Mar 13, 2023 5:19:34 GMT Kilgore said:

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

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?

Can confirm.

Making my way into February and catching this vibe big time now. All of this buildup to Super Brawl II in this little window in time in 1992 is really everything that was ever great about WCW.

The Ricky Steamboat vs Rick Rude stuff is picking up, excellent promos from Steamboat.

The Steiner Brothers really were truly an awesome tag team.

The Metroid 2 commercials are just too much to handle, I need to dig through my shit and find my gameboy stuff and play that game ASAP. Maybe finally beat it.

Also I don't know why but the commercials for movies airing on TBS on Saturday nights and early Sunday mornings just really hit the spot. I finally found a VHS copy of Medicine Man over the weekend and watched it yesterday hoping to recapture that Sunday afternoon laze out TBS 90's movie vibe and it hit the spot. I totally forgot Dr. Melfi was in that movie, and never realized how truly wretched and boring of a film it is. No wonder it was forgotten. I feel like if you were to turn on TBS in the 90's you had about a 75% or better chance this was the movie that was on(this or Road House).

Also the Dangerous Alliance is really good stuff, Arn and Bobby Eaton as tag champs is great. Looking closer at the group it really is just a weird mix kind of on paper, Larry Zybisco and Bobby Eaton being guys that were before my time, Rude the Heenan/WWF guy I know very well, Arn a Horsemen, and throw in a young unknown dude from Texas Steve Austin as the 5th man. It's just kind of a random group, I guess one thing they would have in common other than being heels being that they were just down to business true to form wrestlers(at least Austin, Arn, Larry, Eaton) but somehow it works so damn well because of Heyman on top of it all connecting it, he looks really good with each guy or any mix of them. Truly a spectacular faction.

Really good stuff here on the February 1st WCW with Austin vs Barry Windham, some good old school Austin on display. I got a chuckle out of him being billed from Hollywood. The match was fun with both guys going in hurt and selling their injuries through the match, Austin’s knee and Windhams hand. DA ends it with a beat down. Still a full 4 weeks until Superbrawl II and the build has been great already.

Mar 17, 2023 19:18:10 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Really good stuff here on the February 1st WCW with Austin vs Barry Windham, some good old school Austin on display. I got a chuckle out of him being billed from Hollywood. The match was fun with both guys going in hurt and selling their injuries through the match, Austin’s knee and Windhams hand. DA ends it with a beat down. Still a full 4 weeks until Superbrawl II and the build has been great already.

Austin/Windham had great chemistry. These are the first singles matches where Austin looks like a future stud. They have a 2/3 Falls Match on WCW Saturday Night (May 9, 1992) that fucking rocks. Real wrestling as sport shit, Windham selling exhaustion, I think you'll really dig that one. 

The Luger/Sting match at SB 2 let me down. The build had nothing to do with the pace & tone the match presented.

Was Luger known to be headed to WWF at this time in 1992? Wasn't he at Wrestlemania 8 and also the bodybuilding fed was going around this time. Was Luger doing Vince's bodybuilding fed while he was WCW World Champion here?

Also this Rude vs Steamboat feud is climbing up my list of all time favorites. Some of the best promos I've seen from either guy, also Steamboat brings in an actual fucking ninja to watch his back. Epic.

Mar 17, 2023 21:24:31 GMT Neo Zeed said:

1. Was Luger known to be headed to WWF at this time in 1992?
2. Wasn't he at Wrestlemania 8 and also the bodybuilding fed was going around this time.
3. Was Luger doing Vince's bodybuilding fed while he was WCW World Champion here?

1. Probably. A quick search reveals one source saying he signed with WWF immediately after this. Another says he had already signed. I'm leaning towards the latter. Either he already signed or everyone knew he was about to. Maybe he hadn't technically signed yet for legal reasons.

Another thing about Luger's last few months as champ is he was one of the first wrestlers to sign a cushy deal with a select number of dates. This is one of the things that got him major heat in the locker room. Anyway, he finished up all his dates months before this and allegedly (I wasn't watching at the time) hadn't appeared on tv or house shows since late December. 

