[1992-12-28-WCW-Starrcade '92] Barry Windham & Brian Pillman vs Ricky Steamboat & Shane Douglas

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

I cracked up at the "Dustin, if my groin was hurt, would you pin me?" sign in the crowd.

 

This match didn't do as much for me as it has in the past for some reason, but it was still really good. But not "WCW Top 20 of the 90s" good, which is how it's usually considered. It was impressive how they woke up a completely dead crowd. I was feeling bad for them early on because the crowd was not just responsive to anything. This is probably the best Shane Douglas match ever.

[KB8]

I liked this more than you, it seems. Right now I'd have it in my top 5 WCW matches of the year. This is what I said about it when I watched it earlier this year:

 

Really a classic southern style tag; maybe the best WCW tag of the year, which is saying something in a year full of great tag matches. Windham and Pillman are a great team, Windham as the surly ass kicker, Pillman as the speedy douchebag technician. First stretch leading up to Douglas playing FIP maybe went a little too long and the heat wasn't really there, but Windham and Pillman are great as your heels in peril. Pillman takes a ridiculous bump off the apron where he careens throat first into the guardrail; it's not telegraphed in any way and just comes straight out of nowhere. Steamboat is still major pissed at Barry and brings the fire to suggest as much. Things pick up big time once Douglas gets hurled off the top rope to the floor. Douglas is seriously great as your FIP here; he takes a few killer bumps, sells everything great, has good timing on his hope spots, etc. There's one great moment where Barry clocks him with a punch and he does this amazing sell where he just goes dead on his feet and falls into the ropes like a puppet whose strings where just cut. Crowd are pretty rabid at this point as well, and a lot of that is down to Pillman and Barry working a Hell of a beatdown. Awesome moment where Steamboat loses it because of all the cheating and cracks Barry with a chair. If they went right to the finish after Steamboat's hot tag then this would be a great match. They don't, though, and instead have Steamboat take a stint as FIP as well. Steamboat is great as your belligerent good guy that refuses to take the bad guys' bullshit, wagging his finger at Windham and talking shit while Windham's beating on him. It's less "Oh man he needs to make the tag or he's gonna fucking die" Steamboat, more "Oh man they better fucking kill him or he's gonna rip their heads off at some point" Steamboat. Love the finish as well, especially Windham trying to launch himself over the top rope to break the count. Just a terrific, terrific match.

[Tim Evans]

It was nice to see Steamboat get a little heelish by hitting Windham with a chair. I liked this but it was far from the best tag match of the year.

[shoe]

I thought this was awesome. Steamboat and Douglas were both really great as FIP. The shine section was good. Windham brought his high end offense to the table. Pillman took a lot of neat bumps and brought high energy to the match. A really quality match.

[Zenjo]

Steamboat came out to 'Family Man', thankfully without Bonnie and Junior. He had a heated rivalry with Windham. A nice full length encounter that was always watchable and peaked in the closing stages. Would've been better if someone had replaced Dean Douglas. I never rated the guy at all.

[Quantum]

This was a very good match. Not great. I think they had an even better tag title match for the Unified tag title at a Clash.

[PeteF3]

God, who the hell thought replacing Steamboat's orchestral theme with "Family Man" would be a good idea? At least Windham's Slam Jam theme kept the spirit of his original.

 

Anyway, the weird thing about the beginning of this is that if you were there live and didn't know the full backstory, you'd swear Steamboat & Douglas were the heels. Pillman is doing babyface takedowns which Douglas is countering with punches, then Windham works a heel-in-peril segment and sort of sells sympathetically, and for his comeback Douglas does a comical tapdancing sell of Windham's jawbreaker. That oddity aside, this gets really, really good. Steamboat bashing Windham in the back with the chair was a terrific payback spot and there are some great heel cut-offs. Really heated ending with Windham taking it to the floor and leaving himself unable to save when Douglas hits the belly-to-belly. Douglas looked bad at first but got a lot better along with the match as a whole. I wouldn't call this a top 5 WCW match for the year because '92 was so loaded, but it would probably be in the top 5 of many other years.

[WingedEagle]

Really weird dynamic with with Windham very definitively serving as a heel in peril early on and then hot tagging Pillman. They meshed so well as a heel team here, and given Windham's strengths at the time before getting injured, may have had greater potential than Pillman & Austin as a unit. They work so well together, with Windham distracting Douglas on the top rope allowing Pillman to dropkick him off the buckle to the floor. They double team and cut off Douglas for a while, before Steamboat takes another page out of the heel book and takes out Windham with a chair. Steamer looked like he expected to juice after a posting by Windham but it was a no go. Really fun & hot match.

