Before I begin this review, I'd first like to plug my good friend Sonny Bone's new website, http://www.axebombermag.com. The website is the result of all of the positive feedback from the digital magazine Axe Bomber Magazine, and instead of waiting three months to release another issue, it has been decided by the powers-that-be that a website would be more prudent. That way, any breaking news on wrestling video games and other related topics will be covered right away. Already, there is a preview of the newly announced Fire Pro wrestling game for the XBox 360 to be released in the near future. So check it out, and be on the lookout for new articles, including some by yours truly, relating to wrestling video games at axebombermag.com.
Now for today's review. Recently I was fortunate to get my hands on an advance copy of Mick Foley's 4th autobiography, Countdown to Lockdown. I'd like to thank my friend Dickson S. for providing me with a copy of the book. See, Dickson works at a TV station, and the station was sent an advance copy of the book a couple of weeks ago. For whatever reason, they gave the book to Dickson, who then proceeded to give me the copy of the book so I could have the rare opportunity of reviewing something on this site before it was released to the public. So thanks again, Dickson, and I hope you enjoy this review of Mick Foley's Countdown to Lockdown, which will be available in stores on October 1st.
As previously mentioned, this is the fourth biography written by wrestler Mick Foley (Have a Nice Day, Foley is Good, and The Hardcore Diaries being the other three). This book is written in a similar style to The Hardcore Diaries in that a large portion of the book is a journal detailing the buildup and events leading up to a big match. In this case, Foley is chronicling the events leading up to his big steel cage match with his old rival Sting at TNA's Lockdown 2009 event in Philadelphia, PA, the home of many a Mick Foley classic match in the past. The book differs from The Hardcore Diaries in that, this time, Foley seems to have complete support from the TNA creative team, as he's able to offer suggestions and basically carry out the angle with Sting the way he sees fit. Because of that, Foley seems to be more upbeat than he was while writing The Hardcore Diaries. However, Foley also struggles with self-doubt over his physical condition and whether or not he can deliver a high quality match with Sting in the main event of a TNA pay-per-view.
In between journal entries, Foley writes about the events that took place between the completion of The Hardcore Diaries and the writing of this book, including Foley's announcing career, which eventually would lead to his departure from WWE due to a series of disagreements with Vince McMahon. Also, Foley details his charity work and his travels to Mexico and Sierra Leone, his family's venture into reality television (which, unfortunately, never aired), and his celebrity encounter with Tori Amos, whose music has been a constant source of inspirtation to Foley. Also, Foley tackles serious subjects such as the large amount of wrestlers dying young and the use of steroids in wrestling and sports.
Throughout the book, Foley writes about the conflicts he had with Vince McMahon and the WWE brass. To his credit, Foley often takes the high road when dealing with the events that led to his resignation with the WWE, choosing not to bury Vince and the WWE. Unlike some other wrestlers, Foley does not use his book as an opportunity to settle scores or bury other people he may of had a problem with. Well, he did kind of go off about his old dog Pom Pom, although in that case I could definitely see why. Like his last books, Foley is not afraid to drop a name or two, which can get annoying at times, but heck if I had met a bunch of famous people I might do the same thing.
Overall, Countdown to Lockdown is not a bad read by any means. Yes, it's not as good as Foley's Have a Nice Day, and to be honest, the book is kind of hard to get into at the beginning, at least to me. But as a whole, the book is an entertaining read that will interest any wrestling fan and will provide readers with laughs as well as something to think about. Overall, I give Countdown to Lockdown a 7.5 out of 10. Well, thanks for reading, and if you have any ideas for future reviews, or comments about this review, then share them either by leaving a comment or by sending me an e-mail at KtheC2001@gmail.com
Showing posts with label Sting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sting. Show all posts
Friday, September 24, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Canon Video Challenge: Wrestlers and their names
Confusing title, isn't it? Well, let me explain. Today I'm going to do a video challenge where I take a name of a wrestler, search for that wrestler on Google Video, and then take the number of characters in their name and watch whatever number video that is. For example, if I type in Hulk Hogan, I would watch the ninth video down because the name 'Hulk Hogan' has nine characters. Got it? Well, even if you don't, I'm going to get started anyway.
1. Tony Atlas - Tony Atlas in Piper's Pit
Roddy Piper is doing his interview segment, and he runs Tony Atlas down for not having the guts to show up to the pit. But hold on a minute, because here comes Atlas, wearing half of a shirt. In case you are wondering, it's the top half. Piper sits Atlas down, and his bodyguard Bob Orton Jr. comes onto the set. Piper asks if Atlas got his big arms from eating soul food, and Atlas admits that yes, he likes to eat fried chicken and chitlins and pigs feet. Of course, Piper starts to scoff at Atlas's admission, and naturally Tony takes umbrage and starts getting up in Piper's face, which gets the attention of Orton. Piper says something along the lines of 'you're not so tough now, are you Tony?' But Tony gets the last dig in when he asks which of the Piper-Orton duo wears the skirt around the house. Piper gets one last comment in about watermelons or something and we go to break. Well, that was rather politically incorrect. The WWE certainly couldn't get away with that today. I don't know what to rate the segment, but I'll give Atlas's half shirt a .5 out of 5.
2. Jon Moxley - DGUSA.tv - Jon Moxley wins FIP World Heavyweight Title
Moxley's a wrestler on the indie circuit who has been getting some hype due to his wrestling and his promo skills. I've only seen Moxley once before this, at a Dragon Gate USA PPV. He said something, but the audio was just awful and I couldn't really make out what he was saying, so to be honest, I have no opinion on Moxley either way. This video shows highlights of Moxley winning the FIP (Full Impact Pro) Title. Moxley is shown putting a cross-face chicken wing on some wrestler I don't recognize, than exchanging moves in the title match against Roderick Strong. Afterwards, Moxley delivers a promo about his title win from the backstage area. After calling for some Cervezas, Moxley compares himself to Tiger Woods, "not just because he likes the skanks" but because he's a clutch performer that gets the job done, like Tiger Woods used to be. Moxley compares himself to other former FIP Champions like Daniel "Tie Choker" Bryan, CM Punk, and Homicide, and says that he will have a bigger impact on the sport than all of those other champions, promising to use the belt to "make a scar on the face of the wrestling industry." Moxley says that he will start making his mark with his appearance at Dragon Gate USA's next show on May 7, in Windsor, Ontario. Well, good for him. Moxley promises to take on all comers who don't like the sight of him holding the FIP belt, and that's where the video ends. I must say that compared to other indy wrestlers, Moxley's a rather good promo man, although he's probably done better ones than this. I'll give it a 3.2 out of 5.
3. Shane Douglas - Bill Goldberg vs. Shane Douglas, WCW Nitro, 9/4/00
Hey, this might be interesting. Douglas comes out with Torrie Wilson, and both he and Torrie run down Dallas before Goldberg's music interrupts Shane's sure to be legendary diatribe about how much Dallas sucks. Goldberg is accompanied by WCW's security force on his way to the ring. I never understood why they did that, especially with a guy pushed to be able to beat 10 men at once like Goldberg. Some three minutes after his music hit, Goldberg is in the ring and the match begins. Goldberg dominates at the beginning, putting Douglas in a leg submission hold that forced Douglas to the ropes. To the outside, Goldberg continues his control of the match until Douglas ducks a punch and Goldberg ends up slamming his arm against a ring post. Douglas goes to work on the arm, but all of that effort gets nullified a minute later when Goldberg slams Douglas down from a standing position using only his bad arm. Goldberg hits a short-arm clothesline and sets Douglas up for a spear, which brings out the Natural Born Thrillers. Despite the 6 on 1 odds, Goldberg goes through the NBTs as if they were wet tissue. Douglas gets some brass knuckles, but Goldberg spears Douglas down before the knucks could be used. Jackhammer, and Goldberg wins with ease, overcoming seven on one odds. Well wasn't that special? I'll give it 1 out of 5 just because it was short.
Bill Goldberg vs. Shane Douglas
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4. Bunkhouse Buck - Sting and Dustin Rhodes vs. Bunkhouse Buck and Arn Anderson WCW Main Event 11/6/1994
Anderson and Buck are accompanied by Col. Robert Parker and Meng, making this perhaps the most awesome foursome in the history of wrestling. Sting and Dustin both are wearing ugly jackets, which must be the driving force behind their friendship. Sting's ribs are taped, which might come into play later in the match. Arn and Dustin start, Arn gets a few blows in but Dustin is able to take control of the match with a clothesline off the top rope. Sting and Buck are tagged in, and Sting gorilla presses the 245lb Bunkhouse over his head. Sting and Dustin remain in control with quick tags and high impact blows. At one point Arn tries to go for Sting's ribs, but Sting is able to fend him off with a series of kicks and punches. The commentators keep hyping the upcoming main event of the Clash, which has Sting teaming with Hulk Hogan and Dave Sullivan against Kevin Sullivan, Avalanche, and Earthquake. At one point Tony Schiavone calls it the biggest six man tag match in the history of national Television. That is a bold-faced lie. Back to the match, Dustin remains in control of the match until Buck catches him with a knee to the back. At this point, Arn and Buck keep Dustin isolated in their corner, punishing the youngster with some less than legal tactics. Bunkhose whips Dustin in, but Buck ducks too early and takes a boot in the face from Rhodes, which gives him time to tag in Sting. Sting fires away on both men, sending Arn to the outside. Col. Parker gets on the apron, but that backfires, as Sting whips Buck into Parker, knocking the Colonel onto Meng and Buck for a loop. Sting delivers a cross body block off the top rope, and there's the match. Quick little tag match that was quite enjoyable. I'll give it a 3 out of 5.
Sting & Dustin Rhodes vs. Arn Anderson & Bunkhouse Buck
Uploaded by Stinger1981. - Discover the latest sports and extreme videos.
Well, I could go on, but I think I'll end it here for now. Perhaps I will do something like this another time. Until then, thanks for reading, and if you have any comments about this or other posts, or ideas for future reviews, than feel free to share them either by leaving a comment or by sending me an e-mail at kthec2001@gmail.com.
1. Tony Atlas - Tony Atlas in Piper's Pit
Roddy Piper is doing his interview segment, and he runs Tony Atlas down for not having the guts to show up to the pit. But hold on a minute, because here comes Atlas, wearing half of a shirt. In case you are wondering, it's the top half. Piper sits Atlas down, and his bodyguard Bob Orton Jr. comes onto the set. Piper asks if Atlas got his big arms from eating soul food, and Atlas admits that yes, he likes to eat fried chicken and chitlins and pigs feet. Of course, Piper starts to scoff at Atlas's admission, and naturally Tony takes umbrage and starts getting up in Piper's face, which gets the attention of Orton. Piper says something along the lines of 'you're not so tough now, are you Tony?' But Tony gets the last dig in when he asks which of the Piper-Orton duo wears the skirt around the house. Piper gets one last comment in about watermelons or something and we go to break. Well, that was rather politically incorrect. The WWE certainly couldn't get away with that today. I don't know what to rate the segment, but I'll give Atlas's half shirt a .5 out of 5.
2. Jon Moxley - DGUSA.tv - Jon Moxley wins FIP World Heavyweight Title
Moxley's a wrestler on the indie circuit who has been getting some hype due to his wrestling and his promo skills. I've only seen Moxley once before this, at a Dragon Gate USA PPV. He said something, but the audio was just awful and I couldn't really make out what he was saying, so to be honest, I have no opinion on Moxley either way. This video shows highlights of Moxley winning the FIP (Full Impact Pro) Title. Moxley is shown putting a cross-face chicken wing on some wrestler I don't recognize, than exchanging moves in the title match against Roderick Strong. Afterwards, Moxley delivers a promo about his title win from the backstage area. After calling for some Cervezas, Moxley compares himself to Tiger Woods, "not just because he likes the skanks" but because he's a clutch performer that gets the job done, like Tiger Woods used to be. Moxley compares himself to other former FIP Champions like Daniel "Tie Choker" Bryan, CM Punk, and Homicide, and says that he will have a bigger impact on the sport than all of those other champions, promising to use the belt to "make a scar on the face of the wrestling industry." Moxley says that he will start making his mark with his appearance at Dragon Gate USA's next show on May 7, in Windsor, Ontario. Well, good for him. Moxley promises to take on all comers who don't like the sight of him holding the FIP belt, and that's where the video ends. I must say that compared to other indy wrestlers, Moxley's a rather good promo man, although he's probably done better ones than this. I'll give it a 3.2 out of 5.
