[1993-01-23-WCW-Saturday Night] Ricky Steamboat vs Dustin Rhodes

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Dustin hated the way he won the U.S. title and offered Steamboat a chance to challenge for the title. Tempers flare and they wrestle to a draw. Fun match that feels like laying groundwork for a longer match with a more decisive finish.

[benj]

Fun match that feels like laying groundwork for a longer match with a more decisive finish.

My thoughts exactly.

[shoe]

Nice babyface match. The tempers flare between the two of them. The after match finish of both guys fighting after the bell would have been cool if we were going in that direction.

[El-P]

I always enjoy babyface matches where the tempers go off. They do a nice job building up the intensity. This screams rematch.

[Kevin Ridge]

Ross still plugging things to the very end. Ricky and Dustin get pissed off at each other when the spill out on to the floor. They are trying to keep their tempers in place and wrestle the match but things continue to build. Slapping each other around. Yep, well done babyface match with tempers continuing to boil as show goes off air.

[PeteF3]

Good match where both guys wrestle cleanly but with intensity--the best kind of babyface match. Makes you want to see a PPV match between the two that we never get.

[WingedEagle]

Fun mat work trading side headlocks and holds early. This was a really excellent face/face match with both working hard for the title but neither even teasing anything heelish. Rather, we get great counters, trading slaps and strikes as the intensity picks up before a way too quick draw. So many matches Dustin should've had on PPV at this time that never materialized.

 

***1/4

[soup23]

We have had some good heel vs. heel dynamics in 1993 and now the faces have a go at it. Really good stuff with everything progressively escalating. The finish made it seem frantic with them going off the air with Ross screaming and them sharing haymakers. (**1/2)

[The Russian Daydream]

This was another fun effort from these two although not as well worked as their match the previous week. I really liked Stramboat losing his temper and slapping Rhodes, mainly because it was so unexpected from Mr Clean Steamboat.

 

As Loss said, it does feel like they were building to a third match but I don't recall that one ever happened, which is odd. Perhaps a casualty of Watts's firing which must have happened shortly after this?

[garretta]

I don't see how anyone can have anything meaningful to say about this one. It was an exhibition with a pretty good finishing sequence tacked on, that's all. These guys knew damn well that they couldn't have anything resembling a real match in eight minutes, so they staged a spirited workout for public consumption. If it had been meant to be anything meaningful, they wouldn't have started the intros at (by my count) 7:54 PM; they'd have given the match at least twenty minutes and put it at the start of the program, as they've done with other major matches in the past, whether the finishes ended up being conclusive or not.

 

If Steamer and Shane had dropped the tag belts to the Blonds, then I could agree that they were working toward something, whether it got curtailed by Watts' firing or not. But with Steamer still a tag champ and Dustin just beginning with Barry, a third match was probably the last thing on their minds, let alone a pay-per-view bout of any kind.

 

I did like one line from the commentary:

 

JR: "Steamboat and Rhodes were former World tag team champions........"

 

Larry (who'd lost the belts to them): "Tell me about it!"

 

One question I just thought of: Was Rude not giving the US belt back a cover for the match taking place before Dustin had officially won the title, which would explain why he wasn't wearing it? I know Dustin was announced as the champion before the match, but that doesn't mean that they couldn't have actually wrestled this match before the tournament final, even though the tournament final aired first.