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hey Scott, I was just reading your review of Survivor Series 98 and your pointing out how bad Undertaker was in this show and it got me wondering.  What happened to him?  I mean he was red hot both physically and career wise during summerSlam 98 but then after this all the way to him getting buried alive in 03 his workrate just went to the toilet.  Yeah he had a few good matches (Flair WMX8, HHH WM X7, Brock), but he just seemed to get insanely lazy for those five years.  have you heard what it might have been?  Laziness, politics, no motivation?  Seriously since he came back as the Deadman he’s been 100 times better.  Thoughts?

He’s been really banged up by injuries in recent years, and the greatly reduced schedule probably helped him to get more motivated for the limited matches he had.  Plus I think altering his style to a MMA-based one gave him more motivation to do new things instead of the same zombie character over and over again. 

hey Scott, I was just reading your review of Survivor Series 98 and your pointing out how bad Undertaker was in this show and it got me wondering.  What happened to him?  I mean he was red hot both physically and career wise during summerSlam 98 but then after this all the way to him getting buried alive in 03 his workrate just went to the toilet.  Yeah he had a few good matches (Flair WMX8, HHH WM X7, Brock), but he just seemed to get insanely lazy for those five years.  have you heard what it might have been?  Laziness, politics, no motivation?  Seriously since he came back as the Deadman he’s been 100 times better.  Thoughts?

He’s been really banged up by injuries in recent years, and the greatly reduced schedule probably helped him to get more motivated for the limited matches he had.  Plus I think altering his style to a MMA-based one gave him more motivation to do new things instead of the same zombie character over and over again. 

The SmarK Retro Rant for NWA Starrcade 88 This rant was really bugging me because it was originally written based on the chopped-up Turner Home Entertainment 120 VHS copy I’ve had forever. So most of the matches are edited to nothing and I wasn’t even doing match times at that point. However, thanks to the magic of YouTube and my previous Essential Starrcade rant, I can now piece together the entire original PPV in full, and you get a full redo in lieu of 2011 Scott sez.Live from Norfolk, VA. Your hosts are Jim Ross & Bob Caudle US Tag titles: The Fantastics v. Steve Williams & Kevin Sullivan This was previously announced as the Fantastics defending the belts against the Sheepherders, but a WWF talent raid changed that plan. Fulton evades Sullivan and gets a Thesz Press for two, as the champs double-team him for a bit. Over to Doc, but the Fantastics work on his arm. Williams misses a charge and the Fantastics give him a double-team monkey-flip, but Fulton walks right into a military press. I’m always such a mark for Dr. Death pressing a guy six times before he slams him. Awesome. Williams tosses Fulton for a big babyface pop, and then completely cuts off a Tommy Rogers comeback attempt by basically punching him in the face after no-selling his offense. Sullivan misses a charge and hits the floor, though, allowing Rogers to use his speed to control things again. The heel fans in the audience REALLY just want to see Dr. Death come in and beat the shit out of people. The Fantastics double-team Williams again as the boos get louder, but Doc cuts off the comeback again and puts Rogers down for more of a beating. Delayed suplex gets two. Rogers comes back with a sunset flip for two, but Doc uses a wrestling takedown to prevent a tag, and Varsity Club double-teams him again. Rogers with a small package on Sullivan for two, and a bodypress sets up the hot tag to Fulton. Fans aren’t buying into it at all, and Varsity Club just calmly cuts him off and beats on him. The Fantastics just can’t get any heat on themselves here. Doc with a bearhug that Fulton escapes from and tags Rogers again, but HE charges and hits Sullivan’s boot right away. Sullivan goes up and gets slammed off, but then Rogers stupidly goes up and hits knee. So it’s back to the Club beating on Rogers again, and Sullivan clotheslines him for two. This getting uglier and uglier as the Varsity Club just won’t let the Fantastics get into the tag team formula rhythm properly. Williams drops Rogers on the top rope for two and goes to a chinlock, but Rogers fights out…and gets cut off AGAIN. Sullivan gives him the double stomp for two, but Rogers finally gets the hot tag to Fulton and it’s BONZO GONZO. Fulton pounds away in the corner and gets a sleeper, but stupidly releases it and charges at Doc, walking into a stungun to give Williams the pin and titles at 15:55. You can’t say they didn’t give them time, but the heels were having no part of selling anything for the Fantastics here and they just didn’t mesh at all. **1/2 The Midnight Express (Stan Lane & Bobby Eaton) v. The Midnight Express (Dennis Condrey & Randy Rose) This was the absolutely brilliant feud that paid off Condrey’s original disappearance the year before, and also introduced Paul E. Dangerously to the national stage. The Original Midnights jumped from the AWA, giving the thing a dangerous “these guys aren’t supposed to be here” edge to it, as they attacked the Midnights on TV and instantly turned them into mega-babyfaces. Lane chases Condrey out of the ring, right into an awesome shot from Jim Cornette’s racket. Dangerously goes off on a rant against the fans as a result, and this is all great stuff. Back in the ring, Condrey tries to hammer on Lane and suffers an atomic drop. This gives Cornette the chance to get on the apron and make accusations towards Dangerously’s sexual preferences. Over to Eaton, who chases Rose out of the ring…right into a Cornette tennis racket shot. And Dangerously spazzes out AGAIN. Tremendous. Lane sends Rose into the post as Jim Ross unleashes his patented array of crazy metaphors, in this case one of my personal favourites about smoking a cigarette in a munitions dump. Back in the ring, Lane gets a bodypress on Rose for two, and Rose quickly bails to bring Condrey in. Condrey offers a handshake, so Lane kicks him in the head and Eaton comes in with a flying elbow on his former partner. Lane rolls him up in a crucifix, but Condrey wisely gets out of the babyface corner. Eaton bulldogs him anyway, and over to Lane for an elbow on Randy Rose. Lane puts him down with MARTIAL ARTS and they double-team him with the Broken Arrow. Eaton finally misses a blind charge to make him face-in-peril, and it’s the crushing irony of Bobby Eaton having to play Ricky Morton. Dangerously immediately declares victory to the fans at ringside, milking his moment for everything he can. The Originals work Eaton over on the floor and Rose gets a fistdrop from the top to the floor, and it’s back in for more abuse from Condrey. This time Dangerously gets the managerial cheapshot, and Condrey gets two as Cornette chases him away with a chair. Well we knew Cornette had a temper problem. Bobby gets a neckbreaker, but Rose comes in with a clothesline for two. He cuts off the ring as JR notes that Bobby is a true Alabaman – he doesn’t say much, and when he does you can’t understand him anyway. Apparently this was supposed to be a compliment. The Originals work him over in the corner, and Lane’s hotheaded save attempt costs his partner another shot. Condrey powerslams Bobby to set up the ROCKET LAUNCHER, but it misses and it’s HOT TAG Lane as these guys have timing run by an atomic clock. Enzuigiri for Rose, but the ref is distracted by the other two, allowing Dangerously to hit Lane with the phone and put Rose on top. It gets two and Teddy Long finds the phone, which is a classic Midnight Express bit. Rose argues, but this allows Lane & Eaton to hit the DOUBLE GOOZLE for the pin at 17:00. How the fuck could they cut this down to like 2 minutes on the tape?!? ****1/4 It’s the heel beatdown of the century after the win, as even Jim Cornette gets the boots put to him until Bobby finds the tennis racket and cleans house again. Sadly, the rematch at Chi-Town Rumble was ruined by Condrey flaking out and leaving the business completely. Unbelievable energy from everyone here, as they had a hot angle and ran with it. Junkyard Dog & Ivan Koloff v. The Russian Assassins I don’t know who thought that turning Koloff into a babyface would be a good idea, but it wasn’t. This was obviously supposed to be the reunited Koloffs, but Nikita left the promotion and we were stuck with JYD instead. Assassins were Dave “Angel of Death” Sheldon, aka the Black Scorpion, and Jack Victory. Dog throws #1 around and gets a clothesline for two, and #2 comes in as JR stresses that he’d like to have a VICTORY over the Dog here. Hee hee. Dog tosses #2 and Ivan comes in for the CLUBBING FOREARMS and Russian Hammer choke that gets two. #2 charges and hits boot, allowing Ivan to get a clothesline off the middle for two. When fucking Ivan Koloff is the best worker in the match, it’s not gonna be very good. Dog & Ivan get a double clothesline on #1, but Dog misses the headbutt and knocks himself out. I’ve never understood the physics behind that – the mat is far softer than someone’s head! Heel miscommunication quickly allows Dog to come back before we have to sit through him taking a beating any longer. “You might say that was a DUD” notes Bob Caudle about the Russian Missile finisher, although he could be referring to this match as well. Everyone collides, but the Russians load up their masks, switch places, and one of them pins Koloff at 7:00. Given that the stipulations were that the Russians had to unmask AND Paul Jones had to leave the NWA if the heels lost, the finish here was pretty obvious. DUD World TV title: Mike Rotundo v. Rick Steiner Here’s where I get my money out of this show I’m watching for free on the internet. Kevin Sullivan is suspended in a cage here, and this is the blowoff to end all of them, as Rick Steiner had been abused and demeaned by the Varsity Club all year, with the jock heels basically bullying him until he finally stood up for himself and snapped. Perhaps someone told him to be a STAR. Funny to think now of Rick Steiner being an underdog babyface, actually, but at the time I can tell you it was incredibly effective booking. Despite the match and angle behind it holding such an important place in my fandom, this will be the first time I’ve seen the full match. Steiner starts with the headlock and they do a fun bit where the ref keeps catching Rotundo using the hair while Steiner gets away with it. Rotundo escapes, and Steiner gets the Steinerline for two. Rotundo bails, and Steiner goes back to the headlock again before controlling with a hammerlock on the mat. They trade headlocks off that and it goes nowhere. Steiner tries another headlock, but Rotundo breaks with a sweet backdrop suplex and a headscissors on the mat. Steiner stops to laugh at Kevin Sullivan as this thing is taking forever to go anywhere. I can see why they clipped it all to hell now. Long stall from Rotundo until Steiner finally goes back to the headlock, but Rotundo dumps him to take over and hopefully pick up the pace. Back in, Rotundo gets a backdrop and goes to the chinlock and that goes on for a long time until he finally uses the ropes one time too many and gets caught. Steiner slugs back, but Rotundo puts him down with an elbow for two. Back to the chinlock, and Rotundo cuts off a comeback with the lariat. He misses a dropkick as it seems like we’re headed for the 20 minute time limit and Steiner makes the comeback with a backdrop and powerslam as Steve Williams joins us at ringside. Belly to belly suplex looks to finish, but Doc rings the bell and Teddy Long thinks that it’s a time limit draw. Ah, now the drawn-out match makes more sense. Luckily, Tommy Young is there to set him straight as Sullivan is released from the cage, and we start again. Steiner rams the Varsity Club together and pins Rotundo to win the TV title at 18:00 (with both referees counting at the same time for a neat visual), drawing a monster pop from the crowd. Very very disappointing after all the wait, although that finish was genius. **1/4 US Title: Barry Windham v. Bam Bam Bigelow This was kind of a weird deal, as they brought in Bigelow, and manager Oliver Humperdink, after his year in the WWF, and he basically only did the Windham feud and then disappeared again for a long time. Doesn’t seem like this will be a good style fit for either guy. They fight for the lockup and Bigelow overpowers Windham and catches him with a gutbuster, and Windham bails for advice from Dillon. That advice: “If your brother asks if you can make change for $100, SAY NO.” Back in, Windham hits a backdrop suplex and celebrates far too soon, as Bigelow no-sells it and Windham has to run away again. Windham can’t get anything going, and Bigelow hits him with a press slam to send Barry running away again. Back in, Bigelow hammers away in the corner and puts Windham on the floor with an enzuigiri. Back in, delayed suplex gets two, and Bigelow goes to the chinlock. Finally Windham takes out the knee and they fight to the floor, but Bigelow headbutts him on the way in and gets the slingshot splash for two. For some reason he picks Windham up and makes the idiot decision to go up top, missing the flying headbutt as a result. What a dick move that was. Windham now makes the comeback as if he was the babyface, hitting the running lariat and a backdrop suplex. He dumps Bigelow and runs him into the post, and back in for the IRON CLAW. Bigelow falls into the ropes to break, so Windham goes up and misses a flying elbow. Brawl outside again, and this time Windham beats the count back in to retain at 16:30. Boy, that was quite the cop-out finish. I’m thinking Bigelow decided he didn’t want to a job here. NWA World Tag team title: The Road Warriors v. Dusty Rhodes & Sting This was all backstory and no payoff, unfortunately, as the Warriors turned heel on Dusty and tried to blind him with a spike, and then on Sting with equally violent results, and this should have been the bloodiest bloodfeud to ever bleed on PPV with super babyfaces Dusty and Sting avenging themselves against monster bully heels the Road Warriors…but it just never found that next level. Maybe if people WANTED to boo the Warriors it might have clicked. I think this one was rated highly in the Essential Starrcade poll because it SOUNDS like an awesome dream match. Actually, to be perfectly accurate, it should have been Dusty Rhodes & Nikita Koloff for the perfect dream match, but Koloff was long gone by that point in the year and probably couldn’t have lived up to the hype anyway. Sting dropkicks Animal out of the ring to start and works on the arm in the ring, and Dusty comes in and slugs away. Over to Hawk and he exchanges shots with Dusty before the faces switch off on the arm to control. Hawk pounds on Sting in the corner to break and stomps a mudhole some 10 years before Steve Austin, then throws big fake-looking haymakers until Sting slugs back and powerslams him. Sting actually hits his usual missed elbow, but Hawk tags out to Animal. Press slam draws a face pop for the supposed hated heel, but Sting no-sells a stungun and clotheslines Animal out of the ring. He follows with a dive off the top rope and the Warriors back off. Back in, Dusty goes to work on the leg, but Hawk goes to the eyes and takes him to the floor for a quick beating to take over. Back in, Hawk puts Dusty down with a standing dropkick and works on the bad eye again (He’s not supposed to get anything in his eye!), but Dusty fires back with his own dropkick (!!!) before Animal charges in and bites him on the eye to stop the LUCHA DUSTY EXPRESS. Animal goes to a neckvice and Dusty fights up, but walks into a sleeper from Hawk. Dusty quickly escapes with a jawbreaker and makes the hot tag to Sting, but the crowd is kind of not wanting to cheer or boo either side. Sting dropkicks Animal into the corner and follows with a Stinger splash into the Scorpion, but Hawk breaks it up and tosses Sting. The Warriors double-team Dusty, but Sting comes in with a flying bodypress on Animal, resulting in Ellering pulling out the ref for the DQ at 11:18. You’d think these guys would have some chemistry, but they just didn’t and it was basically a tag match and nothing more. You thinking blood, chairs, mayhem…but nothing. And a lame finish to boot. Dusty was gone soon after so that might have had something to do with it. **1/2 NWA World title: Ric Flair v. Lex Luger The story behind this one is far more interesting than the match, and that’s saying something because it’s a hell of a match. As you probably know, but might not, Dusty Rhodes tried to screw with Flair one last time as booker, first booking Luger to win the title here, and when Flair refused that, booking Rick Steiner to take Luger’s place and win the title in a 5 minute squash instead. Finally new WCW honcho Jim Herd stepped in, fired Rhodes, and told Flair to go over Luger cleanly to retain. Sorry, spoiler. The DQ rule is waived here. Flair does some strutting and throws a chop, but stops to style and profile and gets clotheslined to the floor as a result. Flair regroups and heads back in with the headlock, but Luger reverses to the hammerlock and powers him down. Flair comes back with chops, which Lex no-sells, and they criss-cross into a good powerslam from Luger, which sends Flair running out. Back in, Lex gets a press slam this time, and that gets two. Flair’s like a demo of ragdoll physics out there tonight. Lex starts working on the arm and whips him into the corner, but Flair fires back with a chop. That does nothing, and Flair runs away again. Back in, Flair tries the cheapshot, but Lex runs him into the corner again for the Flair Flop, and he follows right away with a hammerlock. Flair fights out, but runs into Luger like a brick wall and gets hiptossed as well. Flair finally goes to the eyes and throws the chops, but that’s going nowhere and Lex chases him to the floor and wraps Flair’s arm around the railing to really work on it. He hammerlocks Flair and sends it into the post, and back in for an armbar. Flair bails and Lex suplexes him back in with a long delay, for two. Elbow misses, however (I know, I’m shocked), and Flair puts him down with a forearm to take over. He tosses Luger and rams him into the railing, and back in for the kneecrusher. He adds a double stomp and fires away with chops, but Lex catches him with the sleeper. Flair escapes with the backdrop suplex and takes him down with a snapmare, but a figure-four attempt is reversed to an inside cradle for two. Flair goes up and Luger brings him down with a superplex, for two. And Lex follows with his own figure-four, then slugs away in the corner. Flair tosses him over the top behind the ref’s back to escape, but Lex pops in with a flying bodypress for two. LUCHA LEX! Flair hits a cheapshot and tries a hiptoss, but Luger powers him into the backslide for two. Lex slugs away in the corner and we get the Flair Flip, followed by a Luger suplex for two. Flair fires back with chops, which Lex no-sells, and he hits the press slam to set up the seeming end for Flair. Powerslam signals the Rack, but he stops to go after JJ and that’s all Flair needs. He takes Luger down and smashes a chair into his knees (with the ref distracted by JJ of course), and now Luger is in trouble. Flair goes to work on the knee like a surgeon, using all the greatest hits to set up the figure-four. JR is something else on commentary here, perfectly conveying the story and writing off Lex’s chances. Luger uses his last energy to reverse the hold, but Flair goes right back to the leg and drops a knee on it. He goes up for whatever stupid reason and Luger slams him off, but the exertion hurts the knee further. Flair tosses him, but Luger has his adrenaline surge and presses Flair, only to see the knee give way again. FORESHADOWING. Flair tosses him again, but Luger flips in for two. Flair tries a flying forearm, but Luger is still pumped up and no-sells it, then slugs away in the corner. He follows with a clothesline for two, but he’s still limping. A powerslam sets up the rack again, but the knee gives out and Flair falls on top for the pin to retain at 30:54. Flair was actually told specifically to go over clean as a sheet, but he insisted on cheating to keep Luger strong. What a guy. Flair and Luger together were like some kind of wonderful magic that Lex couldn’t duplicate with anyone else. Brilliant finish, as Flair out-thought the power-focused Luger and basically sucked him into causing his own downfall. Great, non-stop action from start to finish. ****1/2 In case you’re curious, a clean pin would be ****3/4 and ***** would have been if Luger hadn’t no-sold all the chops and had mixed up the offense a little more than powerslam/elbow/press slam the whole match. The Pulse: This show holds a lot of sentimental value for me, and sadly outside of the main event and awesome Midnights v. Midnights showdown there’s not a lot of great wrestling here to back that up.

