BRM Reviews TWA Autumn Armageddon II (utter sh*t)

[Big Red Machine]

TWA Autumn Armageddon II (9/21/1991)- Philadelphia, PA

We got a very loud "WE WANT FLAIR!" chant at the beginning of the show. Not sure why.

LAST BLOOD BATTLE ROYALE- DUD!
This was just a complete and total clusterf*ck of thirteen guys all just randomly going after each other. The most over guy in the match seemed to be Crybaby Waldo. Imagine that. A guy named "Crybaby Waldo" is more over in Philly than Sabu or the Sandman.
The only person who really stood out to me here was Sabu. You always hear people talk about how Sabu stood out because he was just so different than everyone else, but I never truly appreciated it until I saw this match. Everyone else is just throwing punches and bodyslams, and Sabu is doing senton bombs and springboard arm drags.
Someone's valet got involved at the end, and after the match she would up getting chased around and almost spanked or something. It was very hard to tell because of the video quality.

TWA HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: J.T. Smith(c) vs. D.C. Drake (w/Don E. Allen, Woman & some guy on crutches)- 1.25/10
So the heels needed the ref to be distracted before hitting J.T. with a weapon and the ref had to warn D.C. Drake not to choke J.T. multiple times, but D.C. dropping a knee on J.T.'s groin right in front of the referee was perfectly legal? Anyway, the heels use weapons and shots from the outside to beat the crap out of J.T.... for OVER TEN STRAIGHT MINUTES! Then just one shot with the crutch the heels had been hitting J.T. with all match puts D.C. Drake down for the count. The heat here lasted WAY too long, to the point where I really didn't give a damn about J.T.'s ultra-short comeback. J.T. did take a good bump or two, though, and there were moments where you could tell why he was (theoretically) the top babyface in the promotion.

TONY STETSON vs. MR. SANDMAN- 0.5/10
They started this match off with a brilliant spot in which the heel Sandman (crazy, right?!) didn't want to wrestle the match. The ref told him that if he didn't enter the ring by the count of ten, he would be counted out and be declared the loser. The Sandman protested the whole time, until the ref reached nine at which point Sandman rolled into the ring... and immediately rolled back out. Classic heel stuff. The Sandman then says he is taking a time out and starts bragging about how clever he is... and then Steston grabs him from behind and yanks him into the ring to a big pop.
Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. They hit some horribly lame looking table shots on each other, and Stetson, the babyface, got in 99% of the offense, including an utterly horrendous botch of a piledriver that wound up looking more like a lame version of Antonio Cesaro's Gotch-style Neutralizer without the leg cradle. A dull match that got quite a few well-deserved "BORING!" chants from the crowd towards the end.

TWA TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Johnny Hotbody & D.C. Drake(c) (w/Woman, Don E. Allen, and the guy on crutches from before) vs. The Blackhearts (w/Luna Vachon)- 3.5/10
The crowd loved this match, but to me it just felt like another random wild brawl. Better than the others so far, I will grant, but still just another brawl. Whenever there was a weapon shot in front of the referee he would get very angry and scold the wrestler for using the weapon and take the weapon away… but never once did he call for a DQ. So what’s the point of taking the weapon away and yelling at the wrestler? Either weapons are legal and the ref should let them use them, or they are illegal and he should DQ the wrestlers for using them.
For those who are wondering, one of the Blackhearts (Blackheart Apocalypse, I believe) is Gangrel.
After the match, Hotbody and the other heels turned on DC Drake. Some babyfaces tried to make the save but were fought off. J.T. Smith eventually came out and made the save all by himself. He tries to help D.C. up but D.C. takes a swing at him. Then they have a bit of a staredown before they decide to be friends.

OWEN HART vs. TAKAYUKI IIZUKA- 7/10
This is the same Iizuka who currently wrestles for New Japan, but using his real name. The match was great. Owen did cool athletic stuff and Iizuka worked over Owen’s head by kicking it a lot.

TERRY FUNK vs. KEVIN SULLIVAN (w/Angel)- -6/10 (yes, a negative 6/10)
Kevin Sullivan grabbed the timekeeper’s hammer and chased Funk around with it. Sully caught up with Terry far back in the crowd and just beat the sh*t out of him with the hammer. Then he apparently decided that he was bored of using the hammer so he went back to ringside, put the hammer back on the table, and grabbed the ring bell. Apparently you can’t use the ring bell in this match, though, because the ref took it away from him. In the time that it took Sully to walk back to ringside, put the hammer down and grab the bell, Funk, who had just gotten the sh*t beaten out of him with the hammer, had already almost made it back to ringside.
After some more weird silliness where apparently some weapons are okay and others are not, Sully rolled Funk into the ring and hit him with a low blow. Funk sold the low blow and Sully started punching him… but Terry no-sold the punches… while still selling the low blow. HUH?! Sully then gave Funk one last big punch, which Funk did sell… but then immediately stopped selling his balls and made a comeback.
They brawled some more until Terry Funk would up punching the referee, and for this, BOTH men were disqualified. They continue to fight after this and Funk had Sully on the run until someone else (I believe it was Glen Osborne) showed up to help Sully. This let Sully get the advantage. After some more chasing we wound up with Sully in the ring with the timekeeper’s hammer and his lackey outside of the ring and Terry Funk also outside of the ring, throwing chairs at the lackey. The lackey blocked the first chair with his arms, but he still dropped to one knee to sell the force of it or whatever. The second chair completely missed, but the lackey sold it way more than he sold the first one. Rather than go after Sully, Funk continued to throw chairs at the lackey, chasing him to the back. Oh. And the lackey was carrying a mask in his hand for some reason. Funk and Sully then had a confrontation in the aisle but security came out to stop them from fighting (why they didn’t try to stop these guys from fighting before now I have no idea). Funk and Sully fought anyway, and security apparently just decided to give up. This dragged on forever and it completely sucked.

EDDIE GILBERT PROMO- he says that Foley sold out by going to wrestle for WCW. The fans booed this. I don’t care if it is your hometown promotion or not, I do not understand how anyone can possibly boo WCW while watching a show this wretched. The only good match so far was the match between a guy from the WWF and a guy from New Japan. Oh. And these same fans who booed WCW started the show off by chanting “WE WANT FLAIR!”

CACTUS JACK & LUNA VACHON vs. EDDIE GILBERT & MADUSA MICELI- 5/10
Early on in the match, while Madusa and Luna are doing what is easily the best wrestling of the night aside from Owen and Iizuka, the very same fans who were just booing WCW and popped huge when Eddie told Foley to tell WCW and Jim Herd to kiss his ass… start a loud chant of “WE WANT STING!” What sort of schizophrenic nonsense is this?
Anyway, the women wrestled THE ENTIRE MATCH. The only time the guys got involved was when Foley reached into the ring and tripped Madusa up. Then Eddie came over and brawled with Foley, and they brawled away through the crowd. After this, Luna sat on a chair in the middle of the ring while Madusa cut her hair. Apparently someone’s hair on the line in this match, and it was never even mentioned… AND THIS WAS THE ONLY MATCH WITH A PROMO TO THEORETICALLY EXPLAIN WHY THESE PEOPLE WERE FIGHTING!

THE AFTERMATH- bad
The Blackhearts came out and made the save for Luna. Then Eddie came back to fight off the Blackhearts, and, for some reason, Foley came out to help Eddie, but Eddie didn’t notice it until they had tossed the Blackhearts out of the ring and wound up bumping into each other.
The Blackhearts and Luna started to head backstage, but one of them then decided to go back towards the ring for some reason. Madusa grabbed Luna and dragged her back to ringside. While they brawled, the lone Blackheart jumped into the ring and tried to take on both Eddie and Cactus by himself. Predictably, he got his ass kicked. Then the other Blackheart came back out and got his butt kicked, too. So fifteen minutes after calling him a sellout, Edide and Cactus are now friends again. Foley then tells Eddie that he won’t be coming back to the TWA and that the fans should blame Eddie Gilbert for that because it is all Eddie’s fault.

STEEL CAGE MATCH: Abdullah the Butcher vs. The Shiek (w/Sabu)- 0.5/10
The hit and bit each other a lot. Then someone from somewhere high up managed to throw a very large object into the cage, which they both used as a weapon. At one point Sabu scaled the cage… then immediately climbed back down for no reason. After five and a half minutes, someone won the match (you read that right: the main event steel cage match went less than six minutes), but they just continued fighting anyway, rendering the finish of the match entirely irrelevant. Sabu came over to help the Sheik, so Kevin Sullivan, a heel, came out to help Abby. Then Terry Funk came out to beat up Abby. They all brawled some more, then Abby beat up some cameramen and crew members for some reason. Then the show ended. THIS SHOW F*CKING SUCKED!

Part of the reason that I watched this show was that people always talk up the Tri-State Wrestling Alliance as being the “precursor to ECW.” What those people forget is that early ECW F*CKING SUCKED! 90% of ECW until the spring of 1995 is unwatchable. It was just a bunch of random brawls and pointless gimmick matches, with every match on the card feeling completely the same. Part of the reason that everyone talked up Eddie and Dean’s matches so much was that the fact that they weren’t random brawls made them completely unique from everything else on the card. This show suffered from the same flaws as early ECW, and as a result was horrid. Anytime that the only watchable match on the show involves two guys employed by other companies that only came in for one match, that is a very bad sign.