Dark Pegasus Video Review: WrestleWar ’92

WrestleWar ’92 by J.D. Dunn Twitter.com/jddunn411 Brightkite.com/jddunn411 Facebook.com/jddunn411 Examiner.com This was the peak of the Kip Frey era, which was all too short. Thanks to Frey’s bonus scheme that ::GASP:: actually paid the guys who worked hardest on the show more money, everyone goes balls out with effort. Of course, that’s too much like right for WCW, so they replaced the carrots with sticks in the form of Cowboy Bill Watts who not only cut losses but morale as well. But, we’ll always have WrestleWar ’92. The onscreen drama revolved around Paul E. Dangerously’s “Dangerous Alliance,” a group determined to kill WCW by destroying the top-drawing babyfaces. Sting and the rest of the babyfaces who had been tormented by Paul E. are now seeking revenge in… Wargames. (This is the truncated version which cuts out a fair amount of crap. Fine by me. The full version is hard to come by, so let’s hope WWE 24/7 runs it sometime soon. That way, we can all see Raven vs. Buff Bagwell before they were anybody.) May 17, 1992 Live from Jacksonville, Fla. Your hosts are Jim Ross and Jesse Ventura. U.S. Tag Team Titles: Greg Valentine & Terry Taylor vs. The Fabulous Freebirds. Just to recap, “Bad Street U.S.A.” = awesome song. “I’m a Freebird (And What Was Your Excuse?)” = horrible song. The titles were rapidly outliving their usefulness. So were Taylor and Valentine, and I had forgotten they even had a title reign until just now. Valentine, who looks bored at this point in his career, has a miscommunication with Taylor, and they collide. Hayes, at least, seems to have brought his workboots. Valentine posts himself, so the Freebirds go to work on his shoulder. Taylor gets more of the same. This is just 10 straight minutes of Freebird domination until Taylor tosses Garvin to the floor. Garvin plays your face-in-peril for a spell. Nothing interesting going on. Hayes gets the hot tag and signals for the DDT, but Taylor breaks it up with the Fivearm. ONE, TWO, THR-Hayes kicks out of the finisher! Well, you had a nice run, Terry. Hayes takes over as the FIP. Wow, this is a long match. Valentine works over his legs and applies the figure-four. Garvin has to make the save. Well, that’s both finishers down, so the result should be obvious now. Taylor misses a charge, and Garvin gets the hot tag this time. He takes on both guys by himself before getting tripped from the floor. Valentine tries to save Taylor from the DDT, but Garvin backdrops him over and completes the move for the win and the titles at 21:53. Way long for what they had to offer, but it was decent formula tag action. The Birds were over, so at least it had a lot of heat. **1/4 Recap of The Junkyard Dog helping out his good friend Ron Simmons against Abdullah the Butcher and Cactus Jack. Junkyard Dog & Ron Simmons vs. Cactus Jack & Mr. Hughes. Jesse rightly asks why Cactus would need a bodyguard. Jack wanders off before the match and then jumps JYD in the aisle. He drops the elbow off the ramp, but Simmons backdrops him. JYD is out, though, so Simmons, manly man that he is, decides to go it alone, so it turns into Simmons vs. Hughes. Cactus’s demented squeal is highly disturbing. Hard to believe this is the cuddly Mick Foley waddling around the TNA ring today. Boring power match. Simmons spinebusters Hughes, takes out an interfering Jack, and finishes Hughes with a clip to the knee at 7:34. I like Simmons during this era, but he needed to be carried. Hughes, not surprisingly, was not the guy to do that. 1/2* Recap of the falling out between The Z-Man and Brian Pillman. Pillman is miffed that Zenk offered to put up the Light-Heavyweight Title against J.T. Southern or Scotty Flamingo because he hasn’t even won it from Pillman yet. WCW Light-Heavyweight Title: Brian Pillman vs. Z-Man. This one gets lost in all the (deserved) hype surrounding the Pillman vs. Lyger match a few months earlier, but it’s also quite excellent. In fact, it