GWF Supercard on ESPN

Air Date: 08/13/1991

Location: Global Dome (Sportatorium) in Dallas, TX

Announcers: Craig Johnson & Scott Hudson 

Notable Happenings 

Chaz teamed with Joel Deaton in the tournament because, supposedly, Billy Black was attacked off-camera by enhancement opponents from the first round – The Galaxians. 

The Patriot did an interview for the upcoming North American title tournament, because, of course, we’re getting another tournament. 

The Royal Family became The Maulers. Perhaps taking WCW IP (in this case, the bad stuff) wasn’t the best idea for a startup headed by a former WCW employee. 

The Results 

GWF Tag Team Title Tournament Quarterfinals: Scott Anthony & Rip Rogers def. Chaz & Joel Deaton in 13:57 **

GWF Tag Team Title Tournament Quarterfinals: Renegade Warriors def. Bad News Brown & Big Bully Busick in 7:58 3/4*

Rating: 3.0/10 

They had to re-air the Maulers tag with Garvin and Chaz to fill time, in addition to the lengthy recap, so even with the better wrestling, the show still dragged. I understand they did the tournaments to create content for a show airing multiple times a week, but not in the format they did them. The TV show was also in desperate need of better promos, despite having multiple guys on the roster who could do them. The Cartel’s group promos are always a highlight of any show they are on, but there isn’t enough non-in-ring wrestling content on these shows 

The 08/14 & 08/23 recordings don’t have the full episodes, only the matches. And the 08/23 show has fbe volume turned down, so I had to find the matches individually. I won’t do a full review without everything else, but here are the match results and ratings. 

08/14 results 

GWF Tag Team Title Tournament Quarterfinals: 

Makhan Singh & Cactus Jack def. Tom Davis in 6:25 *1/4 

GWF Tag Team Title Tournament Quarterfinals: Chris Walker & Steve Simpson def. Rip Morgan and Jack Victory in 7:21 **1/4 

GWF Tag Team Title Tournament Quarterfinals: Rip Rogers & Scott Anthony def. The Renegade Warriors in 7:27 **1/2 

08/23 results 

GWF Tag Team Title Tournament Semifinals Steve Simpson & Chris Walker def. Makhan Singh & Cactus Jack in 7:08  *3/4 

GWF Tag Team Title Tournament Finals: Steve Simpson & Chris Walker def. Rip Rogers & Scott Anthony in 12:55 **

Notes

Overall programming

The tournaments are complete overkill, but this may have been the best tournament yet. It’s damning with faint praise because the wrestling is still solidly below-average overall, but at least it’s nudged in the right direction.  The tag tournament also helped in a couple of other areas. 

Chris Walker & Steve Simpson 

Walker isn’t consistent as a performer, but he and Simpson are a solid young babyface tag team for a territory. The duo was booked well enough to give them solid tournament matches, and the crowd was starting to get into them as an act. It’s too bad both will be gone soon. The booking of them going through the entire Cartel in the semi-finals and finals was also well done, getting them rolling as a babyface act with multiple challengers set up. 

The Cartel 

Not only did they do a good job building the identity of The Boss, but Cactus and Anthony have breathed fresh life into this act. Anthony and Rip Rogers were a lot of fun as a tag team and played off each other so well.