Wrestling on the Socials

MonsoonClassic has been around forever, constantly adding old-school wrestling footage. He has a ton of WWF, WCW, and territory wrestling videos. Please check him out! 

Today, I feel like watching some pre-Hogan WCW, so here we go. 

WCW Saturday Night 02/02/1991: Barry Windham & Arn Anderson DDQ Brad Armstrong & Tim Horner in 16:44. This is a sleeper of a match. They had a good opening few minutes with the heels doing your typical great Horsemen tag team bumping and selling for the young babyfaces’ offense. What was notable about this match was that there were some “Horsemen” chants early on, but Brad Armstrong was so good playing the babyface fighting from underneath that he turned them on to his and Horner’s side. They did several outstanding hope spots with Brad during the heat. One was him trying to sunset flip Arn, but Arn belted him with a left hand. Brad wouldn’t let go, and Arn did it a couple of more times before the resilient Brad finally got the sunset flip, only Arn caught Barry’s hand for a tag on the way down. That was awesome! Horner’s hot tag was solid, and eventually all four men were in the ring. Doom ran in out of nowhere because they were feuding with the Horsemen before their upcoming split for an extremely disappointing DQ. Barry and Arn were main eventing the next PPV as part of War Games. They absolutely could have beaten Horner and Brad without hurting those guys in the slightest. In fact, they helped their cause just by having the match, but that’s not the focus here at the end. Instead, it’s Doom-Horsemen and Reed accidentally running into Simmons, to add gasoline to that brewing split. The ending brought it down, and the former Lightning Express got nothing out of this. ***3/4 

WCW Worldwide 10/03/1992: Sting & The Steiners def. Rick Rude, Arn Anderson, and Bobby Eaton in 14:48. Since Paul E was in the Bill Watts doghouse by this point, there is zero mention of the Dangerous Alliance, despite the heel trio here. They didn’t do as much as you’d think in this match because they didn’t have to. The crowd was white hot, and you could tell from the start when Sting mocked Rude’s posing routine, and the fans went BALLISTIC for the hip swivel. Of the three heels, Rude sold the most early on, which was surprising, given their slotting. Bobby Eaton was almost MIA; it felt like he was barely in the match. Rude and Scott worked a long test of strength spot that Scott eventually got the upper hand in, and this was pre-Big Poppa Pump. Rude worked Scott over with a long chinlock spot (as he was prone to do), but the crowd was living and dying on Scott making a tag. Eventually, he hot tagged Sting. All six men ended up in the ring quickly, and Sting got the quick win with a stinger splash on Arn. The crowd significantly improved the match’s quality. **1/2 

WCW Pro 03/19/1994: Steve Austin & Mongolian Mauler def. Dustin Rhodes & Brian Pillman in 11:37. Yes, the Mongolian Mauler was regularly on WCW syndicated TV being managed by Col. Parker right before Hulk Hogan came in. I guess you could also tell Hogan wasn’t there yet because Mauler used a leg drop on Dustin in this match, and it was better than Hulk’s, too. Austin’s legacy is going to be all the business he created and the money he drew, but now he’s overlooked for being a great working heel who could bump and sell his ass off. He was the perfect complement to Mauler, who was effective but not in those ways. He took a huge backdrop on the floor from his former partner, Pillman. Rhodes took the heat, which is a little surprising, given Pillman’s size, but it also allowed Pillman a super fiery babyface comeback.  The ref became distracted, allowing Parker to give Austin his shoe, who blasted Pillman with it when he was coming off the ropes. This was a lot of fun.  ***1/4