NWA Capital Combat ‘90 – The Return of Robocop (5.19.90) review 

 

May 19, 1990 

 

Oh boy, where do we start with this. Let’s go with Sting. So, Sting was supposed to be NWA champion at this point. Ric Flair had promised he would drop the belt to Sting at Wrestlewar 90. Everything was in place for it and then that dipshit Doug Dillenger decided to hang off Sting’s leg and tear up his ACL. Sting was out. Jim Herd, the Turner appointed dumbass in charge, decided he wanted Lex Luger to win the title. Which is one of the rare instances of Herd probably making the right decision. Only that’s not how wrestling worked in 1990. Flair had promised Sting the belt and would only drop it to him. Herd ordered Flair to lose to Luger and he refused. Flair could be a little hard-headed about the old-timey nature of wrestling and dug his heels in.  

 

So, Luger doesn’t win at Wrestlewar and looks like a choke-artist for failing to do so. Flash forward to this show and Luger has another shot at Flair. Which, SPOILER, he won’t win either. Flair apparently offered to drop the belt to Barry Windham as a substitute, as Windham had great matches with him a few years beforehand. Windham had just returned to WCW after a failed run in the fed as the “Widowmaker”. Herd nixed the idea. Windham ended up back in the Horsemen*.  

 

*The “Four” Horsemen had been down to three Horsemen after Sting got kicked out of the group. With Ole Anderson retiring they were down to two. There was an idea to put the Midnight Express in the group, which Herd didn’t want to do. Herd had a concept of what a wrestler was supposed to look like (does this sound familiar at all?) and Bobby Eaton simply didn’t fit. The Horsemen ended up adding Sid to the group instead.  

 

WHO BOOKS NOW?

 

After a run of disagreements Flair quit as the company’s booker. A job he’d been doing since George Scott departed in 1989. WCW went back to the booking committee. A committee including Kevin Sullivan, Jim Ross, Jim Barnett and Jim Cornette. Headed by Jim Herd. Damn you, Sullivan, we could have called it the Council of Jims*. Seeing as the committee could never agree on anything, including a push for Brian Pillman as Flair’s next contender while Sting recovered, Herd decided he needed a new head booker. 

 

*I left out Jody Hamilton because I forgot about him but didn’t put him back in so I could do the Council of Jims gag. Apologies, Jody.  

 

So, this is the final committee booked show before Ole Anderson takes over as head booker. However, it wasn’t always planned out that way and Ole wasn’t even on a lot of people’s radars. The first choice was Jim Crockett. Presumably to fit in with the “Jim” motif. Crockett had sold up to Ted Turner in late 1988 but still had a passion for wrestling. If he’d not been so financially ruined, he may have stayed in charge of the NWA, and we would have had JCP running against WWF all through the 90s.  

 

Also in line for the job was Dusty Rhodes. In wrestling if you’re known for doing something, they’ll keep going back to you regardless of who else is available. He went as far as being interviewed for the job but rejected the terms. He would have had to retire from in-ring. Six months later, he did that anyway, so I don’t know why he decided against it. Also interviewed for the post was “Cowboy” Bill Watts, who would join WCW a few years later. The general consensus was that he would struggle with a family friendly promotion, having driven sales with racial storylines and bloodshed in his UWF.  

 

The other possible contender was Jerry Jarrett, which in turn would have seen involvement from Jerry Lawler. A Jerry revolution in Camp Jim! Herd was obviously concerned about his Jim majority being overturned. Having failed to entice one of the big names Ole Anderson was settled on, as he’d recently retired from in-ring competition. Ole was announced as the new booker on the TV tapings the week before this show. At the time, there was a degree of hope around the appointment and Herd gave Ole more leeway than he had with Ric Flair, for reasons best known to himself. However… 

 

Ole didn’t have a good run and I’m sure we’ll get into the guts of it soon enough but there were a few major issues. 1. Black Scorpion. 2. Ole’s ‘my way or nothing’ approach didn’t work with a committee. 3. He wanted to use guys from earlier in his career who were over then and didn’t care about creating new stars. His first order of business was bringing back Junkyard Dog.  

