The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Fall Brawl ’94

The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Fall Brawl ’94

We’re in Roanoke, Virginia. Where ever the hell that is. Like I’m impressed by a town that used to be called Big Lick.

TONIGHT – Austin v Steamboat, Cactus v Sullivan loser leaves town, Pretty Wonderful v Stars and Stripes and WARGAMES~! Doesn’t sound that bad when you type it out like that but that’s discounting the booking to come and the total lack of Hogan. Or Flair. Yanno, the main eventers. So we drop back to Sting v Vader but they don’t even shill that.

Hosts are Fat Tony and Bobby Heenan. I fast forward some bumkin country singer performing the American national anthem. Hey, the very mention of Hogan gets booed heavily. The worm is on the turn. They tell us that Steamboat is injured and there is a decision later.

TV title – Lord Steven Regal (c) w/Sir William v Johnny B. Badd

Regal debuts the powder wig. I always hated that. It just made the gimmick that little bit too cartoony. Pushed it into McMahon levels of over gimmicking. This is a re-match of the bout that opened up Bash at the Beach a few months back. That was somewhat patchy but showed a lot of promise. Badd works the arm to loud “USA” chants. “Almost everyone here has shoes on, it’s amazing” – Heenan sticks his oar into the hick folk of Virginia. Ah, the colonies. Always good for a chuckle. Paste him one around the North & South your Lordship! These two have great chemistry and have probably been working a bunch of house shows to get this good. They run a nice near falls and generally Badd stays on the arm, which he’s been working for like 4 minutes already. Badd breaks out the airplane spin and Regal gets so disorientated he bails and Badd wipes him AND Bill Dundee out with a pescado to a HUGE pop. Badd misses a crossbody back inside though and he clatters into the ropes. Regal puts the Daisy Roots to Badd while he’s down. Regal takes it to the mat where he can administer some short palm strikes. There’s that guy in the crowd who hates babyfaces again who was at Clash 28. Doug Dillenger tells him to sit the fuck down. Badd breaks out a SWEET Mr Wrestling II knee lift for 1. KICKOUT OF DISRESPECT! Regal fires back with European uppercuts. That drags this down into a slugfest, which Badd is obviously superior at because he used to be a boxer. Badd busts out a flying headscissors. FOR ONE! KICKOUT OF DISRESPECT! Regal tries to pull the cane assistance spot with Sir William but again Nick Patrick kicks it away then the heels miscue for another near fall. Badd goes to the arm again but Regal fires at him with European uppercuts. Poor Regal loses his second straight match exactly the same way as Badd gets the backslide off a missed European uppercut for the pin at 11.07. Well, it wasn’t a backslide at Clash 28 it was a sleeper but it was still missing a strike that cost him. I guess Badd was watching that match. For that added little bit of psychology I bump this up to ***3/4 a snowflake better than their previous encounter. Badd is the new TV champ. Aside from a short loss to Larry Zbyszko the former champ Regal had held the belt for around a year so the pop for him losing is really big.

POST MATCH Crowd gets a big “we want Flair” chant going. They’re re-running the WWF angle where Flair got a “real” world title that he paraded around. But when he did that in the WWF he was the undefeated WCW world champion and was wearing another company’s actual world title. So WCW doing the same angle just stinks of lazy unoriginality. While we’re on the subject of Hogan and whatnot this Hoganless PPV drew a weak 0.53 buyrate compared to the nearly double that draw the previous PPV. Basically WCW blew it by putting out a weak card lacking in stars just ONE show after doing one of their biggest buyrates in years. Crowd still wants Flair.