The SmarK Retro Rant for NWA Starrcade 88 This rant was really bugging me because it was originally written based on the chopped-up Turner Home Entertainment 120 VHS copy I’ve had forever. So most of the matches are edited to nothing and I wasn’t even doing match times at that point. However, thanks to the magic of YouTube and my previous Essential Starrcade rant, I can now piece together the entire original PPV in full, and you get a full redo in lieu of 2011 Scott sez.Live from Norfolk, VA. Your hosts are Jim Ross & Bob Caudle US Tag titles: The Fantastics v. Steve Williams & Kevin Sullivan This was previously announced as the Fantastics defending the belts against the Sheepherders, but a WWF talent raid changed that plan. Fulton evades Sullivan and gets a Thesz Press for two, as the champs double-team him for a bit. Over to Doc, but the Fantastics work on his arm. Williams misses a charge and the Fantastics give him a double-team monkey-flip, but Fulton walks right into a military press. I’m always such a mark for Dr. Death pressing a guy six times before he slams him. Awesome. Williams tosses Fulton for a big babyface pop, and then completely cuts off a Tommy Rogers comeback attempt by basically punching him in the face after no-selling his offense. Sullivan misses a charge and hits the floor, though, allowing Rogers to use his speed to control things again. The heel fans in the audience REALLY just want to see Dr. Death come in and beat the shit out of people. The Fantastics double-team Williams again as the boos get louder, but Doc cuts off the comeback again and puts Rogers down for more of a beating. Delayed suplex gets two. Rogers comes back with a sunset flip for two, but Doc uses a wrestling takedown to prevent a tag, and Varsity Club double-teams him again. Rogers with a small package on Sullivan for two, and a bodypress sets up the hot tag to Fulton. Fans aren’t buying into it at all, and Varsity Club just calmly cuts him off and beats on him. The Fantastics just can’t get any heat on themselves here. Doc with a bearhug that Fulton escapes from and tags Rogers again, but HE charges and hits Sullivan’s boot right away. Sullivan goes up and gets slammed off, but then Rogers stupidly goes up and hits knee. So it’s back to the Club beating on Rogers again, and Sullivan clotheslines him for two. This getting uglier and uglier as the Varsity Club just won’t let the Fantastics get into the tag team formula rhythm properly. Williams drops Rogers on the top rope for two and goes to a chinlock, but Rogers fights out…and gets cut off AGAIN. Sullivan gives him the double stomp for two, but Rogers finally gets the hot tag to Fulton and it’s BONZO GONZO. Fulton pounds away in the corner and gets a sleeper, but stupidly releases it and charges at Doc, walking into a stungun to give Williams the pin and titles at 15:55. You can’t say they didn’t give them time, but the heels were having no part of selling anything for the Fantastics here and they just didn’t mesh at all. **1/2 The Midnight Express (Stan Lane & Bobby Eaton) v. The Midnight Express (Dennis Condrey & Randy Rose) This was the absolutely brilliant feud that paid off Condrey’s original disappearance the year before, and also introduced Paul E. Dangerously to the national stage. The Original Midnights jumped from the AWA, giving the thing a dangerous “these guys aren’t supposed to be here” edge to it, as they attacked the Midnights on TV and instantly turned them into mega-babyfaces. Lane chases Condrey out of the ring, right into an awesome shot from Jim Cornette’s racket. Dangerously goes off on a rant against the fans as a result, and this is all great stuff. Back in the ring, Condrey tries to hammer on Lane and suffers an atomic drop. This gives Cornette the chance to get on the apron and make accusations towards Dangerously’s sexual preferences. Over to Eaton, who chases Rose out of the ring…right into a Cornette tennis racket shot. And Dangerously spazzes out AGAIN. Tremendous. Lane sends Rose into the post as Jim Ross unleashes his patented array of crazy metaphors, in this case one of my personal favourites about smoking a cigarette in a munitions dump. Back in the ring, Lane gets a bodypress on Rose for two, and Rose quickly bails to bring Condrey in. Condrey offers a handshake, so Lane kicks him in the head and Eaton comes in with a flying elbow on his former partner. Lane rolls him up in a crucifix, but Condrey wisely gets out of the babyface corner. Eaton bulldogs him anyway, and over to Lane for an elbow on Randy Rose. Lane puts him down with MARTIAL ARTS and they double-team him with the Broken Arrow. Eaton finally misses a blind charge to make him face-in-peril, and it’s the crushing irony of Bobby Eaton having to play Ricky Morton. Dangerously immediately declares victory to the fans at ringside, milking his moment for everything he can. The Originals work Eaton over on the floor and Rose gets a fistdrop from the top to the floor, and it’s back in for more abuse from Condrey. This time Dangerously gets the managerial cheapshot, and Condrey gets two as Cornette chases him away with a chair. Well we knew Cornette had a temper problem. Bobby gets a neckbreaker, but Rose comes in with a clothesline for two. He cuts off the ring as JR notes that Bobby is a true Alabaman – he doesn’t say much, and when he does you can’t understand him anyway. Apparently this was supposed to be a compliment. The Originals work him over in the corner, and Lane’s hotheaded save attempt costs his partner another shot. Condrey powerslams Bobby to set up the ROCKET LAUNCHER, but it misses and it’s HOT TAG Lane as these guys have timing run by an atomic clock. Enzuigiri for Rose, but the ref is distracted by the other two, allowing Dangerously to hit Lane with the phone and put Rose on top. It gets two and Teddy Long finds the phone, which is a classic Midnight Express bit. Rose argues, but this allows Lane & Eaton to hit the DOUBLE GOOZLE for the pin at 17:00. How the fuck could they cut this down to like 2 minutes on the tape?!? ****1/4 It’s the heel beatdown of the century after the win, as even Jim Cornette gets the boots put to him until Bobby finds the tennis racket and cleans house again. Sadly, the rematch at Chi-Town Rumble was ruined by Condrey flaking out and leaving the business completely. Unbelievable energy from everyone here, as they had a hot angle and ran with it. Junkyard Dog & Ivan Koloff v. The Russian Assassins I don’t know who thought that turning Koloff into a babyface would be a good idea, but it wasn’t. This was obviously supposed to be the reunited Koloffs, but Nikita left the promotion and we were stuck with JYD instead. Assassins were Dave “Angel of Death” Sheldon, aka the Black Scorpion, and Jack Victory. Dog throws #1 around and gets a clothesline for two, and #2 comes in as JR stresses that he’d like to have a VICTORY over the Dog here. Hee hee. Dog tosses #2 and Ivan comes in for the CLUBBING FOREARMS and Russian Hammer choke that gets two. #2 charges and hits boot, allowing Ivan to get a clothesline off the middle for two. When fucking Ivan Koloff is the best worker in the match, it’s not gonna be very good. Dog & Ivan get a double clothesline on #1, but Dog misses the headbutt and knocks himself out. I’ve never understood the physics behind that – the mat is far softer than someone’s head! Heel miscommunication quickly allows Dog to come back before we have to sit through him taking a beating any longer. “You might say that was a DUD” notes Bob Caudle about the Russian Missile finisher, although he could be referring to this match as well. Everyone collides, but the Russians load up their masks, switch places, and one of them pins Koloff at 7:00. Given that the stipulations were that the Russians had to unmask AND Paul Jones had to leave the NWA if the heels lost, the finish here was pretty obvious. DUD World TV title: Mike Rotundo v. Rick Steiner Here’s where I get my money out of this show I’m watching for free on the internet. Kevin Sullivan is suspended in a cage here, and this is the blowoff to end all of them, as Rick Steiner had been abused and demeaned by the Varsity Club all year, with the jock heels basically bullying him until he finally stood up for himself and snapped. Perhaps someone told him to be a STAR. Funny to think now of Rick Steiner being an underdog babyface, actually, but at the time I can tell you it was incredibly effective booking. Despite the match and angle behind it holding such an important place in my fandom, this will be the first time I’ve seen the full match. Steiner starts with the headlock and they do a fun bit where the ref keeps catching Rotundo using the hair while Steiner gets away with it. Rotundo escapes, and Steiner gets the Steinerline for two. Rotundo bails, and Steiner goes back to the headlock again before controlling with a hammerlock on the mat. They trade headlocks off that and it goes nowhere. Steiner tries another headlock, but Rotundo breaks with a sweet backdrop suplex and a headscissors on the mat. Steiner stops to laugh at Kevin Sullivan as this thing is taking forever to go anywhere. I can see why they clipped it all to hell now. Long stall from Rotundo until Steiner finally goes back to the headlock, but Rotundo dumps him to take over and hopefully pick up the pace. Back in, Rotundo gets a backdrop and goes to the chinlock and that goes on for a long time until he finally uses the ropes one time too many and gets caught. Steiner slugs back, but Rotundo puts him down with an elbow for two. Back to the chinlock, and Rotundo cuts off a comeback with the lariat. He misses a dropkick as it seems like we’re headed for the 20 minute time limit and Steiner makes the comeback with a backdrop and powerslam as Steve Williams joins us at ringside. Belly to belly suplex looks to finish, but Doc rings the bell and Teddy Long thinks that it’s a time limit draw. Ah, now the drawn-out match makes more sense. Luckily, Tommy Young is there to set him straight as Sullivan is released from the cage, and we start again. Steiner rams the Varsity Club together and pins Rotundo to win the TV title at 18:00 (with both referees counting at the same time for a neat visual), drawing a monster pop from the crowd. Very very disappointing after all the wait, although that finish was genius. **1/4 US Title: Barry Windham v. Bam Bam Bigelow This was kind of a weird deal, as they brought in Bigelow, and manager Oliver Humperdink, after his year in the WWF, and he basically only did the Windham feud and then disappeared again for a long time. Doesn’t seem like this will be a good style fit for either guy. They fight for the lockup and Bigelow overpowers Windham and catches him with a gutbuster, and Windham bails for advice from Dillon. That advice: “If your brother asks if you can make change for $100, SAY NO.” Back in, Windham hits a backdrop suplex and celebrates far too soon, as Bigelow no-sells it and Windham has to run away again. Windham can’t get anything going, and Bigelow hits him with a press slam to send Barry running away again. Back in, Bigelow hammers away in the corner and puts Windham on the floor with an enzuigiri. Back in, delayed suplex gets two, and Bigelow goes to the chinlock. Finally Windham takes out the knee and they fight to the floor, but Bigelow headbutts him on the way in and gets the slingshot splash for two. For some reason he picks Windham up and makes the idiot decision to go up top, missing the flying headbutt as a result. What a dick move that was. Windham now makes the comeback as if he was the babyface, hitting the running lariat and a backdrop suplex. He dumps Bigelow and runs him into the post, and back in for the IRON CLAW. Bigelow falls into the ropes to break, so Windham goes up and misses a flying elbow. Brawl outside again, and this time Windham beats the count back in to retain at 16:30. Boy, that was quite the cop-out finish. I’m thinking Bigelow decided he didn’t want to a job here. NWA World Tag team title: The Road Warriors v. Dusty Rhodes & Sting This was all backstory and no payoff, unfortunately, as the Warriors turned heel on Dusty and tried to blind him with a spike, and then on Sting with equally violent results, and this should have been the bloodiest bloodfeud to ever bleed on PPV with super babyfaces Dusty and Sting avenging themselves against monster bully heels the Road Warriors…but it just never found that next level. Maybe if people WANTED to boo the Warriors it might have clicked. I think this one was rated highly in the Essential Starrcade poll because it SOUNDS like an awesome dream match. Actually, to be perfectly accurate, it should have been Dusty Rhodes & Nikita Koloff for the perfect dream match, but Koloff was long gone by that point in the year and probably couldn’t have lived up to the hype anyway. Sting dropkicks Animal out of the ring to start and works on the arm in the ring, and Dusty comes in and slugs away. Over to Hawk and he exchanges shots with Dusty before the faces switch off on the arm to control. Hawk pounds on Sting in the corner to break and stomps a mudhole some 10 years before Steve Austin, then throws big fake-looking haymakers until Sting slugs back and powerslams him. Sting actually hits his usual missed elbow, but Hawk tags out to Animal. Press slam draws a face pop for the supposed hated heel, but Sting no-sells a stungun and clotheslines Animal out of the ring. He follows with a dive off the top rope and the Warriors back off. Back in, Dusty goes to work on the leg, but Hawk goes to the eyes and takes him to the floor for a quick beating to take over. Back in, Hawk puts Dusty down with a standing dropkick and works on the bad eye again (He’s not supposed to get anything in his eye!), but Dusty fires back with his own dropkick (!!!) before Animal charges in and bites him on the eye to stop the LUCHA DUSTY EXPRESS. Animal goes to a neckvice and Dusty fights up, but walks into a sleeper from Hawk. Dusty quickly escapes with a jawbreaker and makes the hot tag to Sting, but the crowd is kind of not wanting to cheer or boo either side. Sting dropkicks Animal into the corner and follows with a Stinger splash into the Scorpion, but Hawk breaks it up and tosses Sting. The Warriors double-team Dusty, but Sting comes in with a flying bodypress on Animal, resulting in Ellering pulling out the ref for the DQ at 11:18. You’d think these guys would have some chemistry, but they just didn’t and it was basically a tag match and nothing more. You thinking blood, chairs, mayhem…but nothing. And a lame finish to boot. Dusty was gone soon after so that might have had something to do with it. **1/2 NWA World title: Ric Flair v. Lex Luger The story behind this one is far more interesting than the match, and that’s saying something because it’s a hell of a match. As you probably know, but might not, Dusty Rhodes tried to screw with Flair one last time as booker, first booking Luger to win the title here, and when Flair refused that, booking Rick Steiner to take Luger’s place and win the title in a 5 minute squash instead. Finally new WCW honcho Jim Herd stepped in, fired Rhodes, and told Flair to go over Luger cleanly to retain. Sorry, spoiler. The DQ rule is waived here. Flair does some strutting and throws a chop, but stops to style and profile and gets clotheslined to the floor as a result. Flair regroups and heads back in with the headlock, but Luger reverses to the hammerlock and powers him down. Flair comes back with chops, which Lex no-sells, and they criss-cross into a good powerslam from Luger, which sends Flair running out. Back in, Lex gets a press slam this time, and that gets two. Flair’s like a demo of ragdoll physics out there tonight. Lex starts working on the arm and whips him into the corner, but Flair fires back with a chop. That does nothing, and Flair runs away again. Back in, Flair tries the cheapshot, but Lex runs him into the corner again for the Flair Flop, and he follows right away with a hammerlock. Flair fights out, but runs into Luger like a brick wall and gets hiptossed as well. Flair finally goes to the eyes and throws the chops, but that’s going nowhere and Lex chases him to the floor and wraps Flair’s arm around the railing to really work on it. He hammerlocks Flair and sends it into the post, and back in for an armbar. Flair bails and Lex suplexes him back in with a long delay, for two. Elbow misses, however (I know, I’m shocked), and Flair puts him down with a forearm to take over. He tosses Luger and rams him into the railing, and back in for the kneecrusher. He adds a double stomp and fires away with chops, but Lex catches him with the sleeper. Flair escapes with the backdrop suplex and takes him down with a snapmare, but a figure-four attempt is reversed to an inside cradle for two. Flair goes up and Luger brings him down with a superplex, for two. And Lex follows with his own figure-four, then slugs away in the corner. Flair tosses him over the top behind the ref’s back to escape, but Lex pops in with a flying bodypress for two. LUCHA LEX! Flair hits a cheapshot and tries a hiptoss, but Luger powers him into the backslide for two. Lex slugs away in the corner and we get the Flair Flip, followed by a Luger suplex for two. Flair fires back with chops, which Lex no-sells, and he hits the press slam to set up the seeming end for Flair. Powerslam signals the Rack, but he stops to go after JJ and that’s all Flair needs. He takes Luger down and smashes a chair into his knees (with the ref distracted by JJ of course), and now Luger is in trouble. Flair goes to work on the knee like a surgeon, using all the greatest hits to set up the figure-four. JR is something else on commentary here, perfectly conveying the story and writing off Lex’s chances. Luger uses his last energy to reverse the hold, but Flair goes right back to the leg and drops a knee on it. He goes up for whatever stupid reason and Luger slams him off, but the exertion hurts the knee further. Flair tosses him, but Luger has his adrenaline surge and presses Flair, only to see the knee give way again. FORESHADOWING. Flair tosses him again, but Luger flips in for two. Flair tries a flying forearm, but Luger is still pumped up and no-sells it, then slugs away in the corner. He follows with a clothesline for two, but he’s still limping. A powerslam sets up the rack again, but the knee gives out and Flair falls on top for the pin to retain at 30:54. Flair was actually told specifically to go over clean as a sheet, but he insisted on cheating to keep Luger strong. What a guy. Flair and Luger together were like some kind of wonderful magic that Lex couldn’t duplicate with anyone else. Brilliant finish, as Flair out-thought the power-focused Luger and basically sucked him into causing his own downfall. Great, non-stop action from start to finish. ****1/2 In case you’re curious, a clean pin would be ****3/4 and ***** would have been if Luger hadn’t no-sold all the chops and had mixed up the offense a little more than powerslam/elbow/press slam the whole match. The Pulse: This show holds a lot of sentimental value for me, and sadly outside of the main event and awesome Midnights v. Midnights showdown there’s not a lot of great wrestling here to back that up.

