Great American Bash '91

Legacy Review

Great American Bash '91

July 14, 1991 from the Baltimore Arena in Baltimore, MD

Commentary: Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone

Welcome to the nadir of the Jim Herd era. The originally advertised main event for this show was Flair vs Luger. However Flair, sick of Herd's constant mismanagement and horrible ideas (he wanted Flair to shave his head, wear an earring, and be a gladiator named Spartacus), finally took Vince's longstanding offer to jump ship up north. And to stick it to Herd even more, he took the Big Gold Belt, still in his physical possession, with him. He even had legal cover for doing so, as Herd refused to pay back Flair's belt deposit. With Flair gone, the logical thing to do would be get your other most popular wrestler, Sting, into the world title match and get the belt on him and try to do something to send your upset fans home as happy as possible, right? No! Instead, Herd put Luger into a completely heatless match with Barry Windham for the vacant world title. And that's only the beginning of the screwy....

It's strange right off the bat as the show opens with a POV tracking shot entering the arena. Some fans are less enthusiastic than others. The guy that you're presumably supposed to be asks for two tickets at the booth. Mistake one, as this shows the show is not sold out if you can walk up and buy a ticket 30 seconds after advertised bell time. But then, the ticket worker hands him the tickets without taking any money. This guy just walked up and got two free tickets! Insert your own jokes about the show being papered here. We continue through more crowd and a way over the top ticket taker shouting at everyone 50 feet away to enjoy the show. Personally I'm disappointed we didn't spend the first 15 minutes of the show with this guy waiting in line at a concession stand, going to the bathroom, etc.

Commentary doesn't kick in right away and there's no ballyhoo. Instead, Gary Michael Capetta welcomes us to the show and jumps right in to intros for the first match. 

Scaffold Match: PN News & "Beautiful" Bobby Eaton def WCW World Television Champion "Stunning" Steve Austin & Terrance Taylor (w/Lady Blossom) in 6:19- I couldn't tell you why these random guys are teaming with each other. The rules here are capture the opponent's flag or knock someone off the scaffold and 20 feet down to the ring. The entire scaffold structure doesn't exactly look stable. In fact, it wobbles noticeably from as far back as the hard camera view anytime anyone so much as moves on it. While the heels stall climbing News walks to the middle to play to the crowd and amazingly the whole thing doesn't break and come crashing down. He's not a small guy. Eaton and Taylor start, and Taylor backs off right away, crawling back on all fours. JR whips out his "this is a unique match to open with", his code for this is going to suck big time. Tony talks about the wrestlers "trying to find a balance". Yeah! Hard to walk when the floor keeps sliding back and forth underneath you. Austin and Eaton try to work and don't get very far. Austin teases falling off. The big guy News takes the lead and the heels back off. News pushes Taylor back onto his side and the heel flag almost falls off. They break off and try to do some weak brawling on both ends of the structure. News squashes both heels into a corner, allowing Eaton to get the flag and end the misery. After the bell Austin gives the faces two squirts of Lady Blossom's Farrah Fawcett. Taylor takes a bump from about a quarter of the way up the structure down to the ring. Not exactly the fall the crowd was hoping for. They should get used to disappointment, there's going to be a lot of it tonight. What a waste of three of the best wrestlers on the roster. DUD

JR & Tony do a belated stand up intro. JR says that Flair is "no longer considered the world champion". That's what happens when incompetent management finally runs you out of town. Tony claims that Flair was made a final offer and turned it down, and we're now in a "new era" of WCW. They cut to Bischoff with Paul E and Arn Anderson. Those two are both so good on the mic that they almost make the mixed tag match sound like something you need to see. Arn promises "criminal acts" and that given the chance he'll make a woman out of Missy Hyatt. That ship sailed so long ago it's been decommissioned and tuned into a museum. JR & Tony kill time talking about the rest of the card while the scaffold is taken down. 

