1992 - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

[Liam O'Rourke]

So, for our podcast this week the subject for discussion is looking at the wrestling landscape in 1992, and the good, bad and ugly elements that comprised it, a fun way to do a year in review.

The idea being that out of everything that happened on a worldwide basis in this year, what ONE thing epitomises each for you personally (if you had to choose a match, promo, angle, feud, theme or company that summed each up), and why?

For example, if we were talking 93, we could say:

The Good - Kobashi Vs. Hansen matches

The Bad - Hogan plunger raping Bret at Mania IX

The Ugly - Big Sky, Charlie Norris, Shockmaster, Equaliser and others stinking up WCW.

Apply for 1992, and please go into as much depth on why things were the best, worst or ugliest as you'd like. As always I'll read the feedback and credit the fine folks who do :-)

[Fanny Pack]

The Good- Royal Rumble, I cant do it justice but its mentioned nearly every week on here because of what a ridiculously good ppv it is, especially the match.

 

The Bad- The turnover of wrestlers in WWF that year. For example, that years Rumble match was packed with big names, every entrant seemed like a star. Fast forward to Survivor Series and 1992 Bret v 1992 Shawn for the title just wasnt doing it for me. Shawn was just making his way in singles, he'd just won the IC and Bret was still a bit of an unknown in terms of title potential. Yeah it was a bad time for me as a fan.

 

The Ugly- (in a shockingly good ugly way) The Rockers split at the Barber Shop. Still probably the most shocking thing ive seen in WWF/WWE come to think of it. Just a brutal, ugly, nasty piece of wrestling brilliance.

 

So all in all my 1992 started off like the absolute clappers and ended in a whimper.

[air_raid]

The Good - In general, US match quality in 1992 was superb.

 

The Rumble has been talked about extensively, not least by myself (it's my favourite match), but the WWF churned out great matches all year long on TV and on PPV. WrestleMania and SummerSlam each had a couple of belters on them, and even though Survivor Series may have seemed like "a whimper" to Fanny Pack - piss on that - the Hart/Michaels match itself was excellent. I actually rate it as the best match they ever had with each other for storytelling. I could give you a couple of paragraphs about why that match is brilliant, but I'll reign it in. WCW also delivered big time in the ring. War Games at WrestleWar was obviously stunning and probably my second favourite match ever, but SuperBrawl and Beach Blast were also chock full of great matches, and Sting/Vader from Great American Bash was great too.

 

The Bad - Probably a cop-out to take a single match, but the first thing that came to mind was Bushwhackers vs Beverly Brothers (featuring that turd Jamison) at Royal Rumble. I swear that match is still going on.

 

The Ugly - The outside-the-ring scandals that rocked the WWF leading to departures and downtown in business.

 

Hogan disappeared to let the fallout die down from the Zahorian trial and his Arsenio appearance. Patterson was fired (though later quietly rehired) over the Murray Hodgson unpleasantness and Terry Garvin and Mel Phillips also lost their jobs amidst allegations of sexual harassment, Hawk failed a drugs test and eventually went AWOL, Warrior fucked up and got himself and Smithers shitcanned..... basically everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. None of it was fair to Flair.

[tiger_rick]

The Good - The Royal Rumble - specifically Ric Flair's performance. One of wrestling's greatest ever individual performances, IMO. Absolutely perfect for Flair's various flips, flops and facials. Bobby Heenan brilliantly enhances it but Flair is marvellous. And then he cuts one of the most brilliant and iconic promos in company history.

 

The Bad - The SummerSlam undercard. What a collection of utter toss. Nailz and Virgil is one of the worst matches I've ever seen. Michaels and Martel is ruined by the Sherri nonsense. Tatanka, Berzerker, Shango, Matador, Kamala. Urgh. The tag matches feel like they go on forever. Even Warrior/Savage is a massive disappointment after WrestleMania 7. The experience of being there obviously hides a lot of this stuff, otherwise it would get royally panned more often.

 

The Ugly - The Bossman in those photos after Nailz battered him. Great selling of a great angle that went nowhere.

[Smokin']

Flair's flopping in the Rumble match is one of the few bad points of a near perfect match. Why he did it throughout his career, I don't know, but it only ever looked good towards the end of his career when he was almost a comedic character. A world champion doing something like that is just awful.

[fraserbee]

The Ugly - Big Sky, Charlie Norris, Shockmaster, Equaliser and others stinking up WCW.

)

That four didn't arrive to stink up WCW until 1993. '92 was an awesome year for WCW. Liger and Pillman, Sting and Vader, Rude and Steamboat, Wargames, Ron Simmons wins the belt and Cactus Jack in general made for some really exciting times.

[Snitsky's back acne]

The Good - WCW War Games match. An incredible and bloody match with a bunch of wrestlers people gave a shit about. Just a great match. Steiners absolutely annihilating Takayuki Iizuka prior to this was another particularly memorable mauling.

Mention also has to go to the Royal Rumble match and the Madusa-Paul E Dangerously angle at Halloween Havoc. Beach Blast 1992 was also a strong card if I remember rightly.

The Bad - Halloween Havoc's main event stipulation was the ultimate letdown and Jake's WCW stint was prematurely ended. 

Mention also has to go to the Fire match from FMW that looked amazing in magazines and is an incredible spectable on video but was a mess of a non-event to see.

The Ugly - has to be the outside the ring scandals from WWF mentioned earlier.

[Sweet Clyde]

He said above that if you were to use 93 for an example.

 

Like a few have said the highight of the yer for alot of people is the 92 Rumble, and gotta agree with many others its definitely one of my favourite matches of all time. Flairs performence is sheer class. Id say this is Bobby Heenen and Monsoon at their peak as a duo too fucking awesome they are throughout and the star power and the storylines that were happening incorperated into the Rumle match makes it one for the ages.

 

The Flair-Savage fued turned out pretty class too. That years Wrestlemania was champion as well a great card with two classics and a mega suprise ending. Plus a Mountie/Nasty Boys/Repo-man interview that I always loved.

 

Mr Perfects turning on Bobby Heenen on Prime Time way later in the year is great too, I watched that episode not long ago and thought it was brilliant.

 

WCW was pretty sweet in 92 fom what littlle ive seen Vader vs Sting matches and Foley vs Sting are classics. Dangerous Allience were bad ass as well.

 

Both companies would get pretty brutal at different stages throughout 93 but not too much negitive to say about 92 from me, one of my favourite years in wrestling.

[sivy]

The Good - Royal Rumble Match, the rise of Bret Hart and Watching Savage win the WWF Title

 

The Bad - Barely any Hogan, i was a massive fan, all the star power from WWF going away one by one.

 

The Ugly - Nailz Beatdown of the Bossman, i still want to know who's idea that was

[Reznor]

I suppose generally i'd say the good was whatever that Allen Frey fellow done to WCW while he was there, the bad was the period WWF post WM8/Euro Rampage) until the Autumn, after losing two of their only three top villains without real replacements. The ugly would be the state of WCW, including aesthetics, after Bill Watts came up with the bright idea to ditch the showbiz element and try to go about 20 years back in time.

But if the question is looking for specific moments or incidences which are most memorable or which define the year for you, what springs to my mind would be;

The good: tuning in to what I thought would be another run of the mill Wrestling Challenge around October time, only for them to bring the new Champion out onto the podium. I lost my shit at that. Very cool as I loved the Hitman at IC title level, and so unbelievably surprising because i'd never saw anyone break the main event 'glass ceiling' before. Those things just didn't happen back then. And it wasn't like he was threatening to be a contender in the run up to it either, they weren't exactly going out of their way to build his stock back up the clean loss at Summerslam. It was a great, important moment, and I remember it vividly.

The Bad: Marty Jannetty fucking up and disappearing. Deprived us until November of what would've been a great feud covering the guts of the year, it also left Shawn floundering a bit without much to do. That or seeing the Natural Disasters suddenly turn into a couple of cuddly big friendly dudes. I don't even know what they were supposed to have done to change. It was fecking terrible stuff turning them babyface, and their prominence in that role ruined the division in 1992.

The Ugly: Can't really think of much that isn't 'bad' first and foremost. Everything about Erik Watts, if that's not too general? Or imagining the rankness of being pitstopped, spat on by Skinner or licked by the Bushwhackers - although I guess those also apply to any other years they were all around. In hindsight, watching the Steiners taking liberties with that Japanese lad was pretty ugly.

[Reznor]

Sorry, double post.

[Liam O'Rourke]

 

The Ugly - Big Sky, Charlie Norris, Shockmaster, Equaliser and others stinking up WCW.

)

That four didn't arrive to stink up WCW until 1993. '92 was an awesome year for WCW. Liger and Pillman, Sting and Vader, Rude and Steamboat, Wargames, Ron Simmons wins the belt and Cactus Jack in general made for some really exciting times.

I know, I wrote in the OP that if we were doing it for 93, it could easily be that, just as an example.

[PowerButchi]

Learn how to say Power Butchi properly! It's Like Power Uti.

[fraserbee]

I know, I wrote in the OP that if we were doing it for 93, it could easily be that, just as an example.

Not exactly sure how my eyes completely missed that sentence!

[The Reverend]

The Good - Other than the aforementioned Royal Rumble, my personal highlight of 1992 was how over Wrestling was in the UK. It was a fantastic time to be a fan especially, if like me, you were about 12 years of age. Wrestling was everywhere. Shops were stocked full of merchandise, newsagents had countless magazines on their shelves along with stickers and trading cards, Sky had hours of programmes and in decent slots as well (loved Saturday's with Superstars of Wrestling on in the afternoon), Wrestling went into the mainstream too (just like it had in the US in 85) with the big names becoming household names. Even your Mum would've known who Papa Shango was. Wrestlers appeared on regular TV shows and in the newspapers on the daily - and it was all positive. No piss taking, it was all given proper respect.  If you were there in '92 you'll know what I mean - just the best time ever to be a fan! 

 

The Bad - Just the decline in the business. Look at the Rumble and then look at the Survivor Series. Worlds apart. The rot set in and suddenly we were inching towards the nightmare that was 1993. It was shocking how the WWF fell in such a short period of time.

 

The Ugly - I guess the steriod/sex scandals - it finally burst the bubble of the fun element and I think it was the point the mainstream turned against the product.