Perfect Hindsight 12.19.04: You Think Armageddon Was Bad?

Posted by Gavin Napier on 12.19.2004

No, really

Merry Christmas Shopping Season! The highways are littered with broken-down automobiles, and the local Wal -Mart is full of people snarling and growling over toys and gifts. Then there are people like me, who are blissfully unprepared. No shopping done. No shopping planned until about Dec. 23rd. I get annoyed in traffic and I refuse to stand in lines that are too long only because nobody will hire enough cashiers this time of year. So this year, the angst of pre-Christmas traditions had to have a counterbalance. And so they did. One of my best friends donated nearly his entire tape collection to me. I now have countless hours of NWA, ROH, IWA, CZW, 80's, 90's, and Japanese footage as well as shoot interviews to tide me over. So much goodness, so little time.

So what do I want for Christmas? It's simple. I want TNA to maintain themselves through another year and don't go overboard in trying to compete too soon. I want EA to burn to the ground because of the exclusivity deal with Madden and the NFL. I want Booker T to get a nice, shiny World title before he retires. I want the Falcons to prove me wrong and win the Superbowl. I want the Jazz back on track. I want 24-Season 3 on DVD. And I want all the sappy stuff - peace, love, harmoney, etc. so on and so forth. I'm easy to please.

Oh, yeah. And more fan mail.

Mailbag

Just one note this week for this side of things, though Lord knows that Ask 411 is more than making up for it. But since there's only one letter from faithful reader DarkKnight543, I'm going to give it to you in it's entirity, then there shall be banter for all. Enjoy.


Ok man cutting to the chase this week, I hate to say it but I disagree with you about Owen being a Cruiserweight, given he could go with them and make them look good but he would have been a special attraction to see him vs any of the other cruiserweights. Owen was a high flyer but I think he was not up to the speed of them. I'm not talking about Vince's version of the Cruiserweights but WCW's version.

If Owen would have stayed in WCW back in the early 90's He could have had a great feud with any of there established stars. could you see a young Owen facing the young baby face "Flyin' " Brian Pillman, or the Heel with the flowing Blonde Locks of a maturing (well ring wise) Stunning Steve Austin.

I could even see Owen facing off against the "newly" imported Japanese wrestlers say Justin "thunder" Ligar for the WCW Lightweight Championship in '92, or Masso Chono, as most long time fans of Owen knows he did a few stints in Japan in his early carrer and I really think that if Ole Anderson hadn't stunk up the company there could have been great opportunity for guys like Owen to make great names for himself in WCW and wouldn't WCW had a Gold mine on there hands to have the Younger Brother of a WWF Champion, and they could have had him come out and say "My brother Bret is the Champion of that other wrestling group, but I am here to prove that WCW has the better talent, I could go up North and beat my brother but it would be way to easy. I'm here to test my skills as the TRUE Best there is, Was, and will ever be." Then have him feud with Sting or Ric Flair for the Big Gold Belt. That right there could have saved WCW and had them making millions and not needing the has-bens from the WWF. I'm talking about Savage, and Hogan mostly.

Another match that I think would have been Gold was Taz (the ECW version) vs. Owen, I really think they would have meshed in a way that would have made Taz a bigger star in WWF, and would have cemented Owens spot as a true Legend in the minds of the WWF fans.

Now on to new stuff, I marked for Goldberg just as I'm sure most of the IWC did in his initial run, but he was sloppy, and careless, and really didn't care about anything other then his check and posably doing his charity work, which I can't knock the guy for that. I really think that Bret gave up after he joined WCW he knew his time as a star was limited, and I don't think he tried 100%. If I was Bishoff I would have had him come in and take out Hogan, saying something like "This is what I should have done 4 years ago and taken back MY belt from you, but because I didn't I had to wait a year to get it, Now I'm going to take away from you what you took away from me. " Then let Hogan go over Sting by Hook or Crook, and had Bret face off with Hogan over the WCW title, and win without a problem at Souled Out '98. Then have Bret come out as the ultra mega baby face, and call out Sting, and tell him "Hey Stinger, I know we share the same finishing Hold, I call it the SharpShooter, you call it the Scorpion Death Lock, How about you and me see who's better at SuperBrawl, in a Submission Match and to make it even more sweeter I'll even put up my newly won belt."

There we have an instant fantasy match for the ages, both 100% healthy, both ubber faces and totally over, It could have saved Bret's career and his standing as the good guy in WCW. I really don't care who would have won that match because it would have been the best WCW match in a long, long, long time and it could have turned the company around.

