Rick Rude vs Erik Watts (WCW, 12-26-1992)

WCW Saturday Night, Atlanta, GA

This is a request via Ko-fi. Actually the request was any five (5) Rude or Vader matches from their time in WCW, so no, nobody specifically requested an Erik Watts match, but if you leave me half to my own devices like this, this is what happens. I’m not truly dying to watch the Rude-Steamboat iron man again, if I’m honest. I mean, I will, for $3 (or $6 if you’re nice since it’s long), but otherwise.

Erik Watts, for those of you too young to remember, which I suspect is several of you (or too not terribly interested in this period WCW to have read about it wherever), was the son of Bill Watts, the booker in WCW for a minute before he did a PWTorch interview where he did his usual Big Dick Bill shtick and talked about how business owners oughtn’t have to serve black people if they don’t like black people, which got back to baseball legend Hank Aaron, who worked for Turner, and, well, Bill got canned.

Bill Watts was a really good booker in his day and I think that artistically, for the most part, his time heading WCW has aged extremely well, but he was one of those guys who always had to prove to everyone around him what a TAKE NO SHIT fella he was, which made him a ticking time bomb in a corporate setting, and then he went off, and then off he went.

But while he was there one of Bill’s poorer ideas was the push of his son Erik. It wasn’t so much that Erik Watts had no talent or no potential in the wrestling business, like a David Flair. The problem was much more that he wasn’t remotely ready for the big stage. He’d only wrestled about three months before Papa Bill brought him to WCW. It’s an exceptionally rare wrestler that can go in the majors without years of fine-tuning and learning. Like, Steve Austin managed it in about two years, and he was an incredible natural. Dustin Rhodes got good really fast, so did Kurt Angle, so did a lot of the greats. But not three months.

Rude, the U.S. champion, is out first with Madusa at his side. He takes a dump on the inner city sweathogs in ATL, to which the ring announcer whose name I do not remember reacts with disgust. Rude is clean shaven and ripped.

Here is Erik Watts, and the crowd goes mild. WCW fans never did get behind the kid because it was so obvious that he wasn’t ready for the limelight. Also because he wasn’t very good. Watts has made this challenge because of a previous loss to Rude, feeling he could do better.

Watts was a big dude — listed 6’5″, probably around a legit 240 or so here, but he didn’t have the physique, the SCULPT, and Rude does, and it’s clear the differences between them right away. You can get away with that if you’re good — take Dustin Rhodes, for example, who was never shredded and held his own with Rude plenty. Same for Barry Windham. Also second generation guys. But Watts wasn’t them, and even his body language is sorta doe-eyed, you can see the gears turning all the time as he tries to remember what he’s supposed to be doing, how he’s supposed to be behaving, etc.

Watts knows the basics, like going to an indie show and watching guys run through simple stuff in the opening match. They’re fine at it, most of the time, they’ve run it 100 times training, but beyond that there’s little they can do.

So Watts does side headlocks and runs the ropes and Rude starts selling a rando knee injury, and Watts hits a couple shoulder tackles and drives his elbow into the knee a couple times, then smacks it over the ring apron. Watts’ finisher was the STF, and he’s working toward it. Standing toehold, and then a knee down into the leg, then the elbow.

You have Rude struggling, not because Watts did anything right, not because Rude made a mistake, but because Rude jammed a knee, which is something that Happens. Why? Because Rude knew there was really no other way to have anything approaching a competitive match with Watts that was believable to the audience.

Rude gets a little rally, but the knee bugs him again and Watts gets the advantage again, going for the STF but Rude gets the bottom rope before it can be applied. By the way, if you’re 12 and of the idiot opinion that Jim Ross was never good, please listen to pre-WWF Jim Ross, like in this match. He’s doing yeoman’s work excitedly trying to sell Watts like a champ.

Eventually, Watts telegraphs the fuck out of a crossbody and sails out to the concrete floor — daddy instituted no mats on the floor, remember — and Rude follows him out and hits the Rude Awakening on the floor.

This is Watts’ Heroic moment of the match, as he gets to his feet and somehow beats the count. Rude suplexes him back in from the apron, hooks the leg, and that’s the match.

Rating: 2.5/5. There’s really nothing wrong with it on a fundamental level. It’s very basic and structured the way it is out of various necessities, but the way it’s laid out makes it perfectly enjoyable TV for eight minutes, and what more is there to ask of something with someone this green? Of course, Watts IS this green, so it can only be so good, but Rude made it not garbage, and by this point that was already the asking price for an Erik Watts match.