The SmarK Rant for the Best of Sting (Blu Ray) – Part 2

The SmarK Rant for the Best of Sting (Blu Ray) – Part 2

Carrying on now, as Sting’s World title reign is over as the 90s begin proper…

Sting v. Nikita Koloff (June 14 1991)

From Clash XV, a show I’ve done twice and which still isn’t a very good review. I mean, it’s KNOCKSVILLE USA, how could I not get a classic review out of that? So it’s on the pile to do again. So oddly, the VQ drops to really poor levels for this, which is weird because you’d think the master tapes from a TV company on a nationally televised live show would provide better footage. But it’s noticeably lower resolution with all kinds of video artifacting, like a VCR dub. It offends me as the owner of an 89” 16K ultra-plasma TV. Nikita attacks to start and chases Sting to the floor for a trip into the railing and it’s like Putin beating on Biden in a summit meeting. Back in the ring, Koloff stops to gloat for Mother Russia and Sting hits him with a piledriver, but Koloff channels Hawk and no-sells it. Nikita beats him down and adds a tombstone, really making him think about how much he loves America before dropping him on his head for communism. Sting waits for him to pose and gets a sunset flip for two, but Nikita beats him down again and there’s an honest to god old lady in the front row waving an American flag. I swear she better not be a stunt granny or my world view will be shattered forever. Wait, is that the same old biddy from Nitro 5 years later? Actually they’re in Knoxville so I bet it is. Koloff continues pounding away on Sting and yelling at the (probable) stunt granny, which is more evidence that she’s a ringer. They fight on the floor and Sting whips Koloff into the railing this time, but Koloff keeps working him over. Another tombstone, but Sting reverses to his own, like John F. Kennedy reversing the Cuban Missile Crisis and laying the beatdown on Khruschev! Stinger splash misses, however, and Koloff thinks of PUTIN him away with the Sickle, but that misses and Sting gets a rollup for the pin at 9:37, unleashing democracy and McDonalds all over the USSR in the process! USA! USA! **1/2

The Steiner Brothers v. Sting & The Great Muta (January 4 1992)

Yes, it’s another show not available on the WWE Network, this one from the New Japan Supershow II, which I’m pretty sure is on New Japan World at least. Oddly the overdubbed commentary from JR and Schiavone completely blocks out the ring announcer. JR notes that Muta also wrestles in Japan under his real name, “Kenji Muta”. Swing and a miss. Muta’s face paint is color coordinated with Sting’s tights here, which is an awesome touch. Scott quickly takes Muta down with a double leg, but Muta dropkicks him down before missing another one. Over to Sting and he slugs it out with Rick, who quickly hits a clothesline and runs up to the top with a bulldog for two. Sting fires back with his own clothesline, but misses the Stinger splash and Scott comes in with a butterfly bomb. Tilt a whirl slam gets two. Scott tries a tombstone and Sting reverses to his own and drops an elbow for two. Muta comes in with the power elbow on Scott, but Scott hits him with a suplex and it’s back to Rick for a top rope suplex and then a release german for two. The audio is REALLY deadened here for some reason and it hurts the atmosphere a lot as all the “bangs” on the mat are more like a muted “thump”. Especially when these guys are throwing each other around out there. Scott goes to a dragon sleeper, but Muta makes the ropes, so Scott puts him in a backbreaker and Rick comes off the top with an elbow for two. Rick runs Muta into the corner for two and goes to a chinlock, but Sting and Muta double-team Scott for a bit in the corner until Rick catches Muta on the handspring elbow and drops him on his head AGAIN with a german suplex. Sting and Muta come in again and double-team Scott with a double bulldog in a nice touch, and Sting presses Scott onto Rick outside and then goes up with a dive from the top rope onto Rick on the floor! And then MUTA dives onto them as well. Sting and Muta celebrate in the ring, but the Steiners both come off the top rope with clotheslines. Scott hits Sting with a tilt a whirl slam, but Sting reverses to a rollup for the pin at 10:38. This turned into a hell of a match for the time. ****

BOUNTY MATCH: Sting v. Vader (February 9 1992)

