WCW. From 1992.

Brian Pillman v Tom Zenk (WrestleWar 17/5/92)
--Liked this a lot, especially for a former partner match where neither guy is full-fledged heel. Zenk seemed to be the guy that was going heel; by the time Pillman had the majority of the match he'd go to the lnegths of faking injury. Pillman had the leg worked and Zenk would fall in a pile when he tried an Irish whip, so Pillman goes airbourne to finish him off. Zenk was milking it and he comes off as a bit of a dick. Which was great since babyface Zenk isn;t my (or anyone else's, from what I gather) cup of tea. Nothing to shove on a ballot for me, but another gem in the belt of WCW's '92 year.

The Steiner Brothers v Tatsumi Fujinami/Takayuki Iizuka (WrestleWar 17/5/92)
--This was better than Pillman/Zenk, if even basically a glorified spotfest. I thought there were enough nifty transitions and ground-and-pound for this to sidle away ever-so-slightly from the territory of a "spotfest", but what you remember about this one is the spots. And there were some really good spots. I particularly liked the one where Fujinami & Iizuka were attempting some sort of doomsday device with Rick on top, only for Rick to counter it with a suplex. It was a little sloppy, which is unsurprising given the move actually pulled off, but it made for a hell of a visual regardless. Iizuka's nose exploded somewhere in there, and i thoguht that added to whatever role he was playing...which I saw as "underdog". Sort of. Won't put this on the list either, but it goes in that '92 WCW belt.

Sting v Cactus Jack (Beach Blast 20/6/92)
--Watched this again because I thought it's drop a few places, and while it did, it's still awesome. I think I've seen this like 6 times now since first watching it 2008, and pretty much every time it holds up way better than I thought it would. Cactus takes more concrete bumps than I had remembered, the vertical suplex within the crowd barriers and the backdrop suplex where his head connects with the legs of the railing look nastier with each viewing. That sunset flip from the apron to the floor does as well. Totally makes him look like the looney shit-smahser that will do anything to inflict pain. him rubbing the chair after swinging it was bone-chillingly great as well, and I think he even apologized to it. Sting was pretty great in this, as well. I loved when Cactus had a leg-scissors around his waist and he was fighting off the crossfaces and giving a really good Herculean comeback. By the end of it it really felt like he had endured a flat out fight to the end. Shit's still awesome.

Bit o' Clash XIX

Brian Pillman/Jushin Liger v Chris Benoit/Beef Wellington (Clash of the Champions 16/6/92)
--I've seen this overrated to hell but otherwise it's good. Benoit is pretty great even at a stage this early in his career. Not "Pretty great" in the sense where he's the best wrestler having the best matches, but I don't remember seeing a guy play a young lion while also looking like a guy who others would shit their pants to get in the ring with because he's going to grind at your face with his knuckles. Wellington seemed fine, he looked like the resthold guy for this which was cool in a match built mainly around the sensationalism of Pillman and Liger's flying spots (hope it doesn't sound like I'm knocking that). The dives were cool and if I have the right match I remember a pretty nasty outside bump by Benoti or Wellington. The announcers really don't shut up about there not being any mat covering on the concrete floor either, and Jesse Ventura lost his mind for Liger's Asai Moonsault. This wasn't a great match, but I wouldn't have a problem watching it right now; it was good.

Steve Williams/Terry Gordy v The Steiner Brothers (Clash of the Champions 16/6/92)
--When watching the Beach Blast main event with the same match-up, I honestly thought it was this one until Jim Ross said "We hope you're enjoying Beach Blast," so it blew my mind to think they could have a better match out there (from opinions I'd heard, anyway). I pretty much thought there was no way I'd prefer this one to that one in the end. Note to self: BULLLLLLSHIT. This was excellent, and basically the Beach Blast with a lot of the fat of the mat restholds and stuff trimmed off with a better crowd. I think it went a max. of 15 minutes, and without that downtime you have Doc and Gordy basically dropping control segments with restholds in favour of control segments with bullldozing killing. This still had the Williams/Rick mat work, and what was done of that was really good, but it's basically a more focused version of bombfest that gets me loving this. Actually the Gordy/Scott stuff may have been better. They worked this bridging segment, and by the looks of it Gordy could legitimately not lift himeslf up and collapsed each time. That might be called a "botch", but watching what was Scott (kayfabe) not being able to get a guy in a bridge was amazing. The suplexes her threw around were obviosuly great as well. Williams blowing of all of the mat work in favour of a slap to the face was beautiful and really got this going to the eleventh number. MVC did NOT relent on that leg either and the finish with the chopblock was sweet. This is my highest 2-on-2 tag right now and unless my re-watches of MX/Southern Boys and MX/RnR hit my sweet spot like this did, it's staying there.

