WCW ongoing thread

[Gregor]

The seeds were planted earlier when Hansen got enraged that Luger was ahead of him in the rankings

I love that interview. "I never been sixth in anything in my life! I wasn't sixth to my wife..."

[FLIK]

And a woman match between Bambi and Susan Sexton, whoever the hell they are ? Again WTF,

Bambi was an AWA chick previously. Sexton was one of those journemen types who'd been around a while a bunch of diffrent places. Her biggest claim to fame was being the first LPWA champ around this time. WCW briefely tried to start up a woman's division in 90/91 but it never amounted to much other then that's how Madusa got hooked up with them.

[El-P]

Thanks FLIK. Can't wait until Madusa shows up. With the departure of Woman and Missy stuck in hosting the Main Event, there's no glamour on the show.

 

Fuck, when the Freebirds were becoming fun again, there's Rocky King as Little Richard. Totally blocked that out of my mind. Seriously, what did this guy do to warrant any kind of TV time ? Discrimination lawsuit threats along with Thunderbolt Patterson (who shows up from time to time on commentary to blabbers nonsense, foreshadowing him managing the Steiners which thankfully never happened as far as I know) ? I heard that story previously, but have no idea what the truth is. Anyway, he sucks.

 

And yep, Frankensteiner was right, Allen Iron Eagle, Wendell Cooley. Hum.. exciting newcomers. At least Terry Taylor will soon turn heel, so he'll be fun to watch.

[Loss]

As far as I know, Rocky King was never involved in any lawsuits. The story is that Thunderbolt Patterson threatened to have the NAACP picket CNN Center if he wasn't given a role on television.

[El-P]

Ok. I was wondering since both got TV time at the same moment.

 

The gauntlet concept was interesting although a little bit random, but that goes with WCW. On 09.22, they gave Scott Steiner a clean pin on Ric Flair during a gauntlet match. Were they already testing the water for a future Scott single push ? Seems that way to me. Anyway, it really appeared there that Flair lost a lot of stocks, he was nearly squashed by Scott, although the constant interfering by Arn and Rick for the final spot made that match more angle driven than anything else. Still, Luger couldn't beat Flair at the Clash, as to protect Flair, but here Scott gets a 1-2-3 on TV. Kinda odd.

 

On the brighter side, Dan Spivey has come back (wearing some god awful long pants he stole from Beefcake). And the seeds are planted for the Doom vs Horsemen feud.

[FLIK]

Just watched Regal vs Luger 8/31/96 for the TV title which was surprisingly good. On paper it seems like a style clash to me but they made it work, helped by the fact that Luger seemed really motivated. He mixed it up with Regal doing some low level chain wrestling and arm drag spots that I wasn't exspecting early on, mid match he took a giant beating and he was pretty fired up for his comeback too before Hall & Nash run in to cost him the belt.

[El-P]

Speaking of pedophile gimmicks, wait until the Juicer debuts.

Holy shit, you don't say. I herd (ah !) about it before, but never actually saw it in execution. What a terrible idea. Look at this guy coming out with an army of kids to the ring. And he's taking off that kid's shirt ! Yeah, he should have team up with the Candyman, who "loves to give children candies.". Anyway, that Beetlejuice gimmick was embarrassing. Barr appeared to be a good worker, totally ahead of his time in 1990 WCW, but that character was destined to fail. Another case of WCW trying to outcartoon WWF.

On the worthless debut aspect, J.W. Storm appears. And Moondog Rex is on TV). Fresh talent. And meanwhile, Orndorff who looked so good is already gone. Wonder why his comeback was so short. Same thing for Bam Bam, who appeared for a short period of time, did nothing of note, then vanished. What a bizarre period.

[MikeCampbell]

Speaking of pedophile gimmicks, wait until the Juicer debuts.

Holy shit, you don't say. I herd (ah !) about it before, but never actually saw it in execution. What a terrible idea. Look at this guy coming out with an army of kids to the ring. And he's taking off that kid's shirt ! Yeah, he should have team up with the Candyman, who "loves to give children candies.". Anyway, that Beetlejuice gimmick was embarrassing. Barr appeared to be a good worker, totally ahead of his time in 1990 WCW, but that character was destined to fail. Another case of WCW trying to outcartoon WWF.

On the worthless debut aspect, J.W. Storm appears. And Moondog Rex is on TV). Fresh talent. And meanwhile, Orndorff who looked so good is already gone. Wonder why his comeback was so short. Same thing for Bam Bam, who appeared for a short period of time, did nothing of note, then vanished. What a bizarre period.

 

I know Bigelow stayed in New Japan until the end of '92 when he went back to the WWF. Orndorff was back in '93 after doing a lot of good stuff in Smoky Mountain.

