Evolution Schematic 11.07.06: Dangerous Alliance (Part 2)

Eh, I got nothing. Although given I’m pleased the Forum guys with Norman, and now the demi-boss with this, who else do I have to please? Cook maybe? Who do you want Steve? Oh, and ending the brand split would be horrible for WWE financially and terrible for the talent. Has NO-ONE read Prag’s Defense of it? Geez…

Last week we looked at the start of the Dangerous Alliance. Today, we look at the rise and fall.

Phase 2- First Step: Conquest. Second Step: Laugh Evilly. Third Step: See if Madusa will put out.

The first WCW Saturday Night after Clash 17, the Alliance was officially formed, Rude as the centerpiece, Austin as the #2 guy, Madusa as the valet/woman/slut, Arn and Eaton as the tag team, Larry Z as the tough bastard and Heyman, sorry, Dangerously running the show.

The first major show after forming was Starrcade 91, where they had the slight misfortune to be involved in the Battlebowl. The Battlebowl was a series of random tag matches, where the entrants were chosen at random, and the winning teams out of the 10 matches in the Lethal Lottery would then enter a 2 ring battle royal, where everyone began in Ring 1, and to be eliminated you had to be tossed into Ring 2, and then you could be eliminated by being tossed out of that ring, and the eventual winners of Ring 1 and Ring 2 would then fight in a standard match to win the Battlebowl.

And people think that Beastie Boys match was complicated?

The Alliance’s luck varied. On the really positive side their two biggest stars, Rude and Austin, managed to get paired up, and easily beat the mismatched team of Guitar Player Van Hammer and Lumberjack Big Josh.

Then Larry drew El Gigante (think Khali with…just think Khali) as a partner against Dustin Rhodes, i.e. the guy who just took his tag titles, and Richard Morton. Larry ended up losing the match after giving Gigante one too many orders, and he left him to the wolves, Dustin pinning him (without having to tag Ricky, sorry, Richard once!).

Arn then got Lex Luger, loose associate and fellow all round mean bastard, and they were able to work very well as a team, which given their past history in the Horseman is no surprise, and they managed to beat Terry Taylor and Tom Zenk in a very good match.

And then Eaton got bad luck again, as he drew Brian Pillman, as this stage in his career still a nice guy. And on the other side of the ring was Abdullah The Butcher and Sting. Eaton tried, but in the end Cactus Jack, Butcher’s partner, messed up and allowed Sting to pin Eaton to advance.

So, the Alliance had 3 out of 6 in the 20. Not a bad ratio. The 3 stayed as a team, but eventually got caught up in their own battles. Arn and Steamboat ended up brawling into the second ring a short while into the match, Arn being the first Alliance member out of Ring 1. Then Austin joined him, moving over at about the same time as Scott Steiner. Rude ended up as one of the final 4 in the first ring, along with Sting, Vader and Luger. Sting then brawled with Rude into Ring 2, meaning the Alliance could, theoretically, work as a team. But Dustin Rhodes caught Arn, eliminating him, but then Austin threw him out. Eventually it came down to Rude and Austin, Sting and Steamboat. Sting and Steamboat gained control, but it wasn’t until Rude messed up and eliminated Austin that the stalemate was broken, as Steamboat then eliminated Rude. But Rude then pulled him out, and then left Sting laying, so the moral victory was theirs.

Well, given Sting beat Luger to win, it wasn’t, but the thought was there.

The Alliance’s sole presence on the big WCW/New Japan show was an exhibition match, where The Enforcers, Arn and Larry beat Michiyoshi Ohara and Shiro Koshinaka. However, before the next major WCW show, Clash XVIII, the Alliance gained more gold, along with the TV and US titles, as Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton teamed up and defeated Steamboat and Dustin Rhodes to win back the tag titles Arn and Larry had lost to them a short while before.

So, the Alliance walked into Clash 18 feeling pretty damm good. They had most of the gold in the company, and were all on hot streaks. Who cared if Barry Windham was back, they could handle anything! They had two matches on the show, the main event and the semi-main.

The semi-main didn’t go well, as Arn and Eaton teamed with Larry to fight Ron Simmons, Dustin and Windham. And Barry, still kinda pissed off about that whole “Larry getting his Cruncher Nick-Name by crunching my hand”, and still wearing a cast, came in, kicked ass, and pinned Eaton after punching him in the mouth as Eaton came off the top. With the cast hand.

But hey, that’s cool, Rude and Austin were teaming up against Steamboat and Sting, everyone would remember them winning the main event, destroying those two stalwarts, right? Well, no actually, as at the end Austin when for a slam on Steamboat and Sting sacrificed everyone with a flying cross body that ended up as a dog pile pin on Austin for the win.

Dammit.

