Baltimore Arena, Baltimore, Maryland
At the Great American Bash 1990, World Championship Wrestling finally got to pull the trigger on something which, by all accounts, should have happened months before:
Crowning Sting as the new World Heavyweight Champion.
The future Hall of Famer had been well-established as the company's most popular babyface for sometime, meaning a match with reigning champion Nature Boy Ric Flair was inevitable.
Alas, The Stinger had been injured on a Clash show just weeks before his originally scheduled date with destiny and had been forced to spend the intervening time hanging out with Robocop and cutting promos.
Tonight, Sting would finally get his big match and claim his rightful position as the company's top star, so let's head down to Baltimore, Maryland and see how it all played out.
Welcome to The Bash
We kicked off tonight with a revolution-themed video featuring The Four Horsemen on actual horses, rivals Sting & Flair as portraits and other depictions tying WCW in with America’s past.
From there, it was down to our announce team of Jim Ross and Bob Caudle to give us the run down of tonight’s featured attractions, including the WCW debut of Big Van Vader.
We’d see Vader later, but first it was time for our opening contest.
Nature Boy Buddy Landel vs. Flyin’ Brian
Personally, I never quite saw the appeal of Landel. He seemed old school in a way that definitely wasn’t cool.
That said, this was a decent if pretty forgettable bout which saw Pillman claim victory thanks to a flying cross body off the top.
Your Winner: Flyin’ Brian
Out in the crowd, Gordon Sollie basically repeated the same kind of “here’s what’s coming up” hype we’d gotten from Ross and Caudle earlier.
As he did so, Iron Sheik made his way to the ring for the next match.
The Iron Sheik vs. Captain Mike Rotunda
Sure, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s sometimes nice to have two guys competing just for the sake of competing, but still, it felt like a weird combination for a match.
Of course, I’m saying all this simply because absolutely nothing interesting happened here.
Sheik beat up Captain Mike for the majority of the match, the future tax man then pulled a backslide out of nowhere and scored the win.
It wasn’t awful, but it certainly wasn’t good either.
Your Winner: Captain Mike
Out on the arena floor, Sollie interviewed Harley Race about his return to the NWA and his upcoming match with Wildfire Tommy Rich.
Race swore to get revenge on Rich for once beating him for the World Heavyweight Championship years ago.
He then turned his attention to the main event and made the pretty obvious “prediction” that if Ric Flair wasn’t on his game then he might lose to Sting.
Well, yeah.
Dirty Dutch Mantell vs. ‘The World’s Strongest Man’ Doug Furnas
Furnas showed up to prove what he was capable of, dashing around the ring with speed, strength, and agility while Jim Ross gushed about how many world records in “strength” The World’s Strongest Man actually had.
To counter this, Mantell used cunning, craftiness, and some good old-fashioned cheating, ultimately managing to keep the explosive Furnas to the ground.
Unfortunately for the wily veteran, it wasn’t enough to keep his opponent down for long.
Furnas blasted Mantell with a big-time belly-to-belly to score the pin in the first enjoyable match of the show so far.
Your Winner: Doug Furnass
The legendary manager quickly hyped up the two feature attractions on tonight’s show before turning his attention to The Midnight Express and their title defence against The Southern Boys.
As compelling as ever, Cornette put over his own team in fine fashion and vowed that while Steve Armstrong and Tracy Smothers may be good, they weren’t good enough to dethrone Sweet Stan Lane and Beautiful Bobby Eaton.
This was damn good stuff from James E.
Wildfire Tommy Rich vs. Harley Race
This was a passable contest in which both men did the best they could with what they had.
For Race, this was his first NWA PPV appearance since Starrcade '83 and his first PPV appearance in general since Royal Rumble 1989.
In fact, he still wore the purple singlet with the crown motif from his run as King of the WWF.
Jim Ross tried to cover for his by pondering whether the former champion was a fan of the Sacramento Kings.
The match itself was alright, but like most of the matches that went before it, it was hardly must-see viewing.
Your Winner: Harley Race
Following the match-promo-match formula, we went back to Gordon Sollie who was standing by with Paul E. Dangerously and his charge, Mean Mark Callous.
Putting over Mark’s upcoming US title match against Lex Luger, Dangerously ranted and raved about how mean and tough Mean Mark really was, all while the man himself ripped up a Luger t-shirt.
That was fun.
NWA United States Tag Team Championship
NWA US Tag Team Champions The Midnight Express (Sweet Stan Lane and Beautiful Bobby Eaton w/ Jim Cornette) vs. The Wild-Eyed Southern Boys (Tracy Smothers & Steve Armstrong)
The first genuinely exciting match on the card up to this point, this was classic tag team action in the very best sense.
