Jump to content
TSM Forums
Sign in to follow this  
Guest

Great American Bash 1992

Recommended Posts

Guest

As I said before, I love to ask questions.

 

1. Do you like tag teams?

 

2. Do you like the tag teams on display during this show?

 

3. The Steiners not being in a match on this PPV...I don't like. So, should MVC's vs. Steiners have been done at the Clash, or should they have been separated within the context of the tournament until PPV?

 

4. With only one singles match on this show, could you ever see something like that happen again? Not only that, but was it good business to run a show centered almost completely around tag teams?

 

5. Vader won the title and only held it for a few weeks, before losing to Ron Simmons. What do you think about that?

 

 

I'll answer my own questions once I watch this.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

1) Yeah, tag teams are great!

 

2) Most of them. Windham and Rhodes, Austin and Rude, Williams and Gordy, Pillman and Liger, Steamboat and Koloff, they're all good to me. I don't know much about Hashimoto and Hase. I never liked the Hayes/Garvin Freebirds. What a couple of geeks.

 

3) I don't like the idea of doing one match in a round on one show and the rest on another. They should have had the Williams/Gordy-Steiners match on the PPV instead of earlier. I understand the Clash needed a main event but there were a bunch of dudes who didn't wrestle on that Clash. Like, say, the world champion.

 

4) I could see TNA doing a show like this. I mean, they basically did a few weeks ago. Except instead of only one singles match, it didn't have any. I don't think it was very good business to center this show around tag teams. There were other feuds brewing at the time they could have put on PPV. Koloff-Rude, Steamboat-Jack, another Williams/Gordy-Steiners match. I doubt the tournament helped the buyrate much, if at all.

 

5) I understand that Watts wanted to push Simmons as a top star, but I don't think Vader should have been used as a transitional champion. He was too strong a heel for that. Simmons' title win would have meant more if it had been from a guy who had the belt for more than three weeks.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
With only one singles match on this show, could you ever see something like that happen again?

WrestleMania 2000 had zero singles matches.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I enjoy tag teams but an entire show of this plus Sting/Vader was a dubious card to draw interest. It was a major brainfart to have Steiners vs. Williams/Gordy on TBS at the Clash when it should have been the finals here.

 

As far as Simmons goes, I am torn on that. The way he won the belt was one of the greatest angles WCW ever produced, yet Watts proceeded to do nothing with him as champ. As in they jobbed Vader to Simmons and Simmons went on to do what exactly? They didn't keep Simmons/Vader going as a feud really so Vader didn't do much and Simmons faced an ailing Cactus Jack and jobbers like the Barbarian.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
With only one singles match on this show, could you ever see something like that happen again?

WrestleMania 2000 had zero singles matches.

It had one: Kat vs Terri.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Okay I watched this show tonight and man was most of it ever boring as hell. Imagine the most Russo inspired PPV ever and then imagine the exact alternate universe opposite of that and it's this PPV. The booking of the show was horrible, but in a different sort of way. This was bad booking in a way that gave fans nothing to like, nothing to cheer for, and really no one on the show worked either heel or face for the most part.

 

First off, why did they even bother having the first round on the Clash when they could have easily put that stuff on this show and cut the match times down a bit? Several of these tag matches are ponderous and were given too much time. The biggest example of that is Windham/Rhodes vs. Hase/Hashimoto, when no one in that GA crowd knew or gave a shit about the Japanese. Yet that match got like 15-20 minutes! I was like "Who cares about this match? Just have Windham and Rhodes go through these guys in about 8 minutes and move on."

 

Obviously Sting/Vader is the major match on this show and it was very good, but I have no clue why you would follow a heel winning the world title with two heels (?) winning the tag tourney. Wouldn't Windham/Rhodes winning at least send the crowd home sorta happy and build to a WCW vs. NWA unification?

 

As great as Williams and Gordy were supposed to be, they were insanely boring to watch, dressed in black trunks they were like the San Antonio Spurs of wrestling. They never really wrestled as heels or faces, they mostly just sorta won and were heels by default. That was WCW's biggest, hugest problem back then....the heels were the better men! The heels should NEVER be the better men, at least not better than the top faces in straight up clean contests. They didn't cheat the Steiners, didn't cheat Windham/Rhodes....they just beat them in the middle. Vader didn't cheat Sting, he just destroyed him for 20 minutes and pinned him. This is terrible for business and for the fans. You don't have your top faces all just get beat clean as a whistle.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Cabbageboy expresses my own sentiments well. The wrestling on this show is absolutely superb, top-notch. Look at Hashimoto/Hase vs. Windham/Rhodes though. The crowd is absolutely dead because there is no strong heel on the show. There is no crowd heat all the way through, and that really hurts the product.

 

Sting/Vader in a vacuum though is a great match.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

To get back to the Japanese for a minute, I remember a remark that Russo made when WCW hired him to the effect of "No one in America gives a shit about Japanese or Mexican wrestlers." People gave Russo a lot of hell about that interview, but didn't really understand what Russo was saying. What Russo meant (but didn't say well) was that American fans need some sort of reason to care about these guys. WCW used to throw these foreign teams onto PPVs a lot in the early 90s, when the viewers had no exposure to them and no reason to care. Boring, vanilla Japanese wrestlers hardly ever get over the U.S. Guys like Muta, Tajiri, Kabuki, Liger...these guys got over in the States because they had either a storyline or gimmick that clicked (or a cool costume).

