The Steiner Brothers

[El-P]

Well, there you go. Talk about them Steiner boys if you want to, to me most of their most pimped stuff doesn't hold up at all (the Dome match, Luger/Sting 10 minutes spotfest, abusing a young japanese worker). I enjoyed them trading bombs with Doom and Williams/Gordy, and their best match is probably the Nasty Boys from Halloween Havoc 90 (a case of a mediocre team and a shitty team having one hell of a match for some bizarre reason). Fun for big spots, but that only goes so far with me.

[flyonthewall2983]

Why the Luger/Sting match got PWI's MOTY is beyond me.

[Ditch]

Well, there you go. Talk about them Steiner boys if you want to, to me most of their most pimped stuff doesn't hold up at all (the Dome match, Luger/Sting 10 minutes spotfest, abusing a young japanese worker). I enjoyed them trading bombs with Doom and Williams/Gordy, and their best match is probably the Nasty Boys from Halloween Havoc 90 (a case of a mediocre team and a shitty team having one hell of a match for some bizarre reason). Fun for big spots, but that only goes so far with me.

Couldn't agree more. Match after match doesn't hold up, and the reason is that they're spot wrestlers with no sense of structure. Structure is absolutely vital to tag wrestling, and even the less-regarded (as workers) Road Warriors 'got it' more than the Steiners.

[JerryvonKramer]

Why the Luger/Sting match got PWI's MOTY is beyond me.

Because it was exceptionally exciting?

[El-P]

Because the Steiners always have been insanely overrated, that's your answer.

The "great" Dome show match doesn't hold a candle to any of the other Hase/Sasaki other that year. it's not even a *good* match. Hell, Rick Steiner & Scott Norton had a much better match with Hase/Sasaki later in the year, simply because it had structure. The Superbrawl match is the same average kind of match, with a lot less exciting spots. They were shitty faces in peril (although Rick was better then Scott, at least early on), they never figured how to sell, they never figured how to use their big spots in a logical (or at least in a sort of ascending scale) way, they suck at southern tag team match structure because they are only interested in throwing bombs, which is why they can only be fun when they got some team who they can throw around (Nasties) or some team who throw bombs back (Doom) and settle them down (Doc/Gordy). The Road Warriors are indeed much better at tag team wrestling. And although I consider them really shitty workers, the Nasty Boys are better purely as "tag team" workers.

Not that I don't enjoy the Steiner for what they are. But a great team they are not.

[Ditch]

I think the "why was it MOTY in '91" answer is that the 'workrate match' was still novel in the US at that time. Which is also why I think J Cup '94 got such over-the-top rave reviews. "Wow, a WHOLE CARD of little guys doing spots rather than just 5 minutes somewhere on the undercard?!"

[PeteF3]

Let's not overlook the "dream match" factor--in a PWI MOTY discussion, that matters. Even if you didn't specifically lay in bed at night dreaming of such a match, it was WCW's two top singles babyfaces taking on the top babyface tag team. It's a few years after the equivalent of Dusty & Magnum going against the Rock 'n Roll Express, or maybe the MegaPowers against Demolition. These matches just didn't happen in the early '90s. Workrate is usually a secondary (or nonexistent) factor in judging PWI awards.

[JerryvonKramer]

Exactly Pete, listen to the crowd during that match, measure the excitement levels. I won't pretend that I didn't mark out like a little girl myself when I first watched that match.

[BrickHithouse]

I love the Steiners, Scott in particular. Always have, always will, and choose to turn a blind eye to the fact that their shit doesn't really hold up. I could watch them mutilate jobbers all day and never get sick of it.

[KB8]

I don't really have much of an opinion on them either way, but yeah, that Nasty Boys match from Halloween Havoc '90 is fucking awesome. The Gordy/Williams match from the Clash is, too. Shit, they might be my top 2 tag matches in WCW history. So...I guess when I like them, I really like them.

[Exposer]

Why the Luger/Sting match got PWI's MOTY is beyond me.

I hate that match. When I watched it for the Smarkschoice WCW poll a few years back I was flabbergasted at the praise it received.

[Loss]

I was always a little surprised at some of the love for that match. It had major dream match appeal at the time, but I never really liked it.

[Loss]

The pre-match video, on the other hand, is an all-time classic.

[CaptCabana]

My love for Steiners vs. Sting/Luger comes from the fact that it was the first pure "sprint" match I had ever seen at that point in my young wrestling-watching days. Most of the stuff I had seen featured a lot of rest holds and a lot of build, and that match was just GO for 11 minutes. Granted, now that we have seen 18 million "sprint" matches, it sorta loses a bit of appeal. But you never forget your first....

