The SmarK Rant for WCW Saturday Night – 10.01.94

The SmarK Rant for WCW Saturday Night – 10.01.94

Hope everyone remembered to do whatever the hell you do with your clocks on Daylight Savings Time day! We here in Saskatchewan do not celebrate that day so all that happens is our TV show airtimes get all messed up. So once again my daily reviews are probably gonna be either an hour earlier or an hour later for you because math is hard and I just post everything at 6:30AM my time all year round.

Previously on the live edition of Main Event: Ric Flair beats Evad Sullivan to retain the Real World’s title, but Hulk Hogan sticks his orange nose into Ric’s business. Also the Masked Man was there for some reason. Also Stars & Stripes win the tag team titles from Pretty Wonderful!

Taped from Atlanta, GA

Your hosts are Tony Schiavone & Bobby Heenan.

Pretty Wonderful v. Jumpin Joey Maggs & Barry Houston

The heels are introduced as the “former champions” so they’re MEAN MUGGING on the way to the ring. Not to be confused with jobbing face. Maggs works on Orndorff’s arm to start, sadly back in his regular gear after spending a couple of episodes working in gear borrowed from the Midnight Express. Roma comes in and beats on Maggs, so Houston comes in and Roma quickly puts him down with a corner elbow and follows with a dropkick. Orndorff takes him down with a hammerlock as Tony claims that the arena is “jammed with Hulkamaniacs, like every arena in the country”. Sure, just like no one ever leaves Trump’s rallies. Pretty Wonderful double-teams Houston and Roma hits him with a triple backbreaker, and Orndorff adds a backdrop suplex and then finishes him off with the piledriver into a Roma flying elbow at 6:41. You could tell it was time for a new top heel team to emerge, which ended up being Harlem Heat.

Afterwards, Orndorff challenges Stars & Stripes to a rematch at Halloween Havoc, which they will no doubt fail to accept being that they’re cowards and cheats and suchlike.

Alex Wright v. Kenny Kendall

Alex’s purple WCW jacket looks dorky as hell but if they put it on WWE Shop they’d probably sell a buttload of them. A BUTTLOAD I SAY. Wright controls Kendall with a side headlock, and then they trade hammerlocks on the mat, before Wright finishes with a flying bodypress at 4:00. Early Alex Wright didn’t have much going on in these.

The Sullivan Brothers join us and Kevin is NOT a believer in Evad’s magic slippers or Hulk’s mumbo jumbo about training and prayers and vitamins.

HALLOWEEN HAVOC CONTROL CENTER! WITH MEAN GENE!

As announced earlier, Stars & Stripes will defend against Pretty Wonderful, plus Johnny B. Badd defends the TV Title against the Honky Tonk Man, and Dustin Rhodes finally gets his singles match with Arn Anderson. Arn’s graphic has him dressed like a dancer in a questionable bar, but he still makes it work.

Harlem Heat v. Larry Santo & Bucky Siegler

I believe we have joked about the jobber being “L. Santo” before but it’s always a classic. So suddenly the Heat have changed their names to (checks notes) “Booker T” and “Stevie Ray”, which I feel like might be a mistake in the long run but I guess we’ll see. Santo works the arm on Stevie Ray, but Booker puts him down with a sidekick and Stevie comes in again with a slam before the Heat put the boots to Siegler in their corner. Booker with the axe kick and Stevie puts him down with a clothesline while Tony is desperate to figure out what the Heatseeker is. Everything is the Heatseeker apparently. Booker goes up and misses a legdrop and it’s back to Santo, who kind of runs wild before falling victim to a Doomsday Device at 3:51. Now that WAS the Heatseeker. Heat looked very impressive here and they’d soon add one last piece.

Last week, Guardian Angel and Vader have a shockingly great TV match and will apparently have a rematch at Halloween Havoc.

Johnny B. Badd v. Rip Rogers

Well this is certainly a flamboyant pairing. They trade hammerlocks on the mat while Tony and Bobby discuss the main event of Wrestlemania III as though it was a WCW event. Badd tries a splash and hits Rip’s knees, allowing Rip to slugs away in the corner. Badd comes back with an atomic drop as Rip bumps all over for him, and then Johnny takes him to the top for the rana to finish at 2:50. Still trying to get “Badd Day” over as a finisher name, still not working.

Meanwhile, Mean Gene has EXCLUSIVE HOTLINE NEWS about an unannounced match for Halloween Havoc. That man was clickbait before anyone even knew the word.

Dustin Rhodes v. Tony Vincent

Vincent manages to get some offense in the corner, but Dustin backdrops him and puts him down with a Flip Flop & Fly before finishing with the bulldog at 1:44.

Vader v. Tommy Stevens

Stevens looks legit terrified to be in there, so Vader bullies him into the corner and smacks him down before following with a short clothesline. Bobby clarifies that Muhammad Ali’s real name, Cassius Clay, translates to “glass jaw”, while Vader hits a Vaderbomb and then pulls him up. Also we learn that the upcoming Vader-Angel rematch is not just a grudge match, but a SUPER grudge match. That’s even bigger! Vader finishes with the powerbomb at 1:40.