 

Oh and on this show, why not have Windham/Rhodes vs. the Japanese in the opening round, then have Rude/Austin vs. Freebirds as well and then set up Windham/Rhodes vs. Austin/Rude as a semi? It's like WCW booked it to reflect the way a real NCAA tourney bracket might go, instead of a scripted tourney to give fans the best matches.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

No, I think Russo meant what he said. But I also think you're right, Cabbageboy. It's like this with any wrestler, you got to give some sort of reason for us to care. I think WCW (especially during this period when Watts was booking) just expected these guys to get over because they were stars elsewhere. That line of thinking doesn't work in the U.S. We get resentful when people want us to like something (soccer, Robbie Williams, etc.) because it's big somewhere else.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest

Finally got around to watching it. Seeding was terrible.

 

This show is REALLY missing the Steiners. Should've thrown Cactus/someone on here as well.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, anyone find it bizarre that the Japanese team was the #2 seed while Doc/Gordy were a #4 seed? Man, they got that U of L in 2005 type 4 seed, since they beat the 1 seed Steiners cleanly.

 

Gotta love Watts though, he books a tag tourney and has his more popular team lose in the first couple of rounds on TBS and then does a PPV without them on it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

And even funnier was that the Steiners dropped the WCW Tag Titles to Doc & Gordy one before GAB at the Omni. I always wondered why they didn't have that match at GAB.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Yeah, anyone find it bizarre that the Japanese team was the #2 seed while Doc/Gordy were a #4 seed? Man, they got that U of L in 2005 type 4 seed, since they beat the 1 seed Steiners cleanly.

 

Gotta love Watts though, he books a tag tourney and has his more popular team lose in the first couple of rounds on TBS and then does a PPV without them on it.

 

Even in a pro wrestling thread about a tag team tournament in 1992, you found a way to make yet another stupid reference to a college basketball team that didn't add to the point.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Who is another #4 seed that was way underseeded? Maybe the Dallas Mavericks in 2006 before they realigned playoff seedings? They had the 2nd best record in the Western Conf. but the Suns and Nuggets both won divisions and thus were the 2 and 3 seeds.

 

It was Watts who booked this tourney to have those seeds, so don't blame me for comparing it to a real tourney since WCW was trying to be a "real sport" circa 1992.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I actually rented this on VHS back in the early 90s and remember fast forwarding through most of it. This was obviously during my mark days.

 

I think I rented this and halloween havoc 90 and just mainly watched HH

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The reason the "Japanese" couldn't be jobbed out in eight minutes is because by this point in time, Shinya Hashimoto was on his way to becoming one of the biggest stars in the country (He's now considered an true legend since he's...dead and all), and Hiroshi Hase was easily one of the brightest stars in Japan. WCW didn't exist in a vacuum at that point. New Japan regularly sent guys, and vice versa, and WCW would acknowledge events in Japan. Hase wrestled in WCW a couple of times, and so did Hashimoto too.

 

I'd assume that's why they lost to Windham and Rhodes, one of WCW's top teams at that point in a competitive match. WCW didn't want to make New Japan talent look bad at that point (They would later stop caring), and risk losing their deal with them, which opened up huge paydays for their talent and the company in general. WCW gained a lot of talent from NJPW, and at that point in time it was a lock that WCW talent would appear on New Japan's Tokyo Dome shows during the year. It helped them both.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I wouldn't debate the ability of the Japanese stars, the wrestling exhibitions were top notch. The fans I think appreciated the match. There's just no passion there at all in the crowd.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I really wanted to enjoy this show but man, it is DULL...

 

Everyone has already said it, but just to go along, it's technically a fine show but it just seems to lack energy. The Battlebowl 93 show they aired in January 2007 seemed to have the same problem (plus the teams were poorly chosen). Sting vs. Vader kicks ass and I'm glad to finally see it, but it seems to be the only match the fans came to see. I did enjoy the tag team tournament concept and truth be told, I would enjoy seeing a tag team themed show from WWE just to see what they could do considering all of their best Raw main events lately are randomly paired tag matches with main eventers.

 

I did enjoy watching the show though as I have nostalgia from this era. 1992 is when we got TBS in this market as one of four Superstations and it opened a new world of wrestling to me. For some reason I really didn't like Dustin Rhodes and whenever Barry Windham eventually turns on him by DDTing him on the floor, I was happy.

 

Jim Ross' jab at the WBF got a laugh out of me.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Bill Watts had a chance to do some good work on this show and failed. Steiners vs. Doc/Gordy was just as hot as Sting/Vader at the time. Their tag title match at Beach Blast '92 was actually the show's main event. I know the reason they did the tournament match between them on the Clash of the Champions was because they had it on Monday night and wanted to steal WWF viewers, but it made the PPV suffer. I'll never get why they did the WCW tag title switch at a house show either. They could have had Doc & Gordy bait the Steiners into making their first round match for the WCW Tag titles and have Watts come out and yell "OH YEAH LET'S HOOK EM UP". The live crowd would have benefitted from their first match being the annihilation of the Steiners, which would have gotten them behind Rhodes & Windham a lot more than they were. I also don't like how they killed the town by having Sting get murdered by Vader THEN have Doc & Gordy reign supreme.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It did seem odd to end the show with a big batch of pyro after having both championships up for grabs being won by heels.

 

Bill Watts sure seemed happy to have the NWA title back from Flair.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×