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Worst in the World: PN News & Bobby Eaton vs Steve Austin & Terrance Taylor-Great American Bash 1991

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If there is any match stipulation that is dumber and more dangerous than a Scaffold match aside from those crazy Japanese death matches, I have yet to find it. If you've never seen a scaffold match, here's the basic gist of it. Rather than in the ring, two wrestlers (or four, in this case) fight atop a narrow scaffold above the ring. The match usually only ends when one man is thrown off the scaffold into the ring. That's right, you win the match by having to make your opponent take a huge bump from a high place. That's insanity. This match was more popular in the 80s and 90s in Memphis, WCW, and ECW, but has still found it's way through into the new millennium, with the last one taking place between James Storm and Rhyno Destination X 2008 because of course TNA would do this. It's an incredibly dangerous match that can lead to serious injury. Just look at New Jack, who suffered legitimate brain damage and lost sight in his right eye due to this bump off a scaffold:
This wasn't in an actual Scaffold match, but you get the idea of how dangerous this match
The scaffold match is undeniably dangerous, but at least it leads to an exciting moment when someone takes the big bump off the scaffold. If you took the fall away, the match would be completely pointless. Could you imagine if they did that? Well...they did. For their match at the Great American Bash 1991, the team of PN News & Bobby Eaton were set to take on the team of Pre-Stone Cold Steve Austin and Post-Red Rooster Terrance Taylor in a Scaffold match when they, because they are all sane, decided on the day of the show "Hey, we don't want to die, so we're not falling off the scaffold" and the match was changed to a "Capture the Flag Scaffold Match". In this match, the outcome is not to throw your opponent of the scaffold, but rather grab a flag from your opponents' side of the scaffold and bring it back to your team's side. Doesn't that just sound riveting? Let's get into this.
So after Austin & Taylor take forever to get up the scaffold, the match begins. Just take a look at how narrow this scaffold is:
 My god, that's insane. Even if they aren't planning on taking the bump, literally one wrong step and you're f*cked. Eaton and Taylor walk out first, only for Taylor to drop down and crawl back to his side. Austin walks out and actually makes contact with Eaton, even if it took him forever to do that too, delivering punches. Yeah, looking at that scaffold, I don't expect many high risk moves...or actual moves, for that matter. Eaton actually does manage to hit a facebuster and Austin hangs off the scaffold, which surprised me since they didn't want to do the big fall, I imagined they wouldn't even tease it. And they probably shouldn't have. You shouldn't tease something that you know is not going to happen. Remember TLC 2015 when Bubba Ray Dudley was setting up a flaming table and then never lit it. That's what this tease is like.
Taylor comes out to make it 2-on-1 against Eaton, so Eaton backs up and PN News walks out. Austin & Taylor both back off as News makes his way over to Austin & Taylor's side and lays on top of Taylor:
That's one way of stopping someone. Eaton walks over as Austin pulls News off of Taylor. Austin & News fight on the Austin & Taylor's base while Taylor & Eaton fight on the scaffold. Taylor & Eaton wander over to Eaton & News' base. Taylor punches Eaton down and, rather than grab his opponents' flag, he goes back to help Austin:
Why? He could have just grabbed the flag and one right there. Eaton walks over, News holds the two heels back, and Eaton grabs the flag and walks over to his team's side for the win, God, that was boring. After the match, Austin climbs down and gets a bottle of hairspray from his manager Lady Blossom and sprays Eaton & News. This blinds Eaton so bad he is able to walk all the way from one side of the scaffold to the other.

The Verdict

You know the principle of Chekov's Gun? The theatrical principle that says if you introduce a gun into a scene, it better go off. I feel like the wrestling version of it is "if you're going have wrestlers fight on a high place, someone better fall." The entire excitement behind the scaffold match is that someone is going to take a massive bump. The match is always mainly punch/kick affairs, so you need that big bump to keep people interested. When you take it away, you're left with four dudes hitting each other trying not to fall off, and it's super boring and uneventful. And what's the point of that. Most of the blame goes on the competitors for waiting until the day of the show to refuse to take the fall, but regardless, this sucked.

