Retro Review: NWA Bunkhouse Stampede

Get your retro hats and your old-school slippers on and settle in for Retro Review!


In this week's edition we travel back to 24th January 1988 for NWA's one and only Bunkhouse Stampede PPV. WWF just so happened to hold the inaugral Royal Rumble on the same day, Mats Wilander was defeating Pat Cash in the final's of the Australian Open Tennis and Belinda Carlise was rocking the UK charts with Heaven is Place on Earth. 


The PPV focused around the eponymous Bunkhouse Stampede match, an eight man battle royal with a Steel cage around the ring. Arn Anderson, Dusty Rhodes, Ivan Koloff, Lex Luger, Road Warrior Animal, The Barbarian, The Warlord and Tully Blanchard are all on hand to take part it that one, whilst Ric Flair, Road Warrior Hawk, Bobby Eaton, Barry Windham, Nikita Koloff and more appear on the undercard.


Before the show kicked off the Nassau Colliseam was treated to a dark match that saw Sting & Jimmy Garvin go over The Sheepherders by disqualification in 11 minutes and 45 seconds.

 Match 1 - NWA World Television Championship - 

Nikita Koloff (C)

 vs. 

Bobby Eaton with Jim Cornette

I can't get my head around the opening match of a PPV going to a 20 minute time limit draw. I mean, maybe if it's a balls to the wall kind of bout with loads of near falls, fought at a fast past that leaves both men exhausted, then perhaps it might just about work, lifting the crowd for the rest of the show. But this is completely the opposite. Despite the commentary team of Jim Ross and Bob Caudle putting over the idea that Eaton should be using his pace to get the better of the stronger Koloff, he decides to do the complete opposite and we get Eaton slapping on a hammerlock at every given opportunity. One of them lasts for four minutes. Four minutes of Nikita Koloff in a hammerlock. Take my monies, NWA. 


There's a few moments that manage to stop this one being a complete dud, like a sweet missile dropkick from Eaton and Jim Cornette running his mouth at ringside (although he's pretty redundant in the story of the bout), but that's maybe a minute worth of stuff in a 20 minute bout. I found myself willing the time to go quicker, with the ring announcer letting us know how long was left in the bout, and anyone with a brain knowing exactly what was going to happen when the pair refused to up the pace for the entirety of the bout. If someone offer you the opportunity of watching this match or placing your testicles in deep fat fryer, take up the latter option. 


Winner - NO ONE via time-limit draw in 20 minutes *STILL CHAMPION*


Next PPV - Koloff would be in action at NWA's next PPV The Great American Bash in July, teaming with Sting to challenge for Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard's WORLD tag team titles in ANOTHER time limit draw! Eaton would also be in tag team action, with Midnight Express partner Stan Lane, winning the UNITED STATES tag titles from The Fantastics.

Match 2 - UWF Western States Heritage Championship

Barry Windham (C)

vs.

Larry Zybszko with Baby Doll

There is absolutely no need for this one to go almost 20 minutes, after the previous bout had gone to a time limit draw. The three (including Baby Doll as she plays a big part in the bout, well it's conclusion, at least) clearly didn't have 20 minutes worth of ideas and therefore this bout is full of stalling and rest holds. Although, I'm not sure I'd call a heel hook a rest hold, but that's how it's treated here. I found it hard to suspend my disbelief that Windham would either be able to take the pain for the length of time he spent in the hold, or it the hold wasn't hurting that much that he would just quickly get out of it. Windham sold the leg well for a while, but quickly forgot about towards the end. The one big spot that the injury lead to, the looked like Zybszko was supposed to rotate out of a vertical suplex to get a cover, was completely botched and ended up in a some kind of weird brain buster situation. 


That being said, this a much better bout than the opening contest, with the duo at least trying to put together some decent sequences of action, with the pace really building in the last five minutes or so. I thought that the finish was perhaps trying to be a bit too clever, with the ref getting bumped and Windham believing he won the match with a small package because, according to Jim Ross, Baby Doll was counting the pinfall at ringside. Of course, the cameras completely missed this and Windham celebrated like the stupid babyface he is with the referee clearly down in the corner. Baby would hand Zybszko hear shoe, which would lead to "The Living Legend" winning the title when the ref miraculously recovered.