The SmarK Retro Rant for NWA Starrcade 88 This rant was really bugging me because it was originally written based on the chopped-up Turner Home Entertainment 120 VHS copy I’ve had forever. So most of the matches are edited to nothing and I wasn’t even doing match times at that point. However, thanks to the magic of YouTube and my previous Essential Starrcade rant, I can now piece together the entire original PPV in full, and you get a full redo in lieu of 2011 Scott sez.Live from Norfolk, VA. Your hosts are Jim Ross & Bob Caudle US Tag titles: The Fantastics v. Steve Williams & Kevin Sullivan This was previously announced as the Fantastics defending the belts against the Sheepherders, but a WWF talent raid changed that plan. Fulton evades Sullivan and gets a Thesz Press for two, as the champs double-team him for a bit. Over to Doc, but the Fantastics work on his arm. Williams misses a charge and the Fantastics give him a double-team monkey-flip, but Fulton walks right into a military press. I’m always such a mark for Dr. Death pressing a guy six times before he slams him. Awesome. Williams tosses Fulton for a big babyface pop, and then completely cuts off a Tommy Rogers comeback attempt by basically punching him in the face after no-selling his offense. Sullivan misses a charge and hits the floor, though, allowing Rogers to use his speed to control things again. The heel fans in the audience REALLY just want to see Dr. Death come in and beat the shit out of people. The Fantastics double-team Williams again as the boos get louder, but Doc cuts off the comeback again and puts Rogers down for more of a beating. Delayed suplex gets two. Rogers comes back with a sunset flip for two, but Doc uses a wrestling takedown to prevent a tag, and Varsity Club double-teams him again. Rogers with a small package on Sullivan for two, and a bodypress sets up the hot tag to Fulton. Fans aren’t buying into it at all, and Varsity Club just calmly cuts him off and beats on him. The Fantastics just can’t get any heat on themselves here. Doc with a bearhug that Fulton escapes from and tags Rogers again, but HE charges and hits Sullivan’s boot right away. Sullivan goes up and gets slammed off, but then Rogers stupidly goes up and hits knee. So it’s back to the Club beating on Rogers again, and Sullivan clotheslines him for two. This getting uglier and uglier as the Varsity Club just won’t let the Fantastics get into the tag team formula rhythm properly. Williams drops Rogers on the top rope for two and goes to a chinlock, but Rogers fights out…and gets cut off AGAIN. Sullivan gives him the double stomp for two, but Rogers finally gets the hot tag to Fulton and it’s BONZO GONZO. Fulton pounds away in the corner and gets a sleeper, but stupidly releases it and charges at Doc, walking into a stungun to give Williams the pin and titles at 15:55. You can’t say they didn’t give them time, but the heels were having no part of selling anything for the Fantastics here and they just didn’t mesh at all. **1/2 The Midnight Express (Stan Lane & Bobby Eaton) v. The Midnight Express (Dennis Condrey & Randy Rose) This was the absolutely brilliant feud that paid off Condrey’s original disappearance the year before, and also introduced Paul E. Dangerously to the national stage. The Original Midnights jumped from the AWA, giving the thing a dangerous “these guys aren’t supposed to be here” edge to it, as they attacked the Midnights on TV and instantly turned them into mega-babyfaces. Lane chases Condrey out of the ring, right into an awesome shot from Jim Cornette’s racket. Dangerously goes off on a rant against the fans as a result, and this is all great stuff. Back in the ring, Condrey tries to hammer on Lane and suffers an atomic drop. This gives Cornette the chance to get on the apron and make accusations towards Dangerously’s sexual preferences. Over to Eaton, who chases Rose out of the ring…right into a Cornette tennis racket shot. And Dangerously spazzes out AGAIN. Tremendous. Lane sends Rose into the post as Jim Ross unleashes his patented array of crazy metaphors, in this case one of my personal favourites about smoking a cigarette in a munitions dump. Back in the ring, Lane gets a bodypress on Rose for two, and Rose quickly bails to bring Condrey in. Condrey offers a handshake, so Lane kicks him in the head and Eaton comes in with a flying elbow on his former partner. Lane rolls him up in a crucifix, but Condrey wisely gets out of the babyface corner. Eaton bulldogs him anyway, and over to Lane for an elbow on Randy Rose. Lane puts him down with MARTIAL ARTS and they double-team him with the Broken Arrow. Eaton finally misses a blind charge to make him face-in-peril, and it’s the crushing irony of Bobby Eaton having to play Ricky Morton. Dangerously immediately declares victory to the fans at ringside, milking his moment for everything he can. The Originals work Eaton over on the floor and Rose gets a fistdrop from the top to the floor, and it’s back in for more abuse from Condrey. This time Dangerously gets the managerial cheapshot, and Condrey gets two as Cornette chases him away with a chair. Well we knew Cornette had a temper problem. Bobby gets a neckbreaker, but Rose comes in with a clothesline for two. He cuts off the ring as JR notes that Bobby is a true Alabaman – he doesn’t say much, and when he does you can’t understand him anyway. Apparently this was supposed to be a compliment. The Originals work him over in the corner, and Lane’s hotheaded save attempt costs his partner another shot. Condrey powerslams Bobby to set up the ROCKET LAUNCHER, but it misses and it’s HOT TAG Lane as these guys have timing run by an atomic clock. Enzuigiri for Rose, but the ref is distracted by the other two, allowing Dangerously to hit Lane with the phone and put Rose on top. It gets two and Teddy Long finds the phone, which is a classic Midnight Express bit. Rose argues, but this allows Lane & Eaton to hit the DOUBLE GOOZLE for the pin at 17:00. How the fuck could they cut this down to like 2 minutes on the tape?!? ****1/4 It’s the heel beatdown of the century after the win, as even Jim Cornette gets the boots put to him until Bobby finds the tennis racket and cleans house again. Sadly, the rematch at Chi-Town Rumble was ruined by Condrey flaking out and leaving the business completely. Unbelievable energy from everyone here, as they had a hot angle and ran with it. Junkyard Dog & Ivan Koloff v. The Russian Assassins I don’t know who thought that turning Koloff into a babyface would be a good idea, but it wasn’t. This was obviously supposed to be the reunited Koloffs, but Nikita left the promotion and we were stuck with JYD instead. Assassins were Dave “Angel of Death” Sheldon, aka the Black Scorpion, and Jack Victory. Dog throws #1 around and gets a clothesline for two, and #2 comes in as JR stresses that he’d like to have a VICTORY over the Dog here. Hee hee. Dog tosses #2 and Ivan comes in for the CLUBBING FOREARMS and Russian Hammer choke that gets two. #2 charges and hits boot, allowing Ivan to get a clothesline off the middle for two. When fucking Ivan Koloff is the best worker in the match, it’s not gonna be very good. Dog & Ivan get a double clothesline on #1, but Dog misses the headbutt and knocks himself out. I’ve never understood the physics behind that – the mat is far softer than someone’s head! Heel miscommunication quickly allows Dog to come back before we have to sit through him taking a beating any longer. “You might say that was a DUD” notes Bob Caudle about the Russian Missile finisher, although he could be referring to this match as well. Everyone collides, but the Russians load up their masks, switch places, and one of them pins Koloff at 7:00. Given that the stipulations were that the Russians had to unmask AND Paul Jones had to leave the NWA if the heels lost, the finish here was pretty obvious. DUD World TV title: Mike Rotundo v. Rick Steiner Here’s where I get my money out of this show I’m watching for free on the internet. Kevin Sullivan is suspended in a cage here, and this is the blowoff to end all of them, as Rick Steiner had been abused and demeaned by the Varsity Club all year, with the jock heels basically bullying him until he finally stood up for himself and snapped. Perhaps someone told him to be a STAR. Funny to think now of Rick Steiner being an underdog babyface, actually, but at the time I can tell you it was incredibly effective booking. Despite the match and angle behind it holding such an important place in my fandom, this will be the first time I’ve seen the full match. Steiner starts with the headlock and they do a fun bit where the ref keeps catching Rotundo using the hair while Steiner gets away with it. Rotundo escapes, and Steiner gets the Steinerline for two. Rotundo bails, and Steiner goes back to the headlock again before controlling with a hammerlock on the mat. They trade headlocks off that and it goes nowhere. Steiner tries another headlock, but Rotundo breaks with a sweet backdrop suplex and a headscissors on the mat. Steiner stops to laugh at Kevin Sullivan as this thing is taking forever to go anywhere. I can see why they clipped it all to hell now. Long stall from Rotundo until Steiner finally goes back to the headlock, but Rotundo dumps him to take over and hopefully pick up the pace. Back in, Rotundo gets a backdrop and goes to the chinlock and that goes on for a long time until he finally uses the ropes one time too many and gets caught. Steiner slugs back, but Rotundo puts him down with an elbow for two. Back to the chinlock, and Rotundo cuts off a comeback with the lariat. He misses a dropkick as it seems like we’re headed for the 20 minute time limit and Steiner makes the comeback with a backdrop and powerslam as Steve Williams joins us at ringside. Belly to belly suplex looks to finish, but Doc rings the bell and Teddy Long thinks that it’s a time limit draw. Ah, now the drawn-out match makes more sense. Luckily, Tommy Young is there to set him straight as Sullivan is released from the cage, and we start again. Steiner rams the Varsity Club together and pins Rotundo to win the TV title at 18:00 (with both referees counting at the same time for a neat visual), drawing a monster pop from the crowd. Very very disappointing after all the wait, although that finish was genius. **1/4 US Title: Barry Windham v. Bam Bam Bigelow This was kind of a weird deal, as they brought in Bigelow, and manager Oliver Humperdink, after his year in the WWF, and he basically only did the Windham feud and then disappeared again for a long time. Doesn’t seem like this will be a good style fit for either guy. They fight for the lockup and Bigelow overpowers Windham and catches him with a gutbuster, and Windham bails for advice from Dillon. That advice: “If your brother asks if you can make change for $100, SAY NO.” Back in, Windham hits a backdrop suplex and celebrates far too soon, as Bigelow no-sells it and Windham has to run away again. Windham can’t get anything going, and Bigelow hits him with a press slam to send Barry running away again. Back in, Bigelow hammers away in the corner and puts Windham on the floor with an enzuigiri. Back in, delayed suplex gets two, and Bigelow goes to the chinlock. Finally Windham takes out the knee and they fight to the floor, but Bigelow headbutts him on the way in and gets the slingshot splash for two. For some reason he picks Windham up and makes the idiot decision to go up top, missing the flying headbutt as a result. What a dick move that was. Windham now makes the comeback as if he was the babyface, hitting the running lariat and a backdrop suplex. He dumps Bigelow and runs him into the post, and back in for the IRON CLAW. Bigelow falls into the ropes to break, so Windham goes up and misses a flying elbow. Brawl outside again, and this time Windham beats the count back in to retain at 16:30. Boy, that was quite the cop-out finish. I’m thinking Bigelow decided he didn’t want to a job here. NWA World Tag team title: The Road Warriors v. Dusty Rhodes & Sting This was all backstory and no payoff, unfortunately, as the Warriors turned heel on Dusty and tried to blind him with a spike, and then on Sting with equally violent results, and this should have been the bloodiest bloodfeud to ever bleed on PPV with super babyfaces Dusty and Sting avenging themselves against monster bully heels the Road Warriors…but it just never found that next level. Maybe if people WANTED to boo the Warriors it might have clicked. I think this one was rated highly in the Essential Starrcade poll because it SOUNDS like an awesome dream match. Actually, to be perfectly accurate, it should have been Dusty Rhodes & Nikita Koloff for the perfect dream match, but Koloff was long gone by that point in the year and probably couldn’t have lived up to the hype anyway. Sting dropkicks Animal out of the ring to start and works on the arm in the ring, and Dusty comes in and slugs away. Over to Hawk and he exchanges shots with Dusty before the faces switch off on the arm to control. Hawk pounds on Sting in the corner to break and stomps a mudhole some 10 years before Steve Austin, then throws big fake-looking haymakers until Sting slugs back and powerslams him. Sting actually hits his usual missed elbow, but Hawk tags out to Animal. Press slam draws a face pop for the supposed hated heel, but Sting no-sells a stungun and clotheslines Animal out of the ring. He follows with a dive off the top rope and the Warriors back off. Back in, Dusty goes to work on the leg, but Hawk goes to the eyes and takes him to the floor for a quick beating to take over. Back in, Hawk puts Dusty down with a standing dropkick and works on the bad eye again (He’s not supposed to get anything in his eye!), but Dusty fires back with his own dropkick (!!!) before Animal charges in and bites him on the eye to stop the LUCHA DUSTY EXPRESS. Animal goes to a neckvice and Dusty fights up, but walks into a sleeper from Hawk. Dusty quickly escapes with a jawbreaker and makes the hot tag to Sting, but the crowd is kind of not wanting to cheer or boo either side. Sting dropkicks Animal into the corner and follows with a Stinger splash into the Scorpion, but Hawk breaks it up and tosses Sting. The Warriors double-team Dusty, but Sting comes in with a flying bodypress on Animal, resulting in Ellering pulling out the ref for the DQ at 11:18. You’d think these guys would have some chemistry, but they just didn’t and it was basically a tag match and nothing more. You thinking blood, chairs, mayhem…but nothing. And a lame finish to boot. Dusty was gone soon after so that might have had something to do with it. **1/2 NWA World title: Ric Flair v. Lex Luger The story behind this one is far more interesting than the match, and that’s saying something because it’s a hell of a match. As you probably know, but might not, Dusty Rhodes tried to screw with Flair one last time as booker, first booking Luger to win the title here, and when Flair refused that, booking Rick Steiner to take Luger’s place and win the title in a 5 minute squash instead. Finally new WCW honcho Jim Herd stepped in, fired Rhodes, and told Flair to go over Luger cleanly to retain. Sorry, spoiler. The DQ rule is waived here. Flair does some strutting and throws a chop, but stops to style and profile and gets clotheslined to the floor as a result. Flair regroups and heads back in with the headlock, but Luger reverses to the hammerlock and powers him down. Flair comes back with chops, which Lex no-sells, and they criss-cross into a good powerslam from Luger, which sends Flair running out. Back in, Lex gets a press slam this time, and that gets two. Flair’s like a demo of ragdoll physics out there tonight. Lex starts working on the arm and whips him into the corner, but Flair fires back with a chop. That does nothing, and Flair runs away again. Back in, Flair tries the cheapshot, but Lex runs him into the corner again for the Flair Flop, and he follows right away with a hammerlock. Flair fights out, but runs into Luger like a brick wall and gets hiptossed as well. Flair finally goes to the eyes and throws the chops, but that’s going nowhere and Lex chases him to the floor and wraps Flair’s arm around the railing to really work on it. He hammerlocks Flair and sends it into the post, and back in for an armbar. Flair bails and Lex suplexes him back in with a long delay, for two. Elbow misses, however (I know, I’m shocked), and Flair puts him down with a forearm to take over. He tosses Luger and rams him into the railing, and back in for the kneecrusher. He adds a double stomp and fires away with chops, but Lex catches him with the sleeper. Flair escapes with the backdrop suplex and takes him down with a snapmare, but a figure-four attempt is reversed to an inside cradle for two. Flair goes up and Luger brings him down with a superplex, for two. And Lex follows with his own figure-four, then slugs away in the corner. Flair tosses him over the top behind the ref’s back to escape, but Lex pops in with a flying bodypress for two. LUCHA LEX! Flair hits a cheapshot and tries a hiptoss, but Luger powers him into the backslide for two. Lex slugs away in the corner and we get the Flair Flip, followed by a Luger suplex for two. Flair fires back with chops, which Lex no-sells, and he hits the press slam to set up the seeming end for Flair. Powerslam signals the Rack, but he stops to go after JJ and that’s all Flair needs. He takes Luger down and smashes a chair into his knees (with the ref distracted by JJ of course), and now Luger is in trouble. Flair goes to work on the knee like a surgeon, using all the greatest hits to set up the figure-four. JR is something else on commentary here, perfectly conveying the story and writing off Lex’s chances. Luger uses his last energy to reverse the hold, but Flair goes right back to the leg and drops a knee on it. He goes up for whatever stupid reason and Luger slams him off, but the exertion hurts the knee further. Flair tosses him, but Luger has his adrenaline surge and presses Flair, only to see the knee give way again. FORESHADOWING. Flair tosses him again, but Luger flips in for two. Flair tries a flying forearm, but Luger is still pumped up and no-sells it, then slugs away in the corner. He follows with a clothesline for two, but he’s still limping. A powerslam sets up the rack again, but the knee gives out and Flair falls on top for the pin to retain at 30:54. Flair was actually told specifically to go over clean as a sheet, but he insisted on cheating to keep Luger strong. What a guy. Flair and Luger together were like some kind of wonderful magic that Lex couldn’t duplicate with anyone else. Brilliant finish, as Flair out-thought the power-focused Luger and basically sucked him into causing his own downfall. Great, non-stop action from start to finish. ****1/2 In case you’re curious, a clean pin would be ****3/4 and ***** would have been if Luger hadn’t no-sold all the chops and had mixed up the offense a little more than powerslam/elbow/press slam the whole match. The Pulse: This show holds a lot of sentimental value for me, and sadly outside of the main event and awesome Midnights v. Midnights showdown there’s not a lot of great wrestling here to back that up.