[Chess Knight]

I like the Steiners. Their matches with the highest praise (v Bret/Owen, v Hase/Sasaki, v Luger/Sting) actually don't do a whole lot for me, but I fucking love a lot of their other matches. I think the Gordy/Williams, Nasty Boys, and Quebecers tags are much better than their matches with the highest praise.

[flyonthewall2983]

How it's better (in the eyes of 1991 PWI readers) than Bret/Perfect is a bit beyond me.

[JerryvonKramer]

About 8 years ago, this is what I wrote about that match:

 

Finally, the MAIN reason to watch this show is for The Steiners vs. Luger and Sting. Seriously, that's just about the best tag match ever. I'd give it a ***** easy. So exciting, the crowd is just pumped. It's face vs. face and you don't know what's going to happen or who is going to win. I'd put that in my top ten matches of all time easily.

I think it is easy to forget the impact that genuine emotion has on what you think of a match. When we get to those shows, I will be very interested to see what I make of them now. I was very high on all the pimped Steiners matches including the one where the beat up the poor Japanese youngster.

[BBscout]

I was fast forwarding through a WWF Handheld from 92 and saw the Steiners hit an electric chair DDT on this sumo sized white dude. I remembered the Steiners-Yoko/Bigelow handheld that got brought up recently, but this was against a white version of the Headhunters called "Double Trouble." Will report back with any absurd shit after checking the whole thing out.

[shoe]

I think Double Trouble got a mini run in the WWF because they were originally the Undertakers. Working the house show loop was part of them giving up the gimmick.

[MJH]

I'm struggling to think of a Bret match I dislike more than the tag w/ Owen vs. The Steiners... last time I watched it, I remember a spot where Bret's face is shown in a close-up and it's on his face that "this is a fucking mess". Whether that was the case or it was me seeing shit, I don't know, I have no intention of watching it back, but Goddamn is it as incoherent as any Bret match of that era, and a case where "hey, Owen's game for our Japanese offense!"

 

I enjoy the odd squash for what they are, but, shit, if you want to see crazy spots on jobbers even the Smoking Gunns hit a back body drop into a piledriver on some dude, y'know?

[Matt D]

I'm struggling to think of a Bret match I dislike more than the tag w/ Owen vs. The Steiners... last time I watched it, I remember a spot where Bret's face is shown in a close-up and it's on his face that "this is a fucking mess". Whether that was the case or it was me seeing shit, I don't know, I have no intention of watching it back, but Goddamn is it as incoherent as any Bret match of that era, and a case where "hey, Owen's game for our Japanese offense!"

I'm not far off that match. I'm in November 93 in my watching now and will probably hit it within a few weeks, so I'll watch it for you when I get there. I haven't seen it in years.

[KrisZ]

Thing about the Steiners that made them great in my eyes were that they took the Road Warriors aura and added to it with their credibility as amateurs. They were the baddest team around and you believed that. Also regarding their stiffness I knew some jobbers from that era and they would say they would rather face the Steiners than the Roadies because at least the Steiners didn't potato them as hard as the Roadies did.

[tomk]

So haven't watched Steiners in maybe six or seven years but last time I watched memory was that matches weren't structureless. Built really in the Jackie Fargo/Roughhouse Fargo, Brett Wayne Sawyer/Buzz Sawyer...more technically sound wrestler trying to control his nutthouse brother format.

[Badlittlekitten]

I just watched the Luger/Sting match for the first time, and yeah, it's kind of forgettable, but it's easy to see why it was so highly regarded in 1991 and I don't see why anyone would have a huge problem with that.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

The Steiners were my favourite tag team as a kid, but going through the WCW stuff now, I kinda hate them. I mean, there's always that little bit of childish sentiment that I'll likely never shake, but they would often come across as such dicks in matches, to the point that I enjoyed the series with Doc/Gordy solely for the fact that Doc/Gordy eat them alive and give them so little. I've noticed a lot of moments in their matches where Rick, in particular, seems to hold his opponent's offence in such contempt, at times even smiling at it. I know he's supposed to be this crazy, mentally-unhinged guy, but I always detect a hint of "you expect me to sell that weak shit" attitude. Him laughing at Petty's missed dive at Starrcade 90 stands out in a similar way. I liked Rick more as the lovable lug pre-Scotty's arrival, and would rather watch the First Family than the Steiner brothers. That said, the brothers did have some fun spotfests, and I really like their Mania 9 match with the Headshrinkers, just because it seems to be structured better than their usual match, with Scotty taking a good beating as fip.