 

ROBOCOP 2: COMING SOON

 

Oh, I forgot about Robocop! So, this show was a movie tie-in with the release of Robocop 2. The original Robocop movie (1987) had been a huge hit. Turning a $13M budget into $50M+ at the box office. A series of strikes and script problems delayed the sequel and Paul Verhoeven, director of the original, stepped out to make Total Recall instead. Orion, the production company, got very ‘hands on’ with Verhoeven out of the picture and tried to market the film to a wider audience. The cartoonish sequel was still a modest hit. Making around $15M in profit. In order to help push the movie, they’ve agreed a tie-in here with Robocop making an appearance at the PPV. There was a rumour WCW paid Peter Weller $150,000 to appear on this show but a) that’s bullshit and b) Weller isn’t even on the show, as was confirmed by Sting in an interview years later.   

 

Ok, now we’re ready to go! We’re in Washington, DC at the DC Armory. This did a decent house and a 1.4 on the buyrate. NWA was still seen as a second rate WWF by a lot of people and their attempts to use ‘celebrities’ and assorted cartoonish nonsense to mimic Titan was probably not the best of ideas. No one who tries to copy the WWF ever really succeeds. This was the Jim Herd way though. He saw a hot product, the WWF, and tried to copy it without understanding the existing audience for the NWA. Hosts are Jim Ross and Bob Caudle. 

 

This is the full PPV version, which exists on the network. It’s hosted by Tony Schiavone, who just came back from WWF. Tony suggested it was a shit show and he regretted leaving the fed immediately. Rumour* has it that Vince McMahon thought he was “too Southern” so he probably wouldn’t have lasted that long anyway. 

 

*Bruce Pritchard on Kayfabe Commentaries.  

 

Bam Bam Bigelow, Cactus Jack & Kevin Sullivan vs. Roadwarriors & Norman  

Nobody knows what to do with Bigelow part 14, or so. Norman comes out here on a scooter in the first mockery of the Roadwarriors coming out on motorbikes. The Roadwarriors were on an eye watering $11,500 A WEEK in WCW. Paying them $1.2M per year as an act was based on how much they drew as a headline act under Jim Crockett. The contract carried over, but Jim Herd didn’t think they were good value for money, so he’s looking to get rid of them. It would work, and they refused a new deal around here and left for New York. Just over a month from now they’ll be on WWF TV. 

 

What a way to go out, tagging with Norman the Lunatic. Mick takes a load of crazy bumps for the Roadies. His bump over the rail makes Hawk look like a million bucks. It’s mad looking back that people didn’t rate Foley or didn’t get him. An insanely good bumper. He does do a stupid move here where he does a neckbreaker over the ropes and clearly hurts himself more than his opponent. Norman is useful here as he absorbs the heat so neither Roadie has to. Hawk tags in and clips Sullivan with a top rope clothesline for the win.  

 

Going out on a high the Roadwarriors would wrestle just nine more matches in WCW before jumping to the WWF. It had felt like they needed a change of scenery for a while and the move benefited both promotions. WWF gaining a new hot tag team to spice up their cards while WCW dumped two huge contracts*. This was a fun way to go out. Foley is particularly fun in this match. **½ 

 

*Three if you include Paul Ellering, who was making $5000 a week in WCW. That’s a lot of money considering he isn’t a wrestler.  

 

Johnny Ace vs. Mean Mark 

Here’s two guys who’ve lost their tag team partners. Shane Douglas has jumped to the WWF. If you’re wondering why you can’t remember that it’s because he did fuck all. We’ll see him next in the 1991 Royal Rumble match. Dan Spivey is injured and won’t appear in WCW again until so late in the year that Mean Mark will be gone.  

 

I don’t like the Undertaker, but he’s already improved a great deal since his WCW debut. He does a good job of combining intimidating size and athleticism. I’ll get into the Undertaker gimmick later in the year but for now Mean Mark looks like a decent prospect. I can see why WWF were interested. What puzzles me is why WCW didn’t try harder to retain him. He’s a big guy who can bump.  

 

Mark is green and this WCW run is entirely made up of matches where he learns how to not look like total shit. His moves are all over the place. In modern wrestling it wouldn’t surprise me, because he seems to draw his influences from all over but knowing what the Undertaker character would become, it’s interesting how the WWF went ‘less is more’ with him. And it worked.  

