Why This Show? 

I have fond childhood memories of Global. I never thought it was great, but it was new wrestling on almost every weekday with some fun talent. 

Former Atlanta-area wrestling commentator Joe Pedicino ran the company. Bill Eadie (Masked Superstar, Demolition Ax) was the booker in the beginning. 

The show was tasked with running 4-5 shows a week in the afternoons on ESPN and having TWO weakened syndicated shows. We’ll be watching as much as possible. 

The first thing they did was a 24-man tournament for the world TV title. 

GWF on ESPN

Air Date: 07/08/1991

Location: Global Dome (Sportatorium) in Dallas, TX

Announcers: Craig Johnson & Scott Hudson 

They aired a welcome of sorts with both announcers, GWF head Joe Pedecino and Max Andrews. It was weird because Pedecino said, “The USWA had been globalized,” despite having no affiliation with the USWA whatsoever. 

Jim Cornette cut a good heel promo on Stan Lane being in the TV title tournament. 

TV Title Tournament First Round: Billy Black def. Brian Adias in 6:19. Black looked good and took a few really good bumps, but the crowd didn’t care about Adias in the slightest, despite his history in the building for World Class. Something about Adias came off way too old style here, and the match dragged. *1/4 

Buddy Landel did a great heel promo with Pedecino interviewing. It’s too bad his time here was too short.

TV Title Tournament First Round: Randy Rhodes def. Sweet Daddy Falcone in 6:05. Remember that I’m looking at this in the context of pro wrestling in 1991, and this was another flat match where they worked a lot of holds like it was late ‘70s pro wrestling. I like Scott Hudson, but he wasn’t helping by constantly alluding to Randy looking like Dusty without outright saying it as a running joke the entire match. Rhodes won with a bulldog. *

Makhan Singh did a heel promo acknowledging his babyface Norman character in WCW and saying it was all an act. Pedecino sold it like an emotional gunshot wound to the soul, that Norman was a heel. I’ve never seen a person in such emotional turmoil. 

TV Title Tournament First Round: Patriot def. Stan Lane in 9:17. This was easily the best thing on the show, but more solid than actually good. Stan tried feeding and bumping for Patriot a few times, but wasn’t at a tippy-top level to make the still-green Del Wilkes look too good. Cornette did a great job of interfering to get heat, and the match was over. Cornette and Lane ran into each other during the match and teased dissension in an interview for a storyline that had no time to go anywhere. **1/4

Big Bully Busick cut a promo trying to get over his lethal heart punch while dressed comically like a hood in a silent movie.  

TV Title Tournament First Round: Bill Irwin def. El Phantasma in 7:18. Irwin had a multiple of the heat all the old World Class guys had on this show, at least. Phantasma got in a couple of nice dropkicks before losing to a gut-wrench suplex, of all things. *1/4

Joe Pedecino interviewed the Patriot. It was corny that he was “from every city in the USA,” but his gear and physique made him look like an American Gladiator, which can’t be overstated. The promo itself was solid. 

Rating: 2.5 

This was not a good first start. There was a lot of in-ring wrestling, but the show didn’t have good in-ring matches in booking or performance, so that ended up being a negative. The show felt like it dragged overall. If I’m watching this as someone who doesn’t know Cornette and Lane are gone, the heavy teasing of dissension between the two was at least intriguing. Landel, another short-timer, had the best promo on the show. The Patriot was the only guy to win a match and do an interview, so he did come across like a big deal, especially with the win over the biggest name on the show in Stan Lane. Other than that, this wasn’t well-put together at all. 

GWF on ESPN

Air Date: 07/09/1991

Location: Global Dome (Sportatorium) in Dallas, TX

Announcers: Craig Johnson & Scott Hudson 

They started by showing clips of the TV title tournament first-round matches from the last show. This took forever, so they probably aired the last two minutes of every march with some pretty rough wrestling overall. Man, filling time five days a week is rough. 

TV Title Tournament First Round: Terry Garvin def. Zebra Kid in 3;58.  Zebra Kid was Eric Fontaine under a hood. Garvin was switching to babyface after years in the Soortatorium as a heel. Unfortunately, Zebra looked bad, including selling an armbar once by putting his face in the mat and not moving an inch. I’ve seen Fontaine be fine at least, so maybe he was trying to hide his identity since he was headed in. The worst match thus far. 1/2*

Nick Busick cut another promo. Busick has been fine in certain roles and certain places, but playing this heel you’re supposed to be scared of near the top of the card did not remotely work. More on this later. 

