The SmarK Rant for WCW Power Hour – 01.12.91
No idea where this one is from, but for those keeping track, Ric Flair won the World title from Sting in the Meadowlands the night before this aired, which was retroactively considered the official switchover from the NWA to WCW.
Your hosts are Jim Ross & Paul E. Dangerously
Rip Rogers v. Tim Horner
Rip tries attacking Horner in the aisle before the bell and they fight into the ring, where Rip slugs away in the corner and dodges a charging Horner. Tim bumps to the floor and Rip hits him with a double axehandle from the top, but then tries a sunset flip on the floor for some reason and Horner blocks it. Well, good? Back in the ring, Rogers gets two and slugs him down, but Horner tosses him and follows with a tope suicida here in 1991. Rip goes flying over the railing and into the front row while Paul talks about how the show is taped before the big Meadowlands show that already happened so they won’t know what happened at this point. A big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey…stuff. Back in the ring, Rip tries a superplex on Horner, but Tim comes down with a sunset flip for two and then Rip reverses a slam attempt for two. Rip goes to the throat, but Horner rolls him up with the bridge for the pin at 4:48. This was a damn good match and Rip was working his ass off. **3/4.
Meanwhile, on Worldwide Wrestling, it’s the debut of the MINOTAUR, better known to Stampede Wrestling fans as RSPW meme and living legend Steve DiSalvo. Unfortunately we never got a match between the Minotaur and Mantaur as far as I’m aware.
Beautiful Bobby v. Tommy Angel
Apparently this is a good looking pair of fellas. Angel gets some offense to start, but Bobby catches him with a lariat out of the corner and rakes at the face, which is apparently a message for the Z-Man. Eaton with a suplex and he dumps Angel and then catches him with the neckbreaker on the way back into the ring, and finishes with the Alabama Jam at 2:44. So he was scheduled to face Zenk at the Clash for the TV title, but by the time they had that match, Zenk had already lost the title to Arn Anderson at a previous TV taping and was defending a belt that was no longer his, putting the match into the weird Schroedinger’s Box of “champions who aren’t champions” that only wrestling can produce. And just wait until we get to February!
Meanwhile, on another show, the Freebirds face Norman in a match that doesn’t really have anything to do with any of the subjects at hand. Also Norman is now dressed like Hillbilly Jim because WCW.
WRESTLING NEWS NETWORK! WITH GORDON SOLIE!
The hot news item of the week is the ongoing feud between Paul E. Dangerously and Missy Hyatt, as Missy goes to the “Paul lives at home with his parents” well and Paul tells her to dress like a lady and not like the hooker we know she is. This wasn’t really going anywhere notable, although it did finally blow off with one of the worst matches of the year at Bash 91 so I guess there’s that. But then pretty much every match on that show was the worst of the year anyway.
Meanwhile, on World Championship Wrestling, Terry Taylor faces Arn Anderson in a TV title eliminator match and they have a pretty good match that ends with Arn pinning Taylor with his feet on the ropes. So Taylor is on kind of a losing streak now and might need a change of attitude.
Terry Taylor v. Mike Thor
Taylor slugs away on Thor and gets a snap suplex, then finishes with the Fivearm at 0:55. See, it’s one more than a forearm.
Also we get a random commercial for a Dean Martin and Robert Mitchum western called FIVE CARD STUD on TBS left in the tape here. A quick check on IMDB reveals that it was from 1968 and the plot was a regular group of poker players in the old West getting mysteriously killed off one by one. Not gonna lie, I’d totally watch that one.
Meanwhile, at Starrcade, the Steiner Brothers beat the evil Japanese foreigners to win the tag team title tournament and reinforce the lesson that it is NOT OKAY to be from another country. Also even though I just did this show recently, I want to once again call out the ICE COLD mic drop line from Jim Ross, as he discusses Saito getting advice from referee Hattori and quips that “He probably should have told him to stay away from McDonalds”. DAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN. Hang on, I have to meme:
Anyway yeah they show the whole match here and it’s a fairly decent ***1/4 tag match.
Flyin’ Brian Pillman v. Dirty Dutch Mantel
Paul is gonna chew some “tobaccy” in honor of Dutch because he loves the South. Brian charges in with a sunset flip for two, but Dutch pokes him in the eye and tosses him to the floor. Back in, Dutch with a snap suplex for two, but Pillman gets his own and then misses a dropkick, allowing Dutch to hit a backbreaker for two. Pillman slugs away in the corner, but Dutch puts him down with an atomic drop, and then Brian pops up with Air Pillman to finish at 4:00. Just a quick TV match but it was fine.
Actually a pretty good show, although most of the really good matches were from other shows, but Rip Rogers v. Tim Horner is a bit of a hidden gem this week.
Next week: A new era begins!