Despite The Midnights being the heels, both teams had their fair share of fans, making for an electric atmosphere from start to finish.
Of course, it helped that the action was damn fine too.
Apart from a weird spot where Stan Lane and Tracy Smothers stopped to have a “karate” fight that looked nothing like any kind of actual karate you e ever seen, it was all thrilling stuff.
After teasing that the plucky Southern Boys might just steal victory, Sweet Stan kicked Smothers in the back of the head and Eaton rolled him up for the fall.
Your Winners and still US Tag Team Champions: The Midnight Express
The duo were there to talk about their match with The Steiner Brothers but Michael P.S Hayes wanted to brag about his ability to erm..drive things.
“There’s nothing with four wheels that we can’t drive and there’s nothing with four legs that we can’t ride,” he boasted.
Could you imagine being Michael Hayes’ pet dog? The poor thing must’ve been terrified every time Hayes came over to it with that ‘yeehaw, giddy up!’ glint in his eye.
Z-Man vs. Big Van Vader
The big man was making his debut here did so in formidable fashion, destroying Z-Man in under five minutes.
It wasn’t much of a match, but it wasn’t supposed to be. It was supposed to be a showcase for how awesome Big Van Vader was, and to that end it was very effective.
I should also mention that, prior to the match, Vader played for the crowd as a babyface would. This surprised this writer who only ever knew of the big man as a heel.
Your Winner: Big Van Vader
In a break from the in-ring action, Gordon Sollie interviewed The Four Horsemen about their upcoming match against Junkyard Dog, Paul Orndorff, and the debuting El Gigante.
Barry Windham and Ole Anderson did all the talking for their team, promising that they had a plan to emerge victorious tonight.
The Fabulous Freebirds (Michael ‘P.S’ Hayes & Jimmy Garvin) vs. The Steiner Brothers (Rick & Scott Steiner)
Were they supposed to be genuinely cool rock stars or deluded heels who had no idea how utterly goofy they looked?
Still, while I might not get it, I’m a little kinder to Michael Hayes and Jimmy ‘Jam’ Garvin than the Baltimore crowd were.
Early in the match, the fans targetted Garvin with a gay slur that I won't be repeating here, and later broke out with a chorus of “Michael is a b*tch! Michael is a b*tch!”
Anyway, the match itself was fine once it got going.
Sure, it wasn’t up to the standards of the earlier Midnights/Southern Boys encounter, but The Steiners rarely disappointed and they certainly didn’t here.
After a good effort, Garvin looked to have Scott Steiner pinned but the referee scolded the Freebird for not being the legal man.
In the confusion, Rick Steiner took Hayes to suplex city for the win.
Your Winners: The Steiner Brothers
I don't know about you, dear reader, but I miss the days when there was a several-month stretch between pay per views.
The announcers also put over our remaining matches and questioned the condition of Sting. The popular star hadn't competed since busting his knee at WCW Clash of the Champions X, and tonight would be his big comeback match.
Would the Stinger be at 100% tonight?
Ross and Caudle insisted that he'd have to be if he was to stand any chance of dethroning The Nature Boy.
The Four Horsemen (NWA TV Champion Arn Anderson, Barry Windham, and Sid Vicious) vs. The Dudes With Attitudes ('Mr. Wonderful' Paul Orndorff, Junkyard Dog, and El Gigante)
And so, after Big Van Vader, this was to be our second debut on the show as El Gigante stepped into the ring to compete for the first time.
In fact, the spectacle of Gigante, coupled with The Horsemen's excellent reactions to him proved to be far more entertaining than anything Jorge González could have possibly done.
The big man spent most of the match on the apron, with the heels occasionally coming near him and cowering in fear when he threatened to strike them or step over the ropes. It was these reactions, brilliant as they were, that overshadowed any of the actual action.
Of course, Jim Ross chose not to focus on this at first. Gigante didn't have a football career, so the sports-obsessed announcer had no choice but to clutch at straws and talk about the Argentina soccer football team competing in the 1990 World Cup.
That wasn't the only thing overshadowing Gigante's debut.
The other thing was Sid Vicious.
It occurs to me as I'm writing this that big Sid never really worked as a heel because people always ALWAYS loved him. Even when he was teaming with Dan Spivey in The Skyscrapers, he and he alone would get the biggest reaction of any match he was in.
The same applied here, with the crowd erupting into loud chants of "WE WANT SID!" and going banana every time the colossal star stepped foot between the ropes.
