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Where the Big Boys Play #86 - 1992 TV and End of Year Awards


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http://placetobenation.com/where-the-big-boys-play-86-1992-tv-and-end-of-year-awards/

 

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Chad and Parv wrap up their look back at 1992 WCW with a roundup of the best TV matches of the year before handing out their annual awards for Chad, we should probs do same as 90 and 91: Awards discussed are The Total Billy Graham Award for worst wrestler, Best Feud, Best Show, Worst Show, Best Tag Team, Best Face, Best Heel, Top 5 matches and Top 5 wrestlers (plus the Ric Flair Award for wrestler of 1992).

 

Also on the show, a look at WCW's and WWF's five different TV shows across cable and syndication at this time, Luger's 89 vs. Sting's 92, and much much more.

 

List of TV matches reviewed:

 

- Dustin Rhodes vs. Arn Anderson (1/4 WCWSN, finish on 1/5 Main Event)

- Sting/Ricky Steamboat/Marcus Bagwell vs. Rick Rude/Steve Austin/Larry Zbyszko (1/18 Pro)

- Brian Pillman vs. Rick Rude (2/15 Pro)

- Sting/Dustin Rhodes/Barry Windham/Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Rude/Arn Anderson/Bobby Eaton/Larry Zbyszko (2/22 WCWSN)

- Ricky Steamboat vs. Arn Anderson (3/28 Pro)

- Ricky Steamboat/Dustin Rhodes/Barry Windham vs. Rick Rude/Steve Austin/Arn Anderson (4/4 Pro)

- Steve Austin vs. Barry Windham (5/9 WCWSN)

- Ricky Steamboat/Dustin Rhodes/Nikita Koloff vs. Arn Anderson/Bobby Eaton/Larry Zbyszko (5/23 WCWSN)

- Dustin Rhodes vs. Rick Rude (5/30 Worldwide)

- Sting/Steiners vs. Rick Rude/Arn Anderson/Bobby Eaton (10/3 Worldwide)

- Arn Anderson vs. Barry Windham (6/6 WCWSN)

- Dustin Rhodes vs. Vader (11/21 WCWSN)

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Well, since you asked....

 

Best matches

1. War Games

2. Rude v Steamboat, Beach Blast

3. Arn Anderson vs. Barry Windham (6/6 WCWSN)

4. Windham and Pillman v Steamboat and Douglas, Starrcade

5. Sting v Vader, Starrcade

 

Best Wrestler

1. Steamboat

2. Rude

3. Windham

4. Arn Anderson

5. Dustin Rhodes

 

Hell of a year, hell of a lot of memories. The attempts to tape it at 2am certainly ring a bell, Parv.

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Hell of a year, hell of a lot of memories. The attempts to tape it at 2am certainly ring a bell, Parv.

Being at college in 92 meant I just stayed up and watched them as broadcast...if ITV chose to show them on any given week. Surely must go down as the most heavily edited wrestling show ever.

I remember the continuity skipping from right before the Dangerous Alliance War Games to some point months later with ZERO explanation. I was like "where's Paul E? WHO WON THE MATCH?! Where's Rude's tache!" They made it basically as difficult as possible to follow WCW in the UK.

 

ALSO, while we're going down memory lane, do either of you guys remember THIS show that would air right before WCW came on? Usually sandwiched in the 10 minutes between Prisoner and wrestling.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3jJb9TgJcg

 

Should give our American friends an idea of the sort of slot WCW was in.

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Now that you've started me on this nostalgia kick, I remember WCW first taking on a Saturday afternoon slot in Northern Ireland sometime in the autumn of 1990.

 

Lance Russell commentated, it was almost entirely squashes. The biggest match I remember from then was Flair v Scott Steiner, with Flair pinning him after Scott had come agonisingly close to victory.

 

Another thing that sticks out was Nasty Boys and Steiners constantly trying to interfere in each others squashes, but officials came out and they never, ever got to lay a finger on each other. Infuriated the life out of me.

