Sunday, September 18th, 1994
Roanoke Civic Center
Roanoke, Virginia
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Off The Grid, Volume 26:
Some country singer named Martin Delray sings the "Star Spangled Banner" to kick it off.
Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan and Mean Gene Okerlund let us know that Ricky Steamboat has an injury, but there are some backup plans.
WCW Television Championship Match
Johnny B. Badd vs. Lord Steven Regal
The beginning of this match is exactly how a match like this should start and it's a shame that this style has really gone away. Badd gets in some nice offense to get the crowd warmed up and Regal plays the heel role perfectly. I will continue to stand up for Badd/Mero as a wrestler for the rest of my days. Badd hits an airplane spin and Regal wisely rolls out of the ring. Well, at least until Badd comes diving over the top rope and sends him into the guardrail. Badd takes one risk too many, as Regal ducks the dive and he snaps on the top rope. Regal is all over Badd and Sir William uses the cane behind the referee's back. It's so good to hear Bobby Heenan making fun of fans again. They do a good job of having Badd attempt to make comebacks with Regal continuing to cut him off. Badd finally makes the comeback and hits a spinning headscissors. Regal kicks out at 1 and then dumps Regal out to the floor. Badd comes back in and tries to do a sunset flip. Regal holds onto the cane,r, but the referee kicks it out of his hand. Regal still kicks out. William holds Badd, but Badd ducks and Regal knocks him off the ring. Badd gets another nearfall. Then out of nowhere, Badd hits a backslide and gets the win to become the new Television Champion. This was a really good opening match that I probably liked more than most. My only complaint was the finish. They should have just went with the initial pin attempt where the crowd was 100% with it. Regardless, the crowd and I both loved this one.
Match Rating: ***3/4
They show highlights of Hulk Hogan being attacked at Clash Of The Champions by a masked man. We then see that if Hogan didn't wrestle, he would have had to forfeit the title and then he comes out to face Flair. The masked man comes out again during the match and does it again.
Loser Leaves WCW Match
Cactus Jack vs. Kevin Sullivan
They go right at it to start outside the ring. Dave Sullivan holds Cactus to allow Kevin to throw him to the exposed cement. This whole Dave Sullivan storyline just baffles me to this day. Cactus starts making his comeback and hits an elbow drop for a 2 count. Jack goes for a piledriver outside the ring, but gets back body dropped on the concrete instead. Kevin follows up with a running clothesline. Cactus goes to use a chair, but Dave grabs it and Kevin attacks him. Cactus hits Dave off the apron, but Kevin rolls him up and that's the ending? The finishes in WCW were always just so bad. Eric Bischoff has said it numerous times, but every time I watch their shows, I can't help but think about how right he is. This was really too short be anything special.
Match Rating: **
Mean Gene is with the Stud Stable backstage. Bunkhouse Buck was really an underrated oddball character that gets forgotten. This version of Meng is so strange too.
They first bring out Steve Austin and then United States Champion, Ricky Steamboat. Nick Bockwinkle announces that they do not know how long Steamboat will be out and that Austin is the new champion. Steamboat lets Austin know that he never ever beat him for the title. Austin wants to head out but Bockwinkle announces that Austin has to wrestle tonight.
United States Championship Match
Steve Austin vs. Jim Duggan
So Duggan is here for his debut and Austin is livid. He tries to leave, but Bockwinkle throws him back in the ring. Duggan hits a back body drop and gets the pinfall victory. They couldn't have had him use a clothesline instead? The crowd loved it and Austin sold it like a heel, so I guess in that respect, it worked.
Match Rating: 1/4*
Mean Gene interviews Duggan after the match and he calls this the greatest night of his life. He also calls out Ric Flair for what he's done to his buddy, Hulk Hogan. It's kind of crazy how Duggan never won a title in WWF, but wins it here in his first match here.
WCW World Tag Team Championship Match
Stars & Stripes vs. Pretty Wonderful
They show a "fan" being escorted by security and it's the Blacktop Bully. Pretty Wonderful is such an odd pairing to me. There is definitely a large amount of people who are cheering the heel team here instead of the lame babyfaces. This feels the most over the top that Roma has been. Outside the ring, Roma dumps the contents of Bobby Heenan's cooler on Bagwell. The Patriot finally gets in and dominates the champs. However, Orndorff hits a piledriver on Bagwell outside the ring. They throw him back in the ring and Roma pins him before Patriot can break it up. I know I didn't write much about this one, but it was decent.
Match Rating: **1/2
Mean Gene is now with the Nasty Boys, Dusty Rhodes and Dustin Rhodes.
Triangle Elimination Match To Become The #1 Contender
Vader vs. Guardian Angel vs. Sting
So this is your typical overcomplicated WCW stipulation that makes no sense. So Vader and Guardian Angel start off in the first match and the winner of that faces Sting. Throw in all the stupid overtime rules and it's enough to make you not care despite three really good professional wrestlers being involved. These two big men always had surprisingly good chemistry and honestly this is the last good thing that Ray Traylor really did in terms of ringwork. After some typical big man action, in comes Harley Race to hit a headbutt, allowing Vader to get the pinfall victory. That was quicker than I expected, but I guess if you're going to have a 400 pound man wrestle two matches in a row, it should be fairly quick. So Vader gets a quick break and then out comes Sting. Speaking of two guys with good chemistry, but this is not as surprising. Vader is able to get Sting down and hits the Vader Bomb splash version. He goes for a second one, but Sting slows him down. Vader comes back and hits him with a big clothesline to slow down the comeback. He goes for another splash, but this time Sting moves. Sting clotheslines Vader to the floor and Race checks on him. Sting hits a suplex on Race and then back in the ring, he hits a suplex on Vader. He goes up top and hits an odd looking splash. He goes for a running splash and this time Vader gets his knees up. Vader goes for the moonsault, but he of course misses the mark. Sting hits a superplex and a Stinger Splash, but it's not enough to get the victory. We now go into big move mode, as the ring announcer continues to let us know how little time is left. We're down to under a minute and Sting puts on the Scorpion Deathlock. Vader is able to fight through it as the countdown to 0 hits. We're in overtime now and we're getting big moves, but much slower paced. Vader hits the powerbomb, but he's not able to pin him in time before overtime ends. So now we're in sudden death and all you need to do is knock your opponent to the mat. After some big clubbing blows, Sting is able to knock him down. The referee is distracted by Harley Race in the aisle and then out comes the masked man, who knocks Sting down. The referee sees him down and Vader is the #1 contender. The rules of this match ruined what it could have been. Vader was the only choice who made sense here with Hogan as champ.
Match Rating: ***1/4
It's time for Mean Gene to interview Hulk Hogan from a gym. He says that he is hangin' and bangin'. They then have Flair and Hogan talk on the phone and this is a huge waste of time. This segment is so long and so terrible that I fell asleep. It leads to them agreeing to a career ending match. Since exactly zero people will ever read this, I'm not even going to bother re-watching it.
WarGames
Arn Anderson, Terry Funk, Bunkhouse Buck & Col. Robert Parker vs. Dusty Rhodes, Dustin Rhodes & Nasty Boys
Dustin and Arn start off, which is a little surprising. Dustin shoves Arn's head in between the two rings and dishes out some punishment with a good camera angle to go along with it. Dustin then hits a leaping clothesline from one ring to the other. The crowd is somewhat quiet here to start. I should probably mention that Meng was originally supposed to be in the match, but they punished Parker instead. The coin toss is made and you'd never guess it, but the heels win it. Bunkhouse Buck is in there and he is all over Dustin. Next up it's Jerry Sags to help save his partner. Dustin locks in a sleeper on Arn as they announce there is a 60 seconds before another competitor enters. It's always nice when something makes sense. Terry Funk is next and he nails Dustin in the head with a boot. Arn and Buck throw Sags off the ropes, but he collapses before they can hit the move after he hits the cage. We are getting a good Bobby Heenan performance here, where he really is selling the match. Brian Knobbs is in and he's cleaning house. It's Parker's turn to enter now and he wants nothing to do with it. He finally enters once Buck has Dustin held up and he kicks him in the midsection. Dustin has the belt out and he's whipping everyone with it. The crowd is chanting for Dusty and he's in now. It's bedlam now and in typical WCW fashion, you can't even see the finish. The bell rings and the faces are victorious. Unfortunately we are subjected to hearing Dustin's awful entrance music again. It may be worse than the SmackDown opening music from my 2006 timeline. We finally get a replay and it's Parker in Dusty's Figure Four and the Nasty Boys are hitting him with elbow drops. Not a bad finish, but it felt anti-climatic. This was a fun match, but just as it hit the second gear, it ended.
Match Rating: ***1/2
This is a great example of a show with no classic matches, but it had a bunch of good ones and a fun atmosphere. It's not one you're ever going to list on your list of greatest shows, but I could see it being a sentimental favorite as an entertaining show. I enjoyed this one despite the awful Flair/Hogan segment.
Overall Rating: 76%
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