Winner - Zbyszko via pinfall in 19 minutes and 16 seconds


Next PPV - Barry Windham would defend his newly won United States Heavyweight Championship against Dusty Rhodes at The Great American Bash. Zybszko wouldn't be seen again on PPV until February 1991's WrestleWar where he'd team with Barry Windham, Ric Flair and Sid Vicious to defeat Flyin' Brian, Sting and The Steiner Brothers in the main event War Games match.

Match 3 - NWA World Heavyweight Championship - 

Ric Flair (C) with JJ Dillon

vs.

Road Warrior Hawk with Paul Ellering

With the majority of NWA's World title calibre talent in the main event, Road Warrior Hawk got World title shot, because why not? This is the strongest match on the card, but it featured Ric Flair so you should have known that already. Flair leads Hawk to an enjoyable 21 minutes (yes another, long ass match, but this one probably deserved the time most) that tells a solid story of Flair being unable to match Hawk's power, so resorting to a number of cheap tricks (low blows, eye rakes etc.) to take control of proceedings. The prototypical chicken shit heel, it was cool to see all the Flair trademarks present here, including working the leg after Hawk injures his knee doing a fist drop (Figure that one out!)

It's a real shame that this match has such a terrible finish. Flair just twats Hawk with a chair in front of the referee and get's disqualified. Like what the fuck Flair? You're more clever than that. Get Dillon to distract the ref then hit Hawk in the knee with the chair and slap on the Figure Four. Was it that hard? This is babyface levels of stupidity. This finish may have been acceptable if we'd gone less than ten mintues, but heading past the 21 minute mark and pulling this shit is not cool. I was invested in the action and wanted a conclusive finish. Damn you, Dusty Rhodes and you're stupid booking.

Winner - Hawk via disqualification in 21 minutes, 39 seconds. *STILL CHAMPION*

Next PPV - At The Great American Bash, Flair succesfully defended his title against Lex Luger in the main event. Road Warrior Hawk would slip down the card to compete in the Tower of Doom match, teaming with Jimmy Garvin, Ronnie Garvin, Steve Williams and Road Warrior Animal to defeat Al Perez, Ivan Koloff, Kevin Sullivan, Mike Rotunda and The Russian Assassin

.

There's a lovely bit of stalling before the main event, as Ross and Caudle scramble to cover time as the steel cage is put up. Highlights include Caudle running down the behind the scenes staff who have put the show together, the pair trying to make sense of the finish of the Windham vs. Zbyszko bout and covering the previous Bunkhouse Stampede bouts. It's at a point like this that WWE would throw to a backstage segment today.

Match 4 - Steel Cage Bunkhouse Stampede

Arn Anderson

vs.

Dusty Rhodes

vs.

Ivan Koloff

vs.

Lex Luger

vs. 

Road Warrior Animal

vs.

The Barbarian

vs. 

The Warlord

vs. 

Tully Blanchard

This gimmick is just stupid. It really is. Think about it, it's a battle royal, so to be eliminated your feet need to touch the floor, but the ring is surrounded by a steel cage. So how on earth is someone going to make your feet touch the floor, if you don't want them to? Stay on the ground and stay away from the door and you'll perfectly fine, right? Nah, guys are climbing onto the top rope and rolling around by the open door and all sorts. This makes it ridiculously hard to suspend your disbelief for the entirety of the bout.  I get the idea that the cage is there to make things harder and to make a wrestler look stronger for eliminating everyone, but in practice it just doesn't work. 

The first elimination is Warlord and Barbarian getting Koloff over the top after SIXTEEN minutes. SIXTEEN minutes for the first elimination. What happened in those first sixteen minutes? Absolutely nothing. There's some brawling and some more brawling and then a little bit more brawling. With eight men in there, all going at for themselves, this is pretty boring. The other eliminations come through the door and involved multiple people falling out the door, with Warlord and Animal both tumbling out at around the 18 minutes mark, before Anderson, Luger and Blanchard awkwardly exit the cage about four minutes later. None of these eliminations make anyone look good and neither do they make me want to see a fight between any of the competitors in the near future.

