Talk about it here.

Last few minutes. The Starrcade match is generally seen as the best of their two matches, but Luger works hard in what's shown here, so maybe this is worth checking out in full sometime too. Hansen tosses Spivey a cowbell after Hansen slugs the ref (which doesn't get him DQd for some reason), Hansen catches Luger with a lariat and then wins the US title. Spivey's interference wasn't really a factor, so I'm not even sure why they did it, unless it was just to give Luger an out when dropping the title.

I didn't mind Spivey's appearance by itself, particularly with Paul E. mentioning their partnership in Japan. Ross completely shitting all over Paul E.'s "clean in the middle" declaration did bother me. The cowbell didn't factor into the finish one iota, so shut the fuck up JR. This was good action from what we saw and a rather shocking conclusion to Luger's epic reign as U.S. Champion. He'd held the belt for 18 months and done two full turns in one title reign, which might be a pre-2000 record.

Luger did hold that belt forever. The whole landscape of the company feels different in many ways from when he won it at Chi Town Rumble. Good action from what we saw.

Everyone down in the match including the ref. Dan Spivey throws the bull rope into the ring. He must have really not liked the way Blair talked about him in UWF. Hansen beats Luger cleanly with the Lariat. Nice replay of Hansen hitting Luger upside the head.

No one has mentioned the pre-match VTR. I couldnt look at it. Hansen's big glob of chewing tobacco literally looked like a turd.

My favorite PPV of 1990 (due to all circumstances from watching it and the event)...

 

Good match, Hansen KILLS Luger with that Lariat at the end….remember it fondly..

For one of the few times in history, a heel that's set up to cheat a babyface out of a title beats him clean for it instead. I can't think of another time that a foreign object was thrown into the ring, but not used in what ultimately became a clean finish. My guess is that the clean pin was done to protect Hansen's reputation in Japan if the match was ever shown there. I have to give Luger credit for going along with it when it would have been better for him if Hansen had gotten the win illegally by knocking him out with the cowbell.

 

Did JR know that there was going to be a clean finish? It almost sounded like he had his rant ready for the cowbell finish, then decided to use it anyway after the clean pin, which made him sound whiny and moronic. Even Heyman acknowledged "cheating" that didn't exist when prodded by JR. It's almost like they expected Stan to use the cowbell on Lex and were flabbergasted that he didn't and won anyway, so they just pretended that he had cheated. Bad, bad announcing.

 

Why didn't they give Spivey a match on the undercard as long as he was there? He would have been a better opponent than Moondog Rex was for JYD, to name just one possibility.

 

Just for the record, Hansen never defended the US title, according to Graham. He teamed at least twice with Sid against Sting and Luger, losing both times if I recall correctly, and wrestled one TV squash. Other than that, he was back in Japan. Why Ole would allow his second most prestigious belt to be put in cold storage I have no idea, especially when he probably knew before the title change that Stan was basically leaving it behind in favor of his commitments to Baba. Either Flair should have gotten it (which would have left Windham to team with Arn against Doom) or Luger should have retained.

This whole match is good. Better than the Starrcade one, but not by much. Luger and Hansen worked well together, Luger was able to bump and sell well for Hansen and Hansen was surprisingly giving.

One of the better lariats you'll ever see Stateside. Luger was really good in 1990. Too bad the company killed his interest in the work by shitting all over him.