Brian Pillman vs. Johnny B. Badd
#1 Contendership for the WCW United States Championship
Johnny B. Badd spends a good two minutes showboating on the turnbuckle while Michael Buffer announces the first fight of the night. I thought he only did main events, but clearly WCW felt the need to waste their money, even at this point in time.
As the bell tolls, the two lock up and back each other into a corner, before shaking hands in the dreaded face vs face match-up. There’s a lot of basic grappling exchanges, until Pillman locks in a headlock, already. Badd throws him off and Pillman hits an incredible dropkick, which Badd doesn’t feel like selling, as he bounces up before Brian does. We go back to stalling and a couple of standing switches, trading several arm drags as the two circle each other again. Pillman goes for a second side headlock, completely stalling any tempo the match had so far.
The camera goes to the crowd, as we return to the hard camera, we see Badd go for a roll-up and gets a two-count, which is surprising as both men have had virtually no offense at this point. Yet another arm drag by Mero, *yawn*, Brian goes for a roll-up, and hits a snapmare takeover for ANOTHER REST HOLD 6 MINUTES IN. Brian livens the match up with an irish whip into an incredible looking head scissors and back right into a headlock on the floor. Tony tells us it’s been a physical match-up so far. Cheers Tony.
Johnny B. Badd has bladed for some reason, as we see him pull Brian up in yet another headlock. Badd keeps him grounded, but Brian takes control and puts him in a weak Boston Crab. Brian asks ‘Who’s the man now!?’ as he chops Badd on the ropes, Badd reverses and works on the knee of Pillman. Badd hits a modified bow-and-arrow surfboard type thing, but drops it, as Badd and Pillman start to shove each other yet again.
The pace finally catches up for two minutes, until Badd grounds Pillman again for what feels like the thirtieth resthold of this *EXCITING* match. They start running the ropes and awkwardly bump into each other in the air, which is possibly one of the most stupid wrestling spots in history. The ref teases counting both men out, as they both get up, and hit the classic double clothesline into another rest spot.
Pillman gets up first and starts stomping away at Badd, Buffer announces that there’s only five minutes remaining, thank god. Pillman takes a kick to the floor, as Badd follows up with a springboard plancha, flooring both men. Badd drags him back in and goes for a top-rope axe handle, but Pillman hits a beautiful dropkick on Badd whilst mid-air. Pillman only gets the two-count as Tony tells us there’s only three minutes left. Badd hits a power-bomb for another 2. Pillman hits a piledriver but no 3-count. Pillman telegraphs a hurricanrana but Badd throws him off, and again works at the leg of Pillman, further wasting what little time we have left.
Pillman escapes and hits a Russian leg sweep and locks Badd into a chinlock as they tease a submission victory, but Badd starts to ‘Hulk-up’. Johnny B. Badd gets Pillman with the tuttifruity, but Pillman’s leg is under the ropes. Pillman hits a plancha as Buffer starts to count down for the remaining 15 seconds. As Pillman goes into a backslide, we’re told that time is up.
Result: Time-limit Draw
Buffer talks to Patrick, who announces that we’re going to sudden death as we must have a winner.
The bell rings for the second time, as the two men immediately brawl to the outside. Pillman rolls Badd in and both men hit each other with dropkicks. Pillman whips Badd into a sleeper, Heenan quips that someone is snoring, he’s right, I am. Badd reverses it and catches Pillman in his own sleeper hold, joy of joys. It looks like we’re finally at the finish as Badd hits a great sunset flip powerbomb, for a very close 2-count. Badd sets up another powerbomb, but Pillman reverses it with a headscissors. Badd hits the ‘Badd Day’ (Super frankensteiner) but still can’t put Pillman anyway in this never ending match.
Pillman’s on the outside again as Badd dives after him again, before throwing him in, he goes for a springboard, but Pillman’s knees are up. Both commentators put over the fact that we’ve seen almost every move that these men know, as Badd hits yet another dive to the outside. Both are back in, they run the ropes, and both men hit each other with dual crossbodies, but Badd gets the 3-count!?
Winner: Johnny B. Badd
I literally don’t understand why this was the move to put Pillman away, after the Frankensteiner, the powerbomb, or almost anything else, it’s totally illogical. I’d like to like this match, but it just didn’t need to be 29 minutes long, both were pacing themselves after the 3-4 minute mark with headlocks and it was obvious that this was going to be a long, dull match. It was very stop-and-start. I’d rather have seen a fifteen minute match with some actual pace to it. It picked up towards the end and both men were technically sound throughout, but we just didn’t need half an hour. Badd gets the win and will face Sting at some point.
It’s back to the announcers as Tony and Bobby shill the Ric Flair vs Arn Anderson feud, and then we cut to mean gene and Flair for a backstage promo. Flair says for fifteen years he and Arn lived together, sweated together, bled together and cried together, and while he loves Arn, tonight he has to show him that there’s only one king of the hill. Terrific promo.
