At or near my list of things to do next week is to sit down and watch this Takada vs Hashimoto match for the IWGP title. I’d wish I could see the match where Takada won the belt from Mutoh but I need to see this finally, very critical to the history of Pride FC the crown jewel of my heart.

But I’ve decided that I finally need to bucket list WCW 1992. It’s been something I wanted to see for a while now so I have Starrcade 91 loaded up to warm up to it.

Feb 27, 2023 3:14:15 GMT Neo Zeed said:

But I’ve decided that I finally need to bucket list WCW 1992. 

Sweet! You'll be kicking things off with a bang in the January Clash of Champions. Love that show. No all time classics, but there are 4 good matches, a hot debut, and it features a cool show long angle. Plus I just love the whole vibe of this era. The January Clash also holds a special place in my heart for being my introduction to the great Dangerous Alliance and that period of WCW in general. Missed out on like 97% of WCW in real time 90-92 due to availability issues in my area. I wasn't even sure WCW still existed from approximately June 91-December 92! I was so far out of the loop I still referred to it as NWA! Anyway, the Dangerous Alliance blew me away when my best friend Rick brought his tape of this Clash over in early 96. What a collection of talent! Remember soon going through my rapidly expanding collection of wrestling magazines to circle all mentions of the Dangerous Alliance and its members 

Other highly recommended 1992 WCW matches include War Games and the two big Sting/Vader bouts.

Feb 27, 2023 3:14:15 GMT Neo Zeed said:

But I’ve decided that I finally need to bucket list WCW 1992. It’s been something I wanted to see for a while now so I have Starrcade 91 loaded up to warm up to it.

Fuck yeah. 1992 WCW is like a periscope into another dimension, a dimension where WCW is revving up to go full blown New Generation. You just have to forget all the young guys are squandered, by like, 1994. 

Baker man mentioned Clash, but then SuperBrawl 2 comes right after that, the first WCW PPV I ever taped, and therefore one of those guaranteed to watch tapes on a home from school sick day. Fuck it, SuperBrawl 2 time again, the Price is Right fucking sucks. A genuinely great PPV of its era, with the GOAT opener (Pillman vs. Liger) until WrestleMania X (Bret vs. Owen) two years later. Windham/Rhodes vs. Austin/Zbyszko is just a good time (Cruncher Zbyszko is my favorite Zbyszko). Arn Anderson/Bobby Eaton vs. The Steiners is exactly as good as it sounds. Rude vs. Steamboat and Sting vs. Luger aren't quite as good as it sounds, but still good. The vibe of this era is just incredible. The ramp, those matches, Cactus Jack, Abdullah the Butcher, Vinny Motherfucking Vegas, Gary Michael Cappetta sounding like the voice of the apocalypse, JR/Jesse Ventura's commentary, this is WCW wrestling before Hogan, so fucking beatiful. 

Then the next PPV has the GOAT War Games match. Pillman even gets a good match out of Tom Zenk on that card (which Pillman would hilariously often cite as one of the reasons he was so fucking good. Who else could claim such a thing?). Pretty sure the Steiners did some cool shit on that card, too. They always did in those days.

Then you got a Clash with Steiners vs. Doc/Gordy, which just fucking owns. Law of the Steiners doing cool shit on every card, holding true. 

Beach Blast is so much better than it had any right being. Sting vs. Cactus is so good it makes you curse WCW not understanding what they had with Cactus, Rude vs. Steamboat finally delivers, then a Steiners vs. Doc/Gordy rematch which isn't as good as the Clash, but still rocks.

And we haven't even gotten to The Sting vs. Vader feud yet.

Great American Bash is kind of a one match card, but it is the first great Sting vs. Vader match. Man, GMC announcing Big Van Vader, while that terrifying music plays, Vader galloping on that ramp wearing that fucking mask, that's wrestling, baybeeeeeee.

You get the awesome Jake Roberts debut this year, the first "He doesn't even work here!" I ever remember. Seemed like the biggest defection ever to me, at the time. Unfortunately the Halloween Havoc match between him and Sting sucks, it fucking blows. As does most of that card, actually. 

Starrcade has the greatest Sting/Vader match of the year, along with a great tag match between Pillman/Windham vs. Shane Douglas/Ricky Steamboat. This is what would eventually bring the Hollywood Blonds vs. Douglas/Steamboat, and this is, without a doubt, Shane Douglas' best work outside of ECW (although in retrospect, he was sharing the ring with Pillman, Austin, Windham and Steamboat in these matches, so that's probably relevant to it being the best he ever looked).

