WCW SPRING STAMPEDE 1994

Rosemont Horizon
Chicago, IL
April 17th, 1994

WCW World Heavyweight Champion: Ric Flair (Since 12/27/1993)
WCW International World Heavyweight Champion: Rick Rude (Since 9/19/1993)
WCW United States Champion: Steve Austin (Since 12/27/1993)
WCW Television Champion: Lord Steven Regal (Since 9/19/1993)
WCW World Tag Team Champions: Nasty Boys (Since 10/24/1993)

This won the Retro portion of this week’s poll over on Twitter (@BQReviews). As part of my original WCW watch through on the old BQ back in the late 2000’s/early 2010’s, this was obviously a part of that. I haven’t seen this show since November 2011, but it’s a show that’s always stuck in my head as one of the best WCW PPVs ever. I would probably place this even above Great American Bash ‘89, but we’ll revisit that at the end of the show. What I’ll do is offer my updated thoughts on the match and then include both my original rating and my updated rating for each match. 

“Mean” Gene opens the show from the interview stage and then introduces Aaron Neville to sing the National Anthem. It’s one of the worst renditions of the anthem I’ve ever heard. 

Match #1: Diamond Dallas Page vs. Johnny B Badd
I feel like it doesn’t get talked about enough that Johnny B Badd was essentially a blackface gimmick, nothing more than an updated version of a minstrel show. Marc Mero is an Italian dude who they would put so much instant tanner on and color in his facial hair to look like Little Richard. I mean cmon. This PPV was originally supposed to open with Jean Paul Levesque challenging a “returning” Z MAN TOM ZENK (He never really left, he did some tours of Japan and then came back and replaced Douglas under the mask to team with Steamboat) but that match got pulled and replaced with this. These two, Badd and DDP, would go on to have far better matches in 1995-96, believe it or not. Not incredible, just better than this. Badd does really basic arm work and there is just no concept of selling in DDP’s world just yet. DDP does the most basic things to draw some heat, and it’s a hot enough crowd, so it works. Badd gets the win with a sunset flip.
2011 Rating: *1/2
2024 Rating: *1/2

“Mean” Gene and Jesse Ventura talk up on the interview platform about the cars tonight. Jesse’s on borrowed time at this point. I'm not even sure what he's commentating on now. The Worldwide matches are Schiavone & Heenan as is WCWSN, and Main Event is Schiavone & Dusty. I know soon, he falls asleep backstage at a Worldwide taping and for that, Bischoff fires him, even though many believe that was a scapegoat to get rid of Jesse since Hogan was coming in and they hated each other because Hogan's a stooge. And a bitch.

Match #2: Lord Steven Regal (c) vs. Brian Pillman [WCW Television Championship]
This is great, better than I remembered. My main nitpick is that Regal has his leg taped up and there’s no leg work by Pillman at all. But he does do some pretty decent arm work out of the gate. He tries to beat Regal on the mat several times in hopes of humiliating him, but he’s forced to readjust his game plan once he realizes that won’t work. Unfortunately for him, Regal gets ahold of him and starts pulling him apart like a rotisserie chicken on my kitchen counter at 3am. Regal does some really good joint manipulation stuff that transitions well into some work on Pillman’s lower back, including an Indian Death Lock that still holds up. Regal digs his knees into Pillman’s back and transitions into a long Boston Crab spot but Pillman reaches the ropes while Regal was adjusting. Regal spends the entire 5 seconds on his submissions the entire match, really adding to the punishment. But he argues with the ref after this one allowing Pillman to hit an enziguiri out of desperation. The time starts winding down during Pillman’s comeback but he’s too amped up to notice. Match breaks down into a brawl, and to save himself, Regal just grabs onto Pillman and holds him, but Pillman forces them both to spill to the floor. Pillman is frantic and has to deal with SIR WILLIAM the butler on the floor so he punches him out. He COULD leave Regal on the floor and take the CO victory which would entitle him to a rematch, but out of pure habit he works on bringing Regal up to the apron and suplexing him in, but as he pins him, time expires! Good mat stuff from Regal and a glimpse at what we could’ve gotten out of the next stage of Pillman’s career as he transitioned out of the high flying stuff.
2011 Rating: ***
2024 Rating: ***1/4

Backstage, Mean Gene interviews Bunkhouse Buck and Col Parker. Parker hypes up Austin/Muta and Dustin/Buck. Buck yells a lot about wanting to hurt Dusty Rhodes and he gets mad when Mean Gene makes the suggestion he smells like manure. 

