My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Saturday Night 3/11/00, Part 1

1. Harris Brothers vs. Disorderly Conduct

Pretty fun squash as Mean Mike and Tough Tom are game enough to bump around for these two. The teams pair off and one combo rolls to the floor and the other stays in the ring. I can tell that Mean Mike is on the floor and Tough Tom is in the ring, but I won't be able to tell the Harris Bros. apart. Whichever one is in the ring actually looks pretty decent, throwing a cool uppercut and tossing Tom around nicely. The H Bomb works real well as a finisher, and both members of DO have to take it (with both getting great height). This was a fun enough squash, but is there such thing as an actual good Harris Bros. match? There are 12+ years of these guys on tape, certainly there has to be something good?

2. Norman Smiley vs. Scotty Zappa

Wow, Scotty Zappa. I saw Dweezil's Zappa Plays Zappa show a few years back and it was really awesome. Not sure what Ahmet or Moon Unit are up to these days. I feel bad for Scotty as he got little of the family talent, didn't get to marry Lisa Loeb or Selma Blair, clearly rebelled against his father by not even attempting a career in music. I imagine if he ever worked ECW that Joey Styles gave his finisher some name like "Weasels Ripped My Flesh" or "Chunga's Revenge". This was a weird period for Smiley as he's still billed as "Screamin" Norman Smiley, except he doesn't scream anymore. And he still dresses like he's the hardcore legend, with football pants and minor league hockey jersey, but he wrestles like his weird hybrid World of Sport/UWFi self. Match is not helped much by Zappa, who stinks. Norman still does his awesome scoop and twist bodyslam and has some slick leg kicks. It always stuns me how over the Big Wiggle was. People just jump out of their seats screaming whenever he does it.



3. 3 Count vs. El Dandy, Silver King and Jeremy Lopez

Apparently 3 Count are the collective hardcore champs here but this was probably taped a few months before the title change and there are no hardcore elements (which enrages Scott Hudson!). The match starts out the best way it could possibly start, with Dandy punching Karagias before the bell, then Helms and Moore each running into Dandy punches of their own. 12 stars. This match really is a WCW cruiserweight classic. Outside of one botch from King/Moore (and even that was doing a really ambitious electric chair type roll-up spot) this was 6 minutes of constant spots and cool showcases from everybody. Moore and Helms were such bump freaks at this point (though I haven't watched much pre-WWE Helms in awhile and seeing the size difference between him here and him in WWE was quite jarring) and both guys flew all over for King and Dandy. Los Fabulosos had cool double team offense (loved Silver King hip tossing Dandy into a senton) and this was just exactly what you hoped for when you saw this on paper. Jeremy Lopez was quite the unheralded early 00s junior as random Villano and Fabulosos partner.

4. Barry Horowitz vs. Allan Funk

Cool little 6 minute match that's a really good reference point if you want to throw somebody towards some high end Horowitz. Funk was one of my favorite Power Plant guys but here he had a lot of trouble stringing together moves and transitioning from offense to defense. Horowitz seems to really thrive in these types of matches, though, and he comes off as almost a Fit Finlay "let's let him train the Divas/let's put him with Bobby Lashley" type guy making the young and inexperience looked good by one parts selling big for them and one parts taking advantage of them. Horowitz does cool Finlay stuff he doesn't normally do, like stomp fingers, wrench ears on side headlocks, headbutts, elbow to the throat on the apron, even breaking out a nasty palm strike to Funk's right eye. Jesus (Moses?), Barry! This honestly may have been the best Horowitz has ever looked in a match, and I'm a pretty big Barry fan. Barry controlled for almost 6 straight minutes and Funk won by reversing a cradle and holding the trunks. This match was really awesome. It might have been better with more of a competitive pace, but an extended Barry squash with tiny Funk comebacks peppered in worked great for me.

5. Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs. Frankie Lancaster

I can't believe it took me so long to realize that '99/'00 Frankie Lancaster was just Bob Holly. I bet I could convince somebody that was true. These discs are burned from some pretty deep generation VHS tapes, so they're kinda fuzzy with muffled sound. I'm trying to think of a more selfish worker than Duggan during the syndicated years and the only guy I can think of is Sullivan. Konnan definitely has to get his moves in, but occasionally sells for other guys in between. Sullivan rarely lets other guys have offense, but Duggan is almost worse because he usually lets guys get a couple moves in and never even acts like anything touched him. It makes guys look fucking ridiculous. Lancaster threw a few shockingly nice punches and Duggan doesn't move his head one inch to even give off the impression somebody is doing offense to him. I want a Duggan vs. Sullivan match that is just a 4 minute test of strength with neither gaining an advantage, and then each just choosing to get counted out so nobody has to show any ass.