Found Footage Friday: Second Annual Ilio DiPaolo Memorial Show/97 WCW House Show

Second Annual Ilio DiPaolo Memorial Show - WCW - 6/7/97

MD: This starts with Tony Parisi doing the national anthem for both Canada and the States, a pretty classy DiPaolo video with a ton of footage, and then switches from gallant to goofus for a martial artist (Gary Castanza) tribute video that really needs to be seen. Later on, they did a presentation on Buffalo boxing champs and brought out Carmen Basilio. The Legends presentation was nice, with guys like Ladd and Waldo Von Erich and Kurt Von Hess coming out and Thesz speaking. They did a presentation with Jim Kelly to set up the Savage match (more on that later). 

ER: The Ilio DiPaolo tribute video really was great, with an actual shocking amount of DiPaolo footage against at least a dozen different opponents. WWE owns more footage than any company in history and none of their video packages come close to using this many unique matches per package. Perhaps even more shocking, is how much footage they had for martial artist Gary Castanza's tribute package. I'm not sure my family has a photograph of me later than my high school graduation photo, but WCW is somehow in possession of hours upon hours of Gary Castanza footage to cull from. We're lucky they had that access, as Castanza is one of my all time favorite breeds of martial artist: A man who looks like Randy Marsh who also invented his "own style of fighting". You should watch him fight, but you will not be surprised that much of his "own style of fighting" involved standing in one place and throwing guys who grab him in a very specific way, like a Steven Seagal aikido expo. From the plentiful footage of this man's life, it appears like he fleeced a ton of police departments into paying for his self defense training programs, and I will always get behind a guy who got paid money to make cops look like idiots. Oh, and definitely watch 12:47 of the video to see Castanza screaming in full close-up while wearing some kind of bite suit helmet. After a warm and somber video tribute to this local community hero, Brian Knobbs brings Castanza's widow and three young children in the ring while yelling "MAKE SOME NOISE" into the mic directly next to their faces. 

Greg Valentine/Dory Funk Jr. vs. Tony Parisi/Gino Brito

MD: This had the local newspeople announcing and seconding and was very much the legends match on the card. And then Valentine and Funk skipped the shine entirely and went right to heat, the jerks! It wasn't idle stuff either as they were getting it on Parisi and Valentine kept rushing over to elbow Brito in the skull to stop tags and draw off the ref. Valentine/Dory teamed a bit in 83 and they were a well-oiled machine here, really complementing one another. Valentine, of course, wasn't afraid to bump and stooge around the ring when it was comeback time either. After a spirited, but brief, comeback ending with a Brito figure-four on the Hammer, they went into a second round of heat, building to Parisi having enough and rushing in and a DQ-drawing blatant ref bump. The fans didn't love the non-finish but at least old-timer babyfaces got their hands raised. For guys who were very much inactive, Brito and Parisi more or less held up their own. I was expecting more matwork and feeling out, not a trip straight to heatseeking, but it all worked out for the best. And hey, post match newsman second for the heels, Art Wander went after the babyface second with way more fire than you'd expect, and was revealed to be nWo.

ER: This match did not have any right being as entertaining as it was, as 3/4 of the wrestlers were 55 years old and two of those men had not been worked in a wrestling ring for a decade. Tony Parisi showing out was an especially nice surprise, and after seeing him here I'm bummed we didn't get him working any northeast 90s indies. This was all about Valentine and Funk being assholes and throwing nothing but elbows and jaw rattling uppercuts, cutting off the ring and making blind tags. Parisi was a really great babyface here, and the crowd was insanely loud for he and Brito. This was a huge show with a listed attendance of 13,000, held in the arena where the Buffalo Sabers play. This show drew a larger crowd than nine (!) of their 1997 PPVs. From the sound of the crowd, it certainly feels like that 13,000 figure is correct. Heel Valentine and Dory were so entertaining, and Parisi was really great at getting more and more fired up until he was throwing punches with the energy of a babyface half his age. There were so many satisfying beats in this, with some totally unexpected surprises, like Dory hitting a fucking brainbuster on Gino Brito, bringing him into the ring from the apron. 

Valentine really cracked the ref to draw the DQ, and the ref had this great backward leap into a flat back bump landing. Then we got a post-match with local newscasters that was insane! Art Wander was a Buffalo sports radio personality who was definitely older than any of the match participants, and he went after another sportscaster like a fucking psycho. He tore the guys' cool ass jacket and they scrapped and got thrown to the mat in a way that...honestly looked like what an actual fight between two men in their mid 50s/early 60s would actually look like. If two of the weird older guys at your office got in an unexpected fight over something stupid, it would look exactly like this, which means this ruled. You can still find Angelfire pages that list Jim Neidhart as a onetime member of DX just for getting tricked by them on one episode of Raw, and I think that means Art Wander should be listed as an official nWo member. Also, the page has both of them represented by South Park caricatures. 

Dean Malenko vs. Alex Wright

MD: Eric can speak much better than I can about 97 WCW and Dean in specific. That said, they really did adapt to the crowd for this match. Wright trashed the town on the mic to begin and it was for the US title so there were some stakes, but they crowd just didn't go up for the early matwork. It was good too with Wright using cartwheels to position himself. The second Dean started to lay in some shots and throw a suplex, they came alive, and they loved booing Wright's dancing and loved it more when he ate a dropkick over the top as comeuppance for it. They shifted to a formula where Wright would cheat to stay on top, throw uppercuts and stomps to keep the crowd simmering, and then Dean would come back by beating him around the ring until he cheated to get back heat. There was a pretty good near-fall laden finishing stretch with the crowd hating Wright's cut-offs and going nuts for the Texas Cloverleaf. I'm not sure if this one was because they had more freedom to adapt as it was a house show and not a PPV or what, but they did a good job of it here.

ER: The two Ilio DiPaolo shows he worked were literally the only times Alex Wright worked Buffalo, and it's to our benefit as he immediately recognizes that he is going to be booed as a Eurotrash heel and fully plays up that archetype. This was very soon after Wright started acting more overtly heel on television, so this is his big house show breakout with the new character. Because of the defined face/heel dynamic, and because Wright works a lot of this getting heat on Malenko, it is a much better match than they would have had on actual WCW TV or PPV. It lengthens sequences that would have been outright eliminated on TV, like every part of Wright working the mat, allowing for that extended Wright heel control that there wouldn't have been enough time for. WCW was not a house show company at this point, and we don't have anywhere close to as many WCW house show fancams as we do WWF, so I loved this look at them working to a crowd rather than working to an Orlando theme park studio. Malenko's best matches during this era are when he is the active underdog, fighting to comeback against a larger opponent. Wright was often presented on TV as a cruiserweight and here he more correctly works as a big tall guy who can keep a little guy down. 

Malenko had a really nice corner clothesline and hard vertical suplex, but instead of getting the long and pointless Malenko chinlock, Wright quickly broke that chinlock with a jawbreaker and took over. Wright worked uppercuts, leaping kicks, hard ground and pound, axe handles, all good control while the fans hated him. Malenko really benefits from working as fast underdog, as he's good at timing and good at quick execution, so his brief comebacks (like when he dodged a Wright charge and hit a cool quick crossbody off the top) work really well. The finish was sudden but worked nicely within the context of the match, as Malenko again dodged a Wright charge at the last minute, sending Wright neck first into the top rope on a missed crossbody, allowing the quick Cloverleaf application. This would not have been the match we'd have otherwise gotten from them in 1997, and I wish we had more looks at what could have been happening on WCW midcards. 

 

Public Enemy vs. The Steiner Brothers

MD: We have several Steiners vs. PE matches but they all tend to go around 6 minutes. This got at least double that and they used the extra time for pure, glorious house show BS. They jawwed on the house mic, insulted the Bills, insulted the crowd, and then Rocco refused to lock up with Scott. He stalled his way right into Rick's fist on the apron, then got upset and tried to leave until they threatened to fine them $1000 if they didn't make the ten count. Unsurprisingly, the fans loved the mad scramble back to the ring and Rocco had so much heat that someone was shining a laser pointer at him. That's pure 1997 heat right there.

They made good use of the back half of their time, with Grunge really throwing himself into all of the Steiners' shots, Scott returning the favor for Public Enemy, Rick cleaning house on a hot tag with the suplexes and Steinerlines you'd expect, Rocco and Scott setting up the finish with a great bit of chair choking to keep them out of the way, and said finish being Grunge own-goaling himself through the table. Scott's frustrating by this point (and probably far earlier) as he has all of the tools and the size and the look to go with them, is perfectly willing to sell and hit hard, and has a real affection for Rick, but just refuses to connect with the crowd. That animosity for them that he channeled so well as Big Poppa Pump a year later, made him a tough babyface to get behind here. Rick would be mimicking a chicken and driving Rock nuts and Scott barely wanted to revel in things with the crowd when they were loving the ten count. Really good stooging performance by Grunge and especially Rock here. All the stuff you probably only got on house shows.