The Diamond Studd (w/Diamond Dallas Page) def "The Z Man" Tom Zenk in 9:00- Scott Hall is only about a month into the Studd gimmick, which is more or less Rick Rude lite. DDP invites a "random girl" from the audience to come out and pull Hall's pants off. Hall does already have the toothpick flick to the camera down. For some reason, Zenk comes out with Godfather's Ho Train. I guess he's trying to upstage Hall. Zenk hits a flying double clothesline over the top on both guys before the bell. In revenge DDP pulls the top rope down the first time Zenk hits the ropes. This would be a time where a Jesse Ventura-like "Zenk started it!" would be absolutely correct. Hall rams Zenk all over the barricades. Zenk tries to come back multiple times in the ring, but every time Hall says "screw that" and goes right back on offense. His punchy kicky not much else offense. There is a choke slam. DDP distracts Zenk, allowing Hall to get a bridged Saito suplex for the 3. A major PPV and Hall doesn't even get to do the Diamond Death Drop, the early version of the Razor's Edge, even after Tony hyped it up for half the match. * 

Ron Simmons def Oz (w/The Grand Wizard) in 7:55- Super "special" entrance for Oz, with a castle backdrop and green lighting. Oz was basically WCW trying to get some mileage out of Turner buying the rights to show The Wizard of Oz on cable for the first time, which was a big deal back then. Even with VHS tapes becoming more readily available in the '80s, yearly showings of the movie always got big ratings on CBS. It was a sign that cable was becoming a major player next to the broadcast networks. One of the biggest problems with it is they picked a completely wrong guy to run with said gimmick, Kevin Nash. The Grand Wizard is Kevin Sullivan in a mask and an attempt at an old man walk. A rubber old guy with a beard mask, not a lucha mask. This is near the beginning of Simmons' long singles push that would culminate with him winning the world title in the fall of '92. JR hits the Florida State football factoids early (by the way I looked it up, and Simmons legitimately did finish 8th in the Heisman voting his last year). Long lockup spots to start, and dueling shoulder blocks where neither guy budges. Simmons tries to liven it up, but it's mostly punchy kicky from Nash. You can hear a guy in the crowd loudly yelling BORING! Simmons takes three tries to clothesline Nash over the top, When he finally does, Nash spills some poor guys' drink at ringside. (Punk: "He spilled my diet soda!" That's how his whole feud with Cena got started, don't you know) Nash has been limping a bit this whole match. He looks like he's nursing something, which could be one reason why so little is happening. Simmons is thrown out and the Wizard gets a kick in. You can see he's wearing grey sweats and a black t shirt under his robes. That's not very wizard like. Might as well have a fanny pack on too. Simmons hits some football tackles to win. You know, you put 1995ish Nash in the ring with '92 Simmons, you'd probably get a really good power match out of it. Assuming you could motivate Nash to work hard with someone outside the Kliq or Bret Hart at least. 1/2* 

Richard Morton (w/Alexandria York) def Robert Gibson in 17:03- The Rock 'N' Roll Express explodes! This is one of the oddest big tag team breakups there's ever been. It just.....happened. And most people don't even remember it happening. Morton is still wearing his usual gear. Gibson jumps him on his entrance and they brawl on the ramp. Once they get back in there's a long run of counter wrestling sequences that are pretty good and pacey. Much more high tempo than anything on the show so far. Gibson takes multiple powders to consult the computer. He stalls for a while, pulls Gibson face first into the middle turnbuckle, then posts Gibson's recently surgically repaired knee. Gibson blurts out "Oh shit!". I'd complain about non-PG, but Arn's already more or less threatened to rape Missy Hyatt tonight. Morton tears a hole in Gibson's tights to expose his knee brace, and we're going to school. Not Ric Flair level knee working school. If Flair is the graduate course, this is like...middle school. The guys are showing decent fire, but the crowd is completely dead apart from some small and sporadic "Morton sucks" chants. Gibson tries to get some quick pins, but Morton goes right back to the knee. Long figure four sequence, with yet more knee work after. Gibson keeps trying to come back but his knee keeps giving out. He's selling it, I'll give him that. Gibson gets a DDT outta nowhere. Morton does a full front flip sell of an enziguri. Back out on the ramp, and they do a double dropkick spot. The crowd starts booing. York distracts the ref, allowing Morton to hit Gibson with the computer off the ropes and get the pin. Really, after all that knee work they go for the heel cheap win finish? Bleh. It started promising but got worse and worse as it went on. *3/4 

