This Week In WWE Vintage Collection History: Superbrawl Sunday
By Aaron Wood Feb 5, 2012 - 2:13 PM
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COLLECTION #193 Mean
Gene opened the show, noting that WCW's Superbrawl ran from 1991 to
the company's end in 2001 and was seen as one of WCW's flagship
events. And to kick off, we would go back to the very first match of
the very first show in 1991. In theis match, the vacant WCW US Tag
Titles were on the line (vacant because the-then champion Steiner
Brothers had won the World Tag Titles and so gave up the US belts) as
the Fabulous Freebirds took on The Young Pistols.
Last
week, Okerlund said that we'd be looking at WCW's February tradition.
Well, as it goes, the first Superbrawl was actually in May. Kane's
much hated May 19th of 1991 to be exact. These videos are just the
first 2 chunks of show rather than the match itself, which I couldn't
find.
After
the break, we jumped to the year 2000 and Superbrawl 2000. Much like
Wrestlemania that year, despite Superbrawl having numbers after it
rather than the year, this changed when it came to 2000. Although
that said, unlike the problems Wrestlemania could have when it hits
the 2000 mark, no WCW shows are going to have that dilemma. Anyway,
this match was between Billy Kidman and Vampiro, a feud that had been
going on some time, as the video will show.
Our
next match took us back a year (that would be 1999 for you non-maths
majors out there) and Superbrawl 9 as nWo Wolfpac member, Scott
Steiner would defend his TV Title against Diamond Dallas Page (who of
course appeared 8 years earlier as the Freebirds manager).
Back
from break, and for our main event this week, we went to Superbrawl 4
in 1994. Mean Gene, in studio, spoke about the Thundercage
structure, explaining that it was a cage that surrounded the ring and
while open at the top, curved inwards thus preventing escape. This
six-man tag would see St5ing, Dustin Rhodes & Brian Pillman
against Pillman's former tag partner Stunning Steve Austin, Rick Rude
and Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff.
Gene
rounded off the show saying that three years after this match in the
innovative Thundercage, WWE would come along with Hell In A Cell, a
match which created it's own memorable moments over the years, like
some we saw this week. Not quite, dude. Gene seemed to suggest that
this was all of Superbrawl we'd be getting, not giving any clue as to
next week's show.
Epilogue While
I'm sure you could say this about many PPVs on an annual basis, in
this case, the Superbrawl events featured seem to he a collection
that had some unique occurrences to them. The first Superbrawl show
saw the debut of Johnny B. Badd by way of an interview, where he
stated "I'm so pretty, I should have been born a little girl."
The main event saw Ric Flair taking on Tatsumi Fujinami to unify
the NWA and WCW once again. Flair had lost the NWA World Title to
Fujinami in Japan, but WCW refused to recognise it, so this match
here was to bring them back together again. Flair would end up
winning on a reversed rollup.
Tracy
Smothers and Steve Armstrong started out in WCW as "The Southern
Boys", but changed the name to The Young Pistols when they
turned heel. They feuded for some time with the Freebirds, but were
ultimately unsuccessful. They would win the US Tag Titles, but they
would win them from The Patriots, who had beaten The Freebirds. They
would lose at the turn of 1992 to Big Josh & Ron Simmons. After
this, they soon split with Armstrong going to WWE as Lance Cassidy
later in 1992 while Smothers left WCW almost immediately after the
Tag Title loss, heading back to Smoky Mountain Wrestling.
As
irony would have it, (and has been mentioned before in Vintage
Collection) the feathered interferer known as Fantasia (although they
would immediately change the name to Badstreet due to legal worries
with Disney) was Steve Armstrong's brother Brad Armstrong, who as you
saw also interfered on behalf of his brother in the match. That
said, Badstreet was never revealed to be Armstrong, as he would
remain masked. The addition of Badstreet would see the Freebirds win
the Six-Man Tag Titles as well. However, after Badstreet was split
off from them, as well as Big Daddy Dink and Diamond Dallas Page,
they would disband in 1992.
The
2000 show was notable for 2 matches. One saw The KISS Demon take on
The Wall in what was billed as a "Special Main Event" match
as the contract with KISS stated that The Demon had to be in main
events, so to get round it, they would bill matches as main events,
but still have them mid-show. Also on the show was the infamous
"Leather Jacket On A Pole" match (or as it was called, a
"Skins" match) between Tank Abbott & Big Al, where
Abbott would take a knife from the pocket of the jacket and pulled
out a knife, putting it to Big Al's throat and saying "I could
f**king kill you right now", forcing an immediate cut to
backstage that TNA would later become famous for.
You
would think that a match made on the premise of having a win each and
getting in each other's way would be blown off by a third match, but
alas no, as 2 months later at Spring Stampede, Kidman and Vampiro
would actually meet again, albeit under the banner of the 1st round
of the vacated US Title tournament, as part of Russo & Bischoff's
spring resetting of the company.
