The SmarK Rant for WCW Saturday Night – 09.24.94

The SmarK Rant for WCW Saturday Night – 09.24.94

Fall Brawl is done and I’ll keep going with these for a while. I was thinking that it’s actually kind of weird that I’m simultaneously following along with three different eras of WCW at the same time (1990, 1994 and 2000) and they all feel drastically different from each other.

Taped from Atlanta, GA

Your hosts are Tony Schiavone & Bobby Heenan. Mean Gene protests that the cage match coming up at Halloween Havoc is like “putting two filet mignons into a food processor”, which sounds like one of those stupid TikTok cooking videos.

Johnny B. Badd v. Mark Starr

Badd is now the TV champion after Fall Brawl and he controls Starr with a headlock to start. Badd with armdrags while Heenan accuses Tony of being a country music fan, which greatly offends Tony. Starr fights back with forearms and a back elbow in the corner, but Badd puts him on top and finishes with a top rope rana at 2:55. This was supposedly the “Badd Day” but that name never caught on.

Afterwards, Johnny chats with Mean Gene, and he’s defending the TV title against the Honky Tonk Man at Halloween Havoc. Weird how Honky is friends with Jimmy Hart and Hogan and suddenly gets a title shot on PPV.

Hacksaw Jim Duggan v. Tony Vincent

Duggan of course now the US champion after Fall Brawl, with a rematch coming up with Steve Austin at Havoc in a match that I had scrubbed from my brain apparently. In other fun trivia, jobber Tony Vincent is the real life younger brother of Johnny B. Badd. But not as tan. Duggan hits him with an atomic drop to send him to the floor and then slingshots him back in the ring and hits him with a rather overdone and wasteful spinning bodyslam. He spun around three times and then stopped and spun around THREE MORE TIMES. In this economy? Three point stance finishes at 1:55.

Afterwards, Jim Duggan regains his composure and chats with Mean Gene, as Gene brings up the subject of Lord Steven Regal in what would have been a fascinating trainwreck if it had happened. Maybe it did on TV, who knows.

HALLOWEEN HAVOC CONTROL CENTER! WITH MEAN GENE!

The main event of course is Hulk Hogan defending the World title against Ric Flair in a cage match, with Hulk’s career on the line. Mr. T is the special referee!

Alex Wright v. The Gambler

Not to be confused with Marge’s inner monster, which we call GAMBLOR. Gambler works the arm to start and takes Wright down for two and puts the boots to him. Wright reverses a slam into a cradle for two and dropkicks Gambler down for two while the announcers discuss the special $500 ringside seats for Havoc. You basically get to marry Ali’s daughter and get put over by Ric Flair in the middle of the ring as a part of the VIP package. These days $500 is just a normal floor seat at a wrestling show, not even front row. Wright with the backflip out of the corner, but he misses the crossbody and Gambler gets two. But then Wright get another cradle and finishes at 3:39. Wright wearing the purple WCW jacket as his ring gear could not have looked any dorkier.

Kevin and Evad Sullivan join Gene and Kevin is still disgusted by his brother’s love of Hulk Hogan. Turns out Kevin was right. Kevin also buries Cactus Jack on his way out of the promotion for good measure.

Stunning Steve Austin v. Frankie Lancaster

Tony goes all INSIDE BASEBALL by talking about how Austin “slipped on a banana peel” at Fall Brawl in his US title loss. Austin beats the Thumper down and chokes him out on the mat, then follows with a snap suplex and drops a knee on him. Bobby Heenan, much like myself, questions what the Masked Man had to do with Vader and why he interfered in the match at Fall Brawl. Austin goes to an abdominal stretch while Bobby clarifies that he couldn’t have injured his neck by slipping on a bar of soap in the shower, because he doesn’t take showers. Good to know. Austin toses Lancaster and beats on him outside, but Frankie rolls him up for two. Austin takes him down and goes after the knee, wrapping him up in the standing figure-four to finish at 4:00. Tony calling Lancaster a “young and upcoming star” is a howler. This finish is the MAXIMUM CARNAGE MOVE OF THE WEEK, paying tribute to the one of the worst comic runs of all time but a banger of an SNES brawler.

Steve Austin joins Mean Gene and accuses Ricky Steamboat of faking his injury. And also, you can’t just substitute NFL teams if one of them doesn’t show up due to injuries, so you shouldn’t be able to do that in wrestling. Austin’s unhinged description of the title loss while infringing on Gene’s personal space is just tremendous. I love this DGAF era of Stunning Steve even if his career and body were falling apart.

Mean Gene has HOTLINE NEWZ about Mark Madden!