3. Shane Douglas - Bill Goldberg vs. Shane Douglas, WCW Nitro, 9/4/00
Hey, this might be interesting. Douglas comes out with Torrie Wilson, and both he and Torrie run down Dallas before Goldberg's music interrupts Shane's sure to be legendary diatribe about how much Dallas sucks. Goldberg is accompanied by WCW's security force on his way to the ring. I never understood why they did that, especially with a guy pushed to be able to beat 10 men at once like Goldberg. Some three minutes after his music hit, Goldberg is in the ring and the match begins. Goldberg dominates at the beginning, putting Douglas in a leg submission hold that forced Douglas to the ropes. To the outside, Goldberg continues his control of the match until Douglas ducks a punch and Goldberg ends up slamming his arm against a ring post. Douglas goes to work on the arm, but all of that effort gets nullified a minute later when Goldberg slams Douglas down from a standing position using only his bad arm. Goldberg hits a short-arm clothesline and sets Douglas up for a spear, which brings out the Natural Born Thrillers. Despite the 6 on 1 odds, Goldberg goes through the NBTs as if they were wet tissue. Douglas gets some brass knuckles, but Goldberg spears Douglas down before the knucks could be used. Jackhammer, and Goldberg wins with ease, overcoming seven on one odds. Well wasn't that special? I'll give it 1 out of 5 just because it was short.
Bill Goldberg vs. Shane Douglas
Uploaded by Stinger1981. - Discover the latest sports and extreme videos.
4. Bunkhouse Buck - Sting and Dustin Rhodes vs. Bunkhouse Buck and Arn Anderson WCW Main Event 11/6/1994
Anderson and Buck are accompanied by Col. Robert Parker and Meng, making this perhaps the most awesome foursome in the history of wrestling. Sting and Dustin both are wearing ugly jackets, which must be the driving force behind their friendship. Sting's ribs are taped, which might come into play later in the match. Arn and Dustin start, Arn gets a few blows in but Dustin is able to take control of the match with a clothesline off the top rope. Sting and Buck are tagged in, and Sting gorilla presses the 245lb Bunkhouse over his head. Sting and Dustin remain in control with quick tags and high impact blows. At one point Arn tries to go for Sting's ribs, but Sting is able to fend him off with a series of kicks and punches. The commentators keep hyping the upcoming main event of the Clash, which has Sting teaming with Hulk Hogan and Dave Sullivan against Kevin Sullivan, Avalanche, and Earthquake. At one point Tony Schiavone calls it the biggest six man tag match in the history of national Television. That is a bold-faced lie. Back to the match, Dustin remains in control of the match until Buck catches him with a knee to the back. At this point, Arn and Buck keep Dustin isolated in their corner, punishing the youngster with some less than legal tactics. Bunkhose whips Dustin in, but Buck ducks too early and takes a boot in the face from Rhodes, which gives him time to tag in Sting. Sting fires away on both men, sending Arn to the outside. Col. Parker gets on the apron, but that backfires, as Sting whips Buck into Parker, knocking the Colonel onto Meng and Buck for a loop. Sting delivers a cross body block off the top rope, and there's the match. Quick little tag match that was quite enjoyable. I'll give it a 3 out of 5.
Sting & Dustin Rhodes vs. Arn Anderson & Bunkhouse Buck
Uploaded by Stinger1981. - Discover the latest sports and extreme videos.
Well, I could go on, but I think I'll end it here for now. Perhaps I will do something like this another time. Until then, thanks for reading, and if you have any comments about this or other posts, or ideas for future reviews, than feel free to share them either by leaving a comment or by sending me an e-mail at kthec2001@gmail.com.
Friday, June 25, 2010
The Canon Review of Starrcade 1994
After reviewing the brief WCW tenure of the Honky Tonk Man a couple of weeks ago, I found myself interested in watching more of World Championship Wrestling, circa 1994. This can't be a healthy interest, as most wrestling fans are not big fans of that particular time period, and for good reason. Well, I don't care, I'm going to watch and review Starrcade 1994 anyway. Starrcade 1994 is notable because the main event featured WCW World Champion Hulk Hogan taking on his best friend Brutus Beefcake, going by the moniker of "The Butcher" for some reason here. Yes my friends, WCW's biggest show of the year is main-evented by Brutus freakin' Beefcake. But wait, there's more, as the other big matches include Sting vs. Avalanche (John Tenta), Vader vs. U.S. Champion Hacksaw Jim Duggan, and in what was likely the match of the year, Kevin Sullivan wrestles Mr. T. This looks to be quite the show. Actually, I've seen it before, but that was like 10 years ago and besides, a show like this should be rewatched at least 9 times. So, in the words of Tazz, here comes the pain.
We open with a rundown of the card and the introduction of our announcers, Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, and Gene Okerlund doing the interviews. Great, I'm going to have to suffer three hours of Bobby telling jokes and Tony refusing to laugh at any of them. Bobby makes some joke about Nashville being full of rednecks which Tony ignores and Gene chastises Bobby for. Aaron Tippin sings the national anthem, wearing a Tampa Bay Lightning jersey for some reason. After that, we see clips of Randy Savage promising to confront Hogan at Starrcade and Hogan accepting the Wrestler of the Year award from Pro Wrestling Illustrated magazine. After all of that nonsense, we are finally ready to start this show.
Up first is the first of tonight's "Triple Main Event", between Vader and Hacksaw Jim Duggan for Duggan's United States Championship. Duggan comes out ready to fight tonight, as he constantly beats Vader to the punch and keeps his opponent off balance for the first few minutes of the match with a variety of clotheslines and punches. Duggan even pulls out a cross-body block and bodyslams the 450 pound Vader at one point. Eventually, Vader takes control, and gets a two count after the Vader splash off the second rope. A short while after, Vader attempts the moonsault, but Duggan moves out of the way. Duggan gets back up, clotheslines Vader a couple of more times, and catches and slams Vader down after Vader jumped off the middle rope. Duggan's got the cover, but referee Nick Patrick is distracted by Vader's manager, Harley Race. Duggan goes into the three point stance and charges his opponent, but Vader throws Duggan into Race, who puts Duggan's 2 x 4 in the air and Duggan runs into it. Duggan's down, but Vader picks him up off the ground, and slams him face first with an inverted powerbomb type maneuver. That gets three, and Vader's the new United States Champion. Not a bad match, and Duggan got the crowd fired up early, even though a lot of people cheered when Vader eventually won. Too many clotheslines in this match, though, and Vader didn't seem all that interested, to be honest. I'll give it a 2.5 out of 5.
Mean Gene's in the back with the Faces of Fear (Butcher, Kevin Sullivan, and Avalanche). Sullivan's the only one that should talk, but everybody gets some mic time and Butcher ends up flubbing a couple of lines. Up next is a matchup of two young superstars. One of which would become arguably the biggest star in the business, while the other had a few years of employment, but by and large was out of the sport a few years later. It's Alex Wright vs. Jean-Paul Levesque, better known today as Triple-H. I suddenly became very sleepy while watching this match. A LOT of chin locks and mat wrestling that really goes nowhere. Levesque used a spinning wheel kick at one point, which I don't think he's done since. The end comes after Levesque whips Wright into the corner, Wright backflips behind his opponent, schoolboys Levesque and gets the victory. After watching the match, it was clear that Levesque was the better worker, but both men were very inexperienced at this point and the match basically killed the crowd dead. Afterwards, WCW kept pushing Wright as it's hot young superstar, while Levesque soon left WCW to go on to bigger and better things in the WWE. In hindsight, I think WCW might have made a mistake here. Match gets a 1.2 out of 5.
The next match is supposed to be the third Honky Tonk Man-Johnny B. Badd match, but HTM walked out on the company just before the show, so mercifully I am spared from watching that debacle. Instead we get Arn Anderson vs. Johnny B. Badd for Badd's television title. Heenan states that they should have bombed Nashville instead of Horishima, which just horrifies Schiavone. I guess Heenan's not a fan of the Music City. The match starts with a bunch of tie-ups, Badd pulls off a move, and Arn quickly backs away sequences. Johnny B. gets the advantage with a few punches, but Arn hits the spinebuster, but doesn't cover Badd because he's still dazed from the punches. From there, Arn takes over, using the abdominal stretch, and a sleeper hold. Badd gets out of the sleeper, puts on his own sleeper, but Anderson gives Badd the jawbreaker to get out of it. Both men get back up, and Badd counters out of an Irish whip with a nice-looking headscissors. He gets a couple of two counts, than attempts the sunset flip from the top rope. Badd hits it, but Anderson once again kicks out at two. Anderson rolls up Badd and has his foot on the ropes, but the referee saw it and gets Arn off of him. Arn thinks he's won for some reason, but Badd sneaks up behind him and uses the same finish as the previous match, a schoolboy that gets the three count. Anderson is in shock and Badd retains the TV title. Probably better than anything HTM and Badd could have put together, but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch this match again. I'll give it a 2 out of 5.
The Nasty Boys are presented with the 1994 PWI Award for Tag Team of the Year, which leads us into our next match featuring the Boys and Harlem Heat, who are accompanied by Sister Sherri. The match starts off as a brawl between the two teams, but quickly becomes an honest to goodness wrestling match. That's not really a good thing, though, as basically the Nasties do a lot of arm work on Harlem Heat, but that's quickly forgotten, so we basically got four minutes of mat wrestling for no real reason. Stevie Ray drags Jerry Sags out of the ring, and gives him a pump kick out in the aisle, giving Harlem Heat the advantage. However, Booker T's the legal man, so we have to wait for about a minute before Stevie drags Sags (hey, that rhymes) back to the ring. From there, Booker T delivers a scissor kick, but only gets two. Harlem Heat slows the match down even more, because clearly that's what this show needed, another slow match. Sags delivers a DDT to both men and gets the hot tag to Brian Knobbs, who gets in there and brawls with Stevie Ray. Sherri gets on the apron, goes to spray Knobbs with some sort of aerosol product, but she "accidentally gets Stevie Ray instead. I say accidentally because Knobbs ducked some five seconds before Sherri used the spray. Booker gets on the top, but Knobbs throws him off and Sags hit a big elbow drop. Cover, but Sherri dives off the top to break it up. Somehow, the Nasties see this and move, making Sherri land on Booker T instead. The ref calls for a disqualification, and the Nasties have Sherri cornered. They then stick Sherri's face in Sags' arm pit. Well, that's disgusting. After the match, both teams are shown in the back delivering promos about how they'll continue to fight or whatever. The promos looked very ECW-ish, if that makes any sense at all. This match kind of sucked, I'll give it a 1 out of 5.
Sting is presented with PWI's most popular wrestler of the year. We go to the back with Sting and Gene. Sting says he's tired of hearing everybody talk about what they're going to do at Starrcade, so naturally, he talks about what he's going to do at Starrcade. I wish he would have talked more, because up next we have Kevin Sullivan wrestling Mr. T. Sullivan comes out, and we get another ECW-style promo of Sullivan clawing at the wall backstage because he's crazy. Mr. T has decided to dress like a prisoner, with a black-and-white striped shirt and stocking hat on. T gets the first moves in, but Sullivan gets the advantage with some brawling. They go the outside, a cameraman trips over the stairs, and unfortunately for him, T and Sullivan decide to wrestle in the exact same area, so the poor cameraman is under Mr. T, who is getting beat down by Sullivan. It was actually funny, at least to me. Santa Claus comes out, somebody in the audience pulls off his hat and Jimmy Hart gives him a megaphone to put in his bag. Santa's actually Evad Sullivan, Kevin's "brother" and he wallops Kevin in the back with the sack. Mr. T covers, and wins the match. Evad celebrates with the fans outside the ring, but Kevin comes up from behind and beats him up. He takes Evad to the ring, and Evad's pants are falling off. Luckily, he had his wrestling gear underneath, or otherwise that would have been a quite unwelcome sight. Kevin piledrives Evad, takes Santa's belt off, and whips his "brother" in the face with the belt. That looked like it might hurt. The match gets a 0.3 out of 5, as T really couldn't do anything and well, it just sucked.
Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Hart are in the back with Gene. Hulk addresses both the Butcher and Randy Savage and promises to rip all of his opponents in half. Jimmy Hart says he'll never leave the Hulkster's side. Well, that turned out to be a lie, didn't it. Avalanche comes out for his match with Sting, and naturally, Sting follows. What transpires after this is one of the sloooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeesssssssstttttttt matches you will see. Avalanche does hardly anything and is blown up about five minutes in. All Sting can do with Avalanche is kick him in the leg and wait for Avalanche to get his breath back. Sting tried, but it just was not going to happen. Avalanche stalls a lot and does a bunch of side headlocks with the occasional leg drop or clothesline thrown in. Sting finally starts to get some momentium, knocking Avalanche down with a clothesline. He backs the 'Lanche into the corner and hits the Stinger Splash, but the referee was trapped behind Avalanche and he goes down as well. Sting turns over Avalanche for the Scorpion Death Lock, but Kevin Sullivan interferes. Sting has some success fighting them off, but the numbers are too much for Sting. Avalanche uses his patened sit-down splash on Sting, and goes for another one but Hogan comes out and chases his two enemies out with a chair. Sting wins by disqualifaction, marking yet another unsatisfying and cheap finish on this show. I almost fell asleep during this match at least twice, so I'll give it a 0.5 out of 5.
