UWF Beach Brawl 1991 (6.9.91) 

June 9, 1991 

 

We’re in historic Palmetto, Florida at the Manatee Civic Centre. I’ve seen this show before. In fact, the Wikipedia article on Beach Brawl cites me as the main reviewer for said event. I have a history of watching crap. That’s my legacy. Footnotes on Wikipedia explaining why I hate pro-wrestling. Hosts are Craig DeGeorge & Bruno Sammartino. DeGeorge was Herb’s best hire, in my opinion, because it got him out of the commentary booth, where he stank. DeGeorge is a decent announcer too. Compare him to the horrors of WWF announcers since Jim Ross, and he comes out smelling of roses. 

 

Shout out to the version of UWF Beach Brawl I’m watching today. It’s on YouTube and it’s @NotThatTomGreen doing a watch-along, so I don’t have to sit through all the same junk on my own. Tom is a fun streamer and if I could be arsed to do it, his content is very similar to what I wanted to do. I just can’t be bothered to talk about wrestling for hours. When I’m writing I can do it for an hour and fuck off somewhere else. Or sit reading Wikipedia, someone else’s thoughts on the show or Cagematch to enrich my background. 

 

 

Before we get underway the building fits about 4000 people. The attendance for this show? 550. It’s fair to say that Herb wasn’t the greatest promoter. The product he was putting out just wasn’t interesting to anyone. Production is perfectly ok. During the Tom Green stream someone finds the ‘paid’ number and it’s 70. What a disaster of a promotion the UWF is.  

 

Black Hearts vs. Fire Cat & Jim Cooper 

Black Hearts are managed by Luna Vachon, as no one has figured out how to use her yet. Black Hearts use Perfect Strangers; the same Deep Purple track Shane Douglas used in ECW. Gangrel is one of the masked Black Hearts. The other is Tom Nash. The trouble with this match is that it’s a jobber match. Fire Cat is the phenomenal Brady Boone. He busts out a rana called “lucha scissors” by Bruno. That’s how foreign the move was to American rings. Luna looks so young here. I look up her age and she’s 19. Damn. Her personality is great considering how inexperienced she is.  

 

Brady tries really hard here, but neither Black Heart can take those bumps. The ring is probably too small for him to move around effectively too. Black Hearts eventually pick off Cooper and finish him with a Demolition Decapitation variation with a leg drop. Luna goes after poor Fire Cat as Perfect Strangers plays. DO YOU REMEMBER? REMEMBER MY NAAAAME? This was kick ass but ultimately just an extended squash. They didn’t connect as well as I’d like. Maybe they should have worked a few times beforehand. UWF was running plenty of tapings. *½  

 

Street Fight: 

Terry Gordy vs. Johnny Ace 

This was supposed to be Gordy vs. Don Muraco, but Don got injured (or he didn’t want to work the show). This is announced as being “no DQ” as it’s a street fight. That’ll play into the outcome. Ace, useless fucking piece of shit he is, starts with headlocks. STREET FIGHT! God, he stinks. He fucking sucks. Gordy gets fed up with this shit in a hurry and starts smacking him around. I love Gordy. He’s just this big guy who doesn’t give a shit. They get all fired up and Ace does a house show dive and they fuck that up. Then they get counted out. In a street fight. Haaa. Anyway, Gordy was up for this for about 2:00 of the 7:00 match. *¾ 

 

In my previous review, I pointed out this wasn’t a street fight. This was a ring fight. The post match, where they brawl around is much better than the actual match. Hey, they should have booked it to be a street fight! Herb, you silly fuck. You daft bastard. You goofy fucking drug addict. 

 

Power Twins vs. Mask Confusion 

The Power Twins were two large men who have been around the remaining territories (Memphis, Stampede, Mexico). In my previous review I actually misread the graphic as “Mass Confusion”. Which I think is better. It’s just a way to get these dork Killer Bees to keep using the same gimmick. Jim Brunzell actually went back to the WWF in 1992. Blair did not. Kinda makes you wonder who he pissed off. Brunzell is the better worker of the two anyway. But they’re both dorks, so nobody cares. Blair must have gotten in Herb’s ear during this run because he pushed him HARD. Anyway, this match is boring as hell. It’s the longest match on the show and it has the lowest possible amount of effort in it. They run the mask gimmick on the floor, and the illegal man gets a sunset flip to win. This was TEDIOUS BROTHER. ¼* 

 

Tom pointed out that the Power Twins are literally twins so could have also done the switch gimmick for heat and didn’t.  

 

UWF Women’s Championship 

Candi Devine vs. Rockin’ Robin 

Candi is a looker, so Craig DeGeorge gets horny in public. Robin tries to dance to her Rockin’ Robin theme music, which is a prime demonstration of how she flopped. Robin, if you’ve never seen her, is a terrible wrestler. The camera angle does a great job of showing how much her dropkick misses. Technically, I guess, Robin is the WWF women’s champion as they never had her lose it. Both women are a bit tentative and don’t lay it in. They botch a dropkick with Robin just totally missing and it’s so far off that Candi can’t even pretend it hit. They do a horrible ducked clothesline into clothesline spot. Good GRAVY it is so bad. They give up and have Robin win with a roll up. Yeah, get this shit out of my ring brrrrrother. DUD 

 

The sad state of American women’s wrestling in 1991 is a direct contrast to how awesome women’s wrestling is in Japan at the same time. Obviously, Rockin’ Robin never defended the belt and retired the next year.  

