Happy Wednesday Everyone!
Yeah, I’m going to do WCW Great American Bash 1991
For those not au fait, this WCW event was originally supposed to have Ric Flair taking on Lex Luger, but Flair fell out with Jim Herd and left for the WWF, taking the World Title belt with him. Thus WCW found themselves in a hole, with no one else ready-made as an opponent for Luger and an angry crowd who weren’t prepared to show them any leniency.
Bash 91 is often considered one of the worst pay per view events of all-time from any wrestling company, as WCW had lost the popular Flair and then proceeded to put on an awful show filled with short terrible matches and bad gimmicks.
I’m going to try and put on a better show here, although I’m thinking the crowd are still likely to be unhappy due to having no Flair, but what can you do eh?
You can see the original card by clicking the link below;
The first big change I’m doing is that I’m going to cut the card down to 8 matches from the 11 it originally was. This allows us to give more time to the (hopefully) better matches on the card and it also deals with the reality of WCW having a pretty thin roster at the time.
Opener
Michael Hayes, Jimmy Garvin and Badstreet (Brad Armstrong) Vs Tracey Smothers, Steve Armstrong and Dustin Rhodes
15 Minutes
We’ll kick things off with one of the few matches that was actually good on the original show, although we’ll remove the elimination stipulation and just do a normal six man tag where the babyfaces win. Hopefully this will be a fun opener and the crowd will get a kick out of it. It will certainly be better than the atrocious scaffold flag match that opened the show in real life.
Match Two
WCW World Television Title
Champ: Stunning Steve Austin w/ Lady Blossom Vs Beautiful Bobby Eaton
10 Minutes
Austin was still raw here but he definitely had talent, and Eaton was a top class worker, so this should be an enjoyable match that will hopefully keep the momentum from the opener going. Austin can win it clean with a Stun Gun but Eaton can get plenty of offence in before it’s time to look at the lights.
Match Three
Terry Taylor and Tommy Rich w/ Alexandria York Vs Brian Pillman and Tom Zenk
10 Minutes
In real life WCW had done a terrible gimmick where Pillman had lost a loser leaves town match to Barry Windham and then had to come back as the masked Yellow Dog. In this continuity we’ll say that Pillman doesn’t get saddled with that gimmick and just remains Brian Pillman. Pillman and Zenk were a solid babyface team, so we’ll put them in here with Taylor and Rich, and have all four of them work the tag formula. Pillman and Zenk can go over and we might actually look at giving them a proper push as a team.
Match Four
One Man Gang w/ Kevin Sullivan Vs Ron Simmons w/ El Gigante
5 Minutes
Gang and Sullivan were feuding with El Gigante, but the last thing we need tonight is a match between those two on a night where the crowd is already mutinous. Instead we’ll stick Simmons in there and he can pick up the win with a Spine Buster OUTTA NOWHERE when Gang gets distracted by shenanigans with the seconds, thus giving us a babyface win whilst also giving Gang an out for losing.
Match Five
Ricky Morton Vs Robert Gibson
10 Minutes
Morton had gone Heel on Gibson and it led to a very boring 15+ minute match on this show where they kept it in low gear. Instead we’ll cut the time to 10 minutes here and we’ll have Gibson run wild on Morton from the opening bell, with Morton pinballing around for him. Hopefully a more exciting match like that will get the crowd invested. Morton will eventually manage to pick up a dirty victory in order to keep the feud going, but he’ll do so in a faster paced bout with more energy.
Match Six
Arn Anderson w/ Paul E. Dangerously Vs Rick Steiner w/ Missy Hyatt
12 Minutes
Originally WCW had advertised this as a mixed tag with Paul and Missy being involved, but Maryland (where the show was being held) wouldn’t permit man vs woman matches so it had to be changed on the night to a handicap match. Seeing as I don’t want to false advertise, we’ll just announce a singles match here, with the stipulation being that if Steiner wins then we will get the mixed tag when we’re in a state that will actually allow it (although we won’t actually word it like that). Steiner can then win and we have a match we can deliver on a Clash or PPV event in the future.
Match Seven
Chain Match
Nikita Koloff Vs Sting
12 Minutes
Let’s make this pin fall rules and ask both men to go at it. I think Maryland was pretty strict on things like blood, so sadly that won’t be in play, but hopefully they can still have an intense fight. We’ll have the lone ref bump of the evening, thus robbing Sting of a pin, followed swiftly by Koloff clobbering Sting with the chain and then picking up the three count. Koloff gets a win but Sting is still protected in defeat, and because it’s our only ref bump tonight it shouldn’t take away from the finish.
Main Event
WCW Title
Belt Vacant
Barry Windham Vs Lex Luger
15 Minutes
Windham wasn’t really deserving of a shot here but we don’t really have much of a choice, so we’ll stick them in there and hope they can ride out the “We Want Flair” chants long enough in order to get the crowd invested in the match. Luger can win and we’ll give the fans a babyface celebration, but we’ll also cut backstage to show Koloff watching on a monitor to tease matches between him and Luger down the line.
In Conclusion
If I had to acknowledge the main problems with the original version of GAB 91 they’d be;
– A hostile crowd that were already unhappy because Flair wasn’t there
– Too many bad matches with wrestlers that weren’t any good and/or had bad gimmicks
– Even the matches that had been built well were either oddly structured or the wrestlers themselves weren’t into it
– Lex Luger’s Heel turn infuriated an already unhappy crowd and gave him an instant uphill battle due to WCW trying to position him as the “New Flair” when the crowd was already smarting that the real Flair wasn’t there
I’m hopeful that I’ve addressed as many of those issues as I can with this revamped card. Obviously there’s nothing I can really do about the crowd already being pre-dispositioned to hate the show outside of trying to give them the best show I possibly can in an effort to appease them. If all of the matches I’ve booked here deliver then this should be a fun show. We’ve got about 90 minutes of in-ring wrestling, quite a few babyface wins, we’ve kept the silliness to as much of a minimum as possible, and we’re giving the fans a clean babyface win in the Main Event.
Obviously there isn’t much I can do if the likes of Morton, Gibson, Koloff and Sting decide to stick it in lower gear here, but hopefully they will at least try and deliver good matches. If they don’t then the show is doomed before it even starts.
At the very least we’ve got something set up for the future with this show. Luger is the new babyface Champ and Koloff’s win over Sting should make him a viable challenger. Sting can rebound to win the now vacated US Title, and when Rick Rude becomes available later in the year we can get that feud cooking.
Morton gets the win here but that feud should hopefully still have some legs due to how we’ve structured the match, providing the two are willing to work it how it needs to be worked. Simmons gets a big win on pay per view to keep him in the mix, and we have the looming atrocity of Gang Vs Gigante postponed to a later date when we’ve got a more charitable crowd upon which to subject it to.
Pillman and Zenk are back together to bolster the tag ranks, Austin is still going as TV Champ, Paul E. and Missy can wrestle one another when we finally get in a state that will allow it and the fans don’t feel ripped off because we were honest rather than doing the bait and switch that happened in real life. In fact, Steiner trying to win to set up the mixed tag match whilst Paul E. desperately does everything he can to prevent it should be a fun story and I’d expect the crowd to bite on it if Paul does the big sell job of fear whenever it looks like his man might lose.
Let me know how you feel about this anyway, and feel free to share your own ideas. Have I put on a better show here, or have I even managed to somehow put a WORSE one together?