We see Jimmy Hart win the Manager of the Year Award from PWI. Whoop-dee-damn-do. We then get a recap of the events that led up to Hogan wrestling his best friend. See, a masked man kept attacking Hogan, and at Halloween Havoc, that man was revealed to be Brutus Beefcake. So, here we are. Butcher comes out with Sullivan and Avalanche, while Hogan comes with Jimmy Hart and a chair. Michael Buffer makes the introductions, which takes up about three minutes of time, Avalanche and Sullivan are sent to the back, and off we go. This match set the record for most back rakes used in a single match, as 80% of both men's offensive repertoire was the dreaded back rake. Hogan even pulled out the dreaded chest rake as well. Hogan uses a chair, but the match still continues. Hogan starts biting the Butcher, but again, the ref lets it go. Butcher does something, I don't remember, but it ends with a nerve hold on Hogan. Butcher then puts his patented sleeper on Hogan. Hogan's arm drops twice, but he just barely holds it up the third time. Butcher thinks that he's won, but he has not, and Hogan begins to Hulk out all over Butcher. Sullivan runs out, and Avalanche struggles to jog out. They both get blows from Hogan, so they hang out on the apron and watch Hogan legdrop Butcher for the three count. Afterwards, the three Faces of Fear surround Hogan, but here comes Randy Savage. Savage shakes Sullivan's hand, but WAITAMINUTE! Savge attacks Sullivan and teams with Hogan to run the threesome off. Savage shakes Hogan's hand and the two celebrate. To the locker room with a post-match interview with Savage and Hogan. They talk about this and that, but here comes Vader, who calls the Hulkster out. Chaos then ensues as wrestlers and security struggle to hold the two men apart. Looks like we've got a main event for the next WCW Pay-Per-View spectacular. I don't know what to give this match and I never want to see it again, so I'll just say a 1 out of 5 and leave it at that.
Well, that was not very good at all. Most of the matches either disappointed or sucked as much as you thought they would. The first match was the best of the night, and even that was just ok. So I strongly recommend you not watch this show unless you are having trouble falling asleep one night. I'll give the whole show a 2.4 out of 10. Well, thanks for reading, and if you have any better ideas for reviews than this, then for goodness sakes send them to me. You can send them either by e-mail at KtheC2001@gmail.com or by leaving a comment on the blog.
We open with a rundown of the card and the introduction of our announcers, Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, and Gene Okerlund doing the interviews. Great, I'm going to have to suffer three hours of Bobby telling jokes and Tony refusing to laugh at any of them. Bobby makes some joke about Nashville being full of rednecks which Tony ignores and Gene chastises Bobby for. Aaron Tippin sings the national anthem, wearing a Tampa Bay Lightning jersey for some reason. After that, we see clips of Randy Savage promising to confront Hogan at Starrcade and Hogan accepting the Wrestler of the Year award from Pro Wrestling Illustrated magazine. After all of that nonsense, we are finally ready to start this show.
Up first is the first of tonight's "Triple Main Event", between Vader and Hacksaw Jim Duggan for Duggan's United States Championship. Duggan comes out ready to fight tonight, as he constantly beats Vader to the punch and keeps his opponent off balance for the first few minutes of the match with a variety of clotheslines and punches. Duggan even pulls out a cross-body block and bodyslams the 450 pound Vader at one point. Eventually, Vader takes control, and gets a two count after the Vader splash off the second rope. A short while after, Vader attempts the moonsault, but Duggan moves out of the way. Duggan gets back up, clotheslines Vader a couple of more times, and catches and slams Vader down after Vader jumped off the middle rope. Duggan's got the cover, but referee Nick Patrick is distracted by Vader's manager, Harley Race. Duggan goes into the three point stance and charges his opponent, but Vader throws Duggan into Race, who puts Duggan's 2 x 4 in the air and Duggan runs into it. Duggan's down, but Vader picks him up off the ground, and slams him face first with an inverted powerbomb type maneuver. That gets three, and Vader's the new United States Champion. Not a bad match, and Duggan got the crowd fired up early, even though a lot of people cheered when Vader eventually won. Too many clotheslines in this match, though, and Vader didn't seem all that interested, to be honest. I'll give it a 2.5 out of 5.
Mean Gene's in the back with the Faces of Fear (Butcher, Kevin Sullivan, and Avalanche). Sullivan's the only one that should talk, but everybody gets some mic time and Butcher ends up flubbing a couple of lines. Up next is a matchup of two young superstars. One of which would become arguably the biggest star in the business, while the other had a few years of employment, but by and large was out of the sport a few years later. It's Alex Wright vs. Jean-Paul Levesque, better known today as Triple-H. I suddenly became very sleepy while watching this match. A LOT of chin locks and mat wrestling that really goes nowhere. Levesque used a spinning wheel kick at one point, which I don't think he's done since. The end comes after Levesque whips Wright into the corner, Wright backflips behind his opponent, schoolboys Levesque and gets the victory. After watching the match, it was clear that Levesque was the better worker, but both men were very inexperienced at this point and the match basically killed the crowd dead. Afterwards, WCW kept pushing Wright as it's hot young superstar, while Levesque soon left WCW to go on to bigger and better things in the WWE. In hindsight, I think WCW might have made a mistake here. Match gets a 1.2 out of 5.
The next match is supposed to be the third Honky Tonk Man-Johnny B. Badd match, but HTM walked out on the company just before the show, so mercifully I am spared from watching that debacle. Instead we get Arn Anderson vs. Johnny B. Badd for Badd's television title. Heenan states that they should have bombed Nashville instead of Horishima, which just horrifies Schiavone. I guess Heenan's not a fan of the Music City. The match starts with a bunch of tie-ups, Badd pulls off a move, and Arn quickly backs away sequences. Johnny B. gets the advantage with a few punches, but Arn hits the spinebuster, but doesn't cover Badd because he's still dazed from the punches. From there, Arn takes over, using the abdominal stretch, and a sleeper hold. Badd gets out of the sleeper, puts on his own sleeper, but Anderson gives Badd the jawbreaker to get out of it. Both men get back up, and Badd counters out of an Irish whip with a nice-looking headscissors. He gets a couple of two counts, than attempts the sunset flip from the top rope. Badd hits it, but Anderson once again kicks out at two. Anderson rolls up Badd and has his foot on the ropes, but the referee saw it and gets Arn off of him. Arn thinks he's won for some reason, but Badd sneaks up behind him and uses the same finish as the previous match, a schoolboy that gets the three count. Anderson is in shock and Badd retains the TV title. Probably better than anything HTM and Badd could have put together, but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch this match again. I'll give it a 2 out of 5.
The Nasty Boys are presented with the 1994 PWI Award for Tag Team of the Year, which leads us into our next match featuring the Boys and Harlem Heat, who are accompanied by Sister Sherri. The match starts off as a brawl between the two teams, but quickly becomes an honest to goodness wrestling match. That's not really a good thing, though, as basically the Nasties do a lot of arm work on Harlem Heat, but that's quickly forgotten, so we basically got four minutes of mat wrestling for no real reason. Stevie Ray drags Jerry Sags out of the ring, and gives him a pump kick out in the aisle, giving Harlem Heat the advantage. However, Booker T's the legal man, so we have to wait for about a minute before Stevie drags Sags (hey, that rhymes) back to the ring. From there, Booker T delivers a scissor kick, but only gets two. Harlem Heat slows the match down even more, because clearly that's what this show needed, another slow match. Sags delivers a DDT to both men and gets the hot tag to Brian Knobbs, who gets in there and brawls with Stevie Ray. Sherri gets on the apron, goes to spray Knobbs with some sort of aerosol product, but she "accidentally gets Stevie Ray instead. I say accidentally because Knobbs ducked some five seconds before Sherri used the spray. Booker gets on the top, but Knobbs throws him off and Sags hit a big elbow drop. Cover, but Sherri dives off the top to break it up. Somehow, the Nasties see this and move, making Sherri land on Booker T instead. The ref calls for a disqualification, and the Nasties have Sherri cornered. They then stick Sherri's face in Sags' arm pit. Well, that's disgusting. After the match, both teams are shown in the back delivering promos about how they'll continue to fight or whatever. The promos looked very ECW-ish, if that makes any sense at all. This match kind of sucked, I'll give it a 1 out of 5.
Sting is presented with PWI's most popular wrestler of the year. We go to the back with Sting and Gene. Sting says he's tired of hearing everybody talk about what they're going to do at Starrcade, so naturally, he talks about what he's going to do at Starrcade. I wish he would have talked more, because up next we have Kevin Sullivan wrestling Mr. T. Sullivan comes out, and we get another ECW-style promo of Sullivan clawing at the wall backstage because he's crazy. Mr. T has decided to dress like a prisoner, with a black-and-white striped shirt and stocking hat on. T gets the first moves in, but Sullivan gets the advantage with some brawling. They go the outside, a cameraman trips over the stairs, and unfortunately for him, T and Sullivan decide to wrestle in the exact same area, so the poor cameraman is under Mr. T, who is getting beat down by Sullivan. It was actually funny, at least to me. Santa Claus comes out, somebody in the audience pulls off his hat and Jimmy Hart gives him a megaphone to put in his bag. Santa's actually Evad Sullivan, Kevin's "brother" and he wallops Kevin in the back with the sack. Mr. T covers, and wins the match. Evad celebrates with the fans outside the ring, but Kevin comes up from behind and beats him up. He takes Evad to the ring, and Evad's pants are falling off. Luckily, he had his wrestling gear underneath, or otherwise that would have been a quite unwelcome sight. Kevin piledrives Evad, takes Santa's belt off, and whips his "brother" in the face with the belt. That looked like it might hurt. The match gets a 0.3 out of 5, as T really couldn't do anything and well, it just sucked.
Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Hart are in the back with Gene. Hulk addresses both the Butcher and Randy Savage and promises to rip all of his opponents in half. Jimmy Hart says he'll never leave the Hulkster's side. Well, that turned out to be a lie, didn't it. Avalanche comes out for his match with Sting, and naturally, Sting follows. What transpires after this is one of the sloooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeesssssssstttttttt matches you will see. Avalanche does hardly anything and is blown up about five minutes in. All Sting can do with Avalanche is kick him in the leg and wait for Avalanche to get his breath back. Sting tried, but it just was not going to happen. Avalanche stalls a lot and does a bunch of side headlocks with the occasional leg drop or clothesline thrown in. Sting finally starts to get some momentium, knocking Avalanche down with a clothesline. He backs the 'Lanche into the corner and hits the Stinger Splash, but the referee was trapped behind Avalanche and he goes down as well. Sting turns over Avalanche for the Scorpion Death Lock, but Kevin Sullivan interferes. Sting has some success fighting them off, but the numbers are too much for Sting. Avalanche uses his patened sit-down splash on Sting, and goes for another one but Hogan comes out and chases his two enemies out with a chair. Sting wins by disqualifaction, marking yet another unsatisfying and cheap finish on this show. I almost fell asleep during this match at least twice, so I'll give it a 0.5 out of 5.
We see Jimmy Hart win the Manager of the Year Award from PWI. Whoop-dee-damn-do. We then get a recap of the events that led up to Hogan wrestling his best friend. See, a masked man kept attacking Hogan, and at Halloween Havoc, that man was revealed to be Brutus Beefcake. So, here we are. Butcher comes out with Sullivan and Avalanche, while Hogan comes with Jimmy Hart and a chair. Michael Buffer makes the introductions, which takes up about three minutes of time, Avalanche and Sullivan are sent to the back, and off we go. This match set the record for most back rakes used in a single match, as 80% of both men's offensive repertoire was the dreaded back rake. Hogan even pulled out the dreaded chest rake as well. Hogan uses a chair, but the match still continues. Hogan starts biting the Butcher, but again, the ref lets it go. Butcher does something, I don't remember, but it ends with a nerve hold on Hogan. Butcher then puts his patented sleeper on Hogan. Hogan's arm drops twice, but he just barely holds it up the third time. Butcher thinks that he's won, but he has not, and Hogan begins to Hulk out all over Butcher. Sullivan runs out, and Avalanche struggles to jog out. They both get blows from Hogan, so they hang out on the apron and watch Hogan legdrop Butcher for the three count. Afterwards, the three Faces of Fear surround Hogan, but here comes Randy Savage. Savage shakes Sullivan's hand, but WAITAMINUTE! Savge attacks Sullivan and teams with Hogan to run the threesome off. Savage shakes Hogan's hand and the two celebrate. To the locker room with a post-match interview with Savage and Hogan. They talk about this and that, but here comes Vader, who calls the Hulkster out. Chaos then ensues as wrestlers and security struggle to hold the two men apart. Looks like we've got a main event for the next WCW Pay-Per-View spectacular. I don't know what to give this match and I never want to see it again, so I'll just say a 1 out of 5 and leave it at that.