I'll leave the Flair stuff for another day, I could fill a full column talking about him, lets just say I think Flair would have gotten into shape and not been as big as you say he was, because of the health craze of the 80's and having him be a different type of Champ then Harly Race or Dusty Rhodes where. Flair would always be an Icon in the business no matter what, he was a mainstay in the Mid-Atlantic, and a NWA staple.


Valid points, one and all. I love this part of the mail - where I get ideas other than mine in and there's a nice place to see where we agree and disagree. Take a lesson, kids. This is a fine letter, indeed.

Owen definately wasn't as fast as the majority of the WCW Cruiserweights. Guys like Eddy Guerrero, Rey Misterio, Juventud Guerra, Elix Skipper, and Blitzkreig could run circles around Owen in terms of speed. However, look at some of the other guys that were in the Cruiserweight division and think about Owen in a one on one matchup with them. Chris Benoit. Dean Malenko. Chris Jericho. Sean Waltman. Billy Kidman. All of them had or have the ability to take to the air, but at the time focused on a much more ground based offense and strict wrestling style. Good ground based worker taking on a good aerial worker can result in some of the great all-time matches. Look at what Dean Malenko and Rey Mysterio did in ECW. Look at what Benoit and Guerrero and Malenko and Guerrera did in WCW. Owen would have been another guy in the mold of Malenko and Waltman. He could hold his own on the ground, take to the air for a "big" move, and make everyone look good. I don't know that Owen would have ever been the guy to draw millions of dollars for any company, but he could certainly carry his weight in a main event program and it would have been interesting to see his career play out in WCW instead of WWF. Ole Anderson is indeed a big fat dummyhead, though, and killed an infinite number of potentially awesome things. Shame on him.

I think Goldberg is a very elementary worker, and the potential for injury with him is always going to be there. But Bret never fit in to the scheme of things in WCW and I don't think anything could have made him fit in. The superkick that crippled him was just kind of like everything coming together and saying "You shouldn't be here." Certain guys can jump back and forth - Flair, Hogan, Savage, Dusty, The Road Warriors, Hall, Nash. Certain guys can't. Just like Barry Windham didn't fit into WWF's plans, Hart didn't fit into WCW's. Simple as that. Sting vs. Bret could have been a lot of fun, though. A shame it didn't play out right.

With Flair, I think you're right, but remember...what I present in this column isn't necessarily always what I believe would or should have happened. Just what could have been.

And that's the mailbag this week, so now let us look into one of the darkest nights in wrestling history.


We Want Flair!


But he couldn't have helped either. No, really. This was one of the worst pay per views of all time. No, not one of. It was the worst. Period. When Ric Flair walked out on WCW because of a dispute with Jim Herd over booking, finances, direction of the company, and pretty much everything else you can think of, it left WCW in a really bad spot for Bash 91. Not to say that Flair being around would have made it much better. This card was simply doomed from the beginning. When you start things off with PN News and Bobby Eaton (what the..) taking on Steve Austin and Terry Taylor in a "scaffold" match that isn't a scaffold match, there's no reviving things. Unless their plan was to put on a horrible match first, and then make everything else look great in comparison, this was a very bad idea. And even if that WAS their plan, it didn't work.

Diamond Studd vs. Tom Zenk? Oz vs. Ron Simmons? I kid you not. This is a PAY PER VIEW lineup. Robert Gibson and Ricky Morton faced off in a match of ex-partners that was: A) Two years too late. B) Confusing since they both wore the same thing. C) Atrocious. D) All of the above. The answer of course, is all of the above.The Young Pistols and Dustin Rhodes took on the Freebirds and Badstreet in a match that was worse than it should have been. Ditto for Brian Pillman and Johnny B. Badd. Big Josh vs. Black Blood? How could this possibly be bad? Oh, wait. It's a LUMBERJACK MATCH you say? Even BETTER! One Man Gang vs. El Gigante. No explanation needed. Even Nikita Koloff and Sting managed to do something "not so hot". Then...it happened.

After being subjected to all of this, the crowd finally turned on this entire event. And rightfully so. Windham and Luger were respectable wrestlers in this era. But Barry had been working in tag teams and the payoff for Luger and Flair had been three years in the making. So not only do the fans not get to finally see Luger beat Flair, they get a heel tag team wrestler in a World title match that isn't the main event. In a cage. That's incredibly small. By pulling Barry into this match, they left Arn Anderson without a tag team partner for his scheduled six man match later on. It was supposed to be Barry, Arn, and Paul E. against the Steiners and Missy Hyatt. Not bad, since the four wrestlers could cover up Missy and Paul E. Luger won the match after out-of-nowhere involvement from Harley Race and Mr. Hughes and carried his newly won Western States Heavyweight Championship back to the locker room as the fans grew more and more irate. Yeah, they didn't have the World Title because Flair took it with him. So they used a defunct title and put a different nameplate on it.

