The SmarK Rant for WCW Saturday Night – 08.08.92

The SmarK Rant for WCW Saturday Night – 08.08.92

Originally written 09.08.25

OK well that last episode of the Bill Watts era was pretty wretched but this one has a really big moment at least.

Taped from Atlanta, GA

Your hosts are Jim Ross & Cowboy Bill Watts

BUT FIRST! We take you back to Baltimore, where Ron Simmons faces Vader in a match we will certainly hear more about later. Oh and also we had a notable debut.

Dustin Rhodes v. Mark Cantebury

Dustin takes young HOG down and works the arm, while we get an inset promo from Dick Slater and Greg Valentine, as I guess Slater has already abandoned his US tag team title partnership with the Barbarian. Also, Slater and Valentine? Are we back in 1982? Actually kinda, yeah. Rhodes works the arm on the mat with a hammerlock, but Mark uses clubbing forearms to escape. But Dustin puts him down with a lariat and finishes with a bulldog at 2:50. Dustin really needs to spin his arm in the air first for maximum effectiveness on that move. I don’t know if he’s gonna have any career longevity with that kind of sloppiness.

Let’s go to Baltimore! First up, we start with Rick Rude defending the US title against Nikita Koloff, as Nikita hits the Sickle after the ref is bumped. So Cactus Jack hits the ring and attacks Koloff, but Sting makes the save and fights off both heels by himself. Jack bails to the floor and Sting tries to press slam Rude to the floor before referees all swarm him and talk him out of it, but Rude ends up taking that bump anyway. So then Sting brings Cactus in and starts beating on him, but JAKE THE SNAKE hits the ring and attacks Sting, and HE DOESN’T EVEN WRESTLE IN WCW! And then, bam, DDT on the chair and Sting is out of the World title match later in the show. Luckily a group of babyfaces prevent Jake from having a deadly snake bite Sting. Say what you will about Bill Watts but if you needed a man to book this exact angle, that’s who you go to. This was awesome but Jake was wrecked and they couldn’t pay off what they set up here.

So we take a break and return with the next phase, as Bill Watts puts 8 guys into a hat and draws Ron Simmons to be the challenger who replaces Sting in the main event. So indeed, Ron challenges Vader at the end of the night, and things are going badly for him, but he escapes the powerbomb and powerslams Vader to win the title as some kid in the front row is so excited that he damn near clears the railing jumping up and down. And then all the babyfaces celebrate him with him and even Big Dust personally puts Ron over at the end. The crowd went absolutely crazy but again, they couldn’t follow it up. But man what a moment they had there.

Dangerous Dan Spivey v. Randy Stallings

Spivey beats Stallings down while JR claims that he had a “stint with the New York Giants” which is not even a little bit true. Spivey finishes with a dragon sleeper at 1:45 of all things.

Junkyard Dog & The Big Cat v. Chris Sullivan & Dave Motes

Yes, it’s the team of CAT AND DOG, and yes, JR makes that joke, don’t worry. They take turns dropping headbutts on Motes as apparently we are destined to see this team challenged by the team of Diamond Dallas Page & Vinnie Vegas at some point. DON’T THREATEN ME WITH A GOOD TIME! Dog hits Motes with a legsweep and Cat drops an elbow to finish at 2:10. Thankfully Cat went back to Mr. Hughes by the end of the year because his stint as JYD’s little buddy was NO BUYS.

Tracy Smothers v. Van Hammer

They do some mat wrestling to start and Hamer cradles for two while Tracy claims that the tights were pulled. Hammer with the hammerlock and HOW DID NO ONE IN THIS COMPANY THINK OF MAKING THAT HIS FINISHER?!? His name is literally Van HAMMER. Use the George Steele flying hammerlock and you’re golden. Hammer keeps ROCKING THE MAT and finally Smothers superkicks him in the corner because he can’t take any more technical wizardry from Heavy Metal. Snapmare gets two. Tracy goes up and hits him with the move that was the Jawjacker in SMW, but that only gets one. Way to kill his finisher 2 years in advance, Hammer. Smothers with the chinlock while JR declares the WCW Magazine the most must-read magazine of his 20 year wrestling career. I feel like that’s disregarding the Wrestling Sleaze report put out by the DVDVR crew, but OK. Hammer comes back and finishes with the slingshot suplex at 6:25. Well this was certainly a match.