The SmarK Retro Rant for NWA Starrcade 88 This rant was really bugging me because it was originally written based on the chopped-up Turner Home Entertainment 120 VHS copy I’ve had forever. So most of the matches are edited to nothing and I wasn’t even doing match times at that point. However, thanks to the magic of YouTube and my previous Essential Starrcade rant, I can now piece together the entire original PPV in full, and you get a full redo in lieu of 2011 Scott sez.Live from Norfolk, VA. Your hosts are Jim Ross & Bob Caudle US Tag titles: The Fantastics v. Steve Williams & Kevin Sullivan This was previously announced as the Fantastics defending the belts against the Sheepherders, but a WWF talent raid changed that plan. Fulton evades Sullivan and gets a Thesz Press for two, as the champs double-team him for a bit. Over to Doc, but the Fantastics work on his arm. Williams misses a charge and the Fantastics give him a double-team monkey-flip, but Fulton walks right into a military press. I’m always such a mark for Dr. Death pressing a guy six times before he slams him. Awesome. Williams tosses Fulton for a big babyface pop, and then completely cuts off a Tommy Rogers comeback attempt by basically punching him in the face after no-selling his offense. Sullivan misses a charge and hits the floor, though, allowing Rogers to use his speed to control things again. The heel fans in the audience REALLY just want to see Dr. Death come in and beat the shit out of people. The Fantastics double-team Williams again as the boos get louder, but Doc cuts off the comeback again and puts Rogers down for more of a beating. Delayed suplex gets two. Rogers comes back with a sunset flip for two, but Doc uses a wrestling takedown to prevent a tag, and Varsity Club double-teams him again. Rogers with a small package on Sullivan for two, and a bodypress sets up the hot tag to Fulton. Fans aren’t buying into it at all, and Varsity Club just calmly cuts him off and beats on him. The Fantastics just can’t get any heat on themselves here. Doc with a bearhug that Fulton escapes from and tags Rogers again, but HE charges and hits Sullivan’s boot right away. Sullivan goes up and gets slammed off, but then Rogers stupidly goes up and hits knee. So it’s back to the Club beating on Rogers again, and Sullivan clotheslines him for two. This getting uglier and uglier as the Varsity Club just won’t let the Fantastics get into the tag team formula rhythm properly. Williams drops Rogers on the top rope for two and goes to a chinlock, but Rogers fights out…and gets cut off AGAIN. Sullivan gives him the double stomp for two, but Rogers finally gets the hot tag to Fulton and it’s BONZO GONZO. Fulton pounds away in the corner and gets a sleeper, but stupidly releases it and charges at Doc, walking into a stungun to give Williams the pin and titles at 15:55. You can’t say they didn’t give them time, but the heels were having no part of selling anything for the Fantastics here and they just didn’t mesh at all. **1/2 The Midnight Express (Stan Lane & Bobby Eaton) v. The Midnight Express (Dennis Condrey & Randy Rose) This was the absolutely brilliant feud that paid off Condrey’s original disappearance the year before, and also introduced Paul E. Dangerously to the national stage. The Original Midnights jumped from the AWA, giving the thing a dangerous “these guys aren’t supposed to be here” edge to it, as they attacked the Midnights on TV and instantly turned them into mega-babyfaces. Lane chases Condrey out of the ring, right into an awesome shot from Jim Cornette’s racket. Dangerously goes off on a rant against the fans as a result, and this is all great stuff. Back in the ring, Condrey tries to hammer on Lane and suffers an atomic drop. This gives Cornette the chance to get on the apron and make accusations towards Dangerously’s sexual preferences. Over to Eaton, who chases Rose out of the ring…right into a Cornette tennis racket shot. And Dangerously spazzes out AGAIN. Tremendous. Lane sends Rose into the post as Jim Ross unleashes his patented array of crazy metaphors, in this case one of my personal favourites about smoking a cigarette in a munitions dump. Back in the ring, Lane gets a bodypress on Rose for two, and Rose quickly bails to bring Condrey in. Condrey offers a handshake, so Lane kicks him in the head and Eaton comes in with a flying elbow on his former partner. Lane rolls him up in a crucifix, but Condrey wisely gets out of the babyface corner. Eaton bulldogs him anyway, and over to Lane for an elbow on Randy Rose. Lane puts him down with MARTIAL ARTS and they double-team him with the Broken Arrow. Eaton finally misses a blind charge to make him face-in-peril, and it’s the crushing irony of Bobby Eaton having to play Ricky Morton. Dangerously immediately declares victory to the fans at ringside, milking his moment for everything he can. The Originals work Eaton over on the floor and Rose gets a fistdrop from the top to the floor, and it’s back in for more abuse from Condrey. This time Dangerously gets the managerial cheapshot, and Condrey gets two as Cornette chases him away with a chair. Well we knew Cornette had a temper problem. Bobby gets a neckbreaker, but Rose comes in with a clothesline for two. He cuts off the ring as JR notes that Bobby is a true Alabaman – he doesn’t say much, and when he does you can’t understand him anyway. Apparently this was supposed to be a compliment. The Originals work him over in the corner, and Lane’s hotheaded save attempt costs his partner another shot. Condrey powerslams Bobby to set up the ROCKET LAUNCHER, but it misses and it’s HOT TAG Lane as these guys have timing run by an atomic clock. Enzuigiri for Rose, but the ref is distracted by the other two, allowing Dangerously to hit Lane with the phone and put Rose on top. It gets two and Teddy Long finds the phone, which is a classic Midnight Express bit. Rose argues, but this allows Lane & Eaton to hit the DOUBLE GOOZLE for the pin at 17:00. How the fuck could they cut this down to like 2 minutes on the tape?!? ****1/4 It’s the heel beatdown of the century after the win, as even Jim Cornette gets the boots put to him until Bobby finds the tennis racket and cleans house again. Sadly, the rematch at Chi-Town Rumble was ruined by Condrey flaking out and leaving the business completely. Unbelievable energy from everyone here, as they had a hot angle and ran with it. Junkyard Dog & Ivan Koloff v. The Russian Assassins I don’t know who thought that turning Koloff into a babyface would be a good idea, but it wasn’t. This was obviously supposed to be the reunited Koloffs, but Nikita left the promotion and we were stuck with JYD instead. Assassins were Dave “Angel of Death” Sheldon, aka the Black Scorpion, and Jack Victory. Dog throws #1 around and gets a clothesline for two, and #2 comes in as JR stresses that he’d like to have a VICTORY over the Dog here. Hee hee. Dog tosses #2 and Ivan comes in for the CLUBBING FOREARMS and Russian Hammer choke that gets two. #2 charges and hits boot, allowing Ivan to get a clothesline off the middle for two. When fucking Ivan Koloff is the best worker in the match, it’s not gonna be very good. Dog & Ivan get a double clothesline on #1, but Dog misses the headbutt and knocks himself out. I’ve never understood the physics behind that – the mat is far softer than someone’s head! Heel miscommunication quickly allows Dog to come back before we have to sit through him taking a beating any longer. “You might say that was a DUD” notes Bob Caudle about the Russian Missile finisher, although he could be referring to this match as well. Everyone collides, but the Russians load up their masks, switch places, and one of them pins Koloff at 7:00. Given that the stipulations were that the Russians had to unmask AND Paul Jones had to leave the NWA if the heels lost, the finish here was pretty obvious. DUD World TV title: Mike Rotundo v. Rick Steiner Here’s where I get my money out of this show I’m watching for free on the internet. Kevin Sullivan is suspended in a cage here, and this is the blowoff to end all of them, as Rick Steiner had been abused and demeaned by the Varsity Club all year, with the jock heels basically bullying him until he finally stood up for himself and snapped. Perhaps someone told him to be a STAR. Funny to think now of Rick Steiner being an underdog babyface, actually, but at the time I can tell you it was incredibly effective booking. Despite the match and angle behind it holding such an important place in my fandom, this will be the first time I’ve seen the full match. Steiner starts with the headlock and they do a fun bit where the ref keeps catching Rotundo using the hair while Steiner gets away with it. Rotundo escapes, and Steiner gets the Steinerline for two. Rotundo bails, and Steiner goes back to the headlock again before controlling with a hammerlock on the mat. They trade headlocks off that and it goes nowhere. Steiner tries another headlock, but Rotundo breaks with a sweet backdrop suplex and a headscissors on the mat. Steiner stops to laugh at Kevin Sullivan as this thing is taking forever to go anywhere. I can see why they clipped it all to hell now. Long stall from Rotundo until Steiner finally goes back to the headlock, but Rotundo dumps him to take over and hopefully pick up the pace. Back in, Rotundo gets a backdrop and goes to the chinlock and that goes on for a long time until he finally uses the ropes one time too many and gets caught. Steiner slugs back, but Rotundo puts him down with an elbow for two. Back to the chinlock, and Rotundo cuts off a comeback with the lariat. He misses a dropkick as it seems like we’re headed for the 20 minute time limit and Steiner makes the comeback with a backdrop and powerslam as Steve Williams joins us at ringside. Belly to belly suplex looks to finish, but Doc rings the bell and Teddy Long thinks that it’s a time limit draw. Ah, now the drawn-out match makes more sense. Luckily, Tommy Young is there to set him straight as Sullivan is released from the cage, and we start again. Steiner rams the Varsity Club together and pins Rotundo to win the TV title at 18:00 (with both referees counting at the same time for a neat visual), drawing a monster pop from the crowd. Very very disappointing after all the wait, although that finish was genius. **1/4 US Title: Barry Windham v. Bam Bam Bigelow This was kind of a weird deal, as they brought in Bigelow, and manager Oliver Humperdink, after his year in the WWF, and he basically only did the Windham feud and then disappeared again for a long time. Doesn’t seem like this will be a good style fit for either guy. They fight for the lockup and Bigelow overpowers Windham and catches him with a gutbuster, and Windham bails for advice from Dillon. That advice: “If your brother asks if you can make change for $100, SAY NO.” Back in, Windham hits a backdrop suplex and celebrates far too soon, as Bigelow no-sells it and Windham has to run away again. Windham can’t get anything going, and Bigelow hits him with a press slam to send Barry running away again. Back in, Bigelow hammers away in the corner and puts Windham on the floor with an enzuigiri. Back in, delayed suplex gets two, and Bigelow goes to the chinlock. Finally Windham takes out the knee and they fight to the floor, but Bigelow headbutts him on the way in and gets the slingshot splash for two. For some reason he picks Windham up and makes the idiot decision to go up top, missing the flying headbutt as a result. What a dick move that was. Windham now makes the comeback as if he was the babyface, hitting the running lariat and a backdrop suplex. He dumps Bigelow and runs him into the post, and back in for the IRON CLAW. Bigelow falls into the ropes to break, so Windham goes up and misses a flying elbow. Brawl outside again, and this time Windham beats the count back in to retain at 16:30. Boy, that was quite the cop-out finish. I’m thinking Bigelow decided he didn’t want to a job here. NWA World Tag team title: The Road Warriors v. Dusty Rhodes & Sting This was all backstory and no payoff, unfortunately, as the Warriors turned heel on Dusty and tried to blind him with a spike, and then on Sting with equally violent results, and this should have been the bloodiest bloodfeud to ever bleed on PPV with super babyfaces Dusty and Sting avenging themselves against monster bully heels the Road Warriors…but it just never found that next level. Maybe if people WANTED to boo the Warriors it might have clicked. I think this one was rated highly in the Essential Starrcade poll because it SOUNDS like an awesome dream match. Actually, to be perfectly accurate, it should have been Dusty Rhodes & Nikita Koloff for the perfect dream match, but Koloff was long gone by that point in the year and probably couldn’t have lived up to the hype anyway. Sting dropkicks Animal out of the ring to start and works on the arm in the ring, and Dusty comes in and slugs away. Over to Hawk and he exchanges shots with Dusty before the faces switch off on the arm to control. Hawk pounds on Sting in the corner to break and stomps a mudhole some 10 years before Steve Austin, then throws big fake-looking haymakers until Sting slugs back and powerslams him. Sting actually hits his usual missed elbow, but Hawk tags out to Animal. Press slam draws a face pop for the supposed hated heel, but Sting no-sells a stungun and clotheslines Animal out of the ring. He follows with a dive off the top rope and the Warriors back off. Back in, Dusty goes to work on the leg, but Hawk goes to the eyes and takes him to the floor for a quick beating to take over. Back in, Hawk puts Dusty down with a standing dropkick and works on the bad eye again (He’s not supposed to get anything in his eye!), but Dusty fires back with his own dropkick (!!!) before Animal charges in and bites him on the eye to stop the LUCHA DUSTY EXPRESS. Animal goes to a neckvice and Dusty fights up, but walks into a sleeper from Hawk. Dusty quickly escapes with a jawbreaker and makes the hot tag to Sting, but the crowd is kind of not wanting to cheer or boo either side. Sting dropkicks Animal into the corner and follows with a Stinger splash into the Scorpion, but Hawk breaks it up and tosses Sting. The Warriors double-team Dusty, but Sting comes in with a flying bodypress on Animal, resulting in Ellering pulling out the ref for the DQ at 11:18. You’d think these guys would have some chemistry, but they just didn’t and it was basically a tag match and nothing more. You thinking blood, chairs, mayhem…but nothing. And a lame finish to boot. Dusty was gone soon after so that might have had something to do with it. **1/2 NWA World title: Ric Flair v. Lex Luger The story behind this one is far more interesting than the match, and that’s saying something because it’s a hell of a match. As you probably know, but might not, Dusty Rhodes tried to screw with Flair one last time as booker, first booking Luger to win the title here, and when Flair refused that, booking Rick Steiner to take Luger’s place and win the title in a 5 minute squash instead. Finally new WCW honcho Jim Herd stepped in, fired Rhodes, and told Flair to go over Luger cleanly to retain. Sorry, spoiler. The DQ rule is waived here. Flair does some strutting and throws a chop, but stops to style and profile and gets clotheslined to the floor as a result. Flair regroups and heads back in with the headlock, but Luger reverses to the hammerlock and powers him down. Flair comes back with chops, which Lex no-sells, and they criss-cross into a good powerslam from Luger, which sends Flair running out. Back in, Lex gets a press slam this time, and that gets two. Flair’s like a demo of ragdoll physics out there tonight. Lex starts working on the arm and whips him into the corner, but Flair fires back with a chop. That does nothing, and Flair runs away again. Back in, Flair tries the cheapshot, but Lex runs him into the corner again for the Flair Flop, and he follows right away with a hammerlock. Flair fights out, but runs into Luger like a brick wall and gets hiptossed as well. Flair finally goes to the eyes and throws the chops, but that’s going nowhere and Lex chases him to the floor and wraps Flair’s arm around the railing to really work on it. He hammerlocks Flair and sends it into the post, and back in for an armbar. Flair bails and Lex suplexes him back in with a long delay, for two. Elbow misses, however (I know, I’m shocked), and Flair puts him down with a forearm to take over. He tosses Luger and rams him into the railing, and back in for the kneecrusher. He adds a double stomp and fires away with chops, but Lex catches him with the sleeper. Flair escapes with the backdrop suplex and takes him down with a snapmare, but a figure-four attempt is reversed to an inside cradle for two. Flair goes up and Luger brings him down with a superplex, for two. And Lex follows with his own figure-four, then slugs away in the corner. Flair tosses him over the top behind the ref’s back to escape, but Lex pops in with a flying bodypress for two. LUCHA LEX! Flair hits a cheapshot and tries a hiptoss, but Luger powers him into the backslide for two. Lex slugs away in the corner and we get the Flair Flip, followed by a Luger suplex for two. Flair fires back with chops, which Lex no-sells, and he hits the press slam to set up the seeming end for Flair. Powerslam signals the Rack, but he stops to go after JJ and that’s all Flair needs. He takes Luger down and smashes a chair into his knees (with the ref distracted by JJ of course), and now Luger is in trouble. Flair goes to work on the knee like a surgeon, using all the greatest hits to set up the figure-four. JR is something else on commentary here, perfectly conveying the story and writing off Lex’s chances. Luger uses his last energy to reverse the hold, but Flair goes right back to the leg and drops a knee on it. He goes up for whatever stupid reason and Luger slams him off, but the exertion hurts the knee further. Flair tosses him, but Luger has his adrenaline surge and presses Flair, only to see the knee give way again. FORESHADOWING. Flair tosses him again, but Luger flips in for two. Flair tries a flying forearm, but Luger is still pumped up and no-sells it, then slugs away in the corner. He follows with a clothesline for two, but he’s still limping. A powerslam sets up the rack again, but the knee gives out and Flair falls on top for the pin to retain at 30:54. Flair was actually told specifically to go over clean as a sheet, but he insisted on cheating to keep Luger strong. What a guy. Flair and Luger together were like some kind of wonderful magic that Lex couldn’t duplicate with anyone else. Brilliant finish, as Flair out-thought the power-focused Luger and basically sucked him into causing his own downfall. Great, non-stop action from start to finish. ****1/2 In case you’re curious, a clean pin would be ****3/4 and ***** would have been if Luger hadn’t no-sold all the chops and had mixed up the offense a little more than powerslam/elbow/press slam the whole match. The Pulse: This show holds a lot of sentimental value for me, and sadly outside of the main event and awesome Midnights v. Midnights showdown there’s not a lot of great wrestling here to back that up.

