01/02/93 WCW Saturday Night Report

They started with the breaking news that the Ron Simmons experiment was FINALLY over since Vader beat him at a house show in Baltimore. That’s probably the best way they could have started the year.

Cactus Jack & Barbarian def. Tom Zenk & Johnny Gunn in 5:48. Zenk & Gunn were fine for this role, although it should be noted that Gunn was better than Zenk in this match. Barbarian won with a boot to Gunn’s head behind the ref’s back. It had it’s moments and was mostly fine. **

They recapped Starrcade in depth, including showing footage of Bill Watts and Henry Aaron standing together, which is obviously hilarious in hindsight. Fuck, the production for this PPV was fucking abysmal. They showed A LOT of highlights, and nothing came across as exciting in the slightest. Muta won in a real headsctatcher. Battle Bowl was always a horrendous event.

Tony Schiavone interviewed college football coach, Howard Schnellenberger, about his former University of Louisville player, Erik Watts. This was before college football was the juggernaut it is now, Schellengerger didn’t have charisma, and it was all to hopelessly attempt to put over Erik Watts.

Erik Watts def. Mustafa Saed in 2:36 . Yes, this is Erik Watts against one-half of the Gangstas. Saed was as green as his neon tights, and Watts was bad, eventually winning with the STF. The boos in the crowd for Watts were noticeable.

They aired Rick Rude’s promo from Starrcade, where he correctly pointed out he might be stripped of his US title due to injury, despite Sting getting to keep the WCW title when Vader injured him last year. Rude was intense and believable here.

Teddy Long interviewed Cactus Jack, who cut a decent promo on Erik Watts, and also cut a promo on Van Hammer for Tony Atlas. Atlas said a couple of lines and flexed his biceps, but that was about it. Hammer v. Atlas sounds ungodly horrible, but this interview was fine.

Dustin def. Vinnie Vegas in 6:22. Kevin Nash was so green, particularly struggling with both attempting and taking sunset flips. Nash really couldn’t do much that looked any good at all so there were some bearhugs. Dustin won with a Bulldog. Boring and bad. 3/4*

Tony Schiavone interviewed Barry Windham, Brian Pillman and Steve Austin. This is when Windham put the team of Austin and Pillman together so he could pursue singles titles. They made it seem like they would be a regular trio, but it didn’t really play out that way. Ironically, Austin was easily the worst promo of the three in this interview, but the other two did enough to save it.

Brian Pillman & Steve Austin def. Rikki Nelson & Ron Santo in 4:32. The future-Hollywood Blondes were selling their asses off, despite Nelson being really fucking bad here. The match didn’t click much when he was in. Eventually, Austin beat Santo with the stun gun. The Blondes tried, but Santo and Nelson weren’t suited to have a lot given to them.

They aired highlights of Sting v. Vader from Starrcade. The clips were pretty random, and also didn’t have the finish. They went to air the whole card for the upcoming Clash of the Champions but the Network cut it out.

Tony Atlas def. Van Hammer in 5:09. It wasn’t just what they messed up here, but how bad little things looked like shitty lockups and lazy kickouts. Good thing they gave up on the Hammer megapush right after this. Atlas won when Cactus tripped Hammer from the outside and held his leg down so Atlas could win. 1/2*

Up Close with Arn Anderson. Up Close was a popular ESPN interview show with the legendary interviewer, Roy Firestone, but in WCW it’s a segment hosted by Tony Schiavone, only to be replaced by Jesse Ventura here. Ventura, for a guy that has acted in major motion pictures, was awful here, especially when feigning outrage. Arn was good talking about being hurt by Erik Watts, and Bill Watts not giving him a new contract, but Jesse almost killed it.

Barry Windham def. Johnny B. Badd in 7:32. This was easily the best of the tourney matches so far, but still not very good. The atmosphere is really depressing for some reason; maybe it’s the horribly mic’d crowd. I didn’t think these two clicked, but Windham’s jumping DDT was awesome. **1/4

Shane Douglas & Ricky Steamboat were interviewed by Tony Schiavone. Douglas wasn’t bad, but Steamboat was the one that cut a fiery babyface promo on the possibility of facing Windham next week, since Windham gave him five stitches with a chairsjot. This was on the upper-echelon of Steamboat promos.

Ricky Steamboat def. Danny Spivey in 8:19. Spivey’s stuff looked pretty good, and Steamboat was a great seller as always. Steamboat won with a crossbody off the top. **1/2

Teddy Long interviewed Barry Windham, who cut a very good promo on Ricky Steamboat for next week.