Winner of this either gets a roll of paper towels or a chocolate bar. From WCW Worldwide as the parade of rarities continues. Back to the point about the video quality again, as this random Worldwide match is pristine quality, with crystal clear sound. Vader slugs away in the corner and Sting hits him with a clothesline to chase him to the floor, and then follows for a fight out there that leads to Vader dropping him on the railing. Oh Sting, when will you ever learn not to try the Stinger splash into the railing? It’s like Charlie Brown and the football with him. Back in the ring, Vader drops him on his head with a backdrop suplex and then CLOBBERS him with a clothesline and even the ref is like “Oh shit, I better check this poor fool”. Vader sits on him and then drops an elbow and he is giving no quarter here as they say. Vader with a corner splash and a powerslam, and a splash gets two. Vader continues working him over but Sting tries a slam and…no. Just no. So he goes behind and gets a release german suplex instead, and THEN gets his slam, and then goes up with the flying splash, but Vader kicks out with disdain. So Sting goes up with a missile dropkick and Vader bails for some fisticuffs on the floor. Vader puts him on the post and boxes his ears, but he charges and runs into the post, and Sting beats the count at 6:10 on his way to winning the World title at Superbrawl II. And then Race gets in his face so Sting fucks him up with a Stinger splash and then hits Vader with a dive as well. DID I JUST BECOME BEST FRIENDS WITH THIS MATCH? I THINK SO! ****

Rick Rude, Arn Anderson, Bobby Eaton & Larry Zbyszko v. Sting, Barry Windham, Dustin Rhodes & Ricky Steamboat (February 22 1992)

Um one guess who does the job here. I’ve got a fiver. This is from World Championship Wrestling. Barry Windham slugs it out with all the Dangerous Alliance guys and wins that battle. Eaton comes in and goes after Barry in the corner, but Barry backdrops him and so Arn comes in instead. He trades chops with Steamboat and loses that battle, and then Eaton gets pinballed in the babyface corner and the Dangerous Alliance backs off and regroups. Arn tries it against Steamboat again and gets his ass kicked, so Larry does his own martial arts and that goes badly for him as well. Dustin hits Larry with a lariat for two while JR runs down all the matches at Superbrawl II and I’m reminded that I haven’t watched THAT show in a while either and it rules until the main event. Come on, it had Pillman v. Liger, Steiners v. Anderson & Eaton, Windham & Rhodes v. Austin & Zbsyzko, Rude v. Steamboat and Luger somehow managed to drag down the show with his lazy ass? Rude comes in for the showdown with Sting and they throw down, leading to Sting backdropping him and of course following with an atomic drop, both ways. The Alliance tries to swarm Sting in the corner and he kicks all their asses and hits Arn with a press slam. Dustin and Barry double-team Larry with a clothesline for two. Eaton comes in and HE gets killed in the babyface corner, but finally Dustin tries a headscissors and Arn necks him on the top rope to end all this babyface shine at 10:00 and take over. Rude goes to work on Dustin’s knee and then goes up to the top with a missile dropkick, which is something you don’t see every day. That gets two. Over to Arn with the boot rakes and he catches Dustin with a DDT for two, but Sting saves. Eaton stays on the knee with the figure-four and gets an assist from Arn. Dustin fights back on Larry, but hurts his own knee doing kicks, only for Larry to let him lean a BIT too far back and make the tag to Steamboat. Steamboat runs wild and hits Larry with the big chop for two but everyone is brawling, and Ricky hits Larry with the flying bodypress at 15:35 and WE’RE OUTTA TIME. This DVD RULES. ***3/4

Sting v. Diamond Dallas Page (June 13 1992)

From WCW Saturday Night, the Bill Watts debut show in fact. Page attacks to start and Sting quickly slams him. Page goes after the ribs because they’re injured, and there’s some irony there, but he misses an elbow and Sting immediately makes the comeback and bulldogs him before putting him away with the Scorpion at 1:35. * Well that one certainly broke up our string of great matches.

Sting v. Barry Windham (February 4 1993)

From WCW Saturday Night again, leading into SuperBrawl III this time. Windham runs away to start, but thumbs Sting in the eye and they fight over a suplex, which Sting wins. Barry gets a backdrop suplex, but Sting pops up and slugs away, and then drops an elbow for two, but misses the Stinger Splash. Windham pops up with a lariat off the top and slugs away to set up a hiptoss and floatover suplex for two. They head to the floor and Windham gets some shots out there before choking him out in the ring. And we go to the chinlock as lazy 1993 Barry Windham rears his ugly head. Windham with a suplex and a kneedrop for two. Windham slugs away and follows with a gut wrench for two, but he tries the superplex and Sting fights him off with the ol’ ear clapper. Sting makes the comeback with a flying clothesline and slugs away, but the ref is bumped on a criss-cross and Windham hits the floor. So Harley Race brings Barry a strap, but Sting steals it and puts Barry down for the pin at 9:42. And then he tries to murder Windham by hanging him on the ropes! Well that turned dark. And indeed, the ref rightly reverses the decision for attempted murder. Barry was not super motivated here by any means but it was pretty OK. **1/2

Sting v. Stunning Steve Austin (January 8 1994)

From WCW Pro with Gordon Solie and Larry Zbsyzko on commentary, which is a sentence I don’t type very often. Oddly all the signs in the arena indicate that it’s WCW Saturday Night, so I’m not sure what’s up with that. Austin is fresh off winning the US title from Dustin but this is non-title. They fight over a wristlock to start and Sting puts him down with the shoulderblock and they trade hammerlocks. We take a break and return with Sting working a headlock and then moving to a headscissors. They do the bridge into a backslide and Sting gets two off that, as Austin bails to the floor to think it over and get advice from Robert Parker. That advice? “You might want to think about shaving your head, the hairline is receding pretty badly.” Harsh but helpful! Back in the ring, Austin boots him down to take over, but Sting gets a suplex for two and they go back to the headlock again. Austin moves to the arm and works on a wristlock, but Sting slugs back from the mat and reverses a slam for two. Austin works the arm in the corner again, but Sting fights out and slugs him down and follows with a backdrop before giving him some more of his fists. Brian Pillman runs down and chases Parker away while Sting makes the comeback, and that’s a DQ at 11:30. Lame finish to a pretty solid match between two fellas having a wrestling match. ***

Sting v. Ric Flair (November 6 1995)

From Nitro now, as this was the “special interactive match” where they did everything humanly possible to rig a “live vote” and make sure this match won. Like, they basically put 6 or 7 homeless guys in a dressing room with Sting to make sure there was only one option to vote for. Sting attacks and starts throwing press slams immediately, and we get a Flair Flip to put him on the floor. Sting no-sells the chops, but Flair gets a suplex and Sting pops up from that too, before missing his splash into the railing. And we take a break. Back with Flair in control via figure-four and some cheating, but Sting powers out of it. Flair throws chops and Sting is having none of that. Mongo: “Fear makes cowards of us all.” And obvious things are obvious. Flair pokes him in the eyes and tosses him, but takes a running charge with a chair and has it intercepted by the ref in a funny spot. Back in, Flair slugs him down and gets two via the ropes, and they go into the pinfall reversal sequence. Flair goes up and gets slammed off and Sting starts going crazy on Flair, but a well time pair of brass knuckles turns the tide. Flair’s crazy old man elbowdrop gets two and Sting starts no-selling again. How can you not love this match? Another press slam and a superplex set up the Scorpion Deathlock to finish at 14:00, but Sting is so enraged that he refuses to let go. We then get a major WCW-level botch as Bischoff starts yelling about Lex Luger coming down to break it up, when in fact Luger was nowhere to be seen due to missing his cue. Finally the other blue room losers break up the hold and finally Luger finishes rubbing one out in the back or whatever he was doing, and Sting then has to put Flair BACK in the hold so that Luger can talk him out into releasing again. He’s the Sting whisperer! The ending was WCW-riffic, but it was a hell of a match. ***1/2

Sting v. Arn Anderson (July 6 1996)

From Nitro as well. We get a bunch of nothing much and take a break with Arn stalling. Back with Arn choking away and using the abdominal stretch, but Sting fights out and then misses a splash. Arn with a Boston crab while the nWo limo pulls up, but Sting makes the comeback while the Outsiders join us at ringside. Sting with a flying clothesline for two while security geeks intercept Hall & Nash, and the Scorpion Deathlock finishes at 11:35. *

Sting & Randy Savage v. The Nasty Boys (July 27 1996)

From WCW Saturday Night to finish off this disc. Sags beats on Macho in the corner to start, and cuts off a comeback with a powerslam. So Sting comes in and beats on Knobs, and a dropkick gets two. Big splash misses as Knobs gets the knees up, and WE GOT CLUBBERING, TONY! WE GOT CLUBBERING! Sags with a backbreaker and Knobs uses a briefcase right in the belly welly, and a double shouderblock gets two. Blind charge misses and Sting bulldogs Knobs and makes the hot tag to Savage. Sting then retrieves the briefcase and knocks out Knobs RIGHT IN THE NOGGIN, and Savage drops the elbow to finish at 3:35 as Debra and Mongo steal the briefcase back again. This was a nothing sandwich with a side of nothing salad and a big glass of nothing to wash it down. ½* And then Randy does a promo where he promises to take out Hogan with a TIRE IRON before Hog Wild so he doesn’t make it to the title match with the Giant. Well they’d certainly have lots of those in Sturgis if he needed one.

Well the second half of the disc was a HUGE improvement, with more matches I’ve mostly never seen before and most of them were AWESOME.

Next up, the 1998 Nitro era, which I’ve never really seen before and I’m not really looking forward to that much.