Afterwards, Gene chats with Harley Race while Vader smashes a chair in anger and then declares that he’s taken the Guardian’s nightstick and uniform and next he’ll take his CAREER. Damn, that’s cold. Soon the poor guy will need signs like “Ray Traylor will wrestle for food”.

Meanwhile, Hulk Hogan gives Evad a signed poster and a pair of his old boots, redoing the Hillbilly Jim angle from a decade earlier while claiming “94,000 people” at the Silverdome. This guy’s got Trump syndrome.

Ric Flair joins us and points out that he had Dave Sullivan fully under control until Hulk Hogan got into his business, which brings out Dave still talking about his stupid boots. Look, he was wearing the boots against Flair and he still didn’t win the Real World’s title, so I’m gonna have to call bullshit on that one. Clearly Hulk is a shyster who is gaslighting the poor idiot for his own gain. So Ric turns around and counts to five, demanding that Evad be gone when he turns around again, but Hulk Hogan shows up instead and challenges Flair to a tag match NEXT WEEK if Ric can find a partner. And also, Ric has to agree to put his own career on the line at Halloween Havoc. I don’t see how one thing has anything to do with the other, but they had to find a way to get the Flair retirement stip into the PPV, I guess. Also the tag match will be on the Main Event, not WCW Saturday Night, which is weird. Were they trying desperately to juice the numbers or something?

Steve Austin v. Mark Starr

Austin quickly finishes with That’s a Wrap at 1:40.

Afterwards, he continues his unhinged SIDEBURNS-LADEN promo run, wanting a rematch with Jim Duggan at Halloween Havoc and wondering if he needs to steal the 2×4 or insult the USA to get a match.

Your TBS commercial of the week is their airing of Shaka Zulu, the 1986 miniseries about an African king, which features an IMDB cast that’s like 12 deep with old white guys before you ever get to the Africans. I haven’t watched it in a long time and I know it’s excellent, but I’m just amused by that.

The Honky Tonk Man v. Frankie Lancaster

Bobby clarifies that Flair was taken out of context when agreeing to put his career on the line, calling it a metaphor like when you say “I hate broccoli” but you don’t REALLY hate broccoli. I should hope not, only monsters hate broccoli. Honky takes him down with a snapmare and works on the neck, continuing his streak of finding gears lower than first in this WCW run. Lancaster gets some shots in the corner, but Honky just boots him down and finishes with the Shake Rattle and Roll at 2:12. If AI was a thing in 1994 they might as well have just overlaid a computer generated avatar of Honky to work these squashes while the jobber pretended to take bumps. It’s not like he was ever any good in the ring, but at least in the WWF he showed some personality out there.

US title: Hacksaw Duggan v. Lord Steven Regal

Holy shit, this match actually DID happen! I really hope this lives up to the hype in my own brain. But first, we take a break and get an ad for Exit to Eden, a movie where they stuck Rosie O’Donnell in bondage gear and wondered why it was one of the biggest bombs of the year. We get a lengthy stall to start, and Regal finally comes out throwing forearms, but Duggan clotheslines him to chase him to the floor again. “I just had a bloody manicure this morning!” Regal notes with disgust. Back in the ring, Regal can’t take Duggan down, and ol’ Hacksaw hits him with an atomic drop, and Regal’s selling of that is delightful. So then Duggan slugs away on him, with Regal continuing to sell the punches even after Duggan stops throwing them, and he bails to the floor for advice from Sir William. Back in the ring, Regal goes for a full nelson and Duggan powers out of that, and then reverses to his own while Regal shrieks in pain and horror at having his own move done to him. He escapes with a cartwheel, but stops to admire his own handiwork and gets thrown out of the ring again as a result. Back in the ring, Duggan tries a backdrop and Regal hits him with a cheapshot and chokes him out on the ropes before adding a beatdown with forearms in the corner. Regal goes to a chinlock on the mat and Duggan escapes from that, and then dodges a senton from Regal as well. Duggan makes the comeback and slugs away in the corner before going after Sir William for absolutely reason. Three point stance on Regal, but Steve Austin runs in for the DQ at 9:46, which was really the only way this one was gonna end. And Johnny B. Badd makes the save, which I’m assuming sets up a tag match right away. This did not disappoint at all, as Regal decided to go out and just sell the shit out of all of Duggan’s goofy offense and it was GREAT. ***

And we finish up with Hulk Hogan and his cadre of kiss-asses, now including Evad Sullivan. Hulk would never have gone for it, but Evad turning on Hulk when he reveals that he was playing the long con with brother Kevin wouldn’t have been the worst idea in the world. They could have done a Clash match or something. Mean Gene lets Hulk ramble about his bullshit and then wants to know who Ric’s partner is gonna be, but Hulk doesn’t know and keeps saying “Magic Slippers” over and over in what is supposed to be a serious program to determine a unified World champion with careers on the line. And Hulk poses to end the show, of course.

Still really enjoying these. I know they fall off a cliff after Starrcade but I’ll take it while I can.