Elimination Tag Team Match: "The Natural" Dustin Rhodes & The Young Pistols def WCW United States and Six Man Tag Team Champions The Fabulous Freebirds (w/Bid Daddy Dink) in 17:10- Dustin looks like he's wearing the same USA bomber jacket that Warrior had at the '91 Rumble. Badstreet USA is still awesome entrance music. "Big Daddy Dink" is Oliver Humperdink. Badstreet is Brad Armstrong with a mask and a bodysuit. And his son is Young Pistol Steve Armstrong. You also may have heard of Steve's brothers: former WWE referee and current producer Scott Armstrong, and the Road Dogg Jesse (Armstrong) James. There's a small but animated "Freebirds suck!" contingent on the floor opposite hard camera. JR: "People keep filing into the building". Uh huh. Way to try to explain all those empty seats by the entrance ramp. I bet ticket sales went in the toilet after people found out about Flair leaving. The Freebirds stall and Hayes does his strut, which is then mocked by Dustin. Hayes unloads with some chops, but Dustin fights him and all the Freebirds off with the Rhodes elbows. It breaks down into a 3 on 3, with the Pistols coming off the top rope. Once it settles down there's more stalling by the Freebirds, this time with posing. Commentary gets all over Smothers for standing there and letting it happen instead of attacking. The Freebirds take control. Badstreet and Dink work Smothers over outside. Smothers goes full face in peril. The wrestling in this match is just fine, but for some reason it feels off and disjointed. After long spell as the FIP Smothers backdrops out of a DDT and gets the hot tag to Armstrong. I say hot, but there's zero crowd reaction. It becomes Donnybrook II: Return of the Donnybrook. The crowd finally wakes up when Armstrong tries to get Badstreet's mask off. Hayes clotheslines him from behind and he and Badstreet give him a very badly timed double DDT. Armstrong went down twice as fast as the other two guys did. Armstrong is eliminated. Hayes then throws Armstrong's carcass over the top, and gets DQ'd for it! That's dumb on multiple levels, and again makes me glad that WWE never played around with a stupid over the top rope DQ rule. The ref doesn't see a tag to Dustin, and as the ref is getting him out Badstreet and Garvin hit Smothers with a double DDT, eliminating him. Dustin flies in and nails Garvin with a lariat, eliminating him. Dustin and Badstreet have a decent sequence. Badstreet is about the only guy on the show so far that's giving any visible serious effort. Dink distracts the ref after another Dustin lariat, so Dustin bulldogs Badstreet and while he's in the air dropkicks Dink, and gets the 3 to win. **