[El-P]

I know Orndorff went to SMW before coming back, but I just wonder why they didn't keep him around as he looked really solid and had a name.

[Loss]

I forget who it was Orndorff didn't want to do a TV job for, but that was the reason he left. Hansen, I think.

[El-P]

How do you know all that Loss? Thanks.

When you got State Patrol "squash matches" on TV, you know the TV is bad... Also, the top 10 was incredibly random, but in hindsigh it was total insider stuff in a "see who's getting pushed and depushed" way.

Oh, god... Trucker Norm...

[El-P]

Thunderbolt Patterson (who shows up from time to time on commentary to blabbers nonsense, foreshadowing him managing the Steiners which thankfully never happened as far as I know)

Actually it happened. Just saw a Steiner match on Main Event with Patterson at ringside. The Steiners have now the dubious honor of having no less than three worthless "advisors" at ringside : Missy Hyatt, Thunderbolt Patterson and Ted DiBiase. Now that's a trivia moment.

[El-P]

The build to Hallowen Havoc was so weak. They shot two angles for Sid/Sting and Steiners/Nasties at some house show, and they replayed them every week on *every* show. For a month.

Got a kick out of another Freebirds angle though. They're feuding with teh Renegade Warrior (yikes) and Iron Eagle (yikes), and they promise a big star as their third partner for a 6 man tag. The "big star" ends up being Barry Horowitz. Of course the Freebirds gang up on Iron Eagle, double DTT's him, and let Horowitz gets the win. Horowitz wins ! Horowitz wins ! Horowitz wins ! Fun stuff.

Just realized Allen Iron Eagle was a young Joe Gomez, from Nitro fame. Amazing.

J.W. Storm really sucks. When you can't have a decent match with Zenk, you're no good.

[El-P]

Only got to watch a video release of HH90, without much of the worthless undercard matches (thank god, no Master Blasters or JYD) and only the big matches.

 

Midnight Express vs Ricky Morton & Tommy Rich

Sad that it would be the last MX match, as they look as great as ever. Eaton is propably the best worker of the year so far. Edited heavily, but what was showed is excellent, basically MX kicking Morton's tail. Tons of great spots including a rocket launcher on the ramp. As much as they pushed Rich as doing a great comeback, he's just not very over and was not on the same level as the other three, but he did very few in what was showed, so. The finish involved the Southern Boys, to plant the seeds for a fued that would have been awesome. I'll miss the MX a lot.

 

Fabulous Freebirds vs Renegade Warriors

Not good for the work, as the Freebirds got back into lazy mode (Garvin had a knee injury supposedly, but he worked like he did at the beginning of the year), and the Youngblood aren't particulary good. The fun part is that the crowd shit on the Warriors and got the Freebirds face pop, chanting for the DDT. Feeling it was useless to try to get heat on the Youngbloods, the Freebirds played to the crowd and got them to chant for the DDT even more. Huge boos when the Warriors made a comeback, huge pop when Hayes plants a (bad, as usual) DDT.

 

Steiner Brothers vs Nasty Boys

This was much better than I remembered. Really chaotic with some stiff shots, the Nasties bumped like crazy for the Steiners, who were over like hell, but also looked very strong on offense (in their odd way). Good dynamic, made sense, really a super solid match, with a good build to the end. Both teams look like big deal here, no wonder the WWF grabbed the Nasties.

 

Doom vs Ric Flair & Arn Anderson

Again, I enjoyed this much more than I previously did last time I watched this. I thought Flair worked the tag team style really well here, and Arn is Arn in a tag match. Simmons delivering the huge power moves, Reed and Flair renewing their old feud, lot of cool stuff. Doom really made themselves faces to the fans here by kicking the Horsemen's ass. Disapointing finish, but you got to get the feud going.

 

Stan Hansen vs Lex Luger

Not as good as I remembered, but Maybe my mind mixed it with the Starrcade match. Luger didn't bring that much in a brawling match, while Hansen was as good as he can, great selling of Luger's punches, bumping well and actually going for a vertical suplex. Solid brawling style, stiffness from Hansen, nothing great but nothing bad either. The lariat looks like it got Luger on the side of the head, must have been though on the ear. Hansen wins the US title clean.

