FAN PPV Club Final Week Discussion - SNME 2

[67 more]

It was Chi-Town Rumble that won the poll, so we have until Friday until the next poll starts.

No spoiler tags are required in this thread, so be careful when reading through. If you don't want spoilers, don't enter the thread until you've watched.

Enjoy the PPV and make sure you come tell us your opinions!

EDIT: Actually going to start the week six poll tonight, which will close Sunday morning.

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THOUGHTS WHILE WATCHING

That synthesiser at the start sounds like I should be playing the Mega Drive.
Magnum TA looks very dapper.
I do love 2½ hour PPVs.
Another video package with 16-bit sounding music. This can be the SNES instead of the Mega Drive.

BACKSTAGE INTERVIEW -Bob Caudle & Michael Hayes
Sort out your audio, mate.
I don't think Hayes actually says anything, he just shouts with the help of cocaine.

SINGLES MATCH -Michael Hayes vs The Russian Assassin #1 (w/Paul Jones)
Apparently, my download of the event is before they sorted out the Jimmy Papa problem as what I assume is Badstreet USA is dubbed out. It's actually a decent dub theme for a change although I do wish they'd just use the remake made for Legends of Wrestlemania with Undertaker seemingly on vocals. Commentary is lost.
So there's no doubt on who's going to win this, is there?
Hayes completely whiffs a punch. The Russian gives an atomic drop to try to cover which Hayes immediately no-sells and clotheslines the jobber.
Beautiful sunset flip from Hayes. Very impressive.
Assassin clotheslines Hayes who fails to properly bump, landing heavily on his tailbone.
Long chinlock aaaaand I've stopped caring.
The crowd's into it, as I am again now it's sped up a bit.
Assassin telegraphs a backdrop and gets caught with the DDT for 3.
Meh match, went far too long for a crap jobber match.
Despite being dubbed out in the intro, Badstreet USA quite clearly plays when Hayes wins the match.

BACKSTAGE INTERVIEW - Bob Caudle & Ricky Steamboat
Steamboat cuts a very nervous promo. Little Richie keeps trying to grab the mic and licks it at one point. Not too bad an interview.

SINGLES MATCH - Sting vs Butch Reed (w/Hiro Matsuda)
No entrances for this match.
To compensate for Hayes's no-sell, Reed oversells an atomic drop.
JR references Reed being a former Mid-South North American Champion. It always seems strange when commentators acknowledge other promotions' titles.
Already it's quite clear why Sting became WCW's biggest face. He was so damn charismatic.
Face Sting bites the fingers of Reed. Teddy Long's hair is hilarious. If you're that bald, just cut the rest off.
That double axehandle from Reed sucked.
Matsuda chokes away on Sting which Sting sells excellently.
Old-school heel Reed pulls down Sting in the sleeper by the tights. Been a while since I've seen that. Reed also uses the ropes for extra pressure, which has also been a while since I've seen that.
Reed puts the knees up when Sting goes for a Vaderbomb, which looked great.
I love Reed's selling, he has great facial expressions.
Sting wins it with a sunset flip counter. Reed and Sting brawl but Sting gets the upper hand.
Good match, Sting and Reed have good chemistry, helped by Reed selling his ass off.

BACKSTAGE INTERVIEW - Bob Caudle, Paul E Dangerously, Randy Rose & Jack Victory
Paul E announces that Victory is replacing Dennis Condrey as Cornette doesn't know his weaknesses. I'm guessing that Condrey had left the promotion.

MORE LATER.

AND I'M BACK

6-MAN TAG LOSER LEAVES NWA - Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane) and Jim Cornette vs The Original Midnight Express (Randy Rose & ...Jack Victory?!) & Paul E Dangerously

Both teams have good backstage interviews with Bob Caudle.
Jack Victory is replacing Dennis Condrey as Condrey left the company before the PPV. Cornette buries Condrey during his interview.
Beautiful Bobby is most certainly not beautiful.
Dubbed themes, dubbed themes everywhere.
JR and Magnum try their best to put over Victory.
Heyman and Cornette don't do too bad for non-wrestlers.
Rose comes off the second rope to the floor with what I assume qualified as a plancha in the late 80's.
Victory gives Lane a back suplex who bumps heavily on his elbow. Must have felt awful.
Chaos as all six man get in the ring.
Rose gets pinned after a dangerous double flapjack. I think Rose thought a backdrop was coming.
Fun match.

