WCW Beach Blast 1992

On this bonus episode Gus reviews WCW Beach Blast 1992, featuring a classic falls count anywhere match between Sting and Cactus Jack, one of the most underrated matches of all time between Ricky Steamboat and Rick Rude, Flyin Brian Pillman defending his Light Heavyweight title against a pre Raven Scotty Flamingo, before the show finishes off with the Dangerous Alliance of Bobby Eaton, Steve Austin & Arn Anderson against Dustin Rhodes, Barry Windham & Nikita Koloff and then the Steiner Brothers defending their tag team titles against Dr Death Steve Williams and Terry Bam Bam Gordy.

If you want to watch along you can do so here

WWE Network https://watch.wwe.com/episode/WCW-Beach-Blast-1992-10758
Peacock https://www.peacocktv.com/watch/playback/vod/GMO_00000000378705_01/3fa250b6-c258-38bd-b743-396d248f6ecc

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Email:  retroreviews@hotmail.com
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Transcript

Hello everyone, I’m Gus Edwards and welcome to the Retro Wrestling Reviews podcast.  On this week’s episode we will be looking at Beach Blast 1992.  This show was requested by one of our listeners, Kevin in Liverpool, England.  Thanks for the request Kevin I hope you enjoy the show.  If you have a particular show you would like to have reviewed get in touch with myself either via Twitter @retrowrestling4 or email me at retroreviews@hotmail.com.  If you are new to the show then welcome to the community.  On Tuesdays we review a show requested by one of our listeners, and on Sundays we review Mid Atlantic Wrestling from 1981.  We are close to having Mid South and then World Class reviews joining the show too.  If you enjoy today’s show then please subscribe, leave a review and tell a friend.  Lets get on with the show.

Beach Blast 1992

Tony Schiavone & Eric Bischoff open the show, you can see Bischoff’s teeth from miles away they are so white!  All the announcers are wearing beachwear shirts, including Bischoff in a horrible Hawaiian shirt.  Bill Watts is interviewed regarding the show but doesn’t say much and Tony throws it to the commentators at ringside Jim Ross and Jesse Ventura.  Ventura is up on the beach stage lying on a deckchair surrounded by 4 women.  He tries to get up and ends up falling, not the smoothest of starts for him.  

First match is Scotty Flamingo v Flyin Brian Pillman for light heavyweight title.  Flamingo is of course Raven.  This Flamingo gimmick actually ends up working as a callback in his Raven gimmick when he is in WCW and it turns out Raven grew up as a rich kid.  Flamingo’s gimmick is of course a spoilt rich kid.  Pillman coming off a run with Jushin Liger where they tore the house down for months, including a match of the year candidate earlier in 1992 at Superbrawl.  This is of course the Bill Watts era, so the light heavyweights still just wrestle a normal style compared to the high flying cruiserweight style that would come into WCW in a few years time.  Of course the light heavyweights are also handcuffed by the stupid no moves off the rope rule that Watts brought in.  This is a decent yet unspectacular match.  This match is past the 15 minute mark.  The match starts picking up towards the end.  Pillman misses a flying clothesline out on to the ramp.  Flamingo then hits a knee off the second rope to the back of the head for the win and the light heavyweight championship.  Pretty decent match, could have cut 5-7 minutes from it and it would have been better.

Next up is the first of three rounds of the bikini contest between Missy Hyatt and Madusa.  Ventura is angry that Johnny B Badd is the MC for the contest and not him.  Jesse with the inappropriate comment of “I don’t even think this guy likes girls”.  This first round is the evening gown portion.  Missy Hyatt comes out first in her dress, followed by Madusa who for some reason is in a wedding dress.  Crowd cheer for babyface Missy over Madusa, obviously.  

Ron Simmons v The Taylor Made Man, Terry Taylor, Bill Alfonso is the referee.  Simmons still has the Doom theme tune which is awesome.  Taylor comes out in a tuxedo.  This is a showcase for Simmons as he is only about 6 weeks away from winning the world title from Vader, a title change that actually happened on my 13th birthday.  Simmons gets the win with a great snap powerslam.  

Next match is Marcus Bagwell v Greg Valentine.  This is pure white meat babyface Bagwell, he isn’t buff yet.  Greg Valentine in a major promotion in 1992 should not be a thing.  When I was watching WCW at this point as a kid I was a big fan of Bagwell.  Loved his team with 2 Cold Scorpio.  Parts of the crowd are cheering Valentine over Bagwell here.  Not much happening in this match, so I ended up looking at the crowd and the front row here must have an average age of over 70!  Valentine takes most of the match, works over the knee of Bagwell and then puts on the figure four leglock for the clean submission win.  Nothing like putting over a new young star.

Sting v Cactus Jack in a falls count anywhere match.  Sting is the WCW Champion, but this is non title.  This is an incredible match, completely different to anything else you were seeing in this era.  Foley in his book claimed this was his favourite match he had until his match with Shawn Michaels in 1996.  Sting comes out to a huge reaction and they start the match on the ramp.  Straight away the big bumps start as Cactus takes a big back drop on the ramp.  Cactus then hits his elbow drop off the apron to the concrete, followed up with a neckbreaker and a sunset flip from the apron.  They go into the crowd and Jack takes a backdrop and a suplex onto the concrete.  They do some work in the ring, but that doesn’t last long and back outside Sting gives Cactus a back suplex on the concrete.  Cactus then goes up to the second rope on the outside and drops an elbow which misses Sting.  Back to fighting on the ramp and Sting nails Cactus with a clothesline, he goes up to the top rope and hits a clothesline from there to the ramp and gets the win.  Just a brilliant match, some crazy bumps from Foley.  

