The SmarK Rant for NWA Power Hour – 10.05.90

The SmarK Rant for NWA Power Hour – 10.05.90

A very abbreviated edit of the show this week for some reason. Well, that’ll give me lots of time for the extra gauntlet matches, I guess.

Taped from Gainesville, GA

Your hosts are Jim Ross & Paul E. Dangerously

The Steiner Brothers v. The Ring Lords

I believe the Ring Lords were later repackaged into Magnum Force. Depsite being unmasked they don’t even have names, just Ring Lord #1 and #2. #1 gets sent to the floor and Rick brings in #2 and drops an elbow on him and then smashes him with a Steinerline. Scott comes in with the butterfly bomb while JR puts over crazy stuff that happened between Sting and Sid on another show and then refuses to elaborate to Paul what the controversy was. Steiner finish a Ring Lord with the top rope DDT at 3:20.

The Nasty Boys v. James Soloman & Rick Ford

Wait so is there no running of the gauntlet this week? Did they give up on this deal ALREADY? Knobs beats on Soloman with forearms and Sags comes in with a splash on him while Paul slags the Guardian Angels on commentary for being a bunch of vigilante goons. No wonder they were so bitter 4 years later. Over to Ford, and Sags takes him down and chokes him out with a good old knee to the throat and Knobs comes in with his own choking as this drags on. Nasties with the corner splash and they finish with the Shitty Elbow at 3:50.

OK so I looked into it and they drop the gauntlet thing for all of October and then pick it up again in November for whatever reason before quickly dropping it for good.

WRESTLING NEWS NETWORK! WITH GORDON SOLIE!

Let us take you back to World Championship Wrestling last week, as Sting is doing an interview with Jim Ross and Sid hits the ring to confront him. Sting is fine with doing it RIGHT NOW, but sadly the Black Scorpion comes out and ambushes Sting, allowing Sid to attack. So tomorrow on World Championship Wrestling, we get the contract signing for Halloween Havoc. Why, was Bruce Pritchard booking in 1990, too? Also, on World Wide Wrestling, Arn Anderson squashes some geek with the spinebuster, but Doom hits the ring and attacks him. Afterwards, we get a promo from Flair & AA, as Arn repeatedly says that he was caught with his pants down and that doesn’t happen often to him. Well that’s a good thing. And Teddy Long responds with a promo about how he was the one to tell the “soul brothers” to stop beating up the Horsemen, so they owe him one.

We don’t even get a WCW Top Ten this week! What is this shit? How am I supposed to know where Tim Horner & Mike Rotunda are ranked in the tag team list?

Also we get a commercial for a Halloween Havoc giveaway, where you can win an NES and WCW game for it! I assume that was the awful Superbrawl game. Anyway, you have to navigate a pair of fiendish clues and figure out the identity of the MYSTERY WRESTLER in order to enter. I’ll give you the clues but good look piecing this one together without 1990 context, unless you’re getting ChatGPT to help or something.

CLUE #1: The Mystery Wrestler is from Venice Beach, CA

CLUE #2: The Mystery Wrestler’s favorite hold is “The Scorpion Deathlock”.

Like how is anyone watching supposed to figure out the answer with those kind of vague clues? What am I supposed to be, Mike Tenay?

The Freebirds v. Allen Iron Eagle & Lou Perez

We now have Little Richard Marley as the Birds’ failed attempt at a manager, although he wouldn’t last long. Perez gets a hiptoss on Hayes to frustrate him while JR goes off on the Freebirds slandering Native Americans. Paul: “Who cares?” This was setting up a thrilling feud between the Birds and the Renegade Warriors for those keeping track. Over to the awful Iron Eagle, who gets a sunset flip on Garvin for two and goes to work on the arm, but Hayes tosses Perez while JR keeps calling him “Al Perez”. Ouch. Back to Iron Eagle, who throws questionable dropkicks, but his hippie hair keeps getting in his eyes and Garvin DDTs him for the pin at 3:30. He should cut off that hair immediately. No one cares about his long hair or cares about him.

Meanwhile, the Renegade Warriors do a racially insensitive promo even by 1990 standards.

Moondog Rex v. Scotty Allen

Tony Gillam introduces the job guy as “Scotty Williams” and the announcers bury him for it. He literally has his name written on his ass! Allen attacks, but Rex tosses him to take over and then hauls him in and drops a knee on him before choking him out on the ropes. Rex puts the boots to him and follows with a backbreaker before dropping knees on the back, and then he finishes with a samoan drop at 4:00. They probably should have repackaged him into something else because sticking boring old Moondog Rex on TV just makes it look like you’re using WWF’s castoffs.

And that’s where the episode cuts off, as the last 15 minutes is missing, which was Missy Hyatt doing an interview and then Doom beating Tim Horner & Mike Rotunda to retain the World tag team titles.

OK so apparently the lack of gauntlet was because they didn’t actually tape anything for this show. All the matches aired here were just reused from the 9/29 episode of WCW Pro and had new commentary on them. Good old WCW cost savings for you I guess.

Oh well, easy night for me.