[1995-04-08-WCW-Saturday Night] Sting vs Steve Austin

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

We're on a nice roll right now as far as match quality. This is a match I watched years ago and loved, and watching it now for the first time in many years, it's still excellent. Pretty easily the best WCW match so far. They start on the mat working the headlock before building to some nearfalls and ultimately a Sting win. But the thing that stands out most about this match is how Steve Austin was already carrying himself like a star. Maybe he wasn't quite as ready to break through as he'd be a year later, but he was still far better than the push he was getting, and it's hard to see how anyone could watch him work and not see dollar signs. During this time, his job was basically to make guys like Sting (and Alex Wright ... and Marcus Bagwell ... and whoever else they were pushing) look good and give them good matches, but they had no plans for him. That's unfortunate. I think I like the January '94 match slightly better because it's more focused, although this one is more action-packed.

[Tim Evans]

Yeah this was a good match. Really good for a 95 WCW match. I never got why they put Austin with Col. Parker? It's not like he needed a manager for promos or anything.

[El-P]

I really don't share the enthousiasm. At this point Sting wasn't working that hard anymore, and I really don't care for the way he makes his comebacks, basically no-selling from nowhere. Sting's peak had already passed by, and he was not nearly as good as he was in 1992/93 (and I blame lazyness here as he was obviously as good mechanically as ever). This is a pretty good match, but very much my turn/your turn kind of match, and although Austin looks good, he's clearly not getting the amount of offense and respect he should at this point, as you never think Sting is really in danger of losing. Arn Anderson vs Randy Savage was a lot better than this, as were Savage's matches against Avalanche and of course the first Vader vs Hogan. I won't go further than "pretty good" on this one, which makes it disapointing to me (although I shouldn't be considering how I rate Sting at this point, he's just cruising)

[Superstar Sleeze]

 

 

I didn't even know Austin stuck around this long in WCW. I thought he got fired after jobbing to Duggan a couple times in '94.

 

"If you don't want your tights pulled, don't wear tights" - Classic Heenan

 

Austin's ring presence, his swagger, and the intangibles are all there plain to see for anyone. I didn't like his offense that much in this match. He is never one to work snug, but I thought his strike looked awfully weak. Everything he did at least built to the Boston Crab. I thought the headlock stuff was a bit more tepid this go-around. I did like that Austin's headlock ended up with the press slam. I got a kick out of Parker fanning Austin when he took a powder. El-P is right as Sting just decides to end the heat segment with a clothesline out of the corner. The missing dueling splashes was cool if only to see Austin actually off the top rope with a splash. I don't think I have ever seen that. The tombstone piledriver reversal should have been the finish, but hey what are you gonna do. Sting wins with an Oklahoma Roll. There is a lot of political bullshit and injuries that are fucking with Austin's mind and body at this time. It is not a great performance, but again it is interesting to see him develop his unique charisma in the ring. This is a more complete match than '94, but they could have had better. It was a decent TV match in a pretty lackluster era for WCW.

[PeteF3]

Austin's back with Parker now? The hell? Okay, at least Schiavone mentions it, too.

 

Yeah, I didn't see the big deal with this either. This was solid enough, but that's it. I didn't think it was as good as Arn vs. Savage even if the high-end stuff was more advanced. It was pretty slow-paced before that, and not really in the good way.

[JKWebb]

Yeah this was good, but not great. Pretty paint by numbers, but I thought it was fun.