Jonathan Dehn
Since I’m covering matches that carry much more prestige than the normal Raw or Smackdown fare, I will be giving these things some star ratings. If you disagree with my ratings to these matches, feel free to start a discussion below, or in the appropriate thread at our forums.
-At the start of the set, we get an opening video package that’s an extended version of the commercial that drew us to be interested in this set. Dusty joins us now to explain to us how the match was conceived. Dusty was inspired after going to see Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Dusty wanted to cage up many wrestlers. Klondike Bill, the man who constructed rings for Crockett, was given directions by Dusty to build the housing. It is a wrestling engineering marvel for its time, with one giant cage hanging over the ring and then simply brought down. Ice hockey’s penalty boxes inspired the timing of the combat, with five minutes for the first two competitors, and then two minutes between further entrances. As a novice to these matches, I personally like the idea of calling it “The Match Beyond” once all ten men entered the ring. Dusty gushes with the spectacle of it, and seeing it come to life before his eyes.
(In a classic War Games match, both teams pick out one competitor to begin the match. This goes for five minutes for the first competitors. Then, there is a coin flip to determine which team will gain the advantage for when a new man enters the fray. Once all ten men have entered, The Match Beyond begins, where the only way to win is for one of the competitors to submit from the punishment.)
July 4, 1987
The Road Warriors, Dusty Rhodes, Nikita Koloff and Paul Ellering vs. Ric Flair, Lex Luger, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard and J.J. Dillon
Dusty and Arn start the match in front of a hot crowd. Arn backs off after the first exchange, and Rhodes moves to the other ring and welcomes in Arn. Dusty walks the second rope, holding the top of the cage for support, and comes down with a boot to Anderson. Arn fights back after retreating to the other ring. Dusty strikes with a low bow and hits a DDT off of a whip. Arn starts to bleed. Dusty introduces Arn’s face to the cage. Anderson comes back but misses a knee drop. Dusty takes advantage and locks on a figure four leglock.
The Horsemen win the coin toss and Tully enters. Tully and Arn take a few elbows. They fight back and Tully holds Dusty down as Arn slugs away. The two get back to Dusty’s knee, with Arn putting on his own figure four leglock with support from Tully. Dusty bleeds. Road Warrior Animal enters the ring and cleans house, tossing Tully into the other ring. He swings Tully into the wall and takes him down with a flying shoulderblock before dragging his face into the cage. Animal and Dusty team up on Tully. Arn comes off of the top to help, but eats an Animal clothesline. Tully is opened up.
Flair is now in the ring. Flair and Arn toss Animal into the side of the cage as The Horsemen use their numbers. Animal is now bleeding while taking a beating from Arn and Ric. Nikita is in next and hits a double clothesline on Ric and Arn and goes after Blanchard. Meanwhile, Animal hits a press slam on Flair and grates his face against the cage. In a cute spot, Tully is stuck between both rings, bouncing off the ropes as Animal punches him. Flair is also bloodied. Luger is the fourth member of the team, and immediately goes after Nikita and hits a powerslam. Luger holds Nikita still as Flair gives him a low blow. Tully and Ric perform a spike piledriver on Nikita. They do it again. Dusty covers up Nikita from further punishment, and takes a beating for it.
Hawk evens up the teams. He throws everyone around to great adoration from the fans. Oh yeah, Nikita is bleeding. Flair has Rhodes in a figure four just seconds before J.J. Dillon comes in. His offense doesn’t really work on Hawk. Out last is Paul Ellering and The Match Beyond begins. Ellering brings a studded bracer into the ring and goes after Dillon. J.J. is opened up with the bracer and the faces begin to take control.
Hawk and Animal isolate J.J. Dillon and hit a double clothesline on him. They both pick him up and drive him twice into the wall. The Road Warriors get J.J. Dillon up for the Doomsday Device, but the cage ceiling is so low that J.J. spins around and lands painfully on his shoulder. Both Road Warriors keep their boots to J.J., and he tells Teddy Long that he’s had enough at about 22:00.
Final Thoughts: While we couldn’t see the crowd very much, there was no way to pipe in heat so well for this match. It must have been a hell of an atmosphere. This was a great brawl that had its fair share of memorable moments, from Arn and Dusty using the size of the cage to the their advantage, to Dusty covering up Nikita to save him from another spike piledriver. The strategy of keeping The Horsemen at bay while The Road Warriors and Paul Ellering absolutely destroyed Dillon was a great way to end the match. This feels like a ****1/4 affair to me.
-Dusty rejoins us to talk about the fun of Dillon being destroyed by the Road Warriors. Dusty talks about the draw of the War Games and how it wasn’t something to be on TV, but was a great match that sold out arenas and could stand on its own. Dusty talks about the NWA arriving on the scene with running War Games at The Orange Bowl.
July 31, 1987
The Road Warriors, Dusty Rhodes, Nikita Koloff and Paul Ellering vs. Ric Flair, Lex Luger, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard and The War Machine
Arn and Dusty begin this match, as well. Arn tries keeping himself separated from Dusty before they come together. They lock up and Dusty dances an hits jabs, finishing with the elbow. Arn gets run into the cage and takes another elbow. Arn is bleeding after another run into the cage. Anderson sweeps the leg and Dusty runs off. Off a whip, Dusty hits the DDT and goes for the figure four, but Anderson fights it off. Dusty rubs Arn’s face against the cage and hits a suplex. Dusty puts on the figure four, then.
The Horsemen wins the coin toss as Dusty pummels with elbows in the corner. The War Machine enters, and soon, he and Arn take advantage on Rhodes. Rhodes begins to bleed after they drag his face through the cage. They work the leg. Dusty fights out of the corner as Road Warrior Hawk enters. Hawk hits a dropkick on War and hits a powerslam on Arn. Hawk hits a bodyslam on Machine, and Dusty gets a clothesline on Anderson. Dusty and Hawk double team War.
Flair enters next and immediately chops at Hawk. Hawk comes out of the corner and clotheslines Arn and Ric. Flair cuts him off with a low blow and runs Hawk into the cage. Dusty hits an elbow flurry on War and Flair, but Ric takes control. Hawk is bloodied as Arn hits with a piledriver. Hawk, of course, no sells the piledriver. Flair and Arn double team Dusty with a figure four. Nikita is in next, but immediately takes a piledriver from Nikita. Nikita is unfazed and he hits some clotheslines. Ric hits some machine gun chops, but he isn’t Kobashi, so Koloff brushes that off, too. Koloff ducks a chop and hits a clothesline on Flair. Dusty climbs up and punches Flair in the corner. Koloff does the same to Arn. I’m just going to assume that Flair is bleeding now.
Tully Blanchard enters the ring, but gets slugged down by Dusty before some help from Flair puts him on the right path. There’s an awkward spot where Tully misses a top rope, cage-assisted dropkick on Dusty. Tully puts Rhodes in a spinning toehold. Tully comes off of the top and hits an elbow on the standing Hawk. Animal gets into the ring and he’s a house of fire, swinging Blanchard into the wall of the cage, opening him up. Animal no sells some Flair chops before Arn bails him out.
Luger is the last man in for his team and exchanges with Animal. Animal pairs off with Blanchard and tosses him from one ring to the other. The Road Warriors hit a double clothesline on Luger. The heels take control again before Paul Ellering joins in and The Match Beyond begins. Ellering has the bracer in this match as well. Ellering chops and bites at Flair. Meanwhile, The Road Warriors, and Rhodes give War Machine three clotheslines in a row. Nikita makes it four. Animal takes the bracer into War Machine’s face and he has had enough at about 21:00.
Final Thoughts: This was a pretty good match as well, but the War Machine kind of sucked and looked terribly out of the place with all of this talent. He replaced Dillon, and did the job just like Dillon had. However, he just took a few clotheslines and was facewashed with a piece of leather. It wasn’t nearly as memorable as Dillon’s unfortunate fate in the first match. The match was solid, but not as heat and intense as the first one. ***1/2
-Dusty rejoins us and talks about how even though War Games were part of The Great American Bash, it stood on its own. The Tower of Doom, he says, is more of something more traditional to go along with the movie inspiration.
July 10, 1988
Tower of Doom Match – The Road Warriors, “Dr. Death” Steve Williams, Ron Garvin, and Jimmy Garvin vs. Kevin Sullivan, Mike Rotunda, Al Perez, Russian Assassin and Ivan Koloff
This is a triple tiered cage, with the similar entrance guidelines. Precious holds cage door keys down in the ring. The first team to completely exit from the bottom cage wins. Steve William’s rat tail is something that I can’t take my eyes off of. Ron Garvin and Ivan Koloff go up the ladders to start the match. They slug it out to start. They exchange some chops with Garvin taking control. After just two minutes, Rotunda and Williams enter and it gets confusing, with Garvin making it to the second level, leaving Williams alone with Koloff and Rotunda, who take control.
