[1990-11-24-NWA-Pro] Arn Anderson vs Terry Taylor

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

The third and final match in the series. The layout of this is good, but there's something missing from the execution. It's not a bad match, but they're trying to get over the hatred at this point and I'm just not buying it. Flair comes out a few minutes in to cheer Arn on, which is a nice touch because it allows me to piece together a storyline in my head where the Horsemen have Doom where they want them, and Terry Taylor is threatening to take the one piece of hardware the Horsemen have left at a time when they can't afford any distractions. If Tony Schiavone didn't suck, I wouldn't have to do that. Teddy Long is out. Flair chases him around the ring and Doom hit the ring and doubleteam Arn. Typically crappy WCW production that the show ends mid-beatdown, and I hate that the match to settle the score ended in a DQ. Oh well.

[Phil Austin]

Schiavone calls the referee "Mike Patrick". Is that an error, or was there a WCW referee with that name?

[PeteF3]

No, he's conflating Nick Patrick and Mike Atkins (the ref here). Or possibly ESPN announcer Mike Patrick. These WGN editions of Pro are almost the definition of "phoned in." Pity we didn't get Lance & the Freebirds' call of this series.

 

The match itself starts super-hot and sort of bogs down into my turn/your turn stuff, which is a bit of a disappointing contrast to the first two matches which came off as true struggles. And we get a super-lame payoff as Doom ruins things for everybody. Was it that necessary to keep Taylor protected here? Maybe a pinfall job here would have rendered him incompatible with Alexandra York's computerized scouting database.

[soup23]

I am a Tony fan but will say this felt like him calling this match at 2 AM half asleep in Turner's studios. This match was not very good and made the series disappointing as a whole. The finish was also kind of weak and I would have liked to see more conclusion to this mini feud.

[Kevin Ridge]

More urgency in this match now. Flair shows an interest and arrives ringside. Taylor actually has Arn pinned but Doom break it up? Wouldn’t they have just let him lose the TV title. But they really want at Arn badly. The post match brawl is only shown briefly. This a puzzling feud. I can see a one off show like Havoc but it’s being given more legs than I would expect.

[garretta]

I don't know which match some of you were watching, but this felt like it had plenty of energy and excitement to me. These two were obviously through messing around, and it showed right from the start when Taylor posted both Arn's arm and his leg. I liked Terry working on the leg throughout the bout; I'm not sure whether trying to use the figure-four was a jab at Flair or not, but it fit the story being told to believe that it was, if that makes any sense. The back-and-forth nature of the match fit here nicely too; each man had had the advantage in the previous bouts but couldn't put the other away, so now they were both desperately throwing bombs at each other and seeing what happened.

 

The Doom interference was unfortunate, but did anyone expect anything else on a WCW syndicated show? Even the marks had to know by now that with rare exceptions, title changes were for TBS or pay-per-view only. It wasn't "Will the challenger get screwed?", it's "How will the challenger get screwed?" Merely having a title match on a show like this was a coup, and a Flair appearance at ringside was a rare treat. Trust me, we who were mainly WWF fans had already been putting up with finishes like this on Superstars and Challenge for years, and it was old-hat. For someone who claims to hate Vince as much as he still does, Ole was pulling things right out of Vince's booking playbook by now. It's too bad in a way, because Taylor showed in these matches that he could have been a credible TV champion.

 

Tony wasn't bad here, but you'd think he would know the difference between Nick Patrick and Mike Atkins by now, especially since Atkins was (I believe) an old Crockett referee.

[Migs]

I don't know which match some of you were watching, but this felt like it had plenty of energy and excitement to me. These two were obviously through messing around, and it showed right from the start when Taylor posted both Arn's arm and his leg. I liked Terry working on the leg throughout the bout; I'm not sure whether trying to use the figure-four was a jab at Flair or not, but it fit the story being told to believe that it was, if that makes any sense. The back-and-forth nature of the match fit here nicely too; each man had had the advantage in the previous bouts but couldn't put the other away, so now they were both desperately throwing bombs at each other and seeing what happened.

 

The Doom interference was unfortunate, but did anyone expect anything else on a WCW syndicated show? Even the marks had to know by now that with rare exceptions, title changes were for TBS or pay-per-view only. It wasn't "Will the challenger get screwed?", it's "How will the challenger get screwed?" Merely having a title match on a show like this was a coup, and a Flair appearance at ringside was a rare treat. Trust me, we who were mainly WWF fans had already been putting up with finishes like this on Superstars and Challenge for years, and it was old-hat. For someone who claims to hate Vince as much as he still does, Ole was pulling things right out of Vince's booking playbook by now. It's too bad in a way, because Taylor showed in these matches that he could have been a credible TV champion.

 

Tony wasn't bad here, but you'd think he would know the difference between Nick Patrick and Mike Atkins by now, especially since Atkins was (I believe) an old Crockett referee.

 

I disagree on the Doom interference point. It's fair if this was the second match in the series that then necessitated a third; but when they've gone through the trouble of booking this same match three weeks in a row, I think you need a conclusion to the series, even if it's Taylor winning by countout or some such. Just felt incredibly lame to constantly go to the well and not come up with any sort of ending to the mini-feud.

[drew wardlaw]

Really disappointing finish to a really enjoyable series and I thought this match was very energetic and conveyed the buildup and anger well. So this was Tony Schiavone on commentary? I was wondering the whole time, it felt like his inflection but it sounded off.

[dawho5]

I'm guessing they didn't want Taylor "losing" 3 shots at the TV title, so they just made it a screwjob ending. Good choice. No sarcasm at all there. Really.