Just a great year. WCW is kind of fumbling it already by Havoc, they are still WCW, but I think it's the best year they had (not counting NWA years) before the nWo era. Mention WCW to me, I'm either thinking of nWo era or this era. Which is kind of insane, but that's just the way my age lined up. 

I’ve always been so intrigued by 1992 WCW. After reading/writing so much about ECW on the old PW I came to the conclusion that this period of WCW was so critical to ECW you could almost consider it like a prequel of sorts. For me I was always a WWF kid for the most part so I never really watched or knew much about 1992 WCW, and as a result I was missing a ton of context when watching through ECW back when we were doing AHT.

I always had this on my list of stuff I’d like to watch through in chronological order. I downloaded the first few months of Saturday Night 92 a few years ago but never committed to watching through. Now I see the Network has uploaded the Saturday Night tapes picking up where I stopped downloading, plus all the PPV and Clashes. So armed with these and all of 92 Observers it’s time to watch through this year finally. To get it warmed up I watched Starrcade 91 Sunday night it was pretty awful.

Feb 28, 2023 12:14:09 GMT Neo Zeed said:

I’ve always been so intrigued by 1992 WCW. After reading/writing so much about ECW on the old PW I came to the conclusion that this period of WCW was so critical to ECW you could almost consider it like a prequel of sorts. For me I was always a WWF kid for the most part so I never really watched or knew much about 1992 WCW, and as a result I was missing a ton of context when watching through ECW back when we were doing AHT.

I always had this on my list of stuff I’d like to watch through in chronological order. I downloaded the first few months of Saturday Night 92 a few years ago but never committed to watching through. Now I see the Network has uploaded the Saturday Night tapes picking up where I stopped downloading, plus all the PPV and Clashes. So armed with these and all of 92 Observers it’s time to watch through this year finally. To get it warmed up I watched Starrcade 91 Sunday night it was pretty awful.

Battlebowl on paper is an intriguing concept but using your biggest show of the year as a vehicle for it was pretty misguided. However that ending was great with Vader, Luger, Rude, Austin, Sting and Steamer.

Looking forward to the reviews, and for people like me who don't have the network classicwrestlingstuff on youtube has uploaded around 90 episodes of various 1992 WCW programming. I caught mostly the Power Hour during this time frame and the odd Worldwide in it's weird afternoon timeslot plus the occasional Saturday Night when at the grandparents. Kilgore's post from the other thread captured the atmosphere pretty well and I still have a lot of nostalgia for it.

Battlebowl was one of the many things about WCW I just did not like. That’s crazy they used the full Starrcade to do that. It was just weird rules that required too much thinking for me to figure out. Let me try to get this straight, you had to win one of the random draw tag matches to get in battlebowl? Then there were 2 rings, so if you got eliminated you had to go to ring 2 like a double elimination?

Battlebowl is like another World War III in that it's cool in theory but didn't work out so well in practice.

In hindsight I don't understand why they were so hellbent on turning their flagship show Starrcade into a gimmick PPV. 89 & 90 had tournaments. 91 & 92 had Lethal Lottery/Battlebowl. Fwiw they broke BattleBowl off into a separate November PPV in 1993. It was a box office bomb. One of their lowest drawing shows until the bottom fell out in 2000.

I actually always kinda had a thing for World War III, that was one thing I did like. I remember watching the 1998 match a while back and thinking the concept wasn't as bad as it's made out to be by a lot of people now. I remember really digging the 95-96-97 matches back in the day, I seen the 95 tape first and loved it and ended up renting 96 and 97 that weekend and just was kind of obsessed with the concept of it.

I'm loading up the first episodes of Saturday Night now, I've had these on my hard drive for a few years now. I may have watched a few of these and I'm seeing now that the whole highlight, the star of the show, the show stealer, is the full commercial breaks with some epic 1992 commercials. I actually found Kuffs vhs tape at one of the shops I used to haunt and can honestly say it may be the worst movie ever made.

The Soloflex commercial with the Pure Moods music. Man I want one.

How bad ass is the Dangerous Alliance? Let me get this straight, you got Austin, Zybisco, Eaton, Arn, and Rude? Anybody else? 

I noticed that the WWE Network picks up right at the episode I don't have, in April 92. But I watched one of those and noticed that it's a radically different format show from these ones I have downloaded from earlier in the year, more of like a talk show set up with guest co-hosts deal. 