BACKSTAGE INTERVIEW - Bob Caudle, Ric Flair & Hiro Matsuda

Flair is a promo God. Matsuda is a deer in the headlights.

NWA TELEVISION TITLE - Rick Steiner (w/Scott Steiner) (c) vs Mike Rotunda

No entrances for this match. Battle of the amateur wrestlers.
Not a great lot to talk about this match.
Steiner f***s up an abdominal stretch but luckily both men cover up the botch when Rotunda falls into a pinning position.
Nice missed diving splash from Steiner.
Kevin Sullivan comes out and threatens Steiner's dog, distracting Steiner. Scott does nothing at ringside.
Rotunda with a beautiful Saito suplex.
Rotunda makes a sickening noise after being sent into the turnbuckle. Steiner locks in a sleeper but pins himself to the mat because he's an idiot.
Rotunda is the new NWA TV Champion and by the sounds of it, has his original music!
Meh match with a stupid storyline. If Sullivan was going to hurt Rick's dog, why wouldn't Scott go help so that Rick wouldn't be distracted?

BACKSTAGE INTERVIEW - Bob Caudle, NWA Tag Champions Road Warriors & Paul Ellering

Weird to hear Hawk start a promo without going WEELLLL!
The Road Warriors really did not need a manager.

NWA US TITLE - Barry Windham (c) (w/Hiro Matsuda) vs Lex Luger

No entrances again.
Loud audible OSHIT from Windham before Luger goes for the 10 Punch.
Magnum really has had nothing important to add to this PPV.
Luger misses a top rope shoulder block. Strange to see from Luger.
Windham does Taker's big rolling clothesline. Looks good.
Luger ducks a clothesline on the outside, causing Windham to ram his claw hand into the ringpost. Does Windham blade his hand or is that a hardway?
Windham applies the claw but Luger was able to break out due to the hand injury.
Windham hits his superplex but is slow to make the cover, causing a kick out.
Windham hits a half-back suplex, half-German on Luger for a bridging pin, but Luger gets the shoulder up at 3 while Windham's are down, winning Luger the US title.
Poor sport Windham drops Luger with an awesome piledriver on the belt.
OK match, nothing spectacular.

BACKSTAGE INTERVIEW - Bob Caudle and the new TV Champion, Mike Rotunda.

Big dirty great abrupt cut to this interview from the US title match.
Caudle calls Rotunda lucky.
Rotunda cuts a shite promo, even calling himself the World Heavyweight Champion before correcting himself. There's a reason Rotunda never rose above the midcard.

MORE LATER

AND I'M BACK AGAIN

NWA TAG TITLES - Road Warriors (c) (w/Paul Ellering) vs Kevin Sullivan & Steve Williams

No entrance again.
Why was Sullivan in the Varsity Club again after years of being of a Satanist?
Dr Death delivers the quietest press slam in history.
Dr Death with a f***ing gamengiri! Looked great for such a big man.
Dr Death pins Animal after breaking up the doomsday device but Sullivan gets pinned by Hawk after a flying clothesline. The ref only counts the pin of Hawk and the Road Warriors retain. Looked proper dodgy.
Alright short match with a few good spots here and there.

BACKSTAGE INTERVIEW - Bob Caudle and US Champion Lex Luger

A tired Luger puts over the US title and cuts a good humble babyface promo.

JR runs down the build-up of our main event.