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I cannot really argue with a lot of what you guys said here. 1992 was an awesome year, and, like Parv, have nostalgic memories of doing what I could to catch WorldWide when ITV decided to show it, whenever they decided to show it! The timeline definitely did jump around a fair bit too. I remember Ric Flair being the campion one week and the next hopping well into Luger's reign the next with no explanation. It didn't help that I kept up with the news through WCW magazine and the Apter mags, where you would buy an issue with 'February 1993' on the cover, in November of 1992, which would cover news from about August or September of 1992.

 

I do think it is a shame that you guys didn't review the Ron Simmons vs Vader title change though. I thought it was a really good match and the crowd made it into quite the moment. Ron's title run quickly turned to crap, but it certainly got off to a good start. Ron quite rightly got painted as a failure as champion and came off pretty badly in your PPV reviews during his reign, so it would have been really interesting to hear what you guys thought of the win originally and if you thought if anything could have been done to keep that initial momentum up.

 

I also have to say I feel pretty bad for Jimmy Garvin. The poor guy has had Parv on his case for years now. I know he's not that good, but there was definitely worse than him during 1992 WCW! Super Invader? Eric Watts? Maybe I'm blinkered and it's a nostalgia thing - I still love the 'Yeah yeah yeah' bit. I totallly endorse Chad regarding Masa Chono though.

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Great show, I'd go -

 

1. War Games

2. Rude/Steamboat - Beach Blast

3. Vader/Sting - Starrcade

4. Vader/Sting - GAB

5. Anderson/Windham - 6/6/92 (Rude/Steamboat @ Superbrawl is right there too)

 

1. Steamboat

2. I feel like Rude had more high end matches, but I just love watching Arn Anderson around this time... so all in all I think I'd have him at 2 here for the entire year...

3. Rude

4. Windham

5. Eaton

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Great show as always Parv and Chad, but I do have 1 major issue... where is the love for Brian Pillman?

 

Lets look at his year really quick:

 

Jan- COTC: Teams up with Bagwell and carries him against a really hot match against Smothers and Taylor, extra points for his rant/promo against the evil japanese and punching Badd in the face later in the show

 

Feb- SuperBrawl: Amazing match against Liger, one of the greatest PPV Openers of all time, right up there with Bret-Owen at WM10. Also think this was Top 5 for the year as well

 

May- WrestleWar: Has a great match with Zenk proving that he can carry the LW Division against great wrestlers like Liger, but also people like the Zed Man. Arguably Zenk's greatest match ever, which is due largely in part to Pillman.

 

June thru August: Just a bit of a drop off here, but had a good match with Flamingo at Beach Blast, with a hot performance at COTC teaming with Liger against the Canadian Team, with another good match at GAB against Steamboat and Koloff

 

Sep thru Nov: Probably the biggest knock against Pillman here was this period, he had the deal with Armstrong and relatively sub-par outing against Steamboat at HH, which for most would be a good match, but for those 2 was a disappointing performance (ex: HBK-Perfect SS 93)

 

Dec- Starrcade: A criminally underrated Tag Team match teaming with Windham in a 4.5 stars match that got some love for the top 5 on this board, with a fairly uneventful tag match in Battle Bowl weighing it down just a bit.

 

So you have 3 amazing matches (Liger,Zenk,Starrcade Tag) with a bunch of other really good matches sprinkled in. How do you not have this guy in the top 5 versus Arn and Bobby (who I love) that basically faded into obscurity after the June Clash. The matches they did have that were great were against performers having Highlight Years (Windham, Steamboat, Sting, Rhodes) while Pillman had strong outings against the likes of Zenk, Beef Wellington, Shane Douglas, and a green Scotty Flamingo.

 

It's hard to argue against the love you showed for Arn and Bobby, but discounting Pillman here is a major mistake and one that criminally underrates one of the best years a wrestler had in the 90's, not to mention he did this all outside of the umbrella of the WCW-DA feud which ate up a lot of the promotion, rightfully so. Pillman carried the undercard and is a definite Top 5 vote for me.

 

With that said, love the pod, keep it up.

 

 

 

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PIllman was more than likely a casualty of not really being involved in the Dangerous Alliance feud all that much besides ancillary contact. That combined with me watching the Rude vs. Pillman match for the tv special and liking it but not thinking it was anything special dropped him bit in my eyes. Still a really strong year but 1992 WCW is stacked with good performances. I would have had him above someone like Bobby Eaton for me.

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