Well, that was not very good at all. Most of the matches either disappointed or sucked as much as you thought they would. The first match was the best of the night, and even that was just ok. So I strongly recommend you not watch this show unless you are having trouble falling asleep one night. I'll give the whole show a 2.4 out of 10. Well, thanks for reading, and if you have any better ideas for reviews than this, then for goodness sakes send them to me. You can send them either by e-mail at KtheC2001@gmail.com or by leaving a comment on the blog.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
The Canon Review of Clash of the Champions XVI (16)
Today, I was in the mood to watch some old-school WCW action. So I did, and decided to watch Clash of the Champions XVI: Fall Brawl 91. This show took place in Augusta, GA on September 5, 1991. Our announcers for the evening are Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone, with interviews to be done by Eric Bischoff, Missy Hyatt, and the Man that won't pay Mike Thor himself, Paul E. Dangerously. Let's get to the action
The first match is a 15 man battle royal deemed the "Georgia Brawl". The participants are the World Six Man Champions, Z-man, Dustin Rhodes, and Big Josh (apparently WCW drew three names out of a hat and gave them the titles), along with PN News, Bobby Eaton, TV Champion Steve Austin, Barry Windham, OZ, El Gigante, Tracey Smothers, One Man Gang, Buddy Lee Parker, Ranger Ross, Thomas Rich, and Terrance Taylor. An eclectic mix of talent in this match, to be sure. This battle royal was about 10 minutes too long, which is not good considering it went 15 minutes. The production team also missed at least three eliminations. Anyway, the final four were Oz, OMG, Dustin Rhodes, and El Gigante. Oz and the Gang team up to eliminate Rhodes and celebrate near the ropes, allowing Gigante to come in and double clothesline both men over the top, although it took Oz quite a while to get over that top rope. The crowd goes mild for Gigante, the first and probably only winner of the Georgia Brawl. Even if you love battle royals, I wouldn't recommend this one.
The next match is a semifinal match in the WCW Light Heavyweight Title tournament, Badstreet comes to the ring first, wearing a ridicoulous black costume and mask with crazy neon colored lines all over it. Mr. Badstreet (Brad Armstrong) comes out with the Freebirds. His opponent is the newly reinstated Brian Pillman. The ref orders the Freebirds to the back so we can have a fair fight. These two wrestlers were ready for this match, as the match was quick-paced and interesting throughout, plus Pillman took some heinous bumps. Pillman took a suplex off the ring apron to the outside, and both men nearly landed on their heads. After both men got up, Badstreet kicked Pillman off the apron, and Pillman took his trademark chin into the guardrail diving bump. The match kept going, with Pillman doing all sorts of high-flying manuevers that few men in American wrestling could do at this time. At one point, with Badstreet on the outside, Pillman did a tope suicida and rammed himself head-first not only into his opponent, but into the guardrail as well. Remarkably, Pillman was unharmed. After an exchange of two counts, Pillman blocks a Badstreet superplex, and hits his Air Pillman bodypress for the finish. A heck of a match, easily the best one of the night.
We get a look at the WCW Top 10, which the announcers referred to at least 49 times throughout the broadcast. I don't exactly remember the order, but El Gigante and the Diamond Studd were on it, so good for them. Anyway, our next match is United States Champion Sting against Johnny B. Badd, in a rare face vs. face match. These two start out at a breakneck pace, as the two combine for three top rope moves and three near falls in the first 90 seconds. However, the match slows considerably, and when an eight foot tall refrigerator box wrapped up is wheeled to the ring, the match screeches to a complete halt. At one point, Sting goes to whip Badd into the corner, but for no reason whatsoever, Badd just stops and drops to his knees. The end comes after both men are staring at the box, and Sting uses the distraction to roll up Badd sloppily for the three count. Afterwards, Cactus Jack comes out of the box, slams Sting on the outside of the ring, climbs up the turnbuckle, and does an awesome looking flying elbow over the ringside announcers table right onto Sting's chest. Cactus celebrates while Ross and Tony are concerned about Sting.
The second semifinal match of the WCW Light Heavyweight Title is next, and it features Richard Morton (w/ Alexandra York) going against Mike Graham. Graham was never that good to begin with, and Morton's not much of a heel, so this match is rather boring. I was amused by Tony Schiavone putting over Mike Graham at every opportunity, even if he was taking punches, he would compliment Graham on trying to stand up. Anyway, the match mercifully ends after York distracts the referee, which allows Morton to launch Graham head first into the turnbuckle and roll him up for the three count while holding the tights. So the finals of this tournament would be Pillman vs. Morton. Try to guess who won that match.
Bill Kazmier's got a big tag team title match with Rick Steiner against The Enforcers, Arn Anderson and Larry Zbyszko. But first he wants to bend a long steel bar with his head and neck, because he's the World's Strongest Man, and has won the World's Strongest Man competition to prove it. He's also got traps the size of Eric Bischoff's head, so bending the bar proves easy. But WAITAMINUTE! Anderson and Zbyszko come out and hit Kazmier in the ribs with a 45 pound weight that someone brought in the ring for some reason. Steiner comes out, but the damage has been done. Will Kazmier be able to fight tonight?
The next match is a tag match between The Freebirds (Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin) and The Patriots (Firebreaker Chip and Todd Champion). The Patriots are billed as being from WCW Special Forces. I spend the rest of the match wondering what missions the WCW Special Forces go on and what training one must go through before becoming a member of the WCW Special Forces, because this match is quite boring and I am easily distracted. Also, Ross compared the Patriots to the Atlanta Braves because they were a young team on the rise and the Freebirds to the Mets because both teams suck or something. Or maybe that was my interpretation. From what I remember, Chip took most of the offense, and The Patriots looked as if they were wrestling there first match, as they were quite clumsy and awkward looking in everything they did. The finish was good, as the ref was trying to hold back Champion, Chip got the cover on Garvin, and Hayes dropped an elbow right on Chip's noggin, allowing Garvin to get the win, showing that the Freebirds were the savvier team.
Paul E interviews Cactus Jack, who congratulates Sting on a stellar career that is now over thanks to Cactus Jack. Another giant box is wheeled out, and Cactus, thinking it's his partner Abdullah the Butcher, goes to give him a big ol Cactus Jack hug. Instead Sting comes out of the box and whoops up on Jack, hip tossing him off the entrance ramp and dropkicking him off the ramp as well. The two fight to the back, and somehow a trash can gets involved as both men take turns hitting each other with it before security finally separates the two.
We get a statement from Florida State coach Bobby Bowden, congratulating Ron Simmons on his upcoming title shot against World Champion Lex Luger. After that, the Diamond Studd (Scott Hall) comes out to face Simmons. After the Studd hits a few moves on him, Simmons takes control, and hits the spine buster and the shoulderblock for the three count. Quick match, but I do wonder how good a match between these two would have been if given 10 minutes. Might be interesting. Afterwards, Paul E. interviews Simmons, who calls out Luger but instead gets Luger's manager Harley Race and Luger's enforcer Mr. Hughes. Simmons then goes to the back to find Luger.
Van Hammer makes his debut here against Terrance Taylor. The crowd is actually very into Van Hammer's act, even if it does seem kind of forced, and Hammer gets a quick squash over the Taylor Made Man after the world's weakest looking top rope knee drop. To the back with Missy Hyatt and Lex Luger, but Ron Simmons interrupts and eventually goes through the door after launching himself from a three-point stance. Chaos ensues.
The next match is for Steve Austin's Television Title, as he takes on the Z-Man. I was really looking forward to this match, but in the end I must say it was a disappointment. It wasn't a bad match, per se, but it was very slow paced and plodding, and quite frankly I was looking forward to something more. Then again, it was the second best match of the night, so perhaps I shouldn't complain too much. The match picked up towards the end, as Z-Man hit a sweet looking suicide dive on Austin on the elevated ring ramp. But after missing a flying body press, Austin is able to gain the advantage and hit the Stun Gun on Zenk. Interestingly, Austin doesn't go for the cover, as he goes to pick up Z-Man and nearly gets rolled up for the three for his troubles. Z-Man catches Austin in a sleeper hold, and Austin scoots towards the ropes, allowing Steve's manager Lady Blossom to sneak him some brass knuckles. Austin counters a back suplex by tapping Z-Man on the noggin with the knucks, and gets the victory. The announcers are not happy about this, but Austin and Lady Blossom sure are.
Next is the contract signing for Halloween Havoc's main event, between WCW Champion Lex Luger and Ron Simmons. They really are pushing Simmons here, as a video is shown of him giving a speech to a bunch of kids, and later taking two busloads full of those kids to the arena to watch him wrestle. Simmons, his wife, and for some unknown reason Dusty Rhodes is seated at one table, while Luger, Race, and Mr. Hughes are at another table. Simmons changed into his suit rather quickly, I must say. Things go smoothly until Luger offeres Simmons a job as his personal driver, and Simmons does not take too kindly to that job offer, as he chases Luger and Race to their limo. The two drive off into the night with Simmons giving chase on foot until he wisely elects to give up on that idea.
It's main event time, as this is the finals of a tournament for the vacant WCW Tag Team Titles. The titles became vacant after an injury to Scott Steiner, and Rick Steiner has a chance to regain those titles with a different partner this time in Bill Kazmeir. Kazmeir does come out to wrestle this match, although his ribs are heavily taped up. Steiner starts by attacking both of the Enforcers, but eventually Anderson and Zbyszko get the advantage. Steiner won't give up, as he hits the Steinerline on one opponent and suplexes the other to the mat. However, the numbers prove too much for Steiner, and since he refuses to tag Kaz in, it looks bleak. After a couple of minutes, Kazmaier tags himself in and starts cleaning house. He lifts Zbyszko over his head, but Arn headbutts him in his already damaged ribs, causing the big man to collapse and Zbyszko gets the cover to crown new Tag Team Champions. Afterwards, Arn states that "If you can't breathe, you can't win". Match was way too short for a main event, but then again, I don't think Kazmaier could last 10 minutes without sucking wind. I would have much rather seen the Steiners against the Enforcers, as that could have been one heck of a match.
Overall, this was a below average show, as there was one good match and one decent match. I will say that the commentary was very good, especially by Jim Ross. Say what you will about him, but at least on this show, Ross was able to keep up with the action quite easily, was able to both preview the upcoming matches and call the in-ring action without any trouble, and did his darnedest to get everybody over with his commentary, especially Cactus Jack, Pillman, and Simmons. Schiavone wasn't too bad either, even if he did love him some Mike Graham. But even their excellent commentary could not make up for a bad show. Overall, I'll give it a 3.530 out of 10, and the only match I'd recommend would be the Pillman-Badstreet match.
Well, thanks for reading. If you have any ideas for future reviews about well, anything, then send them to me either by leaving a comment on this here blog or by e-mail at KtheC2001@gmail.com. Here's two videos from the Clash of the Champions XVI if you want to see them.
Flyin Brian vs Badstreet-WCW Light Heavyweight Semi Finals
Uploaded by TSteck160. - Check out more sports and extreme sports videos.
Arn Anderson & Larry Zbyszko attack Bill Kazmaier
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The first match is a 15 man battle royal deemed the "Georgia Brawl". The participants are the World Six Man Champions, Z-man, Dustin Rhodes, and Big Josh (apparently WCW drew three names out of a hat and gave them the titles), along with PN News, Bobby Eaton, TV Champion Steve Austin, Barry Windham, OZ, El Gigante, Tracey Smothers, One Man Gang, Buddy Lee Parker, Ranger Ross, Thomas Rich, and Terrance Taylor. An eclectic mix of talent in this match, to be sure. This battle royal was about 10 minutes too long, which is not good considering it went 15 minutes. The production team also missed at least three eliminations. Anyway, the final four were Oz, OMG, Dustin Rhodes, and El Gigante. Oz and the Gang team up to eliminate Rhodes and celebrate near the ropes, allowing Gigante to come in and double clothesline both men over the top, although it took Oz quite a while to get over that top rope. The crowd goes mild for Gigante, the first and probably only winner of the Georgia Brawl. Even if you love battle royals, I wouldn't recommend this one.
