CLASSIC TOMK: 1994 War Games

PAS: I watched this match tonight off of Will's awesome Dustin Rhodes Set, so I figured I would repost Tomk's review.


Dusty Rhodes, Dustin Rhodes, Nasty Boys vs. Arn Anderson, Bunkhouse Buck, Terry Funk, Colonel Parker 9/18/94

Hey it’s my weekly contribution to your daily dose of Dustin. And its time to whip out a WARGAMES!!!

Not just any WARGAMES but one of the most slept on Wargames out there and easily one of my favorites.

The set up to this Wargames is fantastic. Dustin Rhodes is feuding with Col Rob Parker and his charges. Dustin and Jimmy Golden (working as Bunkhouse Buck) have had a series of nasty brawls ( a bunch of which will eventually get reviewed).Parker brings in Terry Funk…Dustin goes to Arn Anderson to ask him to tag with him against Funk and Buck. Arn agrees but the turns on Dustin leading to Dusty coming out of retirement:

“I wanna ask you a favor in front of God and the whole world….at Clash of the Champions I don’t want you to look for another partner. I don’t want you to go find another man. I don’t want you to go get on your knees and beg another scum sucking pig to be your partner….I’m asking you, if you can carry this old, out of shape…old bitty…old spindly legged man. I WANT TO BE YOUR PARTNER.”

The crowd goes apeshit. Men cry.

Dusty puts hand out to quiet crowd.

“I don’t need no handshake, because out there right now there people with their borthers and their sisters and their wives. They are BLOOD. The Kennedy’s were Blood. The Earps were blood. The Rhodes are blood. I don’t need no handshake…all’s I need from you, son is just a hug and a kiss to seal the deal, babey.”

Dusty and Dustin work a tag match which ends with Meng doing an awesome job at getting over the Big Bubba gets hit with a chair angle. And Dusty and Dustin clearly are outnumbered and need to find two more guys “some bad bucks” to fill out a Wargames team. So Dusty goes to the Nasty Boys hangout to recruit them of all people. The Nasty Boys hang out is really great as instead of being in a bar surrounded by toughs they’re in a bar surrounded by the junkie graffiti artists who make the Nastys’ custom shirts. Guys are discussing the relative merits of Keith Harring and Basquait and how it applies to airbrush, while other guys are heating up spoons. Fucking great. There is this one airbrush artist with homemade tattoos and a beret who looks like he could be the dead member of Milly Vanilli, three months post death. He is completely stoked by the idea of the Dusty, Nasties team. You can watch his mind wirrr as he plans out a Jaspar Johnsish “Nasty Americans” motif. Unfortunately he ODs before Fall Brawl and his little gutter rat girlfriend steals the shirts so Dusty is left with a Rauschenberg inspired NASTY DREAMS T-shirt. Its pretty great in its own right. But still….

It’s Fallbrawl 94 WARGAMES with Robert Fuller’s Studs Stable (Arn Anderson, Bunkhouse Buck, Terry Funk, and Fuller as Col Rob Parker) vs. the Nasty Dreams (Dustin Rohodes, the Nasty Boys, and Dusty).. That’s two teams of four and the Jew in me is disappointed as he feels that you really can’t have a Wargames without a full Minion…But fuck that, even if it violates Talmudic Law this may be one of the best Wargames ever.

So I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Aw screw Tom…such a fucking rube wrestling vampire fan…Nasty Boys both Rhodes, Robert Fuller, Jimmy Golden, Terry Funk and Arn…this was probably a bloody mess…well blood doesn’t equal good wrestling. Any idiot can blade….I’m never gonna read another thing he writes”.

We’ll you’d probably be right when you describe me as a vampire fan…but you’d be wrong about the match. Way wrong. Because this is a Wargames with NO BLOOD. Yes, that’s right. It’s a bloodless Wargames. And not just a bloodless wargames but a bloodless wargames starring such bleeders as two members of the Fuller/Golden clan, the Nasty Boys, Arn, 94 era Terry Funk, Dustin Rhodes and 94 era Dusty (Dusty in 94 what else can he do but bleed?). Where is the blood????

So it’s a bloodless cage match.

So recently, I’ve been bitching about the WWE booking style where feud’s are blown off in TV spotfest cage matches. In WWE a feud doesn’t end on PPV it ends on TV…and it ends in a cage. That in and of itself isn’t too much of a problem. But the cage matches are used for TV bloodless spotfests. Now this has two huge problems…1) I don’t like spotfest cage matches, and 2) a spotfest as a feud blowoff is just weird booking.

But Wargames 94 isn’t a spotfest cage match. they don't work bloodless spot fest war games but rather bloodless violent wargames. I like my cage matches violent. This is a violent cage match.

Really is a classic Wargames structure: workers who can actually work a good five minute brawl sent in for first period, the rest of the periods are built around the man-up/man-down structure, last two guys sent in are the “weak-link heel” and the over hot-tagish face who doesn’t have a lot of offense or a lot of cardio. The classic structure on some level assumes blood. I’m sure the lack of blood is why this match isn’t pimped as heavily as it should be. You might think the lack of blood in that classic structure would be a fatal flaw. But you’d be wrong.

First period starts of course starts with Arn and Dustin. Dustin is the worker of his team and the guy who can go the longest while Arn is working Wargames veteran. Since Phil has already pimped the greatness of the Arn points to head spot, I should point out that early in the match Arn gets tossed at cage, blocks hitting the cage…looks to the audience knowingly and points to his head “I’m too smart for that”…he then turns around and eats a right.

First period is worked as brawl with two both exploring just the sheer size of working in the double ring structure. Arn does a bunch of bailing from one ring to another, to heel it up and slow Dustin’s momentum. Arn crawls back and forth between the rings to lure Dustin into following. Think about every WWF Saturday Nights main event ever…where heel lures face to chase around ring only for face to get stomped when crawling back in. Dustin smartens up pretty quickly and realizes that in the double ring you give chase by go over the turnbuckles and entering each ring with top rope dive move. From there Dustin moves to using a ceiling assisted seated drop kick and eventually in the biggest spot of first period does a spectacular double ring tope style flying lariat where he covers the entire size of both rings.

Arn does the head caught between the two rings spot which is a classic wargames spot. Its odd to role that spot out in the first period but it really works well here as Dustin grabs Arn by his legs and really works Arns head into the gap. It really feels like Dustin is trying to tear Arn apart. This is a theme I probably should come back to a bunch in this review. Normally first period of a Wargames is built around who gets color first, built around working toward blood…the cage spots are built around blood, a lot of work is built around biting and working cuts. Wargames 94 is a bloodless Wargames and so the cage spots aren’t worked around blood….instead the spots are worked around guys trying to hurt their opponents. In most Wargames at one point or other Arn is going to put a face into a half crab which will eventually lead to Arn and a partner doubleing up each taking a leg putting face into two halfcrabs. Normally that spot doesn’t mean a lot within context of Wargames…it’s a nice point for announcer to remind audience that there is no DQ in the match. When they go for that spot in 94 its a lot more meaningfull than it normally is because it fits more within the context of the match where all the work is built on hurting, wearing down and tearing apart your opponent. This match has no biting…the biting is replaced by body part work.

The first period ends with Arn getting his DDT off to go on offense and then hitting a clothesline which Dustin does his great spinning clothesline sell for and then Bunckhouse Buck is in for the two on one. And at this point the whole match is built on the who is man up, who is man down structure. Arn was in control at end of first period and Buck and Arn just abuse Dustin for this period with Dustin taking a bunch of cage bumps and the two just working him over while he tries for a couple hot hope spots..