But then, things looked up at the next actual PPV, Superbrawl II. There, the DA had three matches.

The first was Barry Windham’s continued “This is for my hand!” tour, as he teamed with Dustin Rhodes to fight Steve Austin and Larry Z. The DA was slightly thrown since Paul E. was banned from ringside, but Madusa was there to pick up the slack. But in the end, Barry’s anger was too much, and after half a dozen lariats, Barry pinned Larry to finally pay him back for the hand.

Next up were the tag champs defending their tag belts against The Steiners. And Arn and Bobby did have some better luck, thanks to Madusa’s powder. Arn used it to blind Rick, he hit the ref, Scott got a pinfall, the first ref woke up, the Steiner’s were DQed, everyone was happy. Except the Steiners, but screw them.

And the DA’s final match was Rude, alone, defending his US title against Ricky Steamboat, who had with him his personal trainer and confidant, The Ninja. Rude, after struggling to get through his usual pre-match warm-up spiel due to the sheer hatred of the fans, fought through an arm injury, but seemed poised to lose the belt. But suddenly, the Ninja pulled out a suspiciously large mobile phone and broke it over Ricky’s head to give Rude the win and to keep his title.

The Ninja then unmasked to reveal Paul E., the phone telling most people the truth given that at the time he was well known for it.

So overall, the Alliance came out about the same as it went in. But things changed a lot by the time the next WCW PPV, WrestleWar, rolled around. A couple of weeks after Superbrawl, April 27th, Barry Windham got his ultimate revenge on the Alliance by taking what they held close to their hearts, gold, beating Austin in a 2 out of 3 falls match to win the TV title. Then, a week later, to make things worse, Arn and Bobby lost their tag titles to The Steiners when they got a rematch! But then, WrestleWar would prove their superiority…

Phase 3- Wargames

On one side, The Dangerous Alliance. Rude, Austin, Anderson, Eaton, Zbyszko. Dangerously and Madusa outside the cage.

On the other, Sting’s Squadron. Sting, obviously, Windham, Steamboat, Dustin Rhodes and Nikita Koloff.

The match in 2 rings, inside a massive steel cage. Wargames rules.

After one of the finest matches in Pro Wrestling History, The Alliance had lost, Larry had screwed up, Bobby had given up, and it was all downhill from there.

Phase 4- The Fall

The first major act of the Alliance after the show was simple. They fired Larry. After all, he had gotten the turnbuckle after Rude had undone it. He swung the metal fork. He had hit Eaton. Hence, it was his fault. Thus, he was kicked out.

And this, bizarrely, seemed to pay off in that almost immediately after Larry being fired, Austin won the TV title back. So at first, the Alliance seemed to be going strong. And Rude and Austin advanced in the NWA World Tag Title Tournament at Clash 19, although Arn and Eaton, the supposed tag team, lost to Dustin Rhodes and Barry Windham despite Paul E.’s plan and phone.

At Beach Blast, The Alliance had nothing but pride on the line, as Rude challenged Steamboat to a Ironman Challenge match, 30 minutes, non-title, Eaton/Austin/Anderson teamed up to fight Dustin/Windham/Koloff and Madusa challenged Missy Hyatt in a Bikini Contest, although really it was more a 3 part Pageant.

Steamboat/Rude was up first (well…technically Madusa/Hyatt was up first, but that was spread out before and after the other matches), and in that match, the world learnt an important lesson.

Rude’s abs were as tough as steel. But his ribs are fair game. Steamboat’s early work on the ribs allowed him to come back from 3-1 down, getting 3 falls with 30 seconds to spare, and Rude was unable to pin him to even it out, having burnt a lot of time going for a draw, 3-3, Steamboat winning 4-3.

Then the 6 man ended up with an ending that solved nothing, as in the massive brawl that the match was, Arn came off the top rope onto Barry and that, at the time, was an Automatic DQ.

After Paul E. took some time to tell Steamboat that he wasn’t going to get any shots, thus setting him up to be attacked by Cactus Jack, the Bikini Contest ended when Missy made an ‘impromptu’ bikini out of color man Jesse Ventura’s bandannas and won because of that.

That didn’t sit well with Paul E.

By the time the Great American Bash rolled around, and thus the finals of the NWA Tag Title Tournament, the Alliance…wasn’t really very allied. Rude seemed to hang out mostly with Austin for a partner, Madusa for a girl and Paul E. for a manager, and even then, that didn’t seem as regular and close as they should, Arn and Bobby left out in the cold slightly. The Alliance was shaky, despite holding 2 singles titles. Of course, holding singles gold isn’t as impressive when you lose to Dustin Rhodes and Barry Windham in the second round of the tag tournament at the PPV, the first round shown on the night.

Phase 5- Freefalling can turn many ways…

The 20th Clash marked some changes to the Alliance.

For starters, Austin lost the TV title to Ricky Steamboat while Paul E. could only watch from a cage above the ring. Then Michael Hayes’ sorta-kinda joined the Alliance, coming in as Arn and Bobby’s manager, probably because they needed guidance and Paul can only do so much. He helped them beat Greg Valentine and Dick Slater who had the by now retired Larry Z in their corner, so it seemed a good idea at the time. And then Rude won an 8 man elimination tag match, surviving with Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts, Rude eliminating…no-one. Roberts did most of the work. But still, a win is a win, right?

And a loss is a loss, as the 1 year anniversary of the Alliance’s early formation rolled around, Halloween Havoc. And the first match of the show saw Arn and Bobby team with Michael Hayes and lose to the really makeshift team of Johnny Gunn, Tom Zenk and Shane Douglas. And then came Rude’s punishment.

You see, Bill Watts, then guy in charge of WCW, didn’t like Rick Rude and Paul E. Shocking, I know. So, then Rude, through being a good wrestler if a smug bastard and phone smasher when required, got an NWA World Title shot against then champ Masahiro Chono. Bill, sensing a chance to punish Rude, gave him the shot at Halloween Havoc, but also scheduled a US title defense against Nikita Koloff. But then, Rude and Chono each got to pick a ref for their match.

This allowed Rude to pick Harley Race, which then allowed Paul E. to negotiate, the end result being that Vader subbed for Rude in the US title match, and successfully defended Rude’s title for him, since he’s a nice guy and all.

Austin then got a Tag Title shot dropped in his lap as Terry Gordy had been fired, so Steve Williams needed a partner to fight Windham and Rhodes. Austin had a history, so he got the shot… and blew it, the match a 30 minute time limit.

And then…as Paul E, Race and Vader were having a little moment of smug bastardry, Madusa interrupted…and was promptly fired by Paul. A few classic misogynistic lines later, and Madusa beat the hell out of Paul E, who had to run away for his life.

Then the NWA title match…happened, eventually Rude winning by DQ, thus no-one solved anything.

The Alliance finished self destructing at Clash 21, when Hayes was now the de facto manager of Anderson and Eaton, in that the two fought Erik Watts and Kensuke Sasaki to try and claim the $10K bounty on Erik’s head by crippling or injuring him. Paul E. put down the bounty. That was perhaps the moment the Alliance truly died, as they didn’t fight for the sake of the group, but rather for cash.

Paul E. ended up drawing Madusa after a grueling 5 minutes when the time limit ran out, by now that was all he was focused on, beating Madusa.

Rude fought Sting in the King of Cable semi-final, losing on points, no-one with him at ringside.

And hence, the Alliance died without even a whimper.

Rude was shortly after injured, forfeiting his US title and never truly regaining his momentum and spot.

Arn eventually reformed the Four Horsemen this time with Paul Roma, so you could argue he went from bad to worse.

Eaton feuded with Arn briefly, but was gone from WCW shortly after.

Austin would soon start teaming with Pillman, you may have heard of their team, the Hollywood Blondes?

Larry, by the time the Alliance died, had pretty much become a commentator full time.

Hayes eventually won back the hearts and minds of the people, and continued to half manage/half wrestle.

Madusa, after gaining her revenge on Paul E., defended her rights for a while before eventually jumping ship to WWF to kick start their Women’s Division.

And Paul E…well, Paul E. wasn’t done just yet.

Phase 6- No, I don’t expect you to remember this.

A year or so after the Alliance died, Paul E. was gone from WCW, and found himself in a little company called ECW, Eastern Championship Wrestling. And what did Paul E. do right off the bat? Form The Dangerous Alliance V2.0 of course! This version, with him at the head, had as members Jimmy Snuka, Don Muraco, The Dark Patriot and “Hot Stuff” Eddie Gilbert.

However, while the first Alliance lasted about a year, this one self-destructed fairly quickly, and barely anyone remembers it, especially since it was pre-belt toss.

Overview

So, why is the Alliance important? They only lasted a year, they never controlled the World Title, they never took over the show, they never held every belt, they never did anything that today we associate with power. So why should we care?

Well, apart from always know your enemy, always know the boss, there is a rare situation with this stable, this group, in that everyone involved had a spot, a place, a role, and they were all brilliant at it. The nWo was bloated, fat, and fractured. The Corporation was the machine, the status quo, and hence unable to fight properly. DX was always too concerned with having a good time, and the Horsemen…well, The Horsemen are another matter entirely.

But overall, the Alliance will be remembered as possibly the single greatest focused collection of talent in Pro Wrestling History. Never has so much talent been unified and armed with a single purpose.

And it’s always a reminder that anyone in this business can change it. All they need are good friends, the desire, and the brains.