Found Footage Friday: BASH 85~!

Great American Bash JCP 7/6/85

Buddy Landel vs. Ron Bass

MD: A twenty minute draw, only a bit cut (we lose some of Buddy's control). I always was partial to this feud so it's nice to get a bit more of it. It filled out the midcard well, just having Bass trying to get revenge on JJ basically for picking a city slicker instead of a country guy. 

This was going long and it had a lot of Buddy getting early stalling and comeuppance. Buddy's body language is almost generational, the way that he scoots through the ropes after taking a shot or gets fired into the corner. He tries to outwrestle Bass and fails, tries to outsneak him and fails, tries to outfight him and definitely fails. When he does take over, it's about grinding Bass down and letting JJ get shots in when he can. The comeback on the floor is fiery and the crowd loves it but it's a prelude to the bell ringing for the draw. Post match, Bass gets his hands on JJ and Buddy tries to intervene only for the two to end up crashing into one another. Satisfying stuff even despite the draw.

Ole Anderson/Arn Anderson vs. Buzz Sawyer/Dick Slater

MD: This was a blast. I love the Sawyer/Slater team, even as babyfaces. Huge energy. They came in hot firing away at the Andersons, with Buzz and his fuzzy boots swinging a title belt around over his head. It was stooging fiery chaos for the first half, with Slater's windmill punches and Buzz running about biting arms and interjecting at every point. He had one charge into the corner where he shot back at high speed with a forearm that was just nuts. 

Eventually the chaos was too much and the ref got distracted so that the Andersons could take over on Slater. Super hot crowd for this as Buzz stomped back and forth on the apron. Some great hope spots and last second cutoffs where an Anderson would lock up the legs. The hot tag was sufficiently hot but things ended pretty abruptly with an elbow drop cheapshot behind the ref's back. Could have used another rotation on the finish but this lived up to my expectations.

Manny Fernandez/Buzz Tyler/Sam Houston vs. Abdullah the Butcher/Superstar Billy Graham/Konga the Barbarian

MD: I haven't talked about what we had and didn't have here but we came in during the heat on the old footage of this one. That's all beatdown on Houston who survives and survives until he's able to get close enough to draw his own guys in and win in the ensuing chaos with a roll up.

All of that is in here and it's pretty good pro wrestling, but we get the front here as well. That was Graham and Konga stooging (as once Abby got in, it would be time for the heels to take over). And it was very good. This is some of the best I've seen 80s Graham look. He was flying around way more than usual and leaning hard into the goofing. Konga did his share as well honestly. And all of that was fine because it set the stage for Houston getting destroyed. The fans absolutely loved the finish. It really seemed at this point that they could make Houston into a big deal in the years to come.

Paul Jones vs. Jimmy Valiant (Dog Collar)

MD: Previously we just had the opening feint and the finish here. The feint was great, as Jones hemmed and hawed and refused to put the dog collar on before trying to slip it on Abby instead. That didn't work but it drew attention so Abby could stab Valiant in the forehead. Previously we had commentary over that but here we got to clearly hear a scream from the crowd and that's the sort of thing that makes all of this better. 

Jones controlled, smacking a bloody valiant with the chain wrapped around his hand. He made sure to bask in it and taunt the crowd. Said crowd went up huge for Valiant's comeback as he manipulated Jones with the length of the chain. He got the sleeper on. Abby tried to interfere. Valiant was too smart for it and he got the win before Abby unloaded on him. Pretty enjoyable piece of business overall.

Russians vs. Road Warriors

MD: This couldn't have been more heel-in-peril. Not only was it Krusher and Ivan, Nikita wasn't even there because he was prepping for the main event. Even though the Roadies were the AWA champions, only the JCP titles were on the line (which given the finish made no sense anyway).

And the Warriors took the brunt of this. Maybe Ivan would get an eye rake or Krusher would get a few body shots in, but then they'd miss an elbow drop and would get swept right back under again. Animal press slammed Krusher into the top rope, then pressed Ivan off the top. Hawk got in on the action. In no case did they really get them up but the struggle made it work nonetheless. It was a bit of diminishing returns though.

They had a sort of convoluted bit to let the Russians take over and they kept control with frantic, almost desperate quick tags. Even then, when the hot tag came, it was while the Roadies were taking shots. They just didn't matter. Things devolved quickly after that as both sides used chairs. It get having the Russians finally look vulnerable but a straight up Clash of the Titans might have been more palatable. 

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 10/23/99 & 10/30/99

10/23/99

Scotty Riggs vs. Adrian Byrd

ER: I hate when WCW episodes have the ambient noise vacuum running throughout matches. There's no way the live crowd sounded worse than this static. This was a decent match until a couple clunky moments during Byrd's brief comeback caused a flat ending. There was a fun story going on (that likely only existed on commentary) that Byrd had just won a match on the previous episode, and this was his chance to put an actual winning streak together. Riggs had some nice controlling offense, I liked his crossface shots in a chinlock and he had a nicely timed dropkick. But Byrd's comeback was too brief and his dropkick was a less interesting version of the same dropkick Riggs already did in the match. Riggs looked like he was trying to throw punches Lawler style, those low rising angle looping righthand uppercuts. I don't totally remember Riggs punching that way all the time, wonder if it was something cool he had picked up in USWA years before and was airing out. Finish didn't look great as Riggs went for the Showstopper (a Rocker Dropper) and Byrd dropped early. They still showed a replay of it.

Barry Darsow vs. Luther Biggs

ER: Darsow is in his Blacktop Bully gear and comes out yelling how he doesn't know who Barry Darsow is, he's the Blacktop Bully! And who was Luther Biggs anyway? Was he a Power Plant guy or some producer who got to do an occasional onscreen role like Big Dick Johnson (who was never a guy I actually saw but remember reading about in the Observer). Biggs' onscreen roles coming in WCW and TNA make me think he was some kind of writer or something. He had size (he wasn't much smaller than Darsow, and Darsow is a big guy) but no kind of good look. But you know what? This match was a ton of fun. Biggs is really good at playing a non-wrestler learning to wrestle. Darsow worked over his arm in fun ways, and Biggs finally came back with a great eyepoke and two nice body shots (the first one with his bad arm - which he then sold - before switching to his good arm). The whole thing was very satisfying and you could tell Biggs was actually pretty decent. Darsow hits a nice lariat, falling to his knees similarly to a Dustin lariat. He also gets Biggs up high for a nice backdrop suplex. Finish was a well executed 1999 finish, with Johnny Boone getting bumped and taking a really fast folding back bump across the ring, then Bully getting cracked with Coach Buzz Stern's clipboard so Biggs could get the pin. A weird match I didn't know existed, a couple different angles that existed only on WCW's C and D shows.

ER: Also, we may have only had two matches this episode, but that means every match was able to feature a Riggs or a Biggs. That some agent didn't feel the need to swap opponents for two meaningless matches, shows the cruel insides of a truly joyless human. Imagine having the opportunity to give me, 20 years into the future, Riggs vs. Biggs and not taking it.


10/30/99

Hardbody Harrison vs. Chuck Palumbo

ER: During the entrances to this match Larry Zbyszko drops a real gem:

"Hardbody Harrison's a mean guy, he could really hurt someone."

Boy, when Larry's right, he's right. Palumbo would later become a favorite of mine in WWE. His WCW jungle boy persona is a lot more raw, but in hindsight you could see the big potential there. My buddy Jason was an early Palumbo backer, got him some bragging points by the time Palumbo was throwing everybody's favorite big right hands up north. Palumbo was more about showing off his vertical leap in this portion of his career, so we got more leaping spots than ass kicking spots, which aren't as interesting. Several times his leap actually detracted from his offense: He hit a light crossbody that could have landed heavy, but he opted to float over Harrison; later he hit a flying shoulder tackle that focused way more on how much hang time he got on the tackle than how good the tackle looked. But he still had good punches this early on, and his shoulder tackles looked like they would improve with time (and they did). He had a great powerslam here and a cool Booker T spinkick that finished it. Harrison wasn't ever very good. His best feature was that he looked like a total sleaze, and thinking of that as his best feature now just reminds us all how awful pro wrestling is.

La Parka/El Dandy vs. Kendall Windham/Curly Bill

ER: It really doesn't get more exciting on paper than this, for me, when I throw in a disc of WCW. These are four of my syndicated WCW favorites, and it's such a fantastic styles clash that winds up being nothing like a styles clash in the least. And that is because Kendall Windham is a man and treats Dandy and Parka as his equal. This is among the highest in ring respect I've ever seen a heavyweight treat Dandy with in WCW, with Kendall going toe to toe in and excellent punch exchange, Dandy rightfully standing with the big Texan. Kendall is straight fire in this match, maybe his greatest match in WCW. He puts on a total clinic. He felt like CW Anderson working more like Barry Windham, and if that doesn't make you want to see this match then I have no idea why you would be reading this review. His punches all look great, he hits a real bulldog, a big diving lariat, kicks guys right in the gut, looks like a total star. The bulk of this is Kendall/Dandy, and it's awesome to see Dandy not eaten alive and treated like an actual big punching brawler. But this is the Kendall show, he works like someone slipped truckers speed into his beer and he whipped around the ring like this was a handicap match. It was everything I ever could have wanted.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

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On Brand Segunda Caida: The Genius vs. Mark Young! Finlay vs. Barry Darsow

The Genius vs. Mark Young WWF Prime Time 12/25/89

ER: You ever unearth a (hopefully good) memory and can't really place it, but you do a little digging and figure it out? That's Mark Young for me. When I was a kid the only wrestling I saw was WWF's weekend morning lineup, and Saturday Night's Main Event. We didn't get PPV (zero chance my parents would have ordered one), and any friends I was on "sleepover" level with weren't really wrestling fans (one of those friends didn't even have a TV, and he's a cop now, so yeah). So weekend jobber matches and SNME were my insulin. And once I found out that SNME was a thing, it was harder to get excited about the squash matches, because the results - even to an 8 year old - were never in doubt. But there was this one guy who I never saw get a win, even though his matches were always way more competitive than most, and it was exciting because it made child me believe in the power of an underdog, the possibility of an upset. I randomly thought of this guy the other day, no idea who it was, only remember that he wore stars and stripes tights and I specifically remembered him having a competitive match against Mr. Perfect. Well, yesterday a random occurrence brought these memories back: someone posted an old wrestling magazine photo on Twitter, stars and stripes tights guy was in one of them, memories came rushing back, and it allowed me to pinpoint who he was and line it up to my memories.

It turns out this guy who I so desperately wanted to get an upset win through my young childhood was Mark Young. That's a name I definitely don't remember, I only remembered him having a "boring name" like the other guys who lost every week (you know, it would always be The Widowmaker vs. Greg Davis, or Mr. Perfect vs. John Jackson), but this was definitely the guy. Mark Young had a couple of fairly lengthy WWF stretches, a guy who occasionally won on house shows, rarely won on TV, and never won on the TV that I got to see. So I looked for a Mark Young match that I remember watching when it aired, and was pleasantly surprised to see how it held up, although not in specific ways that I loved when I was 8. The Genius was someone who I didn't even think was a wrestler when I was 8. When he fought Hogan on a SNME I thought there was zero chance Hogan would lose against this "tiny" guy (me being a child, I didn't notice how cut Genius was because he was standing next to this giant Hulk Hogan). I wasn't watching wrestling during Leaping Lanny Poffo, that SNME match against Hogan was my Lanny Poffo jumping off point, and if someone had tried to tell me Genius was brothers with Randy Savage I would have called them a liar (even though I was telling people that Shel Silverstein was Bad News Brown, because kids just lie a lot). And here he was against my boy Mark Young. A guy who was barely even a wrestler, vs. my boy Mark Young, who had gotten a close nearfall against Mr. Perfect? Surely this was Young's best chance to get a TV victory. I was confident this match would be the thing to finally allow him to break in.

Obviously Mark Young did not win, but the match holds up as extremely fun, and Genius holds up as an absolute asskicker. It's easy to see why I responded to the energy of Young so much: he did flips, derpy breakdancing, fast armdrags, and floated over with a cool high leaping hurricanarana for a nearfall. He felt like a guy who could beat The Genius. But the rest of this match suddenly made me want to go on a Genius deep dive. Genius had a haircut that would look great on one of the Vivian Girls, threw a bunch of nasty stomps into the back of Young's head and face, his prancing stooging still makes me laugh, and he (thanks to Young being a bit of a bump freak) practically invented the crucifix bomb. I'm so happy I figured out the identity of one of my earlier wrestling memories, and happy that it lined up with reality. Sadly, Mark Young also died young, passing away just a couple years ago. He made a very real impression on me that was still nestled somewhere in my brain 30 years later.


Fit Finlay vs. Barry Darsow WCW Nitro 9/21/98 (#158)

ER: A week ago I posted a couple WCW Worldwide reviews, and someone on Twitter started making up dream matches that they wished happened in WCW. It's a great idea, and part of the joy of those WCW syndicated shows is the dream matches you end up getting that you didn't realize were dream matches until after you watched them. Somebody in the replies mentioned Finlay vs. Blacktop Bully as their WCW syndicated dream match. Now, that match couldn't happen because Finlay wasn't in the fed while Darsow was using that gimmick, but here is the only singles match between the two, and it was used to kick off an episode of Nitro smack in the middle of the Hogan/Warrior feud. Darsow isn't a guy who really gets talked about as a legit tough guy, but he really comes off as an under the radar tough guy. He's a really big dude, and he had so many comedy gimmicks that it's easy to forget that he had no problem lacing it in against the opponents who demand it. Finlay is obviously a guy who is going to demand that. It's awesome when Finlay gets a guy like Darsow to step up. I loved Darsow throwing this meaty right hand into Finlay's jaw, and plowing straight through him with a hard as possible shoulderblock. This is Finlay's wheelhouse obviously, and he responds in kind. Darsow wins the "who has the hardest shoulderblock" game, but watch how hard Darsow bumps for Finlay's shoulderblock! Finlay pays him back by stomping on his hands, and grabbing him by teeth 3 thru 14 and elbowing his nose. This is a tight 3 minutes and I wish we had gotten the chance to see 8.

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 5/8/99 & 5/15/99

5/8/99

Frankie Lancaster vs. Disco Inferno

ER: In the WWE/WCW mirror universe, Lancaster is Bob Holly. A tag team of Holly/Lancaster would have been amazing. They could have done the Killer Bees switcheroo, unmasked. And this is a quality enough match, constant action and some nice overall work by Lancaster. I hadn't remembered Lancaster still in the company this late, but he worked there for a year after this match! I like him. He's big enough that it looks impressive when he takes offense, and he's surprisingly good at taking offense. He takes a bunch of armdrags and hip tosses to start, eats a backdrop, and doesn't gas even though he looks like someone who would definitely gas. He also hits a really great left arm lariat, really straight arms Disco. The finish is one I don't love, but couldn't have been handled better by Lancaster: He goes up to the middle rope to do something onto Disco, who is on the mat, and Disco gets his boot up. I hate guys jumping off the ropes and landing on their feet, face to boot. What move would they have been doing had that boot not been there? But Lancaster takes it on the chin and does a great stagger while holding onto his chin, the kind of knee knocking stagger that Rick Rude would do after taking an atomic drop. And while Lancaster is stumbling he gets hit with the Chartbuster, continuing to sell that chin. All well played.

Silver King vs. Horace Hogan

ER: For a match that's 85% one guy in control, this is plenty fun. Horace is out with Stevie Ray and Vincent, and what's great about this is the nWo cheat the entire time. I love they come out here against Silver King, a guy who was rarely even on the winning team during trios matches in WCW, and felt the need to cheat to win. But here's Horace choking King with his nWo belt, throwing King to the floor so that Stevie can put the boots to him. Horace has some nice shots to the body, King takes a big bump into the guardrail and a ringside chair off an Irish whip, and King gets a nice mini run after landing on Horace during a Horace back suplex attempt. Vincent is really good at ringside, that guy really knew how to act (?) like a chump, loved when King hit a kick to a grounded Horace and ran up top, backing Vincent off with a kick from the apron. Vincent acts tough a charges towards him and then does this huge flinch when King barely even threatens to kick him, then Vincent acts like he did everything to stop him once King easily gets to the top. There was no way King was winning this, but since it is WCW you knew we'd be getting 4 solid minutes, which is part of the joy of these.

In an ad after this episode, I find out that Home Movies actually debuted on The CW. It's a show so associated with Adult Swim, and a show I watched from the beginning on AS, and I had no clue until now that it had a remarkably unsuccessful run on CW before getting scooped up by AS.

5/15/99

El Dandy vs. Erik Watts

ER: This is the kind of match up you're going to get in syndicated '99 WCW. Dandy is wearing bright purple gear that I've never seen, and Watts as you know is wearing those gigantic Jnco jeans with legs wide enough to completely engulf his boots. I had no memory of Watts being so muggy. He worked half this match like he was Hugh Morrus, cracking jokes with Charles Robinson, mugging to fans, working like a real jokester for some reason. "What can I do to get noticed? Maybe do some Hugh Morrus shtick? Watts goofing off is what gives Dandy openings to offense. There is a little miscommunication early. Dandy likely carried some luchador loads, but a 6'6" guy tripping over his own jeans is another story. Once they're on the same page it gets pretty decent, with Dandy laying in a nice kick to Watt's jaw and flashing that big right hand that always makes Mike Tenay rightfully swoon. Watts has a lot of indy offense that looks somewhat out of place, but also effective. He kicks Dandy in the stomach and hits an amusingly aloof Rocker Dropper, shrugging before stepping over Dandy to drop the leg over the back of his neck. He also hits a buckle bomb before that was a thing, and his finisher is some kind of weird Flatliner/reverse chokeslam, where his left arm is over Dandy's chest and wrapped around his neck, while his right hand is grabbing the back of Dandy's neck. Erik Watt's: Late 90s imitator. If I could have remixed these episodes I would have much rather seen Dandy vs. King and Horace vs. Watts, but we know how this goes.

The Gambler vs. Dave Taylor

ER: Well this is a WCW syndicated dream match if there ever was one. Gambler looks like old pictures of everyone's dad from when you were a kid. It didn't seem weird at the time but then you look back through photos from a camping trip and there's your dad shirtless and wearing short cut off shorts and tinted sunglasses. Dad's looked like less cool Arn Andersons, and we had no responsibilities. Oh, and this match rules - obviously - but in a way I couldn't have expected, because The Gambler takes 90% of this match, with Taylor getting 5% to start and 5% to finish. This was the most Gambler Showcase I have ever seen in a match. Dave Taylor was mentioned and talked about at the beginning of the episode and hyped up, talked about like a guy everyone was naturally excited to see, "The Bigun from Wigan", talking about him like he was an old friend of the program. And then Gambler comes out later and just eats him for lunch before losing to one move. Taylor's bit of offense at the beginning is a kick to the stomach, dropkick, and a European uppercut, and Gambler takes that uppercut by reeling back into the ropes, then firing off them with an elbow right to Taylor's throat. Gambler hits a couple really nice kneelifts and hits a huge lariat sending Taylor over the top to the floor, then flips him back over the ropes when Taylor tries to get in. This is already as much Gambler offense as I've probably ever seen, but we're not at all done. Gambler has a bunch of really great Arn Anderson offense, as well as a really great Arn Anderson hairline, throwing Taylor into the ropes just to punch him in the stomach, then kneeing Taylor in the face when he buckles from the punch. Taylor is reeling almost the entire match, Gambler wrenches on a cravate, throws in a couple stomps, hits an axe handle off the top, this whole thing is flat out bizarre. Alas, Gambler goes up for another axehandle and gets caught, and Taylor hits his gorgeous butterfly suplex/floatover pin to win it. What the hell happened here!? Because whatever it was I want it in pill form.

Johnny Swinger vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

ER: Swinger comes out wearing his weird tinsel silver collar, looking smug, and then Scott Hudson says "Johnny Swinger, taking an undeserved bow in the ring." Damn, knocking Swinger down a peg there Hudson. Swinger always comes off well in these matches, a guy with a cool cravate, nice elbow to the jaw, nice backdrop suplex, cool running punch, and nice little things like when he really claps Chavo with his knees to kickout of a sunset flip. Johnny Swinger is really good you guys. This is a really cool Swinger showcase. The finish is really cool too, with Swinger burying a knee in Chavo's guy, then hoisting him up for a vertical suplex that Chavo reverses into a gnarly tornado DDT. He really got vertical on the suplex before  whipping straight down into the DDT, it the visual was fantastic and Swinger snapped right into it.

Barry Darsow vs. Chris Adams

ER: What a main! I don't remember Darsow wearing the World of Sport swimsuit singlet before but it looks cool. He looks like Ken Patera or something. Always like seeing that singlet, but maybe because only cool wrestlers wear it (think Finlay, Regal, most recently Dunne). Adams was treated as a real badass during this era, so it's kind of wild to see him get handled by Darsow here. Darsow is a big guy but I don't remember him always working stiff, whereas Adams had been working a cool semi-shooter gimmick. Adams doesn't get steamrolled or anything, he's too good for that, but it's definitely a controlling Darsow performance. They kept a lot of this real tight, as in they were scrapping in close quarters a lot, which is an awesome touch that you really weren't seeing a lot in mainstream 1999 wrestling. Darsow throws a cool right hand that I don't remember him using, and Adams grabs Darsow's arm and bends it a lot of ways while the two are standing, so you get a lot of them standing in the center of the ring working snug headlocks and wristlocks and it feels more like a  Nick Bockwinkel match in Japan than two olds wrestling in North Dakota (I had no idea WCW was running North Dakota tapings in '99, but this taping was two Saturday Nights and a Worldwide and had plenty of good matches, nice bang for your buck tapings). Darsow even gets an insanely dominant victory, winning by REF STOPPAGE after he locks in a nasty camel clutch while ripping at Adams face. The ref straight steps in and throws in the towel for Adams! God bless these shows.

Episode closes with a drunken Hak promo and he's in that hilarious to watch drunken phase of "No no no you don't understand, LISTEN." Gene is trying to corral him and Hak is wandering around stacking ladders and sighing and saying he doesn't know a wristlock from a wristwatch, and when Gene asks him about his plans he's like "Look I don't know I'm just gonna do it or whatever," while his chin is planted in his hand. Brilliant. I love that Sandman got such a great WCW run. It was only a few months, but the guy was EVERYWHERE. He made several PPVs and was on TV all the time. A major bright spot of 1999.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Saturday Night 12/19/98

1. Glacier vs. Mike Sullivan

Glacier's back! And he's still not that good, but kinda better than I remembered him being. Mike Sullivan is also back, and he is even worse than I remember him being. And I don't remember Mike Sullivan at all. Glacier was weird as he really didn't bump much, and sometimes his offense looked good and stiff, and other times his kicks looked about as good as Eric Bischoff's. Here he threw some really cool jabs in the corner on Sullivan, really odd southpaw shots to the temple that looked really cool. And then Sullivan charged out of the corner with some of the WORST babyface-on-fire punches I have EVER seen. His fist was soaring right past Glacier's head, thrown at a 3/4 slot, so that his wrist was kinda grazing the side of Glacier's neck. Bleeecccch. But he bumped real big for Glacier's kicks and stuff, so...something.

2. Kaz Hayashi vs. Hole in One Darsow

Kaz has been one of the brightest spots of these shows, looking downright top 20 in the world in everything. But here he gets to do nothing. There isn't really a match. Darsow works the stick and looks awesome in his gold gear, and is pretty funny teasing the crowd. "Who's having fun to-NIGHT!?" *tepid response* "Yeah, I wouldn't like living here that much either." Golf challenge breaks down, Darsow is DQ'd.

3. Al Green vs. Wrath

Green did...not get much offense here. Wrath looks like the best possible version of Rocky Mountain Thunder. Wrestles like him, and looks like a really juiced version of him. Same haircut, too.

4. Chris Jericho vs. Booker T

Booker T was a guy that I liked in 1998, but it's pretty shocking in retrospect how bad and sloppy he looked most of the time. He has been one of the worst things about going back and watching this stuff. It's not just that he looks lousy most of the time, it's also that he was usually one of the bigger names on any given syndicated show, so his matches would get way more time. So guys like Kaz Hayashi would get 3 minutes, while Booker would get 8. Jericho looked really great in the first half of this, really getting into position nicely for Booker, and just having an insane amount of body charisma. Jericho was me and my sister's favorite wrestler in 1998. He just slayed us and this was dead smack in the middle of the top knot/kimono/Ralphus era. He was totally killing it here until Booker gassed and Jericho locked on a chinlock. AND LORDY was it a bad chinlock. Not one part of his arm was touching one part of Booker's neck. It looked like a guy posing for a picture with his arm around his mother. That happens for awhile and then Stevie Ray runs in for the DQ. Gross.

5. Barry Horowitz vs. Kanyon

Kanyon on the stick was so money. Like a bank full of money. Crowd was way into him here, and they were way into this battle of Jewish Faith vs. Homosinuality.

6. Kaos vs. Prince Iaukea

I weirdly enjoy both of these guys, probably more than most people. Iaukea seemed like a who would get good. There was always a moment in each Iaukea match where he would have a giant bump and you'd be like "This guy is going to be awesome" but then you realized you were saying that for like 5 years. High Voltage is a guilty pleasure of mine. I admit to always marking out for their springboard moves. And that's really the best part of this match, right at the end: Kaos hits a big springboard clothesline and Iaukea leans way into it and sprawls out all nasty from it. We rewound many times. I think this Iaukea guy is going to be awesome.

7. Chris Benoit/Dean Malenko vs. Vincent/Bryan Adams

Well this match was fucking awesome. People are going to pull out the "pretending to like a shitty wrestler to sound kewl" card, but holy shit is Vincent one of the best things about this rewatch project. Dude makes total throwaway matches watchable, and he really steps up his game in bigger matches like this. He is responsible for holding this one together, actually. Benoit looked good and dished a beating, but the beating was made way more fun by Vincent stooging around the ring for him. He was really weird, in that he always seemed like he was playing a guy that wasn't really a wrestler. He's probably most similar to Stevie Richards, I guess. Neither guy really has any offense, but what they do they do really well. Vincent is such an anomaly in that I don't remember him being any good at ALL in WWF. I don't know when exactly he got good, but he is flat out awesome in '98 WCW. His control segments are great, as he dishes out tons of backrakes and clubbing blows. His clubbing blows are awesome as they aren't quite punches, aren't quite clubbering, but they land somewhere around the dudