World Championship Wrestling (5.20.1989) Review

-Originally aired May 20, 1989.

-Your host is Jim Ross.

TV TITLE: STING (Champion) vs. “Secret Service” JACK VICTORY
-Victory shoves Sting, and Sting gets all fired up with a backdrop. He throws Victory to the floor and slingshots himself on top as Gary Hart drops in to tell us about the impending Dragon Chai Challenge, while offering no details on what it is. I’m guessing if Sting can drink one in under a minute, Gary Hart will present him with a gift card entitling him to free Dragon Chais for a year at Starbucks. Bodypress off the top gives Sting the three-count.

-Sting grabs the mic and demands Muta in the ring right now! Gary Hart ain’t havin’ it and tries to talk Sting down, but Muta suddenly shows up ready to fight. Gary Hart runs over and forces his man back to the dressing room.

-Eddie Gilbert has a videotape of Dr. Patrick Harvey doing physical therapy with Rick Steiner. Eddie Gilbert proclaims Danny Spivey to be an egg-sucking dog for his shenigans, his chicanery, and his shenanery.

SCOTT STEINER (with Missy Hyatt) vs. TOM BRANCH
-Branch tries a sneak attack, but Steiner just dropkicks him over and over again and finishes with a belly-to-belly suplex. So that’s what the start of a big-ass push looks like. Kevin Sullivan tries to attack with a chair after the match, but Eddie Gilbert runs in, ready with his own chair.

-And now we meet a new NWA star: Flyin’ Brian! It’s pretty much a Soloflex ad with dropkicks spliced in.

-Next up, we meet the Johnny & Davey Rich, the Party Patrol, who challenge the winners of the Tag Team Title tournament. A quick check of “party patrol” on Urban Dictionary instantly gives us two gimmicks that would have gotten these guys more over; the first is taking your nuts out in public and yelling loudly while doing it, the second is a group of whores.

TERRY FUNK vs. EDDY GUERRERO
-Well, hot damn, check that jobber out. Funk reprimands Rubarb Jones for not giving him a proper ring intro and makes him start over again. Eddy looks so weirdly TINY here. He looks like he’s a foot shorter than Terry Funk. Funk struggles to get a hold on him in the early moments, but Eddy catches him with an enziguiri and Terry is so surprised he goes out to the floor to shake it off. Back in, Funk dodges a dropkick but grabs Eddy’s ankles on the way down and turns it into a giant swing.

-Funk chops him, but Eddy gets out of the way of a Boss Man legdrop. He can’t take full advantage of it. Funk hoists Eddy on his shoulders and just runs the length of the ring and flings Eddy onto the floor. Eddy doesn’t even grab the ropes or break his fall on the apron, he lands full-force on the floor, and JR is shocked that we don’t have a DQ, reasoning that the referee is probably just scared to death of Funk.

-Eddy ducks and Funk accidentally clotheslines the post. Eddy bolts to the top rope and clotheslines Funk on the floor, as Eddy is going all out in a squash match and Funk is generous enough to let him. Eddy goes back in to slingshot himself onto Funk, but the Funker gets out of the way and clotheslines him over the barricade. He piledrives Eddy right on the floor and drags him back into the ring to pin him. Given how early it was in Eddy’s career I actually had pretty low expectations for the match and then they just went out there and tore the house down for a few minutes. Terry goes into the stands to pick a fight with some fans after the bell.

-JR talks to Terry Funk, who tells a story about watching a jackass get shot in the head when he was a kid. His daddy told him it was because he had no place left in the world.

RON SIMMONS & RANGER ROSS vs. LEE SCOTT & THE INVADER
-This is odd because Ron has pretty clearly been skewing heel in his past few appearances. Also, JR suddenly mentions that Dr. Death and Kevin Sullivan have had a falling out because Sullivan is blaming all of his problems on Dr. Death. Does this company know how to book a faction breaking up? We’re getting all of these indications that the Varsity Club already broke up but it’s being handled like “Varsity Club was killed on the way back to their home planet.” Spinebuster by Simmons finishes quickly, and somehow when he weren’t looking, Tommy Young appears to have hurt his arm and he’s in agony as he raises Simmons’ hand.

-Dynamic Dudes music video, set to a piece of stock music with such obvious inspiration that I’d bet the title of this piece is “Don’t Panic, Be Cheerful.”

WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE TOURNAMENT FIRST ROUND: ROAD WARRIORS (with Paul Ellering) vs. FABULOUS FREEBIRDS
-Road Warriors charge the ring like they always do and the Freebirds expect that and attack right away, but the Warriors clear the ring anyway. Hayes heads back in and gets a boot to the face. The Warriors pinball him around a bit and Hawk press slams him. Everybody tags but Gordy clearly doesn’t want to come in. Animal powerslams him, but they wipe each other out on a double clothesline. Animal gets to his feet first but Hayes runs in and DDTs him so Gordy can slip over and tag out.

-Hayes is all over Animal. Gordy is feeling braver so he tags back in, but he charges at Animal and runs into a boot. Hot tag Hawk. Hawk takes on both Freebirds as the SST shows up and attacks Animal on the floor. Hawk runs out to come to his partner’s aid. Meanwhile, Terry Gordy tries to run out of the ring to bring Hawk back inside, and Hayes hilariously yanks on his partner’s arm and convinces him that they’re better off letting Hawk do this. And sure enough, Hawk gets counted out and the Freebirds advance in the tournament.

-Teddy Long, wearing his Colonel Sanders outfit again, taunts Ric Flair and says “I hope you never come back!” Possibly a shoot in light of recent stories. We get a vignette of Norman again, who says he just wanted to be left alone, and the people made him what he is now. A crazy person.

HACKSAW BUTCH REED vs. COUGAR JAY
-Cougar Jay tries a series of shoulderblocks. Reed just takes all of them and then lobs him out of the ring, and Cougar takes a nice bump. So Reed brings him back in and does it again. Teddy Long strolls down to ringside to voice his approval and take some detailed notes. Reed finishes the cougar with a shoulderblock off the top rope.

7.5

The final score: review Good

The 411

The whole show was a blast--good matches, angles that made sense, and two of the biggest tag teams of the 1980s in a single show--the Dynamic Dudes AND the Party Patrol. How lucky can we be?