Loser leaves town – Cactus Jack v Kevin Sullivan w/Evad Sullivan

This would be Foley’s last appearance for WCW. He’s already started competing for ECW and cutting stellar promos over there so unless you’re a Southern mark you know who’s going where. From the crowd reaction you’d assume that Sullivan was turned heel after their team split up. Crowd was just so into Cactus Jack they couldn’t turn him and the fans didn’t want to see him go. But WCW just ignored them because Flair didn’t like Foley and neither did Hogan. So just ignore his potential to make the company a tonne of money and just get rid of him. His reactions are huge here because the crowd KNOW he’s nuts and will do anything. Evad stops him from hitting a dive outside and Kevin biels Cactus onto the floor from the ropes. Cactus goes to use a chair but Evad stops him. Oh for fucks sake. Here’s a big lumbering retard to ruin a perfectly good match. Evad stops Kevin using the chair too, which causes Cactus to collide with the ‘tard and Kevin rolls him for the pin at 6.06. Oh good gravy. *1/2. So there’s sure thing #1 thrown away by WCW. A guy so determined, such a showman and fantastic on the mic that he couldn’t miss. Not only that he had grass roots support and got a pop anywhere he went because of his effort. But because WCW were so utterly blind to what was actually good they just ignored his ability and got shot of him. It took Vince McMahon about 18 months to figure out he was star material. Vince signed him and stuck him in a feud with the Undertaker right out the gate. Foley promptly made him a tonne of money with an assortment of merchandise, PPV sales based on his matches and books. Guess WCW didn’t want all that money. Oh and the crowd boos loudly after the pinfall because they hate this fucking terrible company line. This is the same crowd that’s been chanting for Flair all night. LISTEN TO YOUR GODDAMN FANS, this isn’t rocket science.

BACKSTAGE Scheme Gene has the Stud Stable. They’re preparing for War Games. Colonel Parker rants about being in War Games tonight and how he’ll be in there. Terry Funk offers to be first into the War Games tonight.

US title – Ricky Steamboat (c) v Steve Austin

Thanks to a career ending back injury Steamboat has to forfeit. He isn’t even in ring gear as if to further demonstrate his lack of fitness. Steamboat is done in wrestling and didn’t return until officiating in NWA-TNA in 2002. Bockwinkel hints at Steamboat having to retire. He actually announced that shortly after this show. He tells Austin he never beat Steamboat. Austin puts Steamboat over and sounds a lot like Stonecold in the process. Nick Bockwinkel tells Austin he has a title defence tonight. Right now in fact.

US title – Steve Austin (c) v Jim Duggan

Oh shit. Austin tries to walk but Bockwinkel orders him to wrestle or he’ll strip him of the title. Austin tries to charge and surprise Duggan but gets backdropped and splashed for the quickie belt swap at 31 seconds officially. Oh Jesus Christ. So there goes Steve Austin’s push. He’d stay in the company for the rest of the year but it was clear after this debacle he’d never make the main event. He wasn’t even squashed by someone good. Just a Hogan hanger on.

POST MATCH Duggan cuts a promo and says that Flair’s fake belt is bogus and the most bogus thing he’s seen in wrestling. The crowd boos the hell out of him. Oh good lord. There were times when WCW was just headshakingly wrong. Just totally off base.

Tag titles – Pretty Wonderful (c) v Stars & Stripes

Stars & Stripes is Marcus Bagwell and the Patriot, Del Wilkes. That fan hates them. Oh, right, it’s Blacktop Bully. Tony thinks he should be kicked out and he is. Yeah, you don’t want fans being loud and cheering people. Bully was former Demolition member Barry Darsow. Speaking of WCW stupidity the Stars & Bars get the fans to chant “USA” and who should the cameraman AND director Craig Leathers focus on? Some guy chanting “Won-der-ful” at ringside. You can’t buy that kind of idiocy. They should be truly proud. Crowd chants “Paula” and Orndorff is game to play up to the crowd because it’s easy. It kills 90 seconds before the lock up. Roma beats down Bagwell and I can’t help but think this isn’t the best tag team he’s been in. He gets up a head of steam for a crossbody, which gets 2. Patriot tags in. He’s fresh off big successes for Global where he was one of their top babyfaces. Seeing as WCW had a healthy glass ceiling and Hogan didn’t want anyone scooping his pop the Patriot never got beyond tag wrestling in WCW. Orndorff gets clipped with two crossbodies, one from each face for 2. Bagwell gets himself isolated for a heat segment and I’m really struggling to care about this. Orndorff breaks out the Boogie Woogie Elbow. He should sue The Rock. He did the stupid overblown elbow drop first. More heat on Bagwell as this drags towards the 10 minute mark and Roma drops his Savage Elbow. That’s the only thing he does really well but Patriot makes the save. Orndorff takes advantage of the situation and chucks Bagwell over the top rope behind the ref’s back then bounces his face off Bobby Heenan’s drinks cooler. Roma runs around posing in surprisingly athletic fashion. This allows Orndorff time to dump the cooler’s icy contents over the fallen Bagwell. Mmm, refreshing. Orndorff looks for the piledriver but Bagwell backdrops out. Roma prevents the hot tag and this heat segment is REALLY going long now. Ref misses the hot tag but Patriot cleans house anyway hitting a few dropkicks and getting all fired up. Bagwell is still down though and according to the ref still legal so Orndorff piledrives him on the floor. Well, he’s dead. Orndorff chucks him back in and Roma has the easy pin at 12.53. *1/4. Damn that was boring.