 

Anyway, this is over 10 minutes and Johnny Ace sucks so it’s not great. You need someone to lead Mean Mark and Ace ain’t it. Mark just does a bunch of spots, everything he knows, in no particular order. Mark’s finish is a top rope walk elbow drop, with a Heart Punch set up. It’s pretty cool! It scores an 8.2 on the “Slam-o-meter”. This was passable but should have been half the run time. 

 

We head backstage where Gordon Solie is outside the dressing room of Sting and ROBOCOP. Does Robocop get dressed? And why is Sting sharing a room with him? Look, I’ve seen Robocop and, in my head, he’s out there gunning down the Four Horsemen with that big ass handgun of his.  

“Your move, Sid”. 

 

Now I’m thinking about Sid powerbombing Robocop. That’s a crossover, brrrrother.  

 

Captain Mike Rotunda & Tommy Rich vs. Samoan Swat Team 

The Captain Mike gimmick pre-dates the movie Captain Ron, so Hollywood ripped off WCW. I think he’s supposed to be the skipper off Gilligans Island. While we’re fucking around here Jim Ross announces the signing of “El Gigante”. Every Tommy Rich match I see after the Luger match in 1989 makes me question of Lex Luger was actually GOATed in 1989. He’s so boring. Rotunda is always boring, and the SST just work heat for most of this. 

JR advises us “not to go to the fridge” after this match because Teddy Long is wrestling next. I agree. Go now! You won’t miss anything. Unless you love chinlocks, facelocks and assorted other rest holds. It’s so dull that the SST never appeared on another PPV. Jobbed out at Clash #11 and gone from the company by autumn. Based on this, you can see why.  

 

Finally, a hot tag to Rich but as soon as he gets the sleeper he’s blindsided and pinned. This is not botchy or anything but it’s so boring I can’t recommend you ever sit through it.  

 

Hair vs Hair 

Theodore R. Long vs. Paul Ellering 

Either guy getting his head shaved is an improvement over what they’ve already got.  

I can’t show you Teddy’s hairstyle because he’s wearing full boxing gear, including amateur head protection. Ellering is clearly in much better physical condition. It’s not even close. Teddy has loaded gloves on, and Ellering just takes one off and whacks him with it. This is like two minutes long and we’re finally rid of Teddy’s awful hairstyle. Inoffensive non-wrestler match. 

 

The Horsemen get an interview and Ole being booker means lots of Ole talking. Flair arrives to tell us he’s going to remove Lex Luger’s leg and finish his career. The Horsemen all have sports shirts on apart from Sid, who’s not got the memo and is wearing a tuxedo.  

 

NWA United States Tag Team Championship 

Flyin’ Brian & Z-Man (c) vs. Midnight Express 

The champs have been beating MXP all over the place as MXP exist to get other people over. Despite the champs winning the matches, they’ve put Jim Cornette in a cage for this one to ‘prevent outside interference’. The cage only exists so they can shoehorn Robocop onto the show. More on that later. 

Cornette refuses to get in the cage so Randy Anderson gives him a sweet left arm lariat. You can tell Cornette has been told not to touch the gimmicked cage as he stands dead in the middle of it and yells. Everyone in this is at least good and even Zenk looks capable when he’s got MXP bumping for him. Eaton bumps a load here. Including one where Zenk backdrops him OVER Lane to the floor. 

 

Pillman tries to match Eaton’s energy when he’s bumping and he’s not far off. The heat is all on Pillman, which is great because it means Zenk spends the bulk of the match on the apron. MXP are probably too good here. The crowd are into Eaton’s big spots and Pillman’s desperation kick outs. Heel teams probably shouldn’t do so much cool shit but also, Jim Herd had been fucking with them so they’re pulling out all the stops.  

