Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

[1991-09-05-WCW-Clash of the Champions XVI] Sting vs Johnny B. Badd


Loss

Recommended Posts

  • 3 months later...

JIP. Great heat for this match. Badd looks green, but does work hard, and they keep the crowd. Sting does a great job getting Badd over, always getting in a defensive position when Badd puts up his fists. A second gift box shows up at ringside, and I realize that we somehow missed the

. Oh no! Cactus jumps out of the box and attacks Sting, looking great doing it. He drops an elbow in a spot from the second turnbuckle to the floor that was replayed on WCW TV for months and is an image I always remember. Hot angle.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Badd has some flashes of good stuff but there are also a ton of really awkward stalls and resets here. Some of that was by design, I think, so they could get the fans to notice the box at ringside (which the cameras never catch, of course). Some of it was just plain inexperience. Plus the timing of the ending seemed blown. Still, it was a sign that Badd had potential. The post-match is fantastic, with Cactus Jack finally looking like a killer and delivering an awesome elbow from the second turnbuckle to the floor. Both Big Two promotions are starting to look revitalized.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sting seems to be in the mid card at this point. He’s losing to Koloff and now squeaking out pinfalls against someone like Badd who is not established yet. There is a big box on the ramp that gets everyone’s attention. Cactus attacks Sting including the elbow to the floor outside. We didn’t actually see Cactus come out of the box. Cactus will make for Sting’s best opponent in a while.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 9 months later...

I thought this match was a lot better than I anticipated based on the clips. They were putting over Badd being undefeated and Sting was having a good run as "the most popular babyface in WCW run" without actually being the champ. The gift box is a little hokey but presents a good avenue for Cactus to come out crazily and drop some great moves onto Sting. The elbow from second turnbuckle still looks vicious.

Abby debuting must make the errata.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

US Champion Sting vs. Johnny B. Badd

We get clips of Abby the Butcher attacking Sting after hiding in a giant box. His breasts jiggle more than Lady Blossom’s did earlier. Badd is dominated early but he manages to hit a flying sunset flip from the top rope for a near fall. He does that spot all the time and it’s really not a spot a heel should be doing given the flashy nature of it.

Both men stop dead in their tracks and stare awkwardly at each other as nobody called the next spot. Sting then tries for a roll up to move things along. Then we stop again and both guys play to the crowd. They trade armbars and both really ham it up with the facials. More armbars as the guys seem to have forgotten to put a game plan for the match together. Badd no sells a suplex and both guys stall again and stare at each other.

Sting tries an Irish whip and Badd just falls down…WTF????….Sting misses a Stinger splash as another box comes down to ringside. Badd is distracted because he thinks the gift is for him. Sting then gets up and stares at the box as well. Sting then walks over to Badd and tries a small package, but they mess that up too however Sting gets the three count anyway. THIS WAS AMAZING. Watch this debacle now. What a mess of match!

Cactus Jack attacks Sting after the match. Jack hits a second rope elbow onto Sting who is laid out on the floor because Jack hates his hips. A plethora of babyfaces run in to scare Jack off.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 10 months later...

I think the whole point of this match was to show the box Foley ended up coming out of, so it's irrelevant how good it was. From what I saw, Mero looked serviceable enough considering the gimmick he was saddled with, but he certainly didn't look like anyone who should have been giving a former World champion like Sting a hard time. I'm wondering if there were timing issues with the box, because the distraction spot with Mero and Teddy took entirely too long. The small package looked like it should have come off the distraction, or maybe Sting was supposed to win with a rollup. Also, JR says that Mero was checking on Teddy while Mick was attacking Sting. The problem was, we never saw Teddy get hurt. Could the Stinger Splash that Sting missed have been meant to hit Teddy and knock him out?

 

Brody's right, this match was a debacle. Thank heaven Mick saved it.

 

On another note, I saw the clip of Abby coming out of the box that Loss linked to in his post. One of the great circumlocutions of all time takes place, as Tony's all set to put over Abby's reputation as one of the most maniacal heels in wrestling history, then has to stop himself and say "in WCW" instead. Of course, almost everyone watching knew that Abby had never been in WCW, at least while it was known by that name. His last appearance in JCP had been six years earlier, when he'd been Tully Blanchard's secret weapon in his never ending feud with Dusty. And so revisionist history matches on apace.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...

Match is forgettable, but Badd shows some promise. I hated that the distractions pot for Badd was so LONG. How long does it take to understand, "Go hit that guy!"? Then both Sting and Badd just stop and stare at the box. Nothing else important going on I guess. Foley almost saves this for me, but it's just too stupid.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • GSR changed the title to [1991-09-05-WCW-Clash of the Champions XVI] Sting vs Johnny B. Badd
  • 10 months later...

This Clash was an afterthought on TV in the weeks leading up to it, with all of the control centers focusing on the 8/25 Omni show (US Title Tournament, Luger/Simmons, Gigante/OMG, Hardliners/Steiner & Kazmeier). The one ad I saw for the Clash came the week before and talked about a 12-Man Battle Royal (with 13 guys shown, then the BR ended up being 15 with various replacements like Ranger Ross and Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker) and new US Champ Sting defending against the undefeated Johnny B. Badd.

Badd's experience may have been lacking, but he had been pushed hard over the summer and his gimmick was over. Him vs. Sting (as Sting's first title defense) is an intriguing deal, but this match is a disappointment.

It starts out with some really great moments playing up Badd's boxing background vs Sting's power and experience. It's fast-paced and they look relatively even. And then things fall apart with a number of blown spots, culminating in Badd falling down as Sting tries to setup the splash and both guys standing around looking confused before trying it again.

It felt like they knew the Cactus Jack box was the finish so after planning 2-3 minutes of solid action, they decided to improvise the last bit since it wouldn't matter. But the lack of communication ground the match to a halt and made both guys look like amateurs. There's also a weird moment early on where Sting goes for the Vader Bomb (pre-Vader) and Badd gets his knees up, but Sting no-sells it and continues control. Later on, Schiavone makes reference to Sting being so full of adrenaline that he didn't even feel the knees to the ribs, but it's another example of this match not being totally prepped.

The Cactus deal is iconic, but it's also weird in that we don't see him leaving the box until the replay after the fact and that he had been on WCW TV doing squash matches for two weeks prior. At least Abby was a pure surprise, but even that was originally presented on TV as a clip from a prior event, not something happening live on a TV show. The WON from this time says Bam Bam Bigelow was supposed to be a third box debut attack but the contract never came together. Also Sting was feuding with Nikita Koloff at the time, but Koloff disappeared at the beginning of September. Meltzer hypothesized he was originally winning the US Title at the tournament so I guess the Sting/Cactus/Abby angles were a last minute replacement? Ended up working out pretty well and setting up one of Sting's hottest years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...