The Samoan Swat Team Vs The Midnight Express
We kick off the evening with a surprisingly lengthy tag outing, continuing the growing feud between Jim Cornette and Paul E. Dangerously. Usual decent match for both teams - the time goes past quickly albeit without much of real interest taking place. The most unique moment comes when Fatu plays the “heel in peril”, while Eaton and Lane swap in and out between headlocks. They even swap without a tag behind the ref's back, a classically heel manoeuvre, but it works to put over the Swat Team as a really strong duo you need to pull out all the stops to beat. It's not long before the Samoans are back in more comfortable territory, dominating and double-teaming their opponents. The pace is mixed, periods of quick, classic action between more drawn out sections with Lane trapped in the Samoan Nerve Hold. Entertaining enough, but it never builds much momentum and the finish is a complete anti-climax.
Rating: 3 Stars
The Great Muta Vs Steven Casey
Next up is the US Super-Card début for the Japanese legend Keiji Mutoh, who starts a decent run as The Great Muta in the NWA for the next couple of years. This match is simply a showcase for Muta against the jobber Casey, who actually makes a great start when he walks right into a demonstration of Muta Mist. Blinded from the get go, Casey is dominated by the unique, aggressive and high-flying offence of Muta and what follows is a really entertaining extended squash. Muta pulls out all sorts of stand-out offence you never saw back in 1989. Ross and Hayes don't even know what to call a lot of this stuff, Hayes takes a stab at it with “flying body press” (Plancha) and “a backflip off the top” (Moonsault), and their shock and awe really puts Muta over as exotic and exciting.
Rating: 4 Stars
The Junkyard Dog Vs Butch Reed
“Scientific wrestling is not 'JYD's... forte.” - Jim Ross
'JYD' gets himself a big-time, Nawlins entrance complete with a huge marching band. I'm not sure why exactly, as he's not even from Louisiana, but it gets him a pop anyway. The match is pretty slow, a mix of stalling and plodding big guy action. I have no idea why WCW brought 'JYD' in at this point – he's the epitome of the cartoon-ish WWF characters that they were actively leaning away from, towards talented in-ring stars such as Muta and Steamboat. Decent enough I suppose, the crowd seem to enjoy it, but it does nothing for me.
Rating: 2 Stars
Bob Orton Vs Dick Murdoch
Sticking with the old-school tone of the last match, now we have a proper grappling contest between two veterans. While they grope around on the mat, Hayes and Ross enjoy some classic back-and-forth at the booth, MH: “There's a couple of girls who were over at my place last night!” JR: “Why didn't you fix me up with one of those? You said... ah, never mind. Armbar.” MH: “Beggars can't be choosers.” JR: “Aha – Wrong.”. The match is solid enough, but like it's predecessor it just doesn't belong on an NWA card at this time. The announcers constantly drift off, as do the cameramen who are more focused on the legends in attendance and the women in the crowd than the action in the ring. Ross even exclaims: “I can tell you one thing; when Flair and Steamboat come out to wrestle, all eyes will be on the ring”, which I'm not sure was intentional but pretty much dismissed the fight in progress completely. It looks like the match is going to build to a hot finish, but then Gary Hart trips Murdoch into an Orton pin and deflates whatever it had going for it completely. I'm awarding half a star for the commentary alone.
“Armbar.”
Rating: 2.5 Stars
World Tag Team Championship
The Varsity Club Vs The Road Warriors
A nicely paced, powerful match up with a good story to tell from bell to bell. Animal does some of the best, full-extension power-slams you'll ever see to both Williams and Rotunda to start things off, leading the Varsity Club to escape and regroup on the outside. The Warriors were famous for their impressive strength and skilled grappling, and both are on full display in this one. Steve Williams was also a great powerful guy and he's well matched here as the Club members work to isolate Animal. As the match builds to the finish, referee Teddy Long is knocked down by Hawk. The Warriors hit the Doomsday Device, but Long just stands there and refuses to count. Williams sneaks in, cradles Hawk and gets the fastest three count in the history of ever to win the titles. The Warriors are pissed, but this is just the beginning for Teddy Long who has a big future ahead of him as a manager. This match is just two entertaining teams doing what they do for a solid ten minutes with a good finish that builds for the future.
Rating: 4 Stars
Ranger Ross Vs The Iron Sheik
“That boy ain't got a lick o' sense!” - Michael P.S. Hayes
Ross rappels down from the ceiling with an American flag for a big pop, but such an entrance is wasted on what follows. Sheik goes for the cheap heat with the Iranian National Anthem which he cuts short to attack Ross from behind to get even more. Sheik sure knew how to work the crowd, gesturing for them to be quiet as they chant “U.S.A.!” in the middle of holding an abdominal stretch on Ross. Some fairly intense action ends almost immediately when Rip Morgan attacks Ross for the DQ, followed close after by The Junkyard Dog to make the save. What a waste of time. Half a star for Sheik being awesome at his job.
