My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Saturday Night 5/16/98

Road Block vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan

ER: This was pretty great, maybe my favorite Duggan WCW syndicated match. That's not super high praise, as Duggan was a fairly selfish syndicated worker, prone to no selling punches and kind of gobbling up lower totem pole guys. But Roadblock didn't get gobbled up at all, and got an extended run here as a great 60s style big man. Roadblock wasn't going to move much of a needle in 1998, a guy born way too late. I like his clumsy but heavy kicks to the stomach, high elbow drop, he really gets to beat Duggan around the ring, and he gets a long and awesome bearhug. He's really squeezing Duggan, holding him up in the air, and the camera clearly keeps it above the waist on tight shots, especially when Roadblock starts shaking him. "Nobody needs to see these two violently rubbing mons pubis, keep it high and tight!" Duggan fights out of it with punches and a headbutt, but Roadblock hangs on so we get a cool extended bearhug on television. Duggan works stiff on his comeback, throws a nice "back up" shot, hits this killer and big corner punches. Roadblock misses a huge splash off the middle rope to set up Duggan's clothesline and big kneedrop. This was really competitive for a Duggan match, became an unexpectedly fun big boy banger.

Barry Horowitz vs. Marty Jannetty

ER: Man 1998 Jannetty always looked such a decade behind the times. Horowitz is a guy I really appreciate on these shows. He was beyond the "dependable" tag that gets hung on him, he was a guy who always found a different way to fill 4 minutes. He would experiment with offense, and be entertaining in matches where he dominated (like this one) or ones that he gets worked over. I thought this match was fantastic, Horowitz has nice strikes and dominates the action, throws hard stomps to Duggan's head and drops a leg, comes up with a cool rolling cradle out of a stump puller, a guy who really looks good in control of  a match. But the Jannetty comeback is incredible, as Horowitz comes up with a crazy way to transition Marty back to offense: Horowitz climbs to the top while Jannetty is laid out, but Barry flies balls first into a waiting atomic drop. That's the best transition, totally precision landing, cool concept. Jannetty wins with an absolutely gorgeous fistdrop off the TOP ROPE, truly one of the finest fistdrops I've ever seen, and a fine fistdrop is something that can truly warm my pro wrestling heart. This show could just be one 2 hour GIF.

Mean Gene gives an unfortunate interview with Fit Finlay where they hype his upcoming Slamboree match against Chris Benoit, and Gene says how Benoit is someone who can "really tie you up". What did Gene know?

Horace vs. Juventud Guerrera

ER: My favorite matches on these shows tend to be the ones where the result is somewhat in doubt. And this is a fun example of that. Horace is a guy I seem to be a highish vote on (I like him as a well above average big thug type), but he's not super high on the WCW totem pole. and big guys did mostly steamroll over non Rey Mysterio small guys in WCW, but Juvy was a guy who had been treated as a potential future Mysterio. So this was a fun match with a rare mystery outcome. Horace was great at tossing around Juvy early, and only made Juvy's big comeback more exciting. Juvy looked really explosive on the comeback, even got to hit a big plancha. And Horace does actually win the match, but it big interference from Reese. So Juvy loses, but takes on a full heavyweight and only loses because a freakshow giant crushes him. '98/'99 Juvy was really great.

Johnny Swinger vs. Jerry Flynn

ER: This episode is a real classic so far, full of fun and kind of unexpected gems. Swinger here plays the really underrated role of "overly cocky small guy", and seriously who is the crowd supposed to cheer for in this one? Flynn looks like a meathead doofus karate guy who would be a traitor working as a karate guy for the Vietcong in a direct to video Christopher Mitchum movie. And Swinger is a greasy punk who wears just-sleeves instead of a full ring jacket and grinds his hips in between moves. So you get two stubblemugs working a stiff match, and it's great. Swinger really comes off like an under a under the radar tough guy, always able to eat a beating from tough guys, always seems to get matched up with tough guys and leans into strikes, and always works snug when he gets to work offense, despite a usual size discrepancy. Flynn gets a lot of nice big kicks, Swinger makes those kicks look great, but Swinger also gets a hot start and gets to look on Flynn's level. I'm not sure I've seen Swinger win a match in WCW, but he's a guy I appreciate the more I see.

Len Denton vs. Disco Inferno

ER: Here's a rare bird indeed! A 1998 Len Denton sighting! I really liked 1998 Len Denton. Almost a best case scenario Jim Neidhart. He hits hard on shoulderblocks, throws his body into a lariat, sets up a good backdrop, a good workmanlike body slam. Len Denton is the kind of guy you get excited to see on a Saturday Night. Disco Inferno is the world's most successful Ken Marino character, and for those reasons this easily works. Denton really flies into a missed elbow drop off the middle rope, drops fast on the Chartbuster. It was short, but it was what you wanted.

If this episode were closer to Halloween I would assume that Gene was doing some kind of killer Stop Making Sense costume but this is in May. Mean Gene looks like a man dying before our eyes.