TV Title Tournament First Round: Makhan Singh def. Terry Daniels in 4:04. Daniels did a really good job getting Singh over as a monster. This was a total squash, but more entertaining and better executed than any other first-round match, sans the Patriot and Stan Lane. *1/2 

TV Title Tournament First Round: Chris Walker def. Doug Somers in 7:20. Walker was super green. He worked a headlock that didn’t look particularly good for a lot of this match. Somers tried doing clever heel things that didn’t require Walker to do anything, like posting himself or missing moves, but Walker just wasn’t up to snuff. *

Makhan Singh & Rip Rogers did their first promo as members of the Cartel and made the first mention of The Boss, who was yet to be identified. This wasn’t much more than fine, but at least they were building some intrigue with something. 

Jeff Gaylord cut a babyface promo to easily nab the worst promo of the show and the short history of the promotion. He was asked earlier by a fan if he held any records outside of wrestling, and he clearly wanted to stake a claim to worst on promos, I guess. 

TV Title Tournament First Round: Rip Rogers def The Hitman in 8:00. Another masked guy here to put a Global guy over, only this time it was the awesome Cuban Assassin/Dave Sierra. It was hard for the crowd to get into another random masked guy, but this was at least a solid wrestling match. *3/4 

Axl Rotten, playing a BRITISH PUNK ROCKER, cut a promo as the British Commonwealth Champion for the tournament. His accent needed a ton of work, but he had some fire at least. This may have been the best promo on the show, even if that’s damning with faint praise. 

Rating: 1.5

Honestly, we’re two shows in and off to a bad start. Bill Eadie booked these first shows, and they’ve been underwhelming, to say the least. The matches aren’t good enough to have this many. Especially seeing what someone like Terry Garvin would become on the mic later, why wouldn’t he cut a babyface promo here? He had a long history in this building as a heel and was an excellent talker, and was being pushed to the next round of the tournament. Instead, we got Big Bully Busick dressed like a Looney Tunes character, while simultaneously trying to get his heart-punch finisher over as deadly. All while the promotion acknowledges the fans chant “Mario” because he resembles Super Mario. We’ll see how things progress once we get past the first round/enhancement showcase of the TV title tournament, but this was worse than the first show, with no Buddy or Cornette talking, and nothing on the level of the Patriot vs. Lane. 

GWF on ESPN

Air Date: 07/10/1991

Location: Global Dome (Sportatorium) in Dallas, TX

Announcers: Craig Johnson & Scott Hudson 

They did another long recap of all the tournament results. 

Buddy Landel was back for another good heel promo. 

TV Title Tournament First Round: Adrian Street def. Axl Rotten by DQ in 4:56. The match was mostly Adrian wrestling Rotten on the mat, which was fine, but they did the lame fucking finish where Rotten hit Adrian with an object for the win, but the ref reversed the decision when he saw the object after the match. This tournament was extremely poorly booked. * 

TV Title Tournament First Round: Rasta the Voodoo Mon def. Jeff Gaylord in 10:39. This was just a fucking abysmal pro wrestling match. Rasta had a good body, but the gimmick and gear looked beyond minor league. Why the fuck was this booked to get more time than anything in the first round??? The announcers sold Rasta putting a Voodoo curse on Gaylord’s shoulder during the match, much more than Gaylord physically did, as he seemed to forget. Rasta was so green, he made Gaylord look like William Regal. DUD

TV Title Tournament First Round:  Big Bully Busick def. Jimmy James in 5:42. Busick fucking worked a comedy spot where he accidentally took the ref down and pinned him. What a dork. They miscommunicated a few times, and no one buys Busick as a killer. 3/4*

Makhan Singh did another strong heel promo, cementing the new character from Pakistan. 

TV Title Tournament First Round: Buddy Landel def. Gary Young in 7:23. This wasn’t as good as one would have hoped, but them going 70% was good enough to be the best thing on this show. 

The Patriot did another interview. Again, he’s not Hulk Hogan, but he’s just good enough not to kill the push they’re giving him. It wasn’t bad at all. 

Rating: 1.0

Landel and Young weren’t enough to save this show, featuring one of the worst matches ever given ten minutes on national television at this point with Rasta and Gaylord. There were some good promos, but far too few to give this show more than a semblance of life. Man, the shows have become bigger and bigger disappointments. 

