Episode #24 – Brian Pillman, Mike Shaw, and DISCO STU!
We bring you another fine episode of the Old School Wrestling Podcast. This week we review two matches – Brian Pillman and Jushin Thunder Liger from the very first Nitro in 1995 and a Norman the Lunatic vs Rick Steiner match from 1989 PLUS a very special guest (to us, at least) stops by to DROP SOME KNOWLEDGE about that Cactus Jack podcast from a few weeks ago.
Thanks guys, for a great bonus length mini episode. And of course, thanks to Disco Stu for the memory jog on Luger’s mystery boxes. I remember reading about them, but I didn’t get regular WCW TV so I never saw it. And good to hear Barry Windham is in good standing at Studio 55.
What was Dre’s botched punchline? The sound went out after “purple”.
The first Liger-Pillman match was not from a Clash, but from a regular house show, with Liger winning the Light heavyweight title in his WCW debut.
I didn’t know the backstory to Pillman’s tiger stripe trunks, which I’m guessing is alright since they don’t teach NFL gear colours in Swedish schools. Btw, are the 85’Bears legends everywhere or just hometown heroes for Dre?
I saw the Liger-Pillman match for the first time after hearing your podcast and it was nice to hear Heenan making the effort even though it was in WCW. Your surfboard discussion was really funny, but laughter of the week goes to Black Cat’s impromptu Wuff Wuff Wuff 😀
Nice tribute to Mike Shaw. I looked up the Makhan Singh-Owen Hart series on YouTube and saw a NA title match where Owen both bodyslammed and suplexed (rhyming with sufflé’d of course) with ease which I guess means good effort from Shaw.
I can’t wait to hear the trilogy podcast. Especially after the hype this week. I think I’m going to follow your example and prepare before the podcast. Probably without the tweed and pipe though.
– We will never know Dre’s botched line unless he can remember, as it wasn’t picked up on the microphone.
– I was thinking of the Jushin Liger & Brian Pillman vs. Chris Benoit & Beef Wellington at Clash of the Champions XIX where they teamed up. I think there’s some handheld recordings of the house show out there.
– I cannot believe they don’t teach NFL in Sweden. I think everyone loved the NFL.
– The few times I’ve taken a suplex I certainly did help my partner in the ring, so I’m guessing Mr. Shaw gave Owen Hart a hand.
-Definitely look up the Flair/Steamboat matches. Have you seen them before?
That botched line will go into the mythology of the podcast and 20 years from now people will still speculate, and we will probably see faked recordings popping up as well.
Wow, that Clash XIX sounds incredible. Goes on the to-do list.
NY Giants had a Swedish player in the 80’s (Björn Nittmo) and now a 2nd guy is on the Dallas Cowboys roster, but I have no idea if he’s good. There’s some interest around SuperBowl but the rest of the year you never hear about it here.
Both Steamboat and especially Flair are among my all-time favourites so I’ve seen the trilogy a few times but it’s a long time ago. Chi-Town used to be my favourite for a long time but when I saw them on the Flair DVD it was my least (?) favourite. I watched the Chi-Town match again the other day. I think WrestleWar is the pearl of the trilogy for me now, so I’ll try to find the time to see that one as well before the podcast. I like the Spring Stampede match as well, but for some reason I’ve never gotten around to watch the 70’s matches. I have a (healthy) mental block against pre-80’s wrestling, and in this case it is probably my loss.
’85 Bears are legends across America. They had one of the greatest seasons in NFL history. Just look up “the superbowl shuffle” on YouTube for proof.
For a second it sounds like Juke was dissin’ on Liger when he said he was surprised the crowd cheered for him. I had to hold back laughter when Juke told Dre to look up Puro on the Internet and Dre instantaneously replied with “no.”
I too agree with both Juke and Dre’s take on the Inverted Mexican surfboard. That move hurts though if you’ve ever been put in it.
Mongo: “Give it to him, give it to him hard.” Just hilarious.
I thought for a while that Juke dropped the ball when Dre asked him to put in the drop of Corney saying “Shuckens all heckfire.” I heard it at the end though. Good stuff.
– I was dissing on the crowd. Are you kidding me, Hardcore? 🙁
– I’m sure the surfboard hurts, but so would a lot of things if you helped.