 Rankings (Best to Worst)

  1.  Too Much vs Al Snow & Head-King of the Ring 1998
  2. Vampiro vs Sting-Great American Bash 2000
  3. T&A vs Head Cheese-WrestleMania 2000
  4. Konnan vs One Man Gang-SuperBrawl VI
  5. Ultimate Warrior vs Hercules-WrestleMania IV
  6. Rick Rude vs Hawk-Clash of the Champions XXV
  7. Shelton Benjamin vs Viscera-New Year's Revolution 2006
  8. The Chamber of Horrors-Halloween Havoc 1991
  9. The Natural Disasters vs Money Inc.-WrestleMania VIII
  10. ODB, Taylor Wilde, and Roxxi vs The Kongtourage-Genesis 2009
  11. Ivory vs Tori-SummerSlam 1999
  12. Nikita Koloff vs Bobby Eaton-Bunkhouse Stampede
  13. Total Divas vs Other Divas-Survivor Series 2013
  14. The Oddities vs Kaientai-SummerSlam 1998
  15. Hulk Hogan vs Sid Justice-WrestleMania VIII
  16. Dusty Rhodes vs Big Boss Man-Saturday Night's Main Event (10/31/1989)
  17. Hollywood Hogan vs The Giant-Hog Wild
  18. Hollywood Hogan vs The Giant-Souled Out 1997
  19. Dustin Rhodes & King Kong vs Awesome Kong & The Equalizer-Battlebowl
  20. Jake Roberts vs Andre the Giant-WrestleMania V
  21. Sting & Hawk vs Meng & Kurasawa-Clash of the Champions XXXI
  22. Hulk Hogan vs Randy Savage-Uncensored 1998
  23. Al Snow vs Big Boss Man-Unforgiven 1999
  24. Mickie James vs Ashley-Royal Rumble 2006
  25. Christy Hemme vs Big Fat Oily Guy-Against All Odds 2007
  26. Team WCW vs nWo Wolfpac vs nWo Hollywood-Fall Brawl 1998
  27. Vampiro vs Oklahoma-Starrcade 1999
  28. Hulk Hogan vs Andre the Giant-WrestleMania III
  29. Junkyard Dog vs Moondog Spot-Wrestling Classic
  30. Hiroshi Wajima vs Tom Magee-All Japan Pro Wrestling 1988
  31. Jim Steele vs The Equalizer-SuperBrawl IV
  32. Edge vs Triple H vs Vladimir Kozlov-Survivor Series 2008
  33. Kevin Sullivan vs Dave Sullivan-SuperBrawl V
  34. Steve McMichael vs Brian Adams-Road Wild 1998
  35. Scott Hall vs Roddy Piper-SuperBrawl IX
  36. PN News & Bobby Eaton vs Steve Austin & Terrance Taylor-Great American Bash 1991
  37. Scott Steiner vs Sid Vicious vs Jeff Jarrett vs Road Warrior Animal-Sin
  38. Hollywood Hogan vs Roddy Piper-SuperBrawl 1997
  39. Batista vs The Great Khali-SummerSlam 2007
  40.  Sable vs Tori-WrestleMania XV
  41. Sid Vicious vs The Nightstalker-Clash of the Champions XIII
  42. The 8-Divas Tag Match-Survivor Series 1999
  43. Rick Rude vs Masahiro Chono-Halloween Havoc 1992
  44. Mike Awesome vs Vampiro-Halloween Havoc 2000
  45. Bray Wyatt vs John Cena-Extreme Rules 2014
  46. Mabel vs The Undertaker-King of the Ring 1995
  47. Wendi Richter vs The Fabulous Moolah-The Brawl to End it All
  48. Greg Valentine vs George Steele-Heroes of Wrestling
  49. Abdullah the Butcher vs One Man Gang-Heroes of Wrestling
  50. Hollywood Hogan vs The Warrior-Halloween Havoc 1998
  51. The Royal Family vs Clowns R' Us-Survivor Series 1994
  52. Sting vs Jeff Hardy-Victory Road 2011
  53. Oz vs Tim Parker-SuperBrawl
  54. Ultimate Warrior vs Andre the Giant-Saturday Night's Main Event (11/25/1989)
  55. The Doomsday Cage Match-Uncensored 1996 
  56. Kaitlyn vs Maxine-NXT (10/19/10)
  57. Sabu vs The Sandman-November to Remember 1997
  58. James Storm vs Chris Harris-Lockdown 2007
  59. John Laurinaitis vs John Cena-Over the Limit 2012
  60. Los Villanos vs Los Psycho Circus-Triplemania XXIII
  61. Jenna Morasca vs Sharmell-Victory Road 2009
And up next is...
Oh my lord...this is going be...slow.
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