'92 WCW. Yep.

The '92 and '93 Yearbooks came in the mail, so I'm going through what, based off of what I've read, could make my top 100 list. Going to re-watch things that I think look too high or low, too (maybe).

Big Van Vader/Mr. Hughes v The Steiner Brothers (Clash of the Champions 21/1/92)
--Fun sub-ten minute bomb-fest. Actually this had less bombs than I was expecting, but a Steiners vs. Fat Boys match without bombs is like....what's the point? I'm not huge fan of Vader being dominated in the openings of matches, but the Steiners are practically all about that. Mr. Hughes reminded me of this giant guy I saw on the Mid-South set...Kareem... Abdul... Mohammed...something. A really big guy who looks like he could beat the shit out of you at any moment, yet gets almost zero offense in any match. In fact all I remember him doing was a hip-lock, and I can't even say it was him that did it. He'd spend most of him getting thrown in suplexes, which all looked awesome, and meant a lot more than the regular Steiner suplexes since these guys are fatasses. I watched this like four days ago, so I'm struggling to picture anything else but Vader's punches and Jim Ross going pretty giddy for a Steinerline, but this was a good match.

Cactus Jack v Van Hammer (Clash of the Champions 21/1/92)

--Mick Foley in a falls-count-anywhere environment usually won't miss, but the ultimate level of suck known as "Heavy Metal" Van Hammer drags this down. This was clearly only interesting when Cactus had control, and even then Van Hammer seemed like a lazy scared little sack when selling a clothesline. Actually, Hammer's physicality was way worse than anything else; he'd actually do a nifty little sequence, like a classic WCW 90s clothesline > powerslam > middle rope jump thing, but those ten seconds won't make a match. Him being really unwilling to take any sort of good bump while Mickles was plastering his own arse into the concrete for the sake of a good bump really annoyed me. The highlight of Hammer's entire offense might have been he first move where he launched some of that...stuff from his stupid looking guitar at Foley. Foley's sweet revenge is awesome in the back, he's laying stuff into Hammer's head and making him feel that shit. I don't remember what exactly he hit him with, but I remember thinking it was a prop used in the Finlay/Regal parking lot brawl. Probably wasn't. Still, that tier #2 in this match only behind Abdullah the Butcher hobbling in and dumping people (including one Missy Hyatt) into what I think was a pig water trough. Good match? Average match? No idea. It's something I'd be fine with wasting eight or so minutes on right now, so, yeah.

Some '96 WCW

 Going through all the WCW on the 1996 yearbook for a top-100-matches-of-WCW poll. Enjoy. Or don't. I don't care.

Road Warrior Hawk/Road Warrior Animal v Rick Steiner/Scott Steiner (Nitro 11/3/96)
--I didn't look forward to this, and although it wasn't bad, there was nothing to it. Some matches suck, and some are just uninteresting. I wasn't sure who the faces/heels were supposed to be. Seemed like they were going for face vs. face, then Steiners as heels, then Warriors as heels when they won by whacking one of the Steiners with something. Looked like a thermos to me. I'm sure it wasn't. Either way, nothing of real interest to see here, but the Steiners doing a Doomsday Device (unsuccessfully I think, I remember a rwally bad down period where Animal took too long to get Scotty down) was a nice touch.

Sting/Booker T v Road Warrior Hawk/Road Warrior Animal (Uncensored 24/3/96)
-- "Some matches suck, and some are just uninteresting." Meet the suck. This was joined in progress, and I tend to check the time of the chapter of the DVD when it first starts, and this had 15 minutes left, and I thought "no way it lasts 15 more minutes." It. Fucking. Did. And it was painful. It's a Chicago Street Fight, and it's a lot of bad brawling and more confusing heel/face stuff. Sting's a clear face obviously, but Booker walks out on him at one point and gets together with his brother and some others (fuck if I remember who) in the back and tie up Animal. Then he come back to help Sting, then some more bullshit happens. I checked the length of entire match on Wikipedia, and it apparently ends up at over 29 minutes. To hell with enduring that shit. This was not good. No siree.

