Loosely Formed 1998 WWF: Rock n Rolls! Aguila! Pirata Morgan!

Rock n Roll Express vs. The Head Bangers WWF Raw 2/23

This is continued proof of Rock n Roll Express busting ass during this too brief WWF stint. The first half of this was made up of Rock n Roll misdirection spots where they kept accidentally hitting each other while getting more and more frustrated about it. Morton and Gibson's timing looked excellent and some of the spots were complicated enough that I'm not sure there's another team on the roster that could have done them. Actually the other team that could have done them would have been Jarrett/Windham, so that's just more testament that the made-to-fail NWA stable actually ruled for two months. 

Ricky did a great version of the spot where he's running over Gibson and Mosh's dropdowns before colliding with Gibson, Gibson accidentally punches Morton off the apron, Ricky snapmares Thrasher into the ring and whips him across the ring which bumps Gibson off the apron, just expertly set up and executed misdirections from Ricky and Robert. 

Cornette expertly hooked Mosh's leg while looking away and Gibson hit the damn cleanest kneedrop right to the side of Mosh's head, then kneels down with one onto Mosh's forehead, then another onto his shoulder. 

Gibson sure took a lot of great bumps to the floor during this run, and he takes big one to set up the finish. What's the other late 90s Gibson I need to seek out? 

Pirata Morgan vs. Aguila WWF Shotgun 2/28

I had no memory of Pirata Morgan doing a two match WWF stint in 1998. Morgan/Brian Christopher vs. Taka/Aguila from the 2/16/98 Raw is insanely fun and an incredible visual representation of Pirata. He IS Pirata Morgan in that match, and it's great to see. He is not as great here, as this match is more about letting Aguila show off his surprisingly deep (especially for 1998) flying moveset. Pirata was here to be a base, and he's great at being a base. I wish he could have also beat the shit out of Aguila in between being a base. 

Pure unfiltered Aguila was some insane stuff. The height he got here on flapjack bump and a truly insane moonsault press to the floor were wild, just incredible hang time, and his springboard armdrag to send Morgan to the floor was some Juvy level shit. And brother, if you're talking hang time, he took a backdrop bump so high that, were there some kind of database that were actually tracking this, would almost surely rank towards the top of the All Time Most Hang Time on a Backdrop list. I wish I had been keeping a list like that, with to the hundredth of a second stop watch times next to all of them. 

Pirata's premier piece of offense is actually amazing, a tilt a whirl sitout powerbomb that is so damn cool, like something I've never seen. We have so many complicated fast moving big crash landing spots now and I don't think I've seen anyone break out a kick ass sitout powerbomb like this:

Pirata, in this match, also does maybe the laziest waistlock takedown I've ever seen, moving to a rear waistlock by just walking around Aguila, then lifting him waist high and just dropping him. They're not all going to be sitout powerbombs. 

Pirata takes a big bump off the top off an armdrag and puffs his chest out to take a missile dropkick, and the victory roll huracanrana roll up looked like something that would win a match.