Written by: Bob Colling
World Championship Wrestling House Show
Date: 10/16/1994
From: Anaheim, CA
There was one match that was not recorded on the show. That match saw the WCW World Tag Team Champions Stars & Stripes retained over Pretty Wonderful.
Opening Contest: WCW Television Champion Johnny B. Badd vs. Jean Paul Levesque: Early on, Levesque controls Badd with a hip toss and takedown. That offense doesn’t last long as Badd sends the challenger to the floor with a dropkick. Levesque comes back into the ring and briefly gets a few shots in but Badd nearly wins with an inside cradle. Badd takes Levesque over with a backslide for another two count. Levesque delivers a few back elbow shots in the corner and a big boot to the charging champion. Jean follows up with a leaping forearm strike. Levesque maintains control with very basic offense. Levesque gets a near fall after a scoop slam and elbow drop. Badd is sent into the ropes and is driven down with a back breaker. Levesque follows up with a tilt a whirl back breaker but takes his time on the cover leading to a near fall. Badd takes another back breaker but soon fights back with a tilt a whirl head scissors. Badd jabs Levesque several times before delivering a knee lift. Levesque flips over the cover and crashes to the floor. Back in the ring, Badd goes for a left hook but is poked in the eyes. Badd knocks Levesque down with an elbow in the corner and hits a top rope sunset flip for the win. (*1/2. A rather boring match as Levesque didn’t provide thrilling offense and kept it a slow pace match. The match lacked high energy that I’d expect from an opener.)
Second Contest: Brian Pillman vs. The Honkytonk Man: Honky decides to stall on the floor not wanting to lockup with Pillman, however he enters and hip tosses Pillman a couple of times. Pillman comes back with a scoop slam and Honky quickly bails to the outside complaining of a hair pull. Pillman focuses his offense on the left arm of Honky. Honky delivers a head ram to the midsection of Brian and maintains control with stomps. Pillman punches Honky when he came off the middle rope and continues to deliver strikes in the corner. Honky avoids a middle rope cross body and gets the three. (1/2*. Yeah, that was a really lame. I can’t believe that Honky is going over Pillman at this point. Hogan really had a huge impact on how some guys were pushed.)
Third Contest: Sting vs. Lord Steven Regal: Early on, they counter each others moves with neither man getting a clear cut advantage. Sting backdrops Regal followed by a dropkick. Regal gets out of a suplex and is ran over with a clothesline before bailing to the floor after arm drags. On the floor, Sting misses a splash and hits the guard railing ribs first! Regal kicks Sting to the floor and maintains control back in the ring with an uppercut. Regal tries to get a submission with a modified STF but Sting refuses to give in. Sting starts to get a second wind after Regal delivered a few more shots. Sting fights back with several strikes but misses a splash in the corner and Regal takes him over with a double under hook suplex for a two count. Sting rolls Regal up from the corner and gets the win. (*1/2. Well, there was some decent action between the two guys but it was a rather quick match and they could have put together a lot more.)
Fourth Contest: Arn Anderson, Bunkhouse Buck & Col. Robert Parker. vs. Dustin Rhodes & Nasty Boys: Parker is replacing Terry Funk, who was supposed to be part of the match. Dustin and Buck start the six man tag. Dustin knocks Buck down in the corner with a right hand causing Buck to beg off. Dustin atomic drops Buck and Buck falls in the corner. Knobs gets tagged in and delivers a clothesline to keep the advantage. Buck is knocked to his corner and Anderson enters the match. Arn works over Knobs in the corner briefly until Knobs delivers a back elbow and tag sin Sags who gets a near fall after a double shoulder block. Dustin comes back in and goes after Anderson, but Arn bailed to the floor quickly. Buck enters and is double teamed by the Nasties in the corner. The faces stand tall after knocking the heels off the apron. Dustin knee drops Buck and sends him face first into Knobs armpit followed by Sags armpit. Buck backdrops Rhodes over the top to the floor and Anderson decks Rhodes with a left hand.
Knobs tries to help Rhodes by punching Buck on the floor but Arn brings Dustin back into the ring and delivers a shot to the midsection. Anderson catapults Dustin throat first into the bottom rope, as well. Parker tags in and kicks Dustin before quickly tagging out to Buck. Buck delivers a clothesline that turns Rhodes inside out and Anderson returns to the match with control over Dustin. Rhodes fights back with a few right hands but Arn plants Dustin with a quick DDT for only a near fall thanks to Sags breaking up the pin attempt. Dustin sends Anderson into Buck and Rhodes is freed up to make the tag. Knobs gets the tag and cleans house with scoop slams. Knobs drives Buck and Anderson face first into the canvas. Arn hits a spine buster but is sent to the floor. Parker goes to grab Knobs but Dustin rolls him up and gets the win. (*1/2. Some decent action in this one, but the Parker involvement didn’t help the match. There was some clear crowd interest into the Arn/Dustin feud at the time and the others guys involved just came across as filler to the match.)
