Matt D

Valentine/Slater vs Steamboat/Windham - WCW Pro Chicago July 25 The whole show is online and it's awesome. It's the last time ever that Valentine ever did anything meaningful I think, and I love it. Valentine was being booked as a surprisingly strong mid-carder, having just gotten a pinfall over Pillman after his brief US tag title run. He's allied with Slater and Barbarian. It's supposed to be a six man tag: Slater/Barbarian/Valentine vs Dustin/Windham/Steamboat. Dustin's being interviewed at Ringside and Valentine comes out to insult Dusty. Dustin goes NUTS on him but Barbarian and Slater come out and Valentine hits three huge elbow drops as they hold out Dustin's legs on the floor. Windham and Steamboat make the save. Due to Dustin's injury, they make the six man a straight up southern tag with Valentine/Slater vs Windham/Steamboat and it's actually really good for what it is (a 10-15 minute WCW 1992 C show main event). Long FIP on Steamboat with lots of hope spots and cutoffs. Windham finally gets the hot tag in and goes to town but Barbarian comes out and the thing breaks down completely. He slams Steamboat on the floor and the numbers game wins out on Windham. Then Dustin runs out, limping and they make it a six man again. He gets a super hot tag and clears house til they take out his leg. We get all sorts of shenanigans with a towel and figure fours, and missed tags until it finally ends with Dustin putting on a figure four of his own and eating a top rope Slater kneedrop behind the ref's back. This was a massive amount of fun, in part because it's so random and forgotten and in part because it was Steamboat and Windham in there with two experts.

When they get one right though, it's awesome, because you get this weird amalgamation of 3-5 entities that just should not exist together.

Will's match. To me, the best part about the PR I've seen is how well they utilize the gimmicks at the center of the gimmick matches. I'm not a violence junkie. I'm not a vampire. But if i'm watching a gimmick match, I want the gimmick to matter, and I want it to matter logically. Well, there's no real way they can't make this gimmick matter; look at how high up the scaffold is. Look at how that thing rocks. Look at how they're not afraid to take bumps on it. Holy crap. The story is real simple. Invader #3 is stronger in every way. He'll bite, punch, stomp, and keep going back to a front facelock for control. Chicky comes back with low blows and eyerakes and tries his own punch/kick/stomping. One guy dangles his legs off the side. The other one dangles his legs off the side. Invader breaks out a suplex and a snap mare and this crazy dropkick. Chicky does some great rabbit punches and bleeds a lot. It ends with Chicky thinking he's won it but Invader hanging on and them then reversing the hanging on spot, but it doesn't go nearly as well for Starr. His bump is ridiculously terrible looking. Just a straight down feet first jamming. This was a really logical match because it almost couldn't not be. At the same time I've seen some crummy scaffold matches and this kept things moving and there was an incredible sense of danger at every point. Every stomp was amplified by it to a huge degree and I think they realized that. The couple of big spots they did (Dropkick, suplex, slam position) would be next to nothing in any other match but here they were nuts, but none of them seemed out of place or overly sensational. The finish worked because of Chicky's bleeding. I could totally buy that he looked down and couldn't see the ground well. They were that high up. Learning from my mistakes of last time I watched the singles match and Stick on a Pole (pole on a stick?) matches that are available too. That helped me have some context and I actually liked the "on a pole" match a lot. I guess it has a bad rep, but it was another match where they were really working the gimmick and jockeying for position.

Looks like Murdoch/Koloff vs Windham/Garvin is down so I'm going to run with the PR match this week. I think it's pretty much a failed experiment at this point, but since people cared to suggest matches, I'm still going to watch what i can and post for the last 1-2 depending on whether or not the other match shows back up in the next week or I can otherwise find it. I suppose moving forward, if anyone has a match that they REALLY want to immortalize this way, then they can post it here and I'll take the time to watch it and give a few talking points Otherwise, things can just peter out.

The loser has to become amish.

I wonder which of the two he'd be more offended by

I like how the specter of Mason Ryan is behind him. It's somehow fitting.

I would have never pegged you as a Brony, John.

I think Shoots are great at raising interesting questions. Then you have to come here and have them ripped apart by people who know more.

I feel a need to contribute to this note. I will watch some stuff soon.

The Paulies. Amazingly the DAs won them all.

Your buddy Millionaire Ted says that Dundee hotshot the territory and killed it off

Didn't I ask this on page one?

Pretty sure that the ladies matches are on youtube at least.

I've been watching WCW Pro Chicago. They were calling Steamboat vs Rude the main event and I don't think Steiners vs Gordy/Williams got much of any build at all on the C show. The first few months of 92 is one of my key watching times as a kid, but I stopped watching halfway through the year. I didn't realize Vader was such a transitional champion.

I'm really curious about the 92 Bash relative to Beach Blast. it was a Tag Tournament with much less heated stuff top to bottom than Beach Blast, and Vader vs Sting on top which WAS fresh and built off a strong Vader attack on Sting.

I've rarely heard guys who love Muraco back what they're saying well though.

For things that could have actually happened timewise, I would have loved heel Young Pistols vs basically any of the WWF face teams Rockers, LOD, even Bushwhackers or Slaughter/Duggan. Smothers and Armstrong were having such fun as heels at that point and they could have interfaced great with any of those teams.

Did this go anywhere really or did the onset of Watts kill it?

My dream 80s AWA angle is them turning Greg heel in frustration at Martel having the belt. They could put him with Adnan, have him feud with Brunzell, then Martel, then finally with his dad before coming back together in 85. Damn them and their conservatism.

First they have Jimmy Hart come out and ask what they do with horses with a broken leg. Then they bring in Paul Ellering. Then they use Dundee and Valiant on the face side, and let Tommy Rich be an awesome frigging heel. Then they use suddenly heel Valiant to turn Rich face by using his mother. When you end up with Bobby Eaton with a crown on his head you know you're in business.

This stuff is frustrating since Ricky's promo from a few weeks before was so good and heated and this was a terrible way to follow up on it.

The Road To Bali was on TV the other day. I suggest people track that down and watch it instead. It's not nearly as good as Road to Rio or Road to Morocco, but it's still better than this.

So at least we have 30 year old AWA right?

Man Savage was awesome in ICW and Memphis. You're a HUGE Garvin fan, right? you can't tell me you've never seen the Savage vs Garvin cage match from ICW. Youtube Savage + Garvin Cage and then tell me what Savage WWF is better than that.