Those Hollywood Nights

Ric Flair/Arn Anderson/Paul Roma VS Barry Windham/Hollywood Blonds - WCW 7/3/1993

JJZ: Alright cutie pie. So we've done a fantastic job of playing forward matches showcasing wrestlers at different point of their career. For this one I wanted to play a match that showcased wrestlers around the same time frame and same type of match. To see how much they lifted from the matches. I did notice a few thing but nothing crazy. Both are six man tags but these six man tags are extremely different. The last one was a fantastic house show match while this one was a fantastic, heated feud building match. Also, I recently played forward a match with fucking horrible commentary. This bout totally makes up for that one. Tony and Jessie absolutely killed it on the mic. Great back and forth. But! These guys absolutely killed it in the ring. They focus on the things that really make you want to see the payoff at Beach Blast. Big props to the ref who's name is escaping me at the moment. They had him running all around, plus he took one hell of a ref bump. Timing in a match with so many wrestlers is so key and they all execute it very well. I'm loving this tag team heater we are on right now. But most importantly about this match Chris. Very little Paul Roma. Hope you like it sir.

CJD: I love how right down to the way it's shot, you wouldn't know Roma was even in this match for about 75% of it without someone reminding you. I think we both have a soft spot for Pretty Paul but wow did he look painfully uncomfortable in this match. Couldn't agree more that Jesse & Tony were firing on all cylinders for this one. Master class in play by play with heel color commentary. I really liked this match sweet pea. Maybe even more than my house show 6 man. The way they built the heat up over and over here was so nice. I've got to say in both matches, I thought Austin was low key the star. Always giving the spotlight to someone else but every little thing he does both looks great and adds purpose. With what he became that's not a hot take or anything, but this era of his career is still severely underrated. Last but not least. I know the days of us keeping close track of our fictional MDTSOCWWKD Championship are long behind us. But we've had two tag team champs in a couple of weeks here between MaruKEN and now the Blonds. And even after all these years I know we've only successfully had a small number of tag teams retain the big gold imaginary belts. Just a little tidbit that I enjoyed!

It Was A 2 Cold Chill

Sting/Ricky Steamboat/2 Cold Scorpio VS Rick Rude/Hollywood Blonds - WCW Elimination Match 5/6/1993

CJD: The FanCam Connection doing FanCam Connection things! This match has less than 1k views and has only been up for a year which tells me there's a good chance it might not stay up for long. So drink in this 1993 house show goodness while you can. There's a lot of table I need to set for this match. First of all it's an elimination tag. Second of all this is a high school show in Terre Haute Indiana in 1993, and the crowd is every bit as homophobic as you'd imagine. Watch with the sound down if necessary. And third of all, the actual finish to this match is such a classic horse shit house show finish that I'd probably skip sharing it if there wasn't so much other excellent content otherwise. It's kind of a glimpse of how awesome WCW was in this era but all the reasons why they never realized their full potential in one tiny homophobic high school gym in Indiana. I thought everyone did some really great stuff in this match. Some unusual spots, great crowd work, and great apron work while guys weren't in the match. Not a lot of bumps punched on the bump cards as you'd expect, but nobody was taking the night off by any means. And yeah the finish was, well, you'll see, but at the end of the day there was no way I wasn't playing this one forward.

JJZ: So right off the bat, I loved the finish. It perfectly fit the tone of the match. If this was a PPV I would have a problem with it, but with all the gaga it worked. The fucking star talent in this match was insane CJD. Just wow. Six generational talents sharing the mat and all of the them showing the depth in their game. This would've been a perfect match for sharing with all of our wrestling buddies. I fully agree that the punch card wasn't hit too hard in this one, but that's to be expected with a house show like this. But that doesn't mean it wasn't entertaining and that the people didn't get their money's worth. 10 out of 10 fury cakes. Would watch again.

The Horsemen Are Drawing Nearer

Ric Flair/Arn Anderson VS Big Van Vader/"Stunning" Steve Austin - WCW 11/13/1993

JJZ: The amount of great matches from WCW Saturday night seems endless. Now this match was billed as Flair and Sid vs Vader and Austin. Vader attacks Sid before the match starts and hurts him to the point that he can no longer compete in the match! Flair says he's hardcore he'll take them both on! But former friend apparently AA comes to join the fight! Now seeing all of this I had a zillion questions. I guess I always thought Flair and Arn were in the Horsemen when they were in WCW. Never knew Sid had a feud with Vader. Also never realized AA was a babyface at any point during the early 90s. All of that being said. This match was straight fire. Killer crowd, great heat between the four wrestlers, good tag team psychology and four men beating the shit out of each other! I had to check twice to make sure this was a WCW Saturday Night and not a Clash of Champions. This is one hell of a TV main event. And according to the commentators this is Arn's second match of the night. The MDTSOCWWKD champion was pulling double duty that night!

CJD: What a match! There's so much going on that I had to drop watching it twice to make sure I didn't miss anything. After finally giving it my undivided attention I loved it, but would have loved it even more if WCW hadn't given it away for free as an afterthought. But what else do we expect? This is where the big boys play and these are some big boys. Arn must have been having flashbacks to staying on the Road Warriors to get them to sell. By the same token, Flair really made Austin work for everything in this match and it added great realism. This match would be a great pick in wrestling school on a day where you're learning how to throw back elbows and take gnarly bumps over the ropes to the outside. The non-finish knocks this down a peg and it definitely went to the Well of Vader Corner Punches among other spots  one too many times. However we did get one of the all time great Flair post to post spots, straight out of a ROH match. Someone steal that superplex sequence!

Oh yeah, and Arn was great! That spinebuster! This was such a blast, thanks for sharing baby.