On Brand Segunda Caida: Bill Irwin in WWF (Non-Goon Edition)

So Bill Irwin is a guy I've been digging a lot lately, and I had planned on writing up all of his matches as The Goon. But then I noticed three separate appearances he made with WWF - two Before Goon and one After Goon - and that kind of stands out. Were these tryout matches only televised? It's odd for an established guy to just work occasional one off matches with a major fed without having some kind of deal. But, here we are. Three non-Goon WWF Bill Irwin matches, and they are all genuine gems:

Bill Irwin vs. El Matador WWF Mania 1/16/93

ER: I love these kind of oddities. Here we get a territories battle between two guys who would have never crossed paths. I don't know why WWF brought in Irwin for a one-shot debut at the age of 38 (we already established they also brought in and pushed Pierroth at 38, which makes me - a 38 year old man - still feel viable) but it's a fun match. Tito works armdrags and hiptosses, Irwin takes a couple surprising bumps. The first is off a do-si-do hip toss, where they keep reversing each other until Irwin is tossed over the top to the floor. Later Irwin gets plastered by the forearm and falls butt first out the bottom two ropes to the floor. Irwin always has a couple surprises, from something little like a short jab, to something unexpected like a slingshot splash. The finish is cool too, with Tito hitting the forearm to the back of Irwin's head, almost like a slash attack. Irwin would not appear on WWF TV for another 3 years. The announcers talked the entire time like Irwin was an actual established guy, he got his "Wild" Bill nickname announced, got to  use the bullwhip before the match, then he went and had a great match...but this was it for 3 years. 

Bill Irwin vs. Duke Droese WWF Superstars 3/16/96

ER: Oh, so...this was great? This was really great? Is Duke Droese actually great and people haven't told me about it? This was during the era when I was not watching wrestling, so I have blindspots throughout (when I started playing catch up 20 years ago I wasn't running through Superstars episodes from a couple years prior to do so), but never remember hearing anyone talk up Droese. Droese fires off hard and fast straight right hands to start, and absolutely nothing was skimped on. Droese's punches looked great, he keeps a good base on his chops so he can throw them fast and cutting, lands boot on kicks to the stomach, even clonks Irwin with a hard trash can shot behind the ref's back. This whole thing was pretty relentless and Irwin hit back just as hard as he was being hit, hit a diving headbutt WAY too far across the ring, scraped his boot across Droese's face in nasty fashion, hit a full extension pump kick that didn't seem like it would reach (he started way early as Droese had barely come off the ropes) and yet it landed clean, clubbed him hard in the back of the neck, oh, AND Irwin takes a crazy high speed Harley Race bump to the floor. Irwin gets whipped in, flips backwards to the floor, hits the apron just about headfirst and then spills to the floor. Irwin took some great bumps in his first two WWF matches (three years apart), so we can only hope that he's the curly haired bump freak that WWF lost when they sent Berzerker on his Viking funeral. This whole match was an excellent pairing. It was a total hidden gem, just the tastiest peanut butter/chocolate combo, and it ruled.

Bill Irwin/Kit Carson vs. Mark Henry/D-Lo Brown WWF Shotgun 2/21/98

ER: The third and final of our "Bill Irwin" matches in WWF, and he remains an odd guy to only be bringing in for occasional job duty. If that's all they wanted out of him then I'm sure it would have been easy to offer him full time work, put him in a team with Windham or Bradshaw or job him out on weekend shows. But it's also weird for them to bring in a guy in his mid-40s for job duty, so I don't know what to make of these scattered Irwin appearances. I do know that WWF talent has looked fantastic opposite him (which again makes it weird that he wasn't used full time, this Irwin ouroboros is confusing me) and that's what matters. This match is basically about the asskicking team of D-Lo and Henry. D-Lo was a mean dude here, and everything he did landed hard. Hard punches, back elbows, and the best lariats I've ever seen him throw. We get this awesome sequence of Irwin getting ahold of D-Lo's left arm and wrenching it, leading to D-Lo rattling his teeth with a right back elbow, unspooling his arm from Irwin (like he was rewinding a Rainmaker), and nails him with a short arm lariat. Hell yeah. This was early in Henry's TV time with the company, and he had just joined the Nation a month before, so he was green but clearly had the goods. I loved his brick wall stuff, big man elbowdrop, and two humongous slams. His powerslam finish is great, and a huge arc Henry powerslam topped by a D-Lo splash is a great team finisher. This made me want to go watch a bunch of D-Lo/Henry tags.