Dark Pegasus Video Review: Beach Blast ’92

Beach Blast ’92 by J.D. Dunn F***. Can’t find my copy of WrestleWar ’92. That’s the good one! Oh, well. You get iron men instead. June 20, 1992 Live from Mobile, Ala. Your hosts are Jim Ross and Jesse Ventura. Opening Match, Light-heavyweight Title: Brian Pillman vs. Scotty Flamingo. Yep, it’s Raven/Johnny Polo before he had a marketable gimmick. Oddly enough, he reminds me a lot of JOHN MORRISON here. He actually did wrestle for a living at one point instead of smashing people in the head with chairs. He and Pillman do quite the little wrestling clinic, which has the added benefit of giving Flamingo credibility as a wrestler. He does a lot of the cheap heel tactics, but he does them with flair… so to speak. Pillman makes the fired-up comeback and clotheslines Flamingo onto the ramp. Sick spot at he tries an over-the-top tope, but Flamingo sidesteps him. Pillman falls right on his face in a sick bump. That’ll make your pooper pucker. Pillman is knocked silly, so Flamingo just jumps off the second rope (top rope is illegal) with a knee to the ribs for the win at 17:29. Fun, fast-paced, and ahead of its time. Flamingo showed that he had a good mind for wrestling, and Pillman was near his physical peak. Great job of playing the heel and face roles too. ***1/2 Johnny B. Badd hosts the Bikini Contest. Jesse on Badd: He ought to be *in* the bikini contest. Wait, how is that *less* gay than Badd? It’s short. Missy Hyatt comes out in an evening gown and then Madusa comes out. Pretty boring by today’s standards. Non-title, Falls Count Anyway: Sting vs. Cactus Jack. The title is not on the line because Cactus is a psychopath. Jack was recovering from whooping cough, which makes this all the more amazing. Jack waits for Sting in the aisle, and they brawl before the bell. Sting reverses a whip and backdrops Jack on the entrance ramp. He misses a Stinger Splash and tumbles into the ring, allowing Jack to take over on offense. The Cactus Elbow off the apron makes an appearance, as does the sunset flip from the apron to the concrete floor. That gets two. Jack was a sick, sick man. They brawl out into the crowd where Sting suplexes Jack for two. Back in, Jack takes it to the mat with a bodyscissors and slaps Sting around. The Cactus Clothesline sends both guys to the floor where Jack grabs a chair and tries to bash Sting’s skull in. Sting hits a belly-to-back suplex, a spot that everyone does these days but was insane at the time. Jack hot shots him on the railing. He can’t get in a good piledriver, though, so Sting is able to catch him coming off the second rope for an elbowdrop. Sting grabs the chair and chops Cactus down like a tree before going for the Scorpion Deathlock. Cactus blocks by falling off the ramp and hitting a Kobashi Driver for two. Sting fights back and hits a lariat to set up a flying clothesline from the top rope to the ramp to pick up the pin at 11:23. Great back-and-forth action in this one, and it serves the dual purpose of making Sting look like a badass babyface without burying Cactus Jack. It’s amazing what a couple of pros can do. **** Iron Man Match: Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Rude. First Fall: For years, this was the gold standard for Iron Man matches. I love me a good Iron Man match, so we’ll see if it holds. Steamer just BLITZES Rude at the bell and hits a rib breaker. Ricky zeroes in on it with punches and a bearhug. See, the bearhug MEANS something now. Steamboat drops it anyway and puts a knee in Rude’s rib to stretch him out. Rude goes to the eyes, but Steamboat turns him over into a Boston Crab. Rude and his muscular abs hold out. He makes the ropes, but Steamboat makes him pay with a splash to the ribs. I think Ricky could have made a great heel. Rude begs off after *another* knee to the ribs. Ricky picks him up and drops him straight down with a front suplex. Ricky lets his emotions get the better of him, though, charging into the corner. Rude gets his knee up and connects with Ricky’s jaw. That nets Rude the pin at 7:42. Rude is up 1-0. Second Fall: Rude jumps Steamboat and hits the Rude Awakening at 8:40. Rude leads 2-0. Third Fall: Rude hurt his ribs with the Rude Awakening, so he’s slower to follow up. Jesse suggests a resthold. Bill Watts is booking, so I don’t. Rude goes up to the top and drops a knee, sacrificing a DQ at 9:43 to injure Steamboat. Rude leads 2-1. Fourth Fall: Rude small packages Steamboat for the pin at 10:12. Rude leads 3-1. Fifth Fall: Steamboat fires back, but Rude takes him down into a camel clutch. Steamboat makes the ropes, so Rude tries to do the hip swivel but can’t due to the rib pain. He goes back to the chinlock. Steamboat powers up into an Electric Chair drop. Rude maintains his advantage and goes back to the reveres chinlock. Like the bearhug, the *context* of the match makes it more exciting than your average chinlock. Rude hauls him up and hits a piledriver! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Rude goes for a Tombstone, but Ricky counters to his own at 17:38! Rude leads 3-2. Sixth Fall: Rude goes up, but Steamboat catches him and hits a superplex (with Steamboat’s feet on the top rope, so it’s legal). ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! They clothesline each other at around the 10:00 mark. Rude rolls over and covers, but Steamboat bridges out and reverses to a backslide to get the pin at 20:22. Tied 3-3. Seventh Fall: Steamboat is on fire! He gets a rollup for two and fires away at Rude. A crossbody gets two more. Finally, Rude just desperately hits a jawbreaker to take over. Steamboat fires back with chops, and the sweat just SPRAYS off Rude’s chest. Rude clubs him and works the back some more. He goes for the Rude Awakening, but Steamboat gets his own! ONE, TWO, T-foot on the ropes. Rude hops on Steamboat’s back and grabs a sleeper. Steamboat is near the ropes, but he’s out of it. Rude smartly uses his leg to knock down Ricky’s hand as he reaches out for the ropes. Steamboat falls to the mat with about 90 seconds left. You know how I know this is a great match. I already know the outcome, and I’m still going into markout mode for Ricky to make the comeback. Finally, Steamboat hulks up and shoves off the turnbuckle, putting Rude on his back for the three! Ricky goes up 4-3 at 29:27. Eighth Fall: Rude sh*ts a brick and clotheslines Ricky as he gets up. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Shoulderblock! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Clothesline! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Small package! ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Bodyslam! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Time runs out on Rude at 30:00, giving Steamboat the 4-3 win. Whew! Crazy match. Well-booked and smartly wrestled. I think Rock-HHH told the better overall story, but this one had better wrestling effort from both guys. Rude’s flurry of nearfalls at the end is a sight to behold. ****1/2 Badd returns for the second part. I will say that Missy looked pretty damned great in a bikini. She wins the fan poling for the round. Barry Windham, Dustin Rhodes & Nikita Koloff vs. Steve Austin, Bobby Eaton & Arn Anderson (w/Paul E. Dangerously). Austin has his shorter haircut at this point, which also coincides with his push. I know people are down on Mr. Kennedy, but some of Austin’s 1992-1994 stuff looks very Kennedy-esque. I don’t envy these six following that match. Ole Anderson is the referee, which becomes intriguing when Koloff hits the Sickle to the back of Arn’s head and Arn tumbles over the top. Ole rules that his momentum carried him over. Dustin’s face-in-peril portion gets clipped to him taking such a hard bump off the Stun Gun that he falls back to his corner. IT’S BREAKIN’ LOOSE! Arn comes off the top but gets caught. Windham superplexes Eaton, but Arn comes off the top with a double ax-handle. Ole sees it, though, and disqualifies him at 7:52 (of 15:32). This was just here to set up Austin vs. Windham. Not bad, but disappointing, considering the participants. [**1/2] Jesse asks Badd if he likes girls. Badd doesn’t say “yes.” Madusa wears a red and blue bikini with white chaps. Missy Hyatt says her bikini was stolen, so she steals Jesse’s bandana and makes an improvised bikini. Um, feel free to keep those. WCW World Tag Titles: The Steiner Bros. vs. The Miracle Violence Connection. You know that scene in American Psycho where Patrick Bateman has sex with the woman while pointing at his reflection in the mirror and winking? Bill Watts does that while watching this match. These guys are not shy about stiffing the hell out of each other. Scott and Gordy get into a scrape right away before Doc and Rick break it up. Williams and Rick tag in and renew acquaintances (Rick was Williams’ protégé for a while). It’s a lot of jockeying until Rick hits a belly-to-belly. Doc has to shake that off and returns to hit a few shoulderblocks. The MVC rough Rick up a bit. If you hadn’t seen these guys before, you’d think they were angry and shooting on each other. No. They’re just like that. Rick suplexes Gordy to counter a spinning toehold. This is all pretty good, but they’re just not quite cutting loose. If this were 20 years earlier, it would be awesome, but these two teams are capable of going up-tempo too. They work in an apparent false tag spot, only the ref sees the tag. Huh. Rick tosses Gordy and Williams around, but Scott gets knocked to the floor. That allows the MVC to set up the second-rope powerslam. The MVC is confused as to the legal man, though, and that gives Rick time to kick out. Rick is out of it with about four minutes left in the match. Rick catches Gordy with two STIFF clotheslines, but it’s too late. Scott hits Gordy with the Frankensteiner as time expires at 23:39. No really. This would be a fine result had the Sting/Cactus or Rude/Steamboat matches gone on last, but that’s a horrible result to your main event. I like all four guys (just imagine three Brock Lesnars and a motivated JBL), but the structure and pacing of this match kept it from taking off. I can’t fault their work, though. ***1/4

The 411: Hey, the T.H.E. version of this show is one of the best shows WCW ever produced. The two matches in the middle are considered must-sees, and the opener and main event are good bookends. I really, really recommend you see Rude/Steamboat at least once. Thumbs way up (for the Turner version)
Final Score:  8.5   [ Very Good ]