The next match is a semifinal match in the WCW Light Heavyweight Title tournament, Badstreet comes to the ring first, wearing a ridicoulous black costume and mask with crazy neon colored lines all over it. Mr. Badstreet (Brad Armstrong) comes out with the Freebirds. His opponent is the newly reinstated Brian Pillman. The ref orders the Freebirds to the back so we can have a fair fight. These two wrestlers were ready for this match, as the match was quick-paced and interesting throughout, plus Pillman took some heinous bumps. Pillman took a suplex off the ring apron to the outside, and both men nearly landed on their heads. After both men got up, Badstreet kicked Pillman off the apron, and Pillman took his trademark chin into the guardrail diving bump. The match kept going, with Pillman doing all sorts of high-flying manuevers that few men in American wrestling could do at this time. At one point, with Badstreet on the outside, Pillman did a tope suicida and rammed himself head-first not only into his opponent, but into the guardrail as well. Remarkably, Pillman was unharmed. After an exchange of two counts, Pillman blocks a Badstreet superplex, and hits his Air Pillman bodypress for the finish. A heck of a match, easily the best one of the night.
We get a look at the WCW Top 10, which the announcers referred to at least 49 times throughout the broadcast. I don't exactly remember the order, but El Gigante and the Diamond Studd were on it, so good for them. Anyway, our next match is United States Champion Sting against Johnny B. Badd, in a rare face vs. face match. These two start out at a breakneck pace, as the two combine for three top rope moves and three near falls in the first 90 seconds. However, the match slows considerably, and when an eight foot tall refrigerator box wrapped up is wheeled to the ring, the match screeches to a complete halt. At one point, Sting goes to whip Badd into the corner, but for no reason whatsoever, Badd just stops and drops to his knees. The end comes after both men are staring at the box, and Sting uses the distraction to roll up Badd sloppily for the three count. Afterwards, Cactus Jack comes out of the box, slams Sting on the outside of the ring, climbs up the turnbuckle, and does an awesome looking flying elbow over the ringside announcers table right onto Sting's chest. Cactus celebrates while Ross and Tony are concerned about Sting.
The second semifinal match of the WCW Light Heavyweight Title is next, and it features Richard Morton (w/ Alexandra York) going against Mike Graham. Graham was never that good to begin with, and Morton's not much of a heel, so this match is rather boring. I was amused by Tony Schiavone putting over Mike Graham at every opportunity, even if he was taking punches, he would compliment Graham on trying to stand up. Anyway, the match mercifully ends after York distracts the referee, which allows Morton to launch Graham head first into the turnbuckle and roll him up for the three count while holding the tights. So the finals of this tournament would be Pillman vs. Morton. Try to guess who won that match.
Bill Kazmier's got a big tag team title match with Rick Steiner against The Enforcers, Arn Anderson and Larry Zbyszko. But first he wants to bend a long steel bar with his head and neck, because he's the World's Strongest Man, and has won the World's Strongest Man competition to prove it. He's also got traps the size of Eric Bischoff's head, so bending the bar proves easy. But WAITAMINUTE! Anderson and Zbyszko come out and hit Kazmier in the ribs with a 45 pound weight that someone brought in the ring for some reason. Steiner comes out, but the damage has been done. Will Kazmier be able to fight tonight?
The next match is a tag match between The Freebirds (Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin) and The Patriots (Firebreaker Chip and Todd Champion). The Patriots are billed as being from WCW Special Forces. I spend the rest of the match wondering what missions the WCW Special Forces go on and what training one must go through before becoming a member of the WCW Special Forces, because this match is quite boring and I am easily distracted. Also, Ross compared the Patriots to the Atlanta Braves because they were a young team on the rise and the Freebirds to the Mets because both teams suck or something. Or maybe that was my interpretation. From what I remember, Chip took most of the offense, and The Patriots looked as if they were wrestling there first match, as they were quite clumsy and awkward looking in everything they did. The finish was good, as the ref was trying to hold back Champion, Chip got the cover on Garvin, and Hayes dropped an elbow right on Chip's noggin, allowing Garvin to get the win, showing that the Freebirds were the savvier team.
Paul E interviews Cactus Jack, who congratulates Sting on a stellar career that is now over thanks to Cactus Jack. Another giant box is wheeled out, and Cactus, thinking it's his partner Abdullah the Butcher, goes to give him a big ol Cactus Jack hug. Instead Sting comes out of the box and whoops up on Jack, hip tossing him off the entrance ramp and dropkicking him off the ramp as well. The two fight to the back, and somehow a trash can gets involved as both men take turns hitting each other with it before security finally separates the two.
We get a statement from Florida State coach Bobby Bowden, congratulating Ron Simmons on his upcoming title shot against World Champion Lex Luger. After that, the Diamond Studd (Scott Hall) comes out to face Simmons. After the Studd hits a few moves on him, Simmons takes control, and hits the spine buster and the shoulderblock for the three count. Quick match, but I do wonder how good a match between these two would have been if given 10 minutes. Might be interesting. Afterwards, Paul E. interviews Simmons, who calls out Luger but instead gets Luger's manager Harley Race and Luger's enforcer Mr. Hughes. Simmons then goes to the back to find Luger.
Van Hammer makes his debut here against Terrance Taylor. The crowd is actually very into Van Hammer's act, even if it does seem kind of forced, and Hammer gets a quick squash over the Taylor Made Man after the world's weakest looking top rope knee drop. To the back with Missy Hyatt and Lex Luger, but Ron Simmons interrupts and eventually goes through the door after launching himself from a three-point stance. Chaos ensues.
The next match is for Steve Austin's Television Title, as he takes on the Z-Man. I was really looking forward to this match, but in the end I must say it was a disappointment. It wasn't a bad match, per se, but it was very slow paced and plodding, and quite frankly I was looking forward to something more. Then again, it was the second best match of the night, so perhaps I shouldn't complain too much. The match picked up towards the end, as Z-Man hit a sweet looking suicide dive on Austin on the elevated ring ramp. But after missing a flying body press, Austin is able to gain the advantage and hit the Stun Gun on Zenk. Interestingly, Austin doesn't go for the cover, as he goes to pick up Z-Man and nearly gets rolled up for the three for his troubles. Z-Man catches Austin in a sleeper hold, and Austin scoots towards the ropes, allowing Steve's manager Lady Blossom to sneak him some brass knuckles. Austin counters a back suplex by tapping Z-Man on the noggin with the knucks, and gets the victory. The announcers are not happy about this, but Austin and Lady Blossom sure are.
Next is the contract signing for Halloween Havoc's main event, between WCW Champion Lex Luger and Ron Simmons. They really are pushing Simmons here, as a video is shown of him giving a speech to a bunch of kids, and later taking two busloads full of those kids to the arena to watch him wrestle. Simmons, his wife, and for some unknown reason Dusty Rhodes is seated at one table, while Luger, Race, and Mr. Hughes are at another table. Simmons changed into his suit rather quickly, I must say. Things go smoothly until Luger offeres Simmons a job as his personal driver, and Simmons does not take too kindly to that job offer, as he chases Luger and Race to their limo. The two drive off into the night with Simmons giving chase on foot until he wisely elects to give up on that idea.
It's main event time, as this is the finals of a tournament for the vacant WCW Tag Team Titles. The titles became vacant after an injury to Scott Steiner, and Rick Steiner has a chance to regain those titles with a different partner this time in Bill Kazmeir. Kazmeir does come out to wrestle this match, although his ribs are heavily taped up. Steiner starts by attacking both of the Enforcers, but eventually Anderson and Zbyszko get the advantage. Steiner won't give up, as he hits the Steinerline on one opponent and suplexes the other to the mat. However, the numbers prove too much for Steiner, and since he refuses to tag Kaz in, it looks bleak. After a couple of minutes, Kazmaier tags himself in and starts cleaning house. He lifts Zbyszko over his head, but Arn headbutts him in his already damaged ribs, causing the big man to collapse and Zbyszko gets the cover to crown new Tag Team Champions. Afterwards, Arn states that "If you can't breathe, you can't win". Match was way too short for a main event, but then again, I don't think Kazmaier could last 10 minutes without sucking wind. I would have much rather seen the Steiners against the Enforcers, as that could have been one heck of a match.
Overall, this was a below average show, as there was one good match and one decent match. I will say that the commentary was very good, especially by Jim Ross. Say what you will about him, but at least on this show, Ross was able to keep up with the action quite easily, was able to both preview the upcoming matches and call the in-ring action without any trouble, and did his darnedest to get everybody over with his commentary, especially Cactus Jack, Pillman, and Simmons. Schiavone wasn't too bad either, even if he did love him some Mike Graham. But even their excellent commentary could not make up for a bad show. Overall, I'll give it a 3.530 out of 10, and the only match I'd recommend would be the Pillman-Badstreet match.
Well, thanks for reading. If you have any ideas for future reviews about well, anything, then send them to me either by leaving a comment on this here blog or by e-mail at KtheC2001@gmail.com. Here's two videos from the Clash of the Champions XVI if you want to see them.
Flyin Brian vs Badstreet-WCW Light Heavyweight Semi Finals
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Arn Anderson & Larry Zbyszko attack Bill Kazmaier
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Friday, April 9, 2010
The Canon Review of Clash of the Champions XXI (21)
This might be the worst post ever at The Canon Review, as I'm really tired. I wanted to do this earlier in the day, but there were problems with the video and so it took a lot longer to watch this than it should have. Anyway, for those of you that don't know, Clash of the Champions was a major wrestling show that WCW used to do in the 1980s and 1990s. It was like a pay-per-view, only it aired on cable TV on TBS, and free TV if you happened to live in or around the Atlanta area. This is the 21st Clash of the Champions show, and it took place on November 18, 1992. So off we go.
We are introduced by Jim Ross and Jesse Ventura, who talk about the weigh-in for the "Battle of the Sexes" match between Paul E. Dangerously and Madusa. Highlights are shown, and we get to see Paul E. in his underwear. That's an image I wish I never had to see. Also, the two combatants got into a fight at the weigh-in. To the back with Tony Schiavone, who is with Bill Watts in a locker room, the then president of WCW. Watts says nothing worth repeating, and off we go to Teddy Long and Michael Hayes in another locker room. Hayes promises pain for Erik Watts, who is teaming with Kensuke Sasaki against the Hayes led team of Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton.
Our first match is supposed to be Brian Pillman vs. Brad Armstrong, but Pillman is hurt, which is ironic because at the last Clash, Armstrong was too hurt to face Pillman. Armstrong comes out to confront Pillman, but instead gets hit in the leg with a crutch. Pillman was faking his knee injury the whole time. The nerve of some people. The ref threatens disqualification, but Pillman reminds the ref that the match hadn't started yet, so how can you disqualify him. The match starts, and ends in 30 seconds after Pillman clips Armstrong on his hurt leg to get the three count.
We get a recap of the Paul E.-Madusa feud, as a clip of Dangerously's workout with Mike Thor and other Dangerous Allience members are shown. Dangerously gets a punch on Thor which he no-sells, but Steve Austin knocked Thor down while Paul was celebrating his punch. Dangerously dropped a elbow on Thor for the three count. Afterwards, Paul E. runs down Madusa to the point where his whole alliance gets frustrated and leaves him alone to deal with the rage of Madusa. Paul E. said some pretty nasty stuff here, which would have fit right in ECW but was rather strong for WCW at this time. Anyway, we go to the back with Michael Hayes and Paul E., who promises victory and proclaims himself the king of manhood. Mike Thor comes in, demanding money for his participation in Dangerously's training, but is given the brush-off.
Our next match is the strange team of Erik Watts and Kensuke Sasaki vs. Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton in what is described as a bounty match. Apparently, Dangerously has put a price on Watts's head, offering 10,000 dollars to anyone that can injure Erik Watts. This match is 31 flavors of awful, as Watts was nowhere near ready and Sasaki wasn't much better at this point. Watts tried something off the top rope, I'm not sure if it was a sunset flip or cross body, but he landed on his ass and Eaton had to sell it anyway because Erik's the boss's kid or something. Meanwhile, Sasaki completely bungled an attempted monkey flip by Eaton, getting no air and landing on one knee. At least he had a nice powerslam in this match. At one point Ross mentions that Watts has been in training with Sasaki, Masa Chono, and Hiro Matsuda. Well, judging by this match, Watts should spend a lot more time training. The ending took forever to set up, as Sasaki was pounding Arn in one corner for a whole minute while Watts struggled through a move sequence before slapping the STF on Eaton to win the match. I will say that Watts at least had a better STF than John Cena, but that's about it.
To the back, as Teddy Long and Johnny B. Badd talk about their boxing match with Scotty Flamingo coming up next. In case you don't know, Johnny B. Badd is a wrestler whose mannerisms and look are heavily borrowed from entertainer Little Richard. Never mind the fact that he's named after a Chuck Berry song. Long is Badd's manager, which means that Badd is going to lose, even despite Badd's legit boxing background. To the other locker room with Scotty Flamingo, who is with Diamond Dallas Page, Vinnie Vegas (Kevin Nash) and a man in a Don King wig. Vegas has an awful New Jersey like accent and seems to be high on paint fumes during his promo, comparing Flamingo to that boxing legend Gerry Cooney. He's also stumbling over about every other word he says, claiming it's due to the excitement of the fight.
