On Brand Segunda Caida: The Genius vs. Mark Young! Finlay vs. Barry Darsow

The Genius vs. Mark Young WWF Prime Time 12/25/89

ER: You ever unearth a (hopefully good) memory and can't really place it, but you do a little digging and figure it out? That's Mark Young for me. When I was a kid the only wrestling I saw was WWF's weekend morning lineup, and Saturday Night's Main Event. We didn't get PPV (zero chance my parents would have ordered one), and any friends I was on "sleepover" level with weren't really wrestling fans (one of those friends didn't even have a TV, and he's a cop now, so yeah). So weekend jobber matches and SNME were my insulin. And once I found out that SNME was a thing, it was harder to get excited about the squash matches, because the results - even to an 8 year old - were never in doubt. But there was this one guy who I never saw get a win, even though his matches were always way more competitive than most, and it was exciting because it made child me believe in the power of an underdog, the possibility of an upset. I randomly thought of this guy the other day, no idea who it was, only remember that he wore stars and stripes tights and I specifically remembered him having a competitive match against Mr. Perfect. Well, yesterday a random occurrence brought these memories back: someone posted an old wrestling magazine photo on Twitter, stars and stripes tights guy was in one of them, memories came rushing back, and it allowed me to pinpoint who he was and line it up to my memories.

It turns out this guy who I so desperately wanted to get an upset win through my young childhood was Mark Young. That's a name I definitely don't remember, I only remembered him having a "boring name" like the other guys who lost every week (you know, it would always be The Widowmaker vs. Greg Davis, or Mr. Perfect vs. John Jackson), but this was definitely the guy. Mark Young had a couple of fairly lengthy WWF stretches, a guy who occasionally won on house shows, rarely won on TV, and never won on the TV that I got to see. So I looked for a Mark Young match that I remember watching when it aired, and was pleasantly surprised to see how it held up, although not in specific ways that I loved when I was 8. The Genius was someone who I didn't even think was a wrestler when I was 8. When he fought Hogan on a SNME I thought there was zero chance Hogan would lose against this "tiny" guy (me being a child, I didn't notice how cut Genius was because he was standing next to this giant Hulk Hogan). I wasn't watching wrestling during Leaping Lanny Poffo, that SNME match against Hogan was my Lanny Poffo jumping off point, and if someone had tried to tell me Genius was brothers with Randy Savage I would have called them a liar (even though I was telling people that Shel Silverstein was Bad News Brown, because kids just lie a lot). And here he was against my boy Mark Young. A guy who was barely even a wrestler, vs. my boy Mark Young, who had gotten a close nearfall against Mr. Perfect? Surely this was Young's best chance to get a TV victory. I was confident this match would be the thing to finally allow him to break in.

Obviously Mark Young did not win, but the match holds up as extremely fun, and Genius holds up as an absolute asskicker. It's easy to see why I responded to the energy of Young so much: he did flips, derpy breakdancing, fast armdrags, and floated over with a cool high leaping hurricanarana for a nearfall. He felt like a guy who could beat The Genius. But the rest of this match suddenly made me want to go on a Genius deep dive. Genius had a haircut that would look great on one of the Vivian Girls, threw a bunch of nasty stomps into the back of Young's head and face, his prancing stooging still makes me laugh, and he (thanks to Young being a bit of a bump freak) practically invented the crucifix bomb. I'm so happy I figured out the identity of one of my earlier wrestling memories, and happy that it lined up with reality. Sadly, Mark Young also died young, passing away just a couple years ago. He made a very real impression on me that was still nestled somewhere in my brain 30 years later.


Fit Finlay vs. Barry Darsow WCW Nitro 9/21/98 (#158)

ER: A week ago I posted a couple WCW Worldwide reviews, and someone on Twitter started making up dream matches that they wished happened in WCW. It's a great idea, and part of the joy of those WCW syndicated shows is the dream matches you end up getting that you didn't realize were dream matches until after you watched them. Somebody in the replies mentioned Finlay vs. Blacktop Bully as their WCW syndicated dream match. Now, that match couldn't happen because Finlay wasn't in the fed while Darsow was using that gimmick, but here is the only singles match between the two, and it was used to kick off an episode of Nitro smack in the middle of the Hogan/Warrior feud. Darsow isn't a guy who really gets talked about as a legit tough guy, but he really comes off as an under the radar tough guy. He's a really big dude, and he had so many comedy gimmicks that it's easy to forget that he had no problem lacing it in against the opponents who demand it. Finlay is obviously a guy who is going to demand that. It's awesome when Finlay gets a guy like Darsow to step up. I loved Darsow throwing this meaty right hand into Finlay's jaw, and plowing straight through him with a hard as possible shoulderblock. This is Finlay's wheelhouse obviously, and he responds in kind. Darsow wins the "who has the hardest shoulderblock" game, but watch how hard Darsow bumps for Finlay's shoulderblock! Finlay pays him back by stomping on his hands, and grabbing him by teeth 3 thru 14 and elbowing his nose. This is a tight 3 minutes and I wish we had gotten the chance to see 8.