NWA WORLD TITLE - Ric Flair (c) (w/Hiro Matsuda) vs Ricky Steamboat

An entrance! It had been a while. His real music too, which is nice. Sadly, Steamboat doesn't get one.
False finish from a side headlock! I've never seen that before.
These guys are over, Chicago is pumped for this match.
JR is the best commentator in history. Flair and Steamboat are putting on a great match.
What the f***? Flair connects off the top rope with a crossbody! Steamboat counters it into his own pin, still making it a faiulre for Flair.
This match is great.
Flair uses the ropes for leverage for a pin that ref Tommy Young can blatantly see but has to ignore.
Butterfly suplex from Steamboat only gets a 2 when Flair gets a ropebreak. Looks like Flair's head landed on Steamboat's face.
Flying crossbody from Steamboat accidentally KOs the ref. Flair tries to cheat with a tight-pulling schoolboy but there's no ref to count. Flair tries to throw Steamboat over the top (classic NWA rules) while the ref isn't looking but Steamboat skins the cat. Steamboat attempts a top rope crossbody but misses. Figure-four attempt but Steamboat counters with a small package for a 3 count! Steamboat wins his first and only world title, becoming the new NWA World Champion!
Dubbed music as Steamboat celebrates.
Fantastic match. As the WWF had its slow burly monsters, the NWA showed once again it had the best actual wrestling.

BACKSTAGE INTERVIEW - Bob Caudle with the new NWA Champion, Ricky Steamboat.

Steamboat is sprayed with champagne by the babyfaces, including naked Lex Luger.
Steamboat gets champagne in his eyes and someone has to wipe him down with a towel. Hayes and Garvin then proceed to spray more of the stuff into his eyes, because they're assholes.

JR and Magnum bring the show to a close.


Good PPV with a fantastic main event. That match should be required watching for any wrestling fan.

[Seth Drakin of Monster Crap]

Watched the show...really interesting that a lot of matches had VERY close decisions like pins where both men were getting counted as one man got his arm up, sleeper holds where the guy locking on the hold had his shoulders to the mats, and one man had the legal man pinned while the pinned guy's partner had the other guy pinned.

Good show though....highlighted by its main event being one of the best wrestling matches you will ever see.

By the way, don't chop Ricky Steamboat in his chest or he will chop you in the face.

[wildojinx]

Anyone know if Russian Assasin/Hayes and Reed/Sting had feuds behind them or did they just have the matches to put over sting and hayes?

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Jun 3, 2014 22:55:26 GMT -5 wildojinx said:

Anyone know if Russian Assasin/Hayes and Reed/Sting had feuds behind them or did they just have the matches to put over sting and hayes?

I don't think they did.

From what I can tell, Sting was more concerned with Flair and the Road Warriors at this time. I can't find any matches between him and Reed at this time.

Hayes had a couple of matches against the Russian Assassins but I don't think it would qualify as a feud. Hayes, oddly, was working as a face without the rest of the Freebirds, who were still working down in World Class.

[67 more]

Clash of the Champions IX has won so watch here and discuss away. Hopefully we'll have more participants this week and we have until the poll locks on Friday to discuss it.


EDIT: Also, I feel my super-long posts may be causing people to go "f*** it, he's said everything I'm going to say" so I won't add anything until Friday.

[Seth Drakin of Monster Crap]

Watched Clash of Champions IX and yeah, that Flair-Funk match was very good and really brutal. Only other thing of note about this show was it was the show that Jim Cornette turned his back on the Dynamic Dudes and the crowd was happy that he did.

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THOUGHTS WHILE WATCHING

How the hell did the Road Warriors keep their theme when DDP's gets dubbed out?
Classic DQ finish so neither team have to job.
I have zero feelings about the Doom match apart from Woman being beautiful.
Interview segment with Cornette and the Steiners - and Scott Steiner's speaking calm and normally. What is this? They name the Frankensteiner.
Oh, this is the show where Cornette turns on the Dudes. The Dudes got booed the shit out of.
Dr Death beats "Super Destroyer" Jack Victory and hugs Norman. Well, that's something. Victory has very bad selling.
Steiners vs The Skyscrapers and it's as dangerous as shit. Rick necks Spivey with a German suplex so Spivey nearly kills Rick with a tombstone. Instead of holding Rick around the waist, he holds Rick by the knees. So dangerous and unprofessional. Sid also collapses a lung when he takes his one bump of the match, Scott's backflip fallaway slam where he plants himself on his head.
DQ finish as Doom interfere and Woman gets led away by some big goof who I later found out was called Nitron (played by Tyler Mane, who played Sabretooth in the first X-Men and Michael Myers in the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween).
Luger and Pillman have a fantastic match, with dastardly heel Luger using a chair to win it. People shit on Luger but the guy had a lot of good matches when he was younger.
Funk vs Flair is an absolute classic and is required watching for any wrestling fan. That's how you do an I Quit match in a family-friendly setting. The J-Tex Corp turn on Funk and Luger comes out to dole out the boots as well, as the heels stand tall at the end of this Clash. How will the faces win at Starrcade? Buy the PPV and find out!


