Harlem Heat & Sid Vicious vs. Marcus Bagwell, Too Cold Scorpio & Ron Simmons - 5
The Equalizer vs. Ron Preston - 2
Charlie Norris vs. Fury - 2
Johnny B. Badd vs. Mike Thor - 2
Ice Train vs. Rage - 1
Vader vs. JD Stryker - 2
Sting vs. Ric Flair - 7
This was the perfect way to open the show. The face team did an excellent job of milking all the power moves of the heavy-hitting heel team. Heat brought it and definitely took it -- they made Bagwell look amazing. Scorp was his usual self, working hard and giving 110% and doing things (like dives) he didn't necessarily have to do. Simmons brought this legitimacy to the team and was the muscle to go up against the bigger heel team. Vicious had the least amount of activity in the match, but he delivered a great one-handed chokeslam to Scorp and a sick powerbomb to Bagwell. Good opener.
Equalizer absolutely decimated Preston. I really don't know how much of a wrestling match this was as much as it was a slaughter. Equalizer went for a blatant choke on Preston but looked like he fell in the process. I did enjoy Preston's sell of the swinging neck-breaker.
Norris was dominating Fury early on in the match. It was pretty obvious that the fans were starting to get bored with Norris' arm drags, so Fury bumped up the intensity and took it to Norris. Match got stale in the attempt to get Norris over in his debut. The fans hardly even cheered after Norris picked up his first win. What a terrible way to pop your WCW cherry.
Thor was just jobberfied in this match, looking like a strung-out version of 80's Kevin Sullivan. I think Thor would be one of those guys you might call "enhancement talents." Badd just dominated Thor and finished him off with a terribly worked right hand.
Damn this Vader squash was nasty. Vader was just laying all the shots in on the kids and working him over like Hyena's on Mustafa's dead carcass (how's that for scary childhood imagery?)
The final match pitted two legends of the sport against one another. The limb work and consequent selling of all the work was just to die for. Sting was busting his ass trying to work over the wily veteran Flair, trying to pick up the win. Flair would have none of it and would continuously try to pin Sting's shoulders to the mat for a series of false finishes that had referee Nick Patrick sweating like a horse in the hot Atlanta sun. Flair would pull out all of his cheap tactics, including a thumb to the eye and multiple attempts at using the ropes for support to aid in pins on Sting. The fans were split 50/50 for a while, but as the match progressed, more fans made their voices heard in support of Sting. Sting was able to work as a face in peril very well by grimacing with every single hold Flair tangled him up in, exuding huge amounts of pain etched in his body language, which made the fans connect with him. Just an overall really great paced and well-worked match -- the kind of match you'd expect from these two.
2 comments:
That opener feels a lot like the WW match that did well in our poll.....i liked sting-flair, most every time out, but this longer time felt like they were stalling in some points, which isn't necessarily a bad thing for us viewers, but story wise....what did you guys think?
i just had a hard time as a viewer believing we were actually going to get something resembling a believable clean big finish on a Sat. night show.. - still enjoyed parts of the body of the match but in their oeuvre this isn't even cracking the top-half..
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