WCW Superbrawl: Return from the Rising Sun (5.19.91) review 

 

May 19, 1991 

We’re St Petersburg, Florida at the Bayfront Center. Another demolished building. This one went in 2004. This was the main building for Championship Wrestling from Florida for 30 years. It hosted three WCW PPV events and the Tampa Bay Rowdies! Hosts are Jim Ross & Dusty Rhodes.  

 

There is an official version of this on WCW’s YouTube channel. Which is how I’ll be watching this. The title is a reference to Flair vs Fujinami, which took place in a packed Tokyo Dome back in March. “Return from the Rising Sun” almost implies they’ve been out there for several months. Steiners vs Luger & Sting on this show plus a bunch of stuff no one cares about and way too many matches.  

 

As much as I love WCW in the early 1990s, you’re going to have to strap in for this show because they’re about to make an enormous fucking hash of just about everything. I blame Dusty Rhodes, who was dead as a booker by this point. 

 

WCW United States Tag Team Championship 

Fabulous Freebirds vs. Young Pistols 

The US champs were the Steiners, but they won the actual world titles so had to abandon these midcard belts. Steve Armstrong & Tracey Smothers have both lost their surnames here. It’s just Steve and Tracey. Like Madonna. Steve is such an iconic name. DDP has a radio microphone, which is on all the time so we can hear him talking and giving directions as we get out here. The Freebirds, despite all this late-stage bullshit (DDP, Diamond Doll, Big Daddy Dink) still have a year left in this run. 

 

Brad Armstrong runs in, early on, to even up the numbers (forcing Jim Ross to use Steve’s last name). Oh gee, I wonder if that will come into play later on? Both Young Pistols work hard here. They’re desperate to put on a good show and have been since the MXP match. The trouble is, they’ve got no good heel teams to work with. Tracey takes a couple of sickening bumps. A Hot Shot on the rail and then a back bump off the apron into the rail. Bump Machine Tracey Smothers? You’d better believe it, brother. 

 

Smothers is fucking phenomenal in this. His counters and strikes with both Freebirds are incredibly good. The crowd are unimpressed and chant “Badstreet” and “DDT”. White meat babyfaces don’t get over in Florida, brother. Both Freebirds cop the finisher, but the ref is bumped, and some geek in a chicken suit runs in and DDTs both the Pistols. “His shirt said Fantasia on it”- JR. “They talked about Fantasia” lies Dusty. Obviously, it’s Brad Armstrong covered in feathers. By the time they got him in the ring, the name was retooled to Badstreet. **½ 

 

This was legitimately fun, despite how shit the Freebirds were. The Freebirds antics were fun, and the Pistols worked so, so hard. This might be the hardest graft I’ve ever seen from Tracey. No wonder he became a comedy wrestler.  

 

Ricky Morton vs. Dan Spivey 

Poor Ricky Morton. He’s still great, but WCW only see him as enhancement in singles. Spivey has to lean forwards for Ricky to reach his face on punches, so I kinda get it. Spivey had an incredible match with Lex Luger at the last PPV, and he kills Morton here, just dismantles him. You would think this is leading to a big push right? RIGHT? His next appearance, of note, was in Battlebowl at Starrcade ‘92, and he never worked for the company after that. Anyway, this wasn’t very good because it was short and Spivey fucked a couple of things up, but the whole push thing is mesmerising WCW stupidity. I’m not complaining, though. Just mystified by it. * 

 

They put a vote on the WCW phone line, and Missy gets to go in the locker room again to interview people. This is leading to some sort of “joke”. I can’t believe Missy Hyatt gets better continuity than half the roster. 

 

Tommy Rich vs. Nikita Koloff  

Rich is 35 years old here and looks ancient. Koloff is now billed from Lithuania. Is Lithuania more evil than Gorbachev’s Russia? It’s odd they didn’t put Koloff in with Luger here, who he’s feuding with. Russian Sickle finishes and I’m sorry but I wasn’t paying attention. This went 4 minutes and probably should have been shorter. ½*  

 

Video Control takes us back to Tony Schiavone who has JOHNNY B. BADD. Marc Mero was an exciting young athlete. He won the Golden Gloves in boxing and played ice hockey and football. He had the athleticism required and the personality for pro-wrestling. He trained with the Malenko’s, so he even got that right. He was the 1991 rookie of the year and, honestly, the world was at his fingertips here. They debuted him as a flamboyant heel with Teddy Long as a manager.  

They lean too hard into the gimmick and let Long talk too much. “I’m so pretty I should have been born a little girl” – Johnny B. Badd. Jesus. It staggers me that they took the talent here and did this. It’s a miracle Mero overcame this. Even Dusty thinks it stinks, and he booked it. 

 

Dustin Rhodes vs. Terrence Taylor 

So, Dustin sucks and the ideal solution would be sending him to Japan or just leaving him on WWF undercards where he’s free from Dusty’s booking. Instead, he’s here getting overpushed and it’ll take months for him to get any better. They’ll put him in with an assortment of experienced and talented guys to make him improve. Taylor isn’t one of them. I’ve said this before, but Taylor really reminds me of Triple H in this run. They try something (elbow?) and just collapse in the middle of the ring. That happens to young Dustin quite often, let me tell you.  

 

This is one of those matches that exposes Taylor for being a middling in-ring talent when it comes to match structuring. They do a near fall with the foot on the ropes and they fuck that up. Alexandra York pops up on the apron to have a chat with Nick Patrick about the possible attendance this evening. The spot runs long enough for Patrick to count half the crowd. Mr Hughes forgets what he’s supposed to be doing, and the heels miscue and Dustin falls on top for the cheap win. This did nobody any favours and the mistakes were visible to the untrained eye. DUD 

 

Big Josh vs. Black Bart 

Big Josh is Matt Borne with a lumberjack gimmick. As with various WWF guys at the time, he has an animal gimmick in his corner. TWO BEARS. TWO ACTUAL BEARS. Surely, that’s a fan chucking a beer away from someone getting mauled.  

Black Bart recently passed away (2025). This is the peak of his career. “Not the prettiest match we’ll see tonight” says Jim Ross, stopping short of calling this a load of old shit. Borne finishes with the Earthquake Splash, which doesn’t feel like a sensible finish for a regular sized guy. Yeah….this was not good.  

 

The Danger Zone 

Paul E’s lame chat show segment. Stan Hansen is the guest, and he circles Paul E like he’s about to eat him. Dusty seemed to like booking Stan in comedy spots.  

This feels like it was supposed to be an open challenge, but it’s just Hansen talking shit about Dustin Rhodes. Where’s Poochie?  

 

It’s a shame Heyman isn’t on comms, but Dusty feels the urge to be there to get his storylines over. Not that he’s actually doing that, and he’s actively shit on two of them tonight.  

 

Oz vs. Tim Parker 

So, Turner had the rights to Wizard of Oz….so….Kevin Nash? The crowd HATE this.  

It’s this huge spectacle with the Wizard (Kevin Sullivan) leading Dorothy and her mates to Oz (Kevin Nash).  

They do this whole spectacle and then stick on a rip off of “Another One Bites the Dust” to play him to the ring. “This is an awesome, awesome display” lies Dusty.  

Nash, complete with goofy lime green trunks, finishes with a whirlybird slam after a few seconds. Shout out to Parker for taking that! What a great bump. Crowd HATE Oz.  

 

Backstage: Missy Hyatt heads into the locker room for interviews, looking for Z-Man’s cock, but the joke is that Stan Hansen is in the shower. Stan is showering in his boxers, like a real man. Missy is upset. The lads laugh at ringside. Haha, we wrote that guys! WE WROTE THAT! Haha.  

 

Taped Fist Match: 

Brian Pillman vs. Barry Windham 

You would think this would be a great underdog performance from Pillman, who’s been toe to toe with world champion Ric Flair recently. Pillman is a very exciting guy, and Windham is willing to bump around for him. The opening few minutes feel energised and that we’re getting ready for something cool. The match feels like it’s on fast forward, and both guys blade quickly in the same sequence. Full credit to the boys here, this is a very good match, but they only get SIX minutes, which is ridiculous. Windham nut shots Brian and finishes with the superplex. ***. A cracking little match. Great effort from both. I have no idea why Dusty only gave them six minutes for this. It could have been a MOTYC if they had 10-15 minutes. Oh well. 

 

The Diamond Mine 

This is DDP’s chat show thing. He’s got a microphone on again. “Everybody shut up…. are we live?” DDP introduces his latest acquisition; The Diamond Studd.  

HAAAAAA. As if they debuted Nash and Hall on the same show and gave both of them gimmicks this bad. Scott Hall had been a super rookie with AWA, wrestling under the name Scott Hall, but for some reason WCW felt the urge to gimmick him up the wazoo. Focusing entirely on his body. Hall flicks the toothpick at the camera and misses. “That was…uhh…quite the debut” says Jim Ross.  

 

Stretcher Match: 

Sid Vicious vs. El Gigante 

Sid has signed for WWF, so WCW feel the need to job him out before he leaves. Sid’s career is a wild ride where he never quite gets there until a magic late 1996 run with Shawn Michaels. This match STINKS by the way. Neither guy can take a bump. Gigante quite literally cannot take a bump. Sid can barely take one. I’ve not objected to El Gigante so far, because they’ve not let him wrestle, but this match….WOOOF. Despite this being a “stretcher match” El Gigante pins Sid with the claw after a couple of minutes. Awful, awful match. -** 

 

As Gigante fucks about with One Man Gang and Kevin Sullivan the defeated Sid sneaks out. The crowd spy him though, and you can hear them chanting “hey, hey, hey goodbye”. Sid will be in the WWF in about two months but won’t do anything of note until the 1992 Royal Rumble. He’ll be back here in 1993 after washing out of the fed during a period where they had steroid issues. I wonder if the original plan, before Flair left WCW as well, was for Sid to win the title and have Hogan beat him for it at Wrestlemania?  

 

Cage Match: 

Butch Reed vs. Ron Simmons 

WCW rushed the Doom partnership through to a quick conclusion, despite them being a great unit. It was the only time Butch Reed was useful during his entire career. The split is all about pushing Simmons as a singles star. They stop using Butch immediately after this, if you needed evidence they had nothing for him. Simmons would become a key cog in Bill Watts’ booking in 1992 but would barely feature in 1993 and be in ECW by the time 1994 finished.  

 

Being a Butch Reed singles match, this is predictably boring. Reed was out of fashion a few years ago and now he looks like a relic of days gone by. They give them ten minutes but at least pinfalls count. The match is dull and nothing really happens, bar a lot of rest holds and Ron bleeding. Teddy Long throws a chain in, but Simmons catches Reed with a spinebuster for the win. This was a real yawner. Lots of plodding Reed offence. A lot of chinlocks. * 

 

WCW Tag Team Championship 

Steiner Brothers (c) vs. Sting & Lex Luger 

All eggs in one basket here as we get the top four babyfaces in the company doing battle. I’m half expecting Luger to turn on Sting before the match starts. It starts slowly, for about a minute, and then Luger and Rick start unloading big bombs. These are guys not used to taking bumps this much, but you wouldn’t know it. Sting’s second spot is a dive over the ropes. Just a bunch of high octane overly muscular nonsense. I FUCKING LOVE IT.  

 

The great thing about this match is that everyone in the crowd loves someone, so each move is met with a huge pop regardless of who does it. It’s crazy that Scott looks like the outstanding talent in this match. I blame Ric Flair for him not breaking out earlier as a top guy. I get the feeling Scott does too. The spot work in this is fantastic. Rick tagging in blind with the diving bulldog. Sting tagging in blind with the missile dropkick. Everything feels so high impact.  

 

The match is balls to the wall until the Tombstone reversal from Sting. This leads to a ref bump. In comes Nikita Koloff. Sting sees Luger about to get blindsided and saves him but eats the chain shot. Sting gets pinned. ****. This was so much fun from start to finish. The only real complaint is they only went about 10-11 minutes. They could have done 30:00 pretty easily. Great stuff.  

 

WCW TV Championship 

Arn Anderson (c) vs. Bobby Eaton 

These two are technically brilliant, but both work better in tag teams. I’ve been begging for that Bobby Eaton singles push, but Eaton seems strangely disinterested in his own push. He just wants to turn up, get paid, and go home again. It’s not his fault he’s exceptional at pro-wrestling. Both guys are effortlessly good, so even though the match doesn’t land like it could have, it’s still solid. It feels like a good TV match rather than the kind of thing you’d want second top on PPV. 

