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/wrestling /guests /Pitbull3 |
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/wrestling /guests /Pitbull3 |
| Guest Columns | Pitbull 3 |
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Memoirs from 1990-ish (Not your typical WCW fix-it column) Hi again everyone. Last week, it was ECW and the future, this week it is WCW and the past.
So, here I am, 9 years later looking back on the people, places, and the events of WCW at the time, and I can't help but look at things through 1999 eyes. First, the most glaring change is that WCW was still under the NWA banner, with WCW as their "regional" promotion name. This was March of 1990, so WCW had only about 9 months left in the NWA before splitting off, rendering the NWA all but dead. The announcers for the night are a young and non-bells palsy affected Jim Ross. His CC man was a retired Terry Funk. JR was brilliant as ever, calling all the matches, and rarely drifting off to hype other matches. Terry was at times a little slow with the action, but a great foil for JR. The two sounded like they were having legit fun doing the show. The first match had the late Buzz Sawyer and Kevin Sullivan vs. The Dudes with Attitudes. THIS is how a young vs. old feud SHOULD be run. I don't think this was an actual feud, but it could be a mold for how to run it. Sawyer and Sullivan were the balding, old, crazy team, and two skinny versions of the MEN we know now in Shane Douglas and Johnny Ace were the inexperienced kids. BTW, I still find it hard to believe that Ace is Hawk's brother. Anyway, the kids got in early offense by starting off quickly and getting some fast moves. But, the veterans pulled one of them into a classic trap. Sure, the old guys may have cheated, but they use ring savvy to lure them into it, rather than both of them getting in there and just stomping the young guy. In the end, the old guys squelched a hot tag and secured a clean win. The next match was a cookie-cutter Rock and Roll Express vs. Midnight Express match. R&R were the perennial underdogs, and the MNE were my favorite purely heel tag team of that time. By that, I mean that I hated them and I always wanted them to get whipped. My actual favorite team was Demolition, who, even when they were heels, I cheered for. And while I am on the subject of WWF tag teams...I always remembered being GREATLY disappointed at the debut of the WWF's Rockers. When I first heard that, I thought it was going to be The R&R Express under a different name. Its funny how things like that played out for the very best (in Michaels). Anyways, this was right on the Ricky Morten style of tag match (where Face A is beaten to a pulp only to make a big comeback and tag Face B) with the clean win for the faces. As always, this was a great match with alot of great, classic tag team wrestling, and tag team psyhcology. Above all, today's Triad do some of that classic tag team psyhcology with combination moves. If they would only narrow it down to two guys with one who does singles or interferences, then the Triad could be pretty good. Norman vs. Cactus was nothing really special or even helpful for today's standards, except that both of the characters were freaks. Cactus was down to a thin 280. The thing that stands out now, as I type, is that Ross and Funk had a lot of fun with this match. It was a slower paced match with Foley bumping like crazy (as always). Instead of hyping the later matches, or babbling about what they had just seen, the announcers focused in on the match and the characters. They had fun calling the match, and that at least got me in a positive mind-set during the match. It was related to the stuff in the ring, so I knew or felt that the match and the characters were important enough to the announcers to care about that I should probably care about them too. And I do now as I did then. BTW, Norman got the win with the Bat Cave (tm Bobby Heenan during Norman's WWF Bastion Booger days). The Skyscrapers vs. Road Warriors Chicago Street Fight was next. This is how ALL no-DQ tag team grudge matches should be. It was a Texas Tornado-style brawl. This could certainly be a prototype for most hardcore matches. Throughout, it was a bare knuckles fight all over the ringside area. The end saw a masked Skyscraper (someone who replaced Dan Spivey while he was injured) get hit with the LOD's finisher. A completely bare armed (as in no tatoos) and red haired "Mean" Mark Calloway watched on as his partner for the night got pinned. Mark looked good as a brawler, and the improvements he has made over the years have been great. Still 8-9 months from his very impressive WWF Survivor Series debut, Mark was enjoying the undercard. In connection with today, throw in a few chairs and maybe a table, ladder, and other forms of plunder, and this would have been a fantastic hardcore style match-up. Above all, most of the action took place in the ring, and moved at a slow enough pace that the guys had a believable amount of time to recover from each bump, but fast enough so that there were very few dead times. The next match was for the now defunct US Tag Team Titles as Tom "Z-Man" Zinc and "Flyin'" Brian Pillman defended against the (shell of the) Fabulous Freebirds. I say that because Jimmy Garvin never did feel like a real Freebird. I remember seeing Hayes team with Bam Bam Gordy as a very young kid, and they were mean as dogs and tough as nails. But Garvin didn't fit into that mold. Anyways, this match was not too good, with tons of restholds by the challengers. It amazed me how focused Funk and JR were during even those long periods of inactivity. Where I would have otherwise fast forwarded, I listened to Funk and JR carry on about the participants and had fun doing it. This match was just like the OLD/YOUNG match except that the faces won. It involved the veterans doing a number on the faces only to have a face get a quick move in during a brawl to score the win. In a wrestling clinic, the Andersons (Arn and Ole) took on the Steiners. This was a solid match with the Steiners scoring a clean victory. After the match, the Andersons injured Scotty's arm. The moral of this match was that a great wrestling match will get the fans going. If WCW were to put a caliber of match equal or close to this, with characters everyone cared about, people will watch and pay attention. They have characters that fans care about, and people who can put on a great show. If they could combine them, that would be phenomenal. And in the big one, Flair vs. Luger for the World Title. Part of the moment that made this special was the feeling of tension right before the match. JR and Funk had spent the entire show only mentioning the main event. Now, at the time of the match, everything that we have waited for, everything we have been saving and holding in for this match spewed forth as we readied ourselves for the match. It was all that that captivated the crowd and kept them interested as Flair worked his hardest to carry a mediocre Luger. It felt like a good match even though it wasn't. In the end, Luger had Flair in the rack, when the Andersons attacked a helpless Sting. The Horsemen had destroyed Sting's knee causing him to have reconstructive surgery only 4 weeks prior to the event. Luger saw this, jumped out of the ring and saved Sting. Even with the count-out, there was a "send 'em home happy" feeling with this show. The Horsemen were run out of the ringside area, and Luger would have another day. It had a sense of happiness to it and it had that cliffhanger feel with Luger getting an inconclusive loss. If WCW wants to keep the title on a heel, then the faces must always have another day. I can't imagine how much better the nWo would have been or how much longer they could have stayed hot if it felt like some of their rivals, The Giant, Luger, DDP, Savage, or even Flair at times, had a chance. That is what made the Sting episode feel so good. He might not have gotten them this night, but he can, AND he will. Overall, Wrestle War 90 was a great card partly because it had good action, but also partly because of the feeling of the show. It felt,sometimes, like we as fans we getting what we wanted, even if we weren't. And it felt sometimes like what was happeneing in te ring was important and exciting, even if it was a 45 second + sleeper hold. Wrestling is 90% perception, and 10% reality (if not even more perception). If we see things as they ARE, then we have a bunch of guys with costumes pretending to hit each other. But if we really believe what is going on is what there is, then there is no limit to the amount of enjoyment pro-wrestling at its best can provide. Pitbull 3 freelance Mail the Author |
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