WCW SuperBrawl 1991 (May 19, 1991)

Dusty Rhodes on commentary, Luger & Sting vs. The Steiners, the debut of Oz and more in a wild WCW pay-per-view.

WCW is back from Japan apparently (I didn’t know they left) for a super show with lots of brawls. Hey! It’s a SuperBrawl.

A snazzy theme starts us off and some lady who I’ve never heard of and whose name I’ve already forgotten sings “America the Beautiful” amid a bunch of tracking lines. Hey look! It’s JR and Dusty! Holy shit, there’s 12 MATCHES on this show?

Here’s our match card:
1) The Freebirds (Michael Hayes & Jimmy Garvin) vs. The Young Pistols (Steve Armstrong & Tracy Smothers)
2) Ricky Morton vs. Danny Spivey
3) Nikita Koloff vs. Tommy Rich
4) Dustin Rhodes vs. Terry Taylor
5) Big Josh vs. Black Bart
6) Oz vs. Tim Parker
7) Barry Windham vs. Brian Pillman - Taped Fist Match
8) Sid Vicious vs. El Gigante - Stretcher Match
9) Ron Simmons vs. Butch Reed - Cage Match
10) Lex Luger & Sting vs. The Steiner Brothers
11) Arn Anderson vs. Bobby Eaton
12) Ric Flair vs. Tatsumi Fujinami

OMG! It’s DDP! And he’s out with the Freebirds. Who’s this Big Daddy Dink guy with him? Young Pistols are announced as from “Wyoming”. They might be the only two people that live in Wyoming! Brad Armstrong runs in the ring and strips his shirt off. JR says it’s a “Armstrong family tradition”. He also utters the word “propensity”. Dusty is flabbergasted. Are the Young Pistols trunks supposed to be the color of dirt? Dusty seems oddly fixated on the state of Wyoming. Tracy flies over the top and eats the floor. The Birds then double team and drop him face first on the railing. That was pretty nasty. I’ve never been a big fan of the Freebirds. Yeah, their song is cool and all but I can’t name a single Freebirds match I’ve ever really liked, especially in WCW. I will give them credit though for doing a lot by doing very little. Camerman totally misses a giant double clothesline from Tracy off the top rope. Steve dives off the top to the floor. Ref bump and a guy in a bird outfit runs in and attacks the Young Pistols. Hey ref! There’s feathers all over the ring! Don’t you think there was interference? Freebirds win. This was ok. Nothing special. No time to waste, it’s time for our next match, Ricky Morton vs. Dan Spivey! Spivey’s forearms are just violent. So was that DDT. Morton looks like he’s dead after that. Lots of big power moves from Spivey. I chuckled when the ref checked Morton’s arm after a Razor’s Edge and it dropped. Has Morton gotten in an offensive move yet? He’s gets in a little flurry just as I type that. Spivey has enough and just powerbombs the crap out of Morton. Quick but inoffensive. Liked this a lot more than the first match.

Tony Schaivone and Missy Hyatt are with The Z-Man who says nothing of importance. Tony announces some lady from Harlan, Kentucky won a prize, never says what the prize is and then pivots to Missy’s misadventures in the men’s locker room at the last PPV. Apparently she got chased away and called a “heffer” by Stan Hansen. I haven’t seen that PPV yet. Tony essentially dares Missy to go do and interview in the men’s locker room later. Oh, that should be good. Tommy Rich’s music is SO BAD. Nikita Koloff is a bad looking dude! Rich eats the ring post diving into the corner. I mean he took that straight on his forehead and full speed. So far this feels like something that would feel more at home on WCW Worldwide. Nothing here. Just a squash. Johnny B. Badd dances and prances to the ring with Teddy Long. Teddy says they’ll take out Ron Simmons and PN News. Dusty says Johnny B. Badd “doesn’t look like he’s supposed to look.” Those were actual words uttered on television.