Hi Scott,
The Sin Cara Goteo de Oro t-shirts have arrived!  I will send yours
out to you by Monday.
One of the shirts I am putting up for auction.  Would you kindly let
all of your hard core (and soft core) wrestling fans know of it?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160693346343
Thanks!

I’m terrified to see the ads that Google will generate based on that subject line. Anyway, I’m kind of astonished that they got to you so fast.  Go, Japanese mail system! 

Hi Scott,
The Sin Cara Goteo de Oro t-shirts have arrived!  I will send yours
out to you by Monday.
One of the shirts I am putting up for auction.  Would you kindly let
all of your hard core (and soft core) wrestling fans know of it?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160693346343
Thanks!

I’m terrified to see the ads that Google will generate based on that subject line. Anyway, I’m kind of astonished that they got to you so fast.  Go, Japanese mail system! 

Hi Scott,
The Sin Cara Goteo de Oro t-shirts have arrived!  I will send yours
out to you by Monday.
One of the shirts I am putting up for auction.  Would you kindly let
all of your hard core (and soft core) wrestling fans know of it?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160693346343
Thanks!

I’m terrified to see the ads that Google will generate based on that subject line. Anyway, I’m kind of astonished that they got to you so fast.  Go, Japanese mail system! 

Hi Scott,
The Sin Cara Goteo de Oro t-shirts have arrived!  I will send yours
out to you by Monday.
One of the shirts I am putting up for auction.  Would you kindly let
all of your hard core (and soft core) wrestling fans know of it?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160693346343
Thanks!

I’m terrified to see the ads that Google will generate based on that subject line. Anyway, I’m kind of astonished that they got to you so fast.  Go, Japanese mail system! 

Before I get to my question, I just wanted to say that I’m doing some writing for FridayThe13thFilms.com now, and the first comment I got from my first article was someone recognizing me from Blog of Doom, heh. I thought that was pretty cool, so, thanks for the time I had….
Anyways, here’s my question[s]…
I know the blog loves to talk Hogan. So it should be fun discussing this one.

I was watching The Match From Hell at SummerSlam ’91, and a few things ran through my mind.
They kept calling The Iron Sheik ‘Colonel Mustafa’, was this an instance where they acted like no one remembers The Sheik? That Colonel Mustafa was just this new guy who hated
America too? Or did Slaughter just pull him up and say “he’s no longer the Sheik! He’s the Colonel!”?

They made no attempt to identify him as the Iron Sheik on TV.  They actually announced the Col. Mustafa character in advance of Sheik appearing, and everyone who I talked wrestling with in high school was like “Ooo, maybe Slaughter’s new partner will be Sid Vicious or someone equally cool and interesting” and then Sheik showed up and it was like “…OK then.” And then yeah, we were expected to just forget he was World champion at one point and was from the country that had been trying to bomb Iraq into the stone age.  It was a weird time.

Why the hell was Sid the special ref? Was there ANY reason other than he was a new acquisition they wanted to show off? Also, he HAS to win for stupidest variation of the ref look. Even beating out Vince. That hair, my God…

No reason I can remember.  I think the storyline was that Slaughter might cause TROUBLE so they needed a special trouble-shooting referee with a sweet mullet, but there was nothing beyond that.

Now, people always say Hogan shouldn’t have been on top in 1991, but when I watch these old shows, people cheer the HELL out of him, and I still see a sea of red & yellow. Is it
just camera tricks, and in actuality he was dying as a draw and Vince just didn’t know what to do after the Warrior disaster?

Hogan was still a draw in the sense that he was doing better than Warrior in that position, but the whole company was deep in the crapper from 1990 onwards so it’s hard to make any fair criticisms one way or the other.  When he “retired” in 1992, though, it’s not like Vince was crying himself to sleep over it, so he must not have been too worried about it.

What do you believe is the true story of Warrior at SS91? Do you think he felt cheated and wanted more dough, or was he just being the ultimate prick? Honestly, as I typed
the term ‘ultimate prick’ it wasn’t a pun, and then I wanted to change the word ‘ultimate’, but that’s just the best adjective [now see, Nash, THAT’s what an adjective is]

I think he wanted to be paid a salary commensurate to the position he held on the #2 show of the year and was well within his rights to try and get it.  His methodology was a bit questionable, but there’s no doubt a good chunk of people were buying that show based on him being on top. 

Before I get to my question, I just wanted to say that I’m doing some writing for FridayThe13thFilms.com now, and the first comment I got from my first article was someone recognizing me from Blog of Doom, heh. I thought that was pretty cool, so, thanks for the time I had….
Anyways, here’s my question[s]…
I know the blog loves to talk Hogan. So it should be fun discussing this one.

I was watching The Match From Hell at SummerSlam ’91, and a few things ran through my mind.
They kept calling The Iron Sheik ‘Colonel Mustafa’, was this an instance where they acted like no one remembers The Sheik? That Colonel Mustafa was just this new guy who hated
America too? Or did Slaughter just pull him up and say “he’s no longer the Sheik! He’s the Colonel!”?

They made no attempt to identify him as the Iron Sheik on TV.  They actually announced the Col. Mustafa character in advance of Sheik appearing, and everyone who I talked wrestling with in high school was like “Ooo, maybe Slaughter’s new partner will be Sid Vicious or someone equally cool and interesting” and then Sheik showed up and it was like “…OK then.” And then yeah, we were expected to just forget he was World champion at one point and was from the country that had been trying to bomb Iraq into the stone age.  It was a weird time.

Why the hell was Sid the special ref? Was there ANY reason other than he was a new acquisition they wanted to show off? Also, he HAS to win for stupidest variation of the ref look. Even beating out Vince. That hair, my God…

No reason I can remember.  I think the storyline was that Slaughter might cause TROUBLE so they needed a special trouble-shooting referee with a sweet mullet, but there was nothing beyond that.

Now, people always say Hogan shouldn’t have been on top in 1991, but when I watch these old shows, people cheer the HELL out of him, and I still see a sea of red & yellow. Is it
just camera tricks, and in actuality he was dying as a draw and Vince just didn’t know what to do after the Warrior disaster?

Hogan was still a draw in the sense that he was doing better than Warrior in that position, but the whole company was deep in the crapper from 1990 onwards so it’s hard to make any fair criticisms one way or the other.  When he “retired” in 1992, though, it’s not like Vince was crying himself to sleep over it, so he must not have been too worried about it.

What do you believe is the true story of Warrior at SS91? Do you think he felt cheated and wanted more dough, or was he just being the ultimate prick? Honestly, as I typed
the term ‘ultimate prick’ it wasn’t a pun, and then I wanted to change the word ‘ultimate’, but that’s just the best adjective [now see, Nash, THAT’s what an adjective is]

I think he wanted to be paid a salary commensurate to the position he held on the #2 show of the year and was well within his rights to try and get it.  His methodology was a bit questionable, but there’s no doubt a good chunk of people were buying that show based on him being on top. 

Before I get to my question, I just wanted to say that I’m doing some writing for FridayThe13thFilms.com now, and the first comment I got from my first article was someone recognizing me from Blog of Doom, heh. I thought that was pretty cool, so, thanks for the time I had….
Anyways, here’s my question[s]…
I know the blog loves to talk Hogan. So it should be fun discussing this one.

I was watching The Match From Hell at SummerSlam ’91, and a few things ran through my mind.
They kept calling The Iron Sheik ‘Colonel Mustafa’, was this an instance where they acted like no one remembers The Sheik? That Colonel Mustafa was just this new guy who hated
America too? Or did Slaughter just pull him up and say “he’s no longer the Sheik! He’s the Colonel!”?

They made no attempt to identify him as the Iron Sheik on TV.  They actually announced the Col. Mustafa character in advance of Sheik appearing, and everyone who I talked wrestling with in high school was like “Ooo, maybe Slaughter’s new partner will be Sid Vicious or someone equally cool and interesting” and then Sheik showed up and it was like “…OK then.” And then yeah, we were expected to just forget he was World champion at one point and was from the country that had been trying to bomb Iraq into the stone age.  It was a weird time.

Why the hell was Sid the special ref? Was there ANY reason other than he was a new acquisition they wanted to show off? Also, he HAS to win for stupidest variation of the ref look. Even beating out Vince. That hair, my God…

No reason I can remember.  I think the storyline was that Slaughter might cause TROUBLE so they needed a special trouble-shooting referee with a sweet mullet, but there was nothing beyond that.

Now, people always say Hogan shouldn’t have been on top in 1991, but when I watch these old shows, people cheer the HELL out of him, and I still see a sea of red & yellow. Is it
just camera tricks, and in actuality he was dying as a draw and Vince just didn’t know what to do after the Warrior disaster?

Hogan was still a draw in the sense that he was doing better than Warrior in that position, but the whole company was deep in the crapper from 1990 onwards so it’s hard to make any fair criticisms one way or the other.  When he “retired” in 1992, though, it’s not like Vince was crying himself to sleep over it, so he must not have been too worried about it.

What do you believe is the true story of Warrior at SS91? Do you think he felt cheated and wanted more dough, or was he just being the ultimate prick? Honestly, as I typed
the term ‘ultimate prick’ it wasn’t a pun, and then I wanted to change the word ‘ultimate’, but that’s just the best adjective [now see, Nash, THAT’s what an adjective is]

I think he wanted to be paid a salary commensurate to the position he held on the #2 show of the year and was well within his rights to try and get it.  His methodology was a bit questionable, but there’s no doubt a good chunk of people were buying that show based on him being on top. 

Before I get to my question, I just wanted to say that I’m doing some writing for FridayThe13thFilms.com now, and the first comment I got from my first article was someone recognizing me from Blog of Doom, heh. I thought that was pretty cool, so, thanks for the time I had….
Anyways, here’s my question[s]…
I know the blog loves to talk Hogan. So it should be fun discussing this one.

I was watching The Match From Hell at SummerSlam ’91, and a few things ran through my mind.
They kept calling The Iron Sheik ‘Colonel Mustafa’, was this an instance where they acted like no one remembers The Sheik? That Colonel Mustafa was just this new guy who hated
America too? Or did Slaughter just pull him up and say “he’s no longer the Sheik! He’s the Colonel!”?

They made no attempt to identify him as the Iron Sheik on TV.  They actually announced the Col. Mustafa character in advance of Sheik appearing, and everyone who I talked wrestling with in high school was like “Ooo, maybe Slaughter’s new partner will be Sid Vicious or someone equally cool and interesting” and then Sheik showed up and it was like “…OK then.” And then yeah, we were expected to just forget he was World champion at one point and was from the country that had been trying to bomb Iraq into the stone age.  It was a weird time.

Why the hell was Sid the special ref? Was there ANY reason other than he was a new acquisition they wanted to show off? Also, he HAS to win for stupidest variation of the ref look. Even beating out Vince. That hair, my God…

No reason I can remember.  I think the storyline was that Slaughter might cause TROUBLE so they needed a special trouble-shooting referee with a sweet mullet, but there was nothing beyond that.

Now, people always say Hogan shouldn’t have been on top in 1991, but when I watch these old shows, people cheer the HELL out of him, and I still see a sea of red & yellow. Is it
just camera tricks, and in actuality he was dying as a draw and Vince just didn’t know what to do after the Warrior disaster?

Hogan was still a draw in the sense that he was doing better than Warrior in that position, but the whole company was deep in the crapper from 1990 onwards so it’s hard to make any fair criticisms one way or the other.  When he “retired” in 1992, though, it’s not like Vince was crying himself to sleep over it, so he must not have been too worried about it.

What do you believe is the true story of Warrior at SS91? Do you think he felt cheated and wanted more dough, or was he just being the ultimate prick? Honestly, as I typed
the term ‘ultimate prick’ it wasn’t a pun, and then I wanted to change the word ‘ultimate’, but that’s just the best adjective [now see, Nash, THAT’s what an adjective is]

I think he wanted to be paid a salary commensurate to the position he held on the #2 show of the year and was well within his rights to try and get it.  His methodology was a bit questionable, but there’s no doubt a good chunk of people were buying that show based on him being on top. 

