Regal Swam Too Far Against The Tide

Lord Steven Regal vs. Pitbull Craig Pittman WCW 7/13/96 - EPIC

PAS: Pittman was a world class amateur and always worked a slightly different style then your average pro wrestler. Regal is the perfect guy to work an interesting match around a guy with an idiosyncratic style. I loved Pittman's amateur takedown fakes, and the arm whip take downs. Regal hit some fun palm strikes and a great forearm, and a nasty three quarters nelson. We get an Eaton run in finish, which ends with Eaton hitting flying knee right on Pittman's neck while Regal put him in the Regal stretch, which really should have been the Blue Bloods finisher. Fun syndie match which had just enough funkiness to set it apart.

ER: This is excellent. If you were intrigued by this match on paper, there is zero chance you will leave this one disappointed. It may be the best actual Craig Pittman performance that I've seen. Sometimes he could look a little rigid in the ring (and there's a chance that a certain amount of rigidity was on purpose, playing up the Sgt. aspect of his character) and a little clunky, and obviously things go smoothest for him when he has a fun foil. And Regal is almost always going to be the perfect foil for anybody in WCW. Pittman was a strong amateur wrestler obviously, but there were a ton of guys in WCW who didn't seem to know how to bump for an amateur style wrestler. Pittman had a bunch of cool stuff and Regal knew exactly what note to hit during every part of the match. Pittman goes for a ton of scrambly takedowns to start while Regal frantically keeps his distance, and when Pittman stands up Regal throws this great little tantrum telling him to cut it out. Pittman does some cool things that I don't think I've seen him use before, and if he did use it before I don't remember it looking as good as it did in this match. At one point he sweeps Regal's shins and Regal splats face first into the mat. Regal's exaggerated World of Sports flip bumps really make Pittman's arm whips look great, especially one where Pittman wrenches Regal's arm and sends him shoulder first into the mat. Regal really made it look like he was trying to dent the mat with his shoulder. When it's Regal's turn to be mean he does so with villainous precision, smacking Pittman with hard strikes, rough elbow, and a great kneelift right into Pittman's forehead. Finish is a perfectly cool syndicated finish, as Eaton runs out for the DQ and plants Pittman with a knee off the top (fully agree with Phil that Regal holding the stretch while Eaton dropped a knee from the heavens should have been the Blue Bloods' finish), but before that we get a great sequence of events: Eaton eats Pittman's battering ram headbutt and bumps off the apron, Teddy Long ends up taking an even more rough bump off the apron, Pittman awesome misses the headbutt on Regal and ends up taking that cool Mike Modest/Berzerker bump bouncing his back of neck/shoulders into the top rope while missing his torpedo. This whole thing was fantastic, and probably the best actual Craig Pittman match we have. Seems like there's a few people we can say that about when they're opposite Regal.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WILLIAM REGAL