[1990-12-16-NWA Starrcade '90] Konnan & Rey Misterio Sr vs Chris Adams & Norman Smiley

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

REY MISTERIC! That's what the graphic says and that's what Jim Ross calls him before he realizes he was wrong and corrects himself. Adams gets a big pop. A pretty sloppy match, but interesting to see Chris Adams so over with this crowd.

[El-P]

It's pretty surreal to see Konnan, Chris Adams and Norman Smiley so early in WCW in retrospect.

[PeteF3]

They must have gotten USWA Challenge or UWF television in St. Louis because Adams is pretty over. Paul E. tells a hilariously un-PC account of how Konnan's parents met. These guys' reach sort of exceeded their grasp here but there was some unique stuff here not being done on U.S. television. This was a surreal idea all-around with the presence of the Russian New Japan shooters and two no-name Stu Hart trainees representing Canada.

[soup23]

Good for adams getting a nice cheer. I don't think I have ever seen more opinions in a stat sheet before. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of just having stats? This match is ok and there were a couple of cool sequences and I also enjoyed Konnan rushing in when Mysterio goes to the outside because that would count as a tag in lucha. Match didn't get enough time to develop into anything else.

[Kevin Ridge]

Chris Adams returns to the yearbook with Norman Smiley as tag partner. Paul E brings the offensive comments. No issues with any style conflicts. Konnan doesn't turn on his tag partner. Konnan and Mysterio move on to face the Steiners.

[BruiserBrody]

They must have gotten USWA Challenge or UWF television in St. Louis because Adams is pretty over. Paul E. tells a hilariously un-PC account of how Konnan's parents met. These guys' reach sort of exceeded their grasp here but there was some unique stuff here not being done on U.S. television. This was a surreal idea all-around with the presence of the Russian New Japan shooters and two no-name Stu Hart trainees representing Canada.

Bullwhip Johnson was a 15 year Vet. Nobody seems to know anything about the Indian.

 

Based on available talent, Owen Hart and Ronnie Garvin would have been a swank Team Canada vs. Saito and Muta

[pantherwagner]

It's interesting how this actual match got Smiley his break in Mexico, which eventually got him to WCW, then WWE and now his current role as a trainer. Without this match he may have ended up lost in the shuffle of early 90s Japanese shoot indies. He may have had a role as a WCW jobber in 93-94 but that's probably it.

 

Adams also had a Mexico run though he came basically as a guy to make Kevin Von Erich look good. KVE didn't impress but Adams did - Box y Lucha, the fans at the arenas and the promoters all loved his style and work ethic in the ring. Unfortunately for him he was caught stealing Atlantis' wallet and that was it.

[garretta]

Interesting short version of what could have been a much more in-depth match on a bigger stage. Now we know that Adams didn't lose his hair in what was left of the Austin feud, as he has full and flowing locks here. Speaking of Chris, even though JR acknowledged the ovation he got, he never mentioned Chris' American past with either World Class or Watts; if you didn't already know about him, you'd think he just stepped off the boat from London.

 

After they gave Chris his ovation, the crowd died. They didn't care a whit for any of the other three wrestlers here because they didn't know anything about them. Turner should have had all seven foreign teams either wrestle a match here in the States or tape a match to be sent over here to air on TBS to at least partially familiarize the crowd with their styles, but other than the "South African" team, we didn't see any of the other teams before Starrcade, thus ensuring that the Steiners were the only team that really mattered. If that was the best they could do, they should have either just brought Muta and Saito over to wrestle for the U.S. belts or found a regular WCW team for Rick and Scotty to work with.

 

Could JR have cared any less about this match? The references to "Rey Misteric" really bothered me. If the man cared anything about the match at all, he'd have spent some time actually researching who these guys were. If he was the expert he claimed to be, he should have known something about Smiley, Konnan, and Misterio even without in-depth research. Bad jokes aside, Heyman was the only one really into the bout itself, giving us tidbits about the Mexican and British wrestling styles and even telling us about Konnan's previous knee injury. Meanwhile, all JR could do was snark about giving Paul a "yap-ectomy". My opinion of him as an announcer is starting to go downhill in a hurry. (Extra minus points to the normally fabulous Gary Cappetta for calling Rey Sr. "Misterioso", which JR picked up on as well, unfortunately.)

 

Were these bouts shown in Mexico? Assuming that Rey Sr. wasn't legitimately hurt, doing an injury angle with him either makes it absurdly easy for the Steiners to move on to the finals, provides Rey Sr. and Konnan with a readymade excuse for losing to give to the fans back home, or both.

[Hawkeye12]

I always presumed Mysterio was legit hurt. Didn't he hit a plancha and land his knees on the (wooden i think) steps? Need to watch this event again. One of my favorites, but crammed in about 15 short matches into one night.

[flyonthewall2983]

 

They must have gotten USWA Challenge or UWF television in St. Louis because Adams is pretty over. Paul E. tells a hilariously un-PC account of how Konnan's parents met. These guys' reach sort of exceeded their grasp here but there was some unique stuff here not being done on U.S. television. This was a surreal idea all-around with the presence of the Russian New Japan shooters and two no-name Stu Hart trainees representing Canada.

Bullwhip Johnson was a 15 year Vet. Nobody seems to know anything about the Indian.

 

Based on available talent, Owen Hart and Ronnie Garvin would have been a swank Team Canada vs. Saito and Muta

 

 

Believe it or not, I think Garvin was still working WWF house shows as late as November of that year.