Tuesday, September 12th, 1989
Carolina Coliseum
Columbia, South Carolina
Follow me on Twitter: @WorkTheNetwork2
Off The Grid, Volume 50:
I didn't realize I was "already" up to 50 of these. We get a highlight of Sting coming to save Ric Flair from Great Muta and Dick Slater before going live to the arena. Jim Ross and Jim Cornette are the announcers tonight. They go to Gordon Solie, who is with Gary Hart. He dismisses any issues in his camp.
Samoan Swat Team vs. Road Warriors
These teams get right to business, with the Road Warriors dominating early. These two teams actually seem like a good fit in the ring. The crowd is very into it, which is par for the course for this era of the Road Warriors. I just realized that this just about a month and a half after probably the peak of this promotion, which is Great American Bash 1989. We get the old Road Warriors make a tag, but the referee didn't see it. The match breaks down, Dangerously's phone gets involved and the Warriors hit the Doomday Device for the win. After the match, Paul E. Dangerously smashes his phone in anger. This was fun for a short match.
Match Rating: **1/4
Halloween Havoc is coming.
Cuban Assassin vs. Z-Man
This is the debut of the Z-Man. This is about as vanilla of a match as you can get. Z-Man doesn't look particularly impressive and wins with a sleeper hold on both the Assassin and the audience.
Match Rating: 1/4*
They show Governor Carroll Campbell with Ric Flair declaring today as Ric Flair day.
Ranger Ross vs. Sid Vicious
Ranger Ross is about as dorky of a character as there is. I'm glad I get to do a few Sid matches here after his unfortunate passing. I have always liked Sid since the first time I saw him in 1991 WWF. I always thought he was underrated in the ring and always a fun character. He is also one of the best squash match wrestlers in history. He does exactly that here and just destroys old dorky Ross here for a fun match.
Match Rating: 1/2*
They show Missy Hyatt and Robin (aka Woman) going shopping together. They're in a limo and Robin is buying everything. They probably blew their entire budget on this crap.
Gordon Solie is with the Fabulous Freebirds to talk about their match with the Steiner Brothers. They're sick and tired of getting no respect around here.
NWA Tag Team Championship Match
Steiner Brothers vs. Fabulous Freebirds
Robin and Missy are wearing their new attire from their shopping trip. Such excitement! I just realize that Wikipedia shows the attendance to this show as 2,600 and the arena holds 12,401. Yikes. The crowd sounds like a lot more than 2,600 to their credit. Michael Hayes' chest hair is just on a different level here. Back to my attendance comment, it truly doesn't look like it's that empty, but who am I to doubt Wikipedia? Cornette lets me know that Scott Steiner is only 24 years old here. I still would have loved to have seen the Steiners in the WWF a few years earlier to see what they could do in that environment. The Steiners having both Robin Green and Missy Hyatt in their corner is just bizarre to me. As is usual with a Freebirds match, there's a lot of heel stalling. Rick catches Hayes for a power slam and then catches Garvin off the top rope for another one. After an overhead German suplex with a release, Hayes is able to move out of the way of a charging Rick. Garvin then hits a DDT, but Scott is able to break up the count. Rick gets thrown into the metal guardrail and then a clothesline back in the ring. Rick is able to hit a hot tag and for some reason they decide to show the crowd during it instead. Scott comes in and hits the Frankensteiner on both opponents to a huge pop. Scott is running the ropes and we are only able to see him stumble and that's enough for him to get caught with a DDT and the Freebirds to retain their titles. It's clever that they had the camera set up that way, but the only problem is there was a camera man in the shot from the other side. They argue if it was Missy or Robin who did it. You can see Missy wasn't in the area, so there isn't much mystery there. Anyway, the match was pretty good, but nothing special.
Match Rating: **1/2
We come back and see that other camera angle and you can see brown hair at the bottom of the screen.
Norman The Lunatic vs. Flyin' Brian
We get action right away and then Norman screwing up his spot early on. Theodore Long provides a distraction and that allows Norman to attack Brian. Norman hits a second rope splash, but Brian kicks out at 2. Norman then squashes Brian into ring post, but goes back to it a second time and Brian moves out of the way. Brian hits a missile dropkick and a body slam. Norman catches a reverse crossbody and hits a power slam for a 2 count. The pace of this match is really good to Norman's credit. Brian catches Norman with a crucifix pin attempt and picks up the win. After the match, Long chews out Norman. This was way better than it should have been.
Match Rating: **
Gary Hart is with Gordon Solie again and he says that Terry Funk is in the building.
Mike Rotunda vs. Steve Williams
Williams chases after Rotunda and gets him up in a military press and does reps with him, which is pretty impressive. This is a Jim Ross dream match because he can list all of their college credentials but Cornette steals that away from Ross. I can confidently say that Rotunda's offense is just as boring here in 1989 as they are during his peak of IRS. We get a stupid finish where Williams is trying to slam Rotunda, but Rotunda grabs the rope. The referee kicks his arm off the rope and that allows him to hit the slam and pick up the win. Rotunda attacks him right after the loss, but Williams fights him off. This was dull.
Match Rating: 3/4*
Lex Luger tells Gordon Solie how great he is and how he's bigger than wrestling.
United States Championship Match
Tommy Rich vs. Lex Luger
Tommy Rich is just one of those wrestlers whose name is a big part of this era, but I haven't seen much of. They are working a really nice match here to start, with Rich playing the underdog role well. Luger goes off the top rope, but Rich moves out of the way. Rich makes his big comeback and hits a second rope fist for a 2 count. After hitting a Thesz press, they roll outside and Rich goes for a right hand, but Luger ducks and he hits his hand on the post. Rich goes for a sleeper on the apron, but Luger snaps his neck on the top rope and that's enough for the victory. After the match, Rich goes after Luger in the aisle, but nothing really happens there. This was a good match that felt like they had some good minutes left in them.
Match Rating: ***1/2
We go back to Gary Hart again. He has a certified letter from a doctor that performed the surgery on Terry Funk. We go to Funk in a hospital room and he's got his arm wrapped up. He says that he was close to losing his arm due to infection. He says he guarantees that he's going to get Ric Flair.
Sting and Flair cut a promo with Sting talking about he and Flair being side by side.
Dick Slater & Great Muta vs. Sting & Ric Flair
I'm not sure that Dick Slater is really a worthy replacement for Funk. I enjoyed Gary Hart having to turn Muta to face the camera. As you would expect, Sting and Flair are insanely over here. Not over enough to fill an arena, but over with the people they did get to buy a ticket. Muta hits a dive over the top on Flair and then Sting follows him and we have a brawl. Much like the last match, I am kind of just sitting back and enjoying the match here. This match has been just chaos for the most part. Sting has the Scorpion Deathlock on Muta, but the referee is distracted by Flair and Slater brawling on the outside. Gary Hart comes in and hits Sting in the back of the head with a roll of coins. We get more brawling and it leads to Sting getting sprayed in the face with Muta's mist. We get a referee bump and more chaos with Terry Funk coming in the ring and putting a plastic bag over the head of Flair. I guess this is a pretty infamous moment, but not one I was aware of until reading about this show. During all of this nonsense, I guess they disqualify the heels and we come back to Flair being checked on and Flyin' Brian is here now too. I mean the plastic bag thing was pretty stupid, but the match was very good. I never thought I'd give a Dick Slater 4 stars, but here I am.
Match Rating: ****
This was a pretty good show overall, thanks to the final two matches. I wish they would have cut a match and let the Luger match go a few minutes longer. Overall though, this is a nice little nugget from one of their better eras.
Overall Rating: 78%
No comments:
Post a Comment