Steve Austin vs Ricky Steamboat
Really dug this, and it’s a situation where a good logical
bit of storytelling enhanced an already great match. This is for Austin’s TV
title, and it’s no DQ with Paul Heyman held in a cage over the ring for good
measure. Straight away, when I noticed Heyman taking his phone into the cage,
alarm bells started ringing in my head. “That’s the match ending right there
then” I thought “Heyman throws the phone to Austin, who clonks Steamboat with
it for the win”. It was nice to be proved wrong. Loved Heyman spending the
national anthem giving Austin last minute tips. Austin starts off by going for
Steamboat’s injured ribs, the bandages giving him a big target to aim for.
Austin continues his attack, hitting some backbreakers and then locking in an
abdominal stretch, clawing away at Steamboat’s midsection. I liked that, even
though Steamboat had to work from beneath, he didn’t spend the whole match on
defence, still getting in his fair share of offence, but with the injury giving
Austin a focal point to cut Steamboat off. The rib injury doesn’t mean
Steamboat can’t do anything, it just means he’s a bit slower each time. The end
sees the stipulations used in a clever way, as Steamboat skins the cat, only
for Austin to smash him back out with an elbow to the face, not drawing a DQ
thanks to the rules. Steamboat crawls under the ring and goes to the top ropes
on the opposite side. Without Heyman there to warn him, Austin turns around
into a top rope crossbody to give Steamboat the win and the title. Great
opener.
Arn Anderson & Bobby Eaton vs Greg Valentine & Dick
Slater
Interestingly, this is worked as heel vs heel, with both
teams cheating and fighting dirty. Both team try two-on-one attacks early, and
I loved Anderson and Eaton getting Valentine in their corner, simultaneously hammering
him with punches to the face from inside the ring and punches to the back of
the head from the apron. As neither team are sympathetic, they don’t bother
with prolonged heat sections, so we get nice back and forth action. Eaton nails
Slater with a beautiful right hand on the floor. Everything breaks down, and
Valentine gets accidentally hit by manager Larry Zbyszko with a cane, allowing
Eaton to hit a second rope Alabama Jam for the win.
Ron Simmons vs Cactus Jack
This is for Simmons’ world title. Fun brawl here, loved
Cactus using some early misdirection on a rope run to hit Simmons with a big
flying headbutt. Simmons looks great on offence, him hammering down Cactus in
the corner looked really good, a full energy beatdown. Jack wears down Simmons
with clotheslines, then successfully stops Simmons when he tries to make
comebacks. There’s an odd spot when Cactus seemingly tries to sunset flip
Simmons, and Simmons hits a quasi-Northern Lights suplex for two. Jack hits a
powerslam on the floor, followed by the diving elbow, but Simmons quickly
rebounds with a spinebuster and a powerslam for the win. Bit of a no-sell by
Simmons at the end there.
Barry Windham & Dustin Rhodes vs Butch Reed & The
Barbarian
Reed is a mystery partner for Barb here. Dustin takes an
insane corner bump early, flying into the post so hard that he lands 2-3 metres
away from the ring. The heels wear down Dustin nicely, headbutts to the torso, backbreakers and some big meaty Barbarian elbows. Rhodes
builds nicely to the hot tag, getting a few little hope spots in the run up to
tagging Windham in. Windham runs through the heels with a huge lariat and
superplex on Barbarian, but he gets distracted by Reed, and Barbarian boots him
in the face for the win. Could have gone a bit longer as the heat on Rhodes was
slightly truncated, but I enjoyed this.
Vader, Rick Rude, Super Invader & Jake Roberts vs Sting,
Nikita Koloff & the Steiner Brothers
This is an elimination match, and it’s a decent main event.
The Vader/Rick Steiner face off is surprisingly fun, a battle of the big lads
throwing bombs. Steiner hitting an unlikely belly-to-belly suplex was really
neat. The problem is that the match may well be a bit too short, with a heat
section on Scott being pretty short due to having to fit in all the
eliminations. Nikita is the first to go, rolled up by Jake after colliding with
Rude, then Invader quickly follows after a Sting bulldog. The Steiners continue
to look great against Vader, with Rick hitting a German suplex on Vader.
However, the Steiners end up looking like idiots on both their eliminations.
First Scott comes off the top with an attempt at a top rope clothesline, but
Rick obviously can’t hold Vader on his shoulders, so it looks crap and Scott
gets DQ’d for breaking the top rope rule. Rick ends up on the floor, and eats a
Rude Awakening, causing him to get counted out, and leaving Sting 3-on-1. Sting
looks great as the fired up babyface, not backing down and cowering away, but
instead is all fight, taking it to the heels. The end though, it’s pretty off.
Sting suplexes Rude, but Vader hits a top rope splash, killing both Sting and
Rude, getting himself DQ’d. Rude is as dead as Sting, so Jake drags him to the
corner, tags in and hits the DDT on Sting for the final fall. Vader getting
himself DQ’d and killing his partner in the same move made him look a bit dumb,
but the overall match was fun.
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