The Fabulous Freebirds vs Taylor Made Man & Greg
Valentine
This is a fun opener for the US tag titles that feels
primarily designed to warm up the crowd. A good bulk of this match sees the
Freebirds strutting and making the heel champions look like idiots. They even
do some comic cheating, swapping over an armbar without tagging to the delight
of the crowd. The heels aren’t able to get control until Taylor throws Garvin
through the ropes for Valentine to work over on the floor. Even this is only
temporary as Garvin soon reverses a suplex and gets knees up on a splash,
before a clash of heads lets him make the hot tag. It breaks down and Hayes
tries for the DDT, but Taylor hits him with the Fivearm for a two. The heels
work heat on Hayes for a while, this time lasting a bit longer. Valentine locks
in the figure four, which lasts less than 10 seconds before Garvin runs in to
break it. Hot tag leads to Garvin running over both heels, and despite Valentine’s
best attempts to stop it, Garvin hits the DDT on Taylor for the win.
Tracy Smothers vs Johnny B Badd
Smothers is still billed as “Young Pistol” Tracy at this point. Really fun undercard match, aided by just how into the character Badd is. Badd is still a bit green at this point, but his commitment to the role carries him through, whilst Smothers is able to carry him in ring. Smothers gets great height on a single-leg drop kick, which looks great. Smothers heels it up nicely, using the ropes to his advantage and striking Badd in the throat, before scoring with a lovely diving elbow. I also love how Smothers showboats after a leapfrog, just for a second, which results in him taking a knee to the face. Smothers misses a few wild swings (stooging nicely) and Badd nails the Kiss That Don’t Miss for the win. Enjoyed this a lot
Marcus Alexander Bagwell vs Scotty Flamingo
I appreciate the effort here of two guys trying to add some
intensity to the match, as an even lock up soon leads to an exchange of slaps
and punches. Bagwell looks a bit out of sorts during the match, not getting up
easily for some back suplexes and looking a bit hesitant in places. This may be
why Flamingo grounds him with a chinlock relatively early in the match. Bagwell
hits a fisherman suplex too close to the ropes, which allows Flamingo to grab
the ropes, and Scotty is able to reverse a Bagwell roll up to one of his own,
with a handful of tights sealing the win.
Ron Simmons vs Mr Hughes
This is initially supposed to be a tag bout with Simmons
teaming with Junkyard Dog and Hughes teaming with Cactus Jack. Instead, Jack
assaults JYD from behind, and we end up with Simmons taking on Hughes in a
singles bout. Watching a match like this, you can understand why Bill Watts
wanted to make Simmons world champion. Simmons looks so good on offence, he’s
powerful but with an explosiveness and quickness of movement that makes him
exciting to watch. Hughes is another guy with good movement, but his offence
never looks quite right, like it’s a little too hesitant. He wins brownie
points here, though, for keeping his sunglasses on whilst wrestling. Simmons
hits an impressive spinbuster and a knee chop for the victory.
Super Invader vs Todd Champion
Invader is Hercules with a pair of red tights over his head.
He looks ridiculous and this squash match is very dull. I quite like Herc, but
he hits a milky clothesline off the bat and the tone is set. Unconvincing
karate strikes, chinlocks and chokes are the order of the day, and Champion is
given very little in the way of hope spots. The crowd is utterly dead
throughout. Even the transition to Champion’s comeback sucks, as Invader leaps
off the top rope solely for the purpose of Champion getting his foot up.
Thankfully, Champion only gets to his two piss-weak spinning elbows before
Invader finishes him with a powerbomb. Dreadful.
Richard Morton vs Big Josh
This is a pretty fun deal, worked at a brisk pace by two
guys who know their way around the ring. Josh’s offence looked really good
here, absolutely loved his running forearm into the corner. I thought Morton
trying to work the arm of Josh was a good, logical game plan, and he worked
over it in interesting ways, not just resting in one hold. This really felt
like two guys who knew they didn’t have much time, and were working an
undercard bout, and just decided to have a good match. Loved Josh’s overhead
belly-to-belly suplex, before the seated splash gave him the win.
