[1991-11-23-WCW-Power Hour] Sting vs Cactus Jack (Submit or Surrender)

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Great match that I think blows away their Beach Blast match. Cactus takes some crazy bumps, as you'd expect, but Sting looks awesome too. I love the spot when Cactus throws the mic in Sting's face to get him to say "I Quit" and he screams "Not a chance!" Foley does the spot where he swings a chair and it ricochets back in his face, and it looks better than any other time I've seen that spot. Cactus also takes a sick Nestea Plunge bump before the Scorpion Deathlock finish. It's amazing how much more over Sting is when he's working with someone who challenges him as a worker. He looks like a guy on track to maybe realizing his potential the second time around.

[Kevin Ridge]

Really cool moment with Sting and that young fan ringside before match. Another gimmick match on WCW TV. Ross plugs hotline and mentions big stars negotiating on coming to WCW. Valentine? Williams and Gordy? Never heard of this match before. Sting looked so flat mid way through year against Kolloff. He looked great here and so did Cactus. Jack takes a sick bump on the floor and gets knocked out cold which makes him still look strong by not actually given up. This would be talked up more if it had been a PPV match.

[PeteF3]

I knew this match had a rep, but holy fucking shit. Cactus is lightyears away from where he was in 1990, throwing some good strikes and having all manner of clever spots and transitions. I particularly loved Cactus dodging the Stinger Splash, Sting putting on the brakes and trying to dive at Jack from the turnbuckle, and Jack catching him and giving him a stungun. Counters to counters--always mark-worthy. Sting takes a great deal of punishment himself, but dodges a chairshot and hits a great dropkick to Jack on the apron. Absolutely brutal Nestea Plunge follows with Jack's head missing the floor mats. Jack is out, possibly legitimately, and Sting locks on the scorpion for the UTC victory. Ending is sort of the usual self-mutilating Foley bullshit but at the same time Jack looked nigh-unstoppable during the match, so it comes off as the only way to put Jack down.

 

WCW Match of the Year. Yes, I said it, I liked this better than WarGames. The only negatives were a.) Jim Ross commentating like this great match was getting in the way of all the things he had to plug, and b.) the lack of continuity with this being taped before the Clash, with Sting carrying the U.S. title belt and showing no signs of any knee injury.

[Guest TheGreatPuma]

Sweet match. It brings back memories.

[Frankensteiner]

Regarding the lack of continuity, I think this match was not only taped but also AIRED prior to the Clash on Worldwide (think 11/16/91 is the right air date). The Power Hour airing was already a repeat.

[Childs]

It's interesting that several people whose opinions I trust strongly prefer this to the Beach Blast match. It was an excellent match that probably featured a better build than the '92 version. But the other one had a kinetic quality, with every bit of action just clicking for me. I don't know; I'm glad they both exist. These guys are Top 5 opponents on one another's lists.

[Zenjo]

A PG brawl featuring a plastic trash can. In later years they just used the lid. Half turned into 'I Quit' at one point. Good stuff as they were given full length and a clean finish on a TV taping. Decent action and it told a story. A trial run for Beach Blast '92 which I thought just shaded this.

[soup23]

I probably like this a tad less than the rest but it was still very good and played up to Sting's strengths. Cactus beat up on him for the majority of the match and created a ton of sympathy for him. Then when he makes his comeback, Cactus takes those crazy bumps that were built to and sold for this time which was satisfying leading into the finish. This made Sting look like a star and Cactus look like he belonged with the top guys.

[...TG]

So much wincing during this match at Mick just stupid bumps. How he didn't fracture his skull at some point from the Nestea plunge I don't know.

[Superstar Sleeze]

WCW US Champion Sting vs Cactus Jack - WCW Power Hour 11/23/91

 

This is the period when Sting really did feel like the Franchise of WCW. From around this time to Great American Bash 1992, everything ran through the Stinger. He was feuding with Rude & Dangerous Alliance, Cactus & Abby and Luger then later Vader. It felt like he was a wanted man with all these heels looking to take out the hero of WCW. Very much like how every heel in the mid-80s was gunning for the Hulkster. While this was not reflected monetarily, rewatching Sting projects superstar more here than at anytime in his career. The Crow Sting angle leveraged the work here, but Sting did not really have to actively contributed. It was based on history and the actual angle rather than performer. Sting made his legacy his here.

 