Because of moving Windham to the title match and Scott Steiner being injured, the 6-man match was now a mess. Rick Steiner and Missy Hyatt vs. Arn Anderson and Paul E. The Hardliners kidnapped Missy Hyatt (what the..) to leave Steiner alone. He and Arn go at it for a minute or two, and for reasons unknown to mankind, Arn actually tags in Paul E. who is clotheslined and pinned. Three minutes. Main event. PPV over. I kid you not.

This is on the level of Shockmaster, so I'm going to try and work a miracle here.


Great American Bash 91 v2.0


First things first, PN News and Terry Taylor aren't in the match anymore. It's just a strict 15 minute match betwee Eaton and Austin. They go all out and get a time limit draw.

Diamond Studd goes over Tom Zenk and does so in an effective squash. Period.

Oz is never seen by the wrestling public in my dream world, so Ron Simmons goes over Terry Taylor to continue his singles push.

Save Gibson and Morton for a Clash of the Champions. Ricky Morton instead wrestles Dustin Rhodes, and the six man tag becomes Freebirds vs. Young Pistols for the US Tag Titles. Ricky cheats to win, which brings out Gibson. Freebirds cheat to win via the help of Badstreet.

As frightening as this is, Big Josh vs. Black Blood was one of the better matches on this card. Matt Borne and Billy Jack Haynes were veteran brawlers, so why not? Take away the lumberjack stipulation and let them do their thing for six or seven minutes. Don't care who goes over.

Yellow Dog and Johnny B. Badd would have to motivate themselves to do something better, because these two guys were pretty good and there's no excuse for them having a match like this.

OMG vs. El Gigante - no. Just no. Sting and Nikita get 15 minutes to have a brutal chain match that sees the same finish after more inspired work from Sting. Now for the big changes.

A figurehead commissioner (I don't care who) comes out to tell everyone that Ric Flair has not arrived to the arena yet. Luger is livid. He says that he came to Baltimore to win the World Title, and not by forfeit. We'll say...Dusty...agrees with him and says that the championship comittee is working on an alternate setup to ensure that Luger and the fans get their title match. Luger is not pleased, because he came for Flair and nobody else. Dusty understands that, but they're doing all they can.

We get a break to go over the WCW top 10, which is garbage, and we return to what should be Arn and Paul vs. Rick and Missy. However, due to the situation with Flair not arriving yet, there's been a change. We cut back to Dusty talking to the locker room and explaining the need for a World Title match. Flair isn't here and Luger's the only guy with a gauranteed spot, so they're going to have to figure out someone for Luger to wrestle. 10 guys are going to go out and have a battle royal, and Luger gets the winner. Some protest, saying that Luger will be too fresh, others are happy to have the opportunity. They're going on past championship history and current rankings as the criteria. Sting, Nikita Koloff, Barry Windham, Arn Anderson, Rick Steiner, Steve Austin, Bobby Eaton, Ron Simmons, Terry Taylor, and El Gigante are chosen. Luger is irate, but is restrained and calmed down.

The battle royal goes quick, with everyone teaming up to eliminate El Gigante right off the bat. Sting and Nikita eliminate each other, brawling over the top rope. From there, we're quickly down to Anderson and Windham against Simmons and Steiner. Rick Steiner gets tossed after a doubleteam, and both men go to work on Simmons. The babyface powers out of trouble, though, and eliminates Arn and Barry to get the shot.

Luger immediately charges to the ring, intent on destroying Simmons before he has a chance to rest. The cage is coming down and Simmons is on an adrenaline high. He rocks Luger with big right hands, and nearly scores a quick pin with a powerslam. Luger is in trouble when Harley Race comes out and exclaims "Now's the time!" Luger low blows Simmons, and connects with a piledriver. Then another. Then another. Then another. Then another. Then another. After a half-dozen piledrivers, Simmons is unconscious and bleeding. Luger is firmly established as a heel, and the match is stopped due to the Maryland State Athletic Comission's no blood policy. Luger wins the WCW World Title the same way he was screwed out of it against Flair. We're left with questions as we go off the air.

Now, this isn't the greatest thing in the world, I know. But I think it would fly a lot better than the swill forced upon us in the summer of 1991 by WCW. I also know that you have an opinion on the subject. So let me know whether you agree or disagree. Like it? Love it? Hate it? Fine. I can live with that. Just let me know. Hit me up on AIM at gavdaddy2004 or vial the e-mail thing at [e-mail]. See you guys on Wendnesday.