Tom Zenk vs Brian Pillman
This is for Pillman’s lightheavyweight belt, and is face vs
face. I liked how even the opening matwork was, establishing that the former
partners knew each other well. It also subtly established that Pillman is
slightly better on the mat and that Zenk is stronger. This strength allows him
to force Pillman down with backslides and small cradles for flash pin attempts.
Pillman starts working over Zenk’s leg, but misses a flip senton, hurting his
previously injured back. This gives both guys a focus point for their
comebacks. I loved the figure four sequence, which not only continued the work
on Zenk’s leg, but also allowed both guys to show some aggression by slapping
each other in the face. Zenk’s power advantage allows him to reverse the hold
before catching a Pillman springboard into a powerslam. Zenk ploughs through
Pillman with a top rope crossbody for two. Zenk plays possum by feigning being
unable to stand, then lays out Pillman with a big boot as he comes off the top
rope, only for Pillman to grab the rope on a pin attempt. Zenk misses a top
rope dropkick and Pillman swiftly gets a jackknife cover for the win. Really
great match
The Steiner Brothers vs Tatsumi Fujinami & Takayuki
Iizuka
This match is a lot of fun, just four guys throwing it all
out there. Scott sets the tone early by hitting both opponents with standing
moonsault powerslams in the first few minutes, which is nuts. Iizuka is given a
bit of a spotlight to shine and looks really good against Scott. Loved his
flipping cannonball from the top right onto Steiner. There’s no real heat
section in the match, so the momentum switches between both teams fairly
regularly, but it doesn’t feel like straight up no-selling, more guys taking
advantage of opportunities. Rick Steiner shows scary strength in catching
Iizuka in midair, whilst sat on Fujinami’s shoulders for a Doomday Device.
Fujinami has a smart gameplan and tries working over Rick’s leg, including a
lovely leg stretch by diving from the second rope. The end of all this carnage
comes with Rick hitting an insane overhead belly-to-belly on Iizuka from the
top rope.
Sting, Nikita Koloff, Ricky Steamboat, Dustin Rhodes &
Barry Windham vs Steve Austin, Rick Rude, Larry Zbyszko, Bobby Eaton & Arn
Anderson
AKA Sting’s Squadron vs the Dangerous Alliance in a WarGames
match. I love Paul E Dangerously action having some written plans on the
outside, actually makes him look like a tactical manager. This is such a
perfectly laid out match. The opening section with Windham and Austin is great,
really establishing the hatred. Windham even knaws away at the forehead of
Austin after cutting him open. The heels win the coin-toss, so the entry of
Rick Rude leads to a big beatdown on Windham. As well as putting more heat on
the heels, it means that the arrival of the next face gets a huge pop and
allows them to run riot on the heels. It’s like a hot tag every few minutes. In
contrast, each new heel feels like a “reducer” (to quote Ron Atkinson), coming
in to cut dead the face momentum. For example, when Anderson comes in, he
plants Windham with a DDT and lays out Steamboat with a spinebuster and the
heels are right back in there. He doesn’t enter with an energised flurry like
Rhodes or (especially) Steamboat, just goes in and does his business. It’s this
contrast that cools things down ready for the next face to heat things up
again, which is great. The only time this doesn’t happen is when Zbyszko comes
in, and Rhodes is all over him the moment he gets in the cage, which works with
the “Zbyszko is the Alliance weak link” storyline they were running. Madusa has
to sneak Paul E’s cell phone into the ring to allow the Alliance to takeover
ready for the next face. Just great storytelling.
Nikita Koloff’s entry allows for some more great
storytelling, as there was a slight question about whether or not Sting could
trust him and they eyeballed each other when Koloff got in. Koloff pushing
Sting out of the way to sacrifice himself to an Alliance attack, then the two
faces hugging when they’d gotten the advantage back gets a huge pop, and is
such a well-written moment. This quickly leads to the end, which continues the
Zbyszko storyline. The Alliance had undone one of the steel hooks holding the
turnbuckles in place, and Zbyszko swung it, intending to hit Sting, who was
being restrained by Eaton. Instead, Sting moved, causing the hook to crash into
Eaton and allowing Sting to lock in an armbar to make Eaton give up. Just a
spectacular mix of violence, story-telling, logical layout and action, it’s one
of the greatest matches I’ve ever seen.