ER: There were a lot of Steiners/Public Enemy tags but never ever one like this. As I say a lot, WCW was NOT a house show fed at this point. They were a TV product, and they had a LOT of TV. This tribute show was nearly halfway through 1997, and WCW had only run 23 house shows. For comparison sake, WWF had already run 56 house shows, but they also only had 3 hours of TV a week. Anyway, as I said, even though we got a ton of Steiners/PE TV matches, I've never seen one like this, with Public Enemy playing overt crowd-antagonizing heels with the Steiners almost as after thoughts. If you somehow saw this match, and had never seen either team before, there's no doubt you would leave thinking that Public Enemy were the big stars and the Steiners were more of a generic meathead team. 1997 Steiners just do not have the same appeal as they had even a couple years (maybe even one year?) prior. Scott just looked tired. He had no energy, barely engaged the crowd, and often stood on the apron leaning on the ropes listlessly waiting for his hot tag. And really, in this match, that's all he needed to do. 

Public Enemy were perfect at stalling, hitting all the beats, sprinting back to the ring to get one hand under the ropes to break a count (after being threatened with a $1,000 fine). Rocco got up on the guardrail to get down in people's faces, and threw stiff shots at Scott until getting caught in a press slam and thrown into Grunge. Any time PE would take a single piece of offense, they'd roll to the floor to stall more. Grunge gets upended by Rick's high powerslam, rolls to the floor selling his back while Rocco called for time outs and got on the railing again. I loved Grunge taking over by blindsiding Scott with a lariat from the apron, turning the match briefly into a PE brawl, with Rock choking Scott on the floor with a chair. Grunge went through his own tables a lot, and this was a great version of that spot, as you're watching him set up his table and know that he's taking too long, and the crowd gets excited when they see him taking too long, and of course crashes right through it into a loss. Heel Public Enemy could have been a real great use of them in WCW, but I also understand their value in dancing with Orlando grandmas. They were a fun babyface team, but after seeing them here it really feels like we missed out on a potentially great WCW heel run. 

Randy Savage vs. Diamond Dallas Page

MD: Savage and his dad interrupted the Jim Kelly presentation and the back and forth was just a bit too long as Kelly obviously was stretching outside of his skillset. Still, due to both the angle and the sheer star power, Page was super over and Savage had tons of heat. They worked something of a sprint, with Savage explosive in his cutoffs and cheapshots and Page putting it all out there including a dive. Finish had a ref bump and Kelly knocking Savage off the top to set up the diamond cutter, with him going into business for himself with a couple of elbow drops that the ref had to ignore. Jim Kelly was not a top-tier celebrity interloper but they worked around him well enough and the crowd was happy anyway. 

ER: Missy Hyatt called Jim Kelly an absolutely clueless lover, and he appears to be equally clueless at doing wrestling angles. Unlike his encounter with Missy, this went much longer than a few seconds. When Kelly and Macho Man were shoving each other, it didn't even look like Kelly had been involved in any kind of physical altercation in his life. This man has no sort of physical charisma. You wouldn't have even guessed he was an athlete, let alone a Hall of Fame quarterback. He looks and moves much more like David Flair appearing on Nitro before he started to train. The "elbowdrop" Kelly hit on Savage after the match-ending Diamondcutter was one of the least athletic things I've seen, and I had to watch it a couple of times just to make sure that it was supposed to be an elbowdrop and not just him slipping and falling on Savage. A slip and fall probably would have looked better and made better impact. 

But the match between Savage and DDP kicked plenty of ass. DDP and Savage had great chemistry, both knew how to bump really well for each other, and DDP's aggression played well into Savage's stooging, like when DDP flew out of the ring with a pescado when Savage rolled to the floor to stall. Every Savage punch was treated like a big moment due to DDP's selling, the way he staggered with split legs after a standing blow or the way Savage blocked a sunset flip with one pointed shot. I thought DDP's offense looked really great as taken by Savage, like that awesome high lift atomic drop or the pancake piledriver, but I wish we could have seen a couple more beats of action before Kelly shoved Savage off the top. Every camera missed the Diamondcutter, but somehow captured two different angles of Jim Kelly falling on Savage with far worse form that Art Wander had earlier. They hilariously cut to one of the Bills linemen at ringside immediately after Kelly's "elbowdrop" and he was making this perfect "yeah I don't know about that, man..." face. That elbowdrop was worse than every single interception that man threw during his near complete quest to lose every single Super Bowl of the 1990s. 

Chris Benoit vs. Meng

MD: If not for FFF I don't really see Benoit anymore. They have to come to me. That said, I wasn't as against seeing this one as I might have been five years ago. I wouldn't have sought it out, but I didn't avoid it. And it was ok. This crowd was very much into guys hitting each other hard and when they did that, the match worked for me. That was the first half or so (which instilled some broader issues with everything overall maybe). Benoit would charge forth and really put himself into his kicks and chops and punches. Meng would absorb. Benoit would make a mistake, like slamming Meng's head into the turnbuckle or go for one too many chops. Meng would take back over until Benoit was able to miss a move. Eventually things built to Meng pile driving Benoit on the floor and then leaning on him with chokes and what not. It was fine but I don't think the fans were along for the ride. They wanted more of the early stuff and not heat and comeback. Benoit would get a hope spot or two but again, it wasn't scrapping. The finish had a German and a dive, but when Benoit went for his second dive, Meng caught him with the Tongan Death Grip, Benoit in the ring, Meng on the apron. He got counted out, a finish that satisfied no one and didn't accomplish anything that an agent might hope it would on paper. If they cut out the middle and end and just had them throw themselves at one another for another five minutes until the thing got thrown out, I have a feeling this particular audience would have been all the happier.

ER: I've been writing ALL about 1997 WCW for an upcoming book project, and Chris Benoit is someone (maybe the literal only one) that I am getting tired of writing about. Before starting that project I was like Matt, not actively seeking out Benoit and only writing about him if he was part of a show or match that I was only writing about for other, not-Benoit guys. But writing about 1997 WCW means that I'll be writing about 60-80 Benoit matches and well, that was my choice.

But I did really like this match and I appreciated how Meng worked it much more than I appreciated Benoit's contributions. Meng is the most feared man in the last 30 years of pro wrestling, at least to me, because the thought of losing my nose - let alone from a person biting my nose off my face! -  is one of my biggest nightmares. Maybe my biggest. My nose is easily my best facial feature. It ties my entire face together. If I lost this beauty I have no idea how I would go about my life. I've grown too accustomed to the way I look and cherish the few plus features I've been blessed with. It's too late for me to rebuild my confidence from scratch and confront life with a massive physical deformity. I handled several years of high school acne, but I can't go through that stage again. As I do not actively seek out fights with huge Tongans, I should be safe, but just knowing there are people out there who could conceivably bite off a nose has haunted me. 

However, this Meng who bites noses clean off faces is not a Meng that shows up in the ring very often. With all the stories you've heard about Meng, you'd expect more existence of savage in-ring beatdowns, and those matches just don't really exist. He gets his nose biting kicks outside the ring, sunshine. But this match is more of a glimpse of what that Meng would look like, and it's great. He throws two chops to Benoit that would end the day of a normal man, and works a lot of this like a real freight train. His big arm swinging strikes all looked great, and he would punctuate strike exchanges with a big smashing headbutt. He also threw transition moves like bodyslams with real big move energy. Benoit's big strength is that he has no problem weathering the kind of beating this Meng could throw at him, and I liked how he fought back by timing boots to stop charges, and that suicide dive he built to was huge. Meng's Piledriver on the floor was the kind of mean badass shit he rarely did on WCW TV, another glimpse into an alternate WCW that this show has given us. I didn't mind the Tongan death grip cool down sections, even though this would have made a better 7 minute all out war that just ended with a DQ or count out, if it was going to end in a count out anyway. The cool down kind of built to a finish that wasn't going to be happening, so why not just lay waste to each other and go out in an explosion? 

Dean Malenko vs. Rey Mysterio Jr. 

MD: This was supposed to be Rey vs. Juvi and Juster came out saying Juvi wasn't there but they still wanted to give the crowd WCW's best high-flyer and he had an open challenge. Dean came out to put the title up. In front of this crowd, I don't think Juvi would have done the trick either. You probably needed Fuerza. Dean did an admirable job hitting his wrestling-someone-smaller-than-him offense and getting Rey everywhere that he needed to be to hit his stuff, most spectacular being the press up to the top from what felt like the middle of the ring so he could hit a twisting body press. He caught all the dives too. Even though Dean was de facto bully and the crowd oohed and ahhed at Rey's hope spots and comeback, Dean and Wright had managed to get the crowd behind him earlier and he was all the more admirable for putting the title on the line with no notice in his second match of the night. Rey wasn't exactly drawing the usual amount of sympathy, even when he was writhing on the outside. Still, you can't fault the action, especially considering Dean was doing double duty. Another finish (a double pin) that the fans hated. There's very little reason for these sorts of finishes on a house show. I'm not saying they could have made Dean in Buffalo by having him cleanly staving off Rey's challenge, but it might have helped for future appearances without hurting Rey in the least. 

ER: I think this era of Malenko and Rey were a good match for each other, while also being capable of playing into each other's worst traits. Juvy was supposed to be in Malenko's spot, and even though we got a lot of Juvy/Rey TV matches from this time I would have really liked to see a house show Juvy/Rey. Despite what promoter Gary Juster proclaimed about Rey before the match, I think Juvy was easily the craziest and even most inventive high flyer WCW had on their roster. Rey is a legend and deserves every piece of praise he gets, but 1997 Juventud was on some whacked out shit. You watch months of Juvy matches, and you see how many different pieces of offense he was coming up with every time out. Rey had certain spots he always hit and tended to hit them the same way; Juvy had a higher error rate but also tried out a ton of new material. There are comics who can work their classics, and then there are guys who go out there constantly working new bits and throwing twists on old material. Rey could surprise with the greats, but when he was in with a Technically Good Base like Malenko, you were almost surely going to get the exact same match Rey and Malenko often had with each other. There's less Wild Card factor when they wrestle each other. Juvy - in the best of times and worst of times - truly embodied Wild Card Spirit. This also made me think about Juvy vs. Malenko, which is a match that barely happened, despite both guys working constantly on TV at the same place for 3 years while having exactly these style of matches with everyone else. 

Rey/Malenko matches always have several incredible looking moments, and also seem to be paced exactly the same: They go go go for a couple minutes, then they go into long stretches of Dean just holding Rey on the mat until Rey gets up and runs fast for 20 seconds, and then Dean holds onto him for another minute, and it keeps going like that until eventually one of the times Rey stands up leads to a disappointing finish. Dean is a strong base for Rey, and knows how to set up spots that end with spectacular Rey showcases, but also there's a completely detached artlessness to a lot of it. You'll get one of the most insane and perfectly executed spots - like Rey getting whipped up onto the turnbuckles and flying back with a corkscrew moonsault that Dean runs directly into - but then it's followed up with Dean looking downright bored waiting for 5 o'clock to hit while holding onto a rear naked choke. Whenever Malenko is wrestling anyone smaller than he, there never seems to be any kind of sense that he's using these holds to advance the match. It almost always seems like he's only using these holds so that both can catch their breath for the next stunt. Resting is somewhat essential when you're moving like they do, but it doesn't have to feel so blatant. Malenko in control often makes it feel like there is no sense of an actual match or any kind of fight, but much more two circus performers that are catching their breath before their next trapeze stunt. 

Rey doesn't help that feeling, either. He goes along with all of it, as whenever he's pulled to the mat he is always immediately unmoving and practically comatose, tongue literally hanging out the side of his mouth like he's a vegetable, until it's time for him to "fight" to his feet (in quotations as it's usually just him standing up while Dean loosely acknowledges his headlock) and then sprinting and jumping for another 20 seconds. Rey was just not very engaging in holds yet, which I think is the main reason that they weren't drawing any sympathy from this specific crowd. It feels like too obvious an exhibition, when Rey simply flips a switch to go from innovative flyer to a bedridden grandmother too weak to reach for her pain pills. Rey got so much better at drawing sympathy in holds the older he got, and he's been one of the best sympathetic salesmen for ages now. 

The pacing for this pairing will just always be lifeless holds interspersed with some of the coolest movement you've seen, and I don't think it would take much to tweak that formula into a more fully formed match. Rey's rope flip seated senton to the floor looked amazing, and the springboard version into the ring looked just as great, and Malenko catches each of them like a real pro...but watching Malenko matches at this stage of my life means that I'm always going to wish that Malenko could have acted like a small human man actually landed ass first on his chest, instead of just viewing every single move as an opportunity to start a series of seesaw 2 counts. The moves all look spectacular, but they sure would mean a lot more if every single one of them didn't lead to Malenko just turning them into his own pinfall sequence. 

Lex Luger/Giant vs. Scott Hall/Kevin Nash

MD: Fun house show Hall performance here. At one point he was stooging around after three inverted atomic drops by Luger and you can see Nash breaking on the apron. Giant was on the apron for the entirety of the match until the hot tag as Luger worked the shine on Hall and Nash took over on Lex from there. You could do a lot worse than having a massive bellowing presence in the corner slamming the turnbuckle and cheering Lex on. Nash, to his credit, took a big bump over the top off of a Giant dropkick after the hot tag. Lex flew around a bit when he was knocking Hall about, but then didn't go down on the power slam towards the end, which was a little weird. Finish was Luger (the illegal man) racking Hall (the illegal man) while Giant stopped Nash from using the belt and used it himself to draw a DQ that also looked like Luger and Giant might have won the belts. There was a lot of trash in the ring at the end and the funny image of Hall and Nash laid out as the Fugees played over the loudspeaker. They probably ran this exact match a bunch in this era.

ER: This was a big house show match in 1997, and it's a good match with big star power. But I also think it's a repeat example of how Giant/Luger didn't ever quite fully click as a team, and yet another example of what incredible chemistry Hall and Nash had. This was a great Hall performance, and a great Nash performance, and watching them felt like they could have been placed in any era of US wrestling history and stood out as the most popular, charismatic team. The Outsiders bumped for a significant portion of this and yet felt like huge stars the entire time. Hall stooged around for Luger and took several inverted atomic drops, never going full Rick Rude, but always knowing exactly what he was doing. As much as I enjoyed their stooging, I thought the best parts were Nash going after Luger and then bumping big down the stretch for both Luger and Giant. Nash throws his big knee lifts, back elbows, and big boots, while Hall runs distraction from the apron (including getting forearmed off by Luger into a big bump on the floor) to allow Nash to remain in control.

Giant's strength is a role reversal, as he's better at taking a beating and building to a Luger tag, than he is standing on the apron waiting for his hot tag. The weakest part of his apron work is that the more verbal he gets, the more ridiculous he sounds. There's just something dopey about the biggest man in the arena yelling "Come on Lex, you're #1!" You're a fucking GIANT, dude, just yell a bunch of words that aren't. You don't even need to form sentences, just fucking shout. Maybe Andre could have pulled off yelling "You got this, pal!" at Haku or Baba (in fact he definitely could have, he's the greatest), but The Giant cannot. 

Kevin Nash somehow got summed up (by people who hate wrestling) as a lazy worker who always took the night off, and the more House Show Nash shows up from this era the more ridiculous that summation looks. Nash is also a giant, and the way he bumps in this match is yet another example of how he was one of the best bumping big men of his time. There's one gigantic bump, when Giant finally makes the hot tag and is running clotheslines through the Outsiders, and he throws a dropkick that sends Nash flying over the top to the floor. Nash takes a Berzerker level bump to the floor, and he's one of the few guys from the 90s who was actually bigger than John Nord! But it's not only his big bumps to the floor (which he almost always used in big matches, and in different ways), it's the way he goes down like a light for that belt shot, or the way he takes big man bumps without slowing down the offense feed. The man was a really great bumper who somehow got the reputation of someone who barely moved in the ring. 

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New Finlay Friday: FINLAY!! CANNONBALL!! FINLAY!! ICE TRAIN!! FINLAY!! ALEX WRIGHT!!

Finlay vs. Alex Wright CWA 8/10/93-GREAT

MD: Really good Finlay performance here as he led Wright through the paces, including beating on his back for almost the whole match. He'd hit these dead on elbow smashes to the back that you never see guys use but that looked absolutely brutal. Wright's job was to hit big athletic comebacks and then get cut off. He wasn't nearly as good as that as he'd be in a year or two, and given what Finlay gave him to work with, he had a long way to go with drawing sympathy as well. Honestly, having his dad out there on the floor probably got the crowd into it as much as anything else. I loved Finlay's tunnel-vision here, and it paid off all the way to the finish and post-match challenges.

PAS: This was pretty great stuff, Wright was only 18 in this match, and Finlay is the perfect opponent for a green son of a legend with some flash. I imagine he would have had a great Eddie Colon match in 1999 or a nifty Mike Von Erich match in 1984. Finlay bumps big for the fancy stuff Wright does, really putting over being flummoxed by a couple of big dropkicks and backflips. Of course when it is time to get down to brass tacks, Finlay is Finlay. He really punishes the kid, mangling his back with these sick elbows to the spine, hurling him over the top rope, dropping him with short clotheslines. He was really methodical, pounding on the lower back brutally until he gets the tape out with a chiropractic Boston Crab. Cool match and totally made me want to see Steven Wright pay him back.


Finlay vs. Ice Train CWA 11/23/94-FUN

MD: Solid Finlay work, getting Ice Train through this one. That meant a shine where he stooged and bumped and stalled and got crashed into. When he took over it was due to a missed corner charge, and some really great stomach-targeting. Whenever he was able to cut Train off or take back over, it was because he went back to the mid-section. The thing with Finlay is that it's enjoyable just watching how he moves. There was a point where he dropped down and out of the ring to take Ice Train with him and beat on him out there and the way he just compacted himself down and out while still hanging on to Ice Train showed a mastery of his body and his ring positioning and how to control his opponent. With a lot of wrestlers, there's no point in even looking for stuff like that but with Finlay it's all over the place where you wouldn't necessarily expect it. The match ended a little silly with Ice Train having a hissy fit and crushing the ref and Finlay together, but I enjoyed the deep care heel Finlay had for the ref after the DQ win.