Rating: 1.5 Stars
United States Tag Team Championship
Eddie Gilbert and Rick Steiner Vs Dan Spivey and Kevin Sullivan
I'm not sure if they were running behind schedule or what, but this match only gets a few minutes which is a shame. Seems like they could have economised with the Orton/Murdoch and JYD/Reed matches to give this one more room to breathe, but whatever, it's for the United States Tag Team Championship, a pointless championship if there ever was one, especially when the WORLD tag titles were defended earlier in the night. Why we got this and Luger's U.S. singles defence was bumped from TV I have no idea. Good action while it lasts, but fairly disposable.
Rating: 2 Stars
World Heavyweight Championship - 2 of 3 Falls
Ricky Steamboat Vs Ric Flair
It's notoriously hard to review the second part of a trilogy. The second instalment always has to bear a number of creative burdens – no true beginning, no real ending and heaviest of all; an expectation to out do the first effort while saving the best for last. Almost all drama reserves its greatest moments for beginnings and endings. These are the parts of a text with the most energy – the initial spark of the inciting incident, a flash that lights the fuse for an almighty, climactic bang.
In most cases the 'fuse' of a story is fairly straight forward, drawing tension from the inevitability of the finale. This is the biggest weakness of the middle instalment, but it can also be it's greatest strength. This is the part where a narrative is pretty much open to go where it wants, it's the ending that is responsible for getting the narrative back to the final destination. It's in part two where an author can explore characters, build interest and play with the toy box of ideas assembled in part one. Done right, part two can sometimes make the surrounding flash and bang merely bookends to a captivating and dynamic fizz.
Many critics would say this of the Steamboat Vs Flair trilogy of 1989. It is the general consensus that this 2 of 3 Falls Match was the high-point in a 5 Star trilogy of matches, a series referred to often as the best performed on American soil, at least in the era of PPV and Cable television. I wont go into much detail about the content of the match itself, anyone with an interest in this review who hasn't seen it should just go watch it already. That said, reviewing this match has been tough, and I've agonised between a rating of 4.5 and 5 Stars. I don't like this match as much as I do the other two in the trilogy – while it may be wildly entertaining and well performed, it doesn't make me leap out of my seat or pull me in beyond all distractions the way a 5 Star match ought to. I always feel unsatisfied with an inconclusive finish because it means the match itself is merely set up for something else. Then again I recognise that this was always intended as part two of three, that this match was never about the ending – it was about the journey itself.
From that perspective it achieves everything it intends to. With about twice as long to work with as either of their other encounters, this is the deepest match of the series and also the most impressive from an athletic standpoint. The best performers in the world of pro-wrestling, arguably of all-time, go out and wrestle for almost an hour without once letting the pace drop or audience interest wan. Every movement, from the high-spots to the rest holds, has a purpose. As performers, Flair and Steamboat seem to be constantly engaged in their craft. They work in numerous references to their last match, they even tease moments from their next one.
The addition of Terry Funk on commentary is also a master-stroke, and shows how far ahead WCW were in long-term booking. While I was enjoying Michael Hayes a lot, giving Funk almost an hour to talk about Ric Flair and the World Heavyweight Championship a month before he even turns heel is just brilliant. You wouldn't even really expect what happens down to road, at the time of this match Funk is just a legend who adds to the special atmosphere they created for this contest.
The context of this match works for it and against it. It is part of something almost perfect, yet by itself it is missing so much. How you respond to it will come down to individual taste – I am a sucker for clean finishes and title changes, this match has neither. I feel to give this match the same score as it's contemporaries would do those matches an injustice. This is must-see wrestling for sure, it is only a mark of how great Steamboat and Flair are that I feel so guilty to give them anything less than a 5. If you haven't seen the Flair/Steamboat trilogy, find a couple of free hours and just watch the whole thing!
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Final Score: 2.5 Stars
A very, very mixed show indeed. The main event is a must-see classic, but the rest of the card is largely disappointing. The Great Muta made a strong debut and the World Tag Team Championship match was really good, but half of the matches on the card were from below average to downright bad. The JYD/Reed & Ross/Sheik matches just had no business being on the card at all, leaving both Lex Luger and Sting to wrestle after the broadcast was over.
Hard to endorse the whole event, even if an hour of it is taken up by Flair/Steamboat. You can find that match on the 3 disc Ricky Steamboat: The Life Story of the Dragon DVD set, which I highly recommend to anyone with even a passing interest in The Dragon. For now though, we're set up for the third and final part of this historic trilogy at WrestleWar 1989...
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