BACKSTAGE Scheme Gene chats to the Nasty Boys and the Rhodes Family members. They’re one half of War Games. Aw crap. The Nasty Boys cut an even shoutier promo than usual. Dustin cuts a better promo as does big Dust with the Nasty Boys just shouting in the background. They’re not used to cutting actual good, useful promos that don’t involve a bunch of shouting. Could Brian Knobbs get anymore irritating? “Yes, yes, yes, WAAAAAAAARR”.

Triangle #1 Contenders match – Sting v Vader v Guardian Angel

Even the build up suggests that Traylor is an outside shot to win. Nick Bockwinkel gets the three guys to flip a coin and Sting is the odd man out so the first match is Vader v Angel with the winner facing Sting for the #1 contender spot. Although none of these guys would get a title shot anyway because plans changed. Then why book the match? And what’s so hard about one guy getting a title shot? I guess getting Hogan to turn up for a PPV when he’s the champion would be nice. Vader shoves Sting before anything gets going. Sting jumps back in there and Angel orders him out saying this is his match and his chance. Angel has dropped his Guardian Angel gear already. Now he’s just wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans. Vader wants a test of strength, which he wins. Angel feeds off the crowd and tries to power back up but Vader knees him in the crap factory. Angel bounces off on a few clotheslines and Angel can’t lift Vader either. Vader splash in the corner but Angel manages to slam him. He then drops an elbow to the groin that Nick Patrick says is in the stomach. Well, he is impartial so I’ll let that slide. Angel goes up top but lands on the ropes after Vader just moves. This isn’t quite the solid match that they’ve had a few times before. Vader demonstrates the slower pace with a chinlock. Foleyline (its up for grabs, he got the boot earlier tonight) takes it to the floor where Race holds Angel but he gets out and Vader clocks his manager. Angel busts out the Enzuigiri and then a scoop slam. Crowd is impressed. Pin gets 2. Ref gets bumped in a really silly spot and Angel hits the Bossman Slam. It should be over but in comes Race to headbutt him off. Impartial referee Nick Patrick is back up and the VADERBOMB finishes at 7.03. *1/2.

So now its Vader v Sting and the winner is the #1 contender.

Vader v Sting

Vader overpowers but Sting isn’t impressed and just pops back up into his grill. Vader clubs away but Sting continues to no sell. Sting stomps on his foot and hits a dropkick. Sting doesn’t bother with a cover because he won’t win and Vader has to climb back to his feet. Sting runs right into the Vader Attack and this time he goes down. Vader goes up and the VADERBOMB scores after just 3 ½ minutes of this one but Vader doesn’t bother pinning because, er, I don’t know. He goes up top again but Sting gets up and kicks him in the legs. Vader grabs his leg and hammers him back down. He goes up again but this time the Vaderbomb misses. Sting tries a sunset flip, Vader sits down and misses so Sting clotheslines him outside. He lands on his feet and confers with Harley Race who promptly interferes. Vader has the ref and Sting ends up suplexing Race on the floor. Back inside Sting shows his power with a suplex on the big man. Sting hits a splash off the top but a running splash gets knees. I think that may have been a mistake the first time. Vader goes up top again looking for the Vadersault but that misses or the match would have been over. Sting gets Vader up top and manages a superplex. Not much height on that. Sting might be getting tired already. Race is back up and clearly has taken offence at Sting suplexing him on the floor. He fireman carries Vader up into a Samoan drop for 2. STINGER SPLASH! He’s cooking on gas now. Back suplex for 2. Vader is back up and he clocks at Sting with some heavy forearms. Vader feeds Sting to Race who bashes his face off the badly positioned ring steps. Can’t someone just move those? They suck. Vader clubs away some more but now Sting no sells again. Tony cracks me up by suggesting you spell Sting “H-E-R-T” because Sting has a lot of heart. Or hert if you believe Tony. Sting hits a diving clothesline as we move over into the other ring. Another diving clothesline. Frogsplash gets 2. Vader clubs away some more and WCW’s timer is WAY off. The 15 minutes are up on my timer and GMC has changed how much time remains twice. They were a minute out after 5 minutes and now its 2 minutes. Vader tries a move off the ropes but gets caught in a powerslam. SCORPION DEATHLOCK! The time limit is running out but Vader breaks the hold with the ropes anyway and the time limit expires at 16.39. The 15 minute time limit. Someone didn’t start the stopwatch until after the match started did they?

