Slamboree ‘93 

Date: 05/19/1993 

Location: The Omni in Atlanta, GA 

Announcers: Tony Schiavone and Larry Zbysko 

The Setup 

Vader’s first-ever PPV title defense headlined this show when he faced the British Bulldog. As far as opponents go, Bulldog had never been in a world title scene in the WWF and was only in the company for three months. They didn’t do a heavy heat angle to set it up or anything, either. 

This first Slamboree was when the company leaned into the legends’ involvement the most. They did many interviews between matches, had an opening ceremony where everyone walked to the ring for intros, a HOF induction ceremony, and THREE legends’ matches. 

They were also promoting the reunion of the Four Horsemen after Flair’s recent return.

The Business 

Wrestlenomics had the show at 100,000 PPV buys, which they also show as a 5,000 increase over Vader vs. Sting at Superbrawl III in February. Starting with Starrcade ‘92, six straight PPVs did between 95k and 100k buys. Nobody or nothing was moving the needle. 

Prowrestlinghistory has an attendance of 7,008 people, but for a gate of only $37,000. That means this show was heavily papered, with an average ticket price of just over $5. Maybe they let every legend on this show invite fifty or so people. 

Results/Ratings

-2 Cold Scorpio & Marcus Alexander Bagwell def. Bobby Eaton & Chris Benoit in 10:47 **1/2 

-Sid Vicious def. Van Hammer in 0:35 DUD 

-Wahoo McDaniel, Blackjack Mulligan & Jim Brunzell ended in a No Contest in 9:06. *1/4 

-Thunderbolt Patterson & Brad Armstrong def. Ivan Koloff & Baron von Raschke in 4:39.  *

-Dory Funk Jr. (w/ Gene Kiniski) fought Nick Bockwinkel (w/ Verne Gagne) to a 15:00 time-limit draw.   **

-Rick Rude & Paul Orndorff def. Dustin Rhodes & Kensuke Sasaki in 9:25 **

-Sting def. The Prisoner in 5:16 DUD 

-The Hollywood Blonds (Brian Pillman & Steve Austin) (c) def. Dos Hombres (Tom Zenk & Ricky Steamboat) in a Steel Cage Match for the NWA/WCW World Tag Team Championship in 16:08 ***3/4 

-Barry Windham (c) def. Arn Anderson to retain the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in 10:55 ****

-Davey Boy Smith def. WCW World Heavyweight Champion Big Van Vader (w/ Harley Race) by disqualification in 15:33 ***1/4

Snap Bumps

-Vader and Bulldog looked like it was building to a great match, but it got clunky at the end, and it took what started as hot for the match out of the match. It was at its best when both men let each other work their styles. Vader had never been outpowered like this at any point in his three years in WCW. Bulldog was bleeding from the nose from the stiff Vader shots. The DQ finish with Vader using the elementary school chair was also unspeakable for a PPV main event. 

-This will forever be the fucking Nailz show. He showed up as a last-minute replacement for Scott Norton against Sting. There was zero response to his reveal as a mystery opponent, other than light chants of “Bossman!” And of course – his match sucked. WCW billing him from Green Bay because that’s where he attacked Vince and was fired is the harmless pro wrestling pettiness I miss. 

-The first WCW HOF class was Lou Thesz, Verne Gagne, Mr. Wrestling II, and Eddie Graham. The Wrestling II induction that early was clearly for the Atlanta crowd. 

-They had too many matches and extras on this show, but where it hurt the most was Barry vs. Arn. They still had a great match, but even five extra minutes might have made it a MOTY candidate. Barry did a fantastic blade job. 

-Barry was great here. The poor guy finally got a world title, did a great job in the position, and then had to job to the guy that refused to put him over before he left two years ago. Ouch. 

-The Horsemen reunion was an unmitigated disaster. Flair seemed off his game, Arn cut a promo on Barry that no one cared about, and they booed the intros of Ole Anderson and Paul Roma. Tully was supposed to join but turned down a $500 nightly deal. They explained it in storyline that Barry Windham paid him off. The Horsemen and Flair were being booed in ATLANTA, of all places. Fucking. Horrible. 

-From the Clash and the first two PPVs I’ve reviewed in 1993, they should have pivoted from the Bagwell tag team. He looked green here, and Scorpio was getting so over with the live crowds. They should have found a way to push him as a singles player and see how far they could have gone. 

-Why were Benoit and Eaton ever a tag team? They had different wrestling styles, bodies, tanning levels, tights length, accents, and even mullets. Maybe the only two things they had in common were being good workers and subpar promos. 

-The pop for Sid’s return was fantastic. They blew it by not having him as a babyface after coming back home after HEADLINING Wrestlemania. The crowd ate it up. For everything I said about nothing moving the needle on PPV at this time, doing Vader and Sid feels like it could have been if it had been done quickly. 

-The booking of Flair upon his return was just awful. All of those Flair for the Gold interview segments sucked, minus the Blondes angle. Then, they had this disaster. What a horrible start. 

-Three legends matches were unnecessary. Funk and Bockwinkle was the best one, but defintely didn’t need fifteen minutes. The first half of the show defintely brought the crowd down.

-The tag title match with Zenk replacing Douglas got better as it went along, as the crowd recovered from a bad first half of the night. Steamboat’s chemistry with Austin and Pillman was constant when they worked together in any year. 

-The tag with Dustin, Rude, Sasaki, and Orndorff was underwhelming. Orndorff and Rude were a very vanilla team for two guys with such prominent personalities. Individually, Rude was never the same in the ring after the back injury he had just returned from. 

Rating: Thumbs Down 

The last three matches almost brought this to a thumbs up in the middle for me, and normally would, but there was way too much legends stuff here that negatively affected the crowd. Also, that Horsemen reunion segment isn’t panned enough as being fucking all-time terrible because the focus was more on Roma in the group at all, but it was cringe as an event. Save yourself the trouble and watch the tag title match and the NWA title match separately.