Seeing a lot of familiar faces from Mid-South, Jim Ross, Terry Taylor this was after the Red Rooster his manager Alexandria York looks like that one nerdy chick from Friday the 13th part 7. Let me find out it's the same lady. 

Mar 1, 2023 3:37:07 GMT Neo Zeed said:

The Soloflex commercial with the Pure Moods music. Man I want one.

How bad ass is the Dangerous Alliance? Let me get this straight, you got Austin, Zybisco, Eaton, Arn, and Rude? Anybody else? 

I noticed that the WWE Network picks up right at the episode I don't have, in April 92. But I watched one of those and noticed that it's a radically different format show from these ones I have downloaded from earlier in the year, more of like a talk show set up with guest co-hosts deal. 

Seeing a lot of familiar faces from Mid-South, Jim Ross, Terry Taylor this was after the Red Rooster his manager Alexandria York looks like that one nerdy chick from Friday the 13th part 7. Let me find out it's the same lady. 

Madusa played a shit disturber for the DA as you will see as an added layer to the Steamboat/Rude feud in the spring.

Alexandra York would become Marlena in the WWF. She was originally the make-up lady in WCW, someone took notice and decided to make her a manager. That's where she and Dustin first met.

Going into 1992 the flagship Saturday show was still called "World Championship Wrestling." In the spring they switched it to the talk show format and officially called it WCW Saturday Night.

Mar 1, 2023 3:37:07 GMT Neo Zeed said:

1. How bad ass is the Dangerous Alliance?
2. Let me get this straight, you got Austin, Zybisco, Eaton, Arn, and Rude? Anybody else? 
3. Alexandria York looks like that one nerdy chick from Friday the 13th part 7. Let me find out it's the same lady. 

1. Extremely
2. Madusa was their valet. Oh, and Paul E. Dangerously as their manager, obviously.
3. She's the future Marlena!
=============
I was wicked hyped for the 1995 World War III. 3 rings! 60 men! A giant in every ring! It was like a Royal Rumble on steroids. So my friends and I are all pumped to watch this bigger, better, badder Royal Rumble. It was the second WCW pay per view I saw live.....and it sucked. It was an impossible to follow mess with those three little rings on the tv screen.

Loved how gimmick match heavy WCW was, although they obviously wrecked YEARS of Starrcade with stupid Battle Bowl. But any time they busted out multiple rings I was HYPED. It's just a beautiful image. War Games obviously used it best. World War 3, fortunately, was during the cruiserweight era, so even if the main match disappointed, you knew someone in the opening match would figure out how to use the extra ring to do something cool.

Maintain that the 3 rings for World War 3 could have been cool if not for a stupid battle royal, which are terrible! Always. Even Royal Rumbles, the absolute as good as it gets for battle royals because it reduces the clutter and adds the intrigue of WHO'S COMING OUT NEXT, still are mostly boring.

But man, Spin the Wheel Make The Deal, War Games, even the ridiculous cages they would make for like Hogan vs. Dungeon of Doom, I would be so fucking hyped. Gimmick matches rock.

I'm living proof of Kilgore's WCW gimmick match theory. I only ordered 3 WCW pay per views...

Fall Brawl 95 featuring my first War Games
World War III 95
Uncensored 96 featuring the Doomsday Cage Match

Verdict: Gimmick matches draw, brother
============
Just so nobody thinks my complaining about WCW gimmicking up Starrcade is me unnecessarily kicking WCW, I also thought it was weird that 3 of WWF's original Big 5 pay per views were gimmick shows- Royal Rumble, KOTR, Survivor Series.
============
Have to grudgingly agree with Kilgore's Battle Royal take as well. Battle Royals are a lot like Colossal Jostles in that I still get hyped for them even though deep down I know they suck 98% of the time. At best you'll get a cool finish like Angle/Eddie from an early 2004 Smackdown that makes you forget how meh the rest of it was.

Why just last week I watched an AEW Battle Royal so meh I didn't even bother to write it up in the Match Review thread. Finishing stretch with Jarrett winning was fun. A chap named The Butcher had a good showing. Rest of it was mostly lousy and Battle Royal-y.