Hulk Hogan/Randy Savage v Ric Flair/Arn Anderson/Lex Luger/The Ultimate Solution/Z-Gangsta/Meng/The Barbarian/Kevin Sullivan (Uncensored 24/3/96)
--Ahhh. Tower of Doom. I didn't see this is full either, but I saw less than Warriors/Sting & Book I think so I endured less pain. Either way, I didn't/don't know the rules of this and don't really care; this wasn't good either. There's a gigantic cage with supposed "levels" and Hulk and Savage get the crap beat out of them by a bunch of guys. Z-Gangsta is better known as WWF's "Zeus", and was still the maniac cross eyed yelling sasquatch he was years before. The Ultimate Solution was, well, a fat man. It was great watching Hogan lose a couple of shoulder-pushy-whatevers to him. Luger's seemingly full fledged face turn on Flair was pretty nifty, even if they teased it as an accident. Finish had Hulk and Macho going outside the cage to the ring and Savage turning around and pinning Flair to win. I don't get it either.

'DEM BIG BOYS PLEH BUT 'DEY DON'T PLEH NICE~

Scott Steiner/Rick Steiner v Steve Williams/Terry Gordy (WCW 20/6/92)
--Sort of went into this expecting something great. Forget "great", man; this was fantastic. Almost seemed like a dream match between the two teams who had all the power and mat presence in the world, and it came off like that Rock vs. Brock vibe you WANT. Obviously not as big or anticipated, but it's something to take seriously. Doc and Gordy are Japan tourists of sorts, and it has that same deal as when Vader was brought in at the Great American Bash a month later. Point is; it's no regular tag match. Scotty Steiner being the mat wrestler of the bunch outclasses Gordy's attempts at building some kind of offense. Williams at one point is yelling his bloody head at Gordy to keep hold of a leg while in a submission himself, and Gordy's tugging on that thing for his life. The Rick/Doc parts in particular felt like the big this-is-the-motherfucking-load showdown stuff. It gets the Varsity Club history mention from Jim Ross, and he says he's been waiting on this one. Williams has that football past and he's bulldozing Rick like an elephant mother who's had her child attacked. Rick eats like three shoulder-blocks to the thigh area and when Williams rampages him for the third he pulls a Steinerline out of his arse and Doc's completely wiped. Doc gets thrown with a belly-to-belly and he sold it excellently, he gets out of the ring and tries to weed it off and in turn is putting the suplex over as a really big deal. I seriously dig that kind of smallish stuff. It gets to the point where they're channelling their inner-puroresu and bombing each other with the mother-set of suplexes. These aren't regular US suplexes either, they're those motherfucking AHHHHHHH suplexes you'd want parading an All Japan main event. Gordy was getting planted on his head in a mad heap of arse and elbows. Totally level ballgame; Steiners can wrestle, MVC can wrestle, Steiners can throw, MVC can throw, and that's more little shit points I dig. One thing Steiners have that trouble doing is getting Doc and Gordy down for longer periods of time, which Doc and Gordy themsleves master. There's this really terrific grounding part where MVC are literally not letting Scott get past the middle of the ring. I felt the hot tag was almost a mistake, though. Williams had a Boston Crab and Scott's scurrying towards his corner to get to Rick, and when he actually hits the tag the referee goes to look at Gordy in the MVC because he was probably supposed to interfere or something. I'm not making no complaint, though; house-o'-fire Rick Steiner isn't something you want to miss. WCW around this time could be notoriously shitheaded with bullshitting time limits, so when they ht the 30 minute draw the time's really clocking in at about 25 or less, but they shove in all the really cool nearfall stuff you see when the announcer's counting down on his mic. Scott gets his Frankensteiner in once he counts to one and you could tell he wanted the pin despite keeping those big ol' belts. Time limit draw only helps the level ballgame deal and sets up a possible re-match between two teams that have that SCORE TO SETTLE. I would've been perfectly settled with this being the only match they had, though. Seriously exceptional and maybe a top five WCW match of 1992. Forty seven fuckin' stars.

Missed Dangerous Alliance

I had a feeling I'd forget to post something. And I've probably forgot something after this. Anyway 3 matches from SuperBrawl II, which was btw a hell of a show.

