Written by: Bob Colling
World Championship Wrestling presents Saturday Night
Date: 2/22/1992
From: Atlanta, GA
Matches:
1.) Brian Pillman defeated Rip Rogers
2.) WCW US Tag Team Champions Ron Simmons & Big Josh defeated Fred Avery & John Peterson
3.) Carl Robertson defeated Abdullah the Butcher by disqualification
4.) Greg Valentine defeated Russell Vaughn
5.) Van Hammer defeated Greg Sawyer
6.) Sting, Ricky Steamboat, Barry Windham & Dustin Rhodes defeated WCW US Champion Rick Rude, Larry Zbyszko and the WCW World Tag Team Champions Arn Anderson & Bobby Eaton.
Angle Developments/Notes:
1. Terrence Taylor joins Jim Ross on commentary to start the show. It looks like he will be there for the whole show. They promote a huge eight man tag team match that will see the Dangerous Alliance square off against Ricky Steamboat, Barry Windham, Dustin Rhodes and Sting! Well, Taylor bails when the babyfaces of the main event come out for an interview. Steamboat says that they have been beaten up at one time or another by the Dangerous Alliance. He says that they are going to crack some heads tonight!
2. The opener saw Brian Pillman continue his recent strings of wins as he pinned Rip Rogers following a top rope cross body. Not a bad little match here to give Pillman more momentum heading into Superbrawl which is a week away.
3. Dusty Rhodes talks about Superbrawl II. This time around he heavily promotes Rick Rude vs. Ricky Steamboat. Apparently, people have been wanting Dusty to give a prediction for the match. Dusty picks Steamboat to beat Rude to win the WCW United States Championship.
4. Last Sunday, Ron Simmons and Big Josh defeated the Young Pistols to win the WCW US Tag Team Championships. This week they have very little trouble taking care of Avery and Peterson. Josh leaps off the top rope to hit a sit down splash on Avery to win the bout. After the match, Jim Ross interviews the champs but Terrence Taylor cuts in and issues a challenge to Simmons and Josh to wrestle himself and Greg Valentine next week on Saturday Night. Simmons and Josh accept the challenge. Ross brings up Vinnie Vegas and Mr. Hughes who they have been having issues with as well. Simmons doesn’t really answer the question but pretty much says that they will be taken care of, I think.
5. Eric Bischoff joins the show with the WCW Magazine segment. We see the closing moments of last week’s tag main event that lead to the huge eight man tag match to take place tonight. We also see footage from WCW Pro where the Steiner Brothers attacked Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton but they were attacked by Larry Zbyszko and Steve Austin. Rick Steiner shared some pre-tape comments saying that Anderson and Eaton are the champs but he and Scott are ready to come for the tag championships. Rick insults himself again saying that he doesn’t have a brain so being dropped on his head didn’t hurt him. Rick is awful at promos, unless that is the point of the character then he is doing a good job.
6. A video highlighting how Sting and Lex Luger won their WCW World Heavyweight Championships. Sting beat Ric Flair at the Great American Bash 1990 while a year later Lex Luger beat Barry Windham inside steel cage to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.
7. Abdullah the Butcher didn’t allow Carl Robertson to get his ring jacket off before he went to work on him tossing him over the guard railing. Butcher hits Robertson with a crutch and is disqualified for doing so. It’s not that big of a deal, as no one knows who Carl Robertson is nowadays anyway.
8. Greg Valentine had a successful (official) debut in WCW against Russell Vaughn. Valentine wins the bout with the figure four leg lock.
9. A video promoting the recent happenings between Marcus Alexander Bagwell and Terrence Taylor. The whole premise of the feud is that Bagwell is a rookie who needs to earn his television time and Taylor believing he is more important than Bagwell. They will wrestle at Superbrawl II.
10. Van Hammer returned to television after a few weeks of not being on Saturday Night. Hammer quickly won the match against Greg Sawyer following a slingshot suplex.
11. This week’s main event is easily the biggest main even to date. The match didn’t take place in Georgia, but rather in South Carolina five days prior to the show being aired. The opening minutes of the bout see the Dangerous Alliance being dominated by the babyfaces. When Sting and Rick Rude are in the ring at the same time the crowd erupts. Sting fights out of the Alliance’s corner and works on Zbyszko who tagged in, but the brief interaction between Sting and Rude was fun. Dustin Rhodes ends up being the poor guy who is worked on by the Dangerous Alliance for a few moments after Anderson dropped him across the top rope chest first. Anderson nearly wins the match moments later with a DDT but Rhodes kicks out somehow. Rhodes is able to stop the momentum of the Alliance with a DDT on Rude! However, he is still unable to tag out. Steamboat sneaks a tag on Rhodes and cleans house on the Alliance with chops. All eight men go at it on the floor until Steamboat hits a top rope cross body on Zbyszko in the ring to win the bout. After the match, Rude hits the Rude Awakening on Steamboat to close the show! That was a very good main event and an excellent way to close the show.
Final Thoughts:
The show this week was really centered around some last minute buildup for a few matches taking place at Superbrawl. I do like the match Taylor & Valentine vs. Simmons & Josh for next week. I hope Simmons and Josh lose the titles because that is simply one odd tag team combination. Perhaps with a championship win people would be able to get into Taylor who really hasn’t gotten any reaction from the crowds.
The only other thing I have anything to mention is the main event. It was a really good match and possibly the best main event thus far on Saturday Night. Plus, the crowd was actually really into the match unlike the fake responses that the matches get in Atlanta. It was a really fun, exciting match and it helped the Rude/Steamboat feud with the aftermath, not like it needed the help. Lastly, it’s quite obvious that a program between Rude and Sting needs to happen after Superbrawl. People are really into those two guys and that could mean big business for WCW.
Overall, the main event helps the show this week get a thumbs up from me. Next week there will be the US Tag Title match and a whole lot of video packages since it is Superbrawl II time!
Thanks for reading.