has some advantages that one doesn’t, namely a good backstory. They do a lot of the “these guys know each other” spots. Pillman gets chippy first, slapping Zenk in the chest. Jesse questions Ross’s account of Pillman’s football career. Pillman, who has a bad back anyway, misses a senton. Zenk gleefully attacks the injury. The pump-splash finds Pillman’s knees, though. An enzuigiri gives Zenk the momentary advantage, but he misses a running knee to the corner. Pillman puts him in the figure-four, and they slap each other. HEATED~! Zenk rolls it over, and they roll to the ropes. Pillman slingshots himself, but Zenk counters to a powerslam! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Pillman surprises Zenk with a crucifix! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Jesse begs for someone to cheat. Haha. Z-Man blocks a superplex and counters to a crossbody that nearly takes Pillman’s head off! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! They run into one another and crack heads. Z-Man recovers with a flapjack and nearly brains Pillman. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! The fans thought that was it. Zenk feigns a knee injury and then boots Pillman right out of the air on a crossbody. AWESOME~! ONE, TWO, THRE-Pillman’s arm is under the ropes. Z-Man comes off the top with a missile dropkick, but Pillman steps away from him and finishes with the Jackknife Rollup at 20:12. Fabulous match. Honestly, while Pillman vs. Lyger gets all the press for being revolutionary, this match ages better (good storytelling never gets old). There’s something about two babyfaces teetering on the brink of sacrificing their souls for the title that just makes a match that much more compelling. Plus, the athletic work was top-notch. ****1/4 WCW World Tag Team Titles: The Steiner Bros. vs. Tatsumi Fujinami & Takayuki Iizuka. If the Steiners win, they get an IWGP title shot. Jesse tries to turn it into an economic war between Detroit and Tokyo car companies. Jesse, please! Two Japanese guys are about to die! Show some respect! Scott nearly breaks his neck with the flipping powerslam on Fujinami. Iizuka looks really sharp in there, hitting Scott with the front flip bodyblock (like a swanton only with the opponent standing). Apparently, Iizuka’s career has taken quite a bizarre change in recent years. He’s like some uberheel. Here, he’s dead meet after a brief flurry. Scott Butterfly Bombs him, and the Steiners work in their decapitation move. Iizuka’s face gets jacked up at some point, so Fujinami comes in and spells him. The Japanese go for a Doomsday crossbody, but Rick COUNTERS TO A POWERSLAM IN MIDAIR! Iizuki is having trouble seeing, so Fujinami has to come back in and ground it with a leglock. The challengers target Rick’s knee. If nothing else, it keeps them from getting dropped on their heads. Scott tags in and plants Iizuka with a tilt-o-whirl powerslam. Rick returns and hits the running bodyvise to the corner. Fujinami tags in and slugs it out with Rick. HEATED~! This is starting to look shooty. Rick belly-to-bellies Iizuka but gets kicked in the head. He gets revenge moments later with a double Steinerline off the top. Fujinami catches Scott with a German Superplex. SPIKED PILEDRIVER ON SCOTT! That sets up the DRAGONSLEEPER! Scott fights out, and they collide. Rick and Iizuka both tag in. STEINERLINE! Scott and Fujinami slug it out. That allows Rick to finish Iizuka with the belly-to-belly superplex at 22:29. You gotta love with a Japanese team comes to town because the Steiners know they can cut loose on them and not have any hurt feelings. If you’ve never seen the Steiners before they broke down physically, you have to see matches like these to fully appreciate how great they were. ****1/4 WarGames: Sting, Barry Windham, Dustin Rhodes, Ricky Steamboat & Nikita Koloff vs. Rick Rude, Arn Anderson, Larry Zbyszko, Bobby Eaton & Steve Austin (w/Paul E. Dangerously & Madusa). Ah yes. The greatest WarGames