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[1993-09-19-WCW-Fall Brawl] Ricky Steamboat vs Steven Regal


Loss

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Im leaning more towards El-P on this one. I thought this was pretty darn good and I think this would be a pretty safe lock for a Top 10 WCW match of 1993 for me. Steamboat's work at the beginning is flawless and is the perfect execution of selling an injury while still maintaining offense for a good 10 minutes, It was really good arm-oriented offense. Regal did blow off the arm work, but the rib work was pretty good. What hurt this match was the dead as a doornail crowd. I liked the Steamer's comeback a lot starting with the reversal of the tombstone and how he worked his injury into the cross-body not working. The finish was a perfectly way for a heel to lift the title off Steamboat. I would have liked a little bit more chaining in the beginning and nastiness down the stretch. Steamboat set the tone well that he was pissed off and he was going to beat the piss outta Regal, but it slowed a bit too far down before the finish.

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This really is an excellent match. I feel Meltzer missed the boat on Regal early in his career. You can look at this match and his match with Arn at Superbrawl 94 and gives neither match the praise it deserves.

 

Steamboat had his left ribs taped and Regal just worked those babies over . Of course Steamboat sold the ribs throughout, and this really helped with the story telling of the match. Not to be out done Steamboat does a real good job working over Regal's arm/shoulder. In the early going Regal did sell the arm damage. Later he does shit can the arm work , but it doesn't bother me since their wasn't an angle where Regal hurt his wing. Unlike with Steamer they did an injury angle on his ribs. A spot I loved was Steamer was playing possum

and caught Regal in this carny arm lock. We get some nearfalls toward the finish. The actual finish was gold. Dundee was spot on in his timing for. Just an excellent match that told an interesting story.

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  • 8 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I remember this being decent, but the TV matches held promise of something great and I don't think we got it here. They try to recreate the Starrcade '84 magic as Steamboat comes into this with hurt ribs, courtesy of an umbrella attack on TV by Regal. Cool finish as Steamboat skins the cat but Dundee whacks him with the umbrella in a well-done spot.

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  • 1 year later...

Agree that the tv matches were good so I guess I will see where the full match is at when we revisit for WTBBP. The finish here was well done with Steamboat doing a nice comeback with a variety of offense. I thought the finish was really good at showing how opportunistic Regal and Sir William are as Dundee cracked him with umbrella quickly and Regal followed up with a German to win the tv title.

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  • 1 year later...

Four matches, four terrible finishes. Ths card was a waste.

 

Let me first say that I only watched what was on the disc, and I won't be watching this match in full either. I saw quite enough with what was here. Way to ruin a great story, gentlemen. Steamer's ribs were hurt to the point that his offense was practically stopped dead in its tracks, Regal is known as a punishing wrestler who can make his opponents hurt a thousand different ways, and how does this match end? Dundee interfering with an umbrella shot. Why go through all the stuff with the ribs if the finish won't involve them? Injury angles have been ignored before in wrestling, and I'd rather have had this one be completely ignored than see something like this. At least have Dundee nail Steamboat in the ribs, not the head.

 

Let me state this again: Work by itself means nothing to me. It's all choreographed ballet anyway. What turns that ballet into a match are the outside factors: refereeing, announcing, and most of all, booking. Not that any of those will turn a bad match into a five-star classic by itself, but they can sure take a three-star match and turn it into garbage. WCW in particular has a knack for taking good in-ring work and turning it into unwatchable dreck through terrible booking decisions and announcing that's so awful it should have never been allowed on TV. This is a textbook case of the former.

 

Was the finish that bad by itself? No, of course not. Managers have been interfering in wrestling matches since the dawn of time. But when you know ahead of time that you're going to have three title changes on a card, it's a good idea not to make all three of them various forms of screwjob, particularly two of the same. Rude's already beating Flair with a knucks shot, so Dundee shouldn't be involved here, especially with his umbrella. Do some sort of clean finish that involves Steamboat not being able to counter Regal because of his ribs. Trust me, the audience won't think less of Steamboat because of the loss unless they just don't like him anymore to begin with.

 

I enjoyed Jesse advocating for Steamer slugging the referee and deliberately getting himself disqualified if he couldn't continue because of his ribs. That might actually have been a better finish than the one we had, mostly because it would have been such a shock to see as pure a babyface as there's ever been in wrestling do something like that.

 

Tony and Jesse were good in what we saw here; they explained how the rib injury was limiting Steamer and how hard he had to work to overcome the pain. I'm sure they also put Regal over as a machine while he was doing the damage earlier in the bout.

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  • 4 months later...

I agree with myself even moreso now I thought this match was incredible and maybe the best Regal match I have ever seen.

 

WCW World TV Champion Ricky Steamboat vs Steven Regal - WCW Fall Brawl 1993

 

Steamboat had won the TV Championship from Mr. Wonderful at the August Clash of Champions. The Dragon went out to save someone from an Orndorff piledriver and paid for it by having Regal attack his ribs with an umbrella so he has the tape on the ribs. I have seen this compared to the classic Tully/Steamer match from Starrcade 1984, but I thought this was even better because the offense from both men is so much better. Steamboat works a master class in maintaining offense for ten minutes and still selling the rib injury. For that alone, this match needs to be watched by everyone (fans & wrestlers alike) because there is so much to be learned here. Steamboat comes out of the gate hot with some tremendous chops but is also taking to time sell the rib injury so this giving Regal openings. Steamboat because he is so fired up is overcoming them. Regal is also doing a great job bumping for Steamboat going over the top rope onto the ramp and then back into the ring. Regal takes a hard bump into the turnbuckles and Steamboat is all over the arm. Tons of cool arm takedowns! Some really inventive stuff. I really liked the takedown after he was playing possum. One fan makes sure to scream that he is playing possum. The fans seem to be pro-Regal cheering him and chanting Steamboat Sucks! Which I was shocked by in 1993 and in Houston, TX. Maybe Philly, but Houston seems weird for that happen. Even in these wristlocks and armbars, Steamboat is selling, great kick to the ribs by Regal in one of these holds. That's what is great they are working heel hope spots and it is really making for some serious drama because you know Steamboat's hold on top is tenuous at best, but through sheer tenacity he is staying at top. This run on top ends when Steamboat takes a big back body drop and his ribs just give out. Regal just is relentless on top. Yes, Regal blows off the arm work, so that is a knock in an other classic match. Regal has the heavy blows but also the stretches to make this a great varied heat segment. Of course, Steamboat is a beast at selling. One of the better heat segments I have ever seen. They really come together to make for something special. I loved Regal getting really fierce with the Butterfly Suplex he knows that his bread and butter and when he cant get it immediately he snaps and rips of the tape, pounds the exposed ribs and hoists him over in the Butterfly Suplex. But it is all for naught as Steamboat kicks out. The Steamboat finish run starting with the Tombstone reversal was great. It was short but explosive lots of nearfalls. The selling told a great story. He needed something big to win so ribs be damned he goes up top for a flying crossbody, but Regal pushes him off so Steamboat injured slowly goes for the cover as opposed to getting the cover off the move. Great! I do have a problem with the finish. Steamboat skinning the cat after all the rib selling is so silly. How much better would it have been if he cant do and he is just hanging their exposed for the umbrella shot as opposed to being cracked in the head. Liked the German suplex bridge pinning combination.

 

Fabulous match! Just an absolute Ricky Steamboat selling clinic and what makes it so special he was selling from the opening bell but still maintains offense convincingly for ten minutes or so. Really cool. Regal working his holds and vicious offense with Steamboat selling is what pro wrestling dreams are made of. Finish run was great with all of the Steamboat nearfalls being compromised by his ribs. Two knocks was Regal blowing off arm work and Steamboat being able to do a skin the car when there was a better finish right there, but that is not enough to take away from the fact they had one of the best US matches of the year and maybe the best Regal match of his career! Highly recommended! ****1/4

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  • GSR changed the title to [1993-09-19-WCW-Fall Brawl] Ricky Steamboat vs Steven Regal

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