(2011 Scott sez:  Right away be warned, this is an OLD review and I’m not particularly fond of my writing style at this point.) The Netcop Retro Rant for Starrcade 87. · Live from Chicago, IL · Your hosts are Tony Schiavone & Jim Ross · This was the first NWA PPV, and the WWF decided to do a pre-emptive strike by putting the first ever Survivor Series on against this on the same night. Guess what the cable companies chose?  (2011 Scott sez:  In fact, the cable companies wanted to choose BOTH and do a double-header because Starrcade was scheduled in the afternoon, but Vince flipped out and threatened to drop Wrestlemania from any cable companies that showed Starrcade at all.  5 of them called his bluff, and they ended up showing Wrestlemania anyway) · Opening match: Sting, Michael Hayes & Jimmy Garvin v. Eddie Gilbert, Rick Steiner & Larry Zbyszko. This would be a UWF crossover feud. Sting has just turned face for the first time, leaving Gilbert’s employ. (2011 Scott sez:  Gilbert looks like a genius in hindsight for discovering Sting and associating himself with him enough to make sure he would be on the right side when Sting broke huge.)  A note on NWA PPVs in the early years: The lighting is straight out of ECW hell, and the arena is half-empty. Sting hits a plancha on Rick Steiner out of the gate and we’ve got a ring-a-ding-dong-dandy as the faces clear the ring. Sting is crazy over, even in this early phase of his career. Hayes and Garvin are NOT a team at this point—Garvin is just the token NWA representative. Very Mid-South style tag match, with the heels getting a severe beating until Garvin gets caught in the corner. Sadly, Garvin was the best wrestler on the face team. It’s only from 89-on that he got REALLY, REALLY bad. Speaking of differences, Rick Steiner still had the brains god gave him at this point. An automobile accident would scramble his brains a couple of months after this, turning him into the lovable doofus he’s been ever since. He was more of a generic Eddie Gilbert goon at this point. Larry works in a quick ABDOMINAL STRETCH OF SEVERE DISCOMFORT before Sting gets the hot tag. The heels make short work of him, beating on him some more. We’re running out of time. Sting escapes a Steiner sleeper and gets the hot tag to Hayes. Yes, it’s another katie-bar-the-door pier-six brawl and Hayes hits a bulldog on Larry Z as the crowd goes nutso. Hayes goes for a sleeper and Gilbert nails him off the top rope. Steiner hits a nice belly-to-belly for two, and then Hayes gets a sunset flip on Gilbert and the referee messes up, counting to two and then stopping before the three, even though the bell hadn’t rung yet. Decent enough. **1/2 · UWF Title match: Steve Williams v. Barry Windham. Okay, whenever someone hits someone in the groin on a leapfrog and I make reference to Barry Windham, it’s because of this match. No real angle to set it up—this was the dying days of the UWF and this was for all intents and purposes the last appearance of the UWF title. Doc and Barry do some mat wrestling, boring the crowd. They trade some suplexes and that goes nowhere. Williams holds onto a headlock tenaciously, surviving a pair of backdrop suplexes to hang on. Crowd is seriously not digging this match—until they do a criss-cross and Windham accidentally headbutts Dr. Death on a leapfrog. Fans scream for Windham to do something, but Barry allows him to recover. Williams walks around clutching his groin to shake off the pain. They do another criss-cross and Windham misses a bodypress and goes flying to the floor. Windham rolls in and Williams goes for the kill, cradling him for the pin. Match was all of about 5 minutes—I guess Williams or Windham got legitimately hurt. Ironically, years later Barry Windham and Dustin Rhodes would lose the tag titles to Steamboat and Douglas…because Rhodes did the Barry Windham job on Steamboat and wouldn’t go for the kill. And who was standing on the ring apron screaming at him to pin Steamboat? Barry Windham. Anyway, this match blew. ½*  (2011 Scott sez:  I’m really not sure if there was an injury involved or just a huge style clash or what, but you’d think that this pairing would have produced a better result.) · Scaffold match: The Midnight Express v. The Rock N Roll Express. Ah, my very, very favorite type of match…the same type that produced that -**** classic to open Bash 91. Eaton hugs Cornette goodbye before climbing the scaffold. Big Bossman Bubba Rogers the Guardian Angel gives the Bossman slam to Morton (and what a beauty shot it was, too) and that leaves Robert all by his lonesome on the scaffold. Morton mugs Cornette and steals the LOADED TENNIS RACKET OF DOOM and takes it up the scaffold. Gibson has the audacity to blade. They crawl around on the scaffold for a while, and Eaton blades too. Eaton throws powder in the RnR’s faces. For those who don’t know, the object is to knock both guys off the scaffold. Eaton gets the racket and swings away, but Gibson pulls a piece of the scaffold off and nails him. Lane gets knocked to the underside of the scaffold and Morton follows him down as Gibson wales on Eaton with the racket. Lane falls first, leaving Eaton 2-on-1 against the Rock N Roll. They hammer away on him and drive him off for the win. Probably the best scaffold match I’ve seen, but then there’s only been three of any note besides this and they all sucked. Big Bubba climbs the scaffold and challenges Morton, so Ricky hits him in the nuts and runs away. Wow, what a hero. ** · TV title Unification match: NWA World TV champion Nikita Koloff v. UWF TV champion Terry Taylor. This is the reason why all the former UWF TV champions can claim to be former holders of the current TV title. There was some pointless angle behind this, but really the whole point was to bury the UWF in the Crockett Graveyard. (2011 Scott sez:  14 years after this, and the similarities would abound at Survivor Series 2001) Nikita no-sells a bunch of Terry’s stuff. KOOOOOOOOOOO-LOFF. KOOOOOOOOO-LOFF. Who’s next, comrade? Taylor’s offense is having literally no effect. Koloff holds an armbar forever, and goes for the Sickle…but misses and crashes into the corner. You know what would be the coolest thing ever? If THQ had done Revenge and got rid of the fake Japanese fed and put an NWA fed in there—you could have Koloff, Blanchard, AA, Dusty Rhodes, The Rock N Rolls, the Midnights…I would SO buy that game and play it for the rest of my life if I could do my own R n’ R v. Midnights series. Of course, if someone was feeling ambitious, the movesets could quite easily be duplicated using WM2000’s creation system, and Jericho’s tights would work well for the Rock n Roll. The Midnights might be a little tougher, however. Anyway, Taylor controls with some solid stuff, using his brain to avoid Koloff’s power attack, and using Eddie Gilbert to cheat like a mother…trucker. We get the mandatory assisted figure-four, which is like an NWA trademark. Koloff escapes and Taylor collides with Gilbert in the ensuing argument with the ref, Sickle, goodnight Irene. For those of you who weren’t around for Nikita’s glory days, the Russian Sickle was a running lariat out of the corner. Pretty good match once it got going. *** Taylor retreated to the USWA and eventually the WWF shortly after this, because really it couldn’t get much worse…could it? · NWA World title match: Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson v. The Road Warriors. This is where everyone thought the Roadies would absolutely, positively, guaranteed walk out with the titles after years of trying. They proceed to manhandle the Horsemen to start out, prompting Tully to run away. They get several two counts before Tully tags in Arn. AA fairs no better and the Warriors look to go for the kill early. The champs are absolutely getting routed. Nasty spot as Animal bearhugs Tully, and Hawk gives Tully a shot from the apron to add insult. Finally, after about 10 minutes of non-stop punishment, Hawk goes for a press-slam on Tully and AA takes the opportunity to clip Hawk, putting the champs back in control. They proceed to cheat outrageously, slamming chairs into his knee and working it. Question: The spinning toehold causes pain to the knee, right? But if you follow through to the figure-four, then the pain is now on the straight leg. Just seems odd. (2011 Scott sez:  It’s SCIENCE, stupid) Arn works in his “try a test of strength but get crotched” spot, leading to the hot tag to Animal. All hell breaks loose and Tommy Young (the Charles Robinson of the 80s) takes a wicked awesome dive out of the ring and may be legally dead. LOD hits the Doomsday Device and Earl Hebner comes in and counts the pin. Okay, kids, if you don’t know who booked this card and what happens next, you have no business reading about old NWA shows. Yes, it’s the dreaded DUSTY FINISH as Tommy Young reveals that he saw Arn being thrown over the top rope, so the Warriors aren’t actually champions after all. Crowd chants “bullshit” at that one. **1/2  (2011 Scott Sez:  I redid this match for the Essential Starrcade rants on WWE 24/7 a couple of years back, and boosted this match to *** at that point.) · US title match, cage: Lex Luger v. Really, really Big Poochie. If ever anyone earned the Poochie moniker, it’s Dusty Rhodes. I’m shocked he settled for booking himself in the US title match. This is Luger’s title v. Rhodes’ career. That’s hardly a fair trade. Luger is still way green at this point. The first 5 minutes is inexplicably cut out of this one. I have the full match on the Best of the Starrcade 83-87 tape, however, so I’ve seen it. Luger misses the Elbow Which Doth Never Hit and Rhodes goes to work on the arm. Luger comes back and rams Dusty into the cage—and I hope you’re sitting down, cuz here comes a shocking development—and Rhodes bleeds. Yeah, I know, I’m sitting here thinking “Dusty…blade? In what universe?” but here it is, captured on tape: Dusty actually bleeding. Luger hits the Elbow Which Doth Never Hit. Dusty pulls out a dropkick, earning a 0.8 on the Erik Watts Dropkick Scale. Man, that was uglier than Rhodes and his kid combined. Luger gets the Rack, but Dusty is JUST TOO FAT. Who’d have thunk it’d be an advantage to be grossly overweight? I love reviewing Dusty’s matches…it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Seemingly the only reason for the cage’s existance here was to give Big Dust the chance to bleed, because otherwise it’s a standard match and the cage is basically ignored. Luger holds move #193 (ARM-bar) for an extended period of time. Dusty jiggles his fat and makes the comeback. And people think PIPER exposes the business? This fat ass was out there from 1901 until almost the present day before he finally took the freaking hint and retired. But not until he foisted his idiot son on us. (2011 Scott sez:  Man, I was in a bitter place towards Dusty here.  Not sure what Dustin did to earn my wrath at this point, given that he was just in WCW as himself back when this was originally written.)  Rhodes gets the sleeperhold, but Dillon knocks out Johnny Weaver (the keeper of the key) and tosses a chair in for Luger. Luger….slowly….picks….up…..the…..chair, allowing Dusty the time to peel his digusting fat ass off the mat and DDT Luger on the chair (no, that wasn’t contrived or unbelievable in the least, Dusty) for the pin and the US title. Do I seem bitter? *  (2011 Scott sez:  My own personal biases aside, this really was a butt-awful match, with Dusty not the right person to motivate Luger, to say the least.)  · NWA World title match: Ron Garvin v. Ric Flair. Everyone always asks why Garvin got the title—short answer is “There was no one else”. Flair wanted to lose the title and regain it at Starrcade, but there was no top babyfaces who were dumb enough to agree to be a lameduck champion. So they got Garvin, who was dumb enough to agree to anything. And then because none of the top heels were dumb enough to put Garvin over when everyone knew Flair was just getting the belt back anyway, they all refused to job to him. So Garvin took a “sabbatical”, thus making him a thoroughly useless champion in the eyes of the fans and the bookers. No wonder Crockett went broke. Inspirational babyface Garvin gets soundly booed by the fans. Again, the first few minutes of this match are clipped. And again, the full version is on Best of Starrcade. We pick it up with Garvin delivering the 10 punch count, and then the GARVIN STOMP OF SLIGHT DISCOMFORT! Flair retaliates with the Great Equalizer and Garvin does a terrible selling job. C’mon, Ronnie, you just got hit in the nuts by the dirtiest player in the game, show some emotion! Flair bounces around the body parts for a bit, then settles on the good ol’ knee. Usual stuff…kneedrops, kneebreaker and then the figure-four. Why does Flair let go when Young looks? It’s no-DQ. Oh well, habit I guess. Garvin reverses. Crowd rewards him with a “Garvin sucks” chant. This was 1987, remember, years before ECW trained fans to be that cynical. Flair decides to have a blading contest with Dusty and taps an artery. They fight to the top of the cage but it goes nowhere. Flair gets slammed off the top and Garvin does his own figure-four, which makes no sense because Flair hasn’t sold any knee injuries in this match. Flair of course sells like he’s being stabbed. Flair escapes, but Garvin gets to the top and hits a flying bodypress for two. Backslide for two. Flair refreshes his blade job and they climb to the top again. Flair, of course, gets crotched on the top rope as a result, but when Garvin goes for the SUNSET FLIP OF DOOM, which was the move that gave Garvin the title in the first place, Flair sits down and gets two. Garvin reverses for two. Young gets bumped mildly and Garvin hits the PUNCH OF DEATH for two. Garvin goes for something vaguely resembling a cross between a Thesz press and a bodypress, but Flair falls back and slams Garvin’s head into the cage and gets the pin to put us out of our misery. Hope you enjoyed your one brush with greatness, Ron, you won’t get a second one. Huge pop for Flair. So-so match with a weak ending. **1/2  (2011 Scott sez:  On the bright side, we were THIS close to having NWA World Champion Buddy Landell dropping the belt back to Flair here.) The Bottom Line: Not really representation of what the NWA had to offer, because none of these matches had a good angle behind them, and the matchups were less-than-ideal right off the bat. A very awkward show for the NWA…not that it mattered, because the buyrate was only something like .0000001 anyway. Sorry, old school fans, I can’t recommend it in good conscience.

(2011 Scott sez:  Right away be warned, this is an OLD review and I’m not particularly fond of my writing style at this point.) The Netcop Retro Rant for Starrcade 87. · Live from Chicago, IL · Your hosts are Tony Schiavone & Jim Ross · This was the first NWA PPV, and the WWF decided to do a pre-emptive strike by putting the first ever Survivor Series on against this on the same night. Guess what the cable companies chose?  (2011 Scott sez:  In fact, the cable companies wanted to choose BOTH and do a double-header because Starrcade was scheduled in the afternoon, but Vince flipped out and threatened to drop Wrestlemania from any cable companies that showed Starrcade at all.  5 of them called his bluff, and they ended up showing Wrestlemania anyway) · Opening match: Sting, Michael Hayes & Jimmy Garvin v. Eddie Gilbert, Rick Steiner & Larry Zbyszko. This would be a UWF crossover feud. Sting has just turned face for the first time, leaving Gilbert’s employ. (2011 Scott sez:  Gilbert looks like a genius in hindsight for discovering Sting and associating himself with him enough to make sure he would be on the right side when Sting broke huge.)  A note on NWA PPVs in the early years: The lighting is straight out of ECW hell, and the arena is half-empty. Sting hits a plancha on Rick Steiner out of the gate and we’ve got a ring-a-ding-dong-dandy as the faces clear the ring. Sting is crazy over, even in this early phase of his career. Hayes and Garvin are NOT a team at this point—Garvin is just the token NWA representative. Very Mid-South style tag match, with the heels getting a severe beating until Garvin gets caught in the corner. Sadly, Garvin was the best wrestler on the face team. It’s only from 89-on that he got REALLY, REALLY bad. Speaking of differences, Rick Steiner still had the brains god gave him at this point. An automobile accident would scramble his brains a couple of months after this, turning him into the lovable doofus he’s been ever since. He was more of a generic Eddie Gilbert goon at this point. Larry works in a quick ABDOMINAL STRETCH OF SEVERE DISCOMFORT before Sting gets the hot tag. The heels make short work of him, beating on him some more. We’re running out of time. Sting escapes a Steiner sleeper and gets the hot tag to Hayes. Yes, it’s another katie-bar-the-door pier-six brawl and Hayes hits a bulldog on Larry Z as the crowd goes nutso. Hayes goes for a sleeper and Gilbert nails him off the top rope. Steiner hits a nice belly-to-belly for two, and then Hayes gets a sunset flip on Gilbert and the referee messes up, counting to two and then stopping before the three, even though the bell hadn’t rung yet. Decent enough. **1/2 · UWF Title match: Steve Williams v. Barry Windham. Okay, whenever someone hits someone in the groin on a leapfrog and I make reference to Barry Windham, it’s because of this match. No real angle to set it up—this was the dying days of the UWF and this was for all intents and purposes the last appearance of the UWF title. Doc and Barry do some mat wrestling, boring the crowd. They trade some suplexes and that goes nowhere. Williams holds onto a headlock tenaciously, surviving a pair of backdrop suplexes to hang on. Crowd is seriously not digging this match—until they do a criss-cross and Windham accidentally headbutts Dr. Death on a leapfrog. Fans scream for Windham to do something, but Barry allows him to recover. Williams walks around clutching his groin to shake off the pain. They do another criss-cross and Windham misses a bodypress and goes flying to the floor. Windham rolls in and Williams goes for the kill, cradling him for the pin. Match was all of about 5 minutes—I guess Williams or Windham got legitimately hurt. Ironically, years later Barry Windham and Dustin Rhodes would lose the tag titles to Steamboat and Douglas…because Rhodes did the Barry Windham job on Steamboat and wouldn’t go for the kill. And who was standing on the ring apron screaming at him to pin Steamboat? Barry Windham. Anyway, this match blew. ½*  (2011 Scott sez:  I’m really not sure if there was an injury involved or just a huge style clash or what, but you’d think that this pairing would have produced a better result.) · Scaffold match: The Midnight Express v. The Rock N Roll Express. Ah, my very, very favorite type of match…the same type that produced that -**** classic to open Bash 91. Eaton hugs Cornette goodbye before climbing the scaffold. Big Bossman Bubba Rogers the Guardian Angel gives the Bossman slam to Morton (and what a beauty shot it was, too) and that leaves Robert all by his lonesome on the scaffold. Morton mugs Cornette and steals the LOADED TENNIS RACKET OF DOOM and takes it up the scaffold. Gibson has the audacity to blade. They crawl around on the scaffold for a while, and Eaton blades too. Eaton throws powder in the RnR’s faces. For those who don’t know, the object is to knock both guys off the scaffold. Eaton gets the racket and swings away, but Gibson pulls a piece of the scaffold off and nails him. Lane gets knocked to the underside of the scaffold and Morton follows him down as Gibson wales on Eaton with the racket. Lane falls first, leaving Eaton 2-on-1 against the Rock N Roll. They hammer away on him and drive him off for the win. Probably the best scaffold match I’ve seen, but then there’s only been three of any note besides this and they all sucked. Big Bubba climbs the scaffold and challenges Morton, so Ricky hits him in the nuts and runs away. Wow, what a hero. ** · TV title Unification match: NWA World TV champion Nikita Koloff v. UWF TV champion Terry Taylor. This is the reason why all the former UWF TV champions can claim to be former holders of the current TV title. There was some pointless angle behind this, but really the whole point was to bury the UWF in the Crockett Graveyard. (2011 Scott sez:  14 years after this, and the similarities would abound at Survivor Series 2001) Nikita no-sells a bunch of Terry’s stuff. KOOOOOOOOOOO-LOFF. KOOOOOOOOO-LOFF. Who’s next, comrade? Taylor’s offense is having literally no effect. Koloff holds an armbar forever, and goes for the Sickle…but misses and crashes into the corner. You know what would be the coolest thing ever? If THQ had done Revenge and got rid of the fake Japanese fed and put an NWA fed in there—you could have Koloff, Blanchard, AA, Dusty Rhodes, The Rock N Rolls, the Midnights…I would SO buy that game and play it for the rest of my life if I could do my own R n’ R v. Midnights series. Of course, if someone was feeling ambitious, the movesets could quite easily be duplicated using WM2000’s creation system, and Jericho’s tights would work well for the Rock n Roll. The Midnights might be a little tougher, however. Anyway, Taylor controls with some solid stuff, using his brain to avoid Koloff’s power attack, and using Eddie Gilbert to cheat like a mother…trucker. We get the mandatory assisted figure-four, which is like an NWA trademark. Koloff escapes and Taylor collides with Gilbert in the ensuing argument with the ref, Sickle, goodnight Irene. For those of you who weren’t around for Nikita’s glory days, the Russian Sickle was a running lariat out of the corner. Pretty good match once it got going. *** Taylor retreated to the USWA and eventually the WWF shortly after this, because really it couldn’t get much worse…could it? · NWA World title match: Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson v. The Road Warriors. This is where everyone thought the Roadies would absolutely, positively, guaranteed walk out with the titles after years of trying. They proceed to manhandle the Horsemen to start out, prompting Tully to run away. They get several two counts before Tully tags in Arn. AA fairs no better and the Warriors look to go for the kill early. The champs are absolutely getting routed. Nasty spot as Animal bearhugs Tully, and Hawk gives Tully a shot from the apron to add insult. Finally, after about 10 minutes of non-stop punishment, Hawk goes for a press-slam on Tully and AA takes the opportunity to clip Hawk, putting the champs back in control. They proceed to cheat outrageously, slamming chairs into his knee and working it. Question: The spinning toehold causes pain to the knee, right? But if you follow through to the figure-four, then the pain is now on the straight leg. Just seems odd. (2011 Scott sez:  It’s SCIENCE, stupid) Arn works in his “try a test of strength but get crotched” spot, leading to the hot tag to Animal. All hell breaks loose and Tommy Young (the Charles Robinson of the 80s) takes a wicked awesome dive out of the ring and may be legally dead. LOD hits the Doomsday Device and Earl Hebner comes in and counts the pin. Okay, kids, if you don’t know who booked this card and what happens next, you have no business reading about old NWA shows. Yes, it’s the dreaded DUSTY FINISH as Tommy Young reveals that he saw Arn being thrown over the top rope, so the Warriors aren’t actually champions after all. Crowd chants “bullshit” at that one. **1/2  (2011 Scott Sez:  I redid this match for the Essential Starrcade rants on WWE 24/7 a couple of years back, and boosted this match to *** at that point.) · US title match, cage: Lex Luger v. Really, really Big Poochie. If ever anyone earned the Poochie moniker, it’s Dusty Rhodes. I’m shocked he settled for booking himself in the US title match. This is Luger’s title v. Rhodes’ career. That’s hardly a fair trade. Luger is still way green at this point. The first 5 minutes is inexplicably cut out of this one. I have the full match on the Best of the Starrcade 83-87 tape, however, so I’ve seen it. Luger misses the Elbow Which Doth Never Hit and Rhodes goes to work on the arm. Luger comes back and rams Dusty into the cage—and I hope you’re sitting down, cuz here comes a shocking development—and Rhodes bleeds. Yeah, I know, I’m sitting here thinking “Dusty…blade? In what universe?” but here it is, captured on tape: Dusty actually bleeding. Luger hits the Elbow Which Doth Never Hit. Dusty pulls out a dropkick, earning a 0.8 on the Erik Watts Dropkick Scale. Man, that was uglier than Rhodes and his kid combined. Luger gets the Rack, but Dusty is JUST TOO FAT. Who’d have thunk it’d be an advantage to be grossly overweight? I love reviewing Dusty’s matches…it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Seemingly the only reason for the cage’s existance here was to give Big Dust the chance to bleed, because otherwise it’s a standard match and the cage is basically ignored. Luger holds move #193 (ARM-bar) for an extended period of time. Dusty jiggles his fat and makes the comeback. And people think PIPER exposes the business? This fat ass was out there from 1901 until almost the present day before he finally took the freaking hint and retired. But not until he foisted his idiot son on us. (2011 Scott sez:  Man, I was in a bitter place towards Dusty here.  Not sure what Dustin did to earn my wrath at this point, given that he was just in WCW as himself back when this was originally written.)  Rhodes gets the sleeperhold, but Dillon knocks out Johnny Weaver (the keeper of the key) and tosses a chair in for Luger. Luger….slowly….picks….up…..the…..chair, allowing Dusty the time to peel his digusting fat ass off the mat and DDT Luger on the chair (no, that wasn’t contrived or unbelievable in the least, Dusty) for the pin and the US title. Do I seem bitter? *  (2011 Scott sez:  My own personal biases aside, this really was a butt-awful match, with Dusty not the right person to motivate Luger, to say the least.)  · NWA World title match: Ron Garvin v. Ric Flair. Everyone always asks why Garvin got the title—short answer is “There was no one else”. Flair wanted to lose the title and regain it at Starrcade, but there was no top babyfaces who were dumb enough to agree to be a lameduck champion. So they got Garvin, who was dumb enough to agree to anything. And then because none of the top heels were dumb enough to put Garvin over when everyone knew Flair was just getting the belt back anyway, they all refused to job to him. So Garvin took a “sabbatical”, thus making him a thoroughly useless champion in the eyes of the fans and the bookers. No wonder Crockett went broke. Inspirational babyface Garvin gets soundly booed by the fans. Again, the first few minutes of this match are clipped. And again, the full version is on Best of Starrcade. We pick it up with Garvin delivering the 10 punch count, and then the GARVIN STOMP OF SLIGHT DISCOMFORT! Flair retaliates with the Great Equalizer and Garvin does a terrible selling job. C’mon, Ronnie, you just got hit in the nuts by the dirtiest player in the game, show some emotion! Flair bounces around the body parts for a bit, then settles on the good ol’ knee. Usual stuff…kneedrops, kneebreaker and then the figure-four. Why does Flair let go when Young looks? It’s no-DQ. Oh well, habit I guess. Garvin reverses. Crowd rewards him with a “Garvin sucks” chant. This was 1987, remember, years before ECW trained fans to be that cynical. Flair decides to have a blading contest with Dusty and taps an artery. They fight to the top of the cage but it goes nowhere. Flair gets slammed off the top and Garvin does his own figure-four, which makes no sense because Flair hasn’t sold any knee injuries in this match. Flair of course sells like he’s being stabbed. Flair escapes, but Garvin gets to the top and hits a flying bodypress for two. Backslide for two. Flair refreshes his blade job and they climb to the top again. Flair, of course, gets crotched on the top rope as a result, but when Garvin goes for the SUNSET FLIP OF DOOM, which was the move that gave Garvin the title in the first place, Flair sits down and gets two. Garvin reverses for two. Young gets bumped mildly and Garvin hits the PUNCH OF DEATH for two. Garvin goes for something vaguely resembling a cross between a Thesz press and a bodypress, but Flair falls back and slams Garvin’s head into the cage and gets the pin to put us out of our misery. Hope you enjoyed your one brush with greatness, Ron, you won’t get a second one. Huge pop for Flair. So-so match with a weak ending. **1/2  (2011 Scott sez:  On the bright side, we were THIS close to having NWA World Champion Buddy Landell dropping the belt back to Flair here.) The Bottom Line: Not really representation of what the NWA had to offer, because none of these matches had a good angle behind them, and the matchups were less-than-ideal right off the bat. A very awkward show for the NWA…not that it mattered, because the buyrate was only something like .0000001 anyway. Sorry, old school fans, I can’t recommend it in good conscience.