Also of note here was the fact that Junkyard Dog had decided not to sell a single thing in this match. Every time somebody struck him, he stood and stared at them. Every time somebody attempted a power move, he refused to budge. It was a weird sight, but at least the Horsemen did the best they could with it.
That's pretty much the best way to sum up this match too. The Horsemen (and Orndorff who, to be fair, worked hard), all worked hard to salvage this match from being a total stinker.
In the end, the over-the-top-rope DQ rule that WCW was enforcing at the time came into play and Sid, Arn Anderson, and Barry Windham were disqualified without the much-hyped El Gigante even getting a single legal tag.
Your Winners via Disqualification: The Dudes With Attitudes
Before his big title defence, US champion Lex Luger responded to his challenger’s earlier actions, insisting it would be a lot more difficult to tear him apart the way Mean Mark tore up that t-shirt.
Luger was decent here, but I won’t lie, The Total Package was always far more entertaining to this fan when he was a heel.
National Wrestling Alliance United States Championship
NWA US Champion Lex Luger vs. Mean Mark (w/ Paul E. Dangerously)
Mean Mark and Lex Luger were two huge dudes who could have clobbered their way through a good power match. Instead, they spent the first part of this US title contest holding each other in armbars, basically sucking the life out of things and quickly losing this fan’s interest.
Things got a little better once the match finally picked up steam, but by that point, I won’t lie, I was past the point of caring.
Towards the end, the challenger went for the heart punch but Luger booted him in the head, decked Paul E. then clobbered Mark with a clothesline for the fall because this was 1990 and a clothesline was still an acceptable way to win a match.
Your Winner and Still US Champion: Lex Luger
Backstage, an un-painted Sting put Ric Flair over as a great champion before admitting that while he was a little nervous, his knee was back at 100% and he was more than ready to take on The Nature Boy in tonight’s world title main event.
National Wrestling Alliance World Tag Team Championship
NWA Tag Team Champions Doom (Ron Simmons & Butch Reed w/ Teddy Long) vs. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express (Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson)
Anyway, while I’m sure there are fans of this match, this writer isn’t really one of them.
The match was OK, but Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson’s trademark formula made it somewhat predictable and neither team seemed concerned with doing anything interesting enough to make it feel like it wasn’t just every tag team match you’ve ever seen.
After an unspectacular outing, Butch Reed got the win over Gibson.
Your Winners and Still Tag Team Champions: Doom
Prior to the main event, we saw a pre-recorded segment in which Ric Flair gave an interview to Gordon Sollie.
As on-form as ever, The Nature Boy reminded Sting that to be the man...you have to beat the man....
Wooooooo!
National Wrestling Alliance World Heavyweight Championship No Disqualification Match
NWA World Heavyweight Champion Nature Boy Ric Flair vs. Sting (w/ The Dudes With Attitudes)
To keep the Four Horsemen from interfering, Paul Orndorff, Junkyard Dog, and The Steiners surrounded the ring while Ole Anderson was forced to be handcuffed to El Gigante for the duration of the match.
And what a match it was. Though it may not technically have been the best you were ever going to get from these two, there was a real sense that you were watching something important.
That big match feel, coupled with both star’s solid performances really ensured one delivered the goods.
Towards the end, the challenger charged at the champion with a running knee to the corner. Flair moved and Sting’s previously injured knee collided with the top turnbuckle.
Looking to capitalize, Flair went for the figure four but got rolled up into an inside cradle.
One three count later and, ladies and gentlemen, we had ourselves a new champion.
Your Winner and NEW NWA World Heavyweight Champion: Sting
Post match, Sting celebrated with The Dudes With Attitudes before heading to the back, exhausted yet triumphant.
And so, months later than planned, Sting had finally claimed his place at the top of the WCW mountain in a tremendous match that had been well worth the wait.
Before that, The Great American Bash 1990 had been a mixed bag in terms of in-ring competition. The Midnights/Southern Boys and Doom/Steiners were good matches, Dutch Mantell vs. Doug Furnas was a surprising early highlight, and everything else was just, well, kind of there.
Still, besides the main event, it wasn't really the matches themselves that make this such a significant event. The crowning of a new world champion, the debut of Big Van Vader (and, to a lesser-extent, El Gigante) and the final WCW PPV appearance of a certain Mark Calaway all earned this one it's place in the history books.
Other 1990 pro wrestling reviews:
- WWF Royal Rumble 1990
- WCW Clash of the Champions X: Texas Shoot Out
- WCW Wrestlewar 1990
- WWF Wrestlemania XI
- WCW Capital Combat 1990
- WCW Clash of the Champions XI - Costal Crush
- WWF Summerslam 1990
- WWF Survivor Series 1990
Other WCW Great American Bash reviews:
