My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 5/8/99 & 5/15/99

5/8/99

Frankie Lancaster vs. Disco Inferno

ER: In the WWE/WCW mirror universe, Lancaster is Bob Holly. A tag team of Holly/Lancaster would have been amazing. They could have done the Killer Bees switcheroo, unmasked. And this is a quality enough match, constant action and some nice overall work by Lancaster. I hadn't remembered Lancaster still in the company this late, but he worked there for a year after this match! I like him. He's big enough that it looks impressive when he takes offense, and he's surprisingly good at taking offense. He takes a bunch of armdrags and hip tosses to start, eats a backdrop, and doesn't gas even though he looks like someone who would definitely gas. He also hits a really great left arm lariat, really straight arms Disco. The finish is one I don't love, but couldn't have been handled better by Lancaster: He goes up to the middle rope to do something onto Disco, who is on the mat, and Disco gets his boot up. I hate guys jumping off the ropes and landing on their feet, face to boot. What move would they have been doing had that boot not been there? But Lancaster takes it on the chin and does a great stagger while holding onto his chin, the kind of knee knocking stagger that Rick Rude would do after taking an atomic drop. And while Lancaster is stumbling he gets hit with the Chartbuster, continuing to sell that chin. All well played.

Silver King vs. Horace Hogan

ER: For a match that's 85% one guy in control, this is plenty fun. Horace is out with Stevie Ray and Vincent, and what's great about this is the nWo cheat the entire time. I love they come out here against Silver King, a guy who was rarely even on the winning team during trios matches in WCW, and felt the need to cheat to win. But here's Horace choking King with his nWo belt, throwing King to the floor so that Stevie can put the boots to him. Horace has some nice shots to the body, King takes a big bump into the guardrail and a ringside chair off an Irish whip, and King gets a nice mini run after landing on Horace during a Horace back suplex attempt. Vincent is really good at ringside, that guy really knew how to act (?) like a chump, loved when King hit a kick to a grounded Horace and ran up top, backing Vincent off with a kick from the apron. Vincent acts tough a charges towards him and then does this huge flinch when King barely even threatens to kick him, then Vincent acts like he did everything to stop him once King easily gets to the top. There was no way King was winning this, but since it is WCW you knew we'd be getting 4 solid minutes, which is part of the joy of these.

In an ad after this episode, I find out that Home Movies actually debuted on The CW. It's a show so associated with Adult Swim, and a show I watched from the beginning on AS, and I had no clue until now that it had a remarkably unsuccessful run on CW before getting scooped up by AS.

5/15/99

El Dandy vs. Erik Watts

ER: This is the kind of match up you're going to get in syndicated '99 WCW. Dandy is wearing bright purple gear that I've never seen, and Watts as you know is wearing those gigantic Jnco jeans with legs wide enough to completely engulf his boots. I had no memory of Watts being so muggy. He worked half this match like he was Hugh Morrus, cracking jokes with Charles Robinson, mugging to fans, working like a real jokester for some reason. "What can I do to get noticed? Maybe do some Hugh Morrus shtick? Watts goofing off is what gives Dandy openings to offense. There is a little miscommunication early. Dandy likely carried some luchador loads, but a 6'6" guy tripping over his own jeans is another story. Once they're on the same page it gets pretty decent, with Dandy laying in a nice kick to Watt's jaw and flashing that big right hand that always makes Mike Tenay rightfully swoon. Watts has a lot of indy offense that looks somewhat out of place, but also effective. He kicks Dandy in the stomach and hits an amusingly aloof Rocker Dropper, shrugging before stepping over Dandy to drop the leg over the back of his neck. He also hits a buckle bomb before that was a thing, and his finisher is some kind of weird Flatliner/reverse chokeslam, where his left arm is over Dandy's chest and wrapped around his neck, while his right hand is grabbing the back of Dandy's neck. Erik Watt's: Late 90s imitator. If I could have remixed these episodes I would have much rather seen Dandy vs. King and Horace vs. Watts, but we know how this goes.

