Grilling JR - WCW WrestleWar 1991 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

This week, we’re here to talk about WCW Wrestlewar ‘91. It went down on February 24, 1991, from the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix. About 6,800 fans were in attendance that night, which is half-full. 4,300 paid for tickets for a live gate of $53,000. The tagline for the show was “We Want You,” with the poster featuring Barry Windham, Arn Anderson, and Sid Vicious all in Army fatigues.

Here’s a fun little fact: originally, the 1991 WrestleWar show was to have been subtitled: Duel in the Desert. That terminology was dropped because of Operation Desert Storm.

(Did you like the WrestleWar name? (It originally was named this because it was going to be put up against Wrestlemania, I believe)

This is the third of the four-total WrestleWar pay-per-views, but the theme is probably geared more toward the military look because the United States had just gone to war with Iraq! It’s a topic we talked a lot about on a recent Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard, because over on the WWF at the time...they booked Sgt. Slaughter to turn on America, wave the Iraq flag, and win the world title. Two days after we started bombing Iraq. And literally a few hours before the Royal Rumble 91, when Sarge won the title, President Bush came on TV to declare war.

(What’s the feeling like within WCW at the time about the angle the WWF is working related to Iraq? Is there concern that they’re about to damage the entire business with such a tasteless angle at the absolute worst possible time?)

We ask about the concern for the state of the business because the WWF’s 91 Rumble was the drop off point for business, which seemed to plummet after that show. So let’s look at how WCW shows were doing:

Today’s subject, WrestleWar 91, did a 1.2 buyrate on PPV, amounting to about 160,000 buys. That amounts to about a $3 million gross. WCW’s share of that would be about $1.2 million. That’s down slightly from the year before. But, it’s also the highest buyrate of any of their shows in 1991.

Just like we saw after the first WWF PPV of 91, buyrates fell from this point forward. By the end of the year, Starrcade only did a 1.0 buyrate. By 1992, most shows were pulling a 0.5. WCW wouldn’t do this many pay-per-view buys again until Hulk Hogan’s debut PPV, Bash at the Beach 94, when he fought Ric Flair. By then, more houses had PPV. Far more.

(Do you think we’ve found the point in the early 90s where business fell off? How much of that do you blame on the WWF/Iraq angle? How much blame goes to the constant scandals surrounding the business?)

News and Notes

The World Wrestling Federation ran a show the night before in the same market, drawing 4,800 paying tickets out of a total of 6,000, with a reported gate of $60,000

(I am just guessing they scheduled their show after WrestleWar was announced, right?)

(How did the company combat this sort of stuff?)

Some controversy surrounded television commercials that the company was running for WrestleWar.

WCW has come under criticism as well as the WWF for bad taste in regards to its treatment of the war. First off, the frequent mentions of the next PPV as the third annual Wrestle War were obviously made to indicate the WW term was the name of an annual PPV event, and the name was made well before (1989) there was even a conflict, let alone a threat of a war. Ditto the term War Games….However, the "We've declared War!" slogan for the commercials over-and-over during every break over the weekend do make the company look bad to the casual fan and general public. While the commercials were made before the war started (in fact they started airing weeks before), so did the WWF angle with Slaughter. I know of one TV station that pulled the ads this past weekend and I've received many phone calls from readers that felt the commercials were in poor taste. It's best for all concerned to pull the commercials, even though it would inconvenience things a bit, just as, in hindsight, it would have been best for the WWF to change its angle, even though to do so would have been a major inconvenience.

In the weeks that followed, there were reports of meetings about the commercials and eventually, replacement commercials being introduced.

(Was there internal heat over going heavy on the war theme with world events at the time? Memories specifically of these commercials?)

Missy Hyatt was on briefly on Friday night on Late Night with Rick Dees with Jason Hervey, who introduced Hyatt as his new girlfriend. It's a shoot even though I realize most of you reading this won't believe it, Meltzer wrote.

(What do you remember about Missy Hyatt’s relationship with Jason Hervey?)