 

Pillman kicks out of both the Savage Elbow and the Alabama Jam. Hot tag to Zenk but he gets double teamed. Rocket Launcher! Zenk kicks out of that! MXP are certainly letting these two get over at their expense here. Lane blindsides Zenk and Eaton cradles him for the win and the belts, and they did it without Jim Cornette! Huge pop for the win too. **** 

 

Midnight Express are such a great team that they made me believe in the team of Pillman and Zenk, who I’ve never liked because it’s Tom Zenk. Great little match, in a series of MXP matches in 1990. They were still plodding along, even though they hated it here. 

 

Promo Time: Sting 

We get Sting out here because he’s injured but people want to see him. Also, because he’s part of the Robocop tie in. GMC doing a ring announcement for Robocop is fucking hilarious. “He serves the public trust, protects the innocent and upholds the law…ROBOCOP!” The gimmick is that the Horsemen jump Sting and put him in the cage Cornette was in and Robocop comes out for the save. Slowly.  

While he’s walking down here, I put on the theme from Robocop, because it’s awesome and it takes him a while to get here.  

Robocop tears the door off the cage and the crowd goes wild! “What strength by Robocop” – JR.  

DUH-DUNNA-DUHDUH, DUH-DUNNA-DUH. DUH-DUNNA-DUHDUH DUUUUUHHHHH.  

 

I am such a nerd, I loved this. It’s a shame Robocop couldn’t wrestle, or climb steps, or walk fast because I would have marked out for a Sting & Robocop tag match on a Clash of the Champions. Sting has similar feelings, thinking it was embarrassing at the time, but he looks back on it with great affection.  

 

Video Control gives as Tony as he chats with the Junkyard Dog. It’s about a year since he walked out on WCW over pay issues, no showing the Wrestlewar 89 PPV. Having seen him wrestle in 1989, I’m shocked WCW decided to give him another shot. He’s going to be here for ANOTHER FOUR YEARS. This is one of Ole Anderson’s first big calls as booker. Bringing back a guy who he knew was good for business…10 years ago. Anyone with eyes could see Ritter was washed in 1990 and Ole sets his stall out to make stupid mistakes right away here. They put him in with Ric Flair. RIC FLAIR. At least he gets a laugh in his promo here. When Jim Cornette barges in and asks where he’s been the last year JYD reels off an address and Cornette pauses…”that’s my mother’s house!” Great stuff. 

 

Corporal Punishment Match 

Rock N’ Roll Express vs. Fabulous Freebirds 

A “Corporal Punishment match” is a strap match but you don’t need to collect turnbuckles, just wail on each other and the straps are just ‘there’ not attached to the workers. This suits Michael PS Hayes to the ground because he’s into that sort of gimmick, if you catch my drift. I dated a girl once who would have loved to have been in a Corporal Punishment match. I say “dated” it was mostly just sex and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s the kind of thing I’ll think about on my death bed.  

The Freebirds do a lot of ‘showing ass’ here to allow RnR to beat them up. Hayes sells the strap like he’s stepped into a hot bath. Jim Ross mentions he’s from Westville, Oklahoma here and I looked it up on Google Maps. I can see why he left. The turning point in this is PS Hayes nailing Morton with a left hand from the apron. It’s sold like death! This leads us into the inevitable ‘heat on Morton’ segment.  

 

With the Freebirds in control, we get the chinlock and chat. This whole segment is downright tedious. Even with Morton trying to get sympathy. Caudle mentions the straps having come into play very little, effectively eviscerating the match concept and the execution thereof. Gibson gets a hot tag, but Hayes hits him with the DDT. Unfortunately, he showboats and Morton flies back in to sunset flip him for the win. He totally wasn’t legal there! This was very long and largely pointless. Points for effort from RnR but like **¾ territory.  

 

Video Control takes us to Tony Schiavone who has Doug Furnas for an interview. Wait a minute. So, it turns out WCW had eyes on Furnas (but not his tag partner, the far better worker Dan Kroffat). He had a trial earlier in the year doing TV squashes and they liked him. He was brought in here and rumour has it might have been ready to sub in if a certain wrestler no showed this event. WCW had a terrible issue with no shows because their schedule was so shit it drove people insane. Hawk, Stan Lane and others had recently just gone home instead of going to shows. The company was ruining people’s lives. Doug ended up having a little run here, which consisted of a few high-profile jobs (Barry Windham at Clash #11 in particular).  