 

Sting vs Sid Vicious

Here we go, I found my first Sting performance that I like. In my memories, this match sucked, but watching it now, I thought it was much better than it had the right to, and that was thanks to Sting. He looked better than he ever did working with a green Sid, who just hasn't figure the way to work efficiently yet. He doesn't know how to get the most out of the moves he makes yet, so needless to say it can be brutal to watch. Plus it doens't look like he's got any idea of what to do at times. Sting was keeping the match moving, bumping for Sid, flying around, reacting quickly, never letting the match settle down for too long. I really enjoyed his way of dealing with his opponent here, and the match was actually enjoyable because of the way he approached it. I'm glad because I was so not sold on Sting at all thus far. The finish worked with the crowd, and it was fun to spot some guy who was shocked as all hell to see Sid win the title. It should be noted that it go a good amount of applauds too. Then Sting shows up and pins Sid by surprise, which was anticlimatic but got over good with the crowd. So basically, this was the first time I saw Sting rising up when he should and making a match out of a clueless worker.

 

Of course, the Black Scorpion angle, with magic trick, was godawful, terrible in execution and badly shot.

[Loss]

One of my favorite "Oh WCW" things ever was listing the company that did the Black Scorpion's magic trick in the show-ending credits.

[El-P]

Crap, I didn't pay attention to the credits. That's quite funny though.

[artDDP]

One of my favorite "Oh WCW" things ever was listing the company that did the Black Scorpion's magic trick in the show-ending credits.

"Wrestling Operations" Marty Lunde, Jody Hamilton, and Kevin Sullivan.

[El-P]

Oh WCW II :

One week, Magnum Force is two new guys supposed to meet the Steiners at the following Clash. They look like a bunch of jobbers with bad physiques.

The following week, Magnum Force are.... two other guys who have been on TV for weeks doing jobs as The Ringlords. And they are still supposed to meet the Steiners. Feel the epic build.

How many people debuted between the Summer and the end of 1991 ?? Now we got Curtis Hughes as Big Cat (stupid name), Motor City Madman (whoever he is), Nightstalker (a super green Brian "Wrath" Clarke) managed by Ox Baker, Master Blasters. Tons of bland faceless babyfaces have showed up, now we get a wave of big monsters who can't work (except Hughes, who I like). Meanwhile, Vader is working NJ after debuting in a big way a few months ago. This company was a mess.

[El-P]

And the positive side, after watching back to back Sting vs Bobby Eaton & Tracy Smothers vs Bobby Eaton, it becomes clear to me that a case can easily be made for Eaton being the best wrestler in WCW (and the US) in 1990. The Sting match was excellent for a TV match, and although I do think Sting finally improved (he was better here than against Flair at the Bash), Eaton was just a terrific ring general, providing the work, the storytelling, the big spots... His match against Smothers was just as good as it seems on paper (Smothers is also one of the best worker of the year to me despite not being around since the beginning). Add to that all the great work he did with the MX all year, including a legit MOTY candidate (and arguably a top 10 match in the history of the company), there's a very strong case for Beautiful Bobby. Flair was great against Luger, but did not deliver as much excellent TV matches as Eaton did, and it's obvious he was slowing down a bit compared to his peak. I'll try a top 10 worker when I'm done with 1990.

[Loss]

There is probably a case for Eaton being the best guy anywhere in the world that year. I'm not sure he is, but he was talked about as a contender at that level at the time.

[shoe]

Steiner Brothers vs Nasty Boys

This was much better than I remembered. Really chaotic with some stiff shots, the Nasties bumped like crazy for the Steiners, who were over like hell, but also looked very strong on offense (in their odd way). Good dynamic, made sense, really a super solid match, with a good build to the end. Both teams look like big deal here, no wonder the WWF grabbed the Nasties.

 

 

The Nasty Boys were in Austin for Comic Con in November. They came to the local promotion that night to watch the show. They did some stuff and let the fans buy them beer all night. I asked Saggs what he thought their greatest match was and he siad it was this one.

[El-P]

Steiner Brothers vs Nasty Boys

I asked Saggs what he thought their greatest match was and he siad it was this one.

I can see why.

 

The Michael Wallstreet video is glorious. Rotundo was perfect for the role, and it really set the blueprint for the I.R.S. character.

[Victator]

I'm watching some 91 WCW. Ricky Morton really tanks the York Foundation gimmick. Rich and Taylor both change their looks for the gimmick, doing the slicked back hair and shoots. Morton still has the mullet. He works as a heel, but doesn't match the gimmick at all.

[Loss]

I'm watching some 91 WCW. Ricky Morton really tanks the York Foundation gimmick. Rich and Taylor both change their looks for the gimmick, doing the slicked back hair and shoots. Morton still has the mullet. He works as a heel, but doesn't match the gimmick at all.

This has been explained before, I think by tomk, but that was intentional. 80s washout gone corporate. Plus, in the ring, he was the best heel of the three at this point.

[Victator]

Yeah I've heard that, I'm just not sure it was intended. In ring I think Rich was the best.