2. Yep
3. Nope. The Sting match marked the end of his first WCW run. He started with Vince after this show.

Mar 17, 2023 21:24:31 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Was Luger known to be headed to WWF at this time in 1992? Wasn't he at Wrestlemania 8 and also the bodybuilding fed was going around this time. Was Luger doing Vince's bodybuilding fed while he was WCW World Champion here?

It was a very bad kept secret that Luger was leaving WCW after SuperBrawl II, although I can't remember if I knew. I probably didn't.

Basically, by the end of 1991, Luger wanted out of WCW. He sat out all of January and February (until SuperBrawl, which was the rare 29th of February). During this time he either verbally agreed to a contract with Vince or literally signed one. The reason they could do this while Luger was still under WCW contract was because Luger signed a one year WBF contract, which was not a wrestling contract, so he was free to sign it.

No idea how much time was left on Luger's contract, I think it was in the year range, hence the WBF contract being a one year deal, but when it was clear he was leaving for the "WBF" I'm assuming WCW just asked him to job out to Sting at SuperBrawl, then released him, so they wouldn't have to pay him the remainder of the contract.

Lex basically put himself in one of the best positions a wrestler has ever put himself in. If WCW was going to play hardball, just chill in the WBF for a year. One year paid vacation, lifting weights, which he loved doing anyway. If WCW folded and released him, slightly shorter vacation, maybe three to six months, depending on whatever the no-compete clause was after being released from the contract, then sign a "WWF" contract some time in 1992, on top of his "WBF" contract (which was a nice sum of money, but less than his WCW contract, as it was clearly just a bridge to a future actual wrestling contract). But then the motorcycle accident happening, and the timeline got delayed, but Luger still absolutely won.

Did some more digging and found Meltzer's comments on the Luger situation + a redditor commenting on Dave's comments...

Meltzer from the 1/6/92 Observer- "Lex Luger has the entire month of January off and there is a lot of speculation that Luger won't be around much longer. But Dave says it's hard to imagine anyone walking out on the type of big contract Luger has."

Meltzer from 1/13/92- "Lex Luger has officially given notice to WCW and will be leaving after the SuperBrawl show. His contract doesn't technically expire until March 1993, but he will be given a limited release where he can wrestle in Japan but not WWF until after his contract expires (for those wondering, this is why Luger debuted as a WBF announcer in 1992 and didn't actually start as a WWF wrestler until 93. It was their way of getting Luger locked down and showing him TV even though they couldn't technically use him as a wrestler. It's funny because Dave says that's what the rumored plan is, and Vince McMahon has "emphatically denied" it but of course, that ended up being exactly what happened). Dave then goes on to talk about how Luger, based on his age and size, could potentially be the heir to the Hogan throne in WWF and explains why other guys (Savage, Piper, Flair, Sid, Undertaker, Bret Hart, Curt Henning) probably won't be the next top star of the company.

Meltzer from 1/20/92- "In WCW, Barry Windham will be turning heel after Lex Luger leaves."

Meltzer from 1/27/92- "Despite Vince McMahon's denials, Lex Luger will indeed be coming in as a member of the WBF. The angle will be that Luger enters the bodybuilding contest and gets blown away by all the real bodybuilders, loses his temper, and that will somehow transition into him becoming a wrestler when his contract situation with WCW allows (in early 93)"

Looked for Luger info. Popped for the occasional LPWA mentions.

Have been watching bits and pieces of Superbrawl II this week I had to double back and rewatch Liger vs Pillman, this is just beautiful. It makes me sad that one day our sun will exhaust it's fuel source and swallow up our planet and a work of art like this will just be gone forever, like tears in the rain. If EMP doesn't take out all digital files first, or just global collapse of the streaming industry(which oddly seems highly possible, out of these scenarios, I mean you never though Blockbuster would fail but low and behold motherfuckers were throwing VHS tapes in the dumpsters).

Mar 22, 2023 22:33:03 GMT Neo Zeed said:

or just global collapse of the streaming industry(which oddly seems highly possible, out of these scenarios, I mean you never though Blockbuster would fail but low and behold motherfuckers were throwing VHS tapes in the dumpsters).

