WCW Saturday Night 4/10/99

This felt like kismet. I made a sazerac and pulled a complete random disc of WCW out of the stack, and I pulled an episode almost 20 years ago to the date. Out of the couple hundreds of episodes I could have snagged, I get one with a near perfect round number anniversary. My mood is always up when I crank up some 90s WCW, but this feels like a Close Encounters level sign. This episode is guaranteed to rule.

Rick Steiner vs. Fit Finlay

ER: What did I say!? Finlay vs. a Steiner motherfucker! Send these two out to lead off an episode? I'm totally fine with that. It's predictably great, and it's a treat to watch Finlay eat more of a beating than beat up a junior. Finlay is a guy really great at putting over offense but his syndicated matches are most often him dishing the beating. Steiner hits a great lariat, and a fun powerbomb with Finlay holding onto the ropes to try to escape but just getting lifted and dropped. Finlay even eats a nasty hot shot on the guardrail, really crashes down onto it. And obviously Finlay isn't going to be eating a beating the *entire* match, so his makes the strikes count on his comebacks. He's going to hit some full force uppercuts and this is going to rule. What a predictably great start to things.

Norman Smiley vs. The Cat

ER: Six frat guys in the crowd are wearing no shirts and have SMILEY spelled out individually across their chests. Smiley was "men painting on their bodies in adoration" level. And this was a weirdly good bad match. I’ve never been very high on the Cat, although I know he has his fans. Sometimes you get Cat where his strikes look like they land, other times you get a bunch of really pulled sidekicks. Here we got a mix of that, so he’d crack Smiley in the jaw with a low kick, but then later hit a soft kick to the side, but then later he’d hook a crescent kick under the chin. Smiley’s offense looked great consistently throughout, so it was tough seeing him throw out some cool stuff and have Cat only half return the favor. Smiley always has a surprise, and we got classics like his awesome rollercoaster bodyslam, but he also used a trippy escape to get out of a waistlock and tossed out a couple of neat armdrags. We got Sonny Onto interference, things kept threatening to get real good - and then they would get real good - and then they’d go a little soft. Weird match, but felt like Smiley was a good opponent for Cat. Really if they tightened up a couple of hinges in this one, it would have delivered.

Juvy comes out with a tallish guy dressed as Konnan (complete with top buttoned flannel) wearing a Mil Mascaras match, billed as La Cucaracha. Juvy acts as Cucracha’s translator, with the masked man (definitely not Disco Inferno) whispering into Juvy’s ear and having Juvy say things like “This is definitely not Disco Inferno” and “This is a guy who can definitely beat Konnan”. Juvy wasn’t working overtly cocky heel like his excellent Juice run later in the year, he was playing it all more coy. Konnan comes out and does his catchphrases, but does drop a real nice G rated diss, which is a special skill to use and not sound silly (like a Nitro where Hogan said “Fe Fi Fo Fum, the Giant is a big dum dum”. It was fucking brutal.). He makes fun of Juvy’s promo and said nobody could understand him, and then says:

"Your English is as good as La Cucaracha’s Spanish which is as good as Disco Inferno’s wrestling”

It’s not mean, but like I said it’s a quality G rated diss. We get a not very good impromptu match and Konnan unmasks Disco. Fans got into the match portion, really wanted Disco humiliated. It’s an impressive reaction for an upcoming match that I hope I never see,

Barbarian/Hugh Morrus vs. Meng/Jerry Flynn

ER: I could have guessed these four matching up, but I don’t recall the Faces of Fear splitting up. Was this some pre-Russo “split up two regular-to-semi-regular teams and have them switch alliances and feud” thing? Definitely seen a tag with these guys, but haven’t seen it with the established teams scrambled. This is definitely a feud I don’t remember but damn was it great here. This is falls count anywhere and they work 80% of the match on the floor and in the aisle way, and they build it really great to peak it at what fans want to see. This whole thing goes barely 6 minutes, but it’s laid out flawlessly. We start with Flynn/Barbarian and Meng/Morrus pairings, both pairs brawling around the ring, and it’s all engaging stuff, but they knew just went to splinter off into the money pairing of Meng/Barbarian and Flynn/Morrus. It’s a trip seeing Meng and Barbarian go at it, but it’s a trip people want to take. When they splinter back to original pairings that’s when we up the fan factor by getting Jimmy Hart involved. Hart draws the incredible task of jumping Meng, and Hart actually starts kicking at Meng! Meng grabs Jimmy Hart by the fucking head…..

and the camera cuts away. It cuts away to Flynn and Barbarian who are literally just locked in a collar and elbow. It stays on them. Eventually we see Meng walk into frame and we realize that whatever Meng did to Hart was long over and long off camera. This was a porn producer missing the money shot because he was opting for a lingering still frame of the bedside table. Somebody should have been red-faced screamed at for this error. Unforgivable. We get a couple nice bumps into the ring steps (Flynn really flies into them), Meng hits a nice low blow on Morrus AND a really high leap standing dropkick, Flynn gets backdropped into a brutal Barbarian powerbomb (can't believe we got that spot!) and we get an awesome extended Hart chase after the match. Hart got involved again and does an incredible sequence running away from Meng and Flynn, working some amazing shtick and getting an actual loud laugh for me when he escapes down the aisle….but the pod bay doors on the Saturday Night set aren’t open! So we get the genuinely hilarious shot of Hart banging on the doors to be let in before Meng and Flynn catch him. Great segment to end a show on.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES