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PW Torch.com Nostalgia Review
WCW Beach Blast 1992
By Brian Hoops PW Torch.com Nostalgia Specialist

This week's look back at nostalgia takes us to the WCW promoted Beach Blast PPV. Beach Blast 1992 was held on June 20, 1992 and originated from Mobile, Alabama. Beach Blast was a new PPV and would only be held in 1992 and 1993, before being replaced by the Bash at the Beach PPV. The show drew a live attendance of 5,000 and a PPV buy rate of .40, down from the May PPV called Wrestle War, which drew a .61 buy rate. There were several moves, mostly behind the scenes, which made this PPV memorable. First, the poster advertising the event listed the Ironman Challenge and the Bikini Contest as the main events, however neither of these were the actual main events of the PPV. Secondly, only two titles were on the line during the PPV. Thirdly, this PPV took place only four days after a free Clash of Champions card, which gave the tag team title match and the PPV main event away on free tv.

Jim Ross and Jesse Ventura are the broadcast team.

In the dark match, the Junkyard Dog, Tom Zenk and Big Josh defeated Dallas Page, Tracey Smothers and Ricky Morton.

The first match of the PPV saw Brian Pillman defend and lose his WCW World Light Heavyweight Title to Scotty Flamingo. With Bill Watts coming to power in WCW just before the PPV, several moves were made by Watts that directly impacted this match. First, Watts banned moves off the top rope. If a wrestler came off the top rope, he would be disqualified. Many fans would become enraged by this move as it nearly killed the best thing WCW had going in early 1992, the WCW World Light Heavyweight division. Taking top rope moves away, took away alot of the exciting offensive moves and made the division more of a mat wrestling division. Also, Watts believed Pillman was overpaid and wanted to renegotiate Pillman's contract. Watts threatened Pillman with taking away his push if Pillman didn't renegotiate, despite Pillman being the best young worker in the company at the time. Pillman would not negotiate and Pillman lost the title to Flamingo in 17:29 after Pillman missed a flying bodypress and hit his head on the rampway. Flamingo came off the second rope for the pinfall. The match was slightly above average.

The next match features Ron Simmons against Terry Taylor. Simmons pinned Taylor after a spinebuster in a decent match as Taylor carried it in 7:10.

The next match didn't make a lot of sense. Greg Valentine defeated Marcus Bagwell by submission to the figure four leglock in 7:17. Valentine was way past his prime and Bagwell was an up and coming star and Valentine should have put over Bagwell, instead Valentine was given the victory.

Next was a Falls Count Anywhere match as Cactus Jack took on WCW World Heavyweight Champion Sting. The WCW World title was not on the line. Cactus met Sting on the ramp and they spent the first 5 minutes fighting outside the ring. Sting was on offense outside the ring and Cactus was great at taking many crazy suplexes outside the ring and making Sting look great in this match. Finish came when Sting suplexed Cactus on the ramp and came off the top rope with a clothesline for the win in 11:24. An excellent falls count anywhere match.

Next match is a non-title Ironman match, featuring the WCW U.S. Heavyweight Champion, Rick Rude vs. Ricky Steamboat. These two were having an excellent feud in 1992 and this would be the blowoff to the feud. The U.S. title was not on the line and the rules were whoever had the most pinfalls in the 30 minute time limit would be the winner. Steamboat worked over Rude for the early part of the match until Rude got a pinfall out of nowhere to go ahead 1-0 (7:42). With Steamboat dazed, Rude hit the "Rude Awakening" and another pinfall to go ahead 2-0 (8:39). Rude then came off the top rope and was disqualified for a 2-1 lead (9:40). Rude then rolled Steamboat up for another pinfall and a 3-1 lead (10:50). Rude then worked over Steamboat and hit a piledriver but Steamboat kicked out for a good near fall. Rude went for a Tombstone piledriver but Steamboat reversed it into a fall and now the match is 3-2 in favor of Rude (17:39). Steamboat reversed a backslide into another pinfall to tie it at 3-3 (20:22). Rude tried for the Rude Awakening but Steamboat reversed it for a great near fall. With 3 minutes to go, Rude locked in a sleeper and it looked like Rude would win with the sleeper. However Steamboat kicked the top turnbuckle and fell back on Rude for the pin with only 30 seconds remaining. Rude tried desperately to get a quick pin to tie it, but Steamboat kicked out and won the match 4-3. A great match, better than their Superbrawl match, as it was well laid out and perfectly executed.

Up next is a six-man challenge with the Dangerous Alliance of Arn Anderson & Steve Austin & Bobby Eaton taking on Dustin Rhodes & Barry Windham & Nikita Koloff. It was a basic match that ended in 15:32 by disqualification when Anderson came off the top rope, giving the match to Rhodes, Windham and Koloff. I personally felt the Dangerous Alliance should have gone over clean in this match to keep the Alliance as a strong heel team, since they lost at the Wrestle War PPV in May.

Final match is the main event for the WCW World Tag Team Title. The Steiner Brothers were the champions and were defending against Terry Gordy & Steve Williams. Four days earlier at the Clash of the Champions 19, Williams and Gordy had defeated the Steiners to eliminate them from the NWA Tag Team tournament. Similar to Brian Pillman, Watts was in the process of phasing out the Steiner Brothers due to contractual problems so the Steiners lost to Williams and Gordy earlier at the Clash in the NWA tournament, they drew with Williams and Gordy in this match and then lost the WCW World Tag Team titles on July 5. Obviously, Watts was trying to job them out for their refusal to re-negotiate their contracts. Watts was also trying to create house show interest and to give the house shows meaning, he had the tag team titles as well as the heavyweight title change hands at house shows instead of on PPVs. This explains why they went to the 30:00 time limit draw. A decent match that was hard hitting and contained a lot of amateur wrestling.

Summary: This wasn’t a bad show by any means but it wasn't great either. The Pillman match was a huge disappointment but that wasn’t necessarily Pillman's fault. Rude and Steamboat was a very good if not great match and the Sting-Cactus Jack match was very good also. Watch this PPV for those two matches. The rest was average to above average.

Next week will go back 15 years to the November WCW Clash of Champions show, Clash #21.

Thanks for reading and if you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me at bhoops@iw.net.

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