Sunday 8 August 2010

We Learned More From 1992 WCW, Baby, Than We Ever Learned In School

Sting v Vader (Power Hour, 2/15/92)

I wasn't even aware this existed, but I'm glad I stumbled across it because I thought it was an awesome little 7 minute match. It's basically a primer for what would come in their feud over the next year, but the finish doesn't give anything away and they still manage to cram what time they do get with great stuff. Starts out with Vader half slapping-half punching Sting a couple times and it wipes almost half his face paint clean off. They play up the same idea they do at the Bash match later in year in that Vader can throw one big potatoey right hand and that'll stop Sting dead in his tracks, while Sting needs to throw bunches of them to even come close to dropping Vader. I like how he hits the Stinger Splash early here too; there's no way anybody's losing clean yet, and there's no point giving too much away at this stage, so get the spot in early (it's the first move Sting hits) and Vader recovering sharpish doesn't hurt its credibility. Awesome transition into Vader's control segment, with Sting charging at him on the floor and Vader just picking him up and giving him a stun gun across the guard rail. Sting lets Vader pretty much assault him for a few minutes - it would turn into more than a few minutes in the future - before hitting a big German suplex, and from there they head towards the finish. Like I said, nobody's losing clean at this point, but Vader's always willing to really throw himself into a ringpost bump, so as far as count out finishes go, this one was pretty good. In some ways I guess this is a condensed version of their Bash match. It's definitely not as good as that, but for 7 minutes you can't ask for a whole lot more. I'm surprised I haven't heard of anyone comping this whole feud - with the number of singles and tag matches they had against each other I figured someone would've made a 3 disc set or something. Anyways, more 1992 goodness. Stumbling across it by accident makes it even sweeter.


Barry Windham v Young Pistol Tracey (Saturday Night, 4/11/92)

Young Pistol Tracey is Tracey Smothers, btw. This is basically a 4 minute squash, but I downloaded this whole Saturday Night show earlier and watched about 40 minutes of it, and for a 4 minute squash I kinda dug it. I feel like I ought to seek out more Smothers. For a guy I tend to enjoy quite a bit, I can't think of very much Tracey Smothers that I've seen. I mark for his redneck karate shtick, but he still doesn't throw a roundhouse kick like Zbyszko. Windham has such an awesome superplex. The float over at the end gives it a little touch of class and grace. Windham's the man. There's a Freebirds/Taylor Made Men US Tag Title match on this show that gets a good amount of time. No idea what to expect out of that, but I'm looking forward to it nonetheless.


Arn Anderson & Bobby Eaton v Brian Pillman & Marcus Bagwell (Worldwide, 8/15/92)

Lesson to be learned from this and the Larry match the previous week? Don't tag with Pillman, because you get your fuckin' arm broken. This barely goes 5 minutes, but Arn and Eaton pick up right where they left off against Zbyszko and this time they direct it at young Bagwell. I'm probably wrong, but I think the nasty double team move Arn and Eaton have started using at this point is the first double team move that's actually been treated as a legit "stick a fork in it" double team finisher over the course of the whole year. Sort of reminds me of the angle Watts ran in '86 where Gordy and Hayes broke Williams' arm. Match is pretty much a vehicle to further the idea that Arn and Eaton are going to take out the Steiners for Doc and Gordy, but it definitely works as such. Haven't seen the eventual Arn & Eaton/Steiners match in years, but I'm looking forward to checking it out again soon. I do remember liking it, at least.


WCW 1992 Project

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