(2011 Scott sez:  Right away be warned, this is an OLD review and I’m not particularly fond of my writing style at this point.) The Netcop Retro Rant for Starrcade 87. · Live from Chicago, IL · Your hosts are Tony Schiavone & Jim Ross · This was the first NWA PPV, and the WWF decided to do a pre-emptive strike by putting the first ever Survivor Series on against this on the same night. Guess what the cable companies chose?  (2011 Scott sez:  In fact, the cable companies wanted to choose BOTH and do a double-header because Starrcade was scheduled in the afternoon, but Vince flipped out and threatened to drop Wrestlemania from any cable companies that showed Starrcade at all.  5 of them called his bluff, and they ended up showing Wrestlemania anyway) · Opening match: Sting, Michael Hayes & Jimmy Garvin v. Eddie Gilbert, Rick Steiner & Larry Zbyszko. This would be a UWF crossover feud. Sting has just turned face for the first time, leaving Gilbert’s employ. (2011 Scott sez:  Gilbert looks like a genius in hindsight for discovering Sting and associating himself with him enough to make sure he would be on the right side when Sting broke huge.)  A note on NWA PPVs in the early years: The lighting is straight out of ECW hell, and the arena is half-empty. Sting hits a plancha on Rick Steiner out of the gate and we’ve got a ring-a-ding-dong-dandy as the faces clear the ring. Sting is crazy over, even in this early phase of his career. Hayes and Garvin are NOT a team at this point—Garvin is just the token NWA representative. Very Mid-South style tag match, with the heels getting a severe beating until Garvin gets caught in the corner. Sadly, Garvin was the best wrestler on the face team. It’s only from 89-on that he got REALLY, REALLY bad. Speaking of differences, Rick Steiner still had the brains god gave him at this point. An automobile accident would scramble his brains a couple of months after this, turning him into the lovable doofus he’s been ever since. He was more of a generic Eddie Gilbert goon at this point. Larry works in a quick ABDOMINAL STRETCH OF SEVERE DISCOMFORT before Sting gets the hot tag. The heels make short work of him, beating on him some more. We’re running out of time. Sting escapes a Steiner sleeper and gets the hot tag to Hayes. Yes, it’s another katie-bar-the-door pier-six brawl and Hayes hits a bulldog on Larry Z as the crowd goes nutso. Hayes goes for a sleeper and Gilbert nails him off the top rope. Steiner hits a nice belly-to-belly for two, and then Hayes gets a sunset flip on Gilbert and the referee messes up, counting to two and then stopping before the three, even though the bell hadn’t rung yet. Decent enough. **1/2 · UWF Title match: Steve Williams v. Barry Windham. Okay, whenever someone hits someone in the groin on a leapfrog and I make reference to Barry Windham, it’s because of this match. No real angle to set it up—this was the dying days of the UWF and this was for all intents and purposes the last appearance of the UWF title. Doc and Barry do some mat wrestling, boring the crowd. They trade some suplexes and that goes nowhere. Williams holds onto a headlock tenaciously, surviving a pair of backdrop suplexes to hang on. Crowd is seriously not digging this match—until they do a criss-cross and Windham accidentally headbutts Dr. Death on a leapfrog. Fans scream for Windham to do something, but Barry allows him to recover. Williams walks around clutching his groin to shake off the pain. They do another criss-cross and Windham misses a bodypress and goes flying to the floor. Windham rolls in and Williams goes for the kill, cradling him for the pin. Match was all of about 5 minutes—I guess Williams or Windham got legitimately hurt. Ironically, years later Barry Windham and Dustin Rhodes would lose the tag titles to Steamboat and Douglas…because Rhodes did the Barry Windham job on Steamboat and wouldn’t go for the kill. And who was standing on the ring apron screaming at him to pin Steamboat? Barry Windham. Anyway, this match blew. ½*  (2011 Scott sez:  I’m really not sure if there was an injury involved or just a huge style clash or what, but you’d think that this pairing would have produced a better result.) · Scaffold match: The Midnight Express v. The Rock N Roll Express. Ah, my very, very favorite type of match…the same type that produced that -**** classic to open Bash 91. Eaton hugs Cornette goodbye before climbing the scaffold. Big Bossman Bubba Rogers the Guardian Angel gives the Bossman slam to Morton (and what a beauty shot it was, too) and that leaves Robert all by his lonesome on the scaffold. Morton mugs Cornette and steals the LOADED TENNIS RACKET OF DOOM and takes it up the scaffold. Gibson has the audacity to blade. They crawl around on the scaffold for a while, and Eaton blades too. Eaton throws powder in the RnR’s faces. For those who don’t know, the object is to knock both guys off the scaffold. Eaton gets the racket and swings away, but Gibson pulls a piece of the scaffold off and nails him. Lane gets knocked to the underside of the scaffold and Morton follows him down as Gibson wales on Eaton with the racket. Lane falls first, leaving Eaton 2-on-1 against the Rock N Roll. They hammer away on him and drive him off for the win. Probably the best scaffold match I’ve seen, but then there’s only been three of any note besides this and they all sucked. Big Bubba climbs the scaffold and challenges Morton, so Ricky hits him in the nuts and runs away. Wow, what a hero. ** · TV title Unification match: NWA World TV champion Nikita Koloff v. UWF TV champion Terry Taylor. This is the reason why all the former UWF TV champions can claim to be former holders of the current TV title. There was some pointless angle behind this, but really the whole point was to bury the UWF in the Crockett Graveyard. (2011 Scott sez:  14 years after this, and the similarities would abound at Survivor Series 2001) Nikita no-sells a bunch of Terry’s stuff. KOOOOOOOOOOO-LOFF. KOOOOOOOOO-LOFF. Who’s next, comrade? Taylor’s offense is having literally no effect. Koloff holds an armbar forever, and goes for the Sickle…but misses and crashes into the corner. You know what would be the coolest thing ever? If THQ had done Revenge and got rid of the fake Japanese fed and put an NWA fed in there—you could have Koloff, Blanchard, AA, Dusty Rhodes, The Rock N Rolls, the Midnights…I would SO buy that game and play it for the rest of my life if I could do my own R n’ R v. Midnights series. Of course, if someone was feeling ambitious, the movesets could quite easily be duplicated using WM2000’s creation system, and Jericho’s tights would work well for the Rock n Roll. The Midnights might be a little tougher, however. Anyway, Taylor controls with some solid stuff, using his brain to avoid Koloff’s power attack, and using Eddie Gilbert to cheat like a mother…trucker. We get the mandatory assisted figure-four, which is like an NWA trademark. Koloff escapes and Taylor collides with Gilbert in the ensuing argument with the ref, Sickle, goodnight Irene. For those of you who weren’t around for Nikita’s glory days, the Russian Sickle was a running lariat out of the corner. Pretty good match once it got going. *** Taylor retreated to the USWA and eventually the WWF shortly after this, because really it couldn’t get much worse…could it? · NWA World title match: Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson v. The Road Warriors. This is where everyone thought the Roadies would absolutely, positively, guaranteed walk out with the titles after years of trying. They proceed to manhandle the Horsemen to start out, prompting Tully to run away. They get several two counts before Tully tags in Arn. AA fairs no better and the Warriors look to go for the kill early. The champs are absolutely getting routed. Nasty spot as Animal bearhugs Tully, and Hawk gives Tully a shot from the apron to add insult. Finally, after about 10 minutes of non-stop punishment, Hawk goes for a press-slam on Tully and AA takes the opportunity to clip Hawk, putting the champs back in control. They proceed to cheat outrageously, slamming chairs into his knee and working it. Question: The spinning toehold causes pain to the knee, right? But if you follow through to the figure-four, then the pain is now on the straight leg. Just seems odd. (2011 Scott sez:  It’s SCIENCE, stupid) Arn works in his “try a test of strength but get crotched” spot, leading to the hot tag to Animal. All hell breaks loose and Tommy Young (the Charles Robinson of the 80s) takes a wicked awesome dive out of the ring and may be legally dead. LOD hits the Doomsday Device and Earl Hebner comes in and counts the pin. Okay, kids, if you don’t know who booked this card and what happens next, you have no business reading about old NWA shows. Yes, it’s the dreaded DUSTY FINISH as Tommy Young reveals that he saw Arn being thrown over the top rope, so the Warriors aren’t actually champions after all. Crowd chants “bullshit” at that one. **1/2  (2011 Scott Sez:  I redid this match for the Essential Starrcade rants on WWE 24/7 a couple of years back, and boosted this match to *** at that point.) · US title match, cage: Lex Luger v. Really, really Big Poochie. If ever anyone earned the Poochie moniker, it’s Dusty Rhodes. I’m shocked he settled for booking himself in the US title match. This is Luger’s title v. Rhodes’ career. That’s hardly a fair trade. Luger is still way green at this point. The first 5 minutes is inexplicably cut out of this one. I have the full match on the Best of the Starrcade 83-87 tape, however, so I’ve seen it. Luger misses the Elbow Which Doth Never Hit and Rhodes goes to work on the arm. Luger comes back and rams Dusty into the cage—and I hope you’re sitting down, cuz here comes a shocking development—and Rhodes bleeds. Yeah, I know, I’m sitting here thinking “Dusty…blade? In what universe?” but here it is, captured on tape: Dusty actually bleeding. Luger hits the Elbow Which Doth Never Hit. Dusty pulls out a dropkick, earning a 0.8 on the Erik Watts Dropkick Scale. Man, that was uglier than Rhodes and his kid combined. Luger gets the Rack, but Dusty is JUST TOO FAT. Who’d have thunk it’d be an advantage to be grossly overweight? I love reviewing Dusty’s matches…it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Seemingly the only reason for the cage’s existance here was to give Big Dust the chance to bleed, because otherwise it’s a standard match and the cage is basically ignored. Luger holds move #193 (ARM-bar) for an extended period of time. Dusty jiggles his fat and makes the comeback. And people think PIPER exposes the business? This fat ass was out there from 1901 until almost the present day before he finally took the freaking hint and retired. But not until he foisted his idiot son on us. (2011 Scott sez:  Man, I was in a bitter place towards Dusty here.  Not sure what Dustin did to earn my wrath at this point, given that he was just in WCW as himself back when this was originally written.)  Rhodes gets the sleeperhold, but Dillon knocks out Johnny Weaver (the keeper of the key) and tosses a chair in for Luger. Luger….slowly….picks….up…..the…..chair, allowing Dusty the time to peel his digusting fat ass off the mat and DDT Luger on the chair (no, that wasn’t contrived or unbelievable in the least, Dusty) for the pin and the US title. Do I seem bitter? *  (2011 Scott sez:  My own personal biases aside, this really was a butt-awful match, with Dusty not the right person to motivate Luger, to say the least.)  · NWA World title match: Ron Garvin v. Ric Flair. Everyone always asks why Garvin got the title—short answer is “There was no one else”. Flair wanted to lose the title and regain it at Starrcade, but there was no top babyfaces who were dumb enough to agree to be a lameduck champion. So they got Garvin, who was dumb enough to agree to anything. And then because none of the top heels were dumb enough to put Garvin over when everyone knew Flair was just getting the belt back anyway, they all refused to job to him. So Garvin took a “sabbatical”, thus making him a thoroughly useless champion in the eyes of the fans and the bookers. No wonder Crockett went broke. Inspirational babyface Garvin gets soundly booed by the fans. Again, the first few minutes of this match are clipped. And again, the full version is on Best of Starrcade. We pick it up with Garvin delivering the 10 punch count, and then the GARVIN STOMP OF SLIGHT DISCOMFORT! Flair retaliates with the Great Equalizer and Garvin does a terrible selling job. C’mon, Ronnie, you just got hit in the nuts by the dirtiest player in the game, show some emotion! Flair bounces around the body parts for a bit, then settles on the good ol’ knee. Usual stuff…kneedrops, kneebreaker and then the figure-four. Why does Flair let go when Young looks? It’s no-DQ. Oh well, habit I guess. Garvin reverses. Crowd rewards him with a “Garvin sucks” chant. This was 1987, remember, years before ECW trained fans to be that cynical. Flair decides to have a blading contest with Dusty and taps an artery. They fight to the top of the cage but it goes nowhere. Flair gets slammed off the top and Garvin does his own figure-four, which makes no sense because Flair hasn’t sold any knee injuries in this match. Flair of course sells like he’s being stabbed. Flair escapes, but Garvin gets to the top and hits a flying bodypress for two. Backslide for two. Flair refreshes his blade job and they climb to the top again. Flair, of course, gets crotched on the top rope as a result, but when Garvin goes for the SUNSET FLIP OF DOOM, which was the move that gave Garvin the title in the first place, Flair sits down and gets two. Garvin reverses for two. Young gets bumped mildly and Garvin hits the PUNCH OF DEATH for two. Garvin goes for something vaguely resembling a cross between a Thesz press and a bodypress, but Flair falls back and slams Garvin’s head into the cage and gets the pin to put us out of our misery. Hope you enjoyed your one brush with greatness, Ron, you won’t get a second one. Huge pop for Flair. So-so match with a weak ending. **1/2  (2011 Scott sez:  On the bright side, we were THIS close to having NWA World Champion Buddy Landell dropping the belt back to Flair here.) The Bottom Line: Not really representation of what the NWA had to offer, because none of these matches had a good angle behind them, and the matchups were less-than-ideal right off the bat. A very awkward show for the NWA…not that it mattered, because the buyrate was only something like .0000001 anyway. Sorry, old school fans, I can’t recommend it in good conscience.