Badd comes out first with his confetti gun, the "Badd Blaster". Flamingo (who would later become Raven) comes out with his entourage, Vegas and Page. The first round begins and Flamingo is just getting peppered with jabs to the face. He's in trouble until Vegas distracts the ref, allowing Flamingo to get in an eye-gouge and a clothesline on his opponent. The ref does a count on a fallen Badd, but he gets up to wail on Flamingo some more. Flamingo gets knocked down, but the bell rings before the ref can count. Flamingo goes to his corner, where DDP dips his boxing glove in the water bucket, loading up the glove. The second round starts and Flamingo can barely stand, but eventually musters enough strength to hit Badd with his loaded glove. Badd is out, and the ref counts to 10, giving Scotty Flamingo the upset victory. Flamingo and his partners act as if he won the Heavyweight Championship, while Badd looks on in shock. Well, this was fun, and it was interesting to see guys like Raven in Vegas in a comedy match.
They preview next month's Starrcade, which will include Battlebowl, a tag tournament where teams are chosen at random. As a special treat, Jesse Ventura and Missy Hyatt will draw the first teams. The first team is Cactus Jack and Johnny B. Badd, and they will take on the world's most exciting team, Dan Spivey and Van Hammer. Couldn't they have rigged it to include Sting or Barry Windham or somebody more exciting than Heavy Metal Van Hammer? The crowd was not impressed, and I doubt very few people bought Starrcade to see that match.
The next match is a "Ghetto Odds" match, whatever that means, which has Cactus Jack, The Barbarian, and Tony Atlas against WCW Champion Ron Simmons and a mystery partner. The man later known as Too Cold Scorpio comes with Simmons, although his name is not announced so Ross and Ventura have no idea what to call him. They should just call him awesome, because Scorpio was flying all over the ring, doing moves nobody in WCW was doing at the time. For a handicap match, Simmons and Scorpio sure had the advantage most of the time. Finally the heels take over, but after a Cactus Jack dive is countered, Simmons gets the hot tag to Scorpio, and the two start cleaning house. Simmons forces Barbarian and Jack out of the ring, while Scorpio brings down the house with a perfectly executed 450 splash on Atlas to get the pin. Jim Ross damn near lost his mind after that move, as nobody had ever seen a 450 on American wrestling at the time. Match was a showcase for Scorpio, which is a bit odd seeing as The World Heavyweight Champion was also in the match, but whatever. Afterwards, Jesse gets Simmons and Scorpio in an interview, and the audience finally learns Scorpio's name. They also learn that Scorpio stinks on the mic, but what can you do?
There's a highlight video of WCW's newest Tag Team, Z-Man and Johnny Gunn. They go into a men's clothing store, and the salesladies cannot keep their hands off of them. The best part of that video is that they played this awful ripoff of ZZ Top's "Legs", only the song was about 30 seconds long, so they just replayed the same song 4 times in a row. We also get a video of Jesse Ventura's arm wrestling tournament, where WCW wrestlers compete in, you guessed it, an arm wrestling tournament. So far, Ron Simmons beat Steve Austin, and the Barbarian defeated Arn Anderson to the surprise of no one. We then go to the back, where Paul E is still mouthing off about his match with Madusa and brags about "being the man who didn't pay off Mike Thor"
The man who won't pay Mike Thor comes to the ring with Michael Hayes, wearing an ugly Yankee batting practice jersey and blue shorts with white pinstripes. He also has a helmet on and his heavily padded, while Madusa comes out to Eddie Guerrero's first WCW theme. That's a bit weird. Madusa charges, but gets clobbered with Paul E's giant cellphone, knocking her out cold. Paul E tries to pull Madusa up, but instead pulls off "her" wig. He takes a closer look and holy moly, it's MIKE THOR!!!, who is knocked out. Madusa comes out and starts by kicking Paul E. in the gut, and the match is on, and it's about as good as you would expect. Which is to say, not at all. Madusa gets a bit of revenge on Paul E. including a missile dropkick off the second rope and pulls off Dangerously's shorts. Well, at least he had pants on underneath that, thank goodness. Match really didn't do a whole lot for anybody, and since this was Dangerously's last WCW appearance, it was ultimately anticlimactic considering how much hype they put in to this bout.
Next is the King of Cable semifinals between Rick Rude and Sting. Before that, we have an interview with Vader and his manager Harley Race. Vader promises to become the King of Cable, whatever that is. The match has a 20 minute time-limit and if it goes to a draw, three judges (Ole Anderson, Hiro Matsuda, and Larry Zybysko) will decide the winner. Rude comes out and tells the "Sting loving scumbags" in the crowd to shut up, which of course they don't. Sting comes out and the match is on. A rather interesting match, as Sting dominated the first few minutes by doing moves targeted at Rude's abs, making it harder for him to breathe. This worked well, until Sting misses a Stinger Splash on the outside and takes a nasty looking bump on the metal guardrail. Rude takes control, and decides to target the back of Sting with bearhugs, whips in the corner, and suplexes. However, his ribs still hurt, and he can't even do his trademark hip swivel without doubling over in pain. Eventually, both men recover, which is fortunate because the time limit is almost up. They exchange a few moves, and Sting nearly crushes Rude's head with a high cross body, landing damn near on Rude's head. Eventually, Rude tries for his finisher, the Rude Awakening, but Sting escapes, shoves Rude to the corner, and hits the Stinger Splash. He tries for his Scorpion Deathlock finisher, but time expires before he can turn Rude over. The judges decide, and in a split decision, award the bout to Sting, meaning he moves on to the King of Cable Tournament Final, most likely Sting's proudest moment as a wrestler. Match was very good, although it dragged a bit at times.
It's main event time at the Clash, and the match is a match for the Unified Tag Team Titles. The challengers are Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas, while the champions are Dustin Rhodes and Barry Windham. Both teams are faces, so the crowd is split as to who to cheer for. The match starts as a technical wrestling exhibition between Douglas and Rhodes, but the intensity picks up once Steamboat and Windham enter, as the two exchange chops and generally increase the tempo with moves and countermoves. Steamboat and Douglas take advantage with quick tags and a sweet looking double backdrop on Windham, who for a big man really got up high on that move. Douglas is in control until he misses a cross body, hotshotting himself on the rope. That allows Windham to tag out to Rhodes, and the two take control. Rhodes and Windham use a nice double dropkick on Douglas, which was as good as The Rock N' Roll Express's old double dropkick. The champs have taken control on Douglas, and nearly get the three after a Windham back suplex and a Windham clothesline. But after Rhodes misses a dropkick, Douglas gets the hot tag to Steamboat. Steamboat and Rhodes exchange a couple of two counts. They then do a spot where Steamboat tries to leapfrog Rhodes, but accidentally gets clipped in the groin. That was meant to happen, it wasn't a botch on anybody's part. Anyway, Rhodes is concerned about his friend, which angers Windham, who wants Rhodes to make the cover and keep the title. After a while, Rhodes backs up and Windham tags himself in. He hits an atomic drop, but only gets two. The two are still arguing, and Windham hits another atomic drop on Steamboat, which angers Jim Ross. It angers Dustin as well, as he comes in to break the count. Uh oh, we've got trouble, as Rhodes and Windham are exchanging blows. This allows Steamboat to tag in Douglas, who surprises Windham with a belly-to-belly suplex and gets the three count. We've got new Tag Team Champions, but that's not all, as Windham and Rhodes are now arguing in the ring. Windham shocks the crowd as he kicks Dustin in the gut and DDTs his now former partner. Windham then lifts up Rhodes, and hits his finisher, the Superplex, on a defenseless Rhodes. Afterwards, the new Champions are being interviewed in the locker room, when all of a sudden, they are attacked by Barry Windham with a steel chair. He lays both men out, and the show ends. This was a fine tag match, probably the best match on the show, although some might say the Sting-Rude match was better.
Overall, this was a good wrestling show, once you get past some of the comedy matches and Erik Watts. I'll give it a 6.8 overall, and I would recommend that if you want to see good wrestling, than check out Sting vs. Rude and Steamboat/Douglas vs. Rhodes/Windham. Or if you want to see Raven box Marc Mero, than you can do that as well, as it's interesting at least. Well, thanks for reading, and if you have any ideas for future posts, than let me know.
Johnny B. Badd vs Scotty Flamingo-Boxing Match
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We are introduced by Jim Ross and Jesse Ventura, who talk about the weigh-in for the "Battle of the Sexes" match between Paul E. Dangerously and Madusa. Highlights are shown, and we get to see Paul E. in his underwear. That's an image I wish I never had to see. Also, the two combatants got into a fight at the weigh-in. To the back with Tony Schiavone, who is with Bill Watts in a locker room, the then president of WCW. Watts says nothing worth repeating, and off we go to Teddy Long and Michael Hayes in another locker room. Hayes promises pain for Erik Watts, who is teaming with Kensuke Sasaki against the Hayes led team of Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton.
Our first match is supposed to be Brian Pillman vs. Brad Armstrong, but Pillman is hurt, which is ironic because at the last Clash, Armstrong was too hurt to face Pillman. Armstrong comes out to confront Pillman, but instead gets hit in the leg with a crutch. Pillman was faking his knee injury the whole time. The nerve of some people. The ref threatens disqualification, but Pillman reminds the ref that the match hadn't started yet, so how can you disqualify him. The match starts, and ends in 30 seconds after Pillman clips Armstrong on his hurt leg to get the three count.
We get a recap of the Paul E.-Madusa feud, as a clip of Dangerously's workout with Mike Thor and other Dangerous Allience members are shown. Dangerously gets a punch on Thor which he no-sells, but Steve Austin knocked Thor down while Paul was celebrating his punch. Dangerously dropped a elbow on Thor for the three count. Afterwards, Paul E. runs down Madusa to the point where his whole alliance gets frustrated and leaves him alone to deal with the rage of Madusa. Paul E. said some pretty nasty stuff here, which would have fit right in ECW but was rather strong for WCW at this time. Anyway, we go to the back with Michael Hayes and Paul E., who promises victory and proclaims himself the king of manhood. Mike Thor comes in, demanding money for his participation in Dangerously's training, but is given the brush-off.
Our next match is the strange team of Erik Watts and Kensuke Sasaki vs. Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton in what is described as a bounty match. Apparently, Dangerously has put a price on Watts's head, offering 10,000 dollars to anyone that can injure Erik Watts. This match is 31 flavors of awful, as Watts was nowhere near ready and Sasaki wasn't much better at this point. Watts tried something off the top rope, I'm not sure if it was a sunset flip or cross body, but he landed on his ass and Eaton had to sell it anyway because Erik's the boss's kid or something. Meanwhile, Sasaki completely bungled an attempted monkey flip by Eaton, getting no air and landing on one knee. At least he had a nice powerslam in this match. At one point Ross mentions that Watts has been in training with Sasaki, Masa Chono, and Hiro Matsuda. Well, judging by this match, Watts should spend a lot more time training. The ending took forever to set up, as Sasaki was pounding Arn in one corner for a whole minute while Watts struggled through a move sequence before slapping the STF on Eaton to win the match. I will say that Watts at least had a better STF than John Cena, but that's about it.
To the back, as Teddy Long and Johnny B. Badd talk about their boxing match with Scotty Flamingo coming up next. In case you don't know, Johnny B. Badd is a wrestler whose mannerisms and look are heavily borrowed from entertainer Little Richard. Never mind the fact that he's named after a Chuck Berry song. Long is Badd's manager, which means that Badd is going to lose, even despite Badd's legit boxing background. To the other locker room with Scotty Flamingo, who is with Diamond Dallas Page, Vinnie Vegas (Kevin Nash) and a man in a Don King wig. Vegas has an awful New Jersey like accent and seems to be high on paint fumes during his promo, comparing Flamingo to that boxing legend Gerry Cooney. He's also stumbling over about every other word he says, claiming it's due to the excitement of the fight.
Badd comes out first with his confetti gun, the "Badd Blaster". Flamingo (who would later become Raven) comes out with his entourage, Vegas and Page. The first round begins and Flamingo is just getting peppered with jabs to the face. He's in trouble until Vegas distracts the ref, allowing Flamingo to get in an eye-gouge and a clothesline on his opponent. The ref does a count on a fallen Badd, but he gets up to wail on Flamingo some more. Flamingo gets knocked down, but the bell rings before the ref can count. Flamingo goes to his corner, where DDP dips his boxing glove in the water bucket, loading up the glove. The second round starts and Flamingo can barely stand, but eventually musters enough strength to hit Badd with his loaded glove. Badd is out, and the ref counts to 10, giving Scotty Flamingo the upset victory. Flamingo and his partners act as if he won the Heavyweight Championship, while Badd looks on in shock. Well, this was fun, and it was interesting to see guys like Raven in Vegas in a comedy match.