It’s the third period and the heels are in control when Jerry Saggs comes in house of fire. This is the most I think I’ve ever enjoyed Saggs in a match. Saggs comes in double lariating the heels giving Dustin time to recover. Saggs hits a really great piledriver, Oklahoma stampedes Bunkhouse Buck into wall of cage and then grabs Buck by neck and throws buck into the cage ceiling. By the end of period Dustin has recovered somewhat although still sells “guy in here longest” and the match is more back and forth between the two even teams.

Fourth period and its time for Funk. It’s 1994 so this isn’t 1970s Terry Funk or 1989 Terry Funk…this is 1994 Terry Funk. So Terry Funk mostly doesn’t do a lot of brawling so much as Terry Funk does a bunch of Crazy Funk schtick. Although it should be said that he takes what may be the craziest bump in Wargames history. Funk comes in with his boot off and hits everyone with the boot then goes after Dustin allowing Buck and Arn to double team the fresher Saggs. Dustin sells really well here as there is a bunch of boot back and forth schtick plus Dustin’s desperation attempts to save Saggs from the double teaming only to be stopped by the Funkster. Funk rubs Dustins face into the cage in front of Dusty (on the outside) and you get the only “We want Blood!” chants of the match.

I should point out that Arn is really good it getting over the bloodless face getting scraped against fence really well including kind of reverse Race bumping into ring after taking it. This doesn’t get a demand for blood.

Fourth period its Knobbs a fire to even things out and the Nasties get a hold of Terry Funks boot. Of yeah that nasty bump by Terry Funk. I should mention that. Jerry Saggs goes to piledrive Funk in the gap between the rings and somehow or other looks to gonzobomb Funk on the ring edge. Terry Funks back and neck land all nasty.

So its fifth period and its time for Colonel Rob Parker to be forced into the match. Parker had wanted Meng to be fourth member of his team but WCW was forcing him to participate. Robert Fuller is really great at playing a pussy guy who doesn’t want to be working in a match. I mean this is Robert Fuller. Robert Fuller was a great wrestler plus he is a tall motherfucker. I never understood the booking that had Fuller managing Sid. The only thing Sid had going for himself is height…you have a tall guy manage him and that hurts his only strength. I joked a bunch when they had Coach managing Lance Cade since Coach is one of the tallest people on the roster using him as manager makes everyone else look smaller. Here, somehow or other Parker really pulls off pussy despite his size. Not sure how he did it but he manages to work up a full sweat before entering ring. Dustin wants to get Parker and so waits by the door for Parker to enter only to be jumped from behind by Bunkhouse. Buck holds Dustin back while Parker goes to punch Dustin..and then Parker sells hurting his hand on a punch. If you haven’t watched that much Fuller this might not be impressive but it really impresses me.

And the match gets to be all about belt shots. Dustin and Funk trade belt shots, while Arn holds Knobbs for Parkr to whip with a belt. Fuck is Fuller great at whipping people with belt. Just really great belt shots. You watch Parker whip people with belt and you get why Sid thought his angle for Parker and the Ebony Experience was so good.

The crowd is going apeshit at this point and the countdown till the last entrant begins. Crowd just chanting for Dusty, while Terry Funk stands in front of face door dancing around taunting the Dream. The Dream bionic elbows his way past the other heels and goes straight for Parker. Parker bails to the second ring only to be met by the Nasties. Dusty smiles and then grabs his own nuts. I should point out that before the match Dusty had done mic work about how he was “going to make Parker SQUE—EAL like a pig”. And I guess that would be a submission and well it would make a lot of sense not to have any blood in a match that was building to an anal bleeding finish…and so the grabbing own balls is scary threat. Thank God for Ted Turners standards and practices folks as Dusty instead puts Fuller in a figure-four.

Dustin fights off the other heels as the Nastys splash and drop elbows on Parker while he’s caught in the figure four. Parker submits and the crowd POPS. The crowd pop is great and really reinforces the idea that the lack of blood isn’t fatal flaw in this match. Crowd demanded it during one section but really gets so caught up in the momentum that they no longer needed it…and I really think this match may be better for its lack of blood.