Match #3: The Nasty Boys vs. Cactus Jack/Maxx Payne [Chicago Street Fight]
Continuation of a really fun series of PPV matches between Cactus and the Nasties! Knobbs has a lead pipe and Sags has a broken pool cue with them as they enter so you know this is gonna be a blast. Also, Cactus head is taped up still from the ear stuff which I guess was recent to this show. This is a fun brawl but I definitely overrated it a bit the first time around. Cactus and Knobbs brawl in and around the ring while Sags and Payne go down the aisle and back to the infamous WCW gimmicked gimmick table and brawl on and around that. Nothing really otherworldly about some of the stuff but for the time it was probably such a breath of fresh air. The crowd was eating it up. They’d have a better match in Philly when Sullivan replaces Payne. An all time great Schiavone bit on commentary comes when, over at the gimmicked gimmick table, Payne takes one of the WCW shirts and tries to shove it down Sags throat, and Schiavone yells “I DON’T EVEN THINK THAT SHIRT FITS HIM!”. A shovel comes into play and there’s some really nasty shots with that. Good table stuff too. All four men reconvene on the aisleway and Knobbs and Cactus collapse through a table. Sags shoves Cactus off the aisle to the concrete down below and then hits him clean across the forehead with the shovel, Jesus Christ. Sags covers Cactus just a second before Payne covers Knobbs, and Sags gets the 3 count to win for the Nasties.
2011 Rating: ***3/4
2024 Rating: ***1/4

Payne has two weeks left in the company. At a WCWSN taping following this show, he complained to Bischoff about a payoff and they argued. Payne lost his cool with Bischoff. Payne then saw his booking was changed from beating an enhancement talent to an unbuilt match with Vader. In that match, Vader shoot punches Payne repeatedly until he’s basically unconscious and then throws him around the ring before winning. Bischoff then fired Payne. 

Backstage, Jesse Ventura interviews Johnny B Badd, and he wants the winner of the Austin/Muta match for the US Title at Slamboree next month in Philly. 

Match #4: Steve Austin (c) vs. The Great Muta [WCW United States Championship]
Muta hasn’t had a WCW appearance in close to a year, and hasn’t had a good WCW appearance since early 1990, but he’s still very over with the crowd. This is the culmination of a storyline where Austin was defending the US Title against foreign heels Parker would bring in, mostly job guys from what I can remember. 

Heenan: You know what Muta means in Japanese, don’t you?
Tony: Well…
Heenan: You speak Japanese, right?
Tony: Just a few words…
Heenan: Well can you teach me? I don’t have the time and I want to know what Muta means in Japanese. 

This is solid but far from great. Think I pretty much nailed the rating on my first viewing. You’re not going to get much of  Muta, at least in the states, at this point but what you do get can sometimes still shine bright. They do a lot of matwork back and fourth on each other, both going for the midsection. Muta misses a big drop kick and Austin answers with a flying elbow drop and then tries a bunch of pins back to back, getting more and more frustrated. His frustration leads to Muta taking over with some fire. He seems to have this won until he misses a front drop kick and Austin tries to go for the Hollywood & Vine submission, BUT MUTA SURPRISES HIM WITH A STUN GUN! Muta hits the big handspring back elbow and a Frankensteiner and the crowd is going apeshit. Parker gets up on the apron to stop him from ending it and Muta kicks him in the side of the head. Austin charges Muta but Muta backdrops him over the top rope for the DQ. Didn’t like the ending at the time and I also didn’t get the politics of having a NJPW guy (especially of Muta’s level) over in WCW, and while I still don’t like the ending because it’s outdated even by 1994 WCW standards, I can at least understand why. 
2011 Rating: **3/4
2024 Rating: ***ish

Post match, Muta runs off both Parker and Austin after diving on them. Crowd was hot. 

Backstage, Jesse interviews Dustin Rhodes and he just borrows a bunch of his dad’s catchphrases to hype the match with Buck later on.

And we’re on to Rick Rude’s last PPV match ever, and one of his last wrestling matches ever :( Rude was so fucking good, and I know a lot of people know that, but I feel like even with that he’s STILL underrated. 

Before the match, Harley Race comes out. He says he's officially challenging the winner of this match on behalf of Big Van Vader. He then takes a swing at Sting, but Sting ducks and attacks Harley. Rude attacks Sting in return to start the match.

