NWA Chi-Town Rumble (2.20.89) review 

 

February 20, 1989 

We’re in Chicago, Illinois for this one-off PPV event. 8000 in the UIC Pavilion. Starrcade ‘87 was here, and Halloween Havoc 1990 will also take place in this venue. Hosts are Jim Ross and Magnum TA. I don’t remember ever watching the undercard, but I’ve seen Flair-Steamboat, which is the start of a famous three match feud in 1989 that people still talk about to this very day. Jim Cornette can’t even mention modern wrestling without comparing it to Flair-Steamboat.  

 

Michael PS Hayes vs. Russian Assassin #1  

“BADSTREEEEET, ATLANTA GA”. I love that song. RA#1 is introduced as such, but JR called him RA#2. Depending on who is correct this is either Angel of Death or Jack Victory. It looks like AOD. Seeing as Jack Victory appears elsewhere on the card, I’m inclined to suggest this is AOD. If you’ve never had the ‘pleasure’ of a Michael PS Hayes singles match let me tell you, it’s not a good time at the wrestling.  

Hayes is far better off in tag matches where he can take heat and tag out and juke and jive on the apron. This is the kind of match WWF would put on a pre-show and have people ignoring it while talking about the card. It would also be waaaaay shorter. This goes 15:48!!! Most of which is armbars and chinlocks. It’s very boring. There’s really no need for it and I’m shocked Chicago doesn’t shit all over it. My mind drifts so badly during this that it takes Hayes hitting the DDT to shock me back into reality.  

 

Video Control takes us backstage where Ricky Steamboat, and family, are wearing babyface white. Little Dragon wants the microphone and can’t understand why Bob Caudle won’t let him eat that fucking thing.  

 

Sting vs. Butch Reed 

Hey, just what you need to wake the crowd up; a 20-minute Butch Reed match!  

The whole match is Sting trying to get the crowd going and Reed stopping everything immediately. “Hey, hey, pump the brakes here, kid”. Butch Reed is one of the most horrifically boring wrestlers I’ve ever had the misfortune to watch. I have no idea why anyone would book him to wrestle longer than 30 seconds. He makes Sting look terrible.  

 

Reed isn’t even technically good. All his rest holds look messy. At one point he just hugs the side of Sting’s head. That’s not anything, what the fuck are you doing? Reed doesn’t even know what the finish is as Teddy Long kicks him off the ropes on the sunset flip spot and he sits down and grabs them again, so Teddy has to repeat the spot. Sting finishes with the least convincing roll up you’re likely to see. It’s like they don’t know what they’re doing. Sting should have won this in 5:00 or less. Who gives a shit about Butch Reed? They can’t even do a convincing post match brawl due to Reed’s incompetence. The old DUDeroonie. 

 

47:00 into the show at this point and good grief, it’s been a chore to sit through. My eyelids are heavy. Let’s take a break.

 

The break ended up being almost an entire week. Sometimes boredom is hard to overcome. I’m only doing it today because flooding wrecked my journey into work and I’ve given up and gone home.  

Video Control takes us backstage where Paul E explains he’s replaced Dennis Condrey with Jack Victory because MXP know Dennis Condrey. In reality Condrey quit the week before, indignant the angle had tanked, and WCW wanted rid of them. Both Heyman and Cornette do a good job of selling the idea that they switched Condrey as a tactical thing.  

 

Loser Leaves the NWA 

Midnight Express & Jim Cornette vs. Randy Rose, Jack Victory & Paul E. Dangerously 

JR continues to drum home the advantages of Victory over Condrey. If they bury Condrey any harder he’ll be literally six feet under. As for Condrey, he’d go and wrestle in Alabama for Continental and would retire a year later, having burned his only viable bridge.  

 

MXP are relentlessly entertaining here, especially when Cornette gets involved. Heyman is less gifted as a worker and Cornette looks a bit daft taking bumps for him. Victory is also dead weight. He’s a poor worker and the NWA constantly put him in job matches because he was so worthless to them.  

 

It’s a shame the match has so many issues because it was potentially good, and the crowd explode at a moment’s notice. There are just too many moments where everything grinds to a halt because someone is out of position. Double flapjack finishes Rose and the MXP send the fake MXP packing. Of course, that’s not true and Rose stayed with the company until August, working jobs on the house show circuit. Victory was clearly not included in the stip either, working for WCW for two more years.  

 

The match is largely hit or miss but is significantly better than the opening two matches so we’ll go with **¾. Not quite notebook worthy but wildly entertaining in fits and starts.  

 

Video Control takes us to Ric Flair who tells us Ricky Steamboat will get butterflies later when he sees Flair in the ring.  

 

NWA TV Championship 

Rick Steiner (c) vs. Mike Rotunda 

JR starts getting very excited about the collegiate backgrounds of both men. Rotunda held the belt for a year before losing it, in a heated contest, at Starrcade. I described that Starrcade match as “boring at times”, which is Michael Rotunda to a tee. During his 1988 TV title run he arguably had the most exciting matches of his career.  

 

The most interesting thing about this match up is the presence, at ringside, of one Scotty Steiner. While Rick was technically good and capable of some top smash-mouth wrestling, his skills pale in comparison to his little brother. Scott, at his peak, was as a good as anyone. He’s only not in that conversation because at his peak he was mostly in tags and when he finally got a big singles run he was already injured and deteriorating. The Steiners also have a bad rap because Rick was such a tool.  

 

Back in the match, everything grinds to a halt thanks to Rotunda. When they try more ambitious spots they do not go well. Like the Rotunda crossbody/roll through spot. It’s a fucking mess, lads. As they grind away at boring holds, it becomes apparent that no one gives a fuck, which is a shame because at Starrcade the crowd was molten. The price you pay for going back to the well when a feud is finished.  

 

Rick’s idiocy doesn’t help here as he starts barking instead of covering on a powerslam. Kevin Sullivan shows up to threaten Rick’s dog. Rick doesn’t know what to do. If only he had an immediate family member who could go and check on the legitimacy of these claims? Rick gets a sleeper, but the big idiot pins himself. *¼ 

 

Video Control gives us time with the Road Warriors rant about how much they’re into Chicago and the old west and ripping people’s heads off and such.  

 

NWA United States Championship 

Barry Windham (c) vs. Lex Luger 

Luger has been painted as a choker after losing two big matches to Ric Flair. It’s a tag he’d struggle to shake during his whole WCW career. Windham did the same thing but turned heel and sided with Flair, which gives him the mental high ground. As for Windham, this is his last major show before jumping to the WWF, who absolutely fumbled the bag. Imagine getting someone hot like Windham and just rebranding him the “Widow Maker” for no reason?  

 

The whole WWF run was such a disaster he’d be back in WCW a year later. Speaking of disasters…this isn’t one. At all. It fucking bangs. The pacing is wonderful as Barry forces Luger to go after exciting stuff. It probably has better shine and counters than the Flair-Luger matches. They work in some tidy psychology, including Windham blading his own hand after punching the ring post. That’s after he’s opened up Luger’s eyebrow hardway.  

 

This leads to the Windham Claw, which he can’t apply properly because of his injury and Luger still struggles with because he’s bloodied. Glorious stuff. It’s sad to see, knowing Windham’s history, as this is the peak of him as a worker. He had a decent run back in WCW circa 1991, but he’ll never be this good again. Windham goes to finish with a backdrop driver, straight into the pin, but Lex gets a shoulder up and Barry pins himself. Holy shit, the same finish two matches running? This one is different though as people actually care and Barry, angry at the world, piledrives Luger on the belt. ***½ 

 

This was a great little match. The opening shine is great fun and they stop off at an assortment of cool psychological bits and pieces before the finish and post match rage of Windham. Letting out his frustration at himself and this run. The Horsemen were done at this point and it’s pretty sad to see it all fall apart here.  

 

NWA Tag Team Championship 

Road Warriors (c) vs. Varsity Club 

Doc and Sullivan are the challengers. The crowd are fully invested in the Roadies, with that ‘Road Warrior Pop’ landing on every offensive move. The clotheslines especially. There’s this huge ROAR with each spot connecting. Sullivan goes after Animal’s arm to try and give a cause for his isolation. It’s not a bad idea but the crowd only want to see the LOD kick some ass. As is shown by Hawk’s hot tag. Doc saves Sullivan from the Doomsday Device, but Hawk comes off with the clothesline anyway and gets the pin. **¼. A perfectly fine title defence. Crowd were energised by the Road Warriors and them winning easily enough is what the doctor ordered.  

 

Video Control gives us a chat with Lex Luger who talks about his injuries. He’s got a “jammed neck” from that piledriver. He hears Windham may have broken his wrist. I like how they’ve sold the brutality of that match.  

 

NWA World Championship 

Ric Flair (c) vs. Ricky Steamboat 

A lot of the early stuff here is designed to show that Steamboat has Flair’s number. A quick shoulderblock leads to a near fall. Flair does a dropdown and Steamboat headlocks him right away. This also marks the start of Flair really, REALLY, using the chops in his matches because of the pop they get for the noise they make. After stumbling initially Flair starts pulling out counters to show he sees Steamboat’s skill and can match it. 

 

The match isn’t perfect. There’s a moment where Flair spills outside and Steamboat teases diving out after him and he absolutely should have. You can see the crowd demanding it. If he’d thrown in a tope, it would have popped. Steamboat’s goody two-shoes behaviour doesn’t go over well in Chicago, who prefer Flair. The aggression from Flair comes from the chops but also in a willingness to take it to the floor. Something Steamboat, and his inability to fly, aren’t prepared to match.  

 

From a storytelling standpoint they do a cracking job of showing each man’s strengths and weaknesses. Flair absolutely nails his corner bump here. It’s as good as you’ll ever see it. He bumps straight into running the apron in one move.  

They also nail the crossbody to the floor with wonderful fluidity. This is one of the first examples of guys doing hard spots and making them look as easy as breathing. It helps that they also have hard-hitting strikes to add that extra layer of realism. It feels like they’re wearing each other out. It does get a bit ragged at times although I can see how you could argue that’s part of the charm. Part of the ‘wearing each other down’ storyline. 

 

The stupid ref bump is something that I can take issue with though. It wasn’t a good bump. The positioning didn’t make sense and the bump itself wasn’t clean enough. Never rely on a referee. Flair goes for a Figure Four but Steamboat rolls him up and Teddy Long jumps in to count the three. I legitimately feel the sloppiness near the finish, especially with the ref bump, means this isn’t an all-time great match. It does fly by though and it’s head and shoulders above almost every other North American match in the period*. ****½  

 

*Aside from the freak double whammy of Flair-Windham and Steamboat-Savage in early 1987.  

 

The 411: 

The show is almost dead in the water after the first two awful matches. However, you need to see Flair-Steamboat and Windham-Luger is a great little match too. There’s a big question here about whether Flair-Steamboat I is overrated and, honestly, it’s a tough call. The series has a great reputation and there’s a case that the opening salvo is the weakest of the matches. However, at 23 minutes, it’s also the most accessible. It’s interesting to me that it has the largest number of votes over on Cagematch of any match in the series. This contest is ranked as match #100 in the greatest matches of all time on Cagematch. I’m not sure I rate it that highly. I would have to re-watch everything above it to formulate an opinion. Based on matches from this flashback series, I would have it at #4 or #5 all time at this point. But that’s at ****½, which is well below my KICKASS tier of the greatest matches of all time. As a wrestling fan, you need to see Flair-Steamboat at least once.