Heel Tommy Dreamer: It's a Gag!

Tommy Dreamer/Mike Awesome vs. X-Pac/Albert WWF Metal 10/27/01

ER: This was only a technical heel performance from Dreamer, because nobody was going to be booed opposite X-Pac at this point. Living through X-Pac Heat was a really weird time. I'm not sure what other situations are comparable to it. He'd been a very popular babyface for a long time, and was then a popular babyface who acted like a heel, and at a certain point people just got loudly tired of him. The Uncle Kracker theme didn't help matters. But X Factor are clearly supposed to be the faces in this match, and it's worked with them as the faces, only the crowd didn't react to it that way. In fact, Mike Awesome got the biggest cheers of the match, any time he would do damage to X-Pac. Dreamer doesn't work as an overt heel, but he has one quality in his heel work that isn't around his babyface work: he staggers and stooges amusingly into position for offense. There are a couple of instances of this here, with the best being he and Awesome missing a double clothesline on Albert. Watch how Dreamer misses versus how Awesome misses. They both whiff, and Awesome just turns around and waits for Albert to bounce back off the ropes to level them both. But Dreamer whiffs, then acts like the motion threw his whole balance off, staggering into place to fill the perfect amount of time before getting leveled by Albert. Dreamer is a real satisfying heel bumper, as he's a good bumper in general for a man his size, but it's better utilized bumping for a big babyface Albert comeback. Dreamer was good from the apron, too, loved him nailing X-Pac with a knee to slow him down for Awesome, and Awesome's top rope clothesline looks great leveling X-Pac. This was a short, tidy, but fun match, and Dreamer makes the Baldo Bomb look crushing.

One Year Immunity Battle Royal WWF Survivor Series 11/18/01

ER: Rock solid battle royal regardless of how stupid the stipulation and the Invasion was. Bradshaw was a real beast, potatoing anyone close to him from WCW or ECW (as I typed that sentence it didn't really sound that surprising) and we got a lot of big spills on eliminations. All you really want from a battle royal is some surprisingly stiff shots, a couple of guys taking death wish elimination bumps, and no lying around. This ticked those boxes, was worked quick (only flaw might have been this needing a couple more minutes to space out eliminations), and had a nice extended run once they got to the final 4 (and I loved that the final 4 was Bradshaw, Billy Gunn, Test, and Lance Storm of all people). It started with a perfect moment: Shawn Stasiak being the first to charge into action, getting backdropped to elimination as the match started. The eliminations were strong, like Bradshaw hitting big lariats to send guys out, Tazz eliminating Crash and Tommy Dreamer while Dreamer was powerbombing Crash, Bradshaw throwing out Kidman with a fallaway slam, just a bunch of guys smacking the ground hard. We also get the great battle royal joy of noticing guys who were in between gear, like Stevie Richards wearing black slacks and a black t-shirt, post Right To Censor/pre-Anything Else. Test wins this thing, but what he sadly doesn't know is that the winner of this specific battle royal gets a) immunity from being fired for one year, but also b) a death sentence within the decade. They did not tell that to Test before the battle royal, he found out after. Also, Crash's death was not related to the battle royal, only Test's was.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE HEEL TOMMY DREAMER

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WWF 305 Live: Yokozuna! Kamala! Viscera! Prince Albert!

Kamala vs. Yokozuna WWF Raw 5/17/93 - EPIC

ER: This is the kind of match these projects are made for. Literal slapping meat and several staredown moments that made this come off like two walruses fighting over mating privileges. Two monsters eyeballing each other with confusion, square, and charge into each other. Then, after crashing together, both get back even farther to run in again with a bigger lead! Nearly this whole match is them on their feet, Kamala throwing hard overhand chops and Yokozuna fighting back with uppercuts and cross chops. Kamala runs the ropes a lot which looks cool with his size, and he has that way of running the ropes where he looks like he's about to lose his balance, like a toddler getting their legs and running for several steps before plopping gracelessly to the ground. Kamala flies into Yokozuna and I love the force he used to rain down chops. Yokozuna knocks Kamala to a knee, Kamala blocks an overhand chop and delivers one of his own to stagger Yokozuna, and it all plays BIG. Fans in 1993 were so damn into just the concept of a large man FALLING and you could hear that excitement in the crowd. This was already a very exciting night of Raw. There was still the upcoming Jannetty/Michaels match that was set up earlier in the show, and they got to see The Kid upset Razor Ramon, so the crowd is in a good mood. They've already seen a good simple angle and a majorly unexpected win, and now they're seeing two huge giants sprint belly first into each other and then ALMOST fall down. Who among us wouldn't be losing our shit? And they lose it, alright, enough to start a loud USA chant. Why they started a USA chant? Couldn't tell you, but they were united in it because of this match. Fuji grabs Kamala's leg to distract him and allow Yoko to hit two crushing hip attack avalanches in the corner. I wanted this to go even longer, but the visual of the Ugandan savage taking the banzai drop was great.


Viscera vs. Prince Albert WWF Sunday Night Heat 2/6/00 - FUN

ER: Quick match, not quite 3 minutes, but enough to highlight a great aggressive Albert performance. He really kept after Viscera the entire time, even though that meant plenty of things ended terribly for him. The collar and elbows were awesome, as Albert went in for one the second the bell rang and you got a real sense of these two using a lot of weight to push each other around. It's really cool when you can clearly see the power and not just guys casually getting into position. And Albert spends the whole match bringing everything right to Viscera, so the hits are cool and the misses are even better, as that means Albert gets crushed. An aggressive collar and elbow leads to Viscera putting him in the corner and backing into him, charging at Viscera leads to Albert getting dropped by a killer sitout spinebuster (think half rydeen bomb, half spinebuster), another charge leads to Albert eating a big Samoan drop, and Viscera stops *another* charge dead in its tracks by hitting another spinebuster variation (this one more half spinebuster, half belly to belly). Albert's aggression really fueled this, and I was bummed when Big Boss Man's interference on Viscera is what lead directly to Albert hitting his pump kick finisher. With not even a 3 minute runtime I was getting into the idea of where they were going to go with the finish, whether Albert would finally figure out how to not get crushed, or how many more times Viscera could have crushed him before winning. The interference robbed me of that joy, but these two gifted me with plenty of smooshing in the allotted time.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

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