NWA Wildside Episode 19 Review

I notice on their onscreen graphic advertising all of the matches for the 1/8/00 Y2 Kaos says "Y2 Koas", which is like the wrestling ad equivalent of having spinach in your teeth.

1. The Station House vs. Skinny Kenny/Pete Platinum/Frenchy Riviera

Holy hell how have I never heard of the Station House before!?!? Three guys in essentially chippendales firemen gear being lead to the ring by a mustachioed chubby chief, with a faux Mike Post 80s TV piano-driven theme song with intermittent growled sound bites like "Station House this is the Chief, gimme everything we got!!!" I mean god bless the USA. This match was terrible but also 100% fucking flawless. When I saw the name "Skinny Kenny" I thought "god I hope this guy is fat as hell" and Skinny Kenny is faaaattttttt. He's a giant tremendously fat guy with a bad goatee and a pink mid 90s Scott Steiner singlet. Pete Platinum looks like Buddy Lee Parker dressed up as Karl Lagerfeld dressed up as Udo Dirkschneider. Frenchy Riviera is somehow waaaaaay fatter than Skinny Kenny but also 4" shorter and ALSO has a bad goatee and a glorious fat guy ponytail!! The Station House are a fire house version of the Hot Cops, all wearing vinyl pants under their firefighter coveralls, and the announcers say a bunch of outrageously gay stuff without trying to say outrageously gay stuff. When all three Station House members hit "tandem" dropkicks (they were supposed to be tandem, but man none of those dropkicks came close to being thrown at the same time) you get great quotes like "you're talking about three big boys right here!" Frenchy takes a bump directly onto Kenny in a clearly accidental moment. Frenchy I have seen before on some old 90s Memphis TV, but I'm pretty sure he had bleached blonde hair. That kind of massive body can't be on too many workers though, so it had to be him.

You guys....The hunks in the Station House are named - I kid you not - Michael Firehouse, Jay Pumper, and Brian Rescue.  That's....that's just impossible. That's not real! That's impossible. Let's see...Brian is the cute one...Michael is the bad boy...Jay is the funny one...I hope they're like Menudo, and the older ones leave the band so new young hunky members can join. We can end up seeing Tommy Firetruck, Glenn Hose, Cody Red and Brandon Backdraft. Maybe some day we can have our first female member, Kat Inatree. And damn Pete Platinum seems really good, as he comes in and muscles up Jay Pumper for a brutal snap suplex and then hits a crazy fast low dropkick off the ropes. He wrestles a LOT like mid 90s Benoit crossed with Buddy Lee, in other words a wrestler I would like to watch. Frenchy is just morbidly obese and throws in some great comedy shrieking when Michael Firehouse overpowers him on a knuckle lock. Skinny Kenny is kind of holding the team back as Platinum/Frenchy both look really good in completely different ways, Kenny seems older and slower and not as interesting. The announcer do a real good job making him sound more interesting than he is, but as I type that Platinum hits a nasty back elbow and Frenchy hits a huge powerslam while suggestively waggling his tongue. I need more of these dudes. Station House are all really inexperienced but Firehouse especially is plenty willing to throw hard forearms (in that neat stiff untrained way) and some really nice flying lariats. There's a lot of awkward moving people into position while those people don't fight back, but this was plenty of fun and I want more Frenchy/Pete Platinum. Plus it should BASICALLY be a legendary indy wrestling segment, as I'm positive this was the only appearance of The Station House. Does anyone know if any of these Station House guys did anything else?

We get a fun short promo with "Attorney/Agent" Jeff G. Bailey and K-Krush, with Bailey saying "Krush ain't going to fight AJ Styles, he's going to the WWE to rap and dance!" A literal SEVENTEEN YEARS LATER, and Bailey is certainly prophetic, as Krush has essentially just rapped and danced the whole time. "Show them how you dance, Krush!"

2. AJ Styles vs. Jesse Taylor

It's so weird seeing super early career AJ Styles as he already does so many things really well, but is also super awkward and uses a completely different moveset than you ever remember him using. So he throws these great punches (completely different than the way you've seen him punch for years, these were right hand Lawler hookshots, and Styles was totally punching like an old Memphis pro) and hits this insane running plancha, he also already had his fast athletic bumps. But his moveset is so different! I didn't remember Styles doing a bunch of legdrop based offense, but boy does he! Taylor I really like. He works like a green, mulleted Bobby Duncum Jr. or Kendall Windham. And let's face it, those guys had mullets at some point so it's easy to fill in his evolution. But I have no clue what happened to Taylor. He may still be working somewhere! I would be watching him monthly if he was, as he seems like a guy who would make a fun eventual mid 40s southern worker. He takes a flat out great bump as he grabs a chair but it gets ditched on the apron, and when he climbs up on the apron Styles dropkicks him down and he flies back, hits his face on the chair on the way down, and then bumps to the floor. It looked so awesome. Taylor throws nice punches, throws himself into shoulderblocks, has nice movement (he even moves like a Windham, which is a plus) and throws a good powerslam. Both guys were green, but this was real fun.

Romeo Bliss cuts a promo and ends it saying that they better put up Under Construction signs around his house, because he's going to be laying pipe all night, then sucks on his middle finger while miming pounding some girl doggystyle, then takes his now wet middle finger and mimes fingering this invisible girl's asshole. THIS SHOW AIRED ON TV!

Really fun episode, even though it was heavy on recaps. Still, they got an event to build for so that makes sense. The six man was a great segment due to the absurdity of the Station House gimmick, and the Styles/Taylor match was a real fun match between a couple of new guys. Another fine episode of TV. Man I'm jealous of anybody who got to see this fed regularly. It's the best.