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DVD #1: Sting/Steamboat/Windham/Rhodes vs Rude/Arn/Eaton/Zbyszko


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I liked this alright, but it was what it was. Anyone familiar with any of these guys, with the angles surrounding this, and with the Southern Tag formula could probably tell you how this was going to go. Not that I think it was bad or anything, especially with all the good workers, there just wasn't much that stood out for me, aside from Arn's fake tags, Rude's selling of the Atomic Drop, and the angle afterwards where Rude lays out Steamboat.

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I thought this was an excellent match that did a really good job capturing all the storylines near the top of the card.

 

I plan on including one of the Horsemen six-mans from the mid-80s as a comparison in the near future. The Dangerous Alliance was really short-lived, but it was very well-executed and didn't really feature any major weak links.

 

This may be what you'd expect, but if we were getting main event matches at this level on Raw or Smackdown every week now, people would be raving about it.

 

One thing that has really been lost in modern wrestling is the overlap of storylines. Two guys feud and basically keep to themselves during that feud. One great thing about WCW and NWA booking was that they did a great job of mixing things up. The World title feud and the US or TV title feuds were usually linked and resulted in a lot of main event tags and six-mans. Look at Flair/Funk/Sting/Muta, or the Horsemen, or the Dangerous Alliance. There were also more babyface saves when a heel beatdown occurred post-match, which really put over the promotion. You really got the feeling that the promotion was two distinct groups of guys divided by philosophy. People complained about it happening at the time, but Dusty Rhodes coming out to tell the ref the heels were cheating during a MX/Rock & Rolls match when he wasn't involved in the storyline was a nice touch. Sounds like Wrestling 101, but one thing that bugs me about modern wrestling is that everyone really walks alone, and when babyfaces or heels tag, it seems more like it's because they were thrown together than because they share common enemies or philosophy. Probably makes it harder to book too.

 

I don't know what kind of money they were drawing if you compare before Rude came in to after he showed up, but he really filled the void left behind by Flair nicely. To a point where I'd argue that even if Flair was still around, Rude coming in should have been the cue to slowly remove Flair from that spot and start building around Rude as the top heel. It may have even been a good chance to finally do the Flair babyface turn and stick with it, even if it wouldn't have had the same effect it did two years earlier in 1989.

 

Still unfortunate how much of the good will they built up during this six-month period that Bill Watts killed when he came in.

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This was fucking awesome. I thought I had seen this but it must have been another 8 man with Austin or a 6 man with similiar teams. First off, a hell of a match to go into a PPV with. Everyone hates each other, so the PPV match up's don't have to be spoiled by working too much with your opponent. For instance, Eaton/Arn against the Steiners is basically summed up by the asskicking Sting gives both guys. Dustin and Barry are out for Larry, but everyone on the Dangerous Alliance is out for Dustin when he gets caught. The hip toss, flying headscissors into the stun gun and bump off the apron and on to the floor is one of my favorite tag team transitions. And the crowd is beyond hot and guess what, the legal guys are the two who finish the match, despite chaotic brawling towards the end. I have seen pretty much every other match on the DVD before so will have to re-watch but this was new and an instant classic for me.

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I really enjoyed this match. The crowd was so into this match. Bobby Eaton was a human superball taking just awesome bumbs making his opponents even better than they normally are. I just loved how Arn changed his mind by not going into the ring to take Sting's press slam that Larry Z and Eaton just took.

 

 

It's a shame they don't use this formula much anymore. The associations with each other really helps give the rub to each other. Dustin, and Steve Austin to me got the most mileage out of it even Marcus Bagwell got a rub from these associations as a future star. You look at Arn,Bobby, and Larry Z and you realize they are really good workers individually, but as a group are phenomenal.

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First time I've seen it since it originally aired. Only two real gripes with it.

 

1. The faces control almost too much of the match in the early going, so when we do get the face in peril sequence, it almost seems rushed.

 

2. Steamboat would have been far more suited for the face in peril role than Dustin Rhodes.

 

Other than that, very good. And was Sting mega over with that crowd or what?

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Guest FlairPinnedMe

The dynamic of this match is something I think is really lost in WWE today. This was just before a pay per view, and everyone in this match had issues with each other. This keeps things fresh, so you’re not seeing the exact same match on free TV as you are on pay per view. This was a typical match for the time, and even so, it was awesome. The crowd was insane for the whole match.

 

The whole babyface in peril being Dustin was fine (though maybe not the best choice). He got beaten by pretty much all the heels for a few minutes. Eventually Steamboat comes in and cleans house for the hot tag, this was the only minor qualm with the match. I just think it would have been even hotter if it was Sting that was tagged in, because he was the one the crowd was insanely hot for. They still popped big time for Steamboat cleaning house, though.

 

Anytime Rude was in the ring (and sometimes when he wasn’t even in), the crowd was chanting we want sting. This is also an interesting thing that is lost in WWE these days. I mean, this wasn’t even a headlining feud, and look at how hot the crowd was for it. Can you imagine a tag with say, Santino Marella and Wrestler A vs Chris Masters and Wrestler B, do you think the crowd would really chant “we want Santino”?

 

Really good match, even if it was formula for these guys at this time.

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Holy shit the taunting in this match is awesome, from Rude holding open the ropes for Sting to Anderson bowing and "blowing" at Steamboat on the outside. Who would have thought that a match involving Larry Z would feature surperior stalling and tactial non-wrestlig from pretty mucheveryone else on his team. Interestingly enough, Larry is fucking incredibly fast whipping around the ring and taking these awesome bumps off of chops that he sells with his entire body ala Pat Paterson or Buddy Landel. I also vividly remember Zybsyco being hated immensely by Southern crowds during this period, as I once saw hiim provoke a near riot at the Mcallister fieldhouse so he was really doing a great job during this period all around.

 

I've also got to disagree. Dustin was the right choice for FIP here. Dustin was the young guy on a team full of highly credible vets all of whom had been or were upper echelon guys. Rhodes was the logical choice to be "overwhelmed". This is the second multi-man, pre-ppv, superstar loaded tv match I watched tonight. The first was the famous Raw Ten Man tag from 00 with the Radicalz/DX v. Foley/Rock/Too Cool. Really these two matches are interesting to watch back to back as you really see the similarities and differences between the periods working within roughly the same formula match. I'm not going to lie. I think I like the Raw match a bit better, but this WCW match was literally one of many like it. Very good stuff, from a great period of wrestling, and if the same match made tv today people would be talking about it as a MOTYC.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Yeah, I see that I agree with the consensus here that this was a great TV match - really hot and action packed without giving away too much before the PPV. You rarely see heel psychology or the tag formula worked as well as this today, which is really a shame.

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Absolutely perfect TV mainevent. A match that's truly great and anyone in the world could find fun, massive heat, great pacing, and I could watch it anytime. I love matches like these where no one would really go out of their way to pimp it, because there's probably tons like it and it's just some random main event from a Saturday Night show, but it's so awesome and perfect on a set like this.

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  • 1 month later...

Oh man, Steamboat got some serious air on the high cross body...

 

It shouldn't be hard to book matches like this, where new chapters of a handful of different feuds are played out at once. It means so much more than just throwing out four random good guys against four random bad guys.

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  • 3 weeks later...

One thing that has really been lost in modern wrestling is the overlap of storylines. Two guys feud and basically keep to themselves during that feud. One great thing about WCW and NWA booking was that they did a great job of mixing things up. The World title feud and the US or TV title feuds were usually linked and resulted in a lot of main event tags and six-mans. Look at Flair/Funk/Sting/Muta, or the Horsemen, or the Dangerous Alliance. There were also more babyface saves when a heel beatdown occurred post-match, which really put over the promotion. You really got the feeling that the promotion was two distinct groups of guys divided by philosophy. People complained about it happening at the time, but Dusty Rhodes coming out to tell the ref the heels were cheating during a MX/Rock & Rolls match when he wasn't involved in the storyline was a nice touch. Sounds like Wrestling 101, but one thing that bugs me about modern wrestling is that everyone really walks alone, and when babyfaces or heels tag, it seems more like it's because they were thrown together than because they share common enemies or philosophy. Probably makes it harder to book too.

Well, a lot of it has to do with the type of stories they're telling these last few years, I'd imagine. When Austin hit, a wave of dangerous loners came behind him, and when he left, it kept coming. I've gone on at great length elsewhere about how successful wrestling promotions tend to mirror the style of their top stars. I think Cena is a Sting-esque enough figure that if they wanted to pull that off again now, they definitely could.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Nice solid TV (a bit short, IMO) match with a hot crowd.

Arn, Larry, and Bobby were excellent in their roles, the hot crowd seemed to get them fired up and motivated.

I was puzzled by Sting not getting more time in the match. The bookers were clearly trying to get Steamboat over in the match, but the crowd was demanding Sting and he really did very little, while Steamboat's sloppy and clumsy offense was a real heat-killer.

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