In fact, no one comes out of this one looking like a star, because there is really no attempt to tell a story and what you get is eight guys wandering around hitting each other for 26 minutes. Even the winner Dusty Rhodes doesn't look as good as I'm sure he was hoping he would have when he booked himself to win his FOURTH Bunkhouse Stampede in a row, as despite being a little bloodied, he only manages to eliminate Barbarian and does very little else all match. On the strength of this shit alone, Rhodes deserved to get fired from his job as booker, if you look at the booking at the booking for the rest of the PPV it's surprising that he ever got given the book again.

Winner - Dusty Rhodes in 26 minutes, 21 seconds

Next PPV - At The Great American Bash, Dusty Rhodes would get a shot at Barry Windham's NWA United States Heavyweight Championship, Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard would team up to defend the NWA World Tag Team titles in a time limit draw with Nikita Koloff & Sting, Lex Luger would challenge for Ric Flair's NWA World Heavyweight championship and Road Warrior Animal and Ivan Koloff would be on opposite sides of a Tower of Doom match. The Barbarian and The Warlord would jump to the WWF, becoming the Powers of Pain, defeating The Bolsheviks at SummerSlam in August.

Finally...

ATPW Scale Rating - 3.5/10

This is a piss-poor PPV, avoid it in it's full form at all costs. Ric Flair, at least, manages to pull an entertaining bout out of Road Warrior Hawk, that is worth a watch if you get the chance, but even that is hampered with some stupid, stupid booking. The opener and the main event are just terrible, with the opener being one of the most boring bouts that I've ever seen. 

This PPV deserves it's place on the ATPW Scale (for the time being, at least) of dead last!

NEXT TIME - WCW Halloween Havoc 1998

Diamond Dallas Page challenges Goldberg for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in the main event. Chris Jericho, Bret Hart, Sting, Scott Hall and Raven are also on the card. Oh...and the infamous rematch between Hollywood Hogan and The (Ultimate) Warrior.

WWE Attitude Era Vol. 2 DVD Review

WWE's Attitude Era Vol. 2 is out now on DVD (There's a Blu Ray version too), available from www.wwedvd.co.uk. The three disc set features twenty nine matches and five segments from the Attitude Era, from between 1997 and 2000, with a interviews from a number of the era's stars interspersed throughout. The set includes matches featuring the likes of Shawn Michaels, The Hardy Boyz, Chris Jericho, The Legion of Doom, The Undertaker and more.

     Unlike the original Attitude Era set, Vol. 2 takes the form of a match compilation, originally presented by the dull flannel that is Michael Cole, whilst a series of interviews are placed in between the matches. Sometimes the interviews connect nicely with the following match, such as Sunny talking about managing LOD 2000 before a LOD 2000 bout or Mark Henry introducing a series of vignettes demonstrating the "Sexual Chocolate" gimmick. However, there is a number of the interviews that feel very thrown together, as if these are parts of interviews that WWE Home Video simply had knocking around from previous sets, such as Chris Jericho talking about his WWE debut, after we've just seen a Chris Jericho match on the set and a completely random story from Ron Simmons. There's also a real lack of star power in terms of interviews, with short clips of The Rock and Chris Jericho the only real appearances from major stars, and whilst it is nice to hear from guys like The Godfather and X-Pac, having the majority of the main event stars missing does give this set a slightly second rate feel. Throw into the mix the random clippings of interviews and it's difficult to feel that this set has been given the love and attention that it needed. The presentation really let's it down.

Mike Tyson - Not on this set (but part of the press pack, so there)

The Matches and Segments

The set kicks off with a Bikini Contest from the 1997 Slammy Awards, with Sable, Marlena and The Funkettes, to get over that the Attitude Era was all about frustrated teenage boys. Vince McMahon on commentary is hilarious with quips such as "She is looking mighty fine" being the pick of the bunch. Luckily, we get some wrestling next as Owen Hart and Shawn Michaels battle on a December 1997 episode of Raw. It's a grudge match style bout, happening a mere month after the Montreal Screwjob, with some great wrestling sequences and Hart's offence looking superb, this is a decent TV match and a good way to start the wrestling content. The New Age Outlaws take on the team of Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie on a January 1998 Raw in a basic and dull brawl, that is almost saved by the everything going nuts after the match.

