Shining a Spotlight 5.17.12: The Dangerous Alliance

The Dangerous Alliance.

True, by the end of the year they were (to borrow from “Coffee Talk’s” Linda Richman) no longer dangerous nor an alliance. But there’s no denying that in 1992, they were the force in WCW, pushing multiple angles and putting in some great feuds and matches. They also still stand as one of the best heel groups of all time, something wrestling promoters and writers today should back on to see how to make these work.

Origins

Paul Heyman always had the wrestling bug in him. At the age of 14, he managed to con his way into the press section for a WWF event. He got his big break in 1987, managing Austin Idol in Memphis against Jerry Lawler, notable for a cage match where Idol (aided by Tommy Rich) beat Lawler for the Southern title, Lawler also forced to have his hair shaved and the crowd almost literally rioted. As the promotion began to work with the AWA, Heyman, now calling himself Paul E Dangerously, moved to the bigger leagues and formed the first version of the Dangerous Alliance. It was comprised of Adrian Adonis (trying to go back to his old tough guy image after years as a drag queen in WWF) and the Original Midnight Express, Dennis Condrey and Randy Rose. They did well, the Express winning the tag titles and Adonis challenging for the TV title.

In ’88, Dangerously and the Express moved to the NWA, immediately getting into a feud with the other Midnight Express with Jim Cornette. When his Express broke up, Dangerously tried to manage Mark Callous, who would later become the Undertaker. He soon settled into the role of announcer for various TV shows, which had him doing goofy antics like “feuding” with actor Jason Hervey. He was fired as announcer in 1991, the result of a real-life incident where he was accused of leaking a possible title unification between WCW champ Lex Luger and USWA champ Jerry Lawler, which never went down. The first moves for the Alliance came at Halloween Havoc where Eric Bischoff (still a low-level guy at the company) was doing a parking lot interview with Barry Windham and Dustin Rhodes. Arn Anderson and Larry Zybsko, then the tag team champion Enforcers, rushed the faces, slamming the car door on Windham’s hand to break it. Later in the show, after weeks of appearances, the “WCW Phantom” showed up to squash Tom Zenk, then unmask to reveal himself as Rick Rude. Dangerously explained that he was fired as announcer but still had his manager license and was thus going to pay WCW back for humiliating him.

The next step was at the “Clash of the Champions” XVII a month later. For weeks, Sting had been receiving mysterious packages, including Cactus Jack and Abdullah the Butcher who tried to cripple him. Another box was brought out to reveal a sexy Medusa Miceli who distracted Sting to allow Luger to attack him with a chair, assaulting Sting’s bad leg. Sting was rushed to the hospital as Luger gloated. A bit later, the Enforcers were set to defend the titles against Windham and Rhodes but Windham came out in street clothes, explaining his broken hand prevented him from wrestling. They did have a substitute and, in one of the single best surprise moments ever, a guy in a goofy lizard costume came out, throwing it off to reveal himself as Ricky “the Dragon” Steamboat, fresh off a brief WWF run. Anderson and Zybsko were not happy about this (“Noooooooot Ricky Steamboat!”) and after a terrific match, Steamboat and Rhodes won the titles. During all this, Bischoff was doing “remote reports” from the hospital as Heyman declared that according to a contract stipulation, if Sting didn’t defend the title, Rude would win it by forfeit. Learning of this, Sting raced back to the arena “against doctor’s orders,” making it to the ring after delays and giving a good fight but in the end, Rude took advantage of the bad leg to pin him and win the title.

A jubilant Dangerously freely admitted to working with Luger to set Sting up like this. The following week on the weekly WCW TV show, a proud Dangerously announced the formation of his Alliance: Rude, Medusa, Anderson and Zybsko with Medusa as their “director of covert operations.” The two remaining spots were filled first by Bobby Eaton (a surprise as the man had been a face for a while) and TV champion “Stunning” Steve Austin.