Not the best overall show but the US title match and I Quit match make it required watching.

[67 more]

Survivor Series 1987 is this week's PPV.

[Seth Drakin of Monster Crap]

Only thought while watching this:

Why can't WWE return Survivor Series to this type of PPV?

[king1836]

Jun 14, 2014 20:25:20 GMT -5 Seth Drakin of Monster Crap said:

Only thought while watching this:

Why can't WWE return Survivor Series to this type of PPV?

Exactly! I also miss the team competition.

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QUICK THOUGHTS AS I'VE WATCHED THIS RECENTLY

First match was OK.
Women's match was great, minus a few blown spots here and there. I love Velvet's weird tiltawhirl crossbody (possibly a botch but it looked awesome). Didn't love Sherri dumping Velvet on her head with a botched gutwrench. The Angels look great.
20-man match went far too long.
Main event was shite.

[Professor Chaos]

Loved Ventura going off about Hogan coming back out to pose like he won the match.

[jason1980s]

Getting the WWE DVD release of the events up to 1996, it was amazing to watch it with nearly all the original themes. Only one missing was Steamboat's and I got a friend's VHS a few years later so that too, was cool.
I thought the Craig DeGeorge Coliseum Video voice over was a cool way to edit the entrances but hearing the original themes was so much better.

[Captain & Diet]

My favorite memory of this PPV was that my parents announced they were splitting up during the main event.

[67 more]

Starrcade 1993 won the poll, so discuss away.

[67 more]

Good God, that was a bad show.

Opening tag match was meh. Roma nearly broke his own neck by sitting up on a splash he wasn't supposed to, Orndorff got befuddled by an assisted pele kick which I think was meant to be a headscissors and Roma would sell his arm by just shouting "He's hurting his arm." Not a good match and why the f*** was The Assassin there?

Shockmaster vs Awesome Kong (not that one!). f***ing terrible. The Kong had the wrong attire on. Bell never even rang to star the match and King Kong was about five minutes late with a splash to Shockmaster after he got the pin.

Regal vs Steamboat was a bore since they telegraphed it was going to a draw. Announcers were basically telling Steamboat to hurry the f*** up and wrestle like there was a time limit. Very disappointed.

Foley & Maxx Payne vs The Godwinns was pretty bad. Foley tried to do an assisted hilo but obviously caught his back on the ring apron, which you could tell hurt him really bad. Payne Killer's a great name for a finisher though.

Austin vs Dustin. What the f*** was that booking? You have the heel win 2-straight after the face causes himself to lose a fall by being a complete f***ing goober. Lots of restholds. Austin took a scary f***ing bump into the crowd though.

Rude vs The Boss... happened. Nonsensical spot where Rude is hung up in the tree of woe and Bossman is punching him outside, so Bossman then runs into the ring, runs the ropes, slides out....to punch him again and nearly kills a cameraman in the process. Anti-climactic finish and you can tell the International title is worthless.

Nasty Boys vs Sting & Hawk. My God, was this f***ing bad. Blown spots, lack of regard for anyone's safety and long restholds. Worst of all, the f***ing thing went 30 minutes! Knobbs sat on Sting's head with a diving legdrop and completely bottles a diving splash. Knobbs also blatantly climbs the ropes because he's too fat to be put in the Doomsday Device. Sting and Hawk return the favour by dumping Knobbs on his head with the Device. Lame DQ finish. Shite, shite, shite, shite, shite!

