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The SmarK Rant for WCW Worldwide – 11.02.91

By Scott Keith on 9 September 2026

The SmarK Rant for WCW Worldwide – 11.02.91

Taped from Montgomery AL on 10.08.91 I think. That’s where last week was taped and I think they’re still there. If not I will immediately stop the review and issue a correction. That’s my promise to you, the reader. The taping schedule for the end of the year is just a crazy hodge-podge of shows cut and pasted together from here until December.

Your host is Tony Schiavone, going solo again. I can’t take much more of that. GET HIM A COLOR COMMENTATOR AGAIN.

Tony is very excited about the new gimmick for the month of November, SUBMIT OR SURRENDER matches, kicking off the series with two noted submission specialists, Johnny B. Badd and Beautiful Bobby Eaton. Also you can win SUBMIT OR SURRENDER matches by ref stoppage, because WCW.

Barry Windham v. Larry Zbyszko

You kids might know this matchup from their feud over the UWF Western States Heritage title in 1988. Larry unsurprisingly stalls to start and hides in the corner. “Larry has done a lot of talking and no wrestling yet” notes Tony. Insert Ron Swanson “Oh really?” clip here for you TikTok people. And then, SWEAR TO GOD, Tony actually does bring up their feud in 1988 for the Western States Heritage title after I made that half-hearted attempt at a joke to open the match. GET OUT OF MY HEAD, TONY SCHIAVONE. Barry works the arm and drops knees on his shoulder, but Larry dodges a charge and Barry goes flying over the top rope, allowing Larry to take over on the floor with a slam out there. Back in with a suplex for two and he puts the boots to Windham on the ropes and chokes him out. Windham fights back, but misses a dropkick, and Larry gets two off that. Larry with the neckbreaker for two and he goes to a chinlock while telling various punks in the front row to shut up. This brings out Arn Anderson, perhaps to personally deal with the punks in the front row who won’t shut up, while Larry gets two. FULL BODY LIFT AND SLAM gets two. Windham with a sunset flip for the pin at 7:21, and the Enforcers beatdown commences. And Ron Simmons makes the save to chase them off, setting up (checks notes) absolutely nothing. Match was certainly something that existed and you can’t take that away from it. **

WCW THIS WEEK WITH ERIC BISCHOFF

So this is a new segment on the show, I guess replacing Gordon Solie. So Eric interviews Teddy Long and Johnny B. Badd as they explain the SUBMIT OR SURRENDER stips and I’m giving it -500 odds that the match ends via a method that’s neither submission nor surrender. Also Johnny is unsure why Bobby is called Beautiful when he’s clearly more uglier than Johnny is. I have to agree, Marc Mero was a good looking guy.

Speaking of guys with good looks and literally nothing else…

Van Hammer v. Paul Lee

Much like the Dynamic Dudes carrying their skateboards without ever riding them, Van Hammer carries a flying V guitar with all the grace and skill of someone who has never strummed a guitar in his entire life, thus killing any of his credibility with the gimmick right away. Hammer works the arm and puts Lee down with a short clothesline. Hammer with a gourdbuster and slingshot suplex to finish at 1:21. Why would a heavy metal icon use a slingshot suplex as a finisher? What the fuck does that have to do with his gimmick? He should call his finisher the drum solo because you know it’s coming but you can’t do anything about it.

Anyway, I’m 100% confident that this will undoubtedly be the worst gimmick of 1991 that I’m going see this week. And now to prove that, I’m just going to unpause this video and watch the next match. But first I’m going to take a big drink of my water and hold it in my mouth while I start the show again.

Arachniman v. Lou Fabiano

Oh WCW, you never fail to disappoint on every level. This mysterious spider-themed masked babyface seems suspiciously close to the wrestling style of Badstreet for some reason. Also, and I can’t stress this enough, WCW’s legal team claims no similarities between the character of Arachniman and any other spider-themed masked babyfaces that he might resemble. For example, and this is an important distinction, this spider-themed masked babyface has a PURPLE costume, which makes him legally distinct in all meaningful senses. Or at least that’s what they tried to tell Marvel Comics. Oh yeah there’s a match there. I think he wins with a victory roll, what the fuck do I care.

WRESTLING NEWS NETWORK! WITH GORDON SOLIE!

Hey, it’s still there! So the WCW This Week was a BONUS then. Lucky me. Lucky all of us. Gordon wants to talk about Halloween Havoc, calling it “quite the show”. Hey there, big guy, let’s not say anything we can’t take back. Also he doesn’t say anything about Halloween Havoc specificially since this was likely taped before the show aired. But you know what we CAN talk about? Big Van Vader. Let’s see some footage of him. No that’s enough of Vader. Let’s talk about Bill Kazmaier instead, and also let’s talk to him. Bill says there’s talk that he’s a contender for the World title. Is that like when Trump says “Many people are saying” and then just lies about whatever the topic is?

Oh hey speaking of lies and slander, it’s time for the WCW TOP TEN!

  1. Sting
  2. Stunning Steve Austin
  3. Ron Simmons
  4. Barry Windham
  5. Dustin Rhodes
  6. Rick Steiner
  7. Tom Zenk
  8. Cactus Jack
  9. Abdullah the Butcher
  10. Bill Kazmaier

IMPORTANT LEGAL NOTICE

World Championship Wrestling takes intellectual property rights extremely seriously.

Following several unfortunate incidents involving spiders, wizards, oversized European gentlemen, rock musicians, and whatever the hell PN News was supposed to be, WCW has retained a team of highly compensated attorneys to ensure that all wrestlers appearing in the WCW Top Ten are sufficiently different from any existing fictional characters, occupations, celebrities, animals, comic-book heroes, or other human beings.

Accordingly, several minor modifications have been made to this week’s rankings.

#1 — Sting
A completely original professional wrestler who wears face paint, uses a baseball bat, dresses predominantly in black and white, and has absolutely no resemblance to any other fictional character who has ever worn face paint, carried a weapon, or lurked mysteriously in the shadows.

#2 — Stunning Steve Austin
A completely original blond professional wrestler who bears no resemblance whatsoever to any other blond professional wrestler.

#3 — Ron Simmons
A former collegiate football player who is now a professional wrestler. WCW Legal has determined that this is sufficiently vague to constitute a gimmick.

#4 — Barry Windham
A cowboy-themed professional wrestler. Cowboys remain in the public domain.

#5 — Dustin Rhodes
The son of Dusty Rhodes, who has been determined to be legally distinct from “Dusty Rhodes” because he is younger and has a different first name.

#6 — Rick Steiner
A professional wrestler who wrestles professionally and is named Rick Steiner. The WCW Legal Department has been unable to identify anything to which this could possibly be a ripoff.

#7 — Tom Zenk
Tom Zenk.

#8 — Cactus Jack
A fictional character who is in no way inspired by the concept of a cactus, a jack, or a person who might conceivably be named Jack. Except for his actual father, Jack Foley, but the legal team isn’t entirely convinced that he even exists.

#9 — Abdullah the Butcher
A completely original character whose primary distinguishing feature is being an extremely violent professional wrestler from Sudan who has been wrestling for approximately forty years.

#10 — Bill Kazmaier
A professional wrestler.

We cannot stress this enough.

He is a professional wrestler.

Please stop asking why.

ADDITIONAL COMPLIANCE MEASURES

WCW has also reviewed several wrestlers currently under consideration for future inclusion in the Top Ten.

Arachnaman has been removed from consideration because his gimmick is insufficiently distinct from an extremely popular comic-book character.

Van Hammer has been retained because there is apparently no trademark protecting the general concept of a guy with a guitar.

Oz remains under review pending confirmation that the Wizard of Oz is not going to sue us.

The Diamond Studd has been instructed to stop standing near anything described as “diamond.”

Johnny B. Badd has been informed that his name must not be pronounced in a manner that causes anyone to think of a famous rock song.

WCW would like to assure viewers that these measures demonstrate our commitment to originality.

We have therefore created an entirely new match called the SUBMIT OR SURRENDER MATCH, which is completely unlike any match ever held in professional wrestling.

Except for the rules.

And the wrestling.

And the wrestlers.

And the fact that two people are fighting.

But legally, it is totally different.

Thank you for your continued support of World Championship Wrestling.

WCW: We’re Not Ripping Anyone Off. We’re Merely Being Influenced.

Our legal team thanks you for your attention to this matter.

Rick Steiner joins Tony, and he’s been moving up the ladder, and much like noted professional wrestler Bill Kazmaier, he is also a contender to Lex Luger’s World title. And he’s pretty confident that he could beat Lex, and in fact he’s beaten Lex before. This brings out Lex to refute these spurious claims, and he tells Rick to stick to tag team wrestling. I should point out that in fact the Steiner Brothers beat Sting & Lex Luger EARLIER THIS YEAR, on a major PPV. And they didn’t bring that up. So Lex heads to the ring to teach Rick a lesson in humility and actually does a decent job of kicking Rick’s ass, because every goddamn babyface in 1991 gets their ass kicked by Luger. But in this case, Rick backdrops out of the piledriver and they slug it out while Rick makes the comeback and then hits Lex with a german suplex out of the corner after a missed charge. So Rick suplexes Race into the ring and then hits Lex with the belly to belly and a ref counts the pin, which is 1000% a better setup for a title match than nearly anything else this company has done for the rest of the year, so you have to give them that. And yeah I’ll likely redo Clash 17 pretty soon too.

MOMENTS AGO here’s the same thing we just saw before the break, in case you forgot about it.

SUBMIT OR SURRENDER: Johnny B. Badd v. Beautiful Bobby

I love that Capetta announces that the match is set for one fall. IT’S LITERALLY NOT. There’s only ONE WAY TO WIN:

  1. Submit
  2. Surrender
  3. Can’t Answer the 10 Count of the Referee

You may think this is actually three ways to win, but WCW Legal has looked into the math and decided that legally speaking, three is close enough to round down to one without getting sued by any math professors who might be watching the show. Also there’s not a statistically significant portion of university educated math majors who would have been watching the show in 1991. I mean, I was. But I’m pretty sure no one in my class was. Oh yeah there’s a match. Bobby works a hammerlock on the mat, trying to induce either a submission or surrender, although I’m not sure what the legal distinction between those would be. Hang on, let me check with WCW Legal.

SUBMIT means:

A wrestler voluntarily acknowledges that his opponent has established superior control and verbally communicates his desire to end the contest.

SURRENDER means:

A wrestler voluntarily acknowledges that his opponent has established superior control and verbally communicates his desire to end the contest with greater legal finality.

The crucial distinction, obviously, is the tone of voice.

A competitor may win the Submit or Surrender Match by causing his opponent to either submit or surrender.

For purposes of this match, “submit” and “surrender” are considered completely separate conditions despite the fact that the WCW Legal Department cannot identify a meaningful difference between them.

In the event that a wrestler appears to satisfy both conditions simultaneously, the referee shall determine which one occurred first.

If the referee is unable to determine which occurred first, the match shall continue.

If the referee determines that both occurred at exactly the same time, the match shall continue anyway.

If the wrestler claims he was neither submitting nor surrendering, the referee shall consult the WCW Legal Department.

The WCW Legal Department shall not be available because it is currently attempting to determine whether Arachnaman is a spider or a man.

Honestly I’m sorry I asked.

Anyway, back to the match, which I’m sure you care about as deeply as I do, as Bobby throws Badd over the top rope but Tony points out that since this a disqualification is neither a SUBMISSION or a SURRENDER, the match can continue. Sure yeah why not. Bobby goes to the top and threatens a dive. But he doesn’t dive. Because that would give me some small modicum of enjoyment and this isn’t the show for that. Back in the ring, Johnny batters Bobby with punches in the corner and he’s on the verge or submitting or maybe even surrendering, but in fact he does neither, and so Badd does a sunset flip instead but that’s neither submission nor surrender so nothing happens. They more pinfall attempts here in this match with no pinfalls, apparently because they’re stupid, and then fight to the floor as Tony finally clarifies with 5 minutes left in the show that they’re actually in Huntsville AL at the Von Braun Civic Center. HOLD ON.

Taped from Huntsville, AL on 10.15.91

Your host is Tony Schiavone

OK now I can sleep.

Badd goes up and drops an elbow and yeah I’m impressed that I’m still paying attention to this match too. Bobby with the Alabama Jam, here in Alabama where it hurts more, but they collide on a leapfrog attempt of some kind and both are down. Not as down as me writing WCW Legal Department monologues to entertain myself, but down. So the referee announces that the first man to get to their feet wins the match, thus inventing a FOURTH way to win the match that we didn’t know about, and Bobby slugs Badd down and wins at 9:00. You might note that this is neither a submission nor surrender nor even failing to answer the 10 count but it’s an ending, and isn’t that enough sometimes? I mean, sure, you’d appreciate if they could book a submission finish in a match called “SUBMIT OR SURRENDER” but it’s WCW so you’re left just giving them credit for whatever they can cobble together in terms of coherent booking. Like when your friend shows you a drawing of a butterfly or a tractor or Mr. Beast or whatever kids are drawing these days, that their clearly untalented and uninspired child did in school, and you play along and pretend it’s not hideous because you don’t want to hurt their feelings to their face. Never too early to start thinking about trade school for your preschooler, that’s my motto. Have you SEEN their drawing? You’re just setting yourself up for disappointment if you set your sights too high with some kids, ya know? And I’m not calling out anyone in particular here, but if you’re reading this and you think I might be talking about you specifically, then you probably know I actually am talking about you and how you’ve failed as a parent already. YOUR KID CAN’T DRAW, OK? How hard is it to draw a butterfly? Why does society dictate that I have to play along with your delusion? Get him some art classes already, I don’t care if “he’s only 4” or “he just got out of chemo” or whatever lame excuses you’re making. You’re the problem here, not me, hypothetical friend.

NEXT WEEK: CACTUS JACK v. STING IN A SUBMIT OR SURRENDER MATCH! Oh fuck that’s probably gonna rule. What am I supposed to work with there? I’ll check with WCW Legal Department and get back to you.