Far too often they slow it down. Arn’s goal is to take out the Alabama Jam by taking Eaton’s leg. Both guys are very good at selling and bumping, and more often here it’s Eaton with the selling and Arn with the bumping. Eaton smacking Arn around on one leg. Eaton’s favouring of the knee is mostly done to perfection. Eaton gets the Alabama Jam, and the crack WCW production actually miss the pin because Brian Pillman is chasing Barry Windham around ringside. A very solid match. ***. This would be Eaton’s only major singles title, and he’ll only have it for two weeks.  

 

NWA World Championship 

WCW World Championship 

Tatsumi Fujinami (c) vs. Ric Flair (c) 

WCW’s use of the term “world title” to include both these belts makes this match a little confusing. It’s only ever announced as being for Flair’s WCW title. Logically, WCW should use this situation as a chance to rid themselves of the NWA belt altogether and just let Fujinami have it. This being WCW, obviously that doesn’t happen. I can only imagine how much internal argument was taking place in WCW about whether they should retain control over the NWA or just cut them loose.  

 

The referee is Tiger Hattori, as New Japan prepares for a screwjob storyline. Fujinami is very good on the mat, which is where he wants the match to take place. Flair wants to do chops. I wouldn’t go as far as to call it a clash of ideologies, but they want to have different matches. Which isn’t the first time Flair has been dragged kicking and screaming out of his ‘Flair match’. They fuck up something on the ropes and re-do the spot. The match is dying a death. 

 

This is better than the stinker they had in the Tokyo Dome (1.5 stars readers), but that’s a low bar. Fujinami’s mat work here is solid, and the intermittent use of strikes is effective. Dusty is critical of Fujinami’s lack of body part focus. They do a stupid bridging out of the pinfall spot and fuck it up THREE TIMES. Flair, presumably out of boredom, blades on the floor. It’s clearly caught on camera.  

 

Flair does pop me here by chopping Fujinami in the back when the Dragon is doing some weird celebration spot. Fujinami’s own strikes started ok but have gotten dramatically worse as he opts for overhand punches and tomahawk chops. Flair tries to shoot the half and completely misses. Oh no, this is absolutely dead now. Flair continues to refuse to cooperate because it interferes with his idea of what pro-wrestling is. You can’t bump Flair. He bumps himself.  

 

Ric finds another gear with a lot of big chops. Tiger Hattori gets bumped, and Fonzie jumps in to count Fujinami down. Fonzie had a perfect view of Flair pulling the trunks and counted anyway. Tiger Hattori looks unimpressed. **¼. Flair will be gone from the company IN A MONTH by the way. This was another opportunity to do something interesting from a booking perspective. As with in Japan, these two had no chemistry at all and had a stinker with lots of mistakes. Flair, again, couldn’t bend his style to make the match any good. Oh, Meltzer gave this 3.75. I swear he’s already started to go weird on the star ratings. Based on what I saw in this match, I can’t understand where that number comes from.  

 

Jim Herd wanted Flair to be repackaged, as ridiculous as this sounds, as “Spartacus” to “move with the times”. The film Spartacus came out in 1960. Comms finish the show hyping the “Great American Bash” on July 14. The show where WCW completely shit the bed in epic fashion.  

 

By the time that show happens Flair is already gone. Interesting to note, Flair will still be the NWA champion until much later in the year because the NWA and WCW are at loggerheads over the belt. Which would lead to the belt showing up on WWF TV blurred out and Flair being declared the “real world’s champion” on WWF programming. The next NWA champion would be Masahiro Chono in August 1992. It would have made perfect sense to just leave the belt on Fujinami and just have this match for the WCW belt, as it was announced, but hey, WCW.  

 

The 411: 

Hoooooo boy, it’s one of those WCW shows where almost everything fails horribly. They debuted three guys here; Nash with a Wizard of Oz gimmick, Hall as a silent body guy who answers to DDP and Johnny B Badd saying he should have been born a little girl. How do you fumble that hard? The only reason to watch this show, unless you’re into the Wrestlecrap, is the Steiners-Luger/Sting tag, which is fantastic fun but barely ten minutes long.