[1993-02-27-WCW-Worldwide] Rock & Roll Express & Ricky Steamboat & Shane Douglas vs Hollywood Blonds & Heavenly Bodies

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

It's incredible how much heat the presence of Cornette and the Rock & Rolls add to the stuff they're in. These crowds genuinely missed them. This is short, but crazy and really awesome! I wish they had more time, because this had the makings of a great match before the match was stopped.

[benj]

Love that we get this match after the SMW tag team brawl. Hot crowd, fast pace, and it was wild.

[shoe]

Just some good shit with the 4 of best tag teams in the states at this time. It's amazing how over the Rock N Roll are with the WCW audience. If we got 15-20 minutes we would be talking about a top of the line match probaly.

[FLIK]

So what was up with Ventura on commentary during this match? He was always a big Blonds fan and I fig Cornette/Bodies would be right up his alley too but instead he gets in a lot of jokes at their (and SMW's) exspense.

 

The line about hearing someone herded all of Cornette's money away was pretty funny.

[Kevin Ridge]

Jesse still struggling to understand where the Smokey Mountain area is in the US. The Express/Bodies still had some life in them to be part of a major promotion. Fun match though wanted a bit more.

[PeteF3]

"ROCK AND ROLL! ROCK AND ROLL!" Absolutely deafening crowd here. What a fun little footnote, as I had no idea there was more SMW-in-WCW stuff after SuperBrawl. Good action, but Ventura's shitting all over Cornette and Smoky Mountain, having suddenly changed his tune from SuperBrawl, sure is annoying. I have a feeling that Jesse's best days are now past, and whether he agrees or not that he was at his WCW best under Watts' watch. Gibson does fine work in the Ricky Morton role, and Steamboat is a maniac upon getting the hot tag. Everyone gets involved and the match is thrown out. MORE OF THIS, PLEASE. Sadly this is nothing more than an afterword at the tail end of the Watts Era. Goddamn, now I'm depressed that we never got the Rock 'n Rolls vs. the Blonds or Steamboat & Douglas vs. the Bodies.

[WingedEagle]

Quick action early with fast tags and bumping by the heels. A Cornette racket shot sets up heel run with Gibson in peril. They brawl outside while Gibson stays working underneath inside. Great spot with him looking for the tag in the wrong corner as the other 3 going batty on the apron looking for the hot tag. Austin briefly cuts off the hope spot, but Steamboat in on the hot tag and all 8 guys end up in the ring with tons happening at once. Cornette tosses in the racket and we get a double DDQ. About as fun as a 10 minute match can be.

 

***1/2

[soup23]

Agree Jesse was annoying here shoe horning in his Smokey Mountain line and what Dr. Tom is a dr. of. Match was frantic and good. The interaction of the SMW overlapping with WCW creates a nice feel. I am waiting on WCW to fall off a cliff but honestly besides the white castle of fear vignette, they have hit on everything so far two months into 1993. ***

[cheapshot]

Watched this last night thanks to Charles' excellent 90's Week in Review series.

 

Fun match, and like Pete never realised that SMW were involved with WCW post SuperBrawl.

[garretta]

This bout was actually taped on February 9, so even if it aired after SuperBrawl, SuperBrawl was the end of the SMW "invasion".

 

You knew going in that nobody was losing, but the double DQ seemed kind of clichéd. I'm not sure what finish I would have preferred, but to see the whole thing thrown out seemed like a waste of eight great athletes.

 

There wasn't a whole lot of WCW vs. SMW here; if, for example, Austin found himself in the ring against Gibson for longer than a few seconds, he would always tag Lane or Prichard as soon as he could. There was a little more "cross-pollination" toward the end of the match, but by then it was too late to matter much.

 

If you keep in mind that this match was taped before the pay-per-view, you'll understand why Jesse was making the jokes he was. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd legitimately never heard of SMW before this match came to the ring. He surely knew the individual wrestlers, though, so it was strange to hear him making fun of Corny and leaving Tony, of all people, to defend him.

 

I don't agree that it was Watts who kept Jesse in line; with everything else Jesse had going for him at this time outside of the business, he could have told the Cowboy to pound salt any time he wanted, and Watts wasn't going to physically intimidate him at this point. Jesse was always more neutral on pay-per-views, even in the WWF, and he and JR meshed surprisingly well after a rough start.

 

He's a totally different announcer with Tony on Worldwide; Tony doesn't play with him at all and is audibly embarrassed by him more often than not, so he keeps trying to goad Tony into responding to his one-liners. JR learned early on to acknowledge Jesse's non-wrestling comments briefly and amiably, then turn the focus back to the ring, and Jesse was happy to go along since he'd been humored. To equate this to Jesse's WWF days, JR was his Gino, and Tony is his Vince. The problem is that while Vince's outrage over Jesse's remarks was part of his goofy babyface announcer persona, Tony's seems real even if it isn't; he's not a good enough actor for his outrage to seem part of the act, if that makes any sense (which it probably doesn't).

 

I'm surprised that Corny didn't try to get a payday for Killer Kyle out of all this somehow; since WCW acknowledged everything else about the Bodies that SMW did, including that the Bodies were now supposedly a corporation, you'd think that they would have had room for Corny's bodyguard somewhere in the mix.

 

The line about Corny's money being "herded" away was one of Jesse's best ever. Poor Tony didn't know what to do with it, since the Turner lawyers almost certainly didn't want Jim Herd's name taken in vain for fear of a lawsuit.

 

A nitpick, but Atkins should have waited for someone to actually be hit by Corny's racquet before throwing the match out. Yes, I know someone can be disqualified for merely possessing a foreign object, but most of the time refs wait until said object is actually used.