during the Attitude Era, even if the in-ring stuff was comparatively lame.

I'm a Bourne fan too, but I think there is something to his story that we don't know and somehow hasn't leaked. As so many posters here have said, he got great crowd responses on ECW and was pretty marketable. At the very least, he was a great bumper who could make others look absolutely great. This tells me that there's a reason he hasn't been put in the position to at least job out to guys like Rusev, Tensai, and other monsters or new talents that have been introduced in the past few years. It's not like Kofi Kingston is THAT much better in that role or that they don't have enough TV time to have two or three guys in that position. I'm hoping that Bourne's release is followed by questions being answered regarding the severity of his injuries and why they never bothered to bring him back when he could've been so easily used as a bump machine for The Wyatts or Roman Reigns or Cesaro or any other heel they've wanted to look dominant in the past 2 years.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in regards to camera angles and all that, I thought that Dunn was no longer really as "hands on" in the truck and was more of an executive that was in charge of general production and not necessarily the live editiing or whatever one calls it. Is that accurate or is he still calling the shots for every episode of RAW?

As the poster above said, this match starts off red hot and I even liked the finisher-throwing early on, though, to be sure, in modern times this has become overused. However, there are a few things that go wrong that I think would've made this a much more highly-regarded bout, even if Luger does look tired after a few minutes. First, the finish comes TOO "out of nowhere" for me. As others have said, Sting should've won with either his finishing move or the Torture Rack as that would've helped the match come "full circle." Second, if Harley Race getting knocked out at the end of the match was supposed to be meaningful, why not throw in a segment somewhere in there where Race helps Luger get leverage (I'm thinking the classic figure four spot) or distracts the ref when Luger connects with a below-the-belt cheap shot. Then, when Race gets back body dropped, the audience could really get the feeling that Sting has overcome Luger's biggest advantage. Third, Luger should've turned face after the match or alluded to such a turn by shaking hands with Sting after the match and raising his arm. My understanding was, at this point, Luger was done with WCW so protecting him for rematches wasn't necessary - besides, shaking hands with Sting wouldn't have hurt those rematches even if he WAS going to stick around. That's the kind of "moment" that would've made Sting's victory that much bigger. In a nutshell, I wanted this match to be great - and, for the first few minutes, it is heading that way - but what you end up with is lost opportunities that stick out more than what these two actually do accomplish. Not a terrible match at all, just not the masterpiece that you know could've happened had they made a few changes and worked smarter, not necessarily harder.

Here's another one that came to mind while I was watching SuperBrawl II today... Terry Taylor We all know about the Red Rooster gimmick and how that was destined to fail, but in WCW, in 91' and 92', Taylor was a cocky, arrogant heel and he was darn good at it. I looked at wikipedia and saw that, after that, he went back to WWE, but was basically enhancement talent there as well. So, why? If JBL is to be believed, it has something to do with him not being well-liked by his peers, but, he seemed to be well-liked enough by management that he's worked backstage for every major US promotion in a variety of roles. Why didn't Terry Taylor get a push then? Why, in WWE, was he saddled with a bad gimmick in his first go round and then just written off as not worth investing in for his second run? Could they have done more with him in WCW? What are other people's thoughts on his work?

Somewhat ridiculous but I'm curious what people will say about... Van Hammer Good size. Good look in terms of physique. Terrible gimmick and very green. BUT after wrestling in WCW in 92', he disappeared for several years before coming back to WCW in 97'. My question is - does anyone know where he went? Based on his work when he came back, I'm guessing it wasn't anywhere that taught him anything about working. Also, trained by Boris Malenko supposedly? Had Van Hammer been trained properly or gotten some seasoning, I really think he's the type of guy McMahon would've tried to push to the moon. I mean, if he saw potential in Vinnie Vegas, how did he not see potential in Van Hammer?

I think the comparisons with Orton and HHH are always interesting. JBL always says stuff like "If you could build the perfect wrestler in a lab, it would be Randy Orton" and, in the late 90s, I think you could say the same for Triple H (size, look, voice were all "classic" wrestler). But that's almost why I can't say either rank in my personal top 20 or 30 or even 50 list of guys I love. It's not like I inherently like guys with "flaws," but there's something about Ric Flair and Eddie Guerrero not having a size advantage, but still outsmarting their opponents and there's something about Steve Austin's NSFW persona in the Attitude Era that made his promos just that much better than anything Orton has ever done. The Undertaker's gimmick. Savage's insanity. Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels' emotional storytelling. Daniel Bryan's heart. Even John Cena's passion and the way, even when the whole place is booing him, he still wrestles HIS match in HIS babyface persona. These are the intangibles that Orton (and Triple H, in my mind) just don't have. With nothing to hang their hat on, they may be the "perfect" wrestlers, but they're also two of the hardest characters to care about that have ever been in the main event.

I agree wholeheartedly with what funkdoc said about overall presentation/production values being way more of a factor in WCW's drawing power compared to the WWE's than who was actually on top of either company. This also helps explains why, in 95'/96', WCW starts closing the gap. Once their production values, especially late 96', start to catch up with WWE's thanks to Turner finally trying to topple McMahon, and the slicker, industrial-themed Nitro set takes shape as compared to the pyro-unfriendly and (by then) dated look of the RAW set in 96' (the big 3-letter entrance way is the one I'm thinking of), WCW starts winning the Monday Night Wars and being seen as an equal to WWE. Prior to that, they were the cheaper 'rasslin' show that ran smaller arenas and taped shows on a tiny studio lot.