ER: Ice Train always comes off like such wasted potential, but Finlay is literally the perfect opponent to drag something good out of wasted potential. Train is a guy who looks like he would hit harder than he does, but Finlay is someone who knows how to sell any level of strike and make them look punishing. He builds the match around a couple of Train power spots and one of his strengths (charging avalanches) and it's the kind of performance you could easily see Bret Hart having with Ice Train. I view Finlay and Hart fairly similarly, as they're both strong at using their established tools to make any level of opponent shine, so you see similar recognizable things match to match and you see the different ways they use them to showcase different sized and different skilled opponents. Finlay throws a lot of energy at Ice Train's gut, dropping a great elbowdrop to the stomach (how often do you see an elbowdrop to the stomach? It's almost always the chest but this is clearly thrown intentionally at the stomach), and a bombs away, and even manages to drag Train down with an abdominal stretch (which he turns into a big twisting grab of Train's muzzle, a trick he used a couple times). I like the way Finlay deflated and dropped down to a knee to put over being hit by a Train, especially loved his sell after an avalanche. I kind of liked the silly finish, with Ice Train getting upset with the ref and tossing him into Finlay in the corner before flattening them both with an avalanche. These two weren't really around a the same time in WCW, yet matched up a ton of times in Germany. For all the times they fought I would have expected a bigger performance from Ice Train, but Finlay is always going to be the constant in a match like this. 

PAS: This was fun. Both guys have nice forearm smashes, and this was a match built almost entirely around forearm smashes, kind of less violent version of a Wahoo vs. Flair chop battle. Ice Train's big selling point as a wrestler is his barrel chest, and Finlay just winged shots into that chest, and Train used it as a battering ram nicely.  Certainly could have had a bit more flash, and I really though the rounds system hurt this match's momentum, but I was happy I watched it. 

Finlay vs. Cannonball Grizzly CWA 11/96-GREAT 

MD: People undervalue how over News was with the crowds in 1991. They don't overstate his lack of presence in the ring that year. Somewhere over the next four or five, and with a convenient heel character, he did work it out. Finlay's working face here, and he takes a big chunk of his early, maybe more than you'd like. His go to way to hurt big guys seems to be the nerve hold, into a nosepull, into a forearm to the top of the head, and it's pure Fit. Lots of corner charges here, including some missed, but they all look great. Fit damages his own shoulder on one (by that point of the match, he really needed to throw himself at Grizzly to hurt him) and shortly thereafter, is able to dodge a splash, not by rolling over but almost by contracting himself into a small space to cover for the shoulder pain. Great and unsurprising attention to detail. They matched up well enough that it's a shame this didn't go a little longer.

PAS Grizzly really looks like Vader in this HH, and this feels like what a Vader versus Finlay match would look like.  I loved Finlay using double stomps, perfect way to fight a guy that looks like a crash pad. Grizzly looked really good in this, doing a somersault counter to an armbar, awesome looking enziguiri and a great bump over the top rope. Pretty wild he never got a WCW run during this period. Really should have at least gotten a Master P Army spot. Finlay was great as you would expect, coming off like a real tough guy and taking a pretty nasty shoulder bump. You could tell he was excited to have such a big guy in front of him to pound on.

ER: I really liked this, thought they made an excellent pairing, and came away super impressed with Grizzly's selling for Finlay. Now, sometimes guys are just forced to sell for Finlay, but this was Grizzly selling damage very well and selling strikes excellently. I dug how he came away holding his mouth after Finlay rammed it into the turnbuckles, and at this point he had finally gotten good at stagger selling, nicely rocking and swaying as Finlay threw shots or flew at him with big lariats. They both really focused on wrecking torsos, with Grizzly aiming to crushing Finlay with an elbowdrop dearly, Finlay leaping right onto his chest with a couple double stomps, Grizzly just standing on Finlay's chest while gloating. Finlay just hopping on Grizz with both feet is like what I used to do to my dad when he would get home from work and lie down on the couch, just climb up the back of the couch and leap onto his big belly. The missed shots lead to our spectacular bumps, with Finlay taking his great shoulder to ringpost bump and Grizzly not only taking a big bump through the ropes to the floor, but then a HUGE bump on a missed corner charge, basically doing the fastest fat man combo Jerry/Slaughter bump. We don't get a ton of Finlay vs. big fat guys, and I loved every bit of this.


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WCW Worldwide 8/15/98

Stevie Ray vs. Todd Griffith

ER: We get a lot of matches on deep cut WCW where the winner is never in doubt, but we don’t often get an outright steamrolling. But then some guy named Todd Griffith opens the show, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen this guy before. He’s a Kid Kash looking guy with long hair (later during the match Schiavone says that Griffith hasn’t been able to do much, and Larry says “well he’s got a full head of hair!”), and Stevie Ray worked amusingly stiff in a quick 2 minute match. Stevie throws some nice forearm shots, throwing his whole body into them, and throws stomach kicks better than you’d expect Stevie Ray to throw a stomach kick. Griffith is clearly some legendary indy bump freak as he takes the Slapjack at a 0.7 Cham Pain. I’m sure I’ve written a match or two of his before and just don’t remember. Hell I’ve rewatched entire episodes of old WCW with minimal memory of ever seeing it before, how am I gonna remember Todd Griffith? [I checked and I had reviewed at least one other WCW episode from this era that also had Griffith, but I wrote it in 2013, so I’m not gonna beat myself up too much for not remembering the guy]

I’m still on a plane flying to Mania weekend, and we’re circling Newark airport because a couple other planes were in front of us and we were all jammed up, and the pilot gets on the PA and starts with “I just wanted everyone to know that we have plenty of gas” which is DEFINITELY something that NOBODY had been worried about until the pilot LEAD OFF AN ANNOUNCEMENT by saying “Hey everyone, TOTALLY CHILL up here in the cockpit, just thought it would be cool for everyone to know that our fuel tanks are FILLED UP. Nothing at all to worry about here, just takin ‘er easy.” What the fuck dude. He leads off talking about how we obviously have plenty of fuel, and then goes into a long explanation about how we’re in line behind a couple planes so we might be circling a bit, and then ends on, “And again, we have plenty of fuel.” This fucking guy. Just sitting down for dinner with his wife, leading with “You don’t look fat.” Hours later he doesn’t get what he did wrong. “I said you DON’T look fat!!!”

Alex Wright vs. Tim Cheeks

ER: This whole thing felt weirdly long, and Cheeks was very not good. Wright looked pretty frustrated at a couple points when Cheeks rushed timing or didn’t execute well. Cheeks worked this kind of like a not good Owen Hart, trying to moonsault off the top over a rushing in Wright but getting no distance on it, then trying to stumble into an armdrag that goes terribly so Wright just kind of muscles him down with an STO and palms Cheeks’ face. Wright throws some nice elbowdrops but looks a little rattled by Cheeks’ frequently incorrect positioning. Kind of a rough start to a Worldwide. Two Dodgy-by-WCW-syndie-standards and a PA announcement of my imminent death.

Public Enemy vs. Tony Carr/Dusty Wolfe

ER: Weird episode as this is the third straight match with a clear jobber role. We usually know who is going to win on Worldwide episodes, but this might be the first time I’ve seen the bulk of the matches featuring guys not on the roster. This is unexpectedly odd only because Dusty Wolfe gets the most offense of anybody in the match. This is mostly a Wolfe showcase, as until they win, PE is basically working this the same way you’d expect Wolfe/Carr to be working this. Carr is also amusingly working a Marine Corps gimmick, black sleeveless T and camo pants just like Pittman. I don’t think Pittman was around WCW at this point so were they just bringing in another similarly built black marine who was cheaper than Pittman, or still wanted that character and assumed nobody would notice the replacement? I liked Wolfe here, one of those good southern hands who I’d probably watch in 2019. I like that we got a weird Dusty showcase in 1998, and it’s so rare to see a guy not on the roster get so much offense. Really Wolfe’s team was in control the whole time, right up until they tried to tandem suplex Grunge but Rocco pulled him down, allowing Grunge to DDT both of them. Then, Drive-By. Before that the PE was at Wolfe and Carr’s mercy. So bizarre.

Fidel Sierra vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan

ER: This really isn’t much, probably most worth it for Zbyszko going on about how Duggan used to be good, but he reached a point where he stopped getting better and had just been coasting. “You’d think most guys would want to be World Champ but here he is just not improving on his skillset!” He’s not wrong here. Duggan is really lazy about getting from a to b, doesn’t give Sierra much to work with. Sierra looked really jacked here, I don’t remember Sierra having big guns, but there they are. ’98-’02 were wild for wrestling bodies. Duggan kinda just kills time here not selling a beating until it’s time for him to hit a lariat and Old Glory. Not the best Worldwide episode we’ve seen.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Psychosis

ER: The onscreen graphic actually spelled Mysterio with the y, but I don’t think that was a thing yet. There are frequent misspellings on these things. Fans are really hyped for this one. There’s a group of late 20s meatheads and their cute girls, and all of them are very invested in this match. A lot of it is Psychosis grounding Rey, cutting him off, not as many Rey showcase fireworks as we could sometimes get. Psychosis hits a pretty big guillotine legdrop off the top onto Rey on the apron, feels like a bigger spot that the camera crew didn’t expect, so didn’t get to shot it as impressively. Rey hit a big springboard legdrop, sold nicely while locked in chinlocks and armbars, and won with a nice rana off the top. A more grounded match than we typically got from these two, with no scary Psychosis bumps, but their expected professional match.


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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 10/1/95

Disco Inferno vs. Barry Houston

ER: Did you know that Disco once got a Goldberg-type security entrance? I sure didn't, but it happened here. His music played for awhile, and he wasn't coming out, and we cut to the back to see Doug Dillinger knocking on his dressing room door. The door opens and Disco is combing his hair in the mirror like Tony Manero, and then he breaks out a hilarious "Ayyyyyyyyy, I'm not done combin' muh hair ova heeya", and then he does some dancing in the mirror, and then we get the long walk of Disco from his dressing room to the ring, where he takes forever to fully undress (he is also wearing the Tony Manero white suit during this era) and the music has been playing for minutes on end and Rachel calls from downstairs "What are you watching up there?" and I yell back "I'm watching WCW and it's an extremely long Disco Inferno entrance obviously!" Barry Houston is always a guy you want to show up on TV, and this is no exception. The match honestly wasn't much, all Disco quickly running through some simple spots and winning with a swinging neckbreaker. But it really made me go on an outloud tangent about how Barry Houston should have got some kind of larger role somewhere. He was too talented to wind up where he wound up, as occasional WCW TV wrestler. He got a lot of WWF attention and I remember reading about him being in their Dory Funk dojo, he was a guy clearly on everybody's radar, who never broke through. Do we know why? Is Barry Houston the best non-Gambler surprise choice for SCI? I want answers!

Kurasawa vs. Scott Armstrong

ER: I love the idea that some WCW writer took a film class in college that showed Rashomon, and a few years later gave the newest evil foreign heel the name, presumably because he couldn't remember   the name Mifune. And my god I was in. to. this. Kurosawa was really cold here, and then explosive in the right moments. He oddly had a kind of Jake the Snake vibe, but replace more of the mind games with bullying. And Armstrong is a great guy to be a bully against, because he'll fight back believably and have nice babyface comeback punches. Kurosawa caught a crossbody that wasn't easy to catch, low around his knees, and then hoisted up Armstrong in one clean and jerk, really no help from Armstrong, just yoinked him up over his shoulder. Kurasawa hits a nasty shoulderbreaker, and it's a move he could have finished with. Instead he throws Armstrong into the ropes and catches him in a great Fujiwara armbar, and holds it for 7 seconds after the ref calls for the bell. There was something incredibly satisfying about seeing that shoulderbreaker set up --> Fujiwara finish.

Alex Wright vs. The Grappler

ER: I don't think I know who the Grappler is here. I think it might be Vern Henderson, but it could be someone younger. I don't remember Grappler as a regular, so it has to be someone pulling double duty. This is kind of messy, but they pulled out some things I didn't expect, and the crowd was amped for Alex Wright, which was fun to see. Also, Bobby Heenan kept making amusing jokes the entire match implying that 19 year old Alex Wright was wearing a hairpiece.

Bobby: "How do you think he keeps his rug on when he does those armdrags?"
Tony: "He's 19 years old! He's not wearing a piece!"

It was a genuinely funny bit they were doing. There are a couple cross ups in the match, at one point Wright just runs into Grappler and get tangled up as Grappler just falls over. But he whips off fast armdrags, gets incredible height on his nice hooking heel kick (crowd especially reacted to that), he  front suplexes Grappler onto the top rope in super impressive fashion, then plants him with a great superplex. It was cool that WCW gave Wright the shot that they did.

Goddamn there have been three commercials for Jade during this episode of Worldwide and I've NEVER SEEN IT and I now really want to make it a point to watch Jade. The 90s was filled with that steamy crime trash, and it's all bad and always makes me want to see more. And Jade was like the penultimate 90s trashy detective romance sleaze, and I know that I will be watching straight to video Jade ripoffs before I ever watch Bicycle Thieves or Tokyo Story.

Big Bubba vs. Johnny Drayton

ER: This goes about 40 seconds, and is the kind of beatdown that makes me proud that this guy was one of my childhood favorites. He was a big fat guy whose belly hung over his pants in the exact same way my dad's belly did, so Bossman to me looked like my dad as a big cool wrestler instead of as a smart, polite dentist. It makes me so happy that Bossman holds up. We've all liked a ton of things at various points in our life that do NOT hold up. I'm sure we've all enjoyed things within the past 5 YEARS that don't hold up today. So 38 year old me still enjoying a wrestler that 8 year old me enjoyed? That's a special thing. I am not familiar with Drayton, but he gets attacked pretty early by a grizzly and we don't recognize the body afterwards. Bubba throws some great uppercuts and a heavy lariat, hits that polo punch lariat you wanted to see, then absolutely STICKS Drayton with the Bubba Slam. You work a 40 second match, you work it like this.

Arn Anderson vs. Sting

ER: Arn is wearing a cool gray/black scheme that I don't remember seeing him in. Looks awesome. He comes out like the best version of "guy bringing cups to a cookout" meme, just raising his hands and apoplectic at the Worldwide crowd's boos. This feels like a really big match to have on Worldwide, and there's a ton of time left in the episode. Now, this doesn't wind up going 15 minutes. Pillman runs in and jumps Sting 5 minutes in, and then Flair comes out to run them off. But up to that point we get the greatness you'd expect, with Arn being someone you couldn't take your eyes off. He stooged and fell on his butt, traded Beat It punches with Stinger, dropped a great elbow onto the top of Sting's head, and the feeling out process alone would be something you'd be into. We even get the great spot where Arn goes for the DDT but takes a hard back bump as Sting holds onto the ropes. Sting hits one of his most joy filled leaping elbowdrops afterwards. He was like a kid jumping into his swimming pool at his already-deemed-kickass 10th birthday party.

We end the show with an absolute barnburner of a promo from Flair. Flair is up on the Worldwide stage with Sting and Okerlund (and they rarely did promos from the Worldwide stage this late, in fact I don't think I've ever seen it on Worldwide after this), begging Sting to be his friend. Sting doesn't trust Flair for a second and Flair is doing all of this incredible foot stomping and demanding Sting shake his hand, begging from his knees, jumping to his feet to have a fit that Sting won't shake his hand. Flair even tries to settle for a high five and Sting won't let him have it, and we fade out with Flair finishing one of his all time great moments in comedic timing. This was no hyperbole one of the best Flair promos I've seen, total megastar. He knew the right amount of seriousness, bombast, and comedy.


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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 6/30/96

Dave Taylor/Bobby Eaton vs. Fire & Ice

ER: This is fun for what we got, but man I really wanted to see an actual full tag match between these two. Just like the Faces of Fear vs. Duggan/Pittman match from the previous episode, the potential was high as there were 4 tough guys who didn’t mind hitting hard or getting hit hard. And there were plenty of guys getting hit hard in this match, it was just a very quick 4 minutes. Taylor and Train do a nice shoulderblock exchange, and Taylor wrecks him with a few uppercuts, high dropkick to the chest, and a nasty forearm smash across the chest. I love Dave Taylor. A C&A Dave Taylor will need to be done in the future. I have a feeling he won’t really have many classic singles matches, but he is never less than enjoyable in a tag or multiman. So the match is going great, but sadly Eaton gets kind of steamrolled. He tags in, throws a couple nice punch variations to a held-by-Taylor Ice Train, then goes for an ill-advised top rope elbow. Once he misses that Fire & Ice just takes over. Norton didn’t seem in the mood to sell anything, Eaton takes a big crooked backdrop, eats Norton’s crippling shoulderbreaker and a big splash from Train, and on the floor Regal advises Taylor to not even attempt to break up the pin. So what we got was real fun, but could have been all time great had it gotten 10 minutes and actually let Eaton shine a bit.

Kurosawa vs. Alex Wright

ER: This had some miscommunication, and the layout left a lot to be desired, but I was impressed by how expressive Kurosawa was. Wright had a bunch of potential but often disappointed. He hit a couple athletically pretty but light landing dropkicks, and a couple European uppercuts that seem a lot weaker when we're merely 10 minutes removed from Dave Taylor. But Nakanishi took Wright's offense in a fun stooge style, really cartoon-y but atmosphere appropriate. Nakanishi has light arm strikes but really heavy legs, so he hit a couple of so so forearms but then aimed to kick a hole in Wright's chest and threw some big stomps. He also committed to a big missed elbow off the top. So there was some heart in the match, but it didn't go to a very interesting place. Nakanishi did some offense for awhile, then Wright came back with a spinning heel kick and German suplex. And, how crazy is it that Nakanishi is basically still working a full schedule?

ER: Macho Man does a promo with Mean Gene to build up the upcoming WCW Theatre at MSG show, and threatens guest referee Bruno Sammartino . Still can't believe they don't use a graphic of Bruno to build this up. 

Rough & Ready vs. Cobra/Bill Payne

ER: Bill Payne was around for a shockingly long time, was a guy big enough to actually get an entrance now and then, but also never win a match. He looks like Super Crazy mixed with Julio Fantastico. Rough and Ready were truly the cruelest gift, an awesome pairing that only got paired 20 times, with half of those not making television. I love the combo of 1996 combo of mid 40s Dick Slater and Pussy Wagon Mike Enos (The Mauler??). Bill Payne eats a full landing vertical suplex from Enos on the spinning stage, painful spill, and I'm now a Bill Payne fan. He also eats a badass fallaway slam off the middle ropes from Enos. Enos is really muscling this guy around and it's awesome. Slater kicks Payne in the gut with a flat out great stomach kick, and Enos hits one of the biggest high rotation power slam you've seen. You need to cherish the Rough & Ready that you come across in the wild. It is nature's endorphins.

The Gambler vs. Booty Man

ER: Gambler has his sick as hell red trunks with all four playing card suits on the back. Gambler is such a great stooge, and a real pro, the kind of guy I really appreciate. I'd rather watch all of the Gambler matches than the best Kenny Omega matches. Gambler is the Chris Elliott of wrestling. A little thicker, but an understanding of physical reaction, a fun but punchable face, and an undeserved smug cockiness. Booty doesn't bring much of interest other than Kimberly Page. Gambler brings nice clubbing arms, solid stomps, big falls, and leans into Booty's high knee. High Knee. Say it.

Kensuke Sasaki vs. The Giant

ER: Surprised they would put Sasaki in with the Giant, as I didn't think Sasaki was there to lose one minute matches. He throws hard chops and hard leg kicks, and Giant's big chokeslam is super impressive, as he lifts him with one arm, then lifts him higher before dropping to his knees with the slam. I wanted more, obviously.

Hugh Morrus vs. Lex Luger

ER: Luger is a god on these 1996 shows, and he has truly gotten the worst of what WCW has to offer. Who else is having to make chicken salad out of a main event opposite Hugh Morris or Konnan? Luger knows how to craft matches out of these lugs beyond lugs, working this one like a great Hogan match. Morrus gets a couple of big slams to start and they slow play them, with Morrus hamming it up and Luger selling them with a "You think that's a knife" face. Luger let's him think he's at a disadvantage, then just explodes on Morrus with a bunch of nice forearms and shows off a bodyslam of his own and hits a nice powerslam on a big guy. Luger really does work the best version of the Hogan match you're used to, because he's not working with the same level of insecurity. He's cool with his spot on the pecking order, happy with the amount of money he's made, not scared of guys like Hugh Morrus. He knows he can sell for Morrus and naturally look like a star, so it makes a Hogan-style match more like a Nice John Cena match without toddler shorts and goofy faces. Morrus gets to merely miss the No Laughing Matter instead of having Luger take it, then just kick out and go for win. Missing the moonsault that leads to a Luger comeback is a much more organic way of moving the match along, and Morrus also gets to eyerake his way out of a Torture Rack. A Hogan match with him missing a legdrop would make it more interesting, give it some more depth. Morrus didn't look great here, but it didn't matter, because we had Lex Luger running things in 1996.


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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Worldwide 5/11/97

1. Alex Wright vs. Bobby Eaton

Short match that could have been really good, but was more of a Wright moves showcase. The whole thing goes only a couple minutes. Eaton's offense was one great looking punch, and then a missed punch that led to the finishing German suplex.

2. Kevin Sullivan vs. Doc Dean

This was during that period where 75% of the match was Sullivan throwing his opponent to the floor so Jacqueline could do her sequence of snap mare-body slam-suplex while the announcers flipped their shit. "She's a woman! But she's doing these moves to a MAN!" It's main purpose was to turn 1 minute Sullivan matches into 3 minute Sullivan matches, so I'd call that a fail.

Good lord there are so many ads for vacationing in Myrtle Beach. Every commercial break, Myrtle Beach ad. I've never seen these before on any other WCW episode. It's like they had an ad budget and just blew it all on one Saturday night. The ads show a lot of golfing and old people having a good time having dinner together. Sounds nice.

3. Mark Starr vs. Ice Train

Segunda Caida: Now with more stuff written about Mark Starr than ANY other website!! Because Mark Starr is actually really good, and ends up losing to Ice Train on these type of shows pretty often. Schiavone says Ice Train will be a "big star" in this business in a few years, which even without the benefit of hindsight seems like a bad projection. I mean, did Tony really think a 35 year old juiced up guy with a high top fade was really gonna break through and it was only experience that was holding him back? Starr looks great here bumping around for all of Ice Train's powerslams and shoulder blocks. Ice Train looks like a guy who wouldn't look very good without Starr bumping around for him.

4. Konnan vs. Johnny Swinger

God so much Konnan on these '96/'97 shows. Here he busts out a nice octopus hold on the mat (that takes him like 20 seconds to apply). Swinger has nice kicks to the stomach. And then Konnan drops Swinger right on his head with the 187. I mean good lord there has to be some vertebrae damaged there. Was there just some company directive to shoot injure Swinger whenever he was your opponent?  I'm glad he eventually got some WWE paydays.

5. La Parka vs. Robbie Brookside

I was not actually aware that Parka got any singles matches against non-lucha guys, but here he was totally dominating Brookside. So that means he was getting a minor push as early as '97, yet somehow they never pushed him any further than this, or being the guy who cleans the ring in lucha 6 mans. Obviously one of WCW's many screw-ups was not giving more of a push to Parka. A chubby, dancing skeleton who did corkscrew moonsaults and hit people with chairs. He does kip-ups, he kicks people in the face, and he would have sold tons of merchandise. I'm not saying he should have been World Champ (although really, it would have worked) but the fans loved cheering Park.

6. Jim Powers & Bobby Walker vs. Public Enemy

I know most of you are with me on this, but there are many combinations of 1997 WCW wrestlers that I would rather see show up as the main event of an episode that still has 12 minutes remaining. And you know? This isn't totally terrible. Powers is actually alright as a heel, which is a shame that he works face 95% of the time. I'm a fairly easy man to please. I know how to judge things on scale. Every match doesn't have to be Dundee/Lawler. And this match really didn't need much to exceed expectations. Walker hit a nice elbow drop, Grunge hit a nice elbow drop, Rocco tossed out an ugly asai moonsault, I fell asleep for the final two minutes...

maybe this wasn't actually that good.

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Worldwide 4/16/95

1. Meng vs. Bill Payne

So I called out Meng recently for being a shitty squash match worker, and he still sorta is. But here he was really fun. Maybe something happened between '95 and '97. I need to do a Meng depth chart to see when he started to get lame. His squashes are usually boring because he really has little dynamic offense. He throws a few chops, then he goes to Tongan death grip. But here in 1995 he has tons of offense. He throws these awesome knees from the clinch and hits a beautiful piledriver. He also does a couple cool superkicks that are less superkick, and more front kick right under the chin. They looked great. He also dished out an awesome running clothesline that he doesn't normally do, and in general worked as stiff as people imagine Meng works. We'll figure this out together.

2. Jim Duggan vs. Sledgehammer McGill

Holy shit Sledgehammer McGill?! I've never seen or heard of this guy before, and he's a pretty unassuming black 90s jobber (Steiners reject singlet, flat top), but he bumps like a freak for Duggan by dumping himself on his dome a couple different times on Duggan clotheslines, leaning way into Duggan forearms, even bumping over the top to the floor for one of them! Match went less than 2 minutes, but I want more Sledgehammer the bump freak!

3. Frank Andersson vs. (Not Thee) Manny Fernandez

Well I have never heard of Andersson, who looks like Sting/Tom Howard/Klaus Kinski/Rutger Hauer and apparently won the bronze at the 1984 Olympics in Greco-Roman. They talk during the match about him getting a title shot but I have zero memories of ever seeing him. He's kind of like a Glacier before Glacier, complete with blonde crewcut. But instead of karate offense it's all cool wrestling takedowns and suplexes. They're all rehearsed and really set up, but Manny got dumped on his head a few times by cool leg trips and an awesome deadlift belly to belly to end it. Did this guy ever work New Japan? I'd like to see him vs. Hashimoto.

4. Big Bubba Rogers vs. Kenny Kendall

Poor KK only gets a minute here. Poor guy had a good build and was as tall as Bubba, but it looks like he only ever got job duty for a few years in the 90s. How are there guys like Scott Putski or Jim Powers that get roster spots but guys like Kendall don't get a shot? I mean, none of them are any good, so why not Kenny? Why are there people like Frank!?

5. Marcus Bagwell/The Patriot vs. Dino Casanova/Romeo Valentino

Dino and Romeo were known as The Cream Team on the indy circuit. Ewwww. Oddly enough, The Cream Team was the name of an amateur gay porn Bagwell appeared in several years before this. This was 2 minutes and Romeo/Dino bumped like crazy for Stars & Stripes. I think if this was actually given 8 minutes it would have been a good match. As it was, Bagwell threw a nice dropkick, Patriot's top rope shoulderblock looked good, Dino did a full Jannetty bump off a clothesline. It was a fine squash.

6. Alex Wright vs. Arn Anderson

Boy, this finely illustrates one of the most obnoxious things about televised wrestling. The commercial break before the two guys even enter the ring, I already know the finish. As they cut to commercial after the Stars & Stripes match, Tony goes "AA vs. Alex Wright for Arn's TV Title is coming up next, and remember, TV title matches are a 10 minute time limit." I try and bet Rachel all of the money ever that this match is going to a time limit draw, but I show my hand too early and she doesn't take the bet. Back from break and they're all laying it on thick. Penzer is announcing the time limit which has clearly never happened in any other match you've ever seen that DIDN'T go full time limit, Heenan is saying "I don't think Wright could even last 3 minutes with the champ, let alone 10!" while Wright is walking to the ring. Just dogshit. Match isn't good, either, blatantly obvious finish or not. Wright seems reallllly nervous in there. It's kind of crazy. I don't recall many times seeing a wrestler and thinking, "Man this guy looks scared he's going to break something in there," but Wright seemed completely crossed up from go. You know his little trademark armlock/cartwheel mat transfer? Well they go to that, he slips, they start over, he trips on the kip-up spot and falls on his back, Arn stays with it, Wright gets up to cartwheel and ends up wheelkicking Arn across the face, Wright falls again, etc. Just unfortunate. But Arn tries his damndest and continues being a pro throughout. Who knows how much of an HBK shitfit would have occurred if he were in Arn's boots. Arn looks just fine here, doing all his cool offense that only guys like Finlay seem to do (scraping boot laces across the face, stomping hands). But holy lord the whole match is "HOW MUCH TIME IS LEFT ON THE CLOCK!?!?!?" and then Penzer does the 2 minute warning when the match is about 5:30 in and Wright botches the ending by hitting his finisher at the 10 second mark meaning Arn had to kick out instead of let the time expire. Just a total mess. To their credit the fans at Orlando Studios were going crazy with the time countdown so it worked to a certain degree live, obviously. But boy this couldn't have been more disappointing.

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Worldwide 4/9/95

1. Alex Wright vs. Mark Starr

Well this was one damn fine 3 minutes of wrestling right here. Crowd is way into Alex Wright and Mark Starr is a guy who is good at adapting to just about any style. It's crazy to think that Wright is just 19 here. When I was 19 I was working on beating Ocarina of Time for the 3rd time (this time I'm gonna find ALL the heart pieces!). Wright leans way into a stiff shoulderblock by Starr and Starr returns the favor by leaning chin first into a dropkick. Starr dishes a couple cool elbow varieties in the corner and dumps Wright with a back suplex and nice neck breaker and suddenly I realize this is the most offense I've ever seen Starr do in WCW. Starr is really good at getting into position for Wright's kicks,  charging out of the corner and swinging low on a missed clothesline and turning around to catch a heel kick to the chin.

Awesome interview segment with Macho Man and Sting goofing around with Mean Gene on a C-show. They're pushing a match against Avalanche/Big Bubba but they just spend the whole time chopping each other and behaving like those old roasts where the Rat Pack would just drunkenly make inside jokes for an hour. Mean Gene calls Macho "gregarious" and Macho yells at him "Don't you ever call me gregarious again!" The whole thing was a riot.

2. Nasty Boys vs. Southern Posse

You know, people give Knobbs a hard time for being reckless and stiff when people don't expect it, but that always seems to overshadow how awful Jerry Saggs can look in the ring sometimes. Still this is 2 minutes and Southern Posse are always game to job and even though I'm not sure they're actually any good I always look forward to seeing them.  Saggs does a nasty pump handle slam, Knobbs throws some reckless punches and elbows that look awesome, and then Saggs finishes the match with the absolute worst top rope elbow drop I have ever seen. It was stunning. He spends all his time doing a Macho Man elbow twirl as he's falling, but then he lands on his feet first and then just drops onto the guy. It was the worst and completely amazing all at once. Bobby and Tony are dying laughing, not even able to finish a "well it's not pretty but it's...effective?" sentence.

3. Avalanche vs. John Crystal

Not much of a match, pretty short, but I love Tenta as obese heel Ricky Jay. Fans were into him too, really booing him but also cheering him when he would do big moves. One segment in the middle saw him do a big elbow drop which heard a collective "Ooooohhh!" from the crowd, followed by big boos as he hammed it up. Then he did a big leg drop to more "Oooooooohhhhhssss!!" from the crowd and then flexed afterwards to get louder boos. Then immediately did an awesome big splash that saw tons of people noticeably jump out of their seats to cheer for, but then instantly got more booing. Just came off as a really great performer.

4. Johnny B. Badd vs. Rip Sawyer

Another short 2 minute match but Badd had really nice matwork to start, doing a nice headlock takeover and floating into a nice armlock before rolling back into a nice headlock. He also had really great punches here and a nice kneelift. Match ended on a great left hand, and really when you end a match on a punch you better make it look good.

5. Steven Regal/Robert Eaton vs. Brad Armstrong/Tim Horner

Pre match vignettes show Eaton getting training on how to be a classy, distinguished gentleman. This was apparently the first time the Blue Bloods teamed up, and it was a total blast as you probably could have guessed. They get about 9-10 minutes and it's all Regal and Eaton cutting off the ring, with Regal working schtick with the ref while Eaton stiffs up Armstrong in the corner. Eaton really brutalized both Horner and Armstrong in this match, throwing stiff elbows and his expectedly great punches. Horner's hot tag is really impressive with Regal and Eaton both flying around for his nice right hands, but Regal eventually catches him with a shot and Eaton hits a perfect Alabama Jam for the win. I don't know if I've ever seen a finer leg drop off the top.

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Pro 9/7/96

This show is being billed as a huge deal because it's the long-anticipated debut of GLACIER!! I cannot believe that people had to sit through months and months of hype vids for Glacier, and WCW debuts him on what has to be their weakest show. Were they just petrified of him botching a match on live television? Why couldn't they have at least debuted him on a Saturday Night ep? Or debut him on the next week's Pro, which was at least right before the Fall Brawl ppv. Anybody have any clue why they hyped his debut for so damn long and then just threw it out on the Pro?

1. Scott Armstrong vs. Alex Wright

Battle of a couple 2nd generation workers! But sadly this doesn't get the chance to stretch out as they seem to be held to a pretty strict 3 minute rule. Nothing at all inoffensive about this match, but this felt like a pretty standard house show run of start with some mat stuff, go into some exchanges, one guy gets advantage, other guy transitions to advantage, first guy gets win without ever really transitioning back. Here Armstrong got the knees up on Wright's little slingshot corner splash, but Wright basically just went to his German suplex moments later to end it.

2. Craig Pittman vs. Terry Davis

Terry Davis used to pop up as a jobber all the time on WWF TV when I was a kid. The guy looks like a baby faced Luke Gallows, with no facial hair and horseshoe haircut and the most unflattering singlet/tights combo you've ever seen. This was one of those awesome Pittman matches where he was basically working with a mannequin. Davis got no offense, never attempted offense, he was just like a life-sized wrestling buddy who you could try moves on. And that's what Pittman does. You get the sense from watching some of these Pittman matches that he makes up most of these moves on the fly, and it gives the moves a sense of originality.  At one point he takes Davis up into a torture rack and drops him into an atomic drop. Most of the time I got the sense that Davis was dead weight (or again, not sure at all what move Pittman was doing) so Pittman would just dead lift him and then slam him. At one point Pittman locked on a rad liontamer where he crossed Davis' legs. And I love Pittman's battering ram headbutt finisher. I'm genuinely starting to look forward to Pittman matches. This guy was the great lost worked shoot fighter of the 90s.

3. Big Ron Studd vs. Chris Benoit

Boy the only way you can describe this is "mismatch". Ron Reis is gigantic, and also not good at pro wrestling. Match still has a couple decent Oh Shit moments, like Benoit hitting a massive German on Reis, and then Benoit finishing with an enormous superplex (which is pretty stupid since Reis went to the top rope to get into position for it, and there's zero chance the guy was going to be doing ANY sort of offense off the top, but whatevs) that Reis baaaarely gets over for and practically spikes himself. Jeez. Benoit gets the pin and then stomps Reis' head after the pinfall which Reis clearly was not expecting.

4. Brad Armstrong vs. Dean Malenko

Cool short match ruined by the stupid, rushed finish. Both guys work super quick armdrag exchanges and the fans are jacked, Larry talks the whole match about the "Armstrong curse", and Brad gets to take like 80% of this. I'm into it, fans are into it, things are looking good. Then Brad hits the Russian leg sweep and instead of going for the pin instantly goes up top. So Malenko gets up from Brad's finisher after being on the mat only 2 seconds, as he has to be up in time to catch Armstrong. Armstrong hits a full impact crossbody off the top, Dean even did that bump where he jumps into the crossbody to take a huge back bump from it with Armstrong splatting right on top of him........and then Dean just rolls him over and pins him. What. The. Fuck. So Dean takes Armstrong's finisher, takes a massive crossbody off the top...and then just wins. I get that he was supposed to roll through the crossbody and use Armstrong's momentum against him, but then you'd think he'd take more of a rolling bump instead of a SPLAT back bump. Just garbage.

