[1992-09-23-NJPW-Battle Autumn '92] Rick & Scott Steiner vs Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

A rematch of the famous March '91 Starrcade in Tokyo match that falls pretty short by comparison. Not much crowd heat, and the Steiners are not really in the mood to do much selling, which hurts the match. Also, by this time, the stock for the Steiners was really starting to drop, and it showed. I do like Hase and Sasaki as a team. Sasaki is the least guy in the match, but has a good attitude and he's at least trying. The match has its moments. Scott does take a great bump off a release German from Sasaki, and it wakes up the crowd. And when they start taking the match home, it gets good. This isn't a bad match at all. But it takes forever to get going, and the Steiners are starting to seem like yesterday's news by the end of 1992, even when they do nice stuff. Scott terribly botches the Frankensteiner near the end.

[Tim Evans]

Got to agree. Surprising to see a boring Steiners match in Japan. Just seemed mailed in.

[shoe]

This was pretty sloppy. It dragged a bit, but really got going towards the end.

[El-P]

the Steiners are starting to seem like yesterday's news by the end of 1992, even when they do nice stuff.

What do you mean exactly ?

[Loss]

the Steiners are starting to seem like yesterday's news by the end of 1992, even when they do nice stuff.

What do you mean exactly ?

 

I mean that in 1990-1991, the Steiners were red hot. They really lost something during this time and were never the same after Watts brought Williams and Gordy into WCW.

[El-P]

Ok, thanks. I haven't seen much WCW TV from 92, only PPV's and Clashes.

They were really hot when they came back in 96, but I guess after 3 years away they were fresh again, plus at this point they were looked at as big name stars.

[Kevin Ridge]

Scott was doing Frankensteiners like they were bodyslams at the end. Couple of them were pretty nasty looking.

[PeteF3]

This was pretty one-sided, with the Steiners basically asserting themselves over and over without giving much to the natives. Where this really picks up is with Sasaki trying to hang on long enough while Hase is out on the apron. Sasaki kicks out of a bunch of big bombs and eventually makes a stirring comeback and tag, leading to an even more dramatic sequence with Hase trying to put Rick away with flash pins. Eventually Scott comes in and the Steiners play divide-and-conquer. It would work really well but Scott tries a reverse Frankensteiner that's cooler in theory than practice, then almost kills himself trying to do one to Sasaki. Definitely a far cry from their 1991 Dome encounter, as that was tighter and better executed. Sasaki isn't great but he's a tremendous bundle of energy who puts everything he has into every move, and he and Hase really saved this down the stretch.

[WingedEagle]

The crowd is almost deadly silent after Hase's intro and the Steiners don't seem to have their working shoes on other than to throw around the natives a bit, and even that is lacking here. Quite the fall off from '91, as this may be one of the least interesting matches on the set. Loss hit the nail on the head with the Steiners feeling like yesterday's news. I don't know how the work from their WWF run will hold up but it'll at least be different.

 

**1/4

[DR Ackermann]

I liked the match. It was solid, but it got worse as it went on, which is funny because the crowd got more and more into it. Sasaki brought the least to the match, but you could tell he was trying. It was always a lot more interesting when Hase was in there. The beginning was especially good, I thought. I liked how Hase used his technical prowess to take on both Steiners before they were finally able to stop him with their sheer power. The ending was anticlimactic, but at least the match ended at about the right time. All those botched frankensteiners were painful to watch. I'd really like to see that '91 match you all are talking about.

[garretta]

I'm honestly not sure what most of you saw, because this looked like as close to a squash of a native team as is permitted in NJPW. Sasake looked good in places, but Hase did nothing after the first minute or two, and everything he and Sasake tried went for naught. They got a few token pin attempts during the finishing run, but other than that this was all Steiners. They haven't looked this good stateside in quite a while.

 

Interesting to see Rick use the tilt-a-whirl backbreaker early on; I thought that was one of Scotty's exclusive moves.

 

Scotty's Frankensteiners do look a bit sloppy. Either the muscles in his legs are getting too big to allow him to execute the move properly or he simply doesn't care if one of his opponents gets hurt when they take the move.

 

I notice that Hase and Sasake are teaming again in October, and I hope they look better in that match than they did in this one.

[PhilTLL]

Scotty's Frankensteiners do look a bit sloppy. Either the muscles in his legs are getting too big to allow him to execute the move properly or he simply doesn't care if one of his opponents gets hurt when they take the move.

 

It can be two things, as they say.

[garretta]

Good point, Phil!

[Superstar Sleeze]

IWGP Tag Team Champions Steiner Brothers vs Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki - NJPW 9/23/92

 

SCOTTY STEINER DRAGONRANA! WHAT THE FUCK!

 

Last title defense for the Steiners before they drop it to the all-star team of Scott Norton & Tony Halme. Nobody feels like selling in this one. It is just the Steiners suplexing and slamming Hase & Sasaki to their heart's delight. I will say they were willing to take the suplexes in return, but they weren't going to sell shit. I liked how Scotty at least switch it up using a Dragon Sleeper or STF to break up the suplex-a-thon. I thought the MVP of the match was Sasaki. That had a motor and was totally explosive during the match. He was not going to take the shit from the Steiners and he gave as good as he got. It actually got dramatic when the natives isolated Rick Steiner because Scott Steiner just decided to leave the match. Seriously, I rewound and he didn't even take a bump. He just did the middle rope Doomsday Device and decided to start selling. The finish stretch was ridiculous with Scotty hitting a terrible Dragonrana and then two more shitty Frankenesteiners. Rick hits a Steinerline to win. I like the Steiners & Sasaki more than most and this was just those three hitting insane suplexes. I liked it, but nothing I would remember. ***

[dawho5]

Lackluster Steiners performance for sure.  Hase tried to get the crowd up for the match in the beginning but it didn't seem to work.  Would agree that Sasaki was the guy most worth watching here.