The Yellow Dog def Johnny B Badd (w/Teddy Long) by DQ in 6:00- The Yellow Dog is Brian Pillman running with Dusty's favorite angle, the "guy who lost a loser leaves town match coming back as a masked wrestler" angle. Pillman is introduced as from "The Kennel Club". This is Badd's PPV debut, and he is in full on no holds barred camp mode here. Makeup, facial expressions, everything. JR talks about Badd's (legit) boxing background and tries to argue that because Badd once beat someone that also once lost to Mike Tyson, that's somehow a positive for Badd. I'm trying to follow the logic train on that one but I think it's on the other side of the country. With Ric Flair. JR then directly calls the Dog Flyin' Brian. Well, there goes the fourth wall *and* kayfabe. He quickly tries to walk it back. For the second of three matches in a row, the most used move is the chop. Pillman unloads with some stiff ones. He goes out to go after Long and Badd ambushes him. More chops. It's a chopfest. I love some good, stiff chops but this is a bit much. Can we do something else? Pillman hits a crossbody off the top and while he's covering Badd Long comes in and tries to take his mask off, getting DQ'd. Woof. Awful finish. Badd hits Pillman after the bell with the Tutti Frutti I'm So Pretty Punch and walks off like he won. Badd's inexperience showed several times in this match, from some poorly timed spots to times when they visibly stop to communicate. Pillman also cut his moveset down hard, either to realistically play the Dog or just out of Herd spite like everyone else tonight. *1/4

JR says Bischoff is a "brave man" because he's about to go into Missy Hyatt's locker room. Oh, Captain Subtext, what to make of that one? 

Lumberjack Match: Big Josh def Black Blood (w/Kevin Sullivan) in 5:39- It's a lumberjack match because Josh is a lumberjack, see? For reason even more unclear than with Tom Zenk, Josh also comes out with a bunch of women. Black Blood is Billy Jack Haynes with a mask and executioner gimmick. He's billed as from "a little village in France". Of all the slight references I've heard to the French Revolution, Reign of Terror and Madame Guillotine, that was the worst. They say Sullivan is out with Blood, but I never see him. It's a pretty typical lumberjack match. The heels beat up Josh and try to give Blood a breather. The face lumberjacks try to play it straight. For the third match in a row, the in ring action is 75% chops. This is ridiculous. Eventually, to the shock of no one the lumberjacks end up fighting. While the ref is messing with them Blood tries to hit (decapitate?) Josh with his ax, but Dustin whacks him in his knee with Josh's ax handle. Josh gets a Paul Smackage to win. Bleh. 1/2* 

El Gigante def One Man Gang (w/Kevin Sullivan) in 6:13- As if this show hasn't sucked enough already. This is billed as "The Battle of the Giants". Bischoff interviews Sullivan during the entrance. Sullivan's look is at its peak creepiness, but his promo sounds like someone took The Ultimate Warrior's and Bray Wyatt's weirdest promos and stuck them in a blender. Gigante is out with a bunch of midgets. Don't ask me why. Gang tries to chase the midgets but they run circles around him. Gang tries to shoulderblock Gigante and loses. Everything Giagnte does makes you think that the video is only playing at 50% speed. It's like he's permanently moving underwater. Plus his selling is some of the worst you'll ever see, but at the same time somehow perversely entertaining. Gang gets an international wrench from Sullivan and works Gigante over with it. That's a new one. It was One Man Gang in the hall with the wrench. Gang works the knee but Gigante comes back. Gang tries to use powder but Gigante kicks it back in his face, hits a clothesline, and kind of flops half on top of Gang to pin him. 1/4*

Video recap of Koloff attacking Sting multiple times with his chain.

Russian Chain Match: Nikita Koloff def Sting in 11:38- What makes a chain a "Russian" chain anyway? Was it forged in vodka-fuled fires and blessed by the leaders of the Party? The crowd's been beaten into submission so bad by this time that Sting's pop barely registers. Think hour 3 of Raw in a non-hardcore fan town. Sting busts out hot. He drops Koloff on the barricade outside and is almost dragged down himself by the chain. Commentary hasn't even said what the rules of this match are. Sting starts touching the top turnbuckles. Oh, it's touch all four corners rules. Well, those hardly ever turn out good. Commentary finally catches up and gets into the rules. Sting gets two but Koloff clotheslines him with the chain and they go outside again, the third time in the match. Sting yanks the chain to post Koloff. Back in, Koloff wraps the chain around his elbow for an elbow drop. That's using your noggin. Sting yanks the chain up right into Koloff's crotch, but he only sells it for about ten seconds. Koloff gets up to three buckles but Sting fights him off. Koloff gets Sting into a bear hug and they roll around the ropes into two corners, and the ref says that they have two buckles each. I call that a loose interpretation of the rules. Now they exchange low blows! Both guys are down but the ref says they're still at two each. JR says it's a "judgement call". They get up and both dive for the 3rd buckle and get it, now the ref says it's three each. Sting tries to get to the last one but Koloff holds him back by the wrist strap and beats him down. Koloff stalls forever then finally goes for the last one. Sting leaps up and tries to jump over him, but Koloff's momentum lets him hit first and he's declared the winner. I appreciate that they tried to do some innovation with the format, even if it stretches the boundaries of the established rules a bit much. **