Steve fights back, and holds his own, but it’s a lot of constricted brawling. Williams fights through to the second level with Koloff on his shoulders. Animal and Perez enter. Ron Garvin escapes at the bottom, with Williams and Koloff on the second level brawling. Meanwhile, Animal tears away at both Rotunda and Perez. Williams uses the cage to lift himself and then stomp at Koloff. Perez falls to the second along with Animal, while Assassin and Rotunda beat away at Hawk. Williams puts a nifty headscissors on Koloff, and then slams him into the cage floor.
Everyone else comes in now. Perez and Animal reach the bottom, with Animal in control. Animal leaves the ring. Perez leaves, as well. Rotunda finally gets down to the second level. Koloff and Assassin get down to the bottom, and they pound away at Hawk as he falls to the ring. Hawk clotheslines both of them. Sullivan and Jimmy Garvin keep fighting at the top, alone. Williams and Rotunda duel in the second cage as Hawk leaves the cage. Steve Williams takes care of Rotunda and gets to the bottom. Koloff and Assassin leave the ring along with Williams, leaving Jimmy Garvin alone with Rotunda and Sullivan.
They brawl back and forth, with Garvin smacking heads together and dodging strikes. Sullivan holds Garvin back as Rotunda gets to the bottom and leaves the ring. Jimmy Garvin stomps away at Sullivan while the departed combatants fight outside of the ring. Jimmy works at Sullivan’s knee before the horn blows and the trap door opens and they go to the bottom. Garvin takes out Kevin’s leg and drops him right on his head with a brainbuster. It takes Precious some time to unlock the door for Garvin. She was involved in a storyline with the two at the time.
Garvin escapes, with Sullivan right on his heels, at about 19:00. Sullivan locks himself in the cage with Precious and stalks at her. Garvin climbs up to the top of the cage with Hawk as Sullivan tries to get at Precious. Hawk and Garvin come in for the save quickly from the top, although I could have done with them beating the crap out of Sullivan for a couple more minutes, considering what he was doing.
Final Thoughts: There wasn’t much in the way of wrestling holds with such a closed-in battle, but the layout was nice, as was the strategy and storylines tied into it. I would say that Steve Williams was the star of the match, using the cage in creative ways to dish out punishment. The crowd was quite hot for what was going on, too, so I’ll give it ***1/4.
-Dusty talks about how the steel cage was better than having just singles matches to settle scores. The cage took a beating in time, as they just went up and down the road with the cage hanging above the ring and having brutal matches that they still had to keep the intensity towards.
July 16, 1988
Dusty Rhodes, Nikita Koloff, Lex Luger, “Dr. Death” Steve Williams and Paul Ellering vs. Ric Flair, Barry Windham, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard and J.J. Dillon
Not too surprisingly, Arn starts the match against Dusty. Arn welcomes him into his ring and they brawl, before Arn begs off. Anderson goes to the other ring again, but still gets nothing on Dusty, falling on a sunset flip and taking a transitional DDT. Arn takes a run into the cage and gets opened up. Like usual, Arn goes to the knee in desperation. Arn has a pair of pliers in the ring that he takes to Dusty’s head, opening him up with a pretty nasty looking cut. That’s pretty brutal.
Anderson goes up but jumps into a right hand. As per usual, Dusty puts on the figure four leglock at the end of the first period. The Horsemen win the coin toss, but of course. Windham comes in and takes an elbow flurry, joined by Arn. The two take control. Barry holds Dusty with an Iron Claw as Arn chokes him. I’d say Dusty has a solid .5 Muta flow going. Dr. Death is the next man in and he fires away, hitting a double clothesline and going into the four point stance to chop Barry and Arn down. Windham gets tossed between rings by Dusty and thrown into the cage. Steve blocks Arn’s slam into the cage and puts him into it. Flair is the next man in, and he unsuccessfully chops at Williams.
There’s a funny spot as Flair backs up from Steve and Arn just walks right by them and towards Dusty and Barry. Flair, goes low, however, and puts Williams into the cage. Williams bleeds and takes a DDT from Anderson. Luger enters the ring and immediately corners Flair. Luger hits a flying clothesline on Windham and Flair and powerlams them both. Lex gets the Torture Rack on Flair, but Windham hits him in the nuts. Barry and Ric put Luger in the corner, but Lex fights out of it and hits the ten punch on Flair. Tully enters this battle, springing in with an elbow on Williams. He finds a chair and wears out Luger with it.