Oh, it's happening. There's already significantly less movies available to watch (in a legal way) than at the height of the DVD era. Steady line down from here.

Jim Ross and Jesse Ventura are really great together, I never realized it.

Also controversial hot take; I've just never been real big on Gary Michael Cappetta as a ring announcer, I know he is beloved on these boards but I just never seen what makes him special, to me he's no better or worse than Dave Penzer or some of the ECW commentators. Gertner I'm beginning to think was a massively underrated ring announcer, bi-lingual. His intro for Rey vs Juvy where he goes back and forth between spanish and English was some top level vibe establishment for a ring announcer. Also his intro for Sabu that same show was pretty intense too.

Fuck Bill Watts' over-the-top rope rule. He got stuck in the past.

Mar 17, 2023 20:19:00 GMT Ed said:

The Luger/Sting match at SB 2 let me down. The build had nothing to do with the pace & tone the match presented.

I finally finished the PPV tonight and thought about this post after the main. It wasn't a bad match or anything but did not live up to that build up at all. Luger must have been phoning it in to stay healthy for the WWF. With him on his way out to WWF wearing that belt and Sting being the last hope to stop another world champion from taking another belt to WWF that wasn't really there, you didn't feel that at all. I know it was never something acknowledged in the build up but still, that was pretty flat for a match with so much meaning. 

But overall this was a good PPV, I always figured it was. I know I finally watched through a lot of these early WCW PPV's as background noise back when the WWE Network first came out, nearly a decade ago? Damn I got back into wrestling RIGHT at the tail end of the dark ages, ordering 52 disc sets of Nitro and Raw from that one dude on PW. Reliving 1997 wrestling war on DVD was good times. Also going through 1998 WCW was a blast. 

But this show was damn good. Seems like Jesse Ventura was money well spent, he brought the hype and some life to the whole show. 

Steamboat and Rude I never realized how great of a feud this was. How perfect of a matchup these two were like made to be rivals, really have loved all of this so far on this watchthrough. The match at Superbrawl was damn good. Also loved the Steiners vs Eaton/Arn. 

Back to the elevated catwalk ramp, I just remembered the one time the UFC did it I think like UFC 36 in the early Zuffa days 2001-2002, I loved that little period when they first bought the company and just weren't really sure what to do. They went through a phase in 2002 where they went big time with the entrance stage, elevated catwalk ramp to the Octagon(can't find a pic but it had a black and white arrow pattern pointing to the ring) and the big pyro and lights like an episode of Raw/Nitro, I love that little era of UFC history.

But I've read that Bischoff fired Jim Ross because he was too southern/regional sounding, I don't hear it, he's very stately here in these 1992 tapes, him and Jesse Ventura really hit the spot together I feel, I never realized how well they fit as a commentary duo.

I've moved on to March on the Saturday Night episodes, only have 6 episodes left on my laptop then I have to switch to the commercial-less, edited WWE Network versions for the rest of the year. I thought about deleting these as I finally got around to watching them to save hard drive space but the commercials and whole TBS vibe stopped me from doing that, these are nice little pieces here, I can see myself running these as background noise again in the future. I also need to get around to watching American Me, never have seen it, previews looked good on this last episode. Didn't realize it had Richie from Out For Justice, GOAT heel.

Ricky Steamboat's Ninja has serious potential as future username/av, such an inspiring storyline.

I got the March 14th episode loaded up and it's just bad ass right from the start, Paul E. cuts a marvelous promo to open up the show talking about how he was in disguise in the ninja outfit at Superbrawl to help Rude, it was the NIGHT OF THE NINJA, he threatens to put K. Allen Frye(or however you spell it) out of work like his predecessor and carve WCW up like a corporate Jeffrey Dahmer. Truly fucking spectacular

From there we get the intro for Cactus Jack for the opener, main event is Austin vs Scott Steiner. Lets fucking go.

