[1990-06-02-NWA-World Championship Wrestling] Road Warriors vs Barry Windham & Arn Anderson

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[PeteF3]

Pretty perfunctory match, with good heat and okay action but nothing really standing out. Animal does a better job as FIP than you would expect, and I liked his shoulder tackles from all fours to get Windham off of him. Bizarre finishing sequence in which Sid apparently jumps his cue to interfere, causing the bell to ring, but the four participants keep working it straight and Ross & Cornette have to struggle to explain that Sid didn't actually "make contact." Then we run two exact same false finishes with Arn trying to hold down one RW's leg on a pin attempt, but the Roadies kick out anyway. Then Sid & Ole run in for the real DQ. Sting and the Dudes with Attitudes quickly run the Horsemen off as Ross shouts "THERE'S UNITY IN THE NWA!" We could have used a few more moments like that 6-7 years later.

 

I was expecting this to be a Road Warriors burial as this has to be one of if not their very last NWA appearance. But despite needing help they're still standing tall at the end.

[Loss]

Sid has been in the tux since Capital Combat. The Road Warriors are still very over, which makes me wonder why they stopped being used on top when Turner took over the company. Windham looks good, but he's also slightly off step. It took him a little while to get back in the swing of things. Despite the crowd reaction, the Roadies are sleepwalking and this has an odd layout. Not sure why it got ***1/2 in the Observer unless it's just for the crowd heat. It's not that things were awesome before Ole, but you can definitely see a further decline happening even this early under Ole. This is a clusterfuck, as Sid botches his run-in.

[soup23]

Ok power man match but a lot of slop was mixed in. The ending was also a complete mess and the explanation from Ross made no sense.

[shoe]

It was solid work though sloppy at times. That finish was all sorts of sloppy.

[Kevin Ridge]

Sid is still wearing his tux. Arn thinks the Road Warriors can be beat. Sid didn’t even say anything. Flair piles on the Road Warriors. Sid provides some scouting to Arn and Barry. Animal no sells a suplex. Animal blocks a foot stomp. Horsemen start using some team work to get the advantage. Hawk gets the tag in and cleans house. Sid takes off his jacket and hits the ring and we get the disqualification. Or maybe not as the match seems to resume. Ole shows up though and Sting and Orndorff come to the aid of LOD.

[Superstar Sleeze]

This match was pretty decent. I watched Barry's big return to the NWA at the end of the Flair/Luger match. It just lacked the big return feel I expected. Already, it just seems like business as usual for Big Barry as he is teaming with Double A against the Roadies. I like that the Horsemen get some offense in even if Roadies no sell it as it feels like they are overcoming an obstacle as opposed to WWF where the Busters were thrown around willy nilly by teams like Demolition. I thought this was pretty action-packed, but it was a short-ish match so they could afford to go all out. The Road Warriors are finally done in by a knee to the back during a bearhug. Barry shows up both Hawk and Animal by doing a way better powerslam than they ever could hope of doing. Animal's headbutts from the knees were the best part of this because he actually looked like he got some decent spring going into Windham's gut. We get a total clusterfuck finish because Sid fucks up. Eventually, Ole is out and we get a proper Horsemen, but wait what's this? Junkyard Dog in the always timeless Zubaz (the only way to look bitchin' as all hell and still be comfortable) leads the Dudes withe Attitude to make the save. Barry looked like he had not missed a step since leaving the NWA in February of 1989 and otherwise just your basic NWA TV Main Event.

[Cox]

This was better than I thought it would be before things got clusterfucky. Somehow, the Roadies escape the NWA without losing or getting beat down. Hey, there's Paul Orndorff!

[garretta]

The ending was a mess, to put it mildly. Not only did JR and Corny's explanation make no sense, it wasn't even true; Sid very clearly made contact during the first run-in. I always thought that in a case like this, the refs were supposed to ring the bell, assess the DQ, and figure out who screwed up later.

 

Hawk and Animal didn't look too bad for a team already out of WCW when this aired. I guess if Arn and Barry had tried to sandbag them too obviously, they would have paid for the privilege. Why not? What was WCW going to do, release them?

 

Arn and Barry looked very good here as well. They weren't on Busters level yet, but there was potential. It'll be interesting to see them against Doom later in the year.

 

I know this was impossible, but the whole Dudes With Attitudes thing might have worked better if the Road Warriors had been the ones saving Paul Orndorff and not the other way around. Sorry, but the LOD had tons more star power than either JYD or Orndorff at this time, and they deserved to be pushed harder than they were. Fortunately, they were headed for a place that genuinely appreciated them, at least for a while.

 

I only saw one leg-pull false finish from Arn, by the way.

[drew wardlaw]

Sid just being in a tux and not saying anything during the promo was super funny. I thought this was really interesting actually to see if/how the Road Warriors would bump and sell for Arn and Barry. I thought Animal sold pretty well here. Better than I expected. I always love faces coming out and making the save during a heel beat down so I can't knock this too much.

[JKWebb]

I found the ending of this pretty interesting. It was obvious that the crowd was thrilled to see Sting run out and assist the Road Warriors, they were going nuts for him. I think Ornodorff actually thought the reaction was for him. He gets really hyped here at this point, and jumps in front of Sting and onto the top middle turnbuckle pointing at the crowd and shaking his fist. Sting, is behind him with the other guys looking up at Orndorff being too nice of a guy to take his segment back, which I think it was likely designed to have been Sting's moment. It would have made more sense with Sting out front and the other faces backing him. As the camera pans away, you realize JYD finally hit the ring. The other guys were too fast for him, but I guess it's good he made it before the credits rolled.

[GSR]

Anderson and Windham are accompanied by tuxedo Sid, while the Road Warriors have Paul Ellering in their corner. This wasn’t the best and that’s not down to the efforts of the Horsemen. Arn and Barry tried and bumped for all they were worth but the Road Warriors, in particular Animal (look out for a dreadful double clothesline) were bad. The match also isn’t helped by Animal being reluctant to sell, and when he does sell it’s only briefly. The crowd were pretty hot for this so who knows what they would be like if the Road Warriors actually let the Horsemen get some heat on them. The finish was botched, as Sid gets in the ring and starts attacking Hawk right in front of referee Randy Anderson. Anderson calls for the bell and DQ’s the Horsemen but the match just then continues. Ole Anderson comes out to support the Horsemen and Ross and Cornette cover for the botch claiming that Sid didn’t make contact with anyone when he entered the ring (even though he quite clearly did). All four men are in the ring, Ole and Sid interfere to help the Horsemen, and this time they are disqualified. It’s a Horsemen beat down until Sting and Paul Orndorff come to the Road Warriors rescue, with the Junkyard Dog not far behind, and Jim Ross proclaiming that ‘there is unity in the NWA’. I imagine Sid got a little excited and was early on his interference and they just had to cover no matter how bad it looked.

[dawho5]

"Sid would never interfere in the match!" Love ya Corny. What a great botched finish that was. Sid is really working out as a Horseman.