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This Week In WWE Vintage Collection History: Rowdy Matt Striker, Lord Daniel Bryan, Kofi "The Dragon" Kingston And The Ultimate Miz
By Aaron Wood
Nov 27, 2011 - 2:16 PM
VINTAGE
COLLECTION #183
The
first thing of note was that Roddy Piper was done with the show, and
we were back to Mean Gene Okerlund. However, we were still in the
mood to mix things up a little bit. Before wowing the WWE Universe
today, the current Superstars and Divas were inspired to do so by
their childhood favourites. So (I assume for a number of weeks) the
show was going to give some of them the chance to reveal who inspired
their paths to WWE. While the first superstar hasn't won a title or
headlined Wrestlemania, he's enlightened many at the announce booth.
That's right, Gene was burying the in-ring career of our teacher,
Matt Striker.
We
cut to a pre-taped interview of Striker. I assume it's not lifted
from a DVD, since not everyone featured will have had DVD's for this
stuff to be lifted from. He said he was rather shy and introverted
as a kid, but one superstar helped bring his personality out as he
could channel emotion whether you loved or hated him. That man was
Rowdy Roddy Piper.
We
cut to Madison Square Garden on February 23rd 1992, at a live
event/MSG Network show as Roddy, with the IC Title came out for a
non-title match against the Repo Man. We got a shot of Repo Man
making his entrance, awesomely hugging a woman at ringside and
stealing her watch...
Before
the break, Mean Gene was effusive about Daniel Bryan's abilities in
the ring saying we'd hear who inspired him (like you can't guess),
although after the break we, rather oddly, got the promo video about
their European tour.
After
the break, Daniel Bryan was immediately into putting over William
Regal and how he was great technically, how rough (hard hitting) he
was with it and also how charismatic he is with his facial
expressions. This led us back to WCW Monday Nitro on December 16th
1996 as Lord Steven Regal defended the WCW TV Title against
Psychosis.
Well,
that first the show is referred to as "nWo Monday Nitro".
However, this wasn't the infamous episode where they literally
stopped the show to remove all the WCW insignia. That wouldn't
happened for literally 53 weeks (December 22nd 1997). The show, for
which this first match was the opener, saw the nWo eject Schiavone
and Larry Z from the booth, and they simply renamed the evening "nWo
Monday Nitro".
Gene
cued up Kofi Kingston and his inspiration as having high flying
attributes in common. and after the break, we went to Kofi pre-taped
interview as he talked about Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat,
remembering growing up being into the martial arts and high flying
guys, with Steamboat being a hybrid of both and thus being his big
inspiration. We cut to Madison Square Garden once again, this time
on July 1st 1991 for a match against our very own Paul Roma, in a
match that aired on Prime Time Wrestling on August 5th.
Before
the break, Gene revealed that The Miz would reveal his inspiration
next, wondering if his choice would surprise us. When we got to his
pick upon returning, his answer was rather surprising. He chose The
Ultimate Warrior. He talked about the energy his entrance brought to
the arena, and how you'd never know what he was going to say or what
would happen next.
We
cut back to Mean Gene in the studio as he set up our main event for
the week, as he noted Miz wasn't the only one captivated by The
Ultimate Warrior. However, in the early 90's, there was another
Superstar doing just the same. The Undertaker. Looking to become
the company's one true phenom, Taker tried to vanquish the Warrior on
a number of occasions.
And
once again, it was back to MSG and indeed the name July 1st 1991
event that the Steamboat/Roma match took place on. While this match
didn't make Prime Time, it was the main event of the show when it
aired on the MSG Network and made the "The Undertaker's Most
Dangerous Matches" DVD release last year. What was so dangerous
about it? Well, the only way the match could end was when either
Warrior or Taker ended up in a BODY BAG...
The
victory was "in the bag" for Warrior, which was possibly a
performance which inspired The Miz to fight through the adversary
he'd face on his way to joining the annuls of those who were WWE
Champion. While that was the end of this show, Gene assured us we
were just getting started on the "Inspiration" series, as
more would tell us who encouraged them to become the household names
they are today.
Epilogue
I've
mentioned Roddy Piper & The Repo Man in this time-frame before.
Quite a lot in Piper's case, it feels like. Might calm down now that
he's gone. Suffice to say though, neither Piper or Repo were long
for the company. Lord Steven Regal would lose the TV Title in
February 1997 to Prince Iaukea. This was a move on WCW's part to
cash in on The Rock winning the IC Title on Thursday RAW Thursday.
Indeed, Iaukea won the TV Title just four days after The Rock's
win.
WCW's
notion was that Rock was the son of Rocky Johnson. Prince Iaukea was
portrayed as the boy of King Curtis Iaukea (he wasn't but had Curtis'
blessing to use the name) and so decided to pitch with some of what
the WWE was selling with The Rock. Both experiments failed
miserably. But I digress. Regal would actually win the TV Title in
May at Slamboree, but not before Ultimo Dragon had actually won it
the month prior.
As
it goes, Psychosis himself wasn't long for a feud with Ultimo Dragon.
He would turn heel and take on Sonny Onoo as his manager, although
ultimately, Dragon would win every time and the feud culminating at
the Great American Bash.
Ricky
Steamboat was heading for his only PPV appearance in his second stint
with the company at this point, as he'd team with The Texas Tornado
and British Bulldog in a six-man tag against The Warlord And Power &
Glory. Steamboat won the match for his team, pinning Roma.
Steamboat would be undefeated on TV in this run, and indeed, his only
house show loss would be to Skinner. However, before the Survivor
Series, he was seemingly booked to be squashed by The Undertaker as
he was set to win the WWE Title from Hogan at that event, only for
Steamboat to baulk at that and leave the company.
After
the Summerslam loss, Paul Roma's days in the WWE were rather
numbered, as Power & Glory came to an end, one of their last
matches seeing them lose to the LOD in England. Roma soon left after
this, turning up in WCW in 1993 to take a spot as one of the then-new
Four Horsemen. And lest we forget that we hosts Glorious right here
on ClubWWI...
During
this period in Warrior's career, he was literally only a couple of
weeks away from the beginning of the famous angle where Jake Roberts
volunteered to show Warrior how to beat Taker by giving him
"knowledge of the dark side", which involved a series of
tests, which culminated in Roberts tricking Warrior and having a
snake bite him, before revealing he and Taker had worked together all
along. This was to set up a long-term feud with Roberts after
Summerslam.
At
Summerslam 91 itself, Warrior was actually in a match teaming with
Hulk Hogan against Sgt. Slaughter, Col. Mustafa and Gen. Adnan,
rather than anything against Taker or Roberts. However, before the
event, Warrior and the WWE got into a dispute over pay and Vince
fired Warrior after paying him a bunch of money up front after
Warrior returned through the curtain after the PPV match.
As
noted earlier, Undertaker was on the path to winning the WWE Title at
the 1991 Survivor Series, although he didn't actually have a match at
Summerslam. When he beat Hogan for the title, he actually became the
youngest WWE champion at the time, a record beaten by Yokozuna a
couple of years later.
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