– That’s called PODCAST PSYCHOLOGY. Psych out your listener/co-host and then BAM there’s the audio drop at the end.
Hey Dre and Blackcat, keep the flag flying. You do have listeners out there, I’m from the UK and have been listening from the start. The Summerslam 92 show was great by the way, brought back a lot of memories. I did actually email you guys with a request back in March. Here is my original message:
“Hey Dre,
You guys are doing a great job, keep up the good work. UK listener here and long time old school wrestling fan.
The show I’d like to request you to review is one of my all-time faves: Beach Blast ’92.
Incidentally, I have a couple of pages on my little website dedicated to early 90s WCW stuff: http://www.parviniworld.110mb.com/WCW.html
If you guys need any help getting hold of stuff I have all the WCW PPVs from February 1991 onwards (i.e. till the end in 2001), so drop me a line if there’s a show you can’t find.”
Incidentally, I forgot to add – I know Blackcat is a big oldschool NWA fan. But I’d like to hear you more stuff from the much neglected era of NWA/ WCW circa 91-4. I know everyone shoots on Bill Watts’s run, but there’s some really great stuff buried in there. The I really believe that WCW were building something good until Hogan arrived and ruined everything. From that moment on, the wrasslin NWA/WCW product we all knew and loved ceased to be and instead we got an ersatz early 90 WWF in WCW. Don’t get me wrong, I love that era of WWF equally, but the likes of Duggan and so on never should have had a place on the WCW roster. It was always that WWF was the cartoony gimmick place with huge over-the-top characters and great story archs and Crockett/NWA/WCW was more about the illusion of wrestling as a legit sport, classic matches and awesome promos.
Sorry, rant over.
I’ll respond to the rest later but wanted to mention we’ll probably do Beach Blast 92 soon.
Following up –
I want to do more 91-94 WCW as I stopped watching for those years and want to get caught up on a lot of that.
And while Hogan certainly hurt the product from a work-rate POV in his programs, 95-98 Hogan/WCW had a lot of great cruiserweight stuff that we got because of him and Bischoff.
I was at both Pillman shows with Mr. Dre and although it does not compare to DDP calling me a monkey, I did have a cigerette and akward conversation with Woman the first year we went.
Oh the days when Disco Stu would drive more than 5 minutes to see a pro wrestling show 🙁
Thanks for the positive feedback Jerry. I also want to do wca from that time. Good things will come.
I also want to post some pictures of me and disco stu from when we weaseled our way back stage at the pillman tribute show. Black cat, how do I do that?
Boo black cat boo. Remember when I went to Killville with you 6 months ago. Yes I did that for you and my love of wrestling.
How did I forget that legendary trip? My sincere apologies, Disco.
Disco Stu – You went to a town knowing that is was called “Killville”?!
Well, Springfield, IL = Killville. Somehow the iPhone stopped working at the least opportune time (after a TNA house show).
So I posted some photos from our trip to the Brian Pillman tribute show. You can find them on the Old School Wrestling Podcast fan page at FaceBook.
This is the trip we just talked about on this episode.
facebook page =
http://facebook.com/flairchop
Some cool pictures there, Dre. And Black Cat juiced the hard way in the car, huh? He’s hardcore!! He’s hardcore!! He’s hardcore!!
I always juice hardway. And I’d like to state I look more like Disco Stu now than myself in those pictures.
Meanwhile the first picture of Disco Stu looked egg-zackly as a friend of mine which confused me to no end.
I’m glad to hear you do it hardway. Blading in the nose is very difficult to conseal and I think it exposes the business.
And I prefer not to shove razor blades up my nose.
Hi guys, look forward to Beach Blast ’92 show. I just remembered Dre said he was a big fan of the Steiners during the WCW/New Japan Supershow 1991 show, and there are 2 matches that would make a great mini-podcast for you. One is one of the greatest tagteam matches of all time – the Steiners vs. Lex Luger and Sting from Superbrawl I in 1991 – and the other is one of the most BRUTAL matches I’ve ever seen: the Steiners vs. Fujinami & Iizuka from Wrestlewar ’92. Both are must watch matches if you haven’t seen them.
Can anyone confirm that the Pillman family ever got the money from Ric Flair?