In a direct comparison to the more famous Beach Blast match, I prefer this one because you get your fill of sick Cactus bumps and you get Cactus proving that he actually some offense to go along with his nasty crusade to prove to the world that pro wrestling was very real. Sting looks like the man going toe-to-toe with this sado-masochistic madman. Cactus jumps him early and goes flying over the top rope when he tries for the Cactus Clothesline. Sting understands the severity of the situation that if he does not get nasty then he may not have much of a career ahead of him so he throws Cactus into the railing and suplexes him on a rubber trash barrel. I appreciated Cactus struggling by shoving Sting into the railing. In the Beach Blast, he was bit too eager to take these bumps, here he takes, but against his will from a kayfabe perspective. Sting has some fun with the trash barrell, but then he goes back to old habits and on a leapfrog he takes a headbutt to the groin. Don't try to wrestle him, Stinger. I think this is where Cactus shines the most here in his career up until this point because he shows he can kick some ass too. He hits a wicked legdrop and good heabutts. I loved the fight with the fan over the chair before he wallops the Stinger. It does get a little chinlocky because Cactus still has not developed his offensive arsenal. Sting missed a dropkick and Cactus hits him with the double arm DDT. The ref counts Sting down, but Sting is able to recover from Cactus' best shot. Ruh roh. Sting dumps Cactus to the floor, plancha and a suplex on the floor. Sting is FEELING IT! "Come here you!" he exclaims! Sting stops himself short on a missed Stinger Splash, but Cactus catches him off the top. WOW! Hotshot! Cactus hits the Cactus Elbow. Now he gets the mic and talks some shit that Sting should surrender now. Sting is not going to let down the little Stingers and himself. Cactus ends up hitting the ropes with a steel chair and it ricochets into his head, which looks really nice. Sting fires back on him at him on the apron and he falls off the apron smacking the back of his head on the concrete. Fucking eh Mick! Cactus is out fucking cold and Sting wraps him in the Scorpion Deathlock to win the match. Sting looked like a Superhero in this match taking Cactus' best shots and he just kept coming. I loved the cutoff at the Stinger Splash into the hotshot. You really Sting was going to run through him, but not so fast that leads to a really nasty finish stretch with Sting making another comeback and winning the match. Definitely a match that enhanced the presence of Sting as The Man and cemented that Cactus would be taken seriously during this run in WCW. ****

[garretta]

If Flair/Eaton for the World title wasn't the best match in Power Hour history, this one was. It had the feeling of a Clash bout that there just wasn't time to get to the previous Tuesday night, which is definitely a compliment. Both guys brought their A game, particularly Mick, who hasn't looked this good at any time in the previous two years. Yes, the bumps are sick, perhaps cringe-inducing for the squeamish. But they show an all-out effort commensurate with the magnitude of the match. When it comes to going all-out, few go as far out as Mick Foley.

 

I'm pretty sure that Mick knocked himself out legit with that last bump off the apron. If it was a planned spot, Sting would have taken him back into the ring to apply the Scorpion. As it was, there was no way he could drag nearly three hundred pounds of dead weight that far, so he just put the hold on right where they were. Mick didn't move, scream, or struggle either, and I have to believe that he'd have put on the sales job of his life if he'd been able.

 

There was only one thing missing: blood. Of course, very few people could have gotten away with blading on TBS at that time, and Sting and Mick probably figured that they didn't need to do it regardless of the match stipulations, so they didn't. Sting may have gotten away with it if he'd chosen to do so; I don't think Mick would have.

 

JR got off a ton of good lines at Mick's expense; my favorite was when Mick had the trashcan over his head, which inspired JR to quip: "Cactus Jack is where many people feel he belongs: in the garbage." There were plenty more where that one came from too.

 

Did they really have to advertise the fact that Tony was calling the same match for Worldwide? Duplication of resources is bad enough, but to call attention to your inefficiency by mentioning it on the air, especially when you've compounded the felony by airing the match on TBS as is, with Sting still U.S. champion and no sign of a knee injury whatsoever. JR did his best to update everyone while doing the commentary, but that doesn't make up for showing the match when it was already out of date in the first place. JR's shilling didn't help the situation, but TBS always considered Power Hour Part 1 of a whole pie in which the other two parts, particularly WCWSN, were just as important if not more so, and their matches had to be hyped sometime. They had a real doozy on tap at 6:05 that night, by the way: the Steiners against Luger and Hughes.

 

Was the mic spot a conscious idea on someone's part, or did Mick lose his train of thought for a second and think he was in an "I Quit" match? Either way, both men played it up so naturally that it didn't matter.

 

I loved Mick's T-shirt, which had to be custom-made for him.

 

Second-best JR line of the match, after Mick does Cactus's "BANG BANG": "He had to be playing cowboys and Indians as a kid and fallen out of a tree."

 

By the way, this kind of match was making the rounds of the TV shows, with different wrestlers being matched up,

[dawho5]

I loved this match. It played to the strengths of both (which I think these guys just do naturally) and really gets Jack over as a badass and Sting as a world-beater. Why they would air this AFTER Clash with Ross talking about Clash is so fucking WCW. And fuck you Jim Ross for telling me I had to like Clash. It was a damn good show and I won't say anything bad about it, but the announcer should not be telling me I'm crazy if I didn't like it. Ross almost takes me out of the match, if you can't tell, but it's so great that it manages to overcome shitty WCW airdates and bad announcing.

[Beast]

Match was a combo Texas Death/I Quit match. They announced the rules at the beginning; two ways to win. Cactus wasn't "forgetting" what match he was in when he asked Sting if he was ready to surrender.

Fantastic match. Cactus looked amazing here, with strong offense and timing his big bumps really well. Sting's selling was top notch and he looked like he should be able to have fantastic matches every night with any opponent. Super impressive.

The chair rebounding of the ropes looked vicious and the Nestea Plunge made me audibly gasp. What an awesome ending.

Both guys came off strong. Sting was able to pull out the win, but Cactus dominated and held his own. Him getting "knocked out" had to be pre-planned, regardless of how hard that bump was. It was a perfect ending in that he didn't actually have to verbally give up to lose. It closes the chapter on their feud for now, leaving Cactus ready to still be a world-beater against less pushed foes like Hammer.