Catching a few anti-steroid promos from the wrestlers now, first one from Pillman on the last episode and now one from Steamboat on this one. Just short little pre-recorded backstage style promos with them telling young athletes to stay away from steroids. Also noticed that the Wrestling Observer Newsletters from this era 1991-1992 are dominated by steroid talk. Never until recently did I realize how huge this was to that industry, also the politics surrounding it all. The Dark Side Of The Ring episode on that trial was pretty spectacular. That whole story would make a great movie/series(like the OJ one they did with Travolta). 

Mar 24, 2023 21:29:55 GMT Neo Zeed said:

I got the March 14th episode loaded up and it's just bad ass right from the start, Paul E. cuts a marvelous promo to open up the show talking about how he was in disguise in the ninja outfit at Superbrawl to help Rude, it was the NIGHT OF THE NINJA, he threatens to put K. Allen Frye(or however you spell it) out of work like his predecessor and carve WCW up like a corporate Jeffrey Dahmer. Truly fucking spectacular

From there we get the intro for Cactus Jack for the opener, main event is Austin vs Scott Steiner. Lets fucking go.

Catching a few anti-steroid promos from the wrestlers now, first one from Pillman on the last episode and now one from Steamboat on this one. Just short little pre-recorded backstage style promos with them telling young athletes to stay away from steroids. Also noticed that the Wrestling Observer Newsletters from this era 1991-1992 are dominated by steroid talk. Never until recently did I realize how huge this was to that industry, also the politics surrounding it all. The Dark Side Of The Ring episode on that trial was pretty spectacular. That whole story would make a great movie/series(like the OJ one they did with Travolta). 

I had to come back to this episode to properly pay attention and watch Scott Steiner vs Steve Austin main event. Really if anybody is looking for a nice little random slice of this era of WCW's vibe this March 14th episode is a good one. You get the nice lovely Paul E. Jeffrey Dahmer promo, some great stuff going on in the Rude/Steamboat feud, vintage prime Cactus Jack, then later you get a pretty major cruiserweight match for the time in Pillman vs Richard Morton, and a random squash with the new WCW Champ Sting taking a beating to some bum named Mark Canterbury Henry Godwin looking motherfucker got his ass whooped here.  

The TV title match with Austin vs Steiner was an interesting one. Never realized how big Austin was at this point, seeing him taller and kind of bigger in a way than Steiner here puts it into scale. This match started off so awesome, with some great shoot style exchanges. Steiner dominates Austin in some great tie ups but then the heel work comes from Austin with some stalling. My attention span started to drift as Steiner appeared to gas out in chasing Austin and dealing with Medusa, leading to a non-finish with Rick running in. It was a solid competitive match that was interesting to see, definitely good stuff for WCW Saturday Night. 

Wrapping up March 1992 tonight they are already advertising the format change and I'm down to my last downloaded episode complete with TBS commercials. I'm half tempted to try to download the rest of these but I just can't bring myself to do it since they are right there on Peacock. I just don't have the time or the storage space. One day I will have to get one of these external hard drive deals I hear yall post about.

But the commercials have been half the draw for these tapes for me. TBS really dug deep for movies to play, I wish I would have kept a notepad to write some of these down to look up. Shit like this Anthony Hopkins ventriliquist movie:



So yeah, the commercials on these are glorious. I get a kick out of the CD's they were selling, something like $40 plus shipping for a 2 disc best of Led Zeppelin CD set of songs I have on a playlist on my amazon music for $10 a month. These episodes are just a nice little slice of early 90's TV I'm glad to have.

As for the wrestling not much going on here other than the Vader vs Sting feud kicking off, good stuff so far. 

Also they brought in yet another 80's heavy metal guy, JT Southern to feud with Heavy Metal Van Hammer. This guy can actually play his guitar though, he jams on it as he walks to the ring. It's a shame Van Hammer can't actually play his guitar, a Crossroads style head cutting contest in a wrestling feud is a pretty spectacular concept. But yeah WCW was really stuck in the 80's here in 1992.

Talking about little things, the little hallway coming out of the locker room with the posters of wrestlers and shit that the wrestlers walk out of for the matches on these tapes is a fucking lovely little thing.

