Um.... Can We Talk About
ROBIN GREEN?
The year was 1989 and, depending on how you think about it, the Robin Green storyline was either one of WCW's best -- or worst -- angles from that era.
At the time, Rick Steiner was cast more or less as Eugene with collegiate wrestling skills - a lovable goof who may not have been the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but certainly one of the more popular characters in the promotion. And once he began teaming with his younger brother Scott, The Dogfaced Gremlin was pretty much unstoppable.
Unless you factor in that he had a ringside crush; a girl named Robin Green.
Steiner first introduced Green, who was dressed up to look dorky, at a television taping while holding her not by the hand, but by the arm, as though she was being held hostage or something. Classy move, Rick.
Pretty soon, Steiner would disappear during the course of his tag team matches to spend time with Robin at ringside, as she was courteous enough to reserve an extra seat for her love interest at every television taping and event WCW traveled to. However, Rick's sudden exits didn't please Scott, nor did it please Missy Hyatt, who was at the time the manager of The Steiner Brothers. Both Scott Steiner and Missy Hyatt insisted Rick prioritize his wrestling career over his sexual pursuits, which -- admit it -- is not a sentence you'll probably ever see typed again.
While canoodling in the front row at the Omni was fun and everything, eventually Rick decided to take his relationship to the next level: going out on an actual date with Robin. And much like you or I might opt to do, he decided to bring Jim Ross along for the event.
The date segment has to rank up there as one of the silliest, campiest vignettes in wrestling history... and that covers a lot of ground.
First, Good Ol' JR visits Steiner and coaches him on what to do, channeling his inner.... well, whomever the coach of the Oklahoma Sooners is. Ross asks Steiner about his "game plan" for the big night, and The Dogfaced Gremlin shows off his romantic side by wearing a sleeveless tee and planning to order pizza to her hotel room. He's also planning to "watch 90 minutes of Leave It To Beaver," which I'm fairly sure is code for something.
Because Steiner had his driver's license suspended, Ross offers to drive him to Green's hotel and then, what the hell, knock on her door for him, too. But when Green answers the door, gone are the nerdy clothes and it turns out that Robin is (no disrespect intended for the deceased) smoking hot.
JR gives off his finest cartoon-faced expression while creepily ogling someone several years his junior, while Steiner enters the hotel room and is all like "Pizza Hut can wait! See ya later, pops."
Pretty soon, Green has completely ditched the dork rags and before you know it, her are Missy Hyatt are hitting the town shopping in one of the most 1980s department stores of all time. Robin cajoled Steiner's credit card for the trip and soon, Missy Hyatt is complaining that Robin is spending too much money on clothes -- another sentence you probably won't hear that often.
Eventually, the wrestling program begins featuring actual wrestling again and, in one Steiner Brothers match, both Green and Hyatt are at ringside. Green accidentally trips Scott and the brothers lose the match. Accusations are tossed around, but this being professional wrestling, everyone lets bygones be bygones.
A few weeks later, Scott Steiner and the WCW television crew are camped out at a park somewhere waiting for Robin and Rick to join them. Big Poppa Pump is complaining that the camerman didn't bring a basketball with to occupy him until a limousine shows up.
Robin Green is in the limo but Rick is nowhere to be found. In a verbal exchange that would seem stilted and rough by even 80s porn standards, Steiner is eventually invited into the limo so they can wait for big brother to appear. Scotty somehow ends up apologizing for tripping the previous week and then mutters "I'll never trip again."
Well.....
But instead of Big Poppa Pump making Robin his "freak," she ends up having two guys assault Steiner inside the limo. One of them follows him outside and puts the boots to Scotty, while Rick is nowhere to be found. The fix is in! Green was never just a dorky fan after all!
In the weeks that followed, Green revealed herself to be "Woman" (also known as the late Nancy Sullivan/Benoit) and the dudes who jumped Scott were eventually revealed to be Ron Simmons and Butch Reed -- Doom.
Was the storyline silly? Yes, and in many ways, it captures the worst of WCW in terms of acting and production quality. But at the same time, it was a brilliant heel turn for Green and gave The Steiners their first "big" feud in the promotion.
So things didn't turn out too bad for all involved at the end of the day. Well, except for Jim Ross -- who never be able to live down making this face:
