OOOLD SCHOOOOL

[King Pitcos]

I don't remember it annoying me when I was a kid, but it seems mental that it didn't. Especially as we only got live events twice a year, and the matches mostly seemed randomly generated rather than building from anything happening on TV. Would they even do a full lap of the US of the Warrior/Shango feud, for example, or would the TV shows be building to events that most of the audience would never have a hope of seeing?

[MoistVaj]

I don't remember it annoying me when I was a kid, but it seems mental that it didn't. Especially as we only got live events twice a year, and the matches mostly seemed randomly generated rather than building from anything happening on TV. Would they even do a full lap of the US of the Warrior/Shango feud, for example, or would the TV shows be building to events that most of the audience would never have a hope of seeing?

 

I've just watched the next 3 episodes and it appears that they just started angles on Superstars and then had them fight it out on house shows like you say. It does seem mental, I'm sure I remember more feature match ups as a kid, but I'm probably wearing the rose tinted specs again, along with getting confused with the coliseum home video stuff.

[air_raid]

Have a gander at :

http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/92.htm

 

Most house shows in April-August right up until SummerSlam were Warrior v Shango, until they moved Shango onto Hitman and Warrior onto Flair. Of course prior to those respective feuds, Hitman was busy with Shawn Michaels and Flair with Savage.

 

Selected matches from most of these runs of course were taped for Coliseum so you could see them, with noted exceptions being where one guy leaves / gets fired before the tapes went into production. So for instance the only Warrior/Shango match committed to tape was a tag match from early June with Undertaker/Warrior vs Shango/Berzerker.

 

Actually that match has a very weird dynamic as Undertaker and Warrior really dont seem to get on (logically) considering their past history. But given their opponents, they win, naturally.

[Boon Town Rat]

Its a shame MSG network stop showing their cards in 1992, i have a great Hogan-Flair match from December 1991, which like was said before, was built on TV and never headlined a TV or PPV show. But im sure if MSG Network had showed house shows we would have seen some of the 1992 feuds like the ones mentioned above on TV.

 

Watching the Best Of The Dangerous Alliance at the moment, WCW had some really great talent in 1992 in the absent of Flair and before the time of Hogan and his crew. Austin, Steamboat, Rude, Anderson, Rhodes, Simmons, Sting. There was plenty of dross as well, but the top liners were awesome.

[Reznor]

Next we're treated to highlights of the Rockers vs L.O.D from the end of the year. Michaels causes his team to lose by drop kicking Jannetty whilst he's about to be bodyslam by Animal, Animal falls frontwards with Jannetty still in his clutches and gets the 3 count. Jannetty is frustrated, and Michaels pushes him and blames him for the defeat. Jannetty is about to punch Michaels but thinks twice about it and leaves. Michaels left in the ring to soak up some of the heel heat. Interestingly Mr Perfect calls him a world class wrestler, which seemed odd with Michales still being a face. I'm sure older fans at the time would have seen the heel turn coming a lot sooner than I did at the time!

Can't have been much highlights from that match, i remember it was shit and really short. Iirc, that was actually taped at the same show as the barber shop breakup (and the Tuesday Night in Texas PPV). As a big Rockers fan, i was always pissed in late '91 that they were giving us all these potentially great matches v the likes of LOD, Natural Disasters, Beverlies etc, but none of them were any good as they were all about the angle.

 

The Mountie vs Rudy Gonzalez

 

More jobber beatdowns here, this time from The Mountie, during the match Bret Hart pops up in the corner of the screen and begins to yell about how he's going to beat The Mountie at the Royal Rumble in two weeks time. Back to the action and The Mountie is about to win, with a kneedrop to the throat! Can't honestly remember him using that move as a finisher before, was this a one off or was this his usual jobber finisher? For added goodness Gonzalez is treated to the schock stick afterwards and the Mountie and Jimmy Hart leave to a chorus of boos.

It was a one off. His two usual jobber finishes were a sorta Boss man slam except he grabbed him two-handed by the throat, and a double nerve hold, which would be resthold to anyone else. I think they just called both of them the 'carotid control technique' in the same way they called both IRS finishers the 'write off'. He never finished with them v any 'name' guys though, if he was winning it was pretty much always a sneaky roll up or hitting the cattle-prod behind the refs back.

 

The Beverly Brothers vs Scott Baizo and Ken Johnson

 

Longest match of the evening, this one taking the Beverlys nearly 4 minutes to get the job done. They actually looked pretty smooth in certain spots, including a really nice double team spot from the top rope and the match winning Shaker Heights. First match of the evening in which the jobbers have been allowed a small amount of offence. Nothing flashy though, a few chops and an attempted back body drop and then The Beverlys regained control.

The Beverly brothers were always pretty fun. I know they done the arrogant spoilt rich kid thing pretty well, but come 1992 they'd probably have been a better choice to turn face instead of the Natural Disasters which was about the most ridiculous misuse of wrestlers ever in the WWF. Their finisher simple, but pretty neat too, remember once they spiked some poor guy square on his head? ouch.

 

We then have Mean Gene at the interview podium in the arena and his guests this week are Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth. Randy talks about his Rumble chances and of course getting his hands on Jake the Snake. Miss Elizabeth says it would be nice for Macho to be champ again. Much like the matches, the interview segment was too short to be constructive but its Randy Savage so he can get away with it.

Said it on another thread, but they really should have given jake and Savage a singles match at the rumble, particularly if they knew they weren't dragging the feud out until wrestlemania

 

Vignette hyping Chris Chavis! I never knew he went by his real name on tv, obviously this didnt last long... Anyway, he tells us that he's sick of looking at Rivers, and now he must become the River. Not sure what on earth he's on about, but he does do his little war cry thing at the end to save the segment.

Yeah, i remember he was hyped by his real name. I think that continued on and that the Tatanka name was only given / awarded to him upon his debut. I was actually watching one of his earlier squashes a few months ago and it was interesting that his finisher wasn't the usual samoan drop, it was a fallaway slam out of a torture rack lift, looked pretty cool. Tatanka was ok at first, but by 1993 i was bored stiff of him. I think the only guy to ever get anything genuinely good out of him was Bam Bam.

 

As a kid I'm sure I remember there being a least one featured match on Superstars each week, but I have a feeling I've mistaken it for Challenge or Prime Time?

Nah, neither of them had a guaranteed feature match every week, you got them now and again, but there were probably more episodes similar to the one above than there were with real main events. Fast forward a few months and i can remember thinking it was a real treat that we got to see Ultimate Warrior v Rick Martel and v one of the nasty Boys!

 

Good fun show overall though, probably my favourite year in wrestling history so I'm a bit biased, so many great gimmicks and Flair being amazing the entire year too.

It was my favourite era also, but if i had to pick a single year, 1991 would be it. 1992 is always going to be so well remembered mainly because of the great PPV's, but weekly tv between WM and Summerslam was pretty grim stuff.

[Boon Town Rat]

Correction to my last post the last show shown on MSG Network from that era was the March 23 1992 show headlined by Hulk Hogan & WWF IC Champion Roddy Piper defeated WWF World Champion Ric Flair & Sid Justice via disqualification (Hogan's last MSG appearance for 10 years; Sid's last MSG appearance for 3 years; Piper's last MSG appearance for 2 years). before a tiny crowd of 9,000.

[MoistVaj]

Just checking the history of WWE website and it does seem in the year of 92 at least that Prime Time did in fact show at least 1 or 2 featured matches each week. It also had a jobber match or two from Superstars and Challenge, but the feature match ups are indeed there.

[Reznor]

Sorry, never noticed you included Prime time in that, i was meaning the syndicated shows, Superstars and Challenge.

 

I actually thought Prime Time was pretty much all 'star v star' matches, and the only squashes shown were debuts, and when something happened to progress an angle. Can't remember a whole lot in detail from the 1992 run, but i'd imagine it suffered badly when MSG footage stopped.

[MoistVaj]

Sorry, never noticed you included Prime time in that, i was meaning the syndicated shows, Superstars and Challenge.

 

I actually thought Prime Time was pretty much all 'star v star' matches, and the only squashes shown were debuts, and when something happened to progress an angle. Can't remember a whole lot in detail from the 1992 run, but i'd imagine it suffered badly when MSG footage stopped.

 

 

Yeah sorry should have been clearer. Was it usually Mooney and the god awful Lord Alfred Hayes calling the featured bouts or did we still get the Brain and Gorilla and Vince and Perfect? Going to look in to getting hold of these next I think. The only episode of Prime Time I can actually remember as a kid was the one where Perfect turned face, near Survivor Series 92 time.

[The Cum Doctor]

That last episode was kinda shit, even when the matches were good, so this had better be an improvement.

 

WCW Nitro 22/04/1996

 

All of the titles are on the line as we have a rematch of last week's main event. Well, that adds some intrigue to the action.

 

Public Enemy vs. American Males, American Males, American Males...

 

Eric Bischoff spoils RAW for us. We kick off the match with all four men brawling and flying all over the case. Well, it's a Public Enemy match so that's no surprise to anyone! I suppose I hadn't really given the Enemy much credit before when it comes to them being a normal tag team, but they had a pretty good standard tag match here. We see the over the top DQ thing here, which is strange, but hey, there you are. Enjoyable nonsense before that.

 

Much like they did last week, Public Enemy crush one of the poor sods by crashing him through a table.

 

Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Benoit

 

These guys have had much better matches than this. Don't get me wrong, this was a good fun match. It was sloppy as fuck though. Not like these two guys to have such major botches in a match, but they had a couple here. Benoit gets a cheap win holding onto the ropes.

 

Mean Gene is at the top of the aisle. He is with Rob Garner or something like that. Randy Savage comes out. Garner says that WCW are concerned about Randy Savage's actions. Randy Savage isn't happy with this, and he has a go at the guy. Should fucking slap him one while he's there. Garner says that Savage should seek help. Savage says that Garner is a "little little little stupid person". :laugh: Superb.

 

Meng vs. Jim Duggan

 

We haven't seen much of Meng on Nitro actually. Come to think of it, I've not seen much of Duggan either! HOOOOO!!! Pretty wrestling this is not. It IS two guys just laying into each other for a few minutes though, so no complaints from me. Duggan winds up winning with the taped fist. Oh right, this was that time.

 

Randy Savage tries to attack Ric Flair before the next match. Savage gets cuffed and led away.

 

Ric Flair and The Giant vs. Lex Luger and Sting - All the Titles on the Line

 

So this is a rematch of last week, instead this time there's all sorts at stake here. The usual hectic and chaotic main event from these guys. While last week's match was a lot more of a formula tag match, this match basically seen all four guys just throw everything at each other. A lot more like the sort of Nitro match I expect. The match ends when Ric Flair pours coffee in the face of The Giant, and The Giant goes mental and the ref decides "fuck this". Sting and Luger clear out as well. Can't blame any of them!

 

Post-match, Ric Flair is back in the ring with The Giant. The Giant says that the coffee lit a fire in his soul, and he decides he wants Flair's belt. Ric Flair says he tried to apologise and now he's mad. Ric Flair says he's gonna kick The Giant's ass. That's the end.

 

That was a MUCH better show!

[gmoney]

Duggan winds up winning with the taped fist. Oh right, this was that time.

 

 

Can anyone remember if this went anywhere? I have an abiding memory of Duggan doing this every fucking week for ages.

[The Cum Doctor]

I can swear that he had a taped fist match on PPV. I think I might have even covered it on the other thread! My memory is shit though so this is guess work. I don't wanna actually check since I can hardly remember anything from these days of WCW and it's like watching spoiler free. Makes a consistantly great TV show even better.

 

WCW Nitro 29/04/1996

 

This review is sponsored by Stella Artois, which is quite tasty at the moment, but may cause me to rant and moan more than usual. Reassuringly expensive though.

 

Sting and Lex Luger © vs. Harlem Heat - WCW Tag Team Championships

 

Oh great, the most boring tag team ever. The fans are into this one BIG time. They're even cheering Sting ducking Clotheslines as if he just won the match. They aren't as willing to cheer for Luger, but they decide to go along with him. Better him than Harlem Heat I guess! I hate when someone taunts instead of pinning after a big move. It just makes them look fucking stupid. Jimmy Hart tries to get the match thrown out and it fails and Sting gets a pin in the confusion. Someone check hell to see if it's frozen over, because Harlem Heat were involved in a nifty wee match.

 

Fire and Ice vs. The Steiner Brothers

 

Those are two right big bastards aren't they? They've got a bit of a baptism of fire here though. This was a bit short. I was getting right into the four of them just completely unloading big bombs on each other and then all of a sudden Rick Steiner got the pin. Still, it was a cracking wee match.

 

Mean Gene is on the aisle and he's going to interview Ric Flair. Ric Flair basically says that The Giant isn't the man that he is. Did that last match get raped for time for that pointless interview?

 

The Belfast Bruiser vs. Steven Regal, Parking Lot Brawl

 

Shit's gonna get real! This match had a proper crazy feel to it. We don't see much in the way of brilliant spots or anything. What we DO see is two guys that want to beat the ever loving shit out of each other out the back of the hall. What's not to love about that? It goes on a bit long but meh, that happens. It's still nice to see two guys just lay in. Regal wins with a Piledriver on a hood of a car.

 

Ric Flair © vs. The Giant - WCW World Heavyweight Championship

 

In the early going, Ric Flair only succeeds in annoying The Giant. Ric Flair uses every trick in his arsenal. The Giant wins a reasonably short match with a Chokeslam. I honestly thought it'd be more two sided than that.

 

The Giant basically lets us know that's gonna take on everyone, and that is the end of a fun episode of Nitro.

[King Pitcos]

Selected matches from most of these runs of course were taped for Coliseum so you could see them, with noted exceptions being where one guy leaves / gets fired before the tapes went into production.

How soon were tapes released after an event? I'm assuming that by the time a Warrior vs Shango match came out on video (had circumstances allowed), it would've been months after they'd stopped feuding on TV anyway.

[air_raid]

Pretty much.... a quick cycle through history of WWF confirms the last match Warrior had taped for Coliseum was the aforementioned match tagged with Warrior against Shango and Berzerker, recorded June 3rd 1992.

 

It was released on Rampage 92 (released October 22nd 1992 according to Amazon) and the 1992 Warrior tape (released over here as Return of the Ultimate Warrior) which had a release date of November 4th, about three weeks before Warrior got the sack.

 

So yeah, all the tapes were rather out of date by the time they landed. Rampage for example featured Macho Man defending the World title and Bret Hart vs Shawn Michaels for the Intercontinental title, yet by its release Hart was World champion and Michaels just days from relieving Smithers of the Intercontinental title in Indiana. It also had LOD on it, who had broken up months before the release date. In fact the only match that could have passed for a reasonably current feud was Tatanka vs The Model.

[The Cum Doctor]

WCW Nitro 06/05/1996

 

Hugh Morrus vs. Randy Savage

 

I don't think anyone would be wanting to wrestle Randy Savage at the moment. The guy has lost the plot. Hugh Morrus decides that he has to attack Savage before the bell in order to win this one. Can't blame him. Morrus then puts Savage's stuff on. Why do people do that to Savage at this point? They know what happens to them next. And sure enough, Savage goes pure mental. The referee rings the bell after Savage chokes Morrus over the top rope and doesn't let go. Not much of a match, and Hugh Morrus' antics only annoyed me.

 

After the match, Savage eventually lets go and lands the Flying Elbow. The referee pushes Savage and gets slapped in the face. Oh dear. He slams the referee and then lands the Flying Elbow on him as well. Referees and security are going to the ring. Savage doesn't need to be cuffed this time and he heads away on his own.

 

Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Dean Malenko

 

Quality! This is a nice surprise here. We have a series of reversals to establish parity and then Liger with an Enziguri to stop that. After that Ric Flair turns up with Elizabeth and Woman and they're at a big table. They're not distracting from the best match ever it looks like, so I'm not fussed. Just two guys doing a bunch of moves with some added leg work that winds up meaning absolutely nothing. Tiger Driver gets the win for Malenko in a match which I expected much better from.

 

Mean Gene is now with Ric Flair and the ladies. He's basically winding up Savage, and then he slags The Giant, saying he got lucky. Even Woman has something to day. "Nature Boy will end up on top." Yeah, I bet. Ric Flair then offers Debra a glass of champagne and she pours it out. Elizabeth makes a crack about Savage having loads of money. Another in a long line of boring promos with them.

 

We see a video hyping The Glacier.

 

Lord Steven Regal vs. Sting

 

Regal is in a particularly dirty mood during this match, coming out with all sorts of closed fists and eye pokes and hair pulls. He starts to get annoyed when it seems like he can't put away Sting, and this is the beginning of the end. Sting wins with some weird double armed Suplex thing. Not a very good match.

 

The Giant © vs. Jim Duggan - WCW World Heavyweight Championship

 

Duggan gave The Giant a real fight not long before this one, and it actually turned out to be a decent match. He's not as successful at being a pain in the arse as he was then, and The Giant winds up winning with The Chokeslam in what is basically a squash match.

 

Post-match he gets in the face of Jim Duggan. Another Chokeslam. Some people hit the ring and that isn't the best idea. Chokeslams for idiots. Ric Flair comes in with a chair and then Sting comes out as well. Sting is now going to the chop blocks. Is this a title match? The referee is in there. This is quite exciting regardless. Jimmy Hart stops the Scorpion Deathlock and then Luger shows up. Okay, Mean Gene is now in the ring with Sting and Lex Luger. Sting is wondering if Luger is ducking The Giant. There is a real arguement there and we're out of time.

 

A brilliant ending to a poor show.