They preview next month's Starrcade, which will include Battlebowl, a tag tournament where teams are chosen at random. As a special treat, Jesse Ventura and Missy Hyatt will draw the first teams. The first team is Cactus Jack and Johnny B. Badd, and they will take on the world's most exciting team, Dan Spivey and Van Hammer. Couldn't they have rigged it to include Sting or Barry Windham or somebody more exciting than Heavy Metal Van Hammer? The crowd was not impressed, and I doubt very few people bought Starrcade to see that match.
The next match is a "Ghetto Odds" match, whatever that means, which has Cactus Jack, The Barbarian, and Tony Atlas against WCW Champion Ron Simmons and a mystery partner. The man later known as Too Cold Scorpio comes with Simmons, although his name is not announced so Ross and Ventura have no idea what to call him. They should just call him awesome, because Scorpio was flying all over the ring, doing moves nobody in WCW was doing at the time. For a handicap match, Simmons and Scorpio sure had the advantage most of the time. Finally the heels take over, but after a Cactus Jack dive is countered, Simmons gets the hot tag to Scorpio, and the two start cleaning house. Simmons forces Barbarian and Jack out of the ring, while Scorpio brings down the house with a perfectly executed 450 splash on Atlas to get the pin. Jim Ross damn near lost his mind after that move, as nobody had ever seen a 450 on American wrestling at the time. Match was a showcase for Scorpio, which is a bit odd seeing as The World Heavyweight Champion was also in the match, but whatever. Afterwards, Jesse gets Simmons and Scorpio in an interview, and the audience finally learns Scorpio's name. They also learn that Scorpio stinks on the mic, but what can you do?
There's a highlight video of WCW's newest Tag Team, Z-Man and Johnny Gunn. They go into a men's clothing store, and the salesladies cannot keep their hands off of them. The best part of that video is that they played this awful ripoff of ZZ Top's "Legs", only the song was about 30 seconds long, so they just replayed the same song 4 times in a row. We also get a video of Jesse Ventura's arm wrestling tournament, where WCW wrestlers compete in, you guessed it, an arm wrestling tournament. So far, Ron Simmons beat Steve Austin, and the Barbarian defeated Arn Anderson to the surprise of no one. We then go to the back, where Paul E is still mouthing off about his match with Madusa and brags about "being the man who didn't pay off Mike Thor"
The man who won't pay Mike Thor comes to the ring with Michael Hayes, wearing an ugly Yankee batting practice jersey and blue shorts with white pinstripes. He also has a helmet on and his heavily padded, while Madusa comes out to Eddie Guerrero's first WCW theme. That's a bit weird. Madusa charges, but gets clobbered with Paul E's giant cellphone, knocking her out cold. Paul E tries to pull Madusa up, but instead pulls off "her" wig. He takes a closer look and holy moly, it's MIKE THOR!!!, who is knocked out. Madusa comes out and starts by kicking Paul E. in the gut, and the match is on, and it's about as good as you would expect. Which is to say, not at all. Madusa gets a bit of revenge on Paul E. including a missile dropkick off the second rope and pulls off Dangerously's shorts. Well, at least he had pants on underneath that, thank goodness. Match really didn't do a whole lot for anybody, and since this was Dangerously's last WCW appearance, it was ultimately anticlimactic considering how much hype they put in to this bout.
Next is the King of Cable semifinals between Rick Rude and Sting. Before that, we have an interview with Vader and his manager Harley Race. Vader promises to become the King of Cable, whatever that is. The match has a 20 minute time-limit and if it goes to a draw, three judges (Ole Anderson, Hiro Matsuda, and Larry Zybysko) will decide the winner. Rude comes out and tells the "Sting loving scumbags" in the crowd to shut up, which of course they don't. Sting comes out and the match is on. A rather interesting match, as Sting dominated the first few minutes by doing moves targeted at Rude's abs, making it harder for him to breathe. This worked well, until Sting misses a Stinger Splash on the outside and takes a nasty looking bump on the metal guardrail. Rude takes control, and decides to target the back of Sting with bearhugs, whips in the corner, and suplexes. However, his ribs still hurt, and he can't even do his trademark hip swivel without doubling over in pain. Eventually, both men recover, which is fortunate because the time limit is almost up. They exchange a few moves, and Sting nearly crushes Rude's head with a high cross body, landing damn near on Rude's head. Eventually, Rude tries for his finisher, the Rude Awakening, but Sting escapes, shoves Rude to the corner, and hits the Stinger Splash. He tries for his Scorpion Deathlock finisher, but time expires before he can turn Rude over. The judges decide, and in a split decision, award the bout to Sting, meaning he moves on to the King of Cable Tournament Final, most likely Sting's proudest moment as a wrestler. Match was very good, although it dragged a bit at times.
It's main event time at the Clash, and the match is a match for the Unified Tag Team Titles. The challengers are Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas, while the champions are Dustin Rhodes and Barry Windham. Both teams are faces, so the crowd is split as to who to cheer for. The match starts as a technical wrestling exhibition between Douglas and Rhodes, but the intensity picks up once Steamboat and Windham enter, as the two exchange chops and generally increase the tempo with moves and countermoves. Steamboat and Douglas take advantage with quick tags and a sweet looking double backdrop on Windham, who for a big man really got up high on that move. Douglas is in control until he misses a cross body, hotshotting himself on the rope. That allows Windham to tag out to Rhodes, and the two take control. Rhodes and Windham use a nice double dropkick on Douglas, which was as good as The Rock N' Roll Express's old double dropkick. The champs have taken control on Douglas, and nearly get the three after a Windham back suplex and a Windham clothesline. But after Rhodes misses a dropkick, Douglas gets the hot tag to Steamboat. Steamboat and Rhodes exchange a couple of two counts. They then do a spot where Steamboat tries to leapfrog Rhodes, but accidentally gets clipped in the groin. That was meant to happen, it wasn't a botch on anybody's part. Anyway, Rhodes is concerned about his friend, which angers Windham, who wants Rhodes to make the cover and keep the title. After a while, Rhodes backs up and Windham tags himself in. He hits an atomic drop, but only gets two. The two are still arguing, and Windham hits another atomic drop on Steamboat, which angers Jim Ross. It angers Dustin as well, as he comes in to break the count. Uh oh, we've got trouble, as Rhodes and Windham are exchanging blows. This allows Steamboat to tag in Douglas, who surprises Windham with a belly-to-belly suplex and gets the three count. We've got new Tag Team Champions, but that's not all, as Windham and Rhodes are now arguing in the ring. Windham shocks the crowd as he kicks Dustin in the gut and DDTs his now former partner. Windham then lifts up Rhodes, and hits his finisher, the Superplex, on a defenseless Rhodes. Afterwards, the new Champions are being interviewed in the locker room, when all of a sudden, they are attacked by Barry Windham with a steel chair. He lays both men out, and the show ends. This was a fine tag match, probably the best match on the show, although some might say the Sting-Rude match was better.
Overall, this was a good wrestling show, once you get past some of the comedy matches and Erik Watts. I'll give it a 6.8 overall, and I would recommend that if you want to see good wrestling, than check out Sting vs. Rude and Steamboat/Douglas vs. Rhodes/Windham. Or if you want to see Raven box Marc Mero, than you can do that as well, as it's interesting at least. Well, thanks for reading, and if you have any ideas for future posts, than let me know.
Johnny B. Badd vs Scotty Flamingo-Boxing Match
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Saturday, March 13, 2010
Canon Video Game Review: WCW Super Brawl (Super Nintendo)
The idea of this review came from reader Ben W. His request was simple, it was as follows: "Play WCW Superbrawl for the SNES. Complete one match with at least half of the roster and give us your take on the game." Well, I aim to please, so what the hey. First, some info on the game. WCW SuperBrawl is a wrestling game made exclusively for the Super Nintendo. It was released in 1994 and features 12 wrestlers. Each wrestler has their own signature move in the game, as well as a signature saying in the wrestler select screen. One interesting thing is that when the game was released in 1994, out of the 12 wrestlers in the game, only 6 were still in WCW when the game was released. The Steiner Brothers hadn't been in WCW for two whole years, yet they still made their way into the game. Way to keep current there guys. Here's the cover to the game:
A basic cover, as you've got Flair, Sting, and Vader posing and pointing or whatever. The cover is inoffensive enough, and at least didn't feature guys like the Steiners or Ron Simmons who weren't a part of WCW anymore. That would be weird. Anyway, the hilarity begins at the wrestler select screen, where each wrestler will randomly emerge from their photos to say their catchphrase. For example, Ric Flair says Whoooo!. My favorite ones are Rick Steiner and Ron Simmons, partially because they're kind of dumb (Steiner says "It's not my fault" and Simmons says "Show Me Respect"), and partially because it's obvious to anyone familiar with those wrestlers that those are not their voices. Also, even though it's supposed to be done at random, some wrestlers say their catchphrases a lot more than others. So while Johnny B. Badd says "I'm BAAAAADD" over and over agian, other wrestlers like Brian Pillman and Dustin Rhodes speak once every month. That is, if one were to leave the game on for a month straight.
There are three different modes in this game; Single event, tournament, and Ultimate Challenge. Single Event is just one match, and can either be a 1 vs. 1 or a 2 vs. 2 match. Matches can be set to have 1, 3, or 5 falls if you so choose. I played it safe and went for 1 fall. Tournament is either an eight man singles tournament or a 4 team tag tournament, while Ultimate Challenge is where you take one wrestler and have to beat every other wrestler in the game to win the Ultimate Challenge! True to my word, I wrestled as half of the roster in the game. The first three matches were singles matches, they are, in order:
Dustin Rhodes(me) vs. Brian Pillman
Ron Simmons (me) vs. Vader
Sting (me) vs. Brian Pillman
I didn't want to face Pillman twice, but the CPU atomatically selects your opponent, so I had no choice. Pillman was annoying as heck to face, as every time you gained an advantage over him, he'd go to the outside of the ring. Also, he would keep diving off the top rope, which is just dumb in this game as unless your oppenent is in one exact position, you're not going to hit anything off the top rope. Pillman wasn't very skilled apparently, so I easily won my matches against him. Vader, meanwhile, is another story, as his stats are jacked up, and every move he does is worth 3 of Pillman's moves. I was unable to recover from this disadvantage, as Vader won easily. One thing I did find interesting is that Vader didn't wear any pants in this game, just a singlet.
The next match I had was a tag match, controlling The Steiner Brothers against the unlikely duo of Sting and Rick Rude. In real life, that might be a very good match. In this game, the tag partners take every chance possible to get in the ring, making it somewhat annoying. Also, the tag button (select) was very unresponsive. I must have pressed it about six times before finally tagging my partner in. Anyway, it was an even match, but I lost. Finally, I decided to take the Ultimate Challenge with Ric Flair. Although I won three matches (against Scott Steiner, Vader, and Simmons), it was still frustrating, as I couldn't put on the figure four to save my life. Finally, I lost to Ricky Steamboat, who, much like Vader, must have jacked up stats on this game, because he was able to do whatever he wanted with me.
The controls in this game are rather simple, A and X does different grappling moves, and you can do different moves depending on which direction button you combine with A or X. For example, up and X, while left and A does a backbreaker. Every wrestler does the same moves, except for their one finishing move. Y does dropkicks, no matter what direction you hit, while the B button does different strikes, again depending on what direction button you combine B with. The L and R buttons allows the player to run, while select tags in tag team matches, and Start pauses the game. When you build up enough on your finisher meter, you can hit B and Y to perform the finishing maneuver. While the controls are simple, the game is not very responsive to your controls, as sometimes I had to hit the dang buttons 3 or 4 times before I finally did a move. Also, unless your opponent is standing exactly in front of you, you won't be able to hit any moves. There are no counter moves, so the only hope you have is to push your buttons before your opponent does the same. The referee's count in this game is awfully fast, so unless you kick out right away, chances are you will lose.
The graphics are decent enough for their time, although the graphics for other 16-bit wrestling games, like WWF Raw or the Fire Pro Series, were far superior to these. Also, the game has a problem with collision detection, and some of the animations look a little strange. The sound is kind of annoying, as every match has a cheering crowd that doesn't change volume or noises the whole time, no matter what you do. Tony Schiavone pipes in every once in a while when you hit a big move, and the wrestlers say their catch phrases after hitting their finisher.