Match #5: Rick Rude (c) vs. Sting [WCW International Heavyweight Championship]
Still a little disappointing given the output that these two had been capable of in the past but there’s more to it and I’ll get to that at the end. Extremely basic and pedantic hold exchanges for the first half of this before Rude opens things up by doing some great work on Sting’s lower back after a missed Stinger Splash. Sting makes the typical hulked up Sting comeback on Rude and is building towards a finish, that is, until Rude pulls the ref in the way of a Stinger Splash and all three men go down. This brings Race back out with Vader and a chair. They beat down on Sting and Vader goes to hit Sting with the chair but he ducks and Vader nails Rude accidentally. Sting runs off Vader and Race and then pins Rude clean to win this fake bullshit belt. 
2011 Rating: **1/2
2024 Rating: **3/4

So basically, there’s a story that Rude tried to get out of doing a job for Sting here because he wanted to build the International Title up and make it prestigious, even though it’s a DOA concept. This belt (which is Flair’s big gold belt which had disappeared from WCW television in July 1991) was brought back to TV to represent the NWA Title when it was defended in WCW in late summer of 1992 when Masahiro Chono won it. 

While WCW technically was not and had not been a part of the NWA since January 1991, they still did business together and Bill Watts had re-established that relationship in summer of 1992. During that time, Watts and the NWA established new NWA World Tag Titles with a tournament (since the original NWA World Tag belts had become the WCW World Tag Belts) and then had a hand with NJPW in booking the 1992 G1, which is where Chono won it in the finals by beating Rude to win the NWA Title, after it had been vacant for a year. Chono shows up a couple of times in Fall ‘92 on WCW with the belt but it feels like a completely separate deal. 

Chono drops it to Muta at the 1/4 New Japan show so Muta can then drop it to Barry Windham in Feb ‘93, and Barry was only winning it to be able to drop it to Flair (which pretty much ended their friendship, by some accounts). Flair was NWA World Champ on WCW programming alongside Vader being WCW World Champ. WCW was building a Flair/Rude program for the NWA World Title that would’ve seen matches at Fall Brawl, Halloween Havoc and Starrcade of 1993, while a Vader/Sid program was penciled in for the WCW World Title. There were even taped bits of WCW programming (since they notoriously taped all of their tv weeks and sometimes months ahead) with both Rude as the NWA World Champ and Sid as the WCW World Champ. 

New Japan, it is rumored, did not care for WCW being able to call all of the booking shots for the belt, which was against the norm of an NWA board voting on title changes and champions. NJPW ended its relationship with the NWA, and when the NWA tried to strong arm WCW into letting the NWA board book the title matches, WCW fully withdrew from the NWA on 9/1/93. The NWA still continued to recognize Flair as its champion and tried to reach a deal with WCW where Flair would drop the belt to an opponent of the boards choosing, but when WCW refused to have its biggest star lose a title match clean outside of the company, NWA sent WCW a cease and desist over calling the big gold belt the NWA World Title any longer and to stop calling the Flair/Rude Fall Brawl match a World Title match. The funniest part of all of this is that once they no longer had the NWA World Title between them, the WCW/NJPW relationship continued on extremely prosperous for the next 5 or so years.

WCW got to keep the Bug Gold Belt as it was technically their intellectual property, and they renamed it the WCW International Title. It killed the buzz around Flair/Rude, because now everybody (except Rude) didn’t think of it as a World Title win/reign. The Rude/Flair program continued into Halloween Havoc ‘93 where Rude won by DQ, and that was to set up a rematch at Starrcade. However, three days after Havoc is when Sid stabbed Arn with scissors and was fired, so Flair was switched to face Vader in that famous match, while Rude was now carrying around a faux World Title with no lineage and no clean win over Flair to coronate him as being made, and the title, while still talked about as important, was nothing more than a midcard prop. 

Back to the original point, Rude didn’t want to do the job here because he wanted to hold this belt for a while to establish it, and had no problem dropping it down the line. WCW didn’t want that, because they had plans to unify it with the WCW Title before Hogan came in, because having two world champs “wasn’t going to work” for Hogan, most likely. Rude does the job here, but he is extra stiff in a lot of his work (hence the really, really good work on Sting’s lower back). The finish also sets up a rematch for Rude/Sting in Japan, and the rumor is that Sting was stiffing Rude in that match as a receipt, Rude fought back, and all that anger led to the accidentally spill on the edge of the ring platform that injured Rude’s back and ended his in-ring career, and ultimately played a role in the end of his life five years later. Rumor is that Rude never forgave Sting for that. 

