CWC Throwback Thursday: The Fantastics

Bobby Fulton vs. Tommy Rogers (WWE Raw 6/16/97)

Oh sure, the CWC is all the rage right now, but almost 20 years ago the WWF was starting their big Light Heavyweight division and bringing in some pretty fresh names: Great Sasuke, Taka Michinoku, Tajiri, Scott Putski...okay, three fresh names. And also a famous tag team who were apparently only 36 (jeez is that right!?) but looked about a decade older. Yep, almost 20 years ago the Fantastics made their only career WWF appearance, and it was against each other, in New York (real hot bed of Fantastics fans up in NY), in a 3 minute match.

And the match was about as awesome as a 3 minute match can be. Bobby Fulton comes out wearing some of the least cool tights you've seen (those one-legged atrocities that Zack Ryder shamelessly wore) and Tommy Rogers comes out with his fluffy mullet (18 months after the mullet was mostly phased out of televised American wrestling). Rogers goes for the handshake and Fulton immediately points to his head (he's too smart to trust this Rogers jerk) and hits a surprise dropkick on Rogers. And boy do I love Bobby Fulton in this match. 1997 Bobby Fulton would have been one of my top 5 (top 3?) favorite guys in the CWC. He starts throwing weird low angle elbows in the corner, then starts throwing much nastier elbows to Tommy's jaw, hits a great flash spinkick, and when Rogers rolls to the apron he drops a great elbow on him. Fulton is wrestling like a southern Dave Taylor. Fulton decides that Rogers hasn't had enough so hits a great high speed dropkick that sends Tommy crashing from the apron to the barricade. This whole time Vince is having JR bring him up to speed on the Fantastics, asking them about their history, asking JR how they would have done had they competed in WWF. The ending comes quick, as we had to get to a Headbangers match (vs. Jerry Lawler and Rob Van Dam!?), so Bobby gets his feet on the ropes for a pin, argues with the ref when it doesn't work, and Tommy hits the Tomikaze for the win, which the camera mostly misses while showing the replay of Tommy flying into the barricade. What a weird, wonderful little match. The true torchbearer for the CWC.