So 1989 was a great year for the newly renamed World Championship Wrestling, and there was some hope that WCW could put it all together and make a serious run against the WWF as the number one wrestling promotion in North America, but the boobs running the show would see to it, that would never happen for a long time to come.
The main culprit was Jim Herd. When Ted Turner bought the company in 1988, he put Herd in charge of the day to day operations. As mentioned in part two, Herd let booker Ric Flair handle the actual wrestling shows and cards, but as time wore on Herd thought he knew enough to put his two cents in, and you know that old saying, "a little bit of knowledge is dangerous"? Well Jim Herd knew just a little bit about wrestling to screw it up big time!
In the summer of 1989, Herd actually forces Flair to create a tag team called the Ding Dongs. Two masked wrestlers with little bells around their necks and around their ankles, and they carried a bell with them to the ring and if one of them got in trouble in a match the other would ring the big bell to get them fired up! The Ding Dongs debuted at the Clash of Champions VII in June of 1989 in Ft.Bragg, NC. They wrestled jobbers George South, and Cougar Jay, and beat them, but it was something terrible, and color commentator Jim Cornette just ran the Ding Dongs down in his commentary with Jim Ross, burying them with the audience watching at home, and the fans in the arena that night booed the hell out of them, and the Ding Dongs never appeared again. Yeah that was Herd's baby all right, and he was in charge?!?!
Despite all the success that WCW was enjoying, Herd for some reason had a falling out with Flair. Maybe he thought that a 40 year old man dressing in better suits them him, and having long bleached blonde hair and having extravagant robes and yelling WHOOOOO during interviews was too much for Herd to handle, or maybe he thought the higher ups at TBS were convinced that Flair was the one who deserved the credit of improving the company rather than Herd, but whatever the case, Herd had a big bug up his ass about the Nature Boy
But we all know Herd knew jack! Sure he laid down some guaranteed money to sign younger talent like Pillman, Zenk, Shane Douglas, and the Steiner's among them, but both Rick Steamboat and Terry Funk would both leave by the end of 1989 as neither one would accept Herd's lowball offers and that was just the beginning.
Flair was still hanging on as booker but Herd was looking for any excuse to remove Flair. Ric's plan was to have Sting leave the Horsemen to feud with Flair, turning the Horsemen back into heels and Flair was going to drop the NWA World Title to Sting at the Wrestle War PPV in February of 1990, and led Sting lead the company to the 90's with I believe an eventual Sting-Luger match at Starcade at the end of 1990. However, it didn't work out that way.
At the Clash of The Champions X in Corpus Cristi, TX on February 5, 1990 it started out the way it was suppose to, Flair and the Anderson's kicked Sting out of the Horsemen due to the fact that Sting was awarded a shot at the World Title against Flair at Wrestle War due to his victory in the Iron man tournament at Starcade a couple of months back. The main event of that card was a six man steel cage match with Flair and the Anderson's taking on Great Muta, Buzz Sawyer and Dragon Master. The Horsemen won the match, but then Sting came out and climbed the steel cage to get at the Horsemen. While climbing the cage Sting ruptured his left patella tendon in his knee, and it was very serious, as Sting would be out for six months ruining the main event at Wrestle War now about three weeks away.
The decision was made to have Lex Luger, the United States Champion, do a quickie face turn and take Sting's place in the main event. The problem was, one; the quick face turn destroyed of Luger's heat he had has a heel, and the fans were slow to respond to the turn, on top of that Luger was suppose to wrestle Steve "Dr. Death" Williams for the United States title at Wrestle War, with Williams being slated to go over Luger. With that match now cancelled that meant that Luger and Flair would have to go 45 minutes or so for the main event. It was a good match, at the end Sting came down on crutches to look on, then you had Arn & Ole Anderson come down and attack helpless Sting and Luger at this point had Flair in the torture rack and the title in his grasp, when instead he puts Flair down, helps Sting out by driving away the Horsemen, and Luger gets counted out and Flair escapes with the title.
The buy rates were not good for the PPV, and that's all the excuse Herd needed, and Flair resigned as booker in March of 1990, and Herd names Ole Anderson as the new head booker. It was the biggest blunder Herd could have made, as Ole begins to book WCW as if it were 1983 in the old Georgia Championship Wrestling days. Ole was if u recall in part one, was the booker and minority owner of GCW back in the day, and I guess the old man thought is was 1983!
The first thing he does is to job out the younger talent that Herd signed to six figure guarantees. You see Ole didn't like the fact that Herd was paying the new talent so much money which Ole thought would undermined his authority as booker, and he thought they were getting to much money as he figured he could get Brad Armstrong and Tommy Rich for the same amount Herd was paying Tom Zenk. Case in point, one of the last new talents that Flair signed in early 1990 was Cactus Jack, who was making a name for himself as a reckless bump machine in Memphis, Alabama and Texas in the late 80's. Cactus wows the crowd with wild moves like his flying elbow of the ring aprons on to the arena floor, and most times the opponent would move and Cactus would land hard on the floor and you could hear the sick thud. At the Clash X, Cactus wrestled Mexican legend Mil Mascaras, and Foley carried the match with his sick bumps and both announcers Jim Ross and Jim Cornette were pushing Cactus with their commentary and Cornette even exclaimed at one point Cactus's match with Mascaras "Cactus Jack is dead!" After one nasty bump!
All that came to an end when Ole took over, as he booked Cactus to look like a pathetic clown and ridiculing him backstage, making fun of Mick Foley's big butt and his style of ring work, and pretty much forcing Foley to quit and Mick did in the spring of 1990. Meanwhile Ole was burying Pillman and Zenk. The two beat the Freebirds for the U.S. Tag Titles in February of 1990 and they were feuding with the Midnight Express. In the program Pillman suffered a throat injury when Cornette attacked Pillman in the throat with his tennis racket, and the Midnights stole the US tag belts. But Ole changed all that because heaven forbid we get the talented guys over, and they killed Pillman's injury angle and the champs got the belts back, and killed any heat built up between the teams. During his time Ole used the Destruction Crew,Wayne Bloom and Mike Enos, who were the AWA World Tag Champions and on loan from Verne Gagne who needed cash for his dying promotion, and he put them in masked and named them the Minnesota Wrecking Crew II. They fought the Steiner's, and the results were that Rick & Scott out classed the AWA loanees.
One thing Herd wanted was the World Title to come off Flair, and to put it on Luger at the next PPV, Capital Combat in May at Washington D.C. Flair still had veto power over World Title changes held over from his contract with Jim Crockett. Flair thought it was better to wait for Sting to come back and put the belt on him. So Flair and Luger had another match for the World Title at Capital Combat in a thunder dome steel cage match. It was a bloody match which saw Luger once again on the verge of winning the World Title, only the cage began to rise in the air, and soon the Horsemen, this time consisting of Arn Anderson, the returning Barry Windham, and Sid Vicious who had recovered from his injury from the year earlier come in and attack Luger, causing the DQ. Another cheap ass ending to a main event.
The card also saw Doom, Butch Reed and Ron Simmons beat the Steiners for the World Tag Titles, The Midnight Express beat Zenk and Pillman for the US Tag titles, and hair match between two bald or nearly bald men Teddy Long, and Paul Ellering. Robocop 2 was being released by Turner's movie studio and the Turner execs wanted publicity from their wrestling program. However what they did was turn Robocop into a character on the show as Sting's bodyguard against the Horsemen. On the show Sting was put into a cage by the Horsemen and Robocop bends the bars to free Sting, and the site of Double A, Windham and the 6'8 300lbs Sid Vicious selling of them being afraid of Robocop was just sad and embarrassing.