Ricky Steamboat and Rick Rude in a 30 minute Iron Man match.  This is a great match, the psychology and storytelling is just spot on.  I’ve spoken before about how big of a fan I am of Ricky Steamboat and if you watch this match you will know exactly why.  His selling is masterful and his offence is executed perfectly.  Rude is the US Champion but they haven’t announced that this is a title match.  I don’t think there was a wrestler anywhere in 1992 that had as much heel heat as Rick Rude had.  Steamboat comes out with his wife and kid.  Steamboat starts off quick and injures Rude’s ribs with a gutbuster and that gives the story of the early part of the match.  The Rude/Steamboat feud is one of my favourite feuds of all time.  It felt so intense at this point and it was great, just based on two guys who wanted to prove they were the better man.  This is the perfect type of match for JR to call, he is really adding to the psychology here.  Steamboat is working over the ribs with a bow and arrow and then a Boston Crab.  Rude is selling the beating great too.  Upset in the first fall though as Rude catches Steamboat running in the corner with a big knee and gets the quick pin.  That was Rude’s first offensive move after about 8 minutes.  Rude quickly hits a Rude Awakening to go 2-0 up.  Rude then comes off the top rope with a knee drop which is a DQ, it makes it 2-1 to Rude, but of course Steamboat is in bigger trouble.  Rude then hits a small package for the pin and goes 3-1 up with 20 minutes left.  With 12 minutes left, Steamboat reverses a tombstone piledriver by Rude into one of his own to make it 3-2 and with 10 minutes left Steamboat gets Rude in a backslide for the 3 count to make it 3-3.  This match is just back and forth between both guys, they are working so hard here.  They spend most of the last 5 minutes working a sleeper hold, but they manage to keep the crowd into this.  With 30 seconds left, Steamboat climbs the ropes while in the sleeper, kicks back and pins Rude to go 4-3 up.  For the last 30 seconds Rude tries everything to get an equalising pin but fails.  This was such a great match, its one I never hear people bring up when they talk about great matches.  This must be one of the most underrated matches of all time.

Back to the Bikini contest and it’s the swimsuit round and Madusa is up first, coming out with a bit of a biker chick look.  Missy comes out next and isn’t wearing that much and considering the next round is the bikini round I dread to think how little she is going to be wearing.

6 man tag team match up next.  The Dangerous Alliance, who are Bobby Eaton, Arn Anderson and Steve Austin and their opponents are Nikita Koloff, Barry Windham and Dustin Rhodes, Ole Anderson is the referee.  Ole, despite being 11 years older than he is on the Mid Atlantic show we are watching doesn’t look like he has aged a bit.  Granted he always looks like he is 50 years old.  Nikita is the smallest I’ve ever seen him.  There is a lot of talent in this match.  Interesting spot as Windham gives Austin a Japanese arm drag off the second rope, never seen that before, or since.  Despite the talent in this match its just not very good.  There are no blown spots or anything like that, its just never got going.  It goes nearly 20 minutes and then we get a horrible finish.  Windham hits a superplex on Austin, but then Arn comes off the top rope onto Windham and is caught by Ole for the DQ.  Flat match and just a horrible finish.

Ricky Steamboat is getting interviewed by Eric Bischoff.  Paul E Dangerously comes out and yells at Steamboat saying he will never get another US title shot.  Steamboat is then attacked from behind by Cactus Jack and they brawl to the back.

Jesse Ventura has taken over the hosting of the bikini contest with Badd.  Time for the bikini round.  Madusa comes out first with a red, white and blue bikini and white chaps on.  Yip, she looks amazing.  Missy doesn’t come out, she is saying from the back that someone has stole her bikini.  Missy comes out wearing a bikini made out of Jesse’s scarves.  To be honest, she was wearing less in the previous round.  Johnny B Badd announces Missy as the winner of the contest.  Madusa isn’t happy so she chases Badd to the back.  Badd comes back with her bikini top so Jesse heads back to check her out.

Main event is for the World Tag Team Titles.  Dr Death Steve Williams and Terry Bam Bam Gordy against the champions, Rick & Scott Steiner.  You don’t need me to tell you again that the Steiners are my favourite tag team of all time.  This was a strange way to end the show as this match goes to a 30 minute time limit draw.  Doc and Gordy took 95% of the match and Scott didn’t get the hot tag until less than a minute left in the match.  This was a unique match, its definitely got the Bill Watts influence in the mat based wrestling.  The crowd weren’t into it though, they want to see the much more hard hitting style of the usual Steiners match.  End of the match was hot as Scott hit the frankensteiner on Gordy just after the time limit expired.  Not too sure of this booking, especially when one of the featured bouts of the show was a 30 minute iron man match.  

Overall it was a good show, just with a weak finish with the time limit draw in the main event.  Sting and Cactus Jack had a great brawl, the match between Scotty Flamingo and Brian Pillman to start the show was fun and the iron man challenge between Rude and Steamboat was top quality.  I can’t believe the lack of love that match gets over the years.

I hope you enjoy the show this week, next week we will be looking at Wrestle War 1989, even more Ricky Steamboat and he faces Ric Flair for the NWA World title.  

This coming Sunday we will be reviewing Mid Atlantic Wrestling from 28 November 1981, so remember to check those shows out.

Until then, remember to subscribe, leave a review and tell a friend.  Take care of yourself and I’ll speak to you again soon.