Owen Hart vs. Steve Blackman
Owen came out of “retirement” because of this feud, having announced he was leaving the business when he injured Dan Severn. If only he had stayed retired long enough for the Blue Blazer nonsense to pass by. In the build-up to this, Blackman has donned the Blazer garb too, but both are in their usual attire tonight, with Blackman in his generic black martial arts pants and Owen in his shitty road sign gear. With this being in Canada, Owen is still over like rover and Blackman is heavily booed. Lawler doesn’t get it, for a change. The charged atmosphere serves as an inspiration, with a jump start followed by Owen taking a clothesline on the outside, which produces a hefty thud. Back inside Blackman uses a bow and arrow stretch, which Cole doesn’t know how to call. Owen comes back with a perfect enzuigiri and a snap suplex, and the crowd volume rises when he sets for the Sharpshooter, only to use his brother’s kick to the stomach instead. Blackman blocks something from the top with a boot to the face and takes over again, and this has been a fun back-and-forth contest so far, and better than I was expecting. Blackman leathers Owen with a baseball slide and he takes another nasty bump on the outside, but Owen gets revenge with a low blow and a spin kick, as the pendulum swings again. The Savage Elbow gets two, then Owen goes to the chinlock to slow things for the first time because technically he is the heel here, though it is hard to tell in Attitude, and because of the loud “Owen Hart” chant. Why didn’t they just switch the formula and have Blackman do the hold so the crowd could get behind Owen? More nice sequences follow the brief slowdown, as Blackman rolls through a crossbody for a near fall and Owen hits another splendid enzi for one of his own. Back we swing again as the top turnbuckle pad gets removed and Owen hits it chest-first, again like his brother, and then they trade sleepers with Owen winning out with the dragon variation. Cole actually calls it right, which is a surprise given than I have seen guys use it in later years and him seemingly not have a clue what it is. Owen misses a missile dropkick and Blackman puts on the Sharpshooter, which PISSES Vancouver off something rotten. Owen makes the ropes and slides out of the ring to re-gather his bearings, and they trade blows. Blackman notices the referee’s count and heads back to the ring and beats it, with Owen happily taking the count out loss, because he had taken enough of a kicking. Well, it was almost inevitable that he would get booked shoddily in Canada. Poor finish, but this was a belting little match and far beyond what I was expecting. I guess I should give Owen more credit because he nearly always delivers, and it probably helped somewhat that Blackman was a good friend of his. Hell, Owen got him his job in the first place.
Final Rating: ***½
Backstage, Vince has a few words with Mankind in his “office”, a little cupboard hidden away in the bowels of the arena. I think I am going to ignore the backstage stuff from now on; it’s all worthless.
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