During that year The Road Warriors would leave WCW to go to the WWF, and Paul Ellering left for parts unknown. Meanwhile Ole was bringing in names from the old to WCW as Iron Sheik, Buddy Landell, the Rock N Roll Express, Thunderbolt Patterson, Junkyard Dog, and Paul Orndorff were brought in, who were long time loyalist to Ole and they were given significant air time and pushes, and only the Rock N Roll were over enough to deserve them, but even their act was getting stale. Tommy Rich was also getting somewhat of a push as well, even though he was brought in by Flair in 1989, so WCW was starting to look like GCW all right.
Finally Sting came back in the summer of '90 and the next PPV was The Great American Bash'90 on July 7, 1990 in Baltimore. Sting finally had his shot with Flair, but the match would fall short in many fans eyes. First off all, The Horsemen would be banned from ringside, Ole Anderson, who was the on air manager of the Horsemen would be handcuffed to El Gigante, a 7'7 former basketball player from Argentina, who was WCW's version of Andre The Giant. This guy was so uncoordinated and so out of place in the ring that fans never cared for the guy. Also Sting's team the "Dudes With Attitude" Junkyard Dog, The Steiners and Paul Orndorff who joined together to fight the Horsemen until Sting came back, would surround the ring to make sure the Horsemen stayed away. Needless to say overbooked was an understatement, and after about 13 minutes of rushed action Sting finally won the World Title. Flair was to be pushed in the mid card never again to be pushed to the World Title.
The card also saw Lex Luger defend the US Title against a 6'10 monster named "Mean" Mark Callous, who was build up as unstoppable destroying guys like Zenk and Pillman (the younger guys who Herd hired go figure). Luger won, but a lot fans were impressed with Mean Mark, as he was agile as well as huge. However in typical Ole fashioned, Anderson didn't think much of Mark, and released him after his match with Luger. The WWF picked him up and he started his decades of destruction run as the Undertaker. Doom beat the Rock n Roll Express as this was the R n Roll's swan song as a main event team, and a kick ass US Tag title match between the Midnight Express and the Southern Boys, who were Steve Armstrong and Tracey Smothers, Steve, the son of Bullet Bob Armstrong, who also trained Smothers, was another Ole ally, but these boys deserved their spots! You also saw crap as Mike Rotunda beat an ancient Iron Sheik (in 1990!), Harley Race beating Tommy Rich, and a terrible six man tag match pitting the Horsemen against Orndorff, JYD, and El Gigante, with Gigante never even getting the tag!!
What did Ole have in store as a program for the new World Champion?? Turning Luger back to a heel maybe? Matches with other Horsemen members, a series of rematches with Flair to solidify Sting as a legit World Champion?? Bringing in top wrestlers from around the world to challenge the Stinger?? Why hell no, boy!!! This is WCW damn it, and Sting's new challenger was the Black Scorpion.
Who was the Black Scorpion? The problem was Ole the booker sure as hell didn't know who he was either. It started out that he was a mystery man who came from Sting's past, who wanted to cripple Sting. Fans were speculating. Was it Eddie Gilbert, Sting's old manager from the UWF days? Was it Luger who was envious of Sting getting the World Title instead of him? Maybe just maybe it’s The Ultimate Warrior, who was Sting's partner as the Blade Runners? (never mind the fact that the Warrior was WWF World Champion at the time, but hey stranger things have happened) No people none of the above was the Scorpion, as that would have made sense. No Ole had the Angel of Death in mind. The Angel of Death wrestled in the Indies mainly in Texas, and he broke in with Sting in the mid 80's as a part of Power Team USA, a group of bodybuilders who would transcend wrestling or some crap like that. Problem was no one knew who the Angel was, and probably wouldn't care so that was scrapped.