And then we get one of those batshit insane but also smug as hell baller Eric Bischoff promo where he keeps casually and "calmer than you are" challenging Vince to show up at Slamboree to get a shitkicking. What a lunatic concept, just trying to challenge your competition to some kind of shoot. And you just know it actually got under Vince's skin and he probably had to be talked out of showing up. There has to be some good stories behind that angle right?

Disorderly Conduct vs. High Voltage

ER: This episode is a thing of marvelous beauty. This match is sweet heroin rushing into my veins, two dudes with mullets and purple singlets versus two guys with on paper better hair but neon green singlets just doing a hot moves sprint. This is the stuff you want. You want Mean Mike breaking out a chinbreaker and body slam double teams, you want Robbie Rage hitting a huge butterfly suplex and Kenny Kaos hitting a huge powerslam running Tough Tom into the turnbuckles. This was the kind of fast paced short tag match that WCW syndicated shows did so much better at than similar era WWF.

Lenny Lane vs. Kidman

ER: Lane is a fun cruiserweight comedy stooge that probably doesn't get enough credit for being a fun TV performer during this era. Lane's stuff is a little telegraphed, but he has a fun roll up, really great headscissors, a couple unique slams. Kidman is game as a bumper but seems a little uninventive in getting to his spots, kind of awkwardly grabbing his bulldog off the ropes when it looked like he wanted to just end things. The shooting star didn't crush Lane's windpipe, so that's a relief. This was at minimum a nicely paced cruiserweight match, unique in its lack of luchador (it was almost always luchador vs. white guy in the weekly Saturday Night showcase match), this added to the episode's already high bang for the buck factor.

Evan Kourageous vs. Saturn

ER: Seeing Evan Karagias (I used the actual spelling they used onscreen up above) run out for a match makes my heart sink a little. The show had been doing so well. BUT, Saturn comes out, and he's a guy who could be a jerk sometimes, so you instantly think this pretty boy with the bad goatee might get roughed up! Kidman gets on the mic before the match and asks Karagias if he wants to get beat by the Rings of Saturn, or the Death Valley Driver? And this is a tremendous beating from Saturn, total great squash. Karagias gets a somewhat sold dropkick, and Saturn bumps for a flippy DDT, but the rest is Saturn throwing high kicks to the face, a big overhead butterfly belly to belly, hard dropkick while vaulting off a chair, Psychosis level height guillotine legdrop, and sticks him with the dvd. Saturn looked like the most fun wrestler in WCW in this match, he really went through some fun bursts.

Yuji Nagata vs. Goldberg

ER: If you asked people when this match happened "Which of these two guys will be in the Observer Hall of Fame in 20 years?" how many people would have met Nagata. Goldberg was a nuclear megastar here. The crowd goes absolutely mental the entire match. Nagata starts throwing fast high kicks and Goldberg shrugs them off, starts with his weird shit like his rolling knee bar and his backflip and catches a Nagata kick to whip him with his cool dragon screw, and the fans are just losing their minds. When he levels him with an absolute battering ram of a spear, these people can't contain themselves. Goldberg holds the Jackhammer for exactly 7 seconds, and Goldberg had to be the most popular man in all of Springfield, Illinois that afternoon.

Chavo Guerrero Jr. vs. Fit Finlay

ER: Earlier in the episode they announced this match but I thought it was Finlay vs. Chavo, which I'm sure would have been good, but Finlay vs. Eddie is way more legendary sounding. Oh, and it IS Finlay vs. Chavo, because Eddie is so generous that he opts to give his nephew the TV Title opportunity. So that means that WCW blew its own reveal earlier in the episode where at the very beginning of the show they announced Finlay vs. Chavo. I knew I didn't mishear that shit. Why would they film an angle and then blow the surprise 90 minutes earlier? And sometimes Finlay really comes off like a cold-blooded assassin in matches. Here he gives a joyless beating at Chavo, not wanting to get involved in the uncle/nephew drama, and really showing off some great hard wrestling offense. Chavo doesn't get a lot of extended action but doesn't totally allow himself to be swallowed up. Even if he's not getting a string of moves he still would do things like throw body blows when getting picked up off the mat, at least giving us some struggle. Finlay is busy as usual, tossing constant stomps to a downed Chavo, hitting the hardest forearm to the back, lifting him up for an absurdly high bodyslam (he was holding Chavo by his head and shoulders! Like a vertical suplex almost but just yoinked up like a bodyslam), really buries that shoulder to the gut on the rolling fireman's carry, and Eddie is playing faux concerned the entire time on the floor. Eddie even puts his white towel over his head so he doesn't have to see poor Chavo take a nasty as hell tombstone.

What a perfect little episode of 1998 syndicated WCW. I've somehow written up more 1999 Saturday Night episodes than 1998, and that feels like a misguided mistake. 1998 was really my sweet spot at the time, and this episode really backed up my emotions and memories. Total front to back banger right here.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES