WWE 305 Live: Diesel! Fake Diesel! Undertaker! Phineas!

Undertaker vs. Diesel WWF WrestleMania XII 3/31/96 - GREAT

ER: I thought this was awesome and really captured the gravitas of a real Clash of the Titans match. Diesel worked it slow, and had no problem working it as a heel. And while he was working cool heel, the level of cockiness he had made it work as a cool giant heel foil for Undertaker. It could have been shorter (it was 17 minutes), but I liked the deliberate pace Diesel took to kick Taker's ass. The big man slugfest moments felt big, Diesel throwing his nice short elbows and barely missing big lariats, and Undertaker was smart with his misses. He goes for the flying lariat early and whiffs, and it was a cool heavy missed cannonball bump into the ropes towards the camera. As they brawl on the floor we get a cool moment of Taker missing a chairshot and hitting the ringpost, also toward the camera. The camera work and direction of this match was really impressive, made every landing feel bigger. he 50-50 moments worked well and had cool moments like both men hitting the big boot at the same time (and it actually looking good), but the match got even better as Diesel acted cockier. Diesel's expression after finally hitting the Jackknife was the absolute best, him soaking up the boos from the crowd, leaning against the ropes, the greatest unflappable egg. I liked the simple way he got heat with the crowd throughout, and I like how it played into Undertaker's slow ascent. Diesel just leaning on the ropes, pointing and laughing at their undead god, and the way Taker sat up and eventually choked Diesel to his feet, that's pro wrestling right there. Undertaker falling with the chokeslam made it feel almost too heavy for him to handle, and was a great visual. The tombstone was a great match ending exclamation point, and this whole thing felt like an exercise in big man formula minimalism. We had big moves - the powerbomb, the tombstone - but the match had a lot of space and they left a lot of time for things to soak, to the match's benefit.

Fake Diesel vs. Phineas Godwinn WWF Raw 12/2/96 - FUN

ER: This is just about the bottom of the barrel, and even this wasn't terrible. It's the gatekeeper of the truly bad. Nothing actually looked bad, but it was a little sluggish, a little by the numbers, and you're just faced the whole time with the undeniably lame Fake Diesel gimmick. Jacobs did really well at doing a half decent Diesel impression, but it's not really noble to do a great version of a really bad idea. It's gotta be tough going out there during SNL with material you know is lame, and this feels like that. Still, his elbows looked decent, he hit a nice sideslam (with Vince laughing out, "Oh my! Phineas, what a load."), good vertical leap on the legdrop, it all looked fine. But it's so odd seeing him ape mannerisms and after awhile it felt like "and here's the next piece of Diesel offense you remember." Phineas didn't get enough of a comeback, basically hitting a suplex and going for the slop drop, but Vince points out he's a dummy for getting distracted by Fake Razor Ramon. The finish is kind of cool in an unintended way, as Diesel doesn't quite get Phineas up for a powerbomb, but doesn't give up on it and muscles him up before dropping him safely. I dig when there is unintentional struggle like that, makes things feel more earned and real. Shoot. Maybe for that I'm going to bump this up to FUN. It's the gatekeeper. Needed more Phineas.


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