[1993-05-23-WCW-Slamboree] Flair for the Gold: The Four Horsemen

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Phil Austin]

I hadn't seen this before, and was shocked to see that even up to the opening of the segment they were still pushing it as 'you will see the four original Horsemen tonight'. This whole show was quite the example of how to false advertise an event.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

Not bringing Tully in for this was one of those penny wise/pound foolish decisions WCW seemed to excel in. With Tully, they could have marketed the return of the original Horsemen and used that as a house show draw all over the south, with Flair/Arn/Tully in six-man tags with Ole in their corner. I can't say how well this would have drawn but I do know that WCW house show attendance sucked ass in 1993 and this couldn't have hurt. With Paul Roma, you just don't have that marketing hook, and that's not meant as "lol Paul Roma". Nobody else in WCW was an original Horseman either. But seriously, lol Paul Roma.

[Dooley]

Flair said in his shoot that he nixed bringing Tully back because they were going to give him more money then Arn was making. Although I wonder why it was easier to not bring Tully in at all then to argue for a raise for Arn.

[Victator]

Tully said he actually ordered the PPV to see how WCW was gonna get out of this. He said he felt bad for Roma.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

Flair said in his shoot that he nixed bringing Tully back because they were going to give him more money then Arn was making. Although I wonder why it was easier to not bring Tully in at all then to argue for a raise for Arn.

That was in '90. This time Tully turned them down because their offer was too low.

[Loss]

Bless Flair's heart, he did everything he could to save this and sold it big time, but ... no.

[El-P]

Seriously, whose idea was that ? Who thought for one minute it could work ? As babyfaces nonetheless, when Roma is a natural heel. They couldn't find anyone on the roster or someone with a history in the company instead of a WWF branded JTTS ? Never saw that before today either, and man, it sure made Flair look like an idiot. I would say poor Roma, but he was an asshole anyway, so fuck him.

[BruiserBrody]

I found it odd that Sid comes back as a surprise that same night, and they didn't just make him the Horseman's replacement.

[Kevin Ridge]

What a poor reaction for Roma when he was introduced.

[PeteF3]

Jesus Christ, they couldn't even be bothered to edit the intro--"THE ORIGINAL FOUR HORSEMEN!" Crowd starts shitting on this the instant Flair mentions "a little bad news." I'm surprised they even bothered to mention Blanchard at all, instead of trying to scrub him from existence. The idea that Barry Windham was supposedly responsible for Tully no-showing is ludicrous. And instead, of course, we get Paul Roma. Crowd doesn't boo so much as loudly, LOUDLY groan. "I don't think these people realize the THOUSANDS of wrestlers you had to choose from!" Oh, come on. That said, despite Roma being a douchebag, he was set up to fail here. Just about anyone would have failed, much less a WWF undercarder. Another indescribable segment and sadly things are going to get worse for WCW before they get better.

[WingedEagle]

Windham isn't there because of something Windham pulled. Brings out Arn & Ole as Horsemen. Crowd booing Roma as he comes out. Says the Blondes are going to get Flair in the ring again. Such a huge flop. Pretty incredible they bungled Flair's return to the company this badly.

[soup23]

Tully being advertised is awful with no plans to bring him here. Roma couldn't win even though all things considered I didn't think his promo was per say bad here. The ending with them doing the four horseman signal looks so hollow.

[ajtroma]

Boy, did that crowd just deflate or what? Not only when Flair does that "little bad news" bit but then when Roma comes out? A collective "oy" comes out of the audience. Just bad stuff here from jump.

[garretta]

I guess I'm that guy again, because they didn't do as bad a job of saving this as I thought they would. Editing the intro would have given it all away, so I can foirgive them for that. I thought blaming Barry for Tully's absence was a great move and would have made for a hell of an angle, and Roma.......well, they must have been stuck. How close to the show did they know that Tully wasn't coming? If it was less than a week, they might have run out of time to change the card and their plans for Sid. Didn't the Stud Stable (as I will call them, even though they weren't billed that way) debut here, with Sid as Fuller's first protégé? If you change the card to make Sid a Horseman, what do you do with Fuller, whom you've paid a ton of money to?

 

Not that there weren't big problems with this, of course. First, even though they had a ready-made angle with Barry, they completely whiffed on it by turning around and insisting that Tully's absence was no big deal. If Tully's absence is no big deal, why even mention him, especially in connection with Barry? That's what you do if Tully's going to come out in Barry's corner later that night against Arn or something similar. Of course, he wasn't and they knew it, and he wasn't going to magically show up and stand alongside the Horsemen after a suitable interval either.

 

The second problem was marketing Ole as a full member of the group. Managers/mentors aren't supposed to count as members of their own stable, guys. Ole was well past done in the ring, even as an attraction. That means you needed ​two ​wrestlers, not one. Ole didn't look half-bad for a legend, but to count him as a Horseman was just as big a mistake as lowballing Tully, and they didn't even try to explain it away.

 

Problem number three was Roma's promo. Flair, Arn, and Ole can get away with being cheered for being assholes, Paul, because they've been doing so for years. ​You ​​​can't. If you want to be a member of a babyface group, even the Horsemen, you have to do the humble newcomer bit, not brag about your looks or how you were chosen out of the thousand guys they could have chosen to be Horsemen. In other words, you needed to be a young stallion (pun intended) and let everyone else do the kiss-stealin' and the wheelin'-dealin'. You would have been just as bad a fit, and people might have still laughed at you, but you might have looked like just a tad less of a buffoon. I'm actually looking forward to seeing how he pulls his weight going forward; maybe he won't turn out to be such a crime against wrestling after all. Remember, he didn't do too badly with Power and Glory.

 

They probably could have stood to announce Flair's return to the ring another time, like the night before on ​WCWSN. ​The crowd was in no mood to hear it after being promised Tully and given Roma, and that's not the kind of thing you yell out as an afterthought as a segment is closing unless you don't really want it to be a big deal after all, which Bischoff may not have.

 

I liked Flair using the girls to try and keep Arn away from the booze before his big match. It's an inconsequential thing, but it's one of the rare times ​AFFTG has gotten something right since it started.

 

Who would I have chosen to replace Ole and Tully? As it stands now, Paul Orndorff for Tully and Bobby Eaton for Ole (who, of course, remains the manager).