 

Strap Match: 

Col. DeBeers vs. Paul Orndorff 

The whole back story of this is DeBeers, the big racist, being racist to black people. So naturally we get spiritually black Paul Orndorff to save the day. Incidentally, Herb has NO IDEA what a strap match is. Not a fucking clue. DeBeers just hits Orndorff with his belt. Orndorff is so bad here, it’s just sad. He must he wondering what the fuck happened. He can’t get on the same page as DeBeers, who sucks. Piledriver ON THE STRAP finishes fairly quickly, ending this miserable match. ½*. At least Orndorff’s execution on some basics was nice. However, he did bump a non-contact, and it looked stupid.  

 

Post Match: DeBeers gives Orndorff a taser shot but he’s holding onto him so that doesn’t work??? He then shows it to the camera, so you can see it’s not on. Business exposing stupidity. At least no black people were hurt in the making of this match.  

 

Captain’s Corner  

Lou Albano had this chat show on UWF, but he never actually interviewed anyone. He’d get the heel guests on and then insult them the whole time. Here it’s the Black Hearts. He just yells at them and walks out. DUD! 

 

Legends Match: 

Ivan Koloff vs. Bob Backlund 

Having Backlund here is a big deal because he’s not worked in North America since his 1985 AWA run. In the six years between he has worked for UWF in Japan. Ivan had been working regularly for UWF but apparently Herb doesn’t give a shit about that and has Backlund squash him in a couple of minutes. Backlund’s dead weight lift of Koloff off the mat is INSANE. Backlund is functionally strong. What a savage. Backlund wins with a roll up.  

 

Tom speculates that the shit Killer Bees match is the reason for this getting screwed for time. Backlund, spelled wrong on the caption as “Backland”, looked great.  

 

Backlund was rehired by the WWF the following year and starred in the 1993 Royal Rumble. A run which would lead to him winning the WWF title again, from Bret Hart, in 1994. Before Big Daddy Cool Diesel beat him in a matter of seconds to kickstart his year long reign. Backlund would continue there until 1996, when the changing nature of the Biz drove him back into retirement. During prime money Attitude era he was in Battlarts like a woke king.  

 

Wet N’ Wild (Steve Ray & Sonny Beach) vs. Cactus Jack & Bob Orton Jr 

Steve Ray was one of those rare gimmicks where Herb got someone over, treated him like a son, and generally had success with someone. Obviously, Herb, paranoid maniac, thought Ray was sleeping with his wife and paid off Doc to injure him. That was BEFORE this match by the way. We have a shark cage for John Tolos, and he’s locked in there. It takes longer to do the intros and get him in the shark cage than the run time of the match. Mainly because Sonny Beach tries to ‘surf’ on his surfboard…in the ring. There’s no water there dude.  

 

Foley, nutbar that he is, still manages to sneak in an INSANE elbow drop off the second rope to the floor. FUCKKKKK. Mick Foley was doing things, in 1991, that no one else would even consider doing. Tolos throws brass knucks in, Orton miscues and Cactus gets pinned. Fuck off Herb. ½*. A total waste of Foley and Orton. Mick had clearly done enough here to get rehired (via Global), and he was back in WCW by August. They do an Orton-Foley split, but they never got a payoff from that. 

 

Sidenote: I wonder if any Global is out there online? I’ve never seen any Global at all. I’m thrilled to discover some of their 1991 TV is indeed on YouTube! I will be doing ALL OF IT.  

 

UWF SportsChannel TV Championship 

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Steve Williams 

This is a tournament final for this prestigious new belt. This is Bigelow’s last match before going back to the WWF next year. Obviously with New Japan in between. UWF’s ace Steve Williams appears in his last match here until 1994. So, two guys with no future bookings here main eventing. Classic Herb. They actually put some effort into it because it’s the main event and both guys are really good. They both leather each other. Doc blades Bigelow for him here. On camera. They manage to turn this into a war of attrition (in seven minutes). They do big spots with near falls near the end, which are actually good. My previous review of this was in a vaccuum and I gave this two stars. It’s better than that. It’s full of energy and violence. It even makes sense with a bloody Bigelow desperately grabbing the ropes to avoid the powerslam only for Doc to catch him coming off the ropes into the powerslam finish. Hot damn, this was great! ***. The only real complaint is that it only went seven minutes but sometimes, seven minutes is all you need. Big bombs. Big hurtin’ bombs for seven minutes straight. Glorious.  

 

The 411: 

The main event felt much better on the rewatch, and I can see why Meltzer went 3.25 on it. Two big powerhouse guys just beating the shit out of each other. The rest of the show is basically a pass. Cactus throws in a crazy bump, as always. Nice to see Backlund too. Some real stinkers though. Plus Herb Abrams’ booking is dumb. The Lou Albano stuff sucked. The women’s match fell apart horribly. Street fight ending in a count out is stupid. The strap match is stupid. The timing on everything is broken and that awful Killer Bees match ruins the flow of the entire show. 

 

It was also really nice getting to watch Tom Green watch the show. It gave me some interesting new perspectives on things. Plus, I didn’t have to sit through this shit on my own again. You can follow Tom’s YouTube channel @NotThatTomGreen on YouTube. He streams twice a week and brings great retro content.  

 

You can read my original review over on 411 and see what Arn of 2012 thought about it. I have watched UWF shows around this Beach Brawl PPV, both this review and the old one. So, it feels like I have context. For the main event last time I must have just been in a bad mood.  

 

This was UWF’s only ever PPV. Nearly 18,000 people bought this show, which should tell you the American public still loved pro-wrestling in 1991. However, that’s a very low number compared to the bigger companies, and I can’t imagine 1991 me wanting to pay money for this show.  

 

One final bit; UWF in 1991 isn’t that bad. Yes, Herb is an idiot and lots of his decisions are dreadful, but the company was putting on an ok product. Especially compared to the later UWF shows, which are just painfully shit. The main event might be enough to keep Herb from “winning” worst promotion.