Weekend Wrestling!

This weekend, after a Friday night spent watching the awesome Superbrawl 2, takes in an episode of WCW Main Event from a few weeks prior (on my dad’s 40th birthday, in fact) as well as a quick look at the animated adventures of Eek! The Cat.

Hosted by Tony Schiavone and Missy Hyatt.

Sting, Ricky Steamboat and Marcus Alexander Bagwell vs. Ravishing Rick Rude, Stunning Steve Austin and Beautiful Bobby

Absolutely a match worthy of the title of a main event, as three members of the Dangerous Alliance face off against two of the biggest babyfaces in the company… and Buff Bagwell. Steamboat slips past Rude at first to give double chops to Austin and Eaton. Ricky gets Rick in a wristlock and Rude does his dancing like he’s got ants in his pants routine. Tries to forearm out of it but gets chopped in return, leading to an atomic drop where you know Rude is selling it like he’s a red hot poker shoved up his ass. Bagwell comes in with a double axehandle off the top, but Rude gets him in the corner for Bobby to tag in and kick away. Tony talks on commentary about the recent return to WCW of Greg Valentine, fed up of being the world’s worst likely babyface in the WWF. Bagwell’s hair is a bike pump job at this point still. He avoids Austin to bring Sting in. Austin’s getting the last bit out of having long hair before cutting it off before it had fully thinned out. Staggering to think that Austin only really had a year on Bagwell but was much further in his development, wrestling like he’d been in for ten years. The DA tries to quell a full Rude/Sting confrontation after the Stinger has dispatched Steve and Bobby, so it’s settled down and made into Austin/Steamboat, with Austin getting a back suplex and big clothesline. Bobby comes in with his one-handed backbreaker, twice for two. Tony going solo is as rambling on commentary as Jim Ross would be, but he’s dropping all the pertinent points, such as the imminent arrival of Jesse Ventura too. Rude gets a big forearm off the top but stops to swivel at Sting and gets rolled up for two. Austin jaws at Bagwell and gets punched back, smacking heads with Steamboat. As they get up, Steamboat gets the tag to Bagwell, who clotheslines everyone down and powerslams Austin for two while everyone else brawls. Alabama Jam off the top from Eaton allows Austin to slip on top for the pinfall victory. The Alliance try to take Bagwell out post-match with chairshots, but Sting grabs the chair to run them off. Great match! Bagwell was there at that point to eat the pinfall, but associating him with Sting was a good move to give him a bit more of a reason to be in there and save the same match with Dustin Rhodes and Arn Anderson replacing him and Austin for the big house shows.

Commercial:

Greyhound present the Amazing Ballantine – Greyhound’s not the only one who cut things in half!

WCW Magazine, with Eric Bischoff, talking about Ricky Steamboat hiring a ninja to counter Paul E Dangerously, which wouldn’t work out in the end. Things go weird here, as we get a cut and then a throw to Jesse Ventura comments, but it’s actually highlights from the Brian Pillman/Jushin Liger match from the Omni where Liger took the light-heavyweight title from him, which looks fucking great. Shame about the stereotypical Japanese music playing over it, better suited for Seven Samurai or something. THEN we get Jesse in a t-shirt with a girl in leather on it, promoting his return and the rematch between the previous two. And then a rundown of the Superbrawl 2 card, except for the change from a Z-Man/Richard Morton match where they added Van Hammer and Vinnie Vegas as their respective partners instead of having Van Hammer wrestle the Diamond Studd. Also cancelled is PN News against Mr. Hughes and an eight man with El Gigante, Johnny B. Badd, Big Josh and MIKE GRAHAM against the Young Pistols, DDP and Big Sexy.

PN News vs. ?

I don’t know who News is wrestling and it’s probably for the best. He’s a guy in his thirties who looks in his fifties. Moustache, centre-parted black hair, kinda tall but not physically impressive at all, all curves and pudge. Black boots, blue and black tights. He tries two of the weakest kneelifts you’ll ever see, so News gives him some back harder. A quick cut to him running the ropes with his arms by his side. Belly-to-belly and News finishes with the Broken Record. Damn that cut, I had some extra snark in me for that. Imagine a combination of Mighty Joe Thunder and Jimmy Valiant in his tattooed head days. I don’t think they asked him back like they would’ve Bob Cook or Pat Rose.