OT – five minutes of added time although having a 15 minute time limit on a #1 contenders match makes utterly no sense, as does having just five minutes OT, so this whole OT thing is irreverent. Vader hits a great suplex and goes for one off the top but Sting punches him off. Sting is too tired to hit a move off the top rope so he just drops off and pins for 2 instead. Sting tries for a double leg but Vader has too much size. They’re exhausted in there. Vader goes up top but Sting cuts him off and just backdrops him off the top. Vader keeps pounding away but the OT is nearly up. Look, everyone wants to see a finish. Its like a penalty shoot out, no one wants it. Everyone wants the pin/goal. Vader just keeps draping arms over Sting but he’s just about able to kick out. With 15 seconds left Vader hits the POWERBOMB and it would be over but GMC’s count down reaches zero and that Muppet at ringside doesn’t ring the bell. Jesus Christ. How hard is it to organise this? GMC and Nick Patrick were in tandem!

SUDDEN DEATH – first guy off his feet loses. Crowd HATES this stipulation. Vader lays in punches and Sting just staggers around desperate to stay on his feet. This is exciting, I’ll give them that. OT was dull but this is great TV. Sting uses the ropes to hold himself up. Sting uses his last reservoir of energy to throw a few punches. Race tries to get in but Traylor is back out to kick his ass. Ref gets distracted and Vader is down. The mystery masked man nips in to bash Sting in the knee and when impartial referee Nick Patrick returns Vader is back up and Sting is down so Vader wins at like 25.13 altogether. ***1/2. Their worst match thanks to some really silly stipulations but its still Vader-Sting and the ending was hot as hell. Of course their feud had been rumbling on for over 2 years by this point so this last match was way overdue. The masked man leaves through the crowd, which could easily cause a few problems because the locals HATE him. Damn barbers, they get everywhere.

FRONTSTAGE Scheme Gene interviews Hulk Hogan & Ric Flair via satellite. Well why the fuck isn’t Hogan here to promote this PPV? Cost the company a damn fortune. Hogan gets booed for just appearing and that’s why he’s not there. Because if he was he’d get booed out the building. This must be pre-recorded because he just ignores everything that Okerlund says. God, this is retarded. Hogan’s incoherent “mashed potato muscles” nonsense is so weak. Hogan tells Flair that he has a plan to get him back in the ring. Hey, they’ve cut the crowd off! Hogan’s ridiculous claim that his leg was “snapped in two” during the last match would obviously get heat. Flair wants to never hear Hogan’s name again, which is the only thing that’d get him back in the ring. So Hogan offers him a retirement match at Halloween Havoc. They agree to it and we’re set for a retirement match at the next PPV. This segment was painfully long. Scheme Gene brings out Nick Bockwinkel seeing as they need to make a match. Bockwinkel says they’ve agreed to the match at Halloween Havoc and because of the magnitude of this match they’re sticking it inside a steel cage. “What are you smoking?” replies Scheme Gene claiming hell will break loose inside a cage. No idea what Okerlund’s problem is with a cage match. FIFTEEN minutes that took off my life. I should have just fast forwarded it.