Larry Zbyszko/Steve Austin v Barry Windham/Dustin Rhodes (SuperBrawl 29/2/92)
--I think my favourite thing about Barry Windham is how he's the greatest of all time at making himself look a lot smaller than he actually is. Being 6'5"/245+ it has to be hard to look like a great face in peril without making every bit of offense from a small whineboat like Zbyszko look good, but he does it. I think that's one of the things I really like about current day Chris Masters, as well. It's obviously a lot easier when he's dealing with someone as big or bigger, but I can always buy the fact that those two are actually in trouble whenever they portray to be. Dustin's another guy who's great at it (6'5" as well IIRC), but he's not the FIP here so that's beside the point. (Or he might've been, they probably both were at some point. Hazy memory and all that. ) I've probably said many many times before but a handful WCW matches of this time go from a really simple formula of babyface-dominant brawling -> slight heel comeback -> babyface dominant wrestling -> FIP -> babyface comeback. And fucker it works every time. A good time's spent on the ramp (they should bring that thing back) and there's some MONSTER clotheslines taking place, I remember one in particular taken by Zbyszko that I still remember. Honestly I think of Windham as practically an all time great but I always think to myself how he only had a few good years in the 80s while always managing to forget how good he after coming back from WWF. I'm not actually sure there's anything separating NWA/Florida Windham from WCW Windham. totally awesome on control when throwing out lariats and really making you believe he hates the son of a bitch (Zbyszko) for breaking his arm. Then he goes ahead and shoves Austin into Austin's OWN corner just so he can tag Zbyszko in. And I've been waiting to see someone do that spot forever. Moving out of the ring after Rhodes & Windham lost control, Zbyszko plants Windham's coconuts on the guardrail and it looks nasty, hell even Madusa said "ow". And she has no coconuts. I had to point that just in case no one got it (you know, for HER to say "ow", it's like... yeah. Ow.). I may have to watch this again but I'm making sure it isn't falling off. If for anything for the Windham-shoving-Austin-into-his-own-corner spot alone.

Bobby Eaton/Arn Anderson v Scott Steiner/Rick Steiner (SuperBrawl 29/2/92)
--I really get into scenarios where the Champions (Arn & Eaton) are really billed as underdogs coming into a big match, and that kind of thing almost always leads to the underdog(s) pulling a victory somehow. But the underdogs are the underdogs so they're starting by not getting much in, and I loved how they did it here. Every time Eaton got some offense in, Scott would reverse it, counter it, or just plough through it, and Eaton would back into a corner putting on a "what in heyell am I gonna do?" face. He decides what in heyell he's going to do is tag in Arn, and Arn's demanding Rick gets in here so get the two bigger power guys and you get the crowd giving that "oooohhhhh" thing going. Arn lays on the floor after an Irish Whip and Rick lays beside him and if i remember right he just gives him a totally fake warm smile. Or he smashes him. Either way one suplex later and The DA are conversing on the outside about what they're going to do next and Paul E's in panic mode. They get back to going and I loved how they still couldn't get a good offensive stream going, if this was TV match they might have, but on a PPV they have enough time to build this thing more. I actually love that about short WCW TV matches, I mean they're terrific as just matches, but when you compare them to a PPV match the PPV match seems a lot longer and bigger. I also love how Eaton had to resort to low blow to get the upper hand in this eventually, and then Arn works on the abdomen to try to trick the ref. Would've been amazing had he worked on the groin, but it's "illegal" and "immoral" and stuff. Rick becomes the FIP and I thought it was good but the hot tag to Scott was, well, "cold", I guess. Maybe it was just the crowd, but I didn't feel it. Scott becoming the new FIP kind of made up for it since they got to "right the wrong" of the cold tag (well, in my eyes, anyway. ;D). I liked this hot tag better, mainly for Arn almost looking like he was going to shit his pants when Eaton was going to be pinned by Rick. Hilarious turn of events where Rick gets salt (or some white stuff) gets thrown in his eyes by Arn so in confusion and blindness he gives a belly-to-belly to the ref. Awesome stuff.

Rick Rude v Ricky Steamboat (SuperBrawl 29/2/92)
--Steamboat brings his ninja!!!!!! That's enough to put this in the top ten. I mean, it's A NINJA. This is a US Title match and the atmosphere is bigger than a lot of World Title matches I've seen. The heat Rude gets is off the charts as well. It was great how they played off of the big atmosphere too, they didn't start this with anything more than collar and elbow with brawling, and it gets the crowd going nuts, they didn't want these two to do anything specific, just as long as they were touching each other (I know what you're thinking after reading that. Forum full of sickos. ). Steamboat gets in control with his armdrags and such, and moves on to Rude's to not give the Rude Awakening so much effect. Rude was unbelievable on selling that arm, even when on offense he had it bent and would gradually extend it as time went on. They clash into each other in a sort of a double crossbody spot, and I think the whole "even playing field" deal is spot-on perfect for a match with a big atmosphere and it's the kind of thing that makes a good crowd hold their piss in until the match is over with. Steamboat's ninja turns on him and it turns out it was Paul E. who was banned from ringside. That clever chicketty. Man I swear half of the matches on my list will probably be from 1992 by the time this thing's done (2024).