in history. Dangerously actually has a drawn-up gameplan like he’s Pat Riley or something. Austin and Windham start out with a slugfest. Austin tries to send him into the cage, but Windham puts on the breaks and tracks Austin down. We cut to Dangerously talking strategy with Arn and Bobby. Windham hits a DDT, which would probably be enough for the win, but there are no falls until everyone’s in there. Huge “Paul E. sucks!” chant. Austin takes Windham into the second ring with a flying clothesline but tries to swing off the top of the cage and gets yanked off. Austin gets busted open against the mesh, and Windham’s fist is covered in blood. Cool! He bites the wound as we get the coin toss. The DA win, of course. Rude comes in and jumps Windham from behind. Barry has to go it alone against Steve Austin and Rick Rude. That doesn’t go well, but it’s only two minutes, so Barry is able to absorb punishment until Steamboat charges in. AND THE ROOF BLOWS OFF THE PLACE! DDT to Rude! DDT to Austin! Austin tries a rolling shoulderblock. Yeah, there’s a reason he didn’t keep that in his repertoire. He posts himself, and Ricky is able huracanrana Rude. Arn comes in for the Alliance, and he DDTs Windham right off the bat. SPINEBUSTER to Ricky! He dead. Rude and Arn put Ricky in the double crab. They drop that, and Rude piledrives Ricky. Dustin comes in for Sting’s Squadron and blocks Arn’s charge. Austin nearly gets Pillmanned on the cage as Rhodes hits him with an atomic drop. Windham traps Arn’s HEAD BETWEEN THE RINGS AND TWISTS IT! It’s like an Arn-shaped bottle opener. Get on that WWEShop.com. I’d buy one. Ricky slaps the figure-four on Rude as Larry Z comes in. Dustin beats the shit out of him, though, drawing a huge pop and completely reversing the heel dominance of the match. Madusa crawls up top and slips the phone to Arn. Arn knocks the faces silly, re-establishing order. Rude tries to rip Ricky Steamboat’s mask off, and Ricky’s not even wearing a mask. Sting comes in and Military Presses Rude into the *roof* of the cage. Arn gets backdropped into the cage wall. We see Madusa taping up Bobby Eaton’s hand. Hmm. ::suspicious:: Austin takes Windham’s head off with a flying lariat, and now Sting and Steamboat have Rude trapped between the rings. Bobby Eaton is the last Alliance member in. Dustin Rhodes is dripping with blood. Rude loosens the top buckle as the fans chant for Nikita. Nikita goes right after Arn and offers Sting a hand in friendship (a nice payoff after their long feud). He shoves Sting aside and takes the brunt of an Enforcers attack, cementing his babyface status. Eaton breaks up the Scorpion Deathlock on AA and goes over to the corner again. The top rope is now loosely hanging. Eaton grabs the steel turnbuckle support and hands it to Zbyszko. That was his first mistake. He holds Sting. How can this not be a good idea? Zbyszko charges with the support but accidentally nails Eaton in the shoulder. Sting knocks Larry silly and finishes Eaton with a stepover armbar at 33:19. Possibly the best match WCW ever put on. The ‘original’ WarGames is more chaotic, but as great as it was, this one is vastly superior. It has better action, intersquad and intrasquad subplots, and superior booking. Just pure, unadulterated hatred and violence. Everything a blowoff should be. Sting and his buddies get revenge after months of playing targets. As close to perfect as you can get. ***** After the match, the Dangerous Alliance blames Larry for the loss. The Alliance, not surprisingly, would start to fall apart after this before petering out late in the year.

The 411: Give this thing a solid undercard and it's talked about along with The Great American Bash '89 and WrestleMania X-7 as "the greatest of all time." The last three matches are absolute must-sees. Plus, you have the historical significance of the Dangerous Alliance beginning their dissolution. Beg, borrow or steal, people. Beg, borrow or steal.
Final Score:  9.5   [  Amazing ]