This is one for the books. The Steiner brothers won the world tag team titles from The Freebirds on 2/18 in Montgomery, AL at a TV taping (match will air on WCW Pro on 3/9). (That’s before tonight’s show). I guess that gives away the result of Sunday's match. The irony is that an old-school booker is the one who put this together, and then no doubt will complain about others exposing the business.

(Was there a lot of controversy around this type of booking, internally? Or, did the end justify the means?)

The company seemed to be doing a lot of planning ahead related to the tag-title picture.

Meltzer reported the Butch Reed-Ron Simmons break-up took place on 2/5 in Gainesville, GA at the TV tapings. Since the show doesn't air until 3/2, the two will be teaming up at the house shows until that point which I guess pretty much gives the result of the tag team title match in Phoenix. Doom was brawling with The Freebirds when Simmons held Hayes and Reed went for the shoulderblock and Hayes moved and the two brawled all over the building. Nearly everyone in wrestling, before this took place, that I talked with felt that Simmons' face turn wouldn't be nearly as effective if it was done against Reed because Reed doesn't have enough heat on him.

(I brought this up because I wanted to ask...how could Ron Simmons have had a better face turn here? Could he have had a friendly split with Reed and then turned against someone with more heat? Who?)

(How did Reed and Simmons get along?)

They are preparing for a major Bash tour this summer including some outdoor shows (I know, when they can't draw 5,000 for indoor shows, what is the need to go outdoors) at RFK Stadium and in Charlotte. The Bash kicks off on 7/4 at the Meadowlands. . From television, it appears they'll build to Sid Vicious vs. El Gigante which should be a money match. I'd have said they should save it until Gigante is ready, but since they've already got him against Flair, it's fruitless to say they shouldn't rush the guy.

(What was the idea behind running outdoor shows when there was a hard time pulling crowds into an arena?)

Meltzer had an interesting complaint around this period about canned crowd noise during the TBS shows…

I hope they stop this canned crowd noise during the TBS shows. I've heard of the term sound sweetening, but this is sound souring. The noise makes it impossible to get excited even during the good matches because the tape track they use is a constant dull roar rather than the ups and downs that get you into the high and low spots of a match.

(Were there some early experiments with canned crowd noises going here? )

The Event Itself

WRESTLE WAR '91

• Thumbs up: 522 (93.7 percent)
• Thumbs down: 33 (5.9 percent)
• In between: 2 (0.4 percent)

BEST MATCH

• War Games 428
• Japanese women tag match 51
• Lex Luger vs. Danny Spivey 37
• Bobby Eaton vs. Brad Armstrong 12

WORST MATCH

• JFD/Morton/Rich vs. Patrol/Cat 153
• Young Pistols vs. Royal Family 129
• Dustin Rhodes vs. Buddy Landel 17

Metlzer said the internal feeling coming out of the PPV was super good!

One WCW official afterwards claimed it as a victory because they produced a PPV show "that Wrestlemania won't be able to touch."

World Championship Wrestling scored a big hit Sunday with its Wrestle War '91 PPV show from Phoenix. I haven't seen the tape as of this writing, but from a live show perspective, it was the best card I've seen in the United States since the 1989 Baltimore Bash. The 97.3 thumbs up in the poll would be the third best in the history of the poll, trailing only the 1989 Music City Showdown in Nashville (100 percent) and the 1989 New York Knockout Clash (99.8 percent).

(The third best poll result in history up until then. What about this show did it for folks? What did it for you?)

1. Eddie Guerrero & Ultraman defeated Huichol & Rudy Boy in 7:40 in a Lucha Libre dark match. There was a collective groan when the match started among the fans. On all the local TV and radio ads, they plugged a "lucha libre" match to draw the Hispanic population but without listing any names, I can't see how that drew anyone. Both faces missed some of their moves early and some of Ultraman's offense looked real weak. However, as the match progressed, there were enough hot moves that the people got into it and it turned into a very entertaining match. The finish saw Ultraman did a dive out of the ring. Then Guerrero jumped on the top rope ala Pillman and leaped high in the air to splash onto Huichol. As Huichol was getting up and Guerrero was back in the ring, Ultraman ran across and Guerrero backdropped him over the top rope where he splashes onto Huichol. In the ring, Guerrero did a modified Frankensteiner on Rudy for the pin. All four got a very nice cheer when it was over. **3/4

(Did the company think the mere mention of Lucha Libre wrestling would be enough to get Hispanics in the building? Was it?)

