The SmarK Rant for WCW Saturday Night – 10.15.94

The SmarK Rant for WCW Saturday Night – 10.15.94

Been missing these so let’s get back to them again! Still on the road to Halloween Havoc ’94 with a Sting-Vader main event tonight.

Taped from Atlanta GA

Your hosts are Tony Schiavone & Bobby Heenan

Last week on The Main Event: Hulk Hogan gets attacked by the mysterious and devious MASKED MAN while trying to save #1 Hulkamaniac Evad Sullivan from a beating. And now his knee is all hurting again, which Bobby finds hilarious.

Alex Wright v. Rip Rogers

Rip teases doing his own backflip off the ropes and then wisely changes his mind. Meanwhile we get an electrifying inset promo from Alex, who claims that Hulk Hogan was his idol growing, read in the tone of a Palestinian hostage reading the newspaper to prove the date while someone puts a literal gun to his head. Rip clowns around and Alex takes him down with an armdrag and sends him to the floor, but Rip cuts him off before he can dive. And then Rip tosses him and hits his OWN dive! Not expecting that out of the Hustler. Back in the ring, Rip hits him with a back suplex and makes sure to put the front row in their place, but Wright backflips over him and hits a leg lariat. Belly to belly out of the corner and he goes up with his crossbody to finish, and GOD BLESS Rip Rogers because Alex was flying in from completely the wrong direction and Rip just caught him anyway and rolled into the move to make it look decent. This man is a PRO. They should have sent Alex on the road to work with Rip Rogers every night for two months straight.

Pretty Wonderful v. Todd Morton & Brian Armstrong

Orndorff starts with the big goofy looking Armstrong kid, who takes him down with a headscissors and then gets pretty excited about it and has to use 1-800-COLLECT to go call somebody. Armstrong with a hiptoss out of the corner, and it’s over to Temu Morton, who takes Roma down with an armdrag. Roma cuts him off with a powerslam to take over and Orndorff necks Morton to set up a flying elbow from Roma. And for the topper it’s the BOOGIE WOOGIE ELBOW from Orndorff and a backdrop driver that’s pretty hellacious if we’re being honest. I mean Todd is no Ricky but he took that one like a champ. Roma slugs him down, but Morton comes back with a dropkick and makes the hot tag to Armstrong. Orndorff immediately pokes him in the eyes, so Morton tags in again so he can take of things himself, but it’s KICK WHAM PILEDRIVER to finish at 6:24. Brian Armstrong was about as useful as a dog laying in the road here, as the kids say, especially when he took a single eyepoke and had to tag out again.

Brian Pillman v. Frankie Lancaster

Pillman takes Frankie down a couple of times and works the arm, since he’s got a giant bandage on his elbow like Macho Man at Wrestlemania V or something. But then Lancaster hits him with a knee to the gut to take over, and immediately misses an elbowdrop while trying to capitalize. Pillman reverses a suplex and makes a comeback, backdropping him and hitting him with chops in the corner. Back elbow and he goes up with Air Pillman to finish at 4:34. Frankie was a real good enhancement guy for someone like PIllman and knew exactly how to make him look good.

HALLOWEEN HAVOC CONTROL CENTER! WITH MEAN GENE!

Hulk Hogan puts his career and World title on the line against Ric Flair, with Mr. T as special referee! Hulk has Jimmy Hart and Brutus do his promo for him from behind the cage, and then drops in from the top of the frame, apparently hanging upside-down on the cage. Who could ever boo this man? And he shreds a head of lettuce on the cage like it’s 1982 or something. And then we get the reply from Flair and Sherri, as Flair cuts his promo from behind the cage and Sherri keeps trying to sneak up the cage while Flair tells her to get down again. And then he can control her no more and she just has to climb the cage!

OK they sold me on the show with this. This was so fucking wacky and awesome.

Hacksaw Jim Duggan v. Ron Oakes

Oakes tries to attack from behind, but Duggan beats him down in the corner and hits him with a clothesline. Duggan drops a knee on him and slugs away in the corner, and then slams him and finishes with the three point stance at 3:00. Well that ends the run of great jobbers on this episode but Oakes was a big guy and Duggan slamming him around was pretty impressive.

Stunning Steve Austin v. Mark Starr

OK back to the A-List losers now. Starr takes him down and works on the arm to start, but Steve makes the ropes. Look, I don’t wanna alarm anyone, but Austin’s hair is really thinning on top. He should keep an eye on that. Austin takes him down and goes to work on the leg. Meanwhile Tony sets up Bobby by announcing Worldwide tapings at Disney, and Bobby quips “That’s my second favorite place to be”. Then an exasperated Tony gives him a few beats and asks “OK, so what’s your favorite place?” as we wait for the obvious punchline, but then Bobby makes HIM wait for a few extra beats and then decides it’s Honky-Land, theme park of the Honky Tonk Man. Austin finishes with the It’s A Wrap leglock at 2:34.