Fifth Contest: Kevin Sullivan vs. Dave Sullivan: Dave sends Kevin to the floor early on while his music continues to play. Kevin sends Dave into the ring steps and beats Dave with a piece of wood and sends Dave into the ring post. They end up brawling on the floor where Dave sends Kevin into the ring post and they both get counted out. (DUD. It’s as bad as you’d imagine. Dave Sullivan is just not interesting or entertaining at all.)
Sixth Contest: WCW United States Champion Jim Duggan vs. Steve Austin: Austin decides to stall for quite sometime before anything actually happens between the two. Duggan uses his size to shove Austin across the ring. Duggan scoop slams Austin, but we go back to the stalling technique. Austin works over Duggan in the corner but Hacksaw comes back with several clotheslines and a scoop slam. On the floor, Duggan decks Austin with a right hand and they go back into the ring only for Austin to roll to the floor and poke Jim in the eyes to get the cheap advantage. Austin focuses his offense on Duggan’s left knee. Duggan quickly comes back with a scoop slam but is limping on his back leg. Austin begs off and Hacksaw blocks a kick attempt by hitting an atomic drop. Duggan decks Austin with a right hand and shoulder block. Austin fakes a knee injury after a leapfrog. Duggan sees through it but gets met with a low blow while Austin distracted the referee in the corner. Austin comes off the middle rope and hits a forearm drop for a near fall.
Austin continues to work over Duggan with several stomps after a knee lift to the midsection area. Austin hits another middle rope forearm drop for a two count. Austin comes off the middle rope for a third forearm drop but Duggan still has enough to kick out. Duggan clotheslines Austin in midair on a fourth attempt of a forearm drop. Duggan clotheslines Austin and pummels Austin in the corner. Duggan nearly hip tosses the referee. Austin nails Duggan with brass knuckles and gets the three count! Austin drops the brass knuckles and the referee sees them causing the decision to be voided and Duggan wins by disqualification. (*1/2. Austin worked as well as he could despite the stalling to get some level of entertainment out of Duggan. This whole show just doesn’t have the same feel that WCW had earlier in the year.)
Main Event: WCW World Champion Hulk Hogan vs. Ric Flair: The fans are not greeting Hogan with an overwhelmingly warm reception. There are quite a few boos for the Hulkster. Hulk knocks Flair to the floor to showcase his strength early on. Flair gets a hammerlock on Hogan but doesn’t last long. Hogan sends Flair to the floor and goes to follow but the referee prevents that from happening. Hulk gets poked in the eyes while having a test of strength locked in and Flair goes to work over Hogan’s left knee. Hogan no sells some chops in the corner and hammers away on Ric in the corner. Hogan backdrops Flair and follows up with a few clotheslines causing Flair to bail to the floor. Hogan gets double teamed while the referee is distracted and Hogan knocks both Flair and Sherri Martel down with a clothesline. On the floor, Hogan avoids being sent into the guard railing, and sends Flair face first into the steel. Hogan sends Flair flipping into the corner and Ric falls to the floor.
Flair misses a knee drop back in the ring and Hogan goes back on the offense with right hands. Hogan gets distracted by Sherri and Flair gets the cheap advantage going after Hulk’s knee and drops the Hulkster to the canvas. Ric stomps away on Hogan’s left knee and Sherri gets a cheap shot in while Flair distracted the referee. Hogan pulls down Flair’s trunks and gets a near fall on a rollup. Flair goes back on the offensive with a chop block. Flair with a knee breaker and locks in the figure four but Hogan isn’t about to give in. Hulk gets out of the hold and sends Flair flipping onto the apron and delivers a clothesline. Hogan backdrops Flair but gets poked in the eyes. Flair gets stopped on the top and Hogan slams Flair off. Hulk locks in the figure four and Sherri tries to interfere but fails. Hogan atomic drops Sherri to the floor.
Jimmy Hart is distracting the referee so that Flair can hit Hogan with an object it looked like. Hogan kicked out at two and started to get a second wind. Hogan with a big boot and a leg drop for a cover but a masked man runs in and breaks up the cover to cause a disqualification. Dave Sullivan comes out and holds the masked man for Hogan. Hogan and Sullivan send the masked man to the floor. (**. A completely predictable match between these two. They didn’t do anything outside of their normal routine and the fans were just not buying into what they were providing. Hogan was a babyface that most people didn’t want to cheer for in ’94.)
Final Thoughts:
A pretty bad show for WCW which has a completely different feel than what the company was offering earlier in the year prior to Hogan arriving. The show felt like a late 80s WWF show rather than a show showcasing young talent that WCW had been seemingly pushing at the tail end of ’93 and early half of ’94. WCW focused too much on Hogan and his cronies rather than the young guys that had risen up the ranks and that is evident with the booking of this show.
Thanks for reading.