(Is Eddie Guerrero making impressions yet or would that not be until much later?)

Our show itself opens and begins with our next match. It’s for the six-man tag team title belts!

2. Junkfood Dog & Ricky Morton & Tommy Rich beat State Patrol & Big Cat in 9:52 to retain the WCW six-man titles. Okay, I recognize the problem in that nobody takes the six-man belts seriously (and not having any actual belts doesn't help) considering the champs are guys languishing in never-never-land. And the heel side consists of a guy who was pushed and didn't get over, and as of late has disappeared from television and two jobbers and this was billed as a title match. For titles to mean something and title matches to mean something, they should be limited to matches where the marks can at least take the champs, the belts and the challengers seriously. But this was a surprisingly good match because Morton worked most of the way with the Patrol and all worked very hard. Patrol has no credibility but are both talented workers. Dog and Cat were limited to brief moments of chasing mice. Actually Cat has potential for the future as a monster heel but isn't ready for it yet. Morton pinned James Earl Wright after Dog thumped him. **1/2

(The Big Cat went on to be Mr. Hughes. He had a few spots in this match where he showed some really impressive power. Do you think more could have been done with Mr. Hughes as a stand-alone act?)

(What did you think of the six-man tag belts? It seems hard to get heat in an angle involving three vs. three unless it’s a special occasion. Can it be done regularly?)

The next match is all about great wrestling workers. Bobby Eaton vs. Brad Armstrong. Beautiful Bobby is announced as being from the Dark Side and sports a rainbow style line on his tights. Maybe he was a Pink Floyd fan? Can’t go wrong there.

3. Bobby Eaton pinned Brad Armstrong in 12:50 with a legdrop off the top rope. It was a little slow in spots, but excellent in other spots. Although Eaton played heel, the crowd treated both as if they were babyfaces. ***1/4

(Is the top-rope leg drop a move people are advised not to do long term, now, because of back, hip, spine, etc. issues? Hogan was almost crippled and he attributed it to his leg drop.)

There’s an on-going storyline throughout the night that Missy Hyatt will be the first lady to conduct an interview inside of a men’s wrestling lockerroom. I can’t remember any instances like this before in pro-wrestling, so this probably really is the first woman to do an interview in the men’s lockerroom. (It’s not the first time it happened in sports; In January, 1975, two female journalists became their own story after doing interviews in the locker room at the NHL All-Star game in Montreal. It caused some shit)

(Do you recall this being a controversial decision at the time? The 90s were a different time.,.)

We get ready for the next match with you telling us that you hope you’re able to pronounce these next names!

4. Itsuki Yamazaki & Mami Kitamura defeated Miss A.& Miki Handa in 6:47 with Yamazaki pinning A with a victory roll. The fans weren't into this one early since there was no build-up and they didn't know any of the four. The match lacked the face/heel thing so it never got heated, but once A started throwing those stiff kicks, the place kind of woke up and was stunned into getting into the bout. Very fast paced with lots of hot moves including a Northern Lights suplex. ***1/2

(From the perspective of a backstage agent or manager….if there’s a match with no build like this...and the wrestlers go out there and somehow, someway, get the crowd to come alive...are people super impressed?)

Everyone’s favorite blonde haired, shiny robe wearing Nature Boy is out next. That’s right folks. Buddy Landel! I think we can get Buddy Landel over on this podcast, by the way. He’s facing Dustin Rhodes on Dustin’s first PPV match after leaving the WWF at the Royal Rumble.

Fun line on commentary from you, Jim: It’s the first time you’ve sat ringside and called a match with the father of one of the competitors. (Was that a shoot?)

5. Dustin Rhodes pinned Buddy Landel in 6:32 with a bulldog headlock. Landel was working harder than usual taking extra high bumps to get Rhodes over. There were a few spots toward the end that didn't go as planned and people could see it. Buddy took one awfully high back-drop. **1/4

(Was the plan just to transition Dustin straight from WWF TV to WCW TV here and keep capitalizing off of his TV time in the Federation?)

(Why do you think Landel worked harder than usual, as Meltzer described? Was he friends with the Rhodes’)

In a backstage segment, Missy Hyatt tried to sneak an interview in where she walked into the men’s locker room and was met by Stan Hansen. He shouted at her with chew hanging out of his lip and flying at her. She ran away after and the camera cut back to the announcers laughing.

(Was that a rib on Missy or a planned segment?)

Up next, a match that probably should have gotten more fan attention but it ended up being overshadowed. Literally.

6. Young Pistols (Tracy Smothers & Steve Armstrong) beat Royal Family (Jack Victory & Rip Morgan) in 12:03. Crowd wasn't into this match, even though all four hustled. It didn't make it any better when somehow the plug was pulled on the lights and changing the lighting before the problem was rectified distracted the live fans from the match. Finish was the heels go for a double suplex on Smothers but Armstrong dropkicked Smothers' back and Steve pinned Jack. *1/4

(That lighting snafu is a problem I am surprised we haven’t seen more of on live wrestling broadcasts. Do you remember hearing about what happened? If a young broadcaster is listening to you...How do you proceed as a broadcaster during major on air mistakes - acknowledge the problem, pretend it didn’t happen, make jokes about it, what’s the right way to address it?)

The York Foundation is in action next. Earlier, we had an interview segment where the computer predicted that Terry Taylor would be winning in less than 15 minutes.

7. Terry Taylor pinned Tom Zenk in 10:59. Taylor took a lot of big bumps early. This turned into a great match with a lot of heat. With the exception of Stan Hansen, Taylor was the only heel on the card that was a true heel (Horsemen still had most of the crowd liking them even though they were over as heels as the match went on). Zenk did a lot of hot moves for near falls at the end. Finish saw Alexandra York distract ref Lee Scott as Zenk had Taylor pinned. As Zenk went to argue with Scott, Taylor snuck up from behind and schoolboyed Zenk for the win. There was a lot of heat on the finish. ***1/2

(We know from other newsletters around this period that Meltzer has a soft spot for Taylor. Do you agree with him that Terry was the only heel on the card?)

(Where were you on the York Foundation?)

Up next is a pretty scary combination of tough guys. Big Van Vader. And Stan Hansen. Certainly an interesting combination!

On Oct. 12, 1990, during a New Japan Pro Wrestling match vs Stan Hansen, Vader took a thumb to his eye causing it to pop out of its socket. Vader pushed it back in and wrestled 12 more minutes. No eyes would be popping out of socket during this match!

(Did the company have to tell the guys to ease up a little bit because of how crazy they were getting with each other?)

8. Stan Hansen and Big Van Vader went to a double count out in 6:21. There was a lot of anticipation for this match during the entrances, but the reaction during the match was strange. There wasn't much crowd noise, but everyone was on their feet. They both worked Japanese style, as if neither was face nor heel although the crowd pretty much understood Hansen as a heel. Vader did a clothesline off the top rope after the match ended and both brawled to the dressing room. **3/4

(There’s a point on commentary where you sound pissed off that they’re fighting near by. Was that a shoot?)

(This was a brawl but an entertaining one. What did you think? Was the finish too confusing for American fans?)

We’re getting into the United States title hunt next. Lex Luger is in his fourth title reign here, having won the belt back from Stan Hansen at Starrcade 1990. But in between then and now, the title changed from the NWA US Title to the WCW US Title.  and he’s going to defend the title against Danny Spivey.

