DOUBLE A OF THE DAY #23

Arn Anderson, Rick Rude & Bobby Eaton v Sting & The Steiner Brothers (WCW Worldwide, 10/3/92)

Oh FUCK man, Rude is STUPID GREAT in this. I know this is an Arn Anderson project, but holy shit does Rude just blow the lid off this whole thing by being totally awesome, thus I'm gonna spend most of this blowing Rude.

Starts out with him and Sting and it's great. He challenges him to a pose-down then throws a bitchfit when the crowd pick Sting as their winner; he leapfrogs him and does his gyrating hips taunt only to turn around and get smacked in the face; and he takes the double atomic drop spot where he sells it like he's Rick Rude and it's THE BEST sell of anything ever. Then Scott tags in and Rude wants a test of strength, but seems to have second thoughts when Scott accepts. He eventually partakes, gets Scott down to one knee and does his gyrating hips spot right in Scott's face, WHILE they're in the knucklelock. This of course leads to Scott powering back up and doing his own version of the gyrating hips, and Rude's pissed off again. Really cool spot as Scott has Rude in a bearhug, tagging in Rick and just passing him right along into another bearhug without Rude's feet touching the ground. Rick hits another atomic drop and Rude sells it like Flair would sell walking out of the corner after being chopped or punched to bits, only Rude doesn't take the Flair Flop at the end; he takes a blind swing at the ref' and THEN falls flat on his face. Then he gets back up, no idea where he is, notices Rick behind him and shits his pants, tagging in Arn.

First five minutes consist of Rude trying and failing miserably to match up with all of the babyfaces on his own. It was the greatest.

Wouldn't matter who gets in after Rude; whether it's Arn Anderson or not, there's no way anybody's topping Rude's early stooging. But this is Arn we're talking about and he gives it a go, anyway. I love his reaction to the crowd barking along with Rick: "OOOH OOOH OOOH... MY ASS!"

The transition into Scott playing FIP looked like there was some miscommunication between him and Bobby, but Scott's probably underrated if anything as an FIP in general, and he was good here, too. Naturally Rude is kingsized. Giving Scotty a return bearhug was cool, and his forearm smashes to the kidneys always look great, but the spot of the match might be him cutting Scott off from making the tag by jumping on his back and SNOT ROCKETING him right in front of Sting and Rick. And we get a trademark Arn boot in the face after coming off the middle rope as a lead in to the hot tag, just for a little extra.

They head to the finish almost right after this, but it's clean and the crowd eat it up, so I can't really complain about not getting to see more RUDE.

The Dangerous Alliance was all but completely done for at this point in 1992, but this was as good as all but a few of the Dangerous Alliance/Sting's Squadron multi-man tags from the first half of the year, and on top of that I don't remember seeing Rude really get a chance to let loose as a stooge like this since he debuted, either. Makes me want to go back and watch some of his early WWF stuff. This was a blast.