Category: Classic Wrestling PPVs

Last week, we looked at Herb Abrams’ UWF’s Beach Brawl PPV event, which was… something. This week, we’re looking at their 1994 event, Blackjack Brawl.

Technically speaking, Blackjack Brawl is not a PPV. It’s more of a television special that they put on free television… because god forbid the world be subjected to another Herb Abrams-promoted PPV event that people had to pay for. But, yes, kids. We are doing the OTHER UWF supershow thing that was also on Youtube and I made a recording of for future reference… although much like the previous show, the show is still on Youtube for the world to suffer through.

Well…

Continue reading “UWF Blackjack Brawl (September 1994)”

You want to talk about old, obscure shit… witness Beach Brawl from 1991, courtesy of the Universal Wrestling Federation… from Herb Abrams.

Oh yes… we are going into the deep end here. The outlaw promotion founded by Herb Abrams and assuming the name once used by Bill Watts’ Mid-South promotion, promising to bring wrestling back to the way it used to be… which probably meant a lot of half empty houses, lots of bad wrestling, poor production, and a rather healthy drug-fueled lifestyle. And so much like Bill Watts’ UWF, Herb Abrams’ UWF also eventually went bye-bye… which probably would’ve happened anyway considering Abrams’ passing in 1996.

But yes, the UWF had a PPV event that somebody would eventually – decades later – upload to Youtube and somewhere along the way, I had managed to record the event on DVD-R through my old set-up… long story. And then I did this write-up… promptly forgot about it… and just got back to it now… so I figured…”Why not give this show another shot?”

Then I found out why I never gave it another shot.

Continue reading “UWF Beach Brawl (June 1991)”

Here’s something a bit different; WWE Network had recently uploaded the American Wrestling Association’s fourth and final Superclash supercard show thing onto the service as a hidden gem. This was a show that was believed to have never been televised, but leave it to the folks over at the Network to dig up this tremendous gem for the masses to witness the slow, decaying death of the AWA.

This show took place on April 8th, 1990 from the St. Paul Civic Center in Minnesota.

Continue reading “AWA Superclash IV”

Most people probably know about the Wrestlerock Rumble rap number that has become something of a cult hit for all the wrong reasons… because isn’t that the typical way of becoming a cult hit? For all the wrong reasons.

Anyway, this is the show that whole thing was promoting… and oh dear god…

Quick note: I’m watching this off the WWE Network, which apparently features a heavily edited version of the show. I don’t know what differences there are – apparently, there’s a match featuring the Midnight Rockers that was cut from this version – but I’m just going by what I watch and that’s all I could do, really.

Continue reading “AWA Wrestlerock 1986”

Time for something a little bit different.

Originally airing on April 23, 1983, it’s the American Wrestling Association’s Super Sunday extravaganza. I’m watching this on the WWE Network and while an old AWA stadium event wouldn’t be enticing to me normally, this show does contain a rather famous match that has tide shifting potential.

Continue reading “AWA Super Sunday (April 1983)”

The American Wrestling Association was on its last legs.

Superclash III is perhaps best known for two things; for being the AWA’s one and only attempt at a pay-per-view event that drew dismal numbers and also for the title unification match between AWA champion Jerry “The King” Lawler and WCCW champion Kerry Von Erich. That match has been featured on a number of DVD compilations – most notably the Spectacular Legacy of the AWA set that is worth checking out if you can find a copy – but I’ve never seen the full show until recently, with the show being readily available on the WWE Network.

This event was a joint venture between Verne Gagne’s AWA, Jerry Jarrett’s CWA based in Memphis, and the Von Erich’s World Class promotion. Several years later, the CWA and WCCW would be merged into the USWA and AWA would go out of business… so, I’m guessing the show didn’t turn out so well.

And if you need an even less subtle hit, this is being posted on a day where I follow an annual tradition of reviewing a bad game. Said review is coming later today for those who care.

But enough about that. Let’s get on with the show!

Continue reading “AWA Superclash III”

Date: July 30, 2000
Location: Sydney SuperDome, Sydney, Australia

What? You thought we were done with the Australia-themed wrestling shows? You foolish people, you.

So 1999 saw Heroes Of Wrestling, which was an unmitigated disaster which featured a bunch of old guys (known today as “wrestling legends” and “WWE Hall of Famers”) and a somewhat-not-sober Jake Roberts stroking his snake. And while Heroes of Wrestling didn’t get a follow-up for obvious reasons, 2000 saw some other company attempt the same thing, but with “lesser” name talent. How much “lesser?” Your main event for the evening was “Mr. Perfect” Curt Hennig defending some “World” title against Dennis Rodman. Now if THAT doesn’t get you excited, then you have far more sense than anyone booking this show.

Continue reading “i-Generation Superstars of Wrestling: Rodman Down Under (2000 PPV)”

Auckland, New Zealand
June 8, 2003 (Taped May 25, 2003)

And so we come to the final WWA PPV show, as shortly thereafter the company would fold and be a forgotten footnote in the annals of wrestling history. As such, this PPV is about unifying the WWA titles into the various NWA-TNA titles. With this in mind, the NWA-TNA champion wins. This much was spoiled on an edition of the NWA-TNA weekly PPVs where they showcased a brief snippet of NWA champ Jeff Jarrett beating WWA champ Sting to unify both belts. Way to kill off any reason for people to want to buy this one last PPV, guys.

Continue reading “WWA: The Reckoning (2003 Australian PPV)”

Glascow, Scotland
December 06, 2002 (aired February 9, 2003)

This was a surprise to me when I first heard about it because by this point, you already had NWA-TNA (that’s the original moniker for Impact Wrestling, kids) and that was the “cool” alternative to WWE. So it was easy to assume that once TNA became a thing, the World Wrestling All-Stars tour would be nothing more than a distant memory… and yet here we were in 2003, the overall fourth Pay-Per-View event under the WWA brand. And in even more of a surprise, you actually have some TNA talent on here, including then-reigning NWA World Champion Jeff Jarrett. So that’s something.

Continue reading “WWA: The Retribution (2003 PPV)”

Melbourne, Australia – April 14, 2002

The third WWA PPV event went back to the land down under and this would be the final WWA event before the Jarretts would begin showcasing NWA-TNA via weekly $10 pay-per-views in June that year… but not the final WWA event overall. Let’s not get to that now. Because Jeff Jarrett was tending to his own house, so to speak, he would drop the WWA World Title to Nathan Jones, a guy perhaps best known for being signed by WWE and doing nothing of note because, well, he wasn’t very good at what he did. WWA, on the other hand, thought he was good enough to their World Champion. I suppose being a local Aussie kid helped in that decision-making.

Continue reading “WWA: The Eruption (2002 Australian PPV)”