Steve Austin joins Mean Gene, promising to punch Jim Duggan RIGHT IN HIS FAT TRAP if he shows up tonight. Also he blames Ricky Steamboat and Nick Bockwinkel for costing him the title, as apparently Bockwinkel BRUTALIZED him at Fall Brawl, sucker-punching him off-camera and then running him into the post before his title match. Huge if true. Unhinged maniac Steve Austin is the BEST.

The Guardian Angel v. Tony Vincent

Eh, I can’t really classify Mero’s less talented brother as any kind of good jobber, sorry. Angel runs him into various turnbuckles and chases him to the floor with an enzuigiri. Back in the ring for a powerslam. Vincent fights back and Angel puts him down with a clothesline as Bobby notes “Guardian Angel’s got a nice haircut if you’re going to the chair”. Angel with a back suplex but he changes his mind and just drops him out of the backbreaker position instead as this thing is completely falling apart. I don’t know if Vincent won’t sell or what the deal was, but the Bossman slam finishes at 4:00 either way. Unsurprisingly, Vincent didn’t last in the sport any longer than Mero’s WCW tenure and he was gone by 1995.

Guardian Angel chats with Mean Gene ahead of his match with Vader at Havoc, and he notes that the actions of Harley Race were “worse than murder”, which seems a tad melodramatic.

Last week: Hulk Hogan arranges a new robe for Evad Sullivan, of course featuring himself all over it, and that brings out Kevin Sullivan to put him in his place again. But this time Evad punches his brother out. Later on the Main Event, Hulk teams up with Evad to face Ric Flair & The Masked Man and they have a pretty bad match and Flair destroys Evad’s knee with legal wrestling moves while Eric Bischoff declares it “a despicable display”. But then Hulk gets the hot tag and legdrops the Masked Man, only for a SECOND Masked Man to run in for the DQ. Did they still have those Black Scorpion outfits on lease from 1990 and needed to finish using all of them before they went back to the costume shop or something?

Evad Sullivan v. THE GAMBLER

Gambler offers a hug and then attacks Dave in the corner, going after his bad knee, but big dumb Dave does a Hulk up and quickly drops the leg for the pin at 1:20.

We take a look back at the career of Ric Flair, but first we get words from Bobby Heenan, who keeps planting subtle hints that he’s got Mr. T in his pocket in a funny running gag to annoy Tony. Regardless, this was an AWESOME Flair video package, showing promos from him ranging from 1986 to 1994 and highlights of him in the ring and it’s just GREAT pro wrestling stuff. 100% worth checking the show out for.

Commercial note: In the most 1994 sentence of the week, you can get a $5 mail in rebate on a Casio G-Shock watch if you purchase Speed on VHS!

Vader v. Sting

Vader gives Sting too much sass to start, so the Stinger beats on him in the corner and slugs him down, knocking the jockstrap right off his face! So they trade tackle attempts and Vader clobbers him to take over, apparently tired of clowning around already, and he hits Sting with a slam and goes up. Sting cuts him off and brings him down with an electric chair before going up with his own flying splash, which gets two. Clothesline to the floor and Vader takes a stumbling bump out there to put it over, and they fight out there. Back in the ring, Sting takes him to the top for a DDT, but Vader drops an elbow on him and hits him with the Vaderbomb for two. Sting manages to slam him and makes the comeback, but Vader beats on him in the corner and goes to a chinlock to slow him down again while the crowd is losing their minds. Vader gives him the forearms in the corner, but Sting has HAD ENOUGH and slugs back before hitting him with a dropkick for two and a release german suplex for two. They smash each other like bulls again and Vader goes down first this time, so Harley trips up Sting for the DQ at 12:30. Afterwards the heels go for the beatdown, but the Angel makes the save and takes out Race before handcuffing him to the ropes, and then beats on Vader with a chair until security talks him down and warns him that he’ll be suspended if he continues with that. And I know you won’t believe this, because I sure didn’t after I read it, but this was the final meeting between Sting and Vader, ever. They didn’t even share a ring again after this. And they went out with a BANGER on free TV. ****

And Vader threatens to murder Guardian Angel live on PPV in a week to wrap things up, as they chase off Mean Gene and close the show.

Your lesson for the week?

My thoughts exactly.

Next week: The go-home show for Halloween Havoc 94!