 

****

[Superstar Sleeze]

WCW World Tag Team Champions Ricky Steamboat & Shane Douglas vs Barry Windham & Brian Pillman - Starrcade 1992

 

I know I have it has been said before and will said over and over, but man was Shane Douglas horribly miscast as a babyface. Pretty much everything, he did just made me think he was a total prick. The way he sells initially especially the jawbreaker is just so heelish. You want to see him receive more punishment because he you think he is overreacting and is being a chump. A babyface sells to build that sympathy and is fighting through the pain, but Douglas looks like he is feeding for a Pillman hot tag. Towards the end of his face in peril, his selling got better and his hot tag was pretty good (it was silly because Steamboat just had a better one). Overall, the match is just weirdly laid out and the spots that are highlighted seem mundane and the highspots that get the crowd into it are inconsequential. The first time the crowd cared was for Pillman's patented bump to the railing. Pillman had not yet really figured out how to work heel as he was working every face early on and the way the spot was set up was to garner face heat. Next thing you know, Pillman hits his anti-aircraft interceptor dropkick. Windham and Pillman work a really strong face in peril on top. Windham was actually on fire this entire match. He salvaged the early part of the match by coming in bumping for the faces big time and actually worked a fluid heel in peril even though Douglas was too reliant on the chinlock. Windham was kicking spunky Shane Douglas' ass with some great punches and he really chucks him out onto the floor. Now, Steamboat has seen enough plus his blood is boiling from Windham's chair attack when The Dragon & Douglas won the titles. Steamboat gets a measure of vengeance by walloping Windham with the chair. However, it does not lead to the hot tag, It is just another spot and Douglas makes the hot tag off a suplex reversal. It was just so strange that you work a great receipt spot that pops the crowd and it is totally inconsequential. Steamboat is actually pretty fired up for this and is working this like a grudge match, but the problem was he spent too much time on the apron. Before you knew it his hot tag was over thanks a Windham bodyslam. Windham does the HHH Wrestlemania XX on his knees sucking air sell that was just tremendous. WIndham single-handledly dragged this match from a clusterfuck to an entertaining match. Steamboat tags in Douglas for another hot tag. Steamboat tackles Windham outside the ring in a hot moment but I am a sucker for that spot (Paige/Brie did an excellent version of it on RAW, this past week). Douglas catches Pillman with a belly to belly suplex to a pretty good pop.

 

I think this is one of those matches that was so underrated that it has been come overrated. Yes, it has the traditional tag team structure with double FIP, but the layout did not emphasize the strongest spots well enough and also hid Steamboat from the majority of the match when he looked like he came to play. The big positive of this match was watching Windham work a nearly flawless heel performance from the early stooging to a vicious heat segment to desperately trying to cling to a victory. It is always a treat to watch a master work. ***1/2

[ajtroma]

I'd never seen Starrcade 92 until the other night and, I think, this match gets short changed here. These guys were on right after both Simmons-Dr Death and the Muta-Chono coma-inducers. I thought this was a hellacious match and it did manage to wake up that Omni crowd.

[The Russian Daydream]

This is a very good tag match with really good performances from all involved, particularly Douglas as mentioned above, where he sold well and had good fire. I also enjoyed the Windham and Pillman team dynamic. They played it as Pillman as the young hot-headed guy with Windham as the calming influence, which we saw a few times here as well as earlier in the Lethsl Lottery match where they were on opposite sides. I thought it worked well and could have been fun over the longer term if they hadn't gone with The Hollywood Blondes instead.

 

This period with Steamboat was the high point of Douglas' career. Working as the younger guy in a babyface tag team was obviously his forte.

[garretta]

This was a bit strange at the start, but still thoroughly enjoyable.

 

It looked at first like the champions were not only going to squash Windham and Pillman, but were going to turn heel in the process. I've never seen a heel take two bodyslams on the floor or ramp before, and the look on Shane's face as he was taking his turn hammering on Barry reminded me of The Franchise a couple of years early. But eventually the challengers turned the ride, and the action became more familiar.

 

I wasn't sure about Windham and Pillman as a unit, but they were great here. Windham did the majority of the hard work and was clearly the captain, but Pillman excelled at the scientific and flying spots, and was also great as the weasel who threw cheapshots from both the inside and the outside. This got the champs in trouble more than once, as they were enticed into the ring illegally, thus allowing Barry and Brian to double team at will. They showed great continuity, and I join the chorus of those who believe that they would have been a tremendous long-term team if Watts hadn't decided to go with Austin and Pillman instead.