Arn and Ric work on Luger as the others pair off. The key to these matches is that everyone usually blades except for Luger. Koloff jumps in next, but no sells attacks from Flair and Windham and clotheslines them both. Nikita puts a figure four on Flair before hitting the punches in the corner. In comes Dillon and he works with Barry on Luger. He celebrates with vulgar hip thrusts towards the crowd. His success doesn’t last long, as Koloff beats him down in the corner. Ellering enters the ring and all ten men have entered. Steve Williams goes after the weak link of Dillon, but Windham holds him off. Ellering dodges a dropkick from Dillon and hits an atomic drop. It’s winning time, and Dusty puts on the figure four with rope assistance onto Dillon and he quickly submits at about 22:00.
Final Thoughts: I’m starting to think that J.J. Dillon is the best member on Dusty’s team. This was a fun, brutal match. I should tally up nut shots, bloody foreheads and figure four leglocks on these things. What’s nice about these matches is how with every heel coin toss win, a great hot tag of sorts is set up with each babyface entry. With the addition of Barry Windham and Steve Williams, the match had some added pep and snap to it. I’ll say that this one is ****1/4.
-Dusty tells us about the fun and openness of live events. Hawk would chase J.J. underneath the ring and terrorize him during the match. Certain times, J.J. would pop his head up between the two rings and look to escape from the match by using the cage door but would be pulled underneath the ring again by Hawk.
July 23, 1989
The Road Warriors, The Midnight Express and “Dr. Death” Steve Williams vs. The Fabulous Freebirds and The Samoan Swat Team
The heel team cuts a promo before the match. Well, Hayes and Gordy talk. The face teams get a promo in return. Dr. Death glides across the screen like a bird just as Sweet Stan talks him up. The face team, although having differences, pledge to watch each other’s backs. Young Jim Cornette, and young Paul Dangerously are on the outside for both teams. Jimmy Garvin and Bobby Eaton start the match. They lock up to start, with both reversing moves before Garvin throws Eaton into the cage. Bobby fights back and hits a kick on Garvin with help from the roof. Jimmy comes back with a back elbow and stomps away. Eaton fights out and hits a backbreaker on Garvin, and follows up with another. Eaton hits a scoop slam and puts on a Boston Crab.
Bam Bam is in and quickly beats on Bobby, tossing him into the cage. Jimmy and Bam Bam toss Bobby into the second ring and hit a double back elbow off of the whip. This color guy is terrible. Dr. Death enters the ring and takes down both a double clothesline and chases Gordy into the other ring. A visually stunning shot comes next as Williams repeatedly presses Gordy over his head and into the ceiling. Terry comes back, however, with a clothesline in the corner. Steve bursts out of the corner, shortly thereafter and takes down Gordy with a clothesline. Samu enters and takes down Steve with a spin kick and a headbutt. Gordy hits a rough backdrop on Williams while Garvin rips at Eaton’s face. Samu and Gordy hit a double suplex on Williams.
Eaton tries to rally the two of them right before Animal enters the match. Animal cleans house, launching himself into Samu from the other ring in a cool spot. Eaton sends Samu into a double clothesline from Death and Animal. Fatu is the next man in. He goes after Animal and he and his tag partner hit a double headbutt in the corner and follow with a double clothesline and diving double heabutt. Bobby, getting the crap kicked out of him all match, fights away with Garvin in the corner. Stan Lane enters and puts everyone into the cage. Paul is outside mapping out strategy with Hayes, who curses himself for having to get in the cage. Williams and Animal combine with a couple of corner clotheslines. That was a lot of velocity and mass.
Hayes is the last to enter. He quickly dishes out DDTs to each of the faces. He runs to the other cage, and dances for the crowd. The crowd pops with the entrance of Hawk, who comes in with the clothesline off the top on both Samoans, and sends out a clothesline on the way to Gordy in the other ring to send chops and right hands to. Hawk and Williams clothesline in tandem, as Bobby hits a DDT on Hayes. Hawk launches himself between the two rings with a shoulderblock.
In a humorous spot, Paul tries to sneak his brick of a cellphone into the cage to Samu and is unsuccessful. The referee nearby is none too pleased, crossing his arms and staring a hole through Paul. Hawk and Animal set up the Doomsday Device, but Garvin saves. Hawks hits the clothesline on Garvin and follows up with a neckbreaker and a Hangman’s Neckbreaker. The referee gets in the ring, and Garvin submits to the neck damage. After the match, the heels keep the door shut and beat at Animal. Finally, the faces get the door open, but the heels bail on the other end.
Final Thoughts: This was a super fun match, despite the lack of blood. You have some legendary tag teams, and a couple of managers who greatly influenced wrestling in the following years. And you have Bam Bam and Williams having an all-time battle of hosses. This thing was a good change of pace from what we saw before, with more emphasis on double teams and the opening five minutes not being a rout by the babyface. ****
Photo Courtesy of WWE
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