The SmarK Rant for WCW Worldwide – 05.04.91

The SmarK Rant for WCW Worldwide – 05.04.91

Originally written 02.24.26

Taped from Montgomery, AL on 04.08.91

Your hosts are Tony Schiavone & Gordon Solie

DEAR GODS OF WRESTLING: Please let me get through one 1991 WCW syndicated episode without a goddamned Freebirds squash. Thanks.

The Young Pistols v. Rip Rogers & Joe Cruz

Good pairing on the heel side. Cruz looks like he could be Hangman Page’s dad. So this begins the weird period where the Pistols lost their last names and were just introduced as “Steve” and “Tracy” like they were a boy band or something. So we get an inset from DDP, who declares that the upcoming US tag team title match will be the “Young Pistols v. The Sex Pistols” because Hayes is so sexy. Maybe he was confused by Sid Vicious being around? The Pistols double-team Rip with energetic armwork in the corner, and finish Cruz with a double-team missile dropkick at 1:45. The Pistols were dead in the water without the Midnights to play off.

El Gigante v. Magnum Force

This seems like it was going to be a handicap match, but only the guy who looks kind of like Jimmy Garvin actually works the match. Gigante immediately tosses him to the apron with a hiptoss and then suplexes him back in to show his Greco-roman skills, before finishing with THEE CLAW at 1:10. Gigante working 1:00 squashes wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but any time they tried to move him higher was a disaster.

Meanwhile, we get a nicely subdued video package of the Steiners v. Sting & Luger, basically showing them both hitting big moves before concluding with a shot of the belts and the names of the teams. Good enough!

Dustin Rhodes v. Lou Fabiano

Dustin hits him with dropkicks and takes him down before going to work on the arm. Clothesline and bulldog finish at 1:20, and I’m happy to report that he spun his finger in the air before doing the move, like a real Texan. It’s the universal symbol for a bulldog.

SUPERBRAWL CONTROL CENTER! WITH GORDON SOLIE!

Gordon very politely asks for our permission to allow him to run down the entire card, and then he does so before I even have a chance to answer! The card looks decent on paper, but there was so much bonkers stuff on this show that it was legendarily bad until the last few matches. So we get promos from Teddy Long and Ron Simmons, as Butch Reed isn’t even showing up for TV tapings at this point and was just putting Simmons over night after night on house shows on the way out. We also see an angle with Dustin Rhodes refusing a place in the York Foundation, despite Alexandra telling JR that Dustin was “a young man with a lot of spunk”. Well she’d be the expert on that. Also we are privileged to get a promo battle between Sid and Gigante, as Sid repeatedly calls him STUPID to really sell the personal hatred.

Sid Vicious v. Scott Sandlin

Sid’s impending exit was a such non-secret that even PWI was basically saying “Yeah he’s off to the WWF after this show”. Sid whips him into the corner and hits him with a one handed chokeslam before putting the boots to him and finishing with the powerbomb at 1:40. But then El Gigante comes out, cleverly disguised as an EMT while he wheels his own stretcher out, and Sid runs away. They got me, he’s truly a master of disguise on the level of Gene Parmesan!

Hey, let’s go back to Japan again as Tatsumi Fujinami splits up the NWA and WCW World titles for a little bit with a disputed pinfall win over Ric Flair. Honestly if they had even taken 10 minutes on TV to explain that the NWA and WCW titles were different and Fujinami only won one of them, it would have at least given them a storyline. We also get the press conference afterwards, where Flair steals the Big Gold Belt back, which only makes sense as an angle if you’re looking at it from the Japanese perspective. Also a promo from Bill Alphoso, so there’s that.

Big Van Vader v. Rob Morgan

Vader clubbers him down and follows with a back suplex before hitting a big splash for two. Vader with a press slam and he follows with a powerslam to finish at 1:25. The helmet was cool but there still wasn’t much to the character at this point.

Barry Windham & Arn Anderson v. Brian Pillman & Bobby Eaton

Well this is something. Tell me Beautiful Bobby and Flyin’ Bryan wouldn’t have ruled as a babyface Midnight Express? YOU CAN’T. They pair off and slug it out, as Pillman chops on Barry in the corner while Arn brawls with Bobby on the floor. Windham hits Pillman with an atomic drop while Bobby slugs Arn down on the floor. Barry with a DDT, but Pillman backdrops him while Bobby bleeds on the floor from something we didn’t see. Back in, Windham pounds on Eaton’s cut, but he makes a comeback and slugs away before putting him down with a back elbow. So now Pillman fights with Windham on the floor while Bobby comes back on Arn with a neckbreaker for the pin at 3:04. Way too short, as they were having a hellacious brawl and this was shaping up to be a hidden gem before the abrupt finish. Also, Windham and Pillman had a horribly disappointing match at SuperBrawl when that should have been awesome as well. The whole feud was Barry beating him like a drum, basically. **1/2

Ricky Morton v. Terrence Taylor

Taylor slugs away on Morton in the corner, but Ricky hits him with an atomic drop and the dreaded JAPANESE ARMDRAG out of the corner to send Taylor running. Back in the ring, Ricky takes him down for two and works a headlock, and a bodypress gets two. York, meanwhile, uses her computer to look up Morton’s history of child support payments, but it doesn’t have enough storage back in 1991 for that much data, because DVD drives weren’t invented yet. Taylor escapes all the headlocks with a stungun and puts the boots to him to take over, and a doctor bomb gets two. Taylor with the Fivearm for two. Morton slugs back and backdrops Taylor, and a sunst flip gets two. But then Taylor counters a headlock with a rollup, using the ropes for leverage, and that gets the pin at 5:00. But then tattletale Dustin Rhodes runs down and stooges him out to the ref, and Morton rolls him up for the pin with Dustin also counting. And we’re desperately out of time! An OK match. **

Couple of decent TV matches here this week, but it just doesn’t feel like SuperBrawl season yet! Also a distinct lack of Big Josh, the guy literally carrying the company on his flannel-covered shoulders, in the past few weeks. Are they even gonna advertise the trained bears he’s supposed to be bringing to the ring? Well better luck next week I guess.