Wrestlewar '89 Page 2
Finally, Murdoch simply hog-ties Orton and pins him after an elbow. Orton beats up Murdoch out of spite after the match. I don't know why the NWA kept hiring these two. They do the hanging spot for some extra heat after the match (although the crowd isn't really into it anymore), and the feud never really went anywhere after this match. Heavily edited for time, thank god, but I've seen it in full and it was safely a DUD.
· The Dynamic Dudes v. The Samoan Swat Team
Wow, how things change. Let's run it down ... the Dudes are comprised of former king of hardcore and ECW World champion Shane "I've never heard of the Dynamic Dudes" Douglas, and current God of Japan and former Sheepherder flagbearer Johnny "I've never heard of the Dynamic Dudes or the Sheepherders either" Ace. The SST is the team who would go on to be known as the Headshrinkers in the WWF, including Fatu, who would go on to become the Sultan/Rikishi. They're managed by Paul E. "What do you mean I used to be a manager?" Dangerously. And at this point, both teams represent everything that was wrong with tag team wrestling in North America at the time.
Standard WWF formula tag match, as Ace gets the crap kicked out of him (literally, that's all the SST knows how to do) by the Samoans. Jim and Bob remind us what a wholesome, all-American pair of kids the Dudes are every two minutes. And HOW many times has Shane hit a woman, exactly? :) At one point, Paul tries to incite the crowd by telling Ace that he's "as useless as a woman from Nashville," thus once again showing his sensitive, feminine side. The Samoans are basically wiping the mat with the Dudes when Fatu goes for a bodyslam on Douglas and Ace dropkicks them over for an upset Dudes win. **
The scary part is, it took the NWA the better part of a year to come to their senses and break up the Dudes.
· US title match: Lex Luger v. Michael "PS" Hayes
This is an interesting match, for reasons I'll get into later. Hayes, the current WWF huckster Dok Hendrix, had turned on Lex in a tag match against the Windhams a few weeks prior, and NO ONE gave him a snowball's chance in hell of winning. Hayes is not a good singles wrestler. Luger was a good singles wrestler back then ... honest ... but he needed a far superior worker to kick his ass into gear. You figure out for yourself how good this was. Lots of headlocks, chinlocks and armbars here. Hayes works the crowd like a god, but they cut to shots of the crowd reacting way too much. Boring match, but Luger is a pure babyface and Hayes is a pure heel so it never gets too boring because both guys get monster reactions by, you know, breathing.
The storyline of the match has Luger controlling, Hayes cheating to gain an advantage, and Luger simply shrugging it off because he's too powerful, then start over. Hayes gains a protracted advantage after a long chinlock, but Luger mounts the Big Comeback and just annihilates Hayes. Luger goes for the rack, but Hayes hits a fluke DDT, but can't pin Lex because he's out of it. Both guys get up and do an irish whip, but now the ref gets bumped and everyone goes down in a heap, except Hayes. And then Terry Gordy comes down! This was out of nowhere, and he pushes Hayes onto the fallen Luger as Patrick wakes up and counts three! Hayes wins the US title in one of the biggest upsets ever.
This is an interesting match because there was no such thing as a swerve back then, because the internet didn't really exist. The NWA used to have Sting and Luger go out there and manhandle guys who didn't have a chance all the time, and people would think nothing of it because they were so over and needed someone to kill to keep them over. These matches would be like if WCW had DDP defending the US title against, say, La Parka, on PPV. It'd just be begging for an angle to give La Parka the US title because we expect to be swerved nowadays. But back then people thought nothing of Sting squashing JTTS on PPV because it was just something he did. So when Luger is signed to fight a non-contender like Hayes on a major show, no one was expecting Hayes to win because "the cannon fodder" guys never did, and then the NWA suprised everyone by having Hayes win.
Of course, it had a point, because Luger got so pissed off that he ended up eating Hayes for breakfast in a rematch, then taking out the rest of his frustrations on Ricky Steamboat to signal his official heel turn.
Oh yeah, the match was about *1/2
· TV Title match: Sting v. The Iron Sheik
Remember that little lecture I just gave? Here ya go. Sting beats the Sheik from pillar to post and puts him in the Scorpion Deathlock at will, selling not a single move from the challenger. This was before Sting met Muta and got REALLY good. The NWA really didn't know what to do with Sting at this point, either. It was too early to put him over Flair and too late to have him keep squashing jobbers ala Goldberg so they gave him the TV title and let him squash ex-WWF champs on PPV. :) *
· NWA World title match: Ricky Steamboat v. Ric Flair
Flair brings 46 women to the ring, Steamboat brings his son. The match is watched by three judges: Pat O' Connor, Lou Thesz ... and Terry Funk. Funk actually looked YOUNG back then. Flair was a mere 5-time champ at this point, only barely past his prime. Funny how he won all his titles *after* he deteriorated. They sell this match as Flair's last hurrah. How many times have you heard that one?