9. Lex Luger pinned Danny Spivey in 12:52 to retain the U.S. title. This was the best I've ever seen of Spivey in the United States. Once again, he was wrestling Japanese style showing all of what he can do, and in this case, considering his size, he can do a lot. Luger looked larger than usual. Spivey did every move in the book and dominated the match since he was doing the clean job at the end. They did screw-up a hOtshot with Luger ending up throwing Spivey over the top rope and they had to pretend not to acknowledge it because of the DQ rule. Finish saw Spivey try and slam Luger off the top rope but Luger got an inside cradle off the move. ***3/4

Nikita Koloff returned to WCW on this night to present Luger with the new US Championship. However, he attacked Lex Luger, claiming he had "stolen" the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship from him in 1987 and that he wanted it back.

Up next, a big moment in the careers of Doom as they take on former tag-champions, The Fabulous Freebirds.

10. Freebirds won the WCW tag team titles from Doom in 6:58. It's really hard for anyone to be in this position on a card. People had already seen nine matches and the previous match was excellent and most every match on the show was good. And everyone was anticipating the main event. Still, the personalities all had interest and it was smart to keep things short. Doom got more cheers than the Birds. Before the bout started, Diamond Dallas Page introduced Big Dolly Dink (Oliver Humperdink) as the new manager of the Birds, or I guess one is road manager and the other is TV manager. Most fans knew it was Humperdink although I'm told this wasn't acknowledged on TV. The finish saw Teddy Long throw in a foreign object to Butch Reed. Reed hit Ron Simmons with it when Jim Garvin ducked. Then Michael Hayes pushed Garvin on top of Simmons for the pin and title change. Just for their own credibility, they should have at least waited for the Birds to win the titles before having them lose them. Doom broke up after with Simmons creamed ** 1/2

(Was this a filler match? Couldn’t that have been a better spot for Armstrong and Eaton?)

(How did you feel about the break-up of Doom? Was this the right time to split the two up?)

After the match, Reed and Simmons started brawling, causing NJPW and WCW stars to separate them. Doom was no more.

Teddy Long sided with Butch Reed as the former Doom partners engaged in a short but intense feud. The feud culminated at SuperBrawl I where Ron Simmons pinned Butch Reed in a Steel cage match (referred to as a "Thunder-Doom" cage match). Butch Reed left the company after.

(Was Butch Reed unhappy at this time in the company, from what you could tell?)

Finally, we’re at the main event of the night. The Legendary Wargames: The Match Beyond. Meltzer said it was one of the best matches he had seen live.

The build to this match was during an interesting time. After being unmasked as The Black Scorpion at Starrcade in 1990, Flair regained the title from Sting on January 11, 1991. (After this title win, Flair was recognized by WCW as the first WCW World Heavyweight Champion) So this is a continuation of that feud. And because of the way the next few months went, this ends up being the blowoff to the Sting/Flair rivalry. Four months after this, Flair is gone and he and sting wouldn’t compete in a major match again until 1994.

In a total shocker that no one could have predicted, the heels won the coin toss.

11. Ric Flair & Larry Zbyszko & Sid Vicious & Barry Windham defeated Sting & Brian Pillman & The Steiner brothers in 22:05 in the War Games. Suffice to say 22 minutes of solid mayhem with the crowd on its feet screaming from the opening of the action.

This was supposed to be Pillman's night, since the object of this match was to get Pillman over and at the same time have him lose and carried out of the ring. On the surface, trying to accomplish both seemed mutually exclusive, but it seemed to have been successful. Pillman started with Windham for the first five minutes. It was the best I've seen Pillman look ever, and the best I've seen of Windham in years. The match kept that same level throughout. Windham bled buckets within the first two minutes.

(The idea that seemed to have been the goal here was to get Pillman over. Did the company see him as the next possible guy in 1991?)

Here’s a fun fact: One of our researchers used a stopwatch to measure the two-minute periods and they are a shoot. Precisely two minutes each. You never know with pro-wrestling!!