War Games – Dusty/Dustin Rhodes/Nasty Boys v Terry Funk/Arn Anderson/Bunkhouse Buck/Colonel Robert Parker

Parker got ordered into the match despite his intentions to have Meng compete in his team. WCW officials ordered him in instead. Parker’s claims that he doesn’t own any tights or anything is a fierce piece of lying. Parker, as Robert Fuller, only wrestled for like 20 years. He only stopped wrestling the year before this to be a full time manager. This is War Games. I’ll assume that people know the rules and skip over them. The heels are very underwhelming here. The fans want to see Parker get beaten up but apart from that the big star is Terry Funk five years over the hill. Hardly a fierce some opposition for the babyface team but then of the face team the only big star is Dusty Rhodes who retired around 3 years ago. Dustin Rhodes starts with Arn Anderson so it’s the two hardest workers, which makes sense. Good so far. Especially with the dynamic of Arn turning on Dustin just a few months before this. Parker’s chickenshit Southern gentleman was a brilliant gimmick. While he’s wailing away Dustin sticks Arn’s head between the two rings in a nice visual. Dustin breaks out the big diving lariat from one ring to the other. It was cooler when Hawk did it. Probably because Dustin just isn’t cool. He’s just a big dorky blond kid. Arn seems distracted in there and just calmly takes one small bump after another. Dustin tries to single out his arm and we know it won’t be long until the heels have a two on one advantage. Arn chokes away with a length of wrist tape but Dustin battles out and we get a slugfest. Dustin wins with a dropkick and the crowd has gone deathly quiet for a main event. Heels win the coin flip in a SHOCKING development. Bunkhouse Buck enters the cage while Heenan clears up the rules for everyone at home. Dustin takes a header into the cage and he gets a shoeing from both guys. Arn goes all ‘arm for an arm’ in the process. The heels have a problem hooking up two single leg Boston crabs. Next babyface in is Jerry Saggs despite the fans chanting “Dusty”. Or is it “Nasty”? He clubbers away and piledrives Buck. Dustin puts the sleeper on Arn to try and take him out for the 3 on 2 segment. Makes sense. Terry Funk starts trying to throw chairs in there but IT HAS A ROOF. Funk is next in and he has already taken his boot off. His wild swinging sees him tumble over the ropes as soon as he’s in. Middle aged and crazy. That boot is an equaliser as it gets bashed off the two faces noggins. Saggs breaks out one of the sickest ideas in War Games history by piledriving Terry Funk into the gap between the two rings. Egad! Knobbs joins the action to make it 3-3. The heels jump him as he comes in but Knobbsamania is running wild! Arn gets grated across the cage wall but there’s a distinct lack of juice in there. Normally War Games has a half dozen gushers. Maybe WCW had a sudden HIV or Hepatitis scare. Funk does a great sell on a boot shot where he just shakes and twitches before keeling over backwards. Colonel Parker is sweating bullets on the floor and he’s in next. Buck holds Dustin for him and he finally gets in there to beat on a defenceless man and hurts his fist on Dustin’s melon head. Arn hits a great Spinebuster while the cameraman looks over Dusty Rhodes shoulder. That was suitably artistic. Everyone still looks in pretty good shape when Dusty Rhodes joins us and makes it 4 on 4. The heels all go after him but a series of Bionic Elbows sends them to all four corners. Parker runs off to the other ring while Meng tries to tear the cage down. Pah, Kane managed it. Pussy. Dusty straps the Figure Four on Colonel Parker while the other faces keep the other heels away and then take it in turns to elbow drop Parker. Meng is very upset. Rent boy? Anyway Parker has had enough and quits at 19.06. **. Wow, was that ever bland! At least the crowd reaction is strong for the win but not as strong as it could have been if they’d actually booked some big names in this thing.

The 411: There were a couple of worthwhile matches. Regal-Badd was a demonstration of what Badd was capable of and Vader-Sting was good as per usual. I think the biggest problem this show suffers is it’s so utterly underwhelming. No Hogan, No Flair, Sting getting jobbed out to a guy in a mask clipping his knee and then with a chance to put someone new over in the main event we got…Dusty Rhodes. Of course it could have been worse and there were times when this show just made you shake your head. The poor direction, the dodgy booking, Duggan over Austin, Cactus Jack gone.

Final Score:  6.0   [ Average ]