 Strangely, the sets chronological order is broken as we jump back to Royal Rumble (surely helping the case that this set was thrown together) as Rocky Maivia and Ken Shamrock tangle in a decent Intercontinental Championship match. Raw in April teases Steve Austin vs. Mr. McMahon with a shit tonne of stalling, it never delivers what it promises but the swerve is still entertaining to watch. A few weeks later Triple H teams with The New Age Outlaws against LOD 2000 and Owen Hart in a fun six man tag, that's structured to play to the strengths of each man in the match. Again, everything Owen does looks flawless. 

Jerry Lawler talks about breasts.

     June segment from Raw see's D Generation X head to New York to promote SummerSlam in an uncomfortable segment that is chock-full of racist and sexist verbiage. Maybe not the best segment to include at time when the WWE (and specifically Triple H) have had claims of racism sent their way. A month later, Mankind and "Kane" battle to become Number One Contender to the WWF Championship, complete with Kane's red lighting! It's quick and swervy with an infamous finish, one of the iconic moments of the Attitude Era here. Just as iconic as this are Sable's breasts, which are on display in a bikini contest against Jacqueline from Fully Loaded. Jerry Lawler presents the contest, acting in the role of 13 year old boy seeing a breast for the first time. 

Val Venis teams with Taka Michonoku to take on KaiEnTai's Dick Togo and Sho Funaki, which quickly descends into madness on an August Raw. On the same show in September, Steve Austin and Ken Shamrock work an acceptable TV main event over the WWF Championship, with a hot crowd that is let down by a dodgy finish. A week later on Raw, Sgt. Slaughter faces Al Snow in a Bootcamp match with Al Snow's contract on the line and whilst the commentators Shane McMahon and Jim Cornette have no idea of the rules and Sgt. Slaughter is horrendously out of shape, Snow manages to carry him to a tolerable match, with a number of fun spots.

Road Dogg shouts words at Owen Hart

 

A week later, a six man four corners match is on offer as Edge, Gangrel, Jeff Jarrett, Droz, Marc Mero and D'Lo Brown battle to become Number One Contender to the European Championship. The match is enjoyable, with a lot going on and allows a number of on-going stories to progress, but the crowd and D'Lo Brown's bumping ability are questionable. The bout is also a little short to fully show off all six men. On a November Raw, X-Pac get's a shot at The Rock's WWF Championship and while there is about as much doubt today as there was then as to who would walk out the winner, this is still a well put together match with a solid swerve finish. The opener from In Your House 26: Rock Bottom see's The Godfather and Val Venis team up to take on Mark Henry and D'Lo Brown. The match lacks any real pace or notable offence, but is entirely watchable, helped along by how over D'Lo Brown is!

Triple H vs. Edge from Raw in January 1998 is an extended squash match. Most likely included because of Edge's later star power, it's good for the two and a half minutes it lasts. Kane and Steve Austin main event a March Raw, in a bout that attempts to tell a decent story, but struggles because Kane refuses to sell at all. There's a couple of big spots and appearance from the then "Big Nasty" Paul Wight, as highlights. Two weeks later, Billy Gunn challenges Hardcore Holly for the Hardcore Championship. It's a good representation of the Hardcore division with plenty of random weapon shots, alongside one silly table spot. There's way too much focus on Jim Ross' stupid separate commentary table.

X-Pac - Has A Sex Tape with Chyna

On Raw in April, Paul Wight takes on The Rock and Triple H in a handicap match main event, which is much more of a segment than a match. The booking of Wight makes him look like a beast and the pop for Steve Austin entrance is HUGE! A week later, The Big Boss Man is supposed to face Goldust for the Intercontinental Championship. The match doesn't go to plan, but what is provided is an awkward and plodding title contest. Five days later on Shotgun Saturday Night, Edge & Christian go up against The Hardy Boyz in an enhancement match. There's some suspect booking, with Gangrel at ringside, but a superb finish makes this one worthwhile.

