My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Worldwide 5/11/97

1. Alex Wright vs. Bobby Eaton

Short match that could have been really good, but was more of a Wright moves showcase. The whole thing goes only a couple minutes. Eaton's offense was one great looking punch, and then a missed punch that led to the finishing German suplex.

2. Kevin Sullivan vs. Doc Dean

This was during that period where 75% of the match was Sullivan throwing his opponent to the floor so Jacqueline could do her sequence of snap mare-body slam-suplex while the announcers flipped their shit. "She's a woman! But she's doing these moves to a MAN!" It's main purpose was to turn 1 minute Sullivan matches into 3 minute Sullivan matches, so I'd call that a fail.

Good lord there are so many ads for vacationing in Myrtle Beach. Every commercial break, Myrtle Beach ad. I've never seen these before on any other WCW episode. It's like they had an ad budget and just blew it all on one Saturday night. The ads show a lot of golfing and old people having a good time having dinner together. Sounds nice.

3. Mark Starr vs. Ice Train

Segunda Caida: Now with more stuff written about Mark Starr than ANY other website!! Because Mark Starr is actually really good, and ends up losing to Ice Train on these type of shows pretty often. Schiavone says Ice Train will be a "big star" in this business in a few years, which even without the benefit of hindsight seems like a bad projection. I mean, did Tony really think a 35 year old juiced up guy with a high top fade was really gonna break through and it was only experience that was holding him back? Starr looks great here bumping around for all of Ice Train's powerslams and shoulder blocks. Ice Train looks like a guy who wouldn't look very good without Starr bumping around for him.

4. Konnan vs. Johnny Swinger

God so much Konnan on these '96/'97 shows. Here he busts out a nice octopus hold on the mat (that takes him like 20 seconds to apply). Swinger has nice kicks to the stomach. And then Konnan drops Swinger right on his head with the 187. I mean good lord there has to be some vertebrae damaged there. Was there just some company directive to shoot injure Swinger whenever he was your opponent?  I'm glad he eventually got some WWE paydays.

5. La Parka vs. Robbie Brookside

I was not actually aware that Parka got any singles matches against non-lucha guys, but here he was totally dominating Brookside. So that means he was getting a minor push as early as '97, yet somehow they never pushed him any further than this, or being the guy who cleans the ring in lucha 6 mans. Obviously one of WCW's many screw-ups was not giving more of a push to Parka. A chubby, dancing skeleton who did corkscrew moonsaults and hit people with chairs. He does kip-ups, he kicks people in the face, and he would have sold tons of merchandise. I'm not saying he should have been World Champ (although really, it would have worked) but the fans loved cheering Park.

6. Jim Powers & Bobby Walker vs. Public Enemy

I know most of you are with me on this, but there are many combinations of 1997 WCW wrestlers that I would rather see show up as the main event of an episode that still has 12 minutes remaining. And you know? This isn't totally terrible. Powers is actually alright as a heel, which is a shame that he works face 95% of the time. I'm a fairly easy man to please. I know how to judge things on scale. Every match doesn't have to be Dundee/Lawler. And this match really didn't need much to exceed expectations. Walker hit a nice elbow drop, Grunge hit a nice elbow drop, Rocco tossed out an ugly asai moonsault, I fell asleep for the final two minutes...

maybe this wasn't actually that good.