Tony promised a look at the trailer for Gladiator in the last match, but its cut from the tape, so here it is for you. Not Russell Crowe’s Gladiator, nor Sly Stallone’s Rocky. It looks like it’s got everything a bad movie from the time needs. Starring Cuba Gooding Jr. before the sex scandal stuff, Jon Seda (my favourite star of Homicide: Life on the Street), Brian Dennehy as the bad guy, and introducing the biker kid off Twin Peaks who’s got quite a hot wife* but went through the mill with his health because of a bad reaction to acne cream.

*The one who gets her rack out in Showdown in Little Tokyo and then gets her head cut off.

The Ross Report sees Jim Ross interviewing Paul E Dangerously and Rick Rude ahead of the title defence against Steamboat with Paul barred from ringside and the Ninja backing Steamboat. I guess anyone could be in that outfit, hey? Rude’s take – the Dragon needs to quit worrying about his old lady and his punk kid. Yeah, with the former he could be right.

Commercials:

Twix Double Cookies ‘n’ Creme – a bad news/good news situation. Wish that had made it over to the UK, it looks delicious! Same with the chocolate fudge edition.

Get the free WCW merchandise catalogue, including the WCW Galoob figures. Let’s have a look at them:

Ron Simmons and Big Josh vs. The Young Pistols

Steve and Tracy went heel to get the US tag team titles off the Patriots, and they’re on the line here. Although the Pistols’ heel instincts were pretty good for perennial good guys, dancing here and there was not a good look. Ron shoves Tracy out on the lock-up, then clotheslines both him and Steve. Josh tags in and press slams Steve. Feels really weird even now to call him Josh when it’s Matt Borne in cut-off jeans and a plaid shirt. He gets the log roll on Steve, but gets shoved off when he tries it on Tracy and they punch away on him. Tracy gets a nice clothesline and we get to see some redneck kung-fu with a flying superkick. Josh flips out of an atomic drop to tag in Ron, who powerslams Tracy. A pair of shoulderblocks bump both Pistols into one another, but Steve trips him and they take the advantage for a few minutes. Tony is so on autopilot on commentary that they may as well have just played snippets of commentary from prior matches over this. “What a gruelling match this is.”, he says in a monotone. Simmons avoids a charge and tags Borne in. Ron comes back in to join in a double Irish whip, which results in Tracy taking the spinebuster and Borne hitting the running butt drop to win the unlikely pair the US tag team titles. Not as “gruelling” as Tony put it, and probably worthy of more time to enhance its quality, but also had a vibe of giving the Young Pistols their notice.

Commercials:

Butterfinger – add the Simpsons for the BIG push of the time.

WCW Magazine – “I can’t believe they printed that!”

Superbrawl 2 – Live! Only on Pay Per View!

Tony and Missy sign off. In the wrap around sections Missy was pretty obnoxious as always.

Short episode, but the opener was really good. The tag title match was disappointing. I would’ve loved to have seen more of the Botchamania candidate squash match, though!

And here’s a quickie review of the first episode of Eek! The Cat – Misereek. I recall watching the show at the time, but couldn’t tell you much more about it beyond the intro, where the eponymous character dabbles with danger constantly. Great electric guitar music punctuated by the “EEK!” soundbite. The episode begins with a hungry Eek appealing for food that his fat, greedy kid owners deny him beyond a single, escaped meatball. Some really funny visual gags are included, such as Eek stopping at a road and remarking to look both ways before crossing in case you’re run over by a car, doing that, then getting run over by a jumbo jet. A lot of absurdist stuff too, such as a senile old lady holding her cat Mittens, who wears mittens, by the ass as if it was his head. Eek takes his place at the table for the promise of pie, but lets himself in for more punishment than it’s worth. You can tell this is the kind of show that everyone was just throwing everything at and trying to attract as broad an audience for as possible as it’s got a lot of references and humour in that both kids and adults would appreciate. I was surprised that it was produced by Nelvana, generally the home of lame or lacking stuff such as The Care Bears and Droids and Ewoks and Babar, but when you’ve got creators working on it with names like Savage Steve Holland it’s going to be a bit more than the normal fare. Also ran for a few years, from 1992 to 1997 in a repackaged manner, so it must’ve had a more enduring appeal than I thought. Definitely worth a look.