Dustin Rhodes vs. Terry Taylor is next up. Taylor keeps checking with Alexandra York and her high-tech Etch-A-Sketch. I liked Dustin grabbing a headlock after they missed a crossbody block. I don’t typically call out stuff like that but it was noticeable and it was a good recovery. The story here is The York Foundation tried to recruit Dustin and he said no. Very simple. York is mad that she got rejected so she’s sent Taylor out for her revenge. This had been pretty good so far. Big running lariat just knocks Taylor’s head off. Some interference from York and Mr. Hughes who just clocks Taylor by accident. I liked this. Nothing I’d recommend but a fun little match. Dusty and JR hype up our next match of Big Josh vs. Black Bart. Dusty is excited about seeing Big Josh’s bears. “I never seen two live bears before,” he pines. Ok, I thought Tommy Rich’s music was bad. Bart’s is atrocious. Sounds like something you’d hear in an elementary school video about the old west. HOLY SHIT! THOSE ARE LEGIT REAL LIVE BEARS BIG JOSH BRINGS TO THE RING! I was seriously not expecting that. I dig the flannel on Big Josh. JR says Big Josh has a “low boiling point”. Whatever that means. Josh just throwing some vicious haymakers. Bart selling an arm crank like his arm is about to be ripped off. Dusty calls Bart “an old rusty veteran”. Bart throws some hard shots. Josh wins with an ass drop. Yep. An ass drop. This was short but a blast because both guys just laid it in.

A wild Paul E. Dangerously appears for his “Danger Zone” segment! He looks ridiculous in a pink shirt, khaki shorts, sneakers and black cowboy hat. Dusty says something about how real cowboys would “string him up by his heels out back and leave him for two days until he gets right”. Stan Hansen is here! That stuff hanging out of his mouth is gross. He yells and screams and then leaves. Onward now to the debut of Oz. We get narration over the house mic that talks about a Great Wizard, weary travelers and the like. Wait, there’s people dressed as Dorothy, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion?! This is straight out of a community theater re-enactment of Wizard of Oz. There are loud boos right away. A man in a Halloween mask with a monkey on a leash continually yells “Welcome to Oz”. His music is pretty cool. Oz’s whole pageantry with the entrance and whatnot was longer than his match. A giant spinning toss kills his hapless opponent in about half a second. Missy goes in the men’s locker room. She annoys Terry Taylor. Stan Hansen shows up in his boxers and throws her out as Taylor visibly laughs. Guessing this was a running gag of some sort around this time?

On to the stipulation matches now with Brian Pillman vs. Barry Windham in a Taped Fist Match! Really cool offense by Pillman, dropkicking Windham off the top to the floor and then diving off the top rope. Both guys are bleeding. Pillman gets dropped off the ramp throat first on the railing. That was wild! Big spin kick just smashed Windham. Pillman’s chops are hard. JR says they’ll just make you shudder. I’m loving this match so far. Best thing on the show by a wide margin so far. The pace was really was they were just beating the crap out of each other the whole way through. Ending felt a bit sudden because it was just getting going but that’s my only nitpick. DDP is back with a segment called the “Diamond Mine”. HOW MANY INTERVIEW SEGMENTS ARE ON THIS SHOW? I have no idea what he’s rambling on about while he gets fondled by women with big hair and ugly sunglasses. Sting and Luger do a video interview that’s really out of place. DDP calls out the Diamond Studd, who is Scott Hall. He flicks his toothpick. Think about this. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash both debuted ridiculous gimmicks on this show. I’ll let you consider that for a moment. Sid and Gigante moved like they’re stuck in quicksand. Well, at least Gigante did. Big boot and a claw from Gigante and .. it’s over? Well that sucked. One Man Gang and Kevin Sullivan run out. They brawl with Gigante. The crowd sings the goodbye song to Sid. Holy crap, that stretcher to the head of Gigante was nuts! So let me get this straight, this was a stretcher match and no went off on a stretcher? That makes no sense. One of those “WCW everybody” moments I suppose. This cage looks rickety as shit for Simmons vs. Reed. Simmons bleeds early as Reed just dominates the proceedings. I really like this so far too. They’re just brawling and doing the basic punch-kick combo you’d do on a video game. Reed hit a pretty nasty pile driver. Lots of football references by JR and Dusty. They use lots of similes like “Ron Simmons needs to get a first down”. That was a nasty top rope shoulder block by Reed! I’m pretty impressed by how vicious Reed’s offense is here. Spinebuster from nowhere by Simmons and he wins? How? He got his ass kicked the whole match! And no one even took advantage of the foreign object Teddy threw down from the shark cage.

Back to JR and Dusty as they hype up the next match … Luger & Sting vs. The Steiner Brothers! JR calls for a “special video look”. Video with sappy music plays and that was not what I expected.