I was always super curious about that 3 tier Uncensored 95 cage match but just could never pull the trigger to rent that tape, too much other stuff I wanted to see. Also same goes for the one Starrcade they did with the scaffold match. There was a video store in Conroe Texas that was the size of Wal Mart in my memory, it had the all time GOAT wrestling section, like 2 big 6 foot tall shelves loaded from top to bottom, back and front. It was like heaven to 10 year old me. That Starrcade tape with the scaffold match on the cover always grabbed my attention by the balls like a Faces Of Death tape or something, but I never got around to renting it.

Made it through the January 11th episode of Saturday Night and man both shows have been pretty great. The Arn vs Dustin Rhodes main event was PPV quality match. Then the one I just watched for Jan. 11th is a six man with Arn, Eaton, Zybisco vs Ron Simmons, Steamboat, and Dustin Rhodes, just a beautiful short six man that had this little crowd hot all the way through, very fun match. They had some great stuff going with this Dangerous Alliance angle, seems like WCW hit the ground running in 1992. Interesting considering they were coming out of to me what seemed like a pretty bad Starrcade(and from what I can remember reading a pretty huge mess of a year overall in 1991). 

Also there was a really cool Steiners squash on this episode, one of the jobbers was in full on Big Bossman police gear.

Made my way through a good chunk of the first Clash Of Champions of 1992. I get major Toejam and Earl vibes from PN News. Also the Cactus Jack vs Hammer match was surprisingly good hardcore brawl.

I read an interesting letter to the Observer in one of the 1991 end of the year issues where one of the readers put Cactus over as the best wrestler of 1991, saying he was the saving grace for WCW that year and the Eddie Gilbert feud was feud of the year without even being on TV.

I've raved about the elevated catwalk ramp of ECW's PPV shows and loving it here in this Clash, another element that makes me feel like this DA era of WCW was like a prequel to ECW. Also get the feeling that the Mid-South I watched was like a prequel to this era of WCW. Everything is connected. Tornadoes are just wind stirred up in different directions. 

The elevated catwalk entrance ramp that is level with the ring apron is one of my favorite things, a small thing that has this HUGE cinematic element being added to this whole spectacle. It's one of the reasons why I believe ECW Anarchy Rulz 1999 is the greatest pay per view in the history of pay per view, really transcending beyond being a wrestling pay per view but just one of the most amazing live human dramatic theatre presentations there has ever been in the last 10,000 years of mankind's existence. That event truly was a phenomenon. The catwalk ramp was such a huge part of it. 

The Rude/Steamboat match at Beach Blast is an all-time classic battle.

Mar 11, 2023 15:46:00 GMT Neo Zeed said:

The elevated catwalk entrance ramp that is level with the ring apron is one of my favorite things, a small thing that has this HUGE cinematic element being added to this whole spectacle. It's one of the reasons why I believe ECW Anarchy Rulz 1999 is the greatest pay per view in the history of pay per view, really transcending beyond being a wrestling pay per view but just one of the most amazing live human dramatic theatre presentations there has ever been in the last 10,000 years of mankind's existence. That event truly was a phenomenon. The catwalk ramp was such a huge part of it. 

Was such a huge fan of the ramp going to the apron. Me and my best friend from childhood would wonder why WWF didn't do it. This was a conversation we had multiple times. It was just the coolest shit to us. When ECW started to do it, we were like, man, Paul E. understands. It doesn't get any cooler than a ramp going to the apron. He is one of us.

Part of why I love this WCW era. I see the ramp, I just feel good.

The ramp added a sense of realism to the product that added to the product that distinguished WCW from the WWF.

Agree with you guys on the elevated ramp entrance being cool.

Mar 11, 2023 12:27:22 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Made my way through a good chunk of the first Clash Of Champions of 1992. Cactus Jack vs Hammer match was surprisingly good hardcore brawl.

Agree with this as well. Also liked the two Dangerous Alliance tag matches and the opener with the Steiners chucking the hosses around. Jesse Ventura's debut felt like a huge deal and Paul Heyman cut some great promos vowing his Dangerous Alliance would injure at least one of the good guys so bad they would never wrestle in WCW again. Even the opening narration setting the stage for Dangerous Alliance vs. Sting's Squadron got me hyped. I knew literally nothing about this entire era of WCW first time I watched this show in late 95-early 96 and that opening told me everything I needed to know. Throw in the great Gary Michael Cappetta on ring announcing duties and know nothing late 95-early 96 me thought this was a promotion on fire that must have done big business.

You can tell Jesse & JR didn't care for each other professionally speaking & it showed. I thought Jesse & Tony were great together.