Flair was the next guy in for the 2-on-1 advantage (they have one hell of a lot of luck in calling those coin flips). Then came Sting, Zbyszko (subbing for Arn Anderson whose pulled groin hadn't recovered and apparently came back too soon at the Omni last Sunday), Rick Steiner, Sid Vicious and Scott Steiner in two minute intervals. Flair juiced heavy and Sting juiced as well. Basically this match delivered even more than it promised but there is a downside. In a match of this nature, all the juice and the constant low blows should be accepted because that iS what the match promised. However, if the promotion goes back to heavy juice nightly and all the low blows, they'll face all the same problems they faced in 1988 (which was the year that served as momentum and lessons not learned for the problems of 1989 and 1990).

(When does it become too often for blading, low blows, etc…? More than once per show?)

Finish saw Vicious give Pillman two power bombs, the first of which hurt him pretty bad legit. Pillman's feet hit the top of the cage and was slammed down wrong on his neck on the first bomb and legit knocked out--although this was supposed to be the finish. He ended up going to the hospital that night with muscle and ligament strains in his neck and is out of action as of this writing but isn't expected to be out that long. Anyway, in being carried out of the ring after ref Nick Patrick stopped the match, Pillman came off as the star of the night even in losing.

(Frightening botched move here. Sid and Brian Pillman got into a famous backstage altercation involving a squeegee later on the same year. Did this botch cause a lot of heat between these two guys?)

(How did no one realize the powerbomb would be hard to do with the top on the cage?)

This result is definitely an affront to anyone who believes you have to send the fans home happy on every big show, but the predictable finish (Zbyszko submitting) didn't take place. On TV, the down side was that on one occasion you could hear Sid Vicious and Rick Steiner setting up a spot. *****

(How did you like this Wargames match? Where does it rang compared to all of the others?)

For some reason the pyro guys set off a bunch of fireworks in the middle of the credits and while they’re fading away. The arena is almost empty and they make a bunch of pyro go off.

Meltzer had two main points coming out of the show to talk about. The first was that the commentary, specifically from Dusty, had seen major improvements...

From the consensus of phone calls, the commentary was much improved over the Clash in that Dusty Rhodes was far more restrained and spent more time getting the wrestlers over rather than himself. Rhodes got a big pop from the live crowd when they announced his name as an announcer. My own thought on this is that if Rhodes is going to spend so much television time getting himself over as a character, and the Saturday show was spent more on getting Rhodes over than on anything else including the Pillman angle, then Rhodes might as well be wrestling. There is nothing wrong with Rhodes wrestling so long as he's in the spot Jimmy Valiant used to be in--working short grudge matches against mid-card heels. It's when the top guys are constantly putting him over that credibility is destroyed and fans starting disliking him. If he's not going to wrestle, then why is so much time being spent in putting him over? I mean, would they do those kind of skits with Bob Caudle?

(Was Dusty having a tough time getting over the stars instead of himself on commentary? We know he had just finished a very controversial WWF run. What was he like working with here? Did he ever talk about his time with the polkadots?)

As far as the show itself, Meltzer compared it to a Japanese style show.

This was in many ways the closest thing to a Japanese style show in the United States, which is both good and bad, depending on your point of view. Pillman's role in the War Games was almost identical to the role someone like Rents Kobashi has been in on All Japan shows, although in Pillman's case it was taken to the extreme. Spivey-Luger and Vader-Hansen were basically Japanese style matches. Eaton-Armstrong, which lacked a heel, was more American style in its work and psychology but Japanese style in that there was no heel. The Japanese women was, of course, total Japanese style. Even Taylor-Zenk, which did have a strong face/heel differentiation, worked the match closer to a Japanese style than a more theatrical U.S. style. U.S. fans have been weaned on face/heel as being the entire basis of pro wrestling for so many decades that matches lacking the strongly defined roles are hard for fans to accept. I think that's why it took excellent work before fans got into some of the matches. I've heard that the crowd sounded dead on television, and it was quiet in the early parts of several of the matches, but most bouts did win the crowd over. The War Games had as much intense heat for as long as any match I've seen in this country in years.

(Do you see the Japanese comparison?)

(Give us your thoughts on Wrestlewar 1991!)