Luger & Sting vs. The Steiners kicks off our final portion of the show. I’m pretty hyped for this, not gonna lie. I may have seen this before on an old WWE DVD but it’s been forever ago. Rick went for a shoulder block and bounced like a ball off of Luger. He fires back with a vicious clothesline. GOD DAMN LUGER JUST MAULED RICK WITH A NASTY LARIAT! I mean he knocked him into 1992 with that thing! Sting dives over the top like a complete lunatic. Sting is literally murdering Rick. Sting bashes into the corner at full speed and this crowd is losing its mind! Scott gets dropped throat first on the top rope. These guys are beating the hell out of the each other. Oh man, that top rope belly-to-belly from Scott was awesome! Rick destroys Luger with a top rope bulldog. Guess that’s a receipt from earlier. Sting flies in from space with a top rope dropkick. This is the craziest tag match ever! It’s been full throttle since the opening bell rang. Sting absolutely SPIKES Scott with a tombstone and Dusty cleared yells “Jesus!” On commentary. What the hell? Nikita Koloff? Sting gets whacked with Koloff’s chain and Steiners get the pin. Sting is bleeding like crazy from the chain but that was an amazing match! One of the best tag matches I’ve ever seen. If I rated or scored matches, that would probably be five stars as these are the types of matches I absolutely love!

Tony tries to get a word with Koloff. He garbles stuff. Sting catches up with him and they fight outside the arena! I’m still reeling from how good that last match was but I’m expecting another banger, albeit in a different capacity, from Arn vs Bobby. Bobby getting thrown off the top to the ramp was a rough spot. So was the backdrop on the ramp. Hell, anything on the ramp looks like it hurts. I like the very technical stuff from Bobby so far. Arn throws in some cheap shots just as a write that though. Arn works over Bobby’s leg. JR says that he can’t get to the top rope with one leg. Well, actually JR, you can. I’ve done it. Getting down is a bitch though. Dusty does a bunch of analysis. JR says they need a telestrator. Dusty agrees because he’s “pointing with [his] finger and nothin’s happenin’”. Bobby throws some hard rights and hobbles around the ring. Arn is relentless on Bobby’s knee. Bobby selling the knee while trying ta suplex Arn was a nice touch. Dusty says it’s “worn slap dab out”. I love Dusty on commentary. He has no filter. I winced at how hard Arn’s spinebuster was. Eaton climbs to the top with his bum leg. See JR? It can be done! Barry Windham randomly pops up as does Pillman to fight him off. They completely miss the Alabama Jam leg drop and the pin as the cameras are on Windham and Pillman. Still, a cool moment for Bobby Eaton. Tony is outside of Tatsumi Fujinami’s locker room. He gets a word with Hiro Matsuda. He says they’ll take the belt back to Japan. Fujinami’s music is really bad-ass. Rock guitar underlay with flutes. Sort of like a Jethro Tull thing only a little harder edge. Flair does not come out to “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Instead it’s some random Temu classical theme. Flair vs. Fujinami stems from some shenanigans and a disputed finish that happened in the Tokyo Dome. The announcers don’t really do a good job explaining what exactly went down. Think it had something to do with the referee? I’d tell you but I haven’t seen that show either. Dusty analyzes Fujinami’s leg lock by saying “it takes your spine all the way from your butkus up to your neckus”. Expert analysis there. This match feels like it’s moving in slow motion. Not as slow as El Gigante and Sid were earlier but pretty slow. Crowd seems bored. Flair slaps on a figure four. Fujinami reverses it and Flair sells it like death. Ok now this is picking up and they start exchanging chops. Nope. I was wrong. Back to holds. They fight to the outside and finally the action picks up. Flair bleeds a gusher after getting bashed into the railing and ring post. Flair gets his greatest hits in. The rolling knee drop, eye pokes, chops, getting thrown off the top rope, etc. Flair misses a cradle attempt. Fujinami locks in an octopus hold and Dusty says “you don’t know whether to give up or go blind”. Thanks Dusty. This feels interminable. Fujinami bangs into the referee. Flair rolls him up and wins. Well that’s over.

Lots of stuff was packed into this show — the wackiness of Oz, some interesting stipulation matches, a couple cool undercard matches and a complete banger of a tag match with Sting & Luger vs. The Steiner. Look it up and watch it. You’ll thank me. I liked hearing Dusty on commentary throughout as he kept things interesting. Him and JR worked well together. Thought the main event dragged this down otherwise it was a good show.