Overall, this game is interesting in that it was the only WCW video game to come out on either the Super NES or the Sega Genesis, so this was you're only chance to play as Vader or Sting or Pillman if you were a WCW fan and a video gamer. If you weren't a wrestling fan and looking for a good game to play, this wouldn't be it. At best, WCW Superbrawl is a below-average fighting game that takes place in a ring. The controls are slow to respond, the graphics and animations are kind of wonky, and the audio isn't very appealing at all. So one's enjoyment will vary depending on how familiar they are with WCW and its wrestlers. As far as the game goes, I'll give it a 3.3 out of 10, as it was at least better than WCW Nitro, but it's too flawed to be considered a good game, even when you consider it's time period.
Well, thanks for reading. If you have an idea for a future review, or you would like to submit your own content to The Canon Review, than send me your ideas at KtheC2001@gmail.com. Here, for your enjoyment, is a video of the intro and character select screens for WCW Superbrawl:
A basic cover, as you've got Flair, Sting, and Vader posing and pointing or whatever. The cover is inoffensive enough, and at least didn't feature guys like the Steiners or Ron Simmons who weren't a part of WCW anymore. That would be weird. Anyway, the hilarity begins at the wrestler select screen, where each wrestler will randomly emerge from their photos to say their catchphrase. For example, Ric Flair says Whoooo!. My favorite ones are Rick Steiner and Ron Simmons, partially because they're kind of dumb (Steiner says "It's not my fault" and Simmons says "Show Me Respect"), and partially because it's obvious to anyone familiar with those wrestlers that those are not their voices. Also, even though it's supposed to be done at random, some wrestlers say their catchphrases a lot more than others. So while Johnny B. Badd says "I'm BAAAAADD" over and over agian, other wrestlers like Brian Pillman and Dustin Rhodes speak once every month. That is, if one were to leave the game on for a month straight.
There are three different modes in this game; Single event, tournament, and Ultimate Challenge. Single Event is just one match, and can either be a 1 vs. 1 or a 2 vs. 2 match. Matches can be set to have 1, 3, or 5 falls if you so choose. I played it safe and went for 1 fall. Tournament is either an eight man singles tournament or a 4 team tag tournament, while Ultimate Challenge is where you take one wrestler and have to beat every other wrestler in the game to win the Ultimate Challenge! True to my word, I wrestled as half of the roster in the game. The first three matches were singles matches, they are, in order:
Dustin Rhodes(me) vs. Brian Pillman
Ron Simmons (me) vs. Vader
Sting (me) vs. Brian Pillman
I didn't want to face Pillman twice, but the CPU atomatically selects your opponent, so I had no choice. Pillman was annoying as heck to face, as every time you gained an advantage over him, he'd go to the outside of the ring. Also, he would keep diving off the top rope, which is just dumb in this game as unless your oppenent is in one exact position, you're not going to hit anything off the top rope. Pillman wasn't very skilled apparently, so I easily won my matches against him. Vader, meanwhile, is another story, as his stats are jacked up, and every move he does is worth 3 of Pillman's moves. I was unable to recover from this disadvantage, as Vader won easily. One thing I did find interesting is that Vader didn't wear any pants in this game, just a singlet.
The next match I had was a tag match, controlling The Steiner Brothers against the unlikely duo of Sting and Rick Rude. In real life, that might be a very good match. In this game, the tag partners take every chance possible to get in the ring, making it somewhat annoying. Also, the tag button (select) was very unresponsive. I must have pressed it about six times before finally tagging my partner in. Anyway, it was an even match, but I lost. Finally, I decided to take the Ultimate Challenge with Ric Flair. Although I won three matches (against Scott Steiner, Vader, and Simmons), it was still frustrating, as I couldn't put on the figure four to save my life. Finally, I lost to Ricky Steamboat, who, much like Vader, must have jacked up stats on this game, because he was able to do whatever he wanted with me.
The controls in this game are rather simple, A and X does different grappling moves, and you can do different moves depending on which direction button you combine with A or X. For example, up and X, while left and A does a backbreaker. Every wrestler does the same moves, except for their one finishing move. Y does dropkicks, no matter what direction you hit, while the B button does different strikes, again depending on what direction button you combine B with. The L and R buttons allows the player to run, while select tags in tag team matches, and Start pauses the game. When you build up enough on your finisher meter, you can hit B and Y to perform the finishing maneuver. While the controls are simple, the game is not very responsive to your controls, as sometimes I had to hit the dang buttons 3 or 4 times before I finally did a move. Also, unless your opponent is standing exactly in front of you, you won't be able to hit any moves. There are no counter moves, so the only hope you have is to push your buttons before your opponent does the same. The referee's count in this game is awfully fast, so unless you kick out right away, chances are you will lose.
The graphics are decent enough for their time, although the graphics for other 16-bit wrestling games, like WWF Raw or the Fire Pro Series, were far superior to these. Also, the game has a problem with collision detection, and some of the animations look a little strange. The sound is kind of annoying, as every match has a cheering crowd that doesn't change volume or noises the whole time, no matter what you do. Tony Schiavone pipes in every once in a while when you hit a big move, and the wrestlers say their catch phrases after hitting their finisher.
Overall, this game is interesting in that it was the only WCW video game to come out on either the Super NES or the Sega Genesis, so this was you're only chance to play as Vader or Sting or Pillman if you were a WCW fan and a video gamer. If you weren't a wrestling fan and looking for a good game to play, this wouldn't be it. At best, WCW Superbrawl is a below-average fighting game that takes place in a ring. The controls are slow to respond, the graphics and animations are kind of wonky, and the audio isn't very appealing at all. So one's enjoyment will vary depending on how familiar they are with WCW and its wrestlers. As far as the game goes, I'll give it a 3.3 out of 10, as it was at least better than WCW Nitro, but it's too flawed to be considered a good game, even when you consider it's time period.
Well, thanks for reading. If you have an idea for a future review, or you would like to submit your own content to The Canon Review, than send me your ideas at KtheC2001@gmail.com. Here, for your enjoyment, is a video of the intro and character select screens for WCW Superbrawl:
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Random WCW Matches on a Rainy Tuesday
It's Tuesday, it's raining and it is cold. So, here at The Canon Review, we have decided to celebrate this weather by watching random WCW matches. And away we go:
Match 1: Ric Flair vs. Lizmark Jr.
Well, why not start with a match that makes no sense whatsoever. Ric Flair is a multiple-time World Champion, one of the most famous wrestlers of all time. Lizmark Jr., meanwhile, is a Mexican wrestler brought in with all the other Mexican Wrestlers to have 8 and ten man tag matches so Mike Tenay can pretend to know what he is talking about. So, why not match the two together and see what happens. I'm convinced that whoever was in charge of this show just drew names out of a hat, and this is the result. The match is 90% Flair, but he does let Lizmark hit a back body drop and a couple of dropkicks, which is much more than many other WCW veterans would let him have. A lot of this match is Flair working on the legs of the luchadore, keeping him grounded. Flair uses a leg-grapevine and a half Boston Crab. At one point, Bobby Heenan compared Flair to a top attorney and publicly wondered why there are not more female attorneys, much to the bewilderment of Tony Schiavone. The match ends with Lizmark tapping out to the figure-four leglock, and Flair celebrates his victory. Decent enough match for a random 5 minute squash for Flair, but why they decided to put this match together is anybody's guess.
Match 2: Konnan vs. Tsubasa
Konnan had just joined the nWo, which, according to Mike Tenay, has really cheesed off all of the luchadores in WCW. I wonder what Lizmark Jr. thought. Meanwhile, Tsubasa is from Mexico by way of Japan, whatever that means. Tenay says he is now training in Mexico, so he must be one of the luchadores upset about Konnan's decision or something.The match takes about a minute, as Konnan starts by beating down Tsubasa, then gives him some sort of variation of a fisherman's buster. Konnan puts on his Tequilla Sunrise finisher, which looks rather crappy, and Tsubasa calls it a day. Konnan celebrates, while Tsubasa never wrestles for WCW again. Why WCW would fly in Tsubasa from Mexico for a 1 minute squash on WCW Nitro, I'll never know. Tsubasa went on to wrestle in Japan, mainly for Osaka Pro and other Japanese indy promotions. In case you were wondering, Tsubasa means "wing" in Japanese.
Match 3: Michael Wallstreet vs. Kenny Kendall
This matched sucked. Wallstreet apparently was about to join the nWo at the time, which would have put that organization over the top, for sure. Kendall is a jobber with an awful haircut. Bobby Heenan called it an "instant electric chair" hairstyle, because the only place you should go with that hairstyle is the electric chair. Harsh, but true. The match had a bunch of headlocks and tie ups. Kendall tried a sunset flip, but Wallstreet screwed that up when he just stumbled forward on his face instead of rolling back. Wallstreet controlled much of the action, but Kendall got a few shots in, including the old bash your opponents head ten times into the turnbuckle move. Match ended with the Stock Market Crash, which was basically a Samoan Drop. Wallstreet gets the three, and says into the camera, "not today". I wish I hadn't of watched this match today.
Match 4: Sting vs. Diamond Dallas Page
This match took place in 1992, before DDP was a major superstar in wrestling. DDP is dressed like Kevin Nash, with leather pants and a black singlet, while Sting is your WCW Heavyweight Champion. Pretty basic match, some headlocks, punches, and what not. Jim Ross and Bill Watts are on commentary, and they mention the recent death of Buddy Rogers and Sting's upcoming match with Vader at the 1992 Great American Bash (Vader would win the WCW Title from Sting that night, BTW). Match ends with a Stinger Splash and Scorpion Deathlock, and that's all she wrote.
Bonus:
The lesson is, Mike Tenay is an idiot.
Match 1: Ric Flair vs. Lizmark Jr.
Well, why not start with a match that makes no sense whatsoever. Ric Flair is a multiple-time World Champion, one of the most famous wrestlers of all time. Lizmark Jr., meanwhile, is a Mexican wrestler brought in with all the other Mexican Wrestlers to have 8 and ten man tag matches so Mike Tenay can pretend to know what he is talking about. So, why not match the two together and see what happens. I'm convinced that whoever was in charge of this show just drew names out of a hat, and this is the result. The match is 90% Flair, but he does let Lizmark hit a back body drop and a couple of dropkicks, which is much more than many other WCW veterans would let him have. A lot of this match is Flair working on the legs of the luchadore, keeping him grounded. Flair uses a leg-grapevine and a half Boston Crab. At one point, Bobby Heenan compared Flair to a top attorney and publicly wondered why there are not more female attorneys, much to the bewilderment of Tony Schiavone. The match ends with Lizmark tapping out to the figure-four leglock, and Flair celebrates his victory. Decent enough match for a random 5 minute squash for Flair, but why they decided to put this match together is anybody's guess.
Match 2: Konnan vs. Tsubasa
Konnan had just joined the nWo, which, according to Mike Tenay, has really cheesed off all of the luchadores in WCW. I wonder what Lizmark Jr. thought. Meanwhile, Tsubasa is from Mexico by way of Japan, whatever that means. Tenay says he is now training in Mexico, so he must be one of the luchadores upset about Konnan's decision or something.The match takes about a minute, as Konnan starts by beating down Tsubasa, then gives him some sort of variation of a fisherman's buster. Konnan puts on his Tequilla Sunrise finisher, which looks rather crappy, and Tsubasa calls it a day. Konnan celebrates, while Tsubasa never wrestles for WCW again. Why WCW would fly in Tsubasa from Mexico for a 1 minute squash on WCW Nitro, I'll never know. Tsubasa went on to wrestle in Japan, mainly for Osaka Pro and other Japanese indy promotions. In case you were wondering, Tsubasa means "wing" in Japanese.
Match 3: Michael Wallstreet vs. Kenny Kendall
This matched sucked. Wallstreet apparently was about to join the nWo at the time, which would have put that organization over the top, for sure. Kendall is a jobber with an awful haircut. Bobby Heenan called it an "instant electric chair" hairstyle, because the only place you should go with that hairstyle is the electric chair. Harsh, but true. The match had a bunch of headlocks and tie ups. Kendall tried a sunset flip, but Wallstreet screwed that up when he just stumbled forward on his face instead of rolling back. Wallstreet controlled much of the action, but Kendall got a few shots in, including the old bash your opponents head ten times into the turnbuckle move. Match ended with the Stock Market Crash, which was basically a Samoan Drop. Wallstreet gets the three, and says into the camera, "not today". I wish I hadn't of watched this match today.
Match 4: Sting vs. Diamond Dallas Page
This match took place in 1992, before DDP was a major superstar in wrestling. DDP is dressed like Kevin Nash, with leather pants and a black singlet, while Sting is your WCW Heavyweight Champion. Pretty basic match, some headlocks, punches, and what not. Jim Ross and Bill Watts are on commentary, and they mention the recent death of Buddy Rogers and Sting's upcoming match with Vader at the 1992 Great American Bash (Vader would win the WCW Title from Sting that night, BTW). Match ends with a Stinger Splash and Scorpion Deathlock, and that's all she wrote.
Bonus:
The lesson is, Mike Tenay is an idiot.
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