I agree with all of your picks. I just recently wrapped up watching all of the 92' content for WCW in order via the Network. Based on my re-viewing of the year, WCW that year just had so, so much talent at the top AND had made some small decisions that really helped streamline the product. For example, unifying the Tag Titles and building up young talent (namely Dustin Rhodes, Ron Simmons, Brian Pillman) so that it wouldn't have been out-of-left-field to see any one of them challenge for the title in 93'. Unfortunately, the two talents that probably should've gotten more attention and would go on to make boatloads of cash for Vince were Cactus and Austin, but, as you said, injuries hurt Cactus and Steve Austin was still in that weird spot of being a "future star" who still needed years of seasoning (a label that was fairly accurate considering he wouldn't explode for another 3 years). I'd love to read someone's argument for WWF being the better promotion that year. As much as I enjoyed WCW 92', it's not like everything is 100% 5-star booking/wrestling. For example, Simmons' title reign or the disappointing title matches at Halloween Havoc 92'. I haven't begun to trek through WCW 93' yet, but it does make me wonder - is this the last great year for Barry Windham? Ricky Steamboat?

I like the Rollins turn just because I think this will bring about some good matches in the next few months, but... My biggest thought about his "motivation" is the one that, unfortunately, has the least likely possibility of happening, at least in terms of realistic expectations. Still, bear with me on this thought: Batista leaves the WWE because Triple H doesn't grant him a title shot. Why not? No real reason given except that he's pissed at Batista for losing at Mania, Extreme Rules, and Payback. Okay, fair enough. But, really, it IS what was promised him and, with dozens of television/special events down the line, I'm not really sure why Triple H would deny Batista's request, especially against an injured Bryan. Triple H's reason should've been that he already promised the first title shot to someone else - which would have been a good, simple question mark for the entire broadcast. Is it Orton? Triple H himself? Cut to the last segment. Rollins turns. It is obvious he has turned in exchange for a shot at Daniel Bryan. BUT...Daniel Bryan is injured. For god knows what reason, Kane is still in line for a title shot despite a clean loss at Extreme Rules and absolutely no heat. Plus, doesn't Orton still get a rematch sometime? Besides, Rollins is probably not getting a title match on PPV this year unless they're WAY higher than him than most think. All those reasons tell me that, even if my little scenario/storyline was suggested, it was quickly denied. But, I still think it's arguably the most sensible reason for why a member of The Shield would turn. The "personal gain" should be more than money, more than promises of a shot in a future MITB match, more than just "opportunity" - it should be a pretty much GUARANTEED World Title match and victory (which it would almost certainly be against a guy with a neck injury).

On the topic of Dustin - I think there's an alternate universe where he beat Vader for the title in 92' instead of Ron Simmons. In that same universe, he wrestled Windham or a non-injured Rude at Starrcade that year. That being said, I understand that his look did make him somewhat of a tough sell in that era. I always thought the somewhat flabby look was why McMahon put him in the full body suit, even when he was actually in good shape initially. Obviously, he took himself out of the game essentially, but I might nominate Scott Hall. I know he's not always rated so highly, but he was certainly more technically skilled than Nash and, had he stayed sober and motivated (maybe even coming back to the WWE in 99' or 00'), it's hard not to see him having some good matches/feuds with The Rock, HHH, Taker, and Steve Austin, who, by then, were all pretty much wrestling the kind of main event brawling style that Hall certainly wouldn't have been out of his league doing. There's a lot of huge IFs when it comes to Scott Hall, but that goes without saying around these parts...

I might go as far as to say that ECW created the "smart crowd" - only because, when WCW and WWE were competing around 97', ECW was also gaining more and more popularity as the "underground" company. For fans too young to remember AWA or even GWF or not knowledgeable enough to know anything about the USWA or SMW, ECW was THE "major" indy fed. Sabu was on the cover of PWI and Raven's success in WCW made many people believe he was the "quintessential" ECW guy - further drawing attention to what ECW stood for. This led to more and more 13-16 year olds who had never known anything more than Hulkamania and the WWF and WCW's most cartoonish years in the mid-90s to discover that there was a whole other world of wrestling (and wrestling fans) where the audience was more than just a backdrop. Hell, they didn't just chant obscenities at who they didn't like, they brought weapons for their heroes to use! Oh, and the internet. The internet definitely changed the game. I remember going onto rec.sports.pro-wrestling when I was in middle school and having my mind blown. Soon, I was using words like "shoot" and "workrate" and "job" when, a few years earlier, I knew match outcomes were predetermined, but didn't really have the language to discuss what I was watching. Learning the lingo, as so many fans did in the late 90s, allowed more and more to get "smart" (or think they were) and knowledge, sadly, often leads to cynicism, arrogance, and a "too cool for school" attitude. These three traits basically sum up today's "smart crowds." On a happier note - I think more and more "smart" fans are recognizing the damage of being contrary all the time and have been actively booing the heels and cheering the faces as a way to show just how GOOD the heel or face is at what they're doing. For example, in Cleveland, at indy shows and even at WWE shows, the loud, obnoxious "smart" fans who cynically act contrary just to get themselves over are treated like pariahs now - outright taunted, in fact - by hipper fans who show their appreciation for a good heel by booing him and show love to a good face by cheering him, just like we're supposed to. We can complain about the ref having his back turned, but we do it the way fans would in 88'. We boo when a manager or valet cheats, instead of cheering their brilliance the way modern fans would probably have turned Bobby Heenan into a babyface. We "play along" not because we're dumb, but because its simply funner to play along. Why should the wrestlers have all the fun of "following a script" when, as an audience member, its equally fun to "play dumb" and get riled up when the good guy loses, even if the good guy is a terribly green stiff and the heel is a world class worker.

Amazing. Does anyone know if there is somewhere I can find this on youtube/dailymotion? I caught it on the Network, but would love to share it with non-wrestling fans. PM me if you can be of any help because this video is ridiculous. 5 stars out of 5