Hype video for the world title match, desperately trying to make it sound like something worth watching. They butter up Luger and Windham like crazy. As the cage is set up we get the first "WE WANT FLAIR!" chant. 

Steel Cage Match for the vacant WCW World Heavyweight Championship: WCW United States Champion Lex Luger def Barry Windham in 12:25- Capetta introduces this as a "historic" confrontation. During Windham's entrance for some reason they decide to show a close up of the *snicker* "world title" belt. Seriously, look at this thing:

That right there is one of Dusty's old Florida belts with a bunch of plaques hastily stuck on. See, when Flair left with Big Gold they didn't have time to make a replacement for this show. Doing it this way is one thing, but don't show it in full frame on TV for everyone to see! As soon as Luger's music stops we get another "WE WANT FLAIR!" chant. Let me sum up the first 7-8 minutes of this match quickly for you: circle, lockup, quick basic sequence, stop, circle, repeat. After about 5 of these exchanges the crowd gets restless and there's another "WE WANT FLAIR" chant. Finally they decide they might as well do something, they're out there anyway, and we get an exchange of sleeperholds. Windham misses an elbow off the top. Luger gets a few near falls then puts Windham in the Rack. Windham uses his long legs and the top rope to suplex his way out of it. Windham fights off a superplex attempt then gets his own set of near falls. Harley Race and Mr. Hughes make their way down to the ring. Race goes up to Luger and says "now's the time" and makes a piledriver motion. Luger grabs Windham, hits the piledriver and wins. Decent sized pop at first, but as Race and Hughes come in to celebrate with Luger the crowd realizes what's happening and starts booing. It's bad enough they didn't try to salvage the Flair situation by getting the belt on their most popular guy (Sting) and running with it, they took another popular guy (Luger) and turned him heel. Pissing off fans that are already legitimately pissed off at you, great business strategery. The only way WCW survived the Jim Herd era was Ted Turner's money. This would kick off Luger's horrible zero effort zero f**ks given first world title reign before heading off to WWF. Also, they could have had that exact same match without the cage and it wouldn't have made a bit of difference. *1/2

And....we're not done, folks.

Mixed Tag Team Steel Cage Match: Rick Steiner & Missy Hyatt def Arn Anderson & Paul E Dangerously in 2:08- As the faces enter the cage the Hardliners come out and kidnap Hyatt. Murdoch takes a legit swing at a fan that tries to reach in and stop them. Rick is unconcerned. He doesn't even notice she's gone. Paul E tries to hide in the corner. Rick gets Arn in a bearhug and Arn signals Paul E to come off the top and hit Steiner with the phone. They try to double team Rick but he shrugs them off, kills Arn with a Steinerline, and murders Paul E to win. I guess that's their attempt to send the crowd home happy. Barely even a match, and a strange and flat ending to the whole show. NR

Tony: "WCW has made a statement going into the 1990s!". Yup, but not in the way you're trying to portray.

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- An abject disaster from start to finish. I can't imagine the show as a whole would have been much better with Flair, but at least the cloud wouldn't be hanging over it, and there might have been a bit more effort from everyone involved. The good news is things would slowly get better from here, if for no other reason that's the only direction it can go.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: F