[1991-03-15-USWA Texas] Steve Austin vs Gary Young (Coal Miner's Glove)

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

These two have a pretty good match. Pritchard interferes while Tojo distracts the ref and climbs the pole and hands the glove to Austin. Young should have gotten another chance somewhere. He has really impressed me in 1990 and 1991.

[shoe]

This was a solid match. Austin was real lucky to be able to work with all these experienced hands when he 1st started out. That clothesline out of the corner was a thing of beauty.

[PeteF3]

One of the better straight Austin matches in his career to this point--despite the Coal Miner's Glove stip there are a few token climbing spots and the rest of this is worked on the level. I doubt Young would have ever gotten above Rip Rogers levels in WCW, but you'd think he would have had something to offer even in that role. Smoky Mountain could have used him too, in fact.

[Kevin Ridge]

Not much of a fan of these pole matches. Some slow climbing. The battling on the top rope near the pole is good though. Pritchard sounds so much like Piper. Young has been looking good in 91 as a face. The glove looks like something out of Michael Jackson’s collection.

[soup23]

Young as a face still seems weird to hear but he does garner a good response from the crowd. Austin is pretty much in his WCW gear by now with the robe and all. I thought this match was solid for a show opener but nothing I will remember a year from now. Pritchard has really established himself as a big name.

[garretta]

This was a nifty little brawl. I haven't seen the match where Embry and friends turned on Young yet, but he seems to be an effective babyface while keeping his edge at the same time. Austin continues his education and looks very rugged as well.

 

I thought there should have been more emphasis on climbing the pole to get the glove; at one point when there was less than two minutes left in the bout, I thought they weren't going to bother using the glove in the finish at all, which would have made the whole match a ripoff in my eyes. I'm kind of on the fence about Dr. Tom's interference; on the one hand, it certainly established him as a constant danger, whether in the ring, coming from the locker room, or interfering from the booth. On the other hand, they could have had him do something different than practically winning the match for Austin. If you're going to have a "climb the pole and get the object" match, it's a nice idea to have one of the two wrestlers actually get the object themselves before you have people interfering all over the place.

 

I know he's doing a Piper impersonation, but Dr. Tom's still an excellent commentator who knows what he's talking about. He keeps his pro-Tojo bias to a minimum (though his exchange with Michael concerning Tojo's briefcase was a hoot) and really gets inside the heads of the wrestlers, which you would expect since he's a wrestler himself. In short, he's doing what the Hot Rod's doing in the WWF about as well as the man himself is, and sometimes even better, since he doesn't tend toward screaming. Michael's solid, but not spectacular; it's a shame Craig Johnson seems to have disappeared into thin air, because he'd really improved in the latter half of '90.

 

Does Austin have any kids with Jeannie? The reason I ask is that I'm trying to figure out if she took a break for personal reasons or if Jarrett simply shoved her aside to open up a spot for his old friend Tojo. It's a shame if the latter's the case, because Austin and Jeannie were really coming into their own as an act before the Dallas promotion was suspended the previous fall.

[dawho5]

I thought they worked a really good match, but forgetting the glove on the pole for the entire second half was not ideal.