Well, what do you say about this match? It's the greatest match, ever, period. Quite possibly the only perfect wrestling match in the history of North American wrestling, with the exception of maybe the ladder match from WM10, but that's a gimmick match. This match needed no gimmick. The chops *literally* echo throughout the arena. Jim Ross' hyperbole is not the least bit silly here, as he gets something to work with for once. Now *that's* how you chop a guy. Even the armdrags have purpose, as Flair sells the arm injuries like he's dying. It's ring psychology, people. ECW take note. These guys could do *everything* at this point in their careers -- mat wrestling, brawling, flying, you name it.
Steamboat goes for the arm like a vulture circling a carcass, which causes everyone to remember Clash VI, where he made Flair submit to the double chicken-wing to win the first fall. Storyline, people. All the punches and forearms actually *hit*, unlike many of the loosy-goosy matches today where punches miss by 6 inches. I mean, they don't hurt *that* much. No ugly missed moves either. This is what happens when neither guy has an ego to speak of: They can freely beat the hell out of each other because they trust each other not to hurt themselves. There's no "formula" to the match ... each guy controls at various points.
Steamboat goes for the kill about 25 minutes in, but Flair gets out of the chickenwing, and then dumps him over the top rope during the flying bodypress setup. Steamboat hurts his knee, and then Flair nails him with the figure-four, like a sadist. The knee is eventually hurt so bad that Steamboat tries a simple bodyslam and Flair is able to reverse it into a cradle for the pin and title #6. Ironically, it was this very move that gave Steamboat the win over Randy Savage in their historic 1987 match. ***** I'd give it more, but that's as high as the scale goes. They hug and shake hands in the ring, something unheard of these days, and that's that.
Almost.
Judge Terry Funk also congratulates Flair, and asks him for a title shot right there. Flair rightly points out that Funk is a non-contender and Ross tries to shoo him out of the ring. Of course, Funk is a lunatic so he "apologizes" and when Flair's back is turned, he decks him from behind, then destroys him and piledrives him through the judging table. You see, there was a *reason* for a table to be at ringside. Take note, ECW. This was the start of the best feud of 1989, and one of the best ever. It still blows my mind that even through all the turmoil going on at that time, they were still able to pull off a match and an angle and a feud like that one so beautifully. They've never matched it since.
· Whew. Well, the rest is pretty anti-climactic, but we gotta finish.
· NWA World tag team title match: Steve Williams & Mike Rotunda v. The Road Warriors
The Varsity Club ripped off the Roadies at Clash VI in the infamous "fast count" match that turned Teddy Long heel (now THAT'S a fast count, WCW) so Nikita Koloff has been appointed special referee. Koloff tosses Kevin Sullivan from ringside in short order. Williams looks like a luchadore compared to today. Fairly quick, as the Warriors make short work of the champs and go for the Doomsday Device, but Dan Spivey pulls Koloff out of the ring and beats the holy hell out of him to earn a DQ. * The Varsity Club were stripped of the belts at the end of the show because of their actions. I guess even the NWA knew that it wasn't working with them as champs.
· US tag team title match: Eddie Gilbert & Rick Steiner v. Kevin Sullivan & Dan Spivey
Missy Hyatt was pretty damn hot back when she wasn't trying to look skanky all the time. Just a nothing tag match to put the faces over and send the fans home happy. The Club destroys Steiner before the match (I guess he was injured legit) so Gilbert wrestles the entire match. Spivey proceeds to wipe the mat with him. Gilbert miraculously tags Rick, but the ref doesn't see it, but in the ensuing chaos Rick nails Sullivan with a Steinerline and Gilbert gets the fluke pin to retain. DUD
After the match, the faces get destroyed again. The US tag titles were temporarily dissolved after this match. End of show.
The Bottom Line: Were it not for the Flair-Steamboat-Funk segment, this would be one of the worst shows ever. Everything was terrible, save for the Dudes-SST tag match, which was formulaic at best but certainly not terrible. Luckily, no one remembers it for the undercard. They would save themselves with Bash '89, their next PPV, which rocked the world and was, by contrast, one of the *best* shows ever, featuring the blowoff match between Flair and Funk. Everything else was in transition at this point, and the NWA was also building to putting the World title on either Luger or Sting (Sting got it in '90, Luger in '91) and trying to get rid of Flair. But Flair doesn't go away easily, as we all know.
Still, the Flair-Steamboat is an absolute must-have addition to any library, so I have to recommend the show on that basis alone. The rest is okay for nostalgia value at least, I suppose.