Mar 11, 2023 21:09:04 GMT Kilgore said:

Mar 11, 2023 15:46:00 GMT Neo Zeed said:

The elevated catwalk entrance ramp that is level with the ring apron is one of my favorite things, a small thing that has this HUGE cinematic element being added to this whole spectacle. It's one of the reasons why I believe ECW Anarchy Rulz 1999 is the greatest pay per view in the history of pay per view, really transcending beyond being a wrestling pay per view but just one of the most amazing live human dramatic theatre presentations there has ever been in the last 10,000 years of mankind's existence. That event truly was a phenomenon. The catwalk ramp was such a huge part of it. 

Was such a huge fan of the ramp going to the apron. Me and my best friend from childhood would wonder why WWF didn't do it. This was a conversation we had multiple times. It was just the coolest shit to us. When ECW started to do it, we were like, man, Paul E. understands. It doesn't get any cooler than a ramp going to the apron. He is one of us.

Part of why I love this WCW era. I see the ramp, I just feel good.

TNA were doing it at one point, and I can't quite put my finger on it - but I have a vague memory of covid-era NXT using the ramp and someone face planting dramatically. 

The Cactus vs Van Hammer Clash Of Champions match was just too sweet. Foley takes some ridiculous concrete bumps. I loved all the action on the ramp with them using the ropes for the powerslam spot, beautiful. They head outdoors and the camera man kicks the door open to get outside, loved that shot so much. Then there is a rodeo area across the street where they brawl their way over to, at one point Cactus is gouging Hammer's face with a bull skull that is just randomly laying around. They make their way over the cattle guard and some big fat guy attacks in cowboy clothes attacks them and it's Abdullah The Butcher in disguise. Too good to be true. This match was waaaay ahead of it's time here.

I faxed a letter to the Observer with my address any PW'ers in the area lets get together for Superbrawl II party!

I thought Van Hammer was going places but he never got better.

Mar 12, 2023 19:58:17 GMT Ed said:

I thought Van Hammer was going places but he never got better.

I was young enough to think Van Hammer was cool. Didn't realize he kinda sucked until years later. 

The entrance music Van Hammer had was the thing that hooked me.

I missed out on Van Hammer's big push. Definitely would not have been a fan. I don't have a ton of Van Hammer takes so I will share every one...

-Agree with Nobi on the Cactus match being cool and ahead of its time.

-Hammer may not have been good at worked wrestling, but he was great at worked arm wrestling. Dude was fully committed in that ***** arm wrestling classic with Vinnie Vegas.

-Van Hammer vs. Maxx Payne should have been a big(ger?) thing with Payne ultimately going over. Did they feud in real life WCW or only in my fanfic? I can't remember. Leaning towards only in my fanfic because Hammer was embroiled in a feud with Vinnie Vegas until he left WCW iirc.

-Van Hammer complaining about having the lowest military ranking of the Misfits In Action until WCW changed his name from Private Stash to Major Stash is such a tremendous pro wrestling story and I really hope it's true.

-Guy I went to school with from 6th grade all the way through high school claimed his mom once dated Van Hammer. He wasn't a wrestling fan and years later I would discover Hammer actually was from Maryland so I can buy this one.

Mar 12, 2023 4:30:25 GMT NATH45 said:

Mar 11, 2023 21:09:04 GMT Kilgore said:

Was such a huge fan of the ramp going to the apron. Me and my best friend from childhood would wonder why WWF didn't do it. This was a conversation we had multiple times. It was just the coolest shit to us. When ECW started to do it, we were like, man, Paul E. understands. It doesn't get any cooler than a ramp going to the apron. He is one of us.

Part of why I love this WCW era. I see the ramp, I just feel good.

TNA were doing it at one point, and I can't quite put my finger on it - but I have a vague memory of covid-era NXT using the ramp and someone face planting dramatically. 

WWF did use the elevated ramp at Maple Leaf Garden house shows in the 80's,

Mar 13, 2023 5:07:41 GMT Shootist said:

Mar 12, 2023 4:30:25 GMT NATH45 said:

TNA were doing it at one point, and I can't quite put my finger on it - but I have a vague memory of covid-era NXT using the ramp and someone face planting dramatically. 

WWF did use the elevated ramp at Maple Leaf Garden house shows in the 80's,

I have a vague memory of once seeing a ramp in WWF circa Coliseum Video heyday. Maybe it was a Maple Leaf Garden show?