[1993-05-29-WCW-Worldwide] Vader vs Ricky Steamboat

[Rah]

Pretty nice TV iteration of a title match. Steamboat has a helluva mountain to climb, here, if he has any hope of winning as not only is he against Vader but Harley Race is at ringside getting up to all sorts of shenanigans, as well - from mugging Steamboat to straight strangling him while Vader has the ref tied up and distracted.

 

I think for how good Steamboat is at rallying the fans behind him, the fans seemed mostly subdued for this, but his hope spots were well timed for me. This was a foregone conclusion but I kept hoping Steamboat would build enough of a comeback to topple Vader. Vader seemed quite content on not putting on much of a showing, though, which dragged this below my expectations. May 1993 was a helluva time for Vader with an all-time squash performance in UWFI against Nakano but I guess he was taking it easy here. Pity, as this was structurally sound enough to be more than just a "cool find" match.