(2011 Scott sez:  Right away be warned, this is an OLD review and I’m not particularly fond of my writing style at this point.) The Netcop Retro Rant for Starrcade 87. · Live from Chicago, IL · Your hosts are Tony Schiavone & Jim Ross · This was the first NWA PPV, and the WWF decided to do a pre-emptive strike by putting the first ever Survivor Series on against this on the same night. Guess what the cable companies chose?  (2011 Scott sez:  In fact, the cable companies wanted to choose BOTH and do a double-header because Starrcade was scheduled in the afternoon, but Vince flipped out and threatened to drop Wrestlemania from any cable companies that showed Starrcade at all.  5 of them called his bluff, and they ended up showing Wrestlemania anyway) · Opening match: Sting, Michael Hayes & Jimmy Garvin v. Eddie Gilbert, Rick Steiner & Larry Zbyszko. This would be a UWF crossover feud. Sting has just turned face for the first time, leaving Gilbert’s employ. (2011 Scott sez:  Gilbert looks like a genius in hindsight for discovering Sting and associating himself with him enough to make sure he would be on the right side when Sting broke huge.)  A note on NWA PPVs in the early years: The lighting is straight out of ECW hell, and the arena is half-empty. Sting hits a plancha on Rick Steiner out of the gate and we’ve got a ring-a-ding-dong-dandy as the faces clear the ring. Sting is crazy over, even in this early phase of his career. Hayes and Garvin are NOT a team at this point—Garvin is just the token NWA representative. Very Mid-South style tag match, with the heels getting a severe beating until Garvin gets caught in the corner. Sadly, Garvin was the best wrestler on the face team. It’s only from 89-on that he got REALLY, REALLY bad. Speaking of differences, Rick Steiner still had the brains god gave him at this point. An automobile accident would scramble his brains a couple of months after this, turning him into the lovable doofus he’s been ever since. He was more of a generic Eddie Gilbert goon at this point. Larry works in a quick ABDOMINAL STRETCH OF SEVERE DISCOMFORT before Sting gets the hot tag. The heels make short work of him, beating on him some more. We’re running out of time. Sting escapes a Steiner sleeper and gets the hot tag to Hayes. Yes, it’s another katie-bar-the-door pier-six brawl and Hayes hits a bulldog on Larry Z as the crowd goes nutso. Hayes goes for a sleeper and Gilbert nails him off the top rope. Steiner hits a nice belly-to-belly for two, and then Hayes gets a sunset flip on Gilbert and the referee messes up, counting to two and then stopping before the three, even though the bell hadn’t rung yet. Decent enough. **1/2 · UWF Title match: Steve Williams v. Barry Windham. Okay, whenever someone hits someone in the groin on a leapfrog and I make reference to Barry Windham, it’s because of this match. No real angle to set it up—this was the dying days of the UWF and this was for all intents and purposes the last appearance of the UWF title. Doc and Barry do some mat wrestling, boring the crowd. They trade some suplexes and that goes nowhere. Williams holds onto a headlock tenaciously, surviving a pair of backdrop suplexes to hang on. Crowd is seriously not digging this match—until they do a criss-cross and Windham accidentally headbutts Dr. Death on a leapfrog. Fans scream for Windham to do something, but Barry allows him to recover. Williams walks around clutching his groin to shake off the pain. They do another criss-cross and Windham misses a bodypress and goes flying to the floor. Windham rolls in and Williams goes for the kill, cradling him for the pin. Match was all of about 5 minutes—I guess Williams or Windham got legitimately hurt. Ironically, years later Barry Windham and Dustin Rhodes would lose the tag titles to Steamboat and Douglas…because Rhodes did the Barry Windham job on Steamboat and wouldn’t go for the kill. And who was standing on the ring apron screaming at him to pin Steamboat? Barry Windham. Anyway, this match blew. ½*  (2011 Scott sez:  I’m really not sure if there was an injury involved or just a huge style clash or what, but you’d think that this pairing would have produced a better result.) · Scaffold match: The Midnight Express v. The Rock N Roll Express. Ah, my very, very favorite type of match…the same type that produced that -**** classic to open Bash 91. Eaton hugs Cornette goodbye before climbing the scaffold. Big Bossman Bubba Rogers the Guardian Angel gives the Bossman slam to Morton (and what a beauty shot it was, too) and that leaves Robert all by his lonesome on the scaffold. Morton mugs Cornette and steals the LOADED TENNIS RACKET OF DOOM and takes it up the scaffold. Gibson has the audacity to blade. They crawl around on the scaffold for a while, and Eaton blades too. Eaton throws powder in the RnR’s faces. For those who don’t know, the object is to knock both guys off the scaffold. Eaton gets the racket and swings away, but Gibson pulls a piece of the scaffold off and nails him. Lane gets knocked to the underside of the scaffold and Morton follows him down as Gibson wales on Eaton with the racket. Lane falls first, leaving Eaton 2-on-1 against the Rock N Roll. They hammer away on him and drive him off for the win. Probably the best scaffold match I’ve seen, but then there’s only been three of any note besides this and they all sucked. Big Bubba climbs the scaffold and challenges Morton, so Ricky hits him in the nuts and runs away. Wow, what a hero. ** · TV title Unification match: NWA World TV champion Nikita Koloff v. UWF TV champion Terry Taylor. This is the reason why all the former UWF TV champions can claim to be former holders of the current TV title. There was some pointless angle behind this, but really the whole point was to bury the UWF in the Crockett Graveyard. (2011 Scott sez:  14 years after this, and the similarities would abound at Survivor Series 2001) Nikita no-sells a bunch of Terry’s stuff. KOOOOOOOOOOO-LOFF. KOOOOOOOOO-LOFF. Who’s next, comrade? Taylor’s offense is having literally no effect. Koloff holds an armbar forever, and goes for the Sickle…but misses and crashes into the corner. You know what would be the coolest thing ever? If THQ had done Revenge and got rid of the fake Japanese fed and put an NWA fed in there—you could have Koloff, Blanchard, AA, Dusty Rhodes, The Rock N Rolls, the Midnights…I would SO buy that game and play it for the rest of my life if I could do my own R n’ R v. Midnights series. Of course, if someone was feeling ambitious, the movesets could quite easily be duplicated using WM2000’s creation system, and Jericho’s tights would work well for the Rock n Roll. The Midnights might be a little tougher, however. Anyway, Taylor controls with some solid stuff, using his brain to avoid Koloff’s power attack, and using Eddie Gilbert to cheat like a mother…trucker. We get the mandatory assisted figure-four, which is like an NWA trademark. Koloff escapes and Taylor collides with Gilbert in the ensuing argument with the ref, Sickle, goodnight Irene. For those of you who weren’t around for Nikita’s glory days, the Russian Sickle was a running lariat out of the corner. Pretty good match once it got going. *** Taylor retreated to the USWA and eventually the WWF shortly after this, because really it couldn’t get much worse…could it? · NWA World title match: Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson v. The Road Warriors. This is where everyone thought the Roadies would absolutely, positively, guaranteed walk out with the titles after years of trying. They proceed to manhandle the Horsemen to start out, prompting Tully to run away. They get several two counts before Tully tags in Arn. AA fairs no better and the Warriors look to go for the kill early. The champs are absolutely getting routed. Nasty spot as Animal bearhugs Tully, and Hawk gives Tully a shot from the apron to add insult. Finally, after about 10 minutes of non-stop punishment, Hawk goes for a press-slam on Tully and AA takes the opportunity to clip Hawk, putting the champs back in control. They proceed to cheat outrageously, slamming chairs into his knee and working it. Question: The spinning toehold causes pain to the knee, right? But if you follow through to the figure-four, then the pain is now on the straight leg. Just seems odd. (2011 Scott sez:  It’s SCIENCE, stupid) Arn works in his “try a test of strength but get crotched” spot, leading to the hot tag to Animal. All hell breaks loose and Tommy Young (the Charles Robinson of the 80s) takes a wicked awesome dive out of the ring and may be legally dead. LOD hits the Doomsday Device and Earl Hebner comes in and counts the pin. Okay, kids, if you don’t know who booked this card and what happens next, you have no business reading about old NWA shows. Yes, it’s the dreaded DUSTY FINISH as Tommy Young reveals that he saw Arn being thrown over the top rope, so the Warriors aren’t actually champions after all. Crowd chants “bullshit” at that one. **1/2  (2011 Scott Sez:  I redid this match for the Essential Starrcade rants on WWE 24/7 a couple of years back, and boosted this match to *** at that point.) · US title match, cage: Lex Luger v. Really, really Big Poochie. If ever anyone earned the Poochie moniker, it’s Dusty Rhodes. I’m shocked he settled for booking himself in the US title match. This is Luger’s title v. Rhodes’ career. That’s hardly a fair trade. Luger is still way green at this point. The first 5 minutes is inexplicably cut out of this one. I have the full match on the Best of the Starrcade 83-87 tape, however, so I’ve seen it. Luger misses the Elbow Which Doth Never Hit and Rhodes goes to work on the arm. Luger comes back and rams Dusty into the cage—and I hope you’re sitting down, cuz here comes a shocking development—and Rhodes bleeds. Yeah, I know, I’m sitting here thinking “Dusty…blade? In what universe?” but here it is, captured on tape: Dusty actually bleeding. Luger hits the Elbow Which Doth Never Hit. Dusty pulls out a dropkick, earning a 0.8 on the Erik Watts Dropkick Scale. Man, that was uglier than Rhodes and his kid combined. Luger gets the Rack, but Dusty is JUST TOO FAT. Who’d have thunk it’d be an advantage to be grossly overweight? I love reviewing Dusty’s matches…it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Seemingly the only reason for the cage’s existance here was to give Big Dust the chance to bleed, because otherwise it’s a standard match and the cage is basically ignored. Luger holds move #193 (ARM-bar) for an extended period of time. Dusty jiggles his fat and makes the comeback. And people think PIPER exposes the business? This fat ass was out there from 1901 until almost the present day before he finally took the freaking hint and retired. But not until he foisted his idiot son on us. (2011 Scott sez:  Man, I was in a bitter place towards Dusty here.  Not sure what Dustin did to earn my wrath at this point, given that he was just in WCW as himself back when this was originally written.)  Rhodes gets the sleeperhold, but Dillon knocks out Johnny Weaver (the keeper of the key) and tosses a chair in for Luger. Luger….slowly….picks….up…..the…..chair, allowing Dusty the time to peel his digusting fat ass off the mat and DDT Luger on the chair (no, that wasn’t contrived or unbelievable in the least, Dusty) for the pin and the US title. Do I seem bitter? *  (2011 Scott sez:  My own personal biases aside, this really was a butt-awful match, with Dusty not the right person to motivate Luger, to say the least.)  · NWA World title match: Ron Garvin v. Ric Flair. Everyone always asks why Garvin got the title—short answer is “There was no one else”. Flair wanted to lose the title and regain it at Starrcade, but there was no top babyfaces who were dumb enough to agree to be a lameduck champion. So they got Garvin, who was dumb enough to agree to anything. And then because none of the top heels were dumb enough to put Garvin over when everyone knew Flair was just getting the belt back anyway, they all refused to job to him. So Garvin took a “sabbatical”, thus making him a thoroughly useless champion in the eyes of the fans and the bookers. No wonder Crockett went broke. Inspirational babyface Garvin gets soundly booed by the fans. Again, the first few minutes of this match are clipped. And again, the full version is on Best of Starrcade. We pick it up with Garvin delivering the 10 punch count, and then the GARVIN STOMP OF SLIGHT DISCOMFORT! Flair retaliates with the Great Equalizer and Garvin does a terrible selling job. C’mon, Ronnie, you just got hit in the nuts by the dirtiest player in the game, show some emotion! Flair bounces around the body parts for a bit, then settles on the good ol’ knee. Usual stuff…kneedrops, kneebreaker and then the figure-four. Why does Flair let go when Young looks? It’s no-DQ. Oh well, habit I guess. Garvin reverses. Crowd rewards him with a “Garvin sucks” chant. This was 1987, remember, years before ECW trained fans to be that cynical. Flair decides to have a blading contest with Dusty and taps an artery. They fight to the top of the cage but it goes nowhere. Flair gets slammed off the top and Garvin does his own figure-four, which makes no sense because Flair hasn’t sold any knee injuries in this match. Flair of course sells like he’s being stabbed. Flair escapes, but Garvin gets to the top and hits a flying bodypress for two. Backslide for two. Flair refreshes his blade job and they climb to the top again. Flair, of course, gets crotched on the top rope as a result, but when Garvin goes for the SUNSET FLIP OF DOOM, which was the move that gave Garvin the title in the first place, Flair sits down and gets two. Garvin reverses for two. Young gets bumped mildly and Garvin hits the PUNCH OF DEATH for two. Garvin goes for something vaguely resembling a cross between a Thesz press and a bodypress, but Flair falls back and slams Garvin’s head into the cage and gets the pin to put us out of our misery. Hope you enjoyed your one brush with greatness, Ron, you won’t get a second one. Huge pop for Flair. So-so match with a weak ending. **1/2  (2011 Scott sez:  On the bright side, we were THIS close to having NWA World Champion Buddy Landell dropping the belt back to Flair here.) The Bottom Line: Not really representation of what the NWA had to offer, because none of these matches had a good angle behind them, and the matchups were less-than-ideal right off the bat. A very awkward show for the NWA…not that it mattered, because the buyrate was only something like .0000001 anyway. Sorry, old school fans, I can’t recommend it in good conscience.

Hey Scott,       Long time fan, read all the books, etc.  I have a question about contracts in wrestling.  It is understandable that the three biggest companies of the last 25 years or so, WWE, WCW and TNA would make sure their signed talent can’t just jump to another promotion if they are unhappy. However, the smaller promotions, specifically ECW and Ring of Honor do not do this.  WCW cherry picked Mysterio, Jericho, Benoit, Guerrero, Raven, Sandman and Mike Awesome, who was the World Champion at the time!  WWE grabbed Austin, Taz and all three Dudleys.  For ROH, WWE grabbed Punk, Bryan, Claudio and Tyler Black, who like Awesome, was the champion of the entire promotion.  TNA grabbed Samoa Joe and Nigel McGuinness.  My only guess is that these smaller promotions cannot have the same protection because they cannot guarantee the pay on a contract, similar to Bret’s situation with Vince in 1997.  What are your thoughts?

Hey, WCW was the first company to really do guaranteed contracts in general.  WWF had to follow suit because otherwise they’d lose all their talent to the guaranteed money in WCW, but the smaller promotions have never really worked on much more than a handshake deal.  There’s really no reason for a company like ROH to sign guys to long-term deals because they can’t support someone full-time, and if they can’t pay the contract than it would cost them more in legal fees to go to court with it than it was worth to them.  I think ROH does limited deal type of contracts now, but I haven’t talked to anyone from the new regime in a while so I don’t know the details.  But really, if someone gets snapped up by WWE, it’s not going to hurt them too much because their entire business model is DVD and word-of-mouth anyway and everyone is replaceable.  TNA does contracts because they basically have to, otherwise WWE would raid them up and down just to fuck with them. 

Hey Scott,       Long time fan, read all the books, etc.  I have a question about contracts in wrestling.  It is understandable that the three biggest companies of the last 25 years or so, WWE, WCW and TNA would make sure their signed talent can’t just jump to another promotion if they are unhappy. However, the smaller promotions, specifically ECW and Ring of Honor do not do this.  WCW cherry picked Mysterio, Jericho, Benoit, Guerrero, Raven, Sandman and Mike Awesome, who was the World Champion at the time!  WWE grabbed Austin, Taz and all three Dudleys.  For ROH, WWE grabbed Punk, Bryan, Claudio and Tyler Black, who like Awesome, was the champion of the entire promotion.  TNA grabbed Samoa Joe and Nigel McGuinness.  My only guess is that these smaller promotions cannot have the same protection because they cannot guarantee the pay on a contract, similar to Bret’s situation with Vince in 1997.  What are your thoughts?

Hey, WCW was the first company to really do guaranteed contracts in general.  WWF had to follow suit because otherwise they’d lose all their talent to the guaranteed money in WCW, but the smaller promotions have never really worked on much more than a handshake deal.  There’s really no reason for a company like ROH to sign guys to long-term deals because they can’t support someone full-time, and if they can’t pay the contract than it would cost them more in legal fees to go to court with it than it was worth to them.  I think ROH does limited deal type of contracts now, but I haven’t talked to anyone from the new regime in a while so I don’t know the details.  But really, if someone gets snapped up by WWE, it’s not going to hurt them too much because their entire business model is DVD and word-of-mouth anyway and everyone is replaceable.  TNA does contracts because they basically have to, otherwise WWE would raid them up and down just to fuck with them.