The ironic part is, WCW changed course and decided to let Rude win the belt back in the match in Japan. It had a fucky finish, likely so they could run a three way at Slamboree between Sting/Vader/Rude, but after Rude’s injury was shown to be serious, WCW vacated the belt, then had Sting beat Vader for the vacant belt at Slamboree instead. And then at the June Clash, Flair and Sting meet to unify the belts, Flair wins and fully turns heel in the process (had been building for a while) and then Flair’s off to the Hogan program with the Big Gold Belt now representing the WCW World Title, retiring the International Title name and the gaudy WCW World Belt they had been using since 1991. 

As far as the NWA goes, they were without a major promotion under their umbrella for the first time in decades, and on top of that, they did not crown a champion for almost a full year, when they held a one night tournament in South Philadelphia, and the belt was won by a man, who in front of God and his father, would throw that belt down in an attempt to kill it off for good. But that’s for a different review. 

I also want to point out that, and I never noticed this before, Aaron Neville has been sitting next to Bobby and Tony all night just watching the show. Nice.

Tony & Bobby stall for time and talk about some things and mention that on TV, Flair had invited Hulk Hogan to show up tonight and watch him beat Steamboat, but there was no sign of Hogan yet. Hogan hadn’t even officially put pen to paper yet, and WCW was already falsely advertising him. This would be the first of many, many false advertisements WCW would make over the next 6 years under Eric Bischoff (at least ones in bad faith, they had made others out of pure stupidity or bad luck prior to this.)

Now, Chicago’s a hot wrestling market no matter what. BUT, WCW wasn’t exactly a hot product. They were barely getting 6-7k in arenas for PPVs in areas they ran all the time (Charlotte, Atlanta, etc), but when the tease “hey Hogan might show up” for this show, they rake in 12k+ in attendance. The next month, they try to do it again for Slamboree in Philly, another hot market, but fans were starting to see what was up and news was out Hogan hadn’t signed yet, and they barely draw 4k in Philly. 

Match #6: Dustin Rhodes vs. Bunkhouse Buck [Bunkhouse Match]
This is fantastic! It is everything you’d want in a Bunkhouse Match. They both adhere to the “come as you are” dress code, there’s a powder spot, cowbell spot, lot of punching, not a lot of wrestling moves, belt whippings, and a surprising amount of blood for 1994 WCW (and we all know how that plays out for poor Dustin in about 11 months time). Col. Parker, by the way, isn’t just one of the most underrated managers ever, but he may sneakily be the second greatest bumping manager/heater of all time behind only Heenan. He does so much in this match to get the crowd into Dustin, and it’s fantastic. Dustin fights both men off in what is essentially a handicap match, and during his finishing run, Parker gets knucks to Buck, who then uses them to KO Dustin and he covers to win. I didn’t like the finish back in 2011, but I love it now knowing what it leads too. Great work.
2011 Rating: ***
2024 Rating: ***1/2

Backstage, Jesse is with Rude and Rude is flipping out. Vader and Race come over, and Rude blames them for costing him 14 years of hard work, AND RUDE AND VADER GET IN AN INCREDIBLE PULL APART BRAWL IN THE LOCKER ROOM! I forgot to mention in my earlier rant, the ending of Sting/Rude was also meant to start a babyface turn for Rude, which they even begin laying out on WCW TV, post Slamboree, in shows that were taped before Rude’s injury in Japan. 

Match #7: Vader vs. The Boss
This is a VERY Pro-Vader crowd. Hell yeah. These two beat the FUCK out of each other and are stiff as hell. Bossman gets Vader hardway across the eye early, and it’s a nasty cut but it doesn’t bleed too much. But you can see the fold of skin moving. Nasty, sick shit. I love it. They both take some insane bumps for dudes their size, and Vader even does sort of a plancha from the raised platform entryway over the ropes into the ring on top of Bossman, who gets the knees up. The brawl continues with them just throwing monstrous shots at one another. No real rhyme or reason, just a fucking fight. Boss goes up top and dives, but Vader catches him on the way down with a powerslam. Big powerbomb by Vader but Boss kicks out! Vader's like fuck this and teases the Vader Bomb but Harley sceams KILL HIM! SO VADER HITS THE VADERSAULT AND THAT'S THAT! FUCK YEAH. Oh man I loved this so much. 
2011 Rating: ***3/4
2024 Rating: ****

Post match, Vader plays it up big for the crowd who is going crazy for him. Meanwhile, Harley comes in to get some shots in on Boss, but Boss fights back and then beats the FUCK outta Harley with the nightstick and holds Vader at bay while he does it. WCW Commish Nick Bockwinkel gets in and calms The Boss down and takes his nightstick and cuffs and leads him to the back as Vader helps Harley up. 

