The SmarK Rant for WCW Fall Brawl 1993

Live from Houston, Texas.

Your hosts are Tony Schiavone and Jesse Ventura.

WCW TV title: Ricky Steamboat v. Lord Steven Regal (w/ Sir William Dundee).

Hey, remember back in the day, when Regal was still the CHALLENGER for the TV title? Good lord, they’re lucky if there’s 5000 people in the arena tonight. No wonder they’re called paper-views around this time. God help any poor cameraman who should accidentally pan to the right-hand side of the arena, since everyone in the crowd was herded over to the on-camera side of the place. If you watch WCW shows from 1991-1996, you’ll notice that the camera hardly ever shows the other side of the arena — that’s why. Anyway, Regal is slim and trim here. Steamboat’s ribs are taped from a Regal attack the night before, and Regal beats on him. Pretty stiff match. It’s called “psychology” and Steamboat is the best, second only to Flair. Mat wrestling clinic, which bores the crowd, but then half of them were
probably comped off the street anyway. Steamboat sells the rib injury for 18 minutes, even remembering that a flying bodypress would do him more harm than good and acting accordingly when he tries it. Regal tosses him over the top rope, and Steamboat does the “swing back in” thing, but Sir William clocks him with the umbrella and Regal suplexes and bridges him for the pin and his first TV title. Good match.

Rating: ***

Eric Bischoff interviews the Nasty Boys, who have a Big Surprise for the Horsemen tonight. Uh, Missy Hyatt was already taped coming out with the Nasties at the Orlando tapings for months prior to this match, but I’m sure there’s some monks in Tibet watching the satellite feed who might know be aware of that…

Big Sky v. Charlie Norris.

Picture Chris Jericho with foot-high lifts in his shoes against Tatanka aged 10 years and with no muscle definition, and there ya go. Triviata: Big Sky’s first WCW gig was as Woman’s bodyguard Nitron in 1989 when she managed Doom. WCW was an equal opportunity employer — they’d push anybody, regardless of race, religion or talent. Norris wins with a DEVASTATING, uh, kick to the head.

Rating: DUD.

That’s 5 minutes of my life I’ll never have back again.

Scott Dunlop, the world’s only cerebral palsy-afflicted wrestling announcer, interviews the Bulldog. I won’t even touch on this one…

Paul Orndorff & The Equalizer v. Marcus “Not Buff Yet” Bagwell & 2 Cold “Not Funky Yet” Scorpio.

Does anyone think Flash Funk and Buff Bagwell would make a kickass team today? Okay, just asking. And speaking of retards, it’s Evad Sullivan before he discovered his relation to “brother” Kevin. 2 Cold is pretty pumped here, which is a pretty good indication that he’s not stoned. This is the very definition of a throwaway match. Horrible match. Terrible match. Orndorff accidentally hits the Evad-lizer, who manages to do a 90 degree turn on the way down to fall into position for the 450 splash from Scorpio to end it.

Rating: 1/4* for the finisher.

Lord Steven gives a wonderfully pompous interview.

Shanghai Pierce (w/ Tex Slazenger) v. Ice Train. And now the Godwinns rear their ugly heads in their previous, cooler incarnation. Pierce is Henry and Tex is Phineas, in case you cared. You can imagine how exciting *this* match is. Juice Train shakes off a double-team and hits a powerslam for the pin.

Rating: DUD.

WCW World Tag Team Title Match: Arn Anderson and Paul Roma v. The Nasty Boys.

Here’s how suspenseful this one was: Four months’ worth of footage with the Nasty Boys as tag champs was filmed in early summer, and Missy Hyatt was their manager. For this match, the Nasty Boys were not yet champions and didn’t have a manager. Gee, I wonder who’ll win here and who their big surprise will be? The Orlando tapings were EVIL, people. Just ask Sid Vicious. 🙂 Anyway, onto this match. Paul Roma’s heel turn had already been taped as well, so everyone knew they would not only lose, but Paul Roma would be turfed from the Horsemen soon after. Paul Roma was a joke, btw. There is, like, a five-minute non-stop stall to start out. Roma is involved, no surprise there. AA gets it and it picks up a wee bit. Then Roma’s back in and it’s boring again. Tony and Jesse spend the whole match making veiled skank references about Missy Hyatt. One of the most boring matches I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen the Pancrase PPV so that’s saying something. Tony & Jesse resort to talking about Houston’s sports scene during one resthold. And it’s like 30 minutes long! It just keeps going and going and NOTHING EVER HAPPENS. The Nasties spend the entire match putting the faces into boring resthold after resthold. In order: reverse chinlock, another chinlock, abdominal stretch, a bearhug and another bearhug. Each other lasts about 2-5 minutes. Finally, mercifully, we get to the finish as Roma makes the hot tag and hits a swandive, but the referee is distracted with Anderson and Sags hits the Shitty Elbow for the pin and titles in one of the most anti-climactic title changes ever.