Group Dynamics

What made the Alliance work was how well they all came together. Arn Anderson is one of the best midcard guys of all time, terrific worker in the ring with his hard-nosed style and also able to deliver some of the best promos in the business. On his own, Larry Zbysko could be a pretty dull guy with tons of stalling but good on the mic. For some reason, paired with Anderson elevated Zybsko’s game big-time the duo great as a team. Rude remains one of the greatest heels of all time, his arrogant demeanor amazing to watch, looked in great shape and a damn good worker as well. Eaton had been experienced at tag wrestling for years so he fit in well with a group with his high-flying skills. As for Austin, just about everyone who saw him breaking out knew this guy was going to be a mega-star and he was coming into his own as the arrogant TV champ. Medusa wasn’t just eye candy, as a former Women’s champion in the AWA, she could mix it up as well and aid her charges in a fight. And there was Dangerously holding them all together with his amazing mic skills and the demeanor of a guy you just wanted to punch hard and holding one of those old-styled cell phones that weighed about ten pounds, the perfect weapon.

They had the trait of the Horsemen in protecting each other’s backs and doing mass assaults on their opponents. Where they differed was their style. The Horsemen carried themselves with some class in fancy suits and flaunting their wealth. The Alliance just went about doing their business without such fuss, making it clear they didn’t need to dress up to flaunt their power. They were able to mix together well in various tag matches, gelling much better than one would expect given their different styles of work and on the mic, they were all stand-outs. Together, they came off as a truly powerful group and instantly had the fan heat on their side big-time. Best of all, they made no bones over how they loved to be booed. On the Four Horsemen DVD, Dusty Rhodes had the great line on how it was ultra-heel Tully Blanchard that kept the fans from cheering the Horsemen as faces. The Alliance didn’t have that problem; all of them were great heels and lived it up, the fans booing them like crazy, exactly the reaction a major heel group needs.

They benefited from the fact that as 1992 began, WCW was enjoying a nice boost from the presence of K. Allen Frye. One of the few bosses of the company that guys actually liked, Frye was smart not to get too hands-on with the day-to-day operations. The exception was offering a cash bonus of $5000 to whoever put on the best match at a certain show. This simple but effective move instantly boosted the workrate and morale of the wrestlers at a time WCW needed it. It carried over to the Alliance as they began their campaign of destruction that would make 1992 WCW so notable.

Getting Dangerous

The Alliance scored first blood in 1992 as Anderson and Eaton beat Rhodes and Steamboat for the tag titles in early January. They rose higher with Clash of the Champions XVIII in January with Rhodes, Windham and Ron Simmons facing Anderson, Zybsko and Eaton in a six-man tag match, Windham getting revenge by knocking Eaton out with his cast for the pin. The main event was a fantastic tag match as Sting and Steamboat faced Rude and Austin, all four giving their all in great moves with the faces coming out on top. The overall show proved Frye’s method correct as everyone was busting their asses in hopes of that bonus money. At Superbrawl II, the card was bookended by Brian Pillman and Jushin Liger’s classic match and Sting winning the World title from the soon-to-depart Luger. Meanwhile, the Alliance was showing their stuff as Anderson and Zybsko retained the tag belts against the Steiners and Rude retained the U.S. title against Steamboat after interference from Dangerously, dressed in a ninja outfit. The Alliance also suffered a blow by losing the tag titles to the Steiner Brothers and Austin traded the belt with Windham before regaining it in a pair of April TV tapings.

However, just as the Alliance were really getting into a wild groove, something happened to WCW that would shake things up badly. Despite his great work in helping morale, Frye hadn’t been doing enough to raise the bottom line of the company and that’s what Turner heads cared about. So, they brought in Bill Watts as the new boss. There’s a whole other column to be done about that but suffice to say, this would turn out to be one of the worst moves WCW made as Watts clearly had no idea how to book for a ‘90’s audience. He banned moves from the top rope, which basically killed the cruiserweight division, cut contracts down drastically, did away with catered meals backstage and instituted a series of rules that made the guys backstage hate him (such as how the guys who did opening bouts were prevented from leaving until the entire show was done). He also decided that rather than the hot crop of guys WCW had, what they really needed were some of his favorites. Terry Gordy and Steve Williams were brought in and instantly pushed to the top as the unstoppable tag team champions. Worse was Watts’ insistence that his son Erik be pushed hard. The guy had talent but was nowhere near ready for the big time and the fact he was only getting wins over other guys because he was the boss’ son did not go over well in the back.

Still, the Alliance were continuing to dominate big-time, targeting Sting especially. However, Ricky Steamboat was also a major target as they not only broke his nose but Dangerously paid women to claim to have slept with the Dragon. Steamboat did not take it well, going mainly after Rude. At the May “WrestleWar” PPV, things came to a major head with War Games as the Alliance took on Sting, Steamboat, Rhodes, Windham and Nikita Kolloff. It was one of the most brutal War Games bouts of all time as all ten men basically beat the living hell out of each other, blood pouring by the pintful and the cage looked like it was going to fall apart under the pressure. Medusa climbed the top of the cage to drop Heyman’s cell phone in to help only for the faces to use it. The end came with Zybsko undoing the metal ring hook to try and hit Sting but accidentally hit Eaton in the shoulder. Badly injured, Eaton submitted to a Sting armbar. The Alliance argued bitterly after the match and Zybsko was expelled from the group.

They tried to hold together a bit longer and at Beach Blast in July, Steamboat got some revenge by beating Rude in their classic Iron Man battle. Later in the show, Anderson, Eaton and Austin faced Windham, Rhodes and Koloff, the Alliance losing when Anderson leapt off the top rope, which was now against the rules. The Alliance’s moment in the sun had passed, however, as Watts was intent on pushing Gordy and Williams while Vader was taking on the main event scene by crushing Sting only to drop the belt to Ron Simmons, a move Watts supposedly made to cut off accusations of racism. The Alliance began to spread out as at Clash of the Champions XX in September, Steamboat beat Austin to end his long TV title reign. Things got worse as at Halloween Havoc, Gordy fired after wanting the money never paid him so Austin teamed with Williams to wrestle the Steiners to a time limit draw. Rude and NWA Champion Masahiro Chono had a horrible bout while Anderson and Eaton teamed with Michael Hayes to lose to the ad hoc team of Tom Zenk, Johnny Gunn and Shane Douglas. Meanwhile, Vader defended the U.S. title against Koloff as Rude had refused to do two matches in one night. After the bout, Medusa interrupted a Heyman interview so he fired her with insults such as “we only hired you because the other hooker was busy.” A naturally upset Medusa ripped into Heyman, kicking his ass around the stage to the delight of fans.

The final blow for the Alliance came in November when Rude left WCW. There’s talk of how he failed a drug test or wanted more money but the common story is that Rude got into an altercation with Erik Watts backstage and the Cowboy fired him in response. Not only did this leave the U.S. title up in the air but it also ruined the planned Starrcade main event between Rude and Simmons everyone had been looking forward to. Heyman, sick and tired of all the corporate crap, decided to leave the company himself. Eaton, Austin and Anderson would soon be going their own separate ways in the company. And Watts himself would soon be shown the door as Turner realized how much damage he’d really done to this company. Dangerously would revive the idea in ECW in 1994 with Jimmy Snuka, Eddit Gilbert, Sabu and Tazz among the members but it wasn’t quite as memorable as the WCW version was.

So the Alliance’s time may not have been as long as other heel groups. But you can’t deny their power as for the first half of 1992, pretty much everything in WCW revolved around them. They put in amazing matches and better promos, they had the fans in the palm of their hand wondering what they’d do next and boosted the shows immensely, something WCW needed bad at the time. Austin came out looking like a true star to push his career and the others looked great too. As for Dangerously, it was a last gasp of him as a manager as his experience in WCW ultimately burned him enough to travel to Philadelphia where he and Todd Gordon would transform wrestling forever. What is left is the legacy of how a great heel group should work, something wrestling fans and promoters alike today should look back on to see how such things can make wrestling great and a little danger goes a long way.