To make matters worse, they had the Scorpion resort to lame ass, cheap magic tricks to play "mind games" with Sting and a lot of jobbers in "fake" Scorpion masks attacked Sting, while Ole's distorted voice would taunt Sting. Needless to say the fans yawned, and the feud had no heat and Sting was losing heat as World Champion as well. Halloween Havoc sure as hell didn't help either, as Sting defended the belt against Sid Vicious, who was the only thing in WCW Ole hadn't screwed up. It was a decent match, and it seemed that Sid pinned Sting to win the World Title. Only the "Sting" who got pinned was less muscular and several inches taller as the Sting who began the match. Yes people it was Barry Windham who impersonated Sting after a brawl went to the back. The real Sting came in with rope around his arm, and he pins Sid to retain the title. That sure as hell didn't help Sting keep his heat as champion. The rest of the card was pretty decent as Doom wrestled Flair and Arn to a double count out and the Steiners, who beat the Midnight Express for the U.S. Tag title a couple of months earlier had a hell of a match with the Nasty Boys that was brutal. However, the Nasty's only had a daily agreement with Ole, and not a long term contract. The WWF took advantage of that screw up and signed the Nasty's by the end of 1990, the following year they won the WWF Tag titles at Wrestlemania VII.
Things were going to hell in a handbaskett though as Jim Cornette and Stan Lane both left WCW after major differences with Herd, and the Midnight Express came to a sad end. On top of that at Halloween Havoc, Stan Hansen, a long time friend and partner of Ole, who had been wrestling in All-Japan since 1986, came to WCW in the fall of 1990 and beat Luger for the U.S. Title. Then goes back to All-Japan with the belt for a few shows in November of that year!!! Ole was also bringing in several green wrestlers to replace departing wrestlers; Allen Iron Eagle, JW Smith, and Brian Lee. A green Kevin Nash came in with Al Green as the Master Blasters, a Road Warrior rip off team that failed miserably. On top of that Brad Armstrong a very talented wrestler came in to a horrible character as "The Candy Man", yes Brad would throw candy to the kids on his way to the ring, it was sad folks. Big Cat Curtis Hughes was brought in to feud with Luger while Hanson was in Japan, and the Motor City Madman, a Detroit indy worker was brought in as well, along with a very green Nightstalker (Bryan Clark), hell even jobber Rocky King was given somewhat of a push as the valet of the Freebirds!! Yes the Freebirds had a male valet and Rocky went by the name of "Little Richard" Marley"! As you can guess house show attendance went straight to hell in record numbers. Ole had two house show teams the guys he was pushing (Nightstalker, Hughes, JYD, Nightstalker, Rich, Morton, Landell, Freebirds, and Iron Eagle) and guys he wasn't (Flair, Sid, Pillman, Zenk, Terry Taylor, Steiners, Luger you know the ones with talent!) and you tell me which house show group was drawing more fans!
The end came at Starrcade'90 in December at the Kiel Auditorium in St.Louis. The Steiners beat Great Muta and Mr.Saito in an international Pat O'Connor tournament featuring teams from Mexico, Japan, Canada, & USSR. Luger defeated Hansen to regain the United States Title in a bull rope match, Doom beat Arn Anderson & Barry Windham in a street fight to retain the World Tag titles, oh and what about that long awaited match between Sting and the Scorpion?
It was steel cage match, with legend Dick the Bruiser as special referee. Well the Scorpion turned out to be Ric Flair, as Ole with his back against the wall asked Flair to don the mask, and do the job to Sting, and Ric agreed, however, he wanted to win the World Title back at a January house show in the Meadowlands in New Jersey, and Herd and Ole had no choice but to agree. It was a boring match as Flair had to wrestle a match without trying to give away the fact that he was Flair, but the chops and knee drops gave it away folks, a very piss poor match.
Herd finally gave in and fired Ole as booker. The company was in shambles, Sting's run as World Champion was wasted away on stupid angles, WCW lost between $5 and $7 million in 1992, most of which occurred under Ole's regime, talent was leaving for the WWF, house show attendance was miserable, and you would think it would only get better right?? Remember kids this was WCW and 1991 wasn't going to be much better.