Rating: DUD.

I only avoid negative stars out of respect for Arn Anderson here.

Review of the Cactus Jack “amnesia angle”. I believe this one ranks around #4 or #5 on my ongoing list of “Dumbest angles ever devised by WCW.” A pre-taped interview with Jack reveals that it was all a ruse on his part to play mindgames with Vader. The interview is the best part of the show.

Cactus Jack v. Yoshi Kwan.

Okay, let’s clear something up right now, because a lot of my mail to the FAQ address deals with this: Yoshi Kwan = Chris Champion. Mortis = Chris Canyon. They are TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE. There seems to be some website that lists real names which has Mortis and Chris Champion as the same person, which is patently WRONG. This is likely a misprint on the website’s part, and since I don’t know which it is I can’t point any fingers but I suggest checking your site if you run one because if *I* run across a stupid error like that one I’m going to drop you an e-mail and bitch at you about it. Anyway, Yoshi Kwan is the usual insulting “white guy dressed as an Oriental guy” gimmick, in the tradition of Kato in the WWF (Paul Diamond and Chris Champion would actually make a good team, but that’s neither here nor there…) Crowd is pretty hot, but this match never really gets going, as Jack easily hits the double-arm DDT a couple of minutes in to reclaim his little bag. Don’t even ask what that is.

Rating: *1/2

WCW/NWA/International/World/Gold Belt Title: Ric Flair v. Rick Rude.

Don’t even get me started on the title up for grabs here. Rude has Fifi the maid imprinted on his tights to piss off Flair. Flair gets the figure-four very early on. Jesse makes bold-faced misogynistic comments, including the old “barefoot and pregnant” line, so the female sound editor cuts off his mike! The match, meanwhile, is an extended armbar. Then an extended chinlock by Rude. Then some exciting punches by Rude. Then an even more exciting bearhug. There’s a lot of that going around tonight. Rude takes control but keeps jawing at Fifi. Flair finally reverses the Rude Awakening into his own, but only gets two. Flair begins going after the leg, but Rude recovers and hits the fistdrop finisher, for only two. Rude keeps hitting on Fifi, and she finally slaps him. Rude pulls her into the ring and berates her, and Flair nails him from behind and slaps on the figure-four. Nick Patrick is busy getting Fifi out of the ring, and Rude pulls an international object out of his tights (NOT THAT ONE!) and nails Flair for the pin and the “World title”.

Rating: *1/2

Worst Flair match I’ve seen in a long time.

WarGames: Sting/Dustin/Shockmaster/Bulldog v. Kane/Kole/Vader/Vicious.

Harlem Heat were known as “Kane” and “Kole” back then.

Animal is at ringside with the faces, just to prove he’s not dead for tax purposes. US champ Dustin Rhodes starts out against WCW champ Vader (waitaminute…didn’t Rude just win the “World title?” That crazy WCW…) and Vader kicks some Rhodes booty. The heels win the coin toss (GASP!) as Dustin uses his boot to retaliate. Stevie Ray (or Kane, or whatever you wanna call him) is next in. Sting comes in and cleans house next, going after Vader and producing the best segment of the match. Sid is third in for the heels, and is even lazier than usual, if that’s possible. Dustin blades somewhere along the line, of course. Bulldog comes in and takes on Sid and Vader by himself. Not much else going on until Booker T raises the roof (okay, maybe not…) and the heels take over decisively. Things are looking bleak…but fear not! The SHOCKMASTER is yet to come! Hope he doesn’t trip on his way in. When MOTHERFUCKING TYPHOON is main-eventing, it’s time to pack it in. Shockmaster runs in, puts Booker T in a bearhug almost immediately…and it’s over. Yes, just like that. Having seen all the WarGames, I can quite easily declare this one the worst without too much deliberation.

Rating: **1/2, and that’s just because that’s the minimum automatic rating for a WarGames match.

The Bottom Line:

WCW sucked more shit in 1993 than any federation ever had before and was only topped by the AWF recently for heights of suckiness. This show was predictable because the results were given away to 200 fans in Orlando months before with very little “leak protection” on Eric Bischoff’s partn and everyone had it firmly in “phone it in” mode as a result. Not as bad as Bash 91, of course, but avoid this show at all costs.

Better things were ahead by Starrcade 93, but that’s another review…