GWF on ESPN

Air Date: 07/11/1991

Location: Global Dome (Sportatorium) in Dallas, TX

Announcers: Craig Johnson & Scott Hudson 

All of the endings of the TV title tournament again. 

TV Title Tournament Second Round: Billy Black def. Randy Rhodes in 6:08. This was heel vs. heel, so the crowd was dead. Black looked good again, winning with an awesome superkick, then a moonsault combo. Rhodes had nothing going for him other than looking like Dusty Rhodes or the kid from Bad Santa. *1/4

Chris Walker did a promo with his southern twang. Again – a solid promo, although helped by the fact that I expected much worse. Walker wasn’t bad here at all. 

TV Title Tournament Second Round: The Patriot def. Bill Irwin in 8:30. Irwin did a lot of great character work, so while the match was simple, it got over. Irwin was great at hiding the Patriots’ limitations. **

TV Title Tournament Second Round: Makhan Singh def. Terry Garvin in 5:38. We would later find out how underused Garvin was, but you could really see it here. This was nearly a squash, but Garvin had the crowd behind him early and worked his ass off. *3/4 

Buddy Landel promo time. Now, he can hype an actual opponent, fellow heel, Big Bully Busick. They were meeting in the second round of the TV title tournament. Buddy has probably been the overall MVP of this show early on the mic. 

Axl Rotten cut another believable screaming promo on being the Commonwealth champion. He was answering a question asked by a fan earlier in the show, and I thought it was funny that they aired, “We’ve never heard of your title before. What the hell is it?”  

TV Title Tournament Second Round: Chris Walker def. Rip Rogers in 6:34. Man, Walker’s okay promos are a lot better than his matches. He worked a lot of headlocks and looked generally clumsy in the ring. Still, Rip was entertaining and good enough to make it passable. *3/4

They closed with  Big Bully Busick’s promo to build up his match with Landel. It was the worst of the show, and the announcers were mocking him and calling him “Mario.” He stuck around and made goofy ass faces while reacting to the announcers running down next week’s show. He was just a full-on joke now. 

Rating: 4.5 

Maybe this is slightly high because it felt so much better than the downward trajectory the show had been on, but it was a solid show. All of the promos were strong, minus Busick’s goofy ass (although even that for the wrong reasons, possibly). The wrestling still wasn’t good, but it was definitely better. The booking of the Patriot has been strategic and well-executed. They continued teasing the identity of The Boss. There were some fun nuggets here to make it okay. 

GWF on ESPN

Air Date: 07/12/1991

Location: Global Dome (Sportatorium) in Dallas, TX

Announcers: Craig Johnson & Scott Hudson

They aired more time-filling highlights of the tournament. It seems like brackets would have sufficed. 

TV Title Tournament Second Round: Adrian Street def. Rasta the VooDoo Man by DQ in 5:08. Rasta was just the shits. He had no business on national television, despite the tremendous body. He was DQ’d for using his Voodoo cane, but why wouldn’t he use Voodoo if it worked against Gaylord with no DQ? This was a very inconsistent power. An awful wrestler in an embarrassing gimmick is always a treat. 

Billy Black did a promo and was really strong. Besides talking about the TV title tournament, he also mentioned his partner, Joel Deaton, coming in. Man, he’s the most underrated performer on week one by a country mile. It’s too bad he didn’t stick around longer, either. 

They reaired fhe entire Patriot vs. Irwin match from the last show. At least this was one of the better tourney matches. 

They reaired the Landel vs. Young first-round match, so they were desperately trying to fill in a few segments before the end of their first week. Daily television is fucking brutal. 

Buddy Landel did another good interview. I love Buddy. He’s so good at getting heat instantly. He comes across as the biggest deal in the promotion, aside from the Patriot. 

Rasta did another interview where Boni Blackstone asked him questions, and he sat there silently until he “manically” laughed at the end, the way a third grader would if you asked him to do the same. This was so fucking bush-league. 

TV Title Tournament Second Round: Buddy Landel def. Big Bully Busick in 6:33. This was heel vs. heel; only Busick worked babyface and looked better. This was the second time in a row that Landel won with his feet on the ropes. Maybe you do it once for heat, but he should be able to beat, you know, someone, as the top heel in the company. *1/2

Rating: 3.0 

Most of the show was recap material, even if it was decent. They should have at least thrown in more interviews for new content. Everything Rasta did was fucking horrible. Even just standing there, the gimmick looks like some middle school kids combined their allowances to create the gear. At least the focus on Buddy Landel was both warranted and pleasing.