NWA Wildside Episode 18 Review

A real friend of the program uploaded a few old episodes of Wildside onto the internet, and I couldn't find any sort of dates on any of these. The earliest episode numbers I found were in the 60s, so these are like from that late 90s period that never got converted to DVD. Some people just have episodes of Wildside they taped off TV just sitting in a box at their parents house, where they possibly still live. Just as I have boxes of old APW gym wars tapes and unmarked tapes with Reckless Youth matches and poor video quality puro sitting in the next room as I type this (though thankfully I do not live with my parents, although many boxes of old Nintendo Powers and LPs still reside there).

And boy, if you wanted to show somebody a segment to let them know what Wildside was all about, the show starts with Jeff G. Bailey storming the ring and having Crowbar get rid of Onyx, then K Krush brings out a struggling body bag that contains the bound and gagged wife of Chance Williams (if not the owner of Wildside, then the "on TV" owner). Bailey makes fun of her, full on states - does not imply - that the three of them had their way with her right to Chance's face (as Crowbar holds him in a choke), says not to worry about her being pregnant because Krush used the rhythm method, and how they treated her good by giving her a pedicure, a manicure, even "a couple of facials". Oh my lord. I mean holy shit. The lead heels straight up kidnapped and gang raped the owner's wife as the lead angle of this episode. Where do you even go from there!?!?

After the show intro (Sanctioned by the NWA!) Chance calls out Bailey and makes a match for Y2Kaos (so this show must have aired in late 1999 if that was an edgy show title) where Bailey could gain control of the company for 30 days if he wins, but if he loses then AJ Styles gets a title shot against K Krush. Bailey tells him his first order of business as show runner would be to fire Styles and Chance, as then they'd have more time to "attend NAMBLA meetings and march in parades". My god Jeff G. Bailey.

1. Jorge Estrada vs. K-Krush

Estrada comes out to Orgy's "Blue Monday" if this doesn't feel like the late 90s enough yet. Orgy's album "Candyass" sold almost 2 million copies. Imagine how many hundreds of thousands of teens made their poor mothers buy them Orgy's Candyass CD for Christmas? How many poor mothers, who knew nothing of popular music as they gave that up years before, when they had children, how many poor mothers had to uncomfortably ask a person in a music store, or a Best Buy, or anywhere "Excuse me do you guys have Orgy?" "Did they specify which album? Is it Candyass?" "Oh....dear....I don't know, they just said Orgy...." How many poor mothers bought the WRONG Orgy album? And their 13 year old was a total shit because it wasn't the Orgy CD they wanted. I think many of our moms bought us something that was super well intentioned, but not totally correct. My mom once bought me an issue of a wrestling magazine that had Sable on the cover. I was not a fan of Sable, and there was nothing I ever said to one person that would make them think I liked Sable. But my mom knew I loved wrestling, and knew I liked girls, so she saw this magazine at the airport or mall or market and thought of me. And 18 years later I still remember it fondly and even though I have no clue where that magazine is I still love that my mom purchased a wrestling magazine somewhere (probably while wearing sunglasses since she would likely equate it to buying the raunchiest kinds of pornography). But the problem is that any kid who would have wanted Orgy's Candyass subsequently grew up to be an awful, unsuccessful human being who hated their life and parents and job. So they've never reflected on how nice their mom was to buy them Orgy's Candyass for Christmas. They are unthankful husks of human beings, probably.

Match was okay. You remember Estrada as the worst member of the Flying Elvises in TNA, and this was a few years earlier than that, before he developed all that ring polish. Krush took a nasty backdrop into the ropes. Bailey called Estrada "George" the whole match, until the end when he started calling him Jorge after hearing the other announcer say Jorge the whole match, which makes me think Bailey just thought his name was George. Estrada mistimes Krush's spin kick finisher so ends up running basically mouth first into Krush's butt, busting his lip open. Post match Krush humps the turnbuckles at some women who both laugh, blush, and pretend to wave dollar bills at him.

Al Getz cuts an awesome long promo, detailing how terrible his life has been for the last 12 years because he has no friends, and all he sees is darkness. This is all because 12 years ago he had only one friend in the world, a pretty girl at summer camp. And one night he brought her flowers and that jerk JC Dazz was kissing her. Getz was really great here, really stretched that promo out, told a great story instead of a wrasslin promo. Some blonde in the front (who he referred to as a fat cow) was screaming at him the whole time, trying to step on his story ("You don't even like girls you fag!") but Getz stayed the course and allowed himself to get embarrassed, brought out JC Dazz, and asked him to blast him with a chairshot. Dazz accepted and I saw Getz fiddling in his pocket, and I gruesomely thought he was reaching in for a blade for a post-chairshot gusher. But instead he pulls out some pepper spray and blasts Dazz with it when he raised the chair over his head. "That was pepper spray, and you're going to be blind for the next 2 minutes!" and then, because this is a great episode of wrestling TV, he calls out SHANK!!!

2. Shank vs. JC Dazz

Shank is really one of the more fascinating guys in wrestling history. He didn't work long, and he wasn't technically "good", but damn if I don't get excited and want to see every single thing involving Shank. He's a guy who is a mysterious, dangerous ex-con, who genuinely comes off like a crazy ex-con, or even present-con. He had really explosive violent offense, he just couldn't really bump or do a lot of the basics. But he had an incredible aura, and that offense really was violent. His clotheslines look the absolute worst to take, and when he lifts guys up on chokeslams and powerbombs and backdrops it looks like he can launch them 15 feet. Finish is a quality BS finish as Dazz kicks Shank low, leading to Getz getting in the ring with more pepper spray, but accidentally spraying Shank. Dazz punches Getz with Getz taking a rough bump into the ropes, then runs with Dazz chasing after. Shank is blinded and swinging wildly in the ring, and Dazz plasters him with a chairshot off the top. Good way to keep Shank strong in losing, have Dazz fight back against two men, and prolong the Dazz/Getz feud.

3. Hardcore Elimination Rumble: Ruckus vs. White Trash vs. Damien Steele vs. Toad vs. Q-Sick

60% of our competitors have either green hair or are wearing a sleeveless South Park shirt. And this was really disappointing. 1999 was a fun and ridiculously stupid time for hardcore wrestling, as every single hardcore indy wrestler wanted to show they were more hardcore than the hardcore "phonies" in WWF and WCW, except guys in WWF and WCW were actually doing some REALLY stupid and dangerous stuff in their hardcore matches. My point being, there were a lot of incredibly stupid things done in 1999 in the name of hardcore wrestling. But this just didn't have anywhere near the level of stupid stuff you'd want, certainly nothing close to approaching Dave Burkhead's weird and wonderful hardcore run on WCW syndicated TV during the same period.  White Trash took a couple of full body nasty bumps into guardrails, fans be damned. Q-Sick seemed like a better wrestling version of Darren Drozdov, Toad seemed practically untrained for a guy who would get several matches on WCW TV not long after this, Steele was better than a guy wearing a singlet and South Park t-shirt should be, definitely seeming like the most complete worker in the match. But this really just needed more stupid. It was somehow too orderly, somehow not violent enough, somehow too professional. That's good for them, but I am selfish and wanted some wrecked brain cells.

Not sure who found their old Wildside VHS tapes and converted them, but that person certainly added some extra joy to my 3 day weekend. I considered canceling an RSVP to a fun BBQ just to spend my day drinking in the house and watching 1999 Wildside. I went to the BBQ, had a blast, but also kind of thought about getting back home to the Wildside the whole time.  I *may* cancel some plans on the 4th to watch the rest of this little treasure trove...