I'm starting to think that the TBS commercials is to WCW what licensed music was to ECW, the stuff is just almost not even worth watching without it. These tapes would just never hit as hard without Super Nintendo commercials, Turner merch shilling for credit card over the phone transactions, early Sunday morning TBS movies they dug up from their Cannon Films collection, trailers for shit like Thunderheart and White Men Can't Jump, solid gold.

Aren't you kids supposed to be at school? NAW man, we going to the game room!

Apr 1, 2023 20:16:34 GMT Ed said:

Aren't you kids supposed to be at school? NAW man, we going to the game room!

He sure was the shit back then, love it.

Made it into a few episodes after they changed the show to the talk show format, total vibe killer. These are a chore to make it through. When did they drop all of this?

The Steamboat vs Rude feud continues to rule, at one point Steamboat hung rude with a rope off the side of the ring trying to kill him. Now Steamboat has been attacked and his nose is broke and eyes black he has to wear a face guard. Stellar. 

Holy shit, the Steamboat vs Rude rivalry has reached GOAT levels here on Saturday night. Steamboat is now falsely accused of sexually harassing Medusa, stalking her. Rude says who could blame him when he has a nasty sea hag back home.

This picks up on the next episode, with special guest one of the dudes from Alabama the country band. This is pure down home goodness right here haha.

We get an interview talk show style with Rick Rude and Medusa, they have Missy Hyatt doing interviews with 3 different women in the crowd all saying they are sleeping with Ricky Steamboat. Two of the hoes get into an argument at one point and one of the ladies calls the other a slut. It's like the funniest shit ever. At one point another woman in the crowd stands up and is like yeah I'm hitting that shit too! Like in Scary Movie. Rude pours it on saying Steamboat is a creature of habit. Whole segment has major Maury Povich, Sally Jesse Rafael vibes, solid gold. 

This same episode we get some footage of the beating that did the damage to Steamboat's face, they show the DA holding a bloody faced Steamboat down on the floor for Rude to kick him in the face, but Steamboat's bloody face is censored with the blocky blur effect. Holy hell was this a great feud. 

Wrestle War is on the horizon and honestly the build for it has not been that great(other than Steamboat Rude). We have had a lot of focus on Sting/Vader. 

I finally get to see The Diamond Studd in action, I don't think I have ever seen Scott Hall in this incarnation until now. He's more jacked than I've ever seen him. He squashes a jobber here and he's in pretty much full blown Razor mode already, complete with a killer Razors Edge to finish the match. Just awesome.

But it's striking to me the younger talent they had here all under the same roof in the spring of 1992, major players later in the decade, Hall, Nash, Sting, Raven, Austin, Foley, Pillman, Heyman, just wow. 

Apr 8, 2023 9:57:07 GMT Neo Zeed said:

This picks up on the next episode, with special guest one of the dudes from Alabama the country band. This is pure down home goodness right here 

I see what you did there. Tremendous.

Baker 's av makes me want to switch to Raul Julia, my spiritual advisor. 

Trying to figure out what family entertainment we are going to watch for Easter tonight, Wrestlewar 92 or Mallrats. That fucking kid is back on the escalator. 

Just wrapped up Wrestlewar 92. I fast forwarded through so much of that undercard ugh, the opener with the Freebirds vs Terry Taylor and Hammer Valentine the relics from the previous decade, seems like a lot of crap on this card up until the Steiners tag match against the Japanese wrestlers, which was really good. Steiners were really bad ass here in 1992 WCW.

But man the War Games match is fucking amazing. Going in I just was underwhelmed with the build up to the match on the home stretch, but watching it just now I really appreciate the build up for directly contributing to the match the way it did. I remember watching this on the WWE Network when it first launched back in the day and it was just kinda cool background noise deal. Watching it now with all the context of all the build up through 1992 with Steamboat and Rude, Austin and Windham picking up where they left off with the excellent 2/3 Falls bout where Windham won the belt, all of the blood, the savage violence, the crowd, this was the best wrestling match I think I've watched since I started watching the old tapes again last year. Truly spectacular 5 star match.