Then we have the main event of Vader vs Flair and it is a f***ing classic. The only thing worth watching on this shitheap of a show. Both men bring their A game and make up for all the shit I've just had to endure.

[cabbageboy]

I haven't watched Starrcade 1993 in a long time (I bought a VHS of it, a factory LP mode tape blah) but that review is almost 100% accurate. For a show that has some fond memories that show SUCKS aside from the main event. In fact WCW's PPVs for most of 1993 just had the stupidest finishes known to man. Halloween Havoc is another PPV that I just watched and it too had perhaps worse booking than this show, although it's tough to top the Nastys vs. Sting/Hawk deal here that went 30 MINUTES to a DQ finish (and even then it looked botched, haha).

I think Austin/Rhodes was the match on here that totally amazed me with bad booking. I'm pretty sure Flair took over booking from Dusty around this time, hence him jobbing Dustin hard two straight falls. What a way to make a babyface look like a total jobber moron though. Give the guy a DQ fall at least to have it go 3 falls if nothing else.

It always amazed me that for the duration of WCW as a Turner entity no matter who was booking they always did these really long matches that had stupid DQs. At least Russo books a 5 minute DQ schmozz instead of a match going 20-30 minutes to a stupid finish.

Anyway, yes...watch Flair/Vader (even there the finish sucked though). That match is overall a classic, but the rest of this show is awful, no good, very bad.

[andrew8798]

The Assassin was Roma's and Orndorff's manager

[percymania]

Just turned WCW Starrcade 93. I'm sure I've seen it before, but I don't remember what happened so I'm going to avoid all other recaps until after I watch this. I'm just going jot my notes as I go here...

- Great intro. In my mind, Vader was the biggest badass of the time and seeing him during this era still gets me excited.
- David Flair sighting! Holy crap did not expect that. Is that a young Reid and Charlotte in this segment as well?



- The opening tag match was OK. Bagwell, Scorpio, Roma and all Orndorff put on a solid performance. I don't recall who the Assassin is, sadly.
- The melodramatic segments with Ric Flair mulling retirement on his way to the arena are pretty dull.
- How the hell did they get away with a guy named "King Kong"?
- Uncle Fred The Shockmaster! I'm marking out bro.
- "Is the match underway? We don't know." Typical WCW lol. And did the wrong guy wrestle in that match? How odd.
- I liked Steamboat vs. Regal just fine. The days when a 15 minute match was considered short seems feels like ancient history. I miss time limit draws, believe it or not. I used to love the Television title because of the time limit stipulation.
- Cactus Jack! Bang Bang! He gets a decent pop, which is nice. No idea who these other guys are. This match belongs on Saturday Night rather than your biggest PPV of the year, but whatever.
- Seeing the old WCW Hotline promos makes me wonder how WCW would be plugging Twitter and shit if they were still around. #kylepetty
- Stone Cold Stunning Steve Austin! US Champ Dustin Rhodes! 2 of 3 Falls! Holy crap! Shiavone: "You're looking at two men who will dominate WCW for the next decade." LMFAO
- The lights go out during the US Title match, which is actually pretty cool. Ventura: "We have a real dark match here." LMFAO
- With WCW so popular in the Carolinas back then, I can only wonder how popular the Hardy Boys would have been had they came up through WCW's ranks.
- That title looks so good on Rick Rude. I miss him. Heck, I miss Ray Traylor too. I just got sad all of a sudden
- Nasty Boys in the semi-main event?



- What a crap ending to a crap match. I'm talking about the Nastys vs. Sting/Hawk.
- Not much to say about the main event, other than it was a great match. Ric Flair actually hits moves off the top rope in this one. The pinfall at the end was pretty sloppy.  Great night for Ric Flair though.
- I don't understand the title situation at the time. Rick Rude is wearing the Big Gold, but the main event was for the "Professional Wrestling Heavyweight Championship" represented with a belt I don't recognize.
- All in all, a pretty good card.  Lots of WWE Hall of Famers on this one.