 

I forgot to mention what I believe is the best bump of the match: Pillman getting knicked off the top rope and clotheslining himself on the railing. He's used that bump before as a babyface, but it looks particularly vicious here. Unfortunately, since he's now a heel, Pillman's umpteen throat operations are ignored by JR and Jesse. So is the past feud between Pillman and Windham from '91.

 

The champs were a bit off after their fast beginning, but Shane is a tremendous FIP, particularly with a veteran like Steamboat as his partner. You know that Steamer can kick both Windham and Pillman's asses for as long as he needs to if Shane can only get over there and make the tag. Of course, a wrinkle comes into play here, as the hot tag doesn't do any good; Barry cuts Steamer off almost immediately, and delivers quite a beating to him. By the way, what was up with Steamer pointing a finger at Barry when Barry was pounding him? Was he channeling Hulk Hogan?

 

The finish wasn't the greatest in the world, as it seemed like Shane took advantage of the distraction provided by Steamboat and Windham's brawl outside to hit Pillman with a quick belly-to-belly and score a lucky win. Boy, are they pushing the belly-to-belly hard or what? No one since Magnum T.A. has gotten so many important wins with the move. which seems rather quaint in 1992 even if it is still effective.

 

Jesse was really good here, particularly at pointing out all the times when Shane and Steamer should have been disqualified. We haven't had a good old-fashioned Jesse rant in a while, so it was nice to hear him go off when Steamer hit Windham with the chair. JR played his part by keeping quiet and letting Jesse do his thing; he would have sounded weird agreeing with Jesse, but he also knew perfectly well that he (Jesse) had a point. This team is much, much better than either JR or Jesse gives it credit for, and WCW's really going to miss JR when he leaves for Vince in the spring. Considering what Tony devolved into as the years went by, it's safe to say that the announcing in WCW will never recover. (Extra credit to JR for taking Jesse's declaration that Rush Limbaugh was Shane's idol In his stride. That situation could have turned awkward at best and truly nasty at worst in less capable hands.)

 

I guess bragging about Shane's Master's degree will take the place of bragging about Pillman's football background as far as JR is concerned. I loved Jesse's slightly skeptical tone when he found out about it, like he was thinking, "The man has a Master's and he does this for a living?"

 

Did I understand JR right at the beginning during the intros, in that they pulled a Dusty finish in the World title match? Wow, they didn't give Simmons a damn thing, did they? Talk about a complete waste of a title reign, all because Simmons' skin was the right color. Yes, I said it, and it's the truth. Watts apparently never learned that JYD's success in Mid-South, to borrow a phrase from Dr. Martin Luther King, was due to the content of his character, not the color of his skin. The belt should have either stayed with Vader all along or gone back to Sting, the man who most of the fans wanted to see as champion in the first place.

[G. Badger]

A fantastic action packed tag title match! The write-ups above will probably be better but, I'll still give my two cents.

The champions (Steamboat and Shane) are really unloading on Pillman. He is really awesome in Stampede by the way!! Even Windham can't fight them off...eventually the tide turns and the young Dean Douglas gets assaulted. Its great! There are a lot of ECW-to-be bumps in this so, I think that's why this match seemed ahead of it's time.

Nevertheless, it still holds up quite well. The action and story are simple yet effective. Plus the the talent is top shelf so, everything is done just right. That title match desperation & intensity is there and I loved it! Great match!

[cactus]

Douglas and Pillman open with some technically solid yet dry exchanges. Windham and Steamboat show a bit more fire during their time as legal men. The first third of this felt rather pedestrian, but things really start to get good when Shane Douglas is isolated and worked over after taking a nasty fall to the outside. He sold his ass off and it made for a hell of a FIP segment. Windham and Pillman cut the ring in half like pros and they were able to milk some drama out of the situation. Pillman cutting off Douglas with a simple drop toehold just as he was about to leap to Steamboat was a great spot. Steamboat also did a great job at being the man on the apron, cheering his tag partner on, and getting the fans into this. While I thought this was great overall, I do have a few gripes about this. Pillman takes a horrific from the apron to the barricade and it's forgotten about in a matter of moments so that they can get started on working over Douglas. Pillman and Windham also faced each other in a tag match earlier in the night and there are talks that they might not be on the same page. This doesn't play into the match at all and I thought it was a lost opportunity to create even more drama. ★★★★