The Rock and The Undertaker tussle in a Casket Match on an May Raw, although again this is more of a segment with wrestling in it, than an actual match. There's interruption for a backstage brawl and a tonnes of interference, with a decent story peering through. It was strange to see the Casket match gimmick used in such a throwaway manner to build other feuds. A surprisingly entertaining contest comes in the form of Jeff Jarrett defending the Intercontinental Championship on a July episode of Sunday Night Heat. A quick match, with sound wrestling and good flow, it's a shame about the super silly finish. A Tag Team Championship match pitting X-Pac & Kane against The Acolytes is a perfectly booked, yet basic tag team match, played out in front of a red hot crowd. It also see's Kane talk for himself for the very first time, without his special talky stick.

Papa Shango Kama Mustafa The Godfather

Mark Henry's Sexual Chocolate days are represented through a series of promos and vignettes. These were straight up embarrassing to watch, as Henry revealed such lovely nuggets about his past as losing his virginity to his sister, aged 8 and that he was still having sex with his sister, I honestly don't understand the logic of this booking. Was it simply to embarrass Henry? Next up, there's more Henry action (literally) as he spends Valentines' Night with Mae Young in a hotel. How on earth do you review that? Luckily, wrestling returns as Chris Jericho and Tazz chase Kurt Angle's European Championship on a March 2000 Raw, unluckily the bout goes for only just over three minutes, and whilst all cut strong promos before the match, the match just isn't long enough for these three to reach their full potential.

Jericho and Angle are back on a May Raw with Jericho defending the European Championship. Angle's pre-match promo is a gem, but the match is not the strongest these two have had, whilst the wrestling is crisp, there is nothing resembling substance or drama to be found here. The next month on Heat, Dean Malenko and Eddie Guerrero have a similar problem with timing, as whilst there are a number of cool looking moves, this match isn't given any real time to get going. There is also a genuinely shit finish. WWF's style storytelling suits a mixed tag team match, pitting The Rock & Lita against Kurt Angle & Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley, main eventing an August Smackdown much better. The bout allows the Triple H-Stephanie-Angle love triangle storyline to progress, whilst pushing the Triple H vs. Angle vs. Rock for the upcoming PPV. Rock and Angle also manage to fit in some nice wrestling, whilst Lita is elevated from appearing in the main event, as are The Hardy Boyz appearing later on!

Frilly shirts and sunglasses in doors. The Brood were cool.

A truly awful Women's Championship match sees Lita defend against Jacqueline and Ivory on a September Sunday Night Heat. Lita is extremely over with the crowd, but this short, sloppy, botch-laden match does little show off why. Things continue on this downward spiral, as strangely we jump back to a June Raw to witness Gerald Briscoe and Crash Holly clash over the Hardcore Championship in a silly silly silly match. The King of the Ring PPV witness' more of Gerald Brisco's antics, as he takes on Pat Patterson in the infamous Evening Gown match. I don't think I'll ever be able to remove these images from my brain. Thank fuck the Hardcore title is gone and shall never ever return!

Another mixed tag bout rounds of the set, as The Rock and Lita team up again to take on Triple H and Trish Stratus to main event a July Raw. It's a little on the short side for a TV main event these days, but is still a lot of fun to watch, being well booked and contains a saucy finish. Even one loves a saucy finish!

Finally...

 

The Rock is the biggest name to get interviewed for this set.

 

     If you were an avid viewer of WWE between 1997 and 2000 this set could act as a nice little nostalgia trip, reliving a handful of iconic moments, whilst being remembering some that you had forgotten about. However, this set didn't do much for me personally, it's quite clearly chucked together from old interviewers and doesn't attempt to follow a chronology or any other discernible pattern. There also isn't a single match on here that I'd recommend going out of your way to watch and whilst the majority are at least watchable, there's also Briscoe vs. Patterson which no one should ever have to watch. Approach this set with caution.