The Gambler vs. Dave Taylor

ER: Well this is a WCW syndicated dream match if there ever was one. Gambler looks like old pictures of everyone's dad from when you were a kid. It didn't seem weird at the time but then you look back through photos from a camping trip and there's your dad shirtless and wearing short cut off shorts and tinted sunglasses. Dad's looked like less cool Arn Andersons, and we had no responsibilities. Oh, and this match rules - obviously - but in a way I couldn't have expected, because The Gambler takes 90% of this match, with Taylor getting 5% to start and 5% to finish. This was the most Gambler Showcase I have ever seen in a match. Dave Taylor was mentioned and talked about at the beginning of the episode and hyped up, talked about like a guy everyone was naturally excited to see, "The Bigun from Wigan", talking about him like he was an old friend of the program. And then Gambler comes out later and just eats him for lunch before losing to one move. Taylor's bit of offense at the beginning is a kick to the stomach, dropkick, and a European uppercut, and Gambler takes that uppercut by reeling back into the ropes, then firing off them with an elbow right to Taylor's throat. Gambler hits a couple really nice kneelifts and hits a huge lariat sending Taylor over the top to the floor, then flips him back over the ropes when Taylor tries to get in. This is already as much Gambler offense as I've probably ever seen, but we're not at all done. Gambler has a bunch of really great Arn Anderson offense, as well as a really great Arn Anderson hairline, throwing Taylor into the ropes just to punch him in the stomach, then kneeing Taylor in the face when he buckles from the punch. Taylor is reeling almost the entire match, Gambler wrenches on a cravate, throws in a couple stomps, hits an axe handle off the top, this whole thing is flat out bizarre. Alas, Gambler goes up for another axehandle and gets caught, and Taylor hits his gorgeous butterfly suplex/floatover pin to win it. What the hell happened here!? Because whatever it was I want it in pill form.

Johnny Swinger vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

ER: Swinger comes out wearing his weird tinsel silver collar, looking smug, and then Scott Hudson says "Johnny Swinger, taking an undeserved bow in the ring." Damn, knocking Swinger down a peg there Hudson. Swinger always comes off well in these matches, a guy with a cool cravate, nice elbow to the jaw, nice backdrop suplex, cool running punch, and nice little things like when he really claps Chavo with his knees to kickout of a sunset flip. Johnny Swinger is really good you guys. This is a really cool Swinger showcase. The finish is really cool too, with Swinger burying a knee in Chavo's guy, then hoisting him up for a vertical suplex that Chavo reverses into a gnarly tornado DDT. He really got vertical on the suplex before  whipping straight down into the DDT, it the visual was fantastic and Swinger snapped right into it.

Barry Darsow vs. Chris Adams

ER: What a main! I don't remember Darsow wearing the World of Sport swimsuit singlet before but it looks cool. He looks like Ken Patera or something. Always like seeing that singlet, but maybe because only cool wrestlers wear it (think Finlay, Regal, most recently Dunne). Adams was treated as a real badass during this era, so it's kind of wild to see him get handled by Darsow here. Darsow is a big guy but I don't remember him always working stiff, whereas Adams had been working a cool semi-shooter gimmick. Adams doesn't get steamrolled or anything, he's too good for that, but it's definitely a controlling Darsow performance. They kept a lot of this real tight, as in they were scrapping in close quarters a lot, which is an awesome touch that you really weren't seeing a lot in mainstream 1999 wrestling. Darsow throws a cool right hand that I don't remember him using, and Adams grabs Darsow's arm and bends it a lot of ways while the two are standing, so you get a lot of them standing in the center of the ring working snug headlocks and wristlocks and it feels more like a  Nick Bockwinkel match in Japan than two olds wrestling in North Dakota (I had no idea WCW was running North Dakota tapings in '99, but this taping was two Saturday Nights and a Worldwide and had plenty of good matches, nice bang for your buck tapings). Darsow even gets an insanely dominant victory, winning by REF STOPPAGE after he locks in a nasty camel clutch while ripping at Adams face. The ref straight steps in and throws in the towel for Adams! God bless these shows.

Episode closes with a drunken Hak promo and he's in that hilarious to watch drunken phase of "No no no you don't understand, LISTEN." Gene is trying to corral him and Hak is wandering around stacking ladders and sighing and saying he doesn't know a wristlock from a wristwatch, and when Gene asks him about his plans he's like "Look I don't know I'm just gonna do it or whatever," while his chin is planted in his hand. Brilliant. I love that Sandman got such a great WCW run. It was only a few months, but the guy was EVERYWHERE. He made several PPVs and was on TV all the time. A major bright spot of 1999.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES