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The Pat O'Connor Memorial International Cup Tag Team Tournament


JerryvonKramer

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This is, sort of, a fantasy booking thread, but not really ...

 

At Starrcade '90, WCW held the Pat O'Connor Memorial International Cup Tag Team Tournament featuring two representatives from the eight main wrestling nations:

 

USA

Canada

Mexico

United Kingdom

Japan

New Zealand

Russia

South Africa

 

I thought it would be fun to ask the question: let's say it is December 1990 and you have no restrictions on who you can book to represent each country, who would you go for?

 

You can also play around with the date if you want, or do an "all time" one.

 

For the purposes of this:

 

1. We can assume that all wrestlers who were "Russian" are in fact Russian (e.g. Nikita Kolof can count as being Russian)

 

2. Because South Africa is kind of a random one, you can sub that out for another nation - Australia, Argentina, Germany, whatever - take your pick.

 

Hoping this should be fun.

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This reminds me of those old Wrestling Superstars magazine "Dream Match" articles (could you get those in the UK Jerry?). Sometimes they were quite weird (Andre's "long-lost" twin brother winning a freak show battle royal for example), but at the time I loved them. IIRC they did a dream tag team tournament in a 1990 issue with random draw rules (the Harts fluked out and stayed together, and the RnR's and Midnights switched partners).

 

Looking at the Starrcade 90 card (BTW not WCW's finest hour), the teams are a little wacky, and my home country's reps are utterly disgraceful (anyone care to enlighten me on who Troy Montour and Danny Johnson were???? They're so obscure they don't even have friggen wikipedia pages). Anyway, in the spirit of Wrestling Superstars, here's my "dream" tag tourney from 1990:

 

USA: Warrior and Sting ("reunited and it feels so gooooood")

Canada: How's Piper and Abby for a crazy ass combo. Sure they weren't kayfabe Canadians, but this is my fantasy, so deal with it!

UK: Um, was Big Daddy still working in 1990? Adams and Smiley is actually a pretty good pick. But I'm going with another odd couple: DK and Adrian Street baby!

Russia: Another WWF/WCW dream team: Nikita Koloff and Nikolai Volkoff

Japan: Have to go with the B-I Cannon one last time.

Mexico: El Canek and Mil Mascaras (did they ever team in real life?)

Plus wrestlers from two other countries that I can't think of right now, but it doesn't matter because they were eliminated in fictitious first round matches. ;)

 

The Winners: I'm booking a Japan/Canada final. It would be full of blood and the heat would be off the charts. The B-I Cannon go over as Piper does a rare pinfall job. Baba and Inoki embrace and celebrate in mid-ring, finally burying the hatchet, and agreeing to face each other in a one-time-only "scientific" match at the Tokyo Dome on New Years Day 1991.

 

And Bill Apter and Matt Brock declare the night the greatest in the history of our great sport (settling that argument once and for all).

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Honestly, considering who was realistically available at the time and who the WCW audience would generally know and respond to, I'd leave most of the teams alone.

 

Steiners: Most popular team in the company, no brainer here.

 

Muta/Saito: Muta was over at the time and hardcore fans will have at least heard of Saito. No need to make any changes here.

 

Adams/Smiley: Adams would be a familiar name to the longtime fans. No real reason to drop Smiley that I can think of.

 

Morgan/Victory: They weren't over at any point. But what other New Zealanders were there available besides, maybe, Boyd?

 

South Africans: Like Bix said, they were just a gimmick team so there's no reason to drop them.

 

The changes I'd make:

 

Canada: Owen Hart and Chris Benoit, both were in NJPW at the time, who WCW was working with, so it shouldn't be an issue.

 

Mexico: Los Cowboys (based off of hindsight with their awesome performance at Clash XIX)

 

Russia: I'd keep Zangiev because he's got that smarmy demeanor that gets easy heat and the shootstyle would be a nice change. But I'd replaced Salmon with Nikita Koloff, a familiar face. Or, if Nikita wouldn't do it or Victor was being pissy about teaming with a gimmick Russian, then I'd snag Wakha Eveleov based off his performance in the NJ Dome show the year before.

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Morgan/Victory: They weren't over at any point. But what other New Zealanders were there available besides, maybe, Boyd?

The Bushwackers/Sheepherders?

 

They wouldn't have been available. They were working for Vince.

 

Top of the thread said no restrictions, but if we consider Butch and Luke unusable ... Boyd/Bigfoot Sheepherders.

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