Dirty Dick Slater & Greg Valentine v. The Italian Stallion & Ian Weston

Well I guess they couldn’t get Ric Flair and Terry Funk at that point, so this is what we get instead. Slater works a headlock on the Stallion and the heels double-team him in the corner. Valentine drops an elbow on him and yeah, I guess we’re just gonna ignore the US tag team title elephant in the room. I loved those belts! They wrap up Stallion and trade leglocks, but Stallion slugs back and Slater yanks him out of the ring and then sends him back in for more abuse from Hammer. Not to be confused with Van Hammer, of course. Both guys are blond, so I can see how it would be easy to confuse them. Maybe Valentine should dye his hair black? Weston comes in and Slater hits him with a neckbreaker. Valentine with a suplex while JR notes that Slater reminds him of the early days of wrestling on TBS. Yeah that really puts him over as a hot young talent. Slater with a legsweep and he hits Weston with a kneecrusher and works the knee on the apron. Over to Hammer and some kind of kneelift spot goes awry as this drags on and Hammer works the leg. Come on, I know it takes him 20 minutes to warm up but some of us have work in the morning! Slater continues slugging away on Weston and hits him with a fisherman’s suplex, setting up Valentine to finish finally with the figure-four at 8:17. This team went nowhere, I think doing a job at a Clash show and then breaking up again.

Jake Roberts chats with Jesse Ventura about his notable debut. He notes that no one says anything when a hunter tracks down a helpless deer and then blows its brains out! Ummm…actually lots of people do. Anyway, Jake spits on the memory of his father, and Jesse celebrates the tears of the little Stingers, who are CRYING because Jake is here now.

The Barbarian v. Tommy Angel

Barbarian quickly beats him down with a kick, and blocks a sunset flip with a sitdown splash. JR predicts that Barbarian might be a future opponent for Ron Simmons. Yeah unfortunately he was. Barbarian beats him down with forearms and follows with a delayed suplex, so delayed that they should call it an announcement about the US tag team titles! Barbarian with a neck vice and he loads up the boot and finishes with the KICK OF FEAR at 3:24.

Steve Williams & Terry Gordy chat with Jim Ross, as Paul E. Dangerously is now managing them apparently. I don’t remember that at all. They were barely around for the next while anyway due to a Japan tour and then thankfully dropped the titles when they came back.

Brian Pillman & Larry Zbyszko v. Bobby Eaton & Arn Anderson

The top rope DQ rule is WAIVED here, so Larry can do all his high flying spots without fear of being disqualified. JR notes that the tag champs are going to “the Orient” to tour, as you did at the time. JR, talking about the tag champs again, notes that “if you eliminate the competition, you become the competition”. That’s certainly a lesson which would be learned, oh, a decade or so from here. Larry trades takedowns with Bobby and then Arn, but Pillman comes in with a flying bodypress for two and then grabs a headlock on Arn. I always liked the Bobby & Arn team and I thought they got unfairly short-changed by the Steiners before they had a chance to really develop as a team. They take Pillman to the corner and double-team the arm, and Arn cranks on the armbar. Back to Bobby and he takes Pillman down with another hammerlock. Larry gets the tag and we have a brief brawl that ends with Pillman getting the figure-four on AA despite being the illegal man. Bobby breaks it up and the Alliance goes back to the thrilling armbars. Larry gets a brief hot tag and hits a neckbreaker on Bobby, but it’s back to Pillman for a sleeper on Arn Anderson. Arn suplexes out of that and yup, you guessed it, back to the arm. Pillman fights out of that but Bobby sends him to the apron to cut him off, but Pillman hits Air Pillman and makes the tag to hot young babyface Larry Z. It’s BREAKING LOOSE IN TULSA and Eaton hits Larry with a knee to the shoulder, allowing the Alliance to go to work on the arm yet again. So they continue on with that strategy and it’s lots of classic Bill Watts “laying around on the mat” booking. God love the Cowboy but this shit is not what people wanted out of Brian Pillman in 1992. Just more endless armbars and hammerlocks on Larry and then they switch to choking him out while Pillman gets stopped by the ref. And finally we take a break, and return with the match over and Larry having submitted to an armbar at 20:00. A total snooze. *1/2

Meanwhile, Big Van Vader DOES NOT ACCEPT the World title situation, but he’s not making excuses and he’ll be getting his rematch soon enough.

And we finish with a replay of Ron’s big title win.

Well this show started SUPER HOT and then as is often the case, they forgot they had to fill another hour of airtime and it just kind of fizzled out again. But man, watching that first hour you really felt like SHIT WAS GOING DOWN. It was a nice change of pace from endless Doc and Gordy for the past couple of months before this. Watts still wasn’t the solution but you could at least be like “OK, I see what he’s going for here”, and that’s an improvement at least.