However,
this match would end due to Hulk Hogan coming out and attacking
Kidman. More on that in a moment. Vampiro however would face Sting
in the next round of that, but lose. This would start the now
infamous feud with him and the Human Torch match against Sting at the
Great American Bash, where the point of it was to light someone on
fire, with Sting (or at least a professional stuntman dressed like
him) was set alight, returning the month later in a swerve as Vampiro
face the KISS Demon in a Graveyard match.
As
noted, Hogan attacked Kidman, after Bischoff turned on Hogan by way
of setting up the New Blood/Millionaires Club feud, which led to
Kidman "beating" Hogan a bunch of times. That said,
Kidman's "wins" came about by multitudes of interference
and every other show Hogan made Kidman look like a complete jobber.
By the time the feud was done at the Great American Bash when both
Horace Hogan and Torrie Wilson turned on Kidman (who would himself
turn on Bischoff the next night on Nitro and be friends with Hogan),
the entire feud did more damage to Kidman than help it.
Superbrawl
9 was mostly notable for being the PPV where Rey Mysterio was forced
to unmask, spending the rest of WCW unmasked until his return to WWE.
Indeed, the Steiner/DDP match was the very next match after, hence
why the Wolfpac were walking back during Steiner's entrance. Also,
for WCW in 1999, their 2 main title matches were Hogan vs. Flair for
the WCW Title and Roddy Piper vs. Scott Hall for the US Title.
Page
would pick himself up from this loss at Superbrawl and win his first
WCW World Title at Spring Stampede, beating Sting, Hogan & Flair
in a Four-Way Dance with Randy Savage as the referee, pinning Flair.
Page then turned heel in a match for the title against Goldberg,
getting the match thrown out in the process. However, only 2 weeks
and a day into the reign, he lost the title to Sting on Nitro.
However, the match took place in the first hour. On the same show,
Kevin Nash showed up and challenged Sting for the title, and
extending the challenge to DDP and Goldberg. IN that match, Page hit
Nash with a weapon and regained the title he lost earlier in the
show. That said, he'd only hold onto the title another 13 days
before losing to Nash at Slamboree.
After
beating Page here, Steiner entered a feud with Booker T for the TV
title, and Booker would win at the Uncensored PPV the following
month. However around the same time, Scott Hall vacated the US Title
due to injury, and in the tournament that ensued, Steiner &
Booker found themselves against each other in the finals. However,
this time, Steiner would end up victorious and winning the US Title
at Spring Stampede.
The
most notable thing about the fourth Superbrawl is that it was the
first PPV with Ric Flair as booker, whcih generally was seen as an
upturn in WCW's quality. Still didn't stop him form winning the WCW
Title in the main event in a second Thundercage match. It would also
be the last time Harlem Heat would appear on PPV under the name Kole
& Kane. Also, this match we saw was somewhat rare, as this show
was one of very few that was never released on VHS.
Stunning
Stone Cold would continue to defend his US Title almost perfectly
alternately against Ricky Steamboat & Johnny B. Badd. He would
hold onto it until the Clash Of The Champions show in August when
Steamboat won. Then, in a match previously shown on Vintage
Collection, the rematch never happened due to a Steamboat injury,
with the title awarded to Austin, only for Hacksaw Jim Duggan to come
in and beat Austin in half a minute to win it.
This
six-man match occurred between periods where Orndorff was teaming up
with ClubWWI's own Paul Roma as part of Pretty Wonderful. they got
back together for another run a couple of months after this, winning
the WCW Tag Titles at the Bash At The Beach. They then feuded with
"Stars & Stripes" (namely The Patriot and Marcus
Bagwell), trading the titles back and forth. That came to a head in
November when a match saw simultaneous pinfalls although it was
awarded to Stars & Stripes, with Pretty Wonderful splitting up
once and for all shortly after.
Rude,
at this point was the WCW International World Heavyweight Champion, a
belt that was created after WCW seceded from the NWA the previous
year. On a tour of Japan the following month, Rude lost the title to
Hiroshi Hase but won it back before leaving. Sting would win the
title at Spring Stampede, only for Rude to win it back again on
another Japanese tour in May. However, the result was reversed right
away when Rude used the belt to win the title. Rude would retire
shortly thereafter and not work again for a couple of years.
However,
Sting refused to take the title right back, putting it up for grabs
against Vader at Slamboree, a match Sting won anyway. Ric Flair
would unify the title with the WCW World Title later in the year,
leaving Sting to team with the newly arrived Hulk Hogan against the
Faces Of Fear.
After
this match, Rhodes entered into a feud with Colonel Robert Parker and
the Stud Stable. To counter this, as Terry Funk was a member of the
stable, Dustin brought in his father Dusty for help for some time, as
well as enlisting the Nasty Boys for the Wargames match that the show
featured some weeks back.
Pillman
would go on to feud with Steven (William) Regal over the TV Title,
battling to a time limit draw at Spring Stampede. After a sojourn in
the early ECW as part of a talent exchange with WCW, he returned
later in 1995, but slowly becoming a "tweener" as he
developed the "Loose Cannon" character.