Mean Gene is up at the interview platform. CALL THE WCW HOTLINE, I DON’T GIVE A FUCK!

Backstage, Jesse is standing by with Bockwinkel and Boss. Bockwinkel admonishes Boss for his actions, and he strips him of the nightstick, cuffs and even tells him he has to change his name because he’s no longer representing his profession to the best of his ability. 

This is because WCW received their second cease and desist in four months from the WWF regarding Ray Traylor essentially playing the Big Boss Man. He transforms out of this to the super lame Guardian Angel gimmick (fuck the Guardian Angels by the way) before reverting back to Big Bubba Rogers in 1995. 

Match #8: Ric Flair (c) vs. Ricky Steamboat [WCW World Heavyweight Championship]
Liked this a lot, but I'm not gonna lie, I'm not as big of a fan of it as others may be. To me, while it's still Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat, you can both tell they've gotten older and started to deteriorate a bit, especially Steamboat, who’s working hurt anyway. And the reason you can't really tell that when they’re against most other opponents is because they're still who they are, and they’re still overall very good compared to 95% of the roster. But they are also each other's measuring sticks, always have been, in the 70s and 80s and 90s. Of course, you're going to try and compare this to their matches from '89, and while that’s not necessarily fair, I at least get it. Nonetheless, as said, it's still fucking Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat, and it’s still really fucking good. Match is worked like a classic, feels like a classic but isn’t able to deliver the results of a classic. The feud itself seemed rushed and gets chopped off at the knees, probably beacuse of YOU KNOW WHO, BROTHER. Flair really takes a big step in his heel turn during the match, basically becoming a tweneer at least, and gets to work in alot of his old bits we haven't seen him do much (or at all) in WCW since his last run in '91. Crowd never dies at all, constantly hot, and only get hotter when Steamboat makes his comeback. Great finishing run. Flair heads up top and yes he gets slammed down. Now Steamboat comes off the top for a flying splash, but there’s nobody there. Plus, he jams his knee on the mat. Flair hooks on the Figure Four. But Steamboat blocks with his hand, but Flair kicks free and clamps it on for real. Flair slaps Steamboat around while he’s in the hold. Steamboat makes the ropes. Flair tries the hold again in the center of the ring, but Steamboat counters with an inside cradle for a near fall. Steamboat blocks a hiptoss into a backslide to no avail. Steamboat nails a superplex on Flair but hurts himself on the way down as well. Steamboat sells a hurt neck to give Flair some time. Flair's back up first and gets a near fall. He stumbles around and Steamboat gets an O’Connor Roll, but the ref has to jump out of the ring to get out of the way. Back in, he counts for another nearfall! Steamboat flips out of a back suplex and applies a Double Chicken Wing. Steamboat falls to his back with Flair’s shoulders and his own shoulders down as well, the ref counts 1-2-3, WE’VE GOT A DOUBLE PIN. WHO’S THE CHAMP?
2011 Rating: ****
2024 Rating: ***1/2

Post-match, the ref raises Steamboat's arm originally. Another referee runs out to confer with him and an argument erupts. Nick Bockwinkel rushes out to find out what's going on. The original ref finally hands the belt to Flair and raises his arm and the PPV just ends and fireworks stupidly go off even though the crowd is booing with no real result having been delivered, which again would become a WCW staple for years to come under Eric Bischoff. Tony and Heenan do talk to Bockwinkel briefly and he says he will have to take this result to the WCW board to determine which action to take but for now Flair will retain the belt. But the crowd doesn’t get to hear that. 

Over the next few weeks, the Flair/Steamboat feud continued on TV with the title being vacated on the 4/30 WCWSN, and a Flair/Steamboat rematch two weeks later on the 5/14 WCWSN. THAT match was way better than this. I rewatched that a couple of months back, and holds up terrifically well. Flair wins that match and regains the World Title.

So, going back to the beginning of this review, do I still think it’s one of the greatest WCW PPVs ever? Yes. I don’t think I would place it above GAB ‘89, but as a much distant second place to that. The card for this show looks so good on paper, but a few matches under deliver and some poor booking/bad advertising practices result in some real lolWCW shit. I still like this show a ton, and would definitely recommend checking it out as a whole, or at the very least, checking out the Tag Team Falls Count Anywhere, the Bunkhouse Match, Boss/Vader and even the main event.