Stars & Stripes v. Fred Avery & Chick Donovan

Donovan’s over the top neon outfit here looks suspiciously Outrunner-based. Also the graphic before the break is a typical WCW screwup, calling them “Tag team champions Stars & Stripes” before the title change happened the next night on the Main Event. And it was a live Main Event, apparently, so they just straight up accidentally gave up their own plans. Donovan gets double-teamed by the babyfaces, and it’s over to Avery, who gets into a power battle with Patriot and loses. Back to Chick and Patriot powerslams him for two, and Bagwell comes in for the double team and a Rockerplex to finish at 2:33.

Mean Gene talks with Stars & Stripes and announces that they have a rematch with Pretty Wonderful on the Main Event tomorrow. So the champions come out and note that like all so-called patriots, they come whining and crying with their hands out, looking to get something for nothing. Also Orndorff is carrying the belt around upside-down, which triggers something in me for whatever reason.

The Honky Tonk Man v. Barry Houston

They trade headlocks in thrilling action and Honky suddenly catches him with a kick to the gut and finishes with the Shake Rattle N Roll at 2:44. Honky working in autopilot is a singularly awful experience.

Meanwhile, Eric Bischoff hosts a press conference in Detroit for Halloween Havoc, and brings out Mr. T, who promises to “warn ‘em a couple of times and then get a little rough” if they get out of line while he’s referee. And then we get much more boring promos from Flair and Hogan.

Ric Flair joins us, still sporting the Las Vegas Gold belt as Real World’s Champion. I’m assuming they dropped that whole thing before the PPV because I don’t recall them bringing it up by the time they got to Halloween Havoc. Ric promises that there’s no more prayers and vitamins, just STYLING AND PROFILING, after he wins the title. But then Evad interrupts and accuses Flair of lying about the veracity of his World title. Ric gently tells him to go take his meds and never mess with the champ again. But Evad does keep messing with the champ, so Ric decides he’s going to generously offer Evad a shot at the REAL WORLD TITLE on the live Main Event tomorrow and teach him a lesson for talking about the Orange Goblin during his interview time. So Kevin Sullivan comes out and tells off his brother, giving him shit for disrespecting the Real World champion by talking about Hulk Hogan. So Flair gives him 30 minutes to come back out and apologize for the disrespect. Or else.

Meanwhile, backstage at Fall Brawl, Meng goes all Ken Shamrock and beats the shit out of the Nasty Boys single-handedly, which to be honest they’ve had coming for a while.

Arn Anderson v. Joey Maggs

Arn slugs away in the corner but misses a charge, allowing Joey to come back with a dropkick and pound on Arn in the corner. But then AA drops him with a quick DDT and pins him at 1:42. Arn is headed towards a grudge match with Dustin Rhodes at Halloween Havoc, which was probably forgettable because I don’t remember it at all but probably should have been awesome.

The Studd Stable chats with Mean Gene, as AA notes that Dustin was unsuccessful at his attempts at coming out of puberty in WarGames. Well that explains Goldust.

Meanwhile, at Fall Brawl, the Masked Man costs Sting the #1 contendership against Vader for some reason.

Big Van Vader v. Guardian Angel

They fight for the lockup and Angel keeps threatening to throw a punch, but the ref talks him out of it repeatedly. But then Vader boxes him in the corner. I guess he should have thrown that punch after all. Vader smacks him around and Race gets some abuse from the floor. Vader misses the Vaderbomb and Angel makes a comeback and drops elbows on him before going out and taking out Race. Back in the ring, Angel goes up with a flying clothesline for two. He slugs away on the mat, but walks into a powerslam and reverses into a bodypress for two. Back to the floor for more brawling, as he uses Race’s head as a weapon against Vader and it’s a DONNYBROOK as Angel slams Race out there. Back in the ring, Vader slugs away, but Angel suplexes him and gets two. Race trips up the Angel, which he was asking for anyway given his behavior, and Vader drops an elbow to take over again. Vader to the top, but Angel slams him off the top and hits him with a pair of splashes for two. Spinebuster gets two. Angel goes to finish with the Bossman slam, but Race comes in to save and draws the DQ at 6:53. So then Angel beats him up AGAIN and poor Race is just bumping for 17 guys out there, but that allows Vader to hit Angel from behind and destroy him. And this time he does hit the Vaderbomb successfully, and then follows with the Vadersault. I don’t know where the hell this came from but it was an INCREDIBLE brawl for a random episode of WCW Saturday Night. ****

And Mean Gene wraps it up with Ric Flair again, as Evad interrupts and agrees to the title match. Sherri: “YOU’RE NOT GONNA WRESTLE HIM, I’LL SCRATCH YOUR EYES OUT!” Also Flair calls him a “real life Forrest Gump” in a reference that was in fact quite timely in 1994. But then Kevin comes out and tells Dave that it’s his own fault for belittling the Real World’s Champion and now he’s on his own to suffer the consequences.

Dammit I wanted to review that Main Event show but it’s not in my collection of 1994 stuff. This was a pretty fun post-PPV show, however, with a KILLER main event that came out of nowhere, as Bossman and Vader had freaky chemistry in 1994.