 

NWA World Tag Team Championship 

Steiner Brothers (c) vs. Doom  

Doom ditched the masks and Woman and suddenly got good. Which is weird because less than half a year ago, Doom got blown out at Starrcade in that tournament and looked finished. JR has football players in here and starts reeling off information about Barry Switzer, nose tackles and college football. Give Jim Ross four hosses beating the shit out of each other and he’s in his element. “That’s 285, belly to back!”  

 

This feels like it should be taking place in Japan because it’s all about four tough guys laying it in. It’s only somewhat derailed by the cartoonish selling of Butch Reed. Scotty Steiner bumps him with Steinerlines though, so it takes the decisions out of his hands. Steiners are usually stiff, but they beat the crap out of Doom here. It looks like being an extended squash.  

 

Even when Scott gets picked off for heat, he’s still throwing them both around. Frankensteiner leads to the hot tag and Doom continue to get their asses kicked. Doom pick off Rick and double team him behind the ref’s back to steal the win and the belts. The crowd is SHOCKED. I liked this match a lot but there’s a feeling Doom didn’t do much here and Butch Reed must be surprised he’s got that belt. Steiners worked super hard, as always, and we’ll call this ***¼  

 

“Somebody get Jim Herd and tell him he’s invited to the party” – Teddy Long 

 

Cage Match 

NWA Championship 

Ric Flair (c) vs. Lex Luger  

The cage for this is the recycled Thunderdome cage, where the cage bends in at the top and you can’t climb out. The original version of Hell in a Cell, where there was room to roam outside the cage.  

Woman is allowed inside the cage, which seems like a bonus for Naitch and the ref checks her to discover she has an “international object” (called so by Ross) in her glove. Luger comes in with a legitimate staph infection in his knee, but they couldn’t put him out injured with Sting already sidelined, so he’s working through it. Flair bumps around a bit and chops away. The Flair Formula started coming into play in a BIG way in 1990. I’m not saying Ric got lazy, but his heart wasn’t in it anymore. Blame Big Jim Herd, I guess. 

 

Flair also develops a stupid tick here, which is climbing up a cage he knows he can’t escape from. Maybe he thinks Luger can’t get him up there with his bad knee. After Lex catches him once you’d think he’d stop climbing but hey, here we are. Flair’s next gambit is a blatant bladejob on camera.  

“Why does he keep going to the cage, Jim?” asks a confused Bob Caudle. Bob was a great commentator because he didn’t give a shit. He’d pick holes in the logic of the match and let JR explain it. He wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in the WWF. Luger gets a superplex but hurts his staph infection in the process and Flair goes after the knee. Luger had been out for two weeks, literally hospitalised with the knee, and would take a further two weeks off after this match.  

 

This is what wrestlers do against the judgement of doctors and sensible people. With the match going along nicely we get the Horsemen out here. Sting arrives to attack the Horsemen and Sid is so useless. He just stands there watching. Next up for the run in’s is EL GIGANTE! He runs the Horsemen off and Barry Windham slips under the cage to run in for the sad DQ finish with Flair in the Torture Rack. ***½  

 

This was a really good match, in spite of (and perhaps because of) Luger’s limitations with the knee injury. However, you cannot book a cage match with a DQ finish. You just can’t do it.  

 

The 411: 

There are obvious creative problems with this show. It all stems from Jim Herd’s poor creativity and it isn’t helped by Ole Anderson at all. That said, a lot of the in-ring is great. Especially compared to other 1990 shows. Flair-Luger, Doom-Steiners and MXP-Pillman/Zenk are all good matches. Apart from the really boring Samoan Swat Team match there’s nothing offensively bad in the ring either. By 1990 standards, that’s enough for a thumbs up. It’s probably a better overall show than Wrestlewar and could be the NWA’s best show of 1990. Time will tell on that one.  

 

Obviously, people were hot about the booking, at the time, but history has shown that Doom’s run was good, Luger was hurt and nothing on this show really damaged WCW like events later in the year. I’m sure people hated Robocop, the cage DQ and JYD coming back to the point where this felt like a negative but honestly, it gets so much worse than this actually looks decent in flashback form!