[1994-01-22-WCW-Saturday Night] Ric Flair & Sting & The Boss vs Steve Austin & Rick Rude & Ron Simmons

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Really energetic six-man tag that keeps a good pace, has a hot Center Stage crowd and is laid out really well. Nothing to complain about at all. I think Bossman and Simmons messed up something because there was some editing right at that point. Still, fun way to spend 10 minutes.

[FLIK]

Weird, I have no memory of heel Ron Simmons being in WCW this late. I remember the angle whear he turned on Ice Train for being an idiot but not much after that.

Especially odd to see him teaming with those two given how many Dangerous Alliance tags he was on the opposite end of.

[flyonthewall2983]

How much longer after this did Ron stick around?

[Kevin Ridge]

Fun little match. I didn't know Ice Train was in WCW back in 94. Wikipedia tells me he disappared shortly after this for a while. Simmons pops him good at the beginning. The Boss just doesn't look right to me wearing all black. Train gets some revenge at the end by distracting Simmons.

[shoe]

Just a fun 6 man tag. Again I thought Austin was the best worker in here, The Boss looked pretty great as well. Even with Rude being a fraction of him self his facials and selling of the atomic drops almost steal the match. We got some real good brawling and it was heated and built to a good finish with a clusterfuck at the end. Good stuff.

[Exposer]

This was a fun tv six man. I had no clue Ron Simmons was heel in WCW outside of Doom. It was unique to see Bossman take the FIP segment. Just a fun multi-man in the end.

[soup23]

I will agreee that I was perplexed that Simmons was heel here and also was unaware Ice Train was in the picture this early. Real good 6 man that made me look forward to the Boss for the year because between his All Japan run in late 93 and WCW 94 run he may become a sneaky top 5-10 worker in the US candidate.

[El-P]

Ice Train actually debuted in 1993. That match was pretty much the official act of Simmons heel turn, although he did work squash matches as a heel the weeks leading to this. Fun 6-man matchg, with lot of legit crowd heat which is refreshing. I agree Austin was the stand-out here, and watching him and Flair work together really underlines the fact we have been robbed of a great Austin vs Flair program on top.

[Superstar Sleeze]

WCW International World Champion Rick Rude, "Stunning" Steve Austin & Ron Simmons w/Col. Robert Parker vs WCW World Champion Ric Flair, Sting & The Boss w/Ice Train - WCW Saturday Night 01/21/94

 

Austin is very inconsistent in this time period. He is never bad per se. He just ranges from bland midcard heel to main event heel week-to-week (reminds me of Del Rio). This is one of those main event performances as he is the glue that holds this match together. He bumps around for Sting like a million bucks. His interaction with Flair is a tantalizing taste of what we never got. His missed kneedrop set up the babyface knee work. After Simmons holds the top rope down causing The Boss to go tumbling to the floor, Austin rammed Boss' head into the railing. He was the one always racing to cut The Boss off from tagging his partners. In a match with Flair, Sting and Rude, he was the lynchpin, which is a huge amount of respect by those guys to let the match run through him.

 

The beginning was fun with Rude doing all his atomic drop stooging bits. Even in his limited fashion, Rude was awesome here. We got the Austin show as mentioned above and then a Boss heat segment. I guess that is one way to showcase the Boss? Yes, in this time period he was on a hot streak, but I think his partners would have been better faces in peril. The heat segment was not up to snuff with the rest. The Austin bits were good, but Simmons just recently turned heel and did not have it down yet. Sting gets the hot tag and a melee ensues. Simmons who had deck his buddy Ice Train before the match get his comeuppance when Ice Train distracts him and Sting gets the pin.

.

Austin was tremendous and Rude was great in small doses, which lends more credence to my hide Rude in tag matches would have made a great post-prime career for him. Weirdest thing about this match was how subdued Flair was. Flair usually takes over every match he is in. It was nice to let him standback and let others carry the load. Also, weird was they had all this starpower, but the match was a backdrop for the Simmons/Ice Train feud. WCW was always great for stuff like this.

[PeteF3]

Hey everyone, remember the Ron Simmons heel turn and feud with Ice Train? Neither do I. God, Ice Train is so comically out of place here, whether among the babyface team or standing up to the heels. Fun little TV sprint, with all 6 guys getting a chance to show some good stuff. I love any time the Boss as a babyface "works small," like getting worked over in a bearhug or here, doing that somersault-off-the-knee-lift bump. The Center Stage crowd is HOT, which is a rarity because it's an environment that I've always found to be incredibly sterile. Ice Train distracts Simmons to allow for a Sting roll-up, because that's the money issue here that needs to be pushed.

[flyonthewall2983]

Hey everyone, remember the Ron Simmons heel turn and feud with Ice Train? Neither do I.

 

I do, actually. It was practically identical to the program Train did with Scott Norton in '96, without the mentor role played by Simmons.

[garretta]

I don't know how some of you are getting so much out of what felt to me like one of those useless little six-man brawls Vince ran from time to time on Superstars and Challenge​ to break up the squashes. As it turned out, we could have had any five other guys in the match as long as Simmons was there to be distracted by Ice Train and pinned. Each guy got to hit a move or two as a consolation prize, but none of it mattered in the end.

 

Flair in particular was absolutely wasted. I'm beginning to think that Bischoff deliberately wanted to marginalize Flair so that Hogan coming in would seem like a bigger deal. The problem is, Flair's been such a nobody for the last few months that beating him won't mean squat by July, whether he has the belt or not. He should have been put in a match where he could have dominated someone and gotten a decisive win to wash away the stigma of being Vader's favorite plaything since early November, and this match definitely wasn't it.

 

Jesse referred to Traylor as "Bossman" again, which can't be an accident by now. For God's sake, Eric, either change Big Ray's gimmick completely so it has nothing to do with law enforcement whatsoever or just let him be Big Bubba Rogers again. This "Bossman, Bossman, na-na-na-NA-na!" stuff directed at Vince has to stop and stop now. Not only is it going to get you sued, but it makes you look about eight years old. That said, Ray didn't look too bad in black.

 

You know a match is a throwaway when Tony spends as much time hyping the upcoming Clash as he does calling the action. Jesse seemed a lot more into the bout; then again, he won't even be ​at the Clash thanks to Heenan, so why should he care about it?

 

So Simmons is with Boss Hogg now, huh? If there's any pair more incongruous than Austin and Fuller, it's Simmons and Fuller. I did ​like Jesse talking about how Fuller's money meant more to him than Florida State's national championship, which is as it should be when you think about it.

 

In matches like this, Rude looks almost like his old self, and that's the case here too. It's in singles matches where he has to go more than ten minutes that we begin to see how hurt he is. Still, you have to give him credit for at least trying to put on a decent show despite it all, which doesn't always happen with injured guys.