5. Glacier vs. The Gambler

So it has to be said that Gambler looks AMAZING here. Usually he comes out in just a satin little league coaches' jacket with "The Gambler" stitched into the back over a deck of playing cards. You know the jacket, because you wanted that jacket. But HERE he comes out decked to the nines as a riverboat gambler and it is INCREDIBLE. I have never seen him decked like this and here he full-on out-Robert Parkers Robert Parker! He's got a white button up ruffled shirt (tucked into his trunks), suspenders, pocket watch, black coat with tails, and dressed bowler hat. Amazing. The guy is doing card tricks on the way to the ring, has a cocky swagger and looks like an actual big deal. I love the Gambler. And I cannot imagine anybody else running into Glacier offense better than Gambler did here. All of the spots came off without a hitch and a lot of the set-up was fairly complicated. It would have been VERY easy for somebody to get lost along the way (though there was no doubt tons of rehearsal put into this), but Gambler made it. He sold all of Glacier's ridiculous 5 fingers of death strikes appropriately, ran into kicks like he was supposed to, and looked downright pro. Bowler hats off to The Gambler. I wish that guy had a job in wrestling today. Any clue what he is up to at all? For a guy who was a part of a major promotion for 5 years, I haven't heard anything about him in ages. Guys less famous than him have done shoot interviews.

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 12/5/98 & 12/12/98

1. Kendall Windham vs. Manny Fernandez

This, again, is not THEE Manny Fernandez, just some gassed up guy who I didn't realize worked for WCW this late in the game. He popped up a bunch in '95 and '96 and here he still is. Kendall (spelled "Kendell" in his entrance graphic) gives Manny a decent amount of offense and Kendall himself looks awesome in the match. I love Kendall's uppercut and he throws a cool variation where he drops down to a knee while throwing it. It's really cool to see him mixing them up, for example, by throwing an overhand right, short left uppercut, and then the drop down one. Kendall threw a rad snap swinging neckbreaer and Manny was pretty game for this. Not bad at all.

2. Silver King vs. Todd Griffith

I have never heard of Todd Griffith. I assume that Tenay and Hudson haven't either since they keep calling him "Todd Griffin" the whole match. He...was not very good. He had some rad cowboy boots and white pants with fringe, and he looked like a roadie for the Leningrad Cowboys. But he kinda sucked. Every time he picked Silver King up he looked like he was about to fall over. Every body slam, hot shot, etc. ended with him stumbling around off balance afterwards. At one point King stops giving him offense and just kicks him in the face, then hits a super stiff standing somersault leg drop/senton. Tenay naturally tells me to not be fooled by King's deceptive stockiness, while Hudson oozes all over Todd's bod ("as if it were carved out of granite!"). Silver King drops Griffith a couple times with super dangerous looking power bombs, looking dangerous mainly because Griffith appeared unaware of how to go up for a powerbomb.

1. Alex Porteau vs. Alex Wright

We get plenty of shots of crowd members doing their best Western European club kid impressions, and the best is some skinny goober in a wolfpack shirt who looks like Eddie Deezen, doing something approximating the Mashed Potato. This match was 3 minutes long and was actually a really rad workrate sprint. 3 minutes of cool go behinds and high dropkicks and Alex Wright sure seemed really really good during these types of matches. How many times did Wright match up with guys like Finlay, Regal or Taylor?

2. Johnny Swinger vs. Disco Inferno

Everybody's favorite punching bag. Even Hudson rips into Swinger on commentary. This match wasn't much. Disco his a great leaping fist drop which I don't remember from his offense, and then follows it up with a missed sunset flip so that Swinger has to stumble backwards three steps and fall into it. Disco wins with a sloppy piledriver that barely looked a step above Brian Adams' piledriver.

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Main Event 7/14/96 & 7/21/96

The Main Event was probably the weakest of your WCW syndicated shows. It aired on Sunday afternoons in my neck of the woods, which were always filled with dread for me since in my house we always got to goof around on Saturdays, but Sundays were when we did yardwork and chores and before you knew it another week of school was here. So you had Sunday afternoon wrestling, sometimes used as a PPV lead-in (the Konnan/One Man Gang U.S. Title change was actually shown on The Main Event!), but usually the matches were really short and nobody good ever wrestled on there. I've yet to come across a match from The Main Event that I'd give the full two thumbs up to.

But you know? It still has its charm. The crowd is always excited and almost too quick with a jingoistic chant if there is a foreigner wrestling, you get sit down studio bullshit sessions with Bobby Heenan, you get Dusty in full-on hilarious "Even I don't know what I'm saying" commentary, and you get highlights from Saturday Night and Nitro. So you get a pretty decent package, bookended with some matches that are rarely awful. It's WCW syndicated wrestling, so it at least has its charms.

This was also a neat random pick out of the stacks because it originally aired almost exactly 15 years ago. Remember how full of dreams you were 15 years ago, as you watched Konnan and Joe Gomez matches?

7/14/96

Ruckus vs. Joe Gomez

Ruckus is Robbie Rage, and they even bill him as being part of High Voltage. Never knew he went under a different name in WCW. Gomez is not very good, but he's not very good in a really entertaining way. Rage has a waistlock and does a takedown, Gomez tries to get his hands out to block his face, somehow goes forehead first into the mat. Rage does a REALLY cool armbar/headscissors takedown (that somebody today should steal), Gomez takes the bump right onto the top of his head. So he looks really lost out there, but when he's match against a powerhouse like Rage fun things happen. I'm sure there is a Gomez/Jerry Flynn match out there, and that Gomez somehow manages to take a boot to the eyeball in it. Match only goes 90 seconds, Ruckus takes the whole match until Gomez wins with a sunset flip. Forgettable, but Rage always breaks out moves I don't expect from him, and therefore Rage is starting to be someone I genuinely look forward to seeing on these shows.

Konnan vs. Alex Wright

Man, was Konnan on every single fucking episode of Main Event in '96? Jesus, I have seen soooo many Konnan matches already, and this was a real odd one, and I'll be honest...I was really getting into it, until Konnan. Starting to get into it, match was building nicely, and then Konnan. Konnan. The match starts with 14 minutes left in the show and I am filled with dread at the prospect of a long Konnan match, but also excited to see what Wright could do. Will Wright get the title of superest superworker ever, by having the great 10+ minute Konnan match?

Well, the first 3 minutes are all on the mat and while Konnan doesn't look great, he doesn't look bad at all. Wright bends himself into some painful looking holds, pulls out some nice reversals, twists Konnan around by the wrist, Konnan jams his knee in Wright's back, neither guy gets an advantage, some cool stuff. Then they stand up, and Konnan rolls him up for the win, immediately. What. The. Fuck. But to add to that, Wright was not only under the ropes, but had both arms wrapped around the bottom rope. So Wright is looking to get the count broken, but the ref just counts three. This is literally the 2nd time a '96 Konnan match on Main Event has ended this same way, that I've seen. It's as if only Konnan and the ref know when the match is finishing, and it makes everybody look bad. Wright was in the ropes, HOLDING the ropes, looking right at the ref, and the ref just slowly counts three, while making awkward eye contact with Wright. "I know this looks bad Alex. I can clearly see you making love to those ropes. I know it's now taken me 7 seconds just to count to 2...but....I'm counting 3."

7/21/96

VK Wallstreet vs. Jim Powers

I always had a soft spot for Wallstreet/IRS/Rotundo, as I thought he looked like Will Clark when I was a kid, and Will Clark was my favorite thing in the world when I was 9. I still think he kinda looks like Will Clark as an adult, and Will Clark is still one of my favorite things in the world. I was wearing a Will Clark t-shirt yesterday. Wallstreet actually looked really good here, but good lord was Jim Powers not very good at pro wrestling. Wallstreet had a couple nice clotheslines, and GREAT short elbowdrop (boy but he really shoehorns that abdominal stretch while holding the ropes into every match, huh? What's great is the camera pans to the crowd during the payoff of the ref finally catching him cheating, so Powers doesn't even get his comeuppance shown) and the Stock Market Crash is a great name for his Samoan drop finisher.

Bobby Eaton/Dave Taylor vs. Jim Duggan/Craig Pittman

This was only 3 minutes but very fun. Not tons of offense aside from punches, but Eaton can obviously punch, Taylor can throw some blows, Duggan can throw alternately great and horrendous punches, so 3 minutes of punches isn't really an awful thing with these guys. But it was Pittman's punches that were the star here. They had the look of someone who didn't actually know how to throw any kind of punch, worked or real, so was just kind of moving his fist towards Eaton's face...but they looked brutal! Not sure how much of it was Eaton putting them over big, but it looked like he was not so much selling them as he was trying to get out of the way of them. Regal runs distraction on the floor, making a bunch of funny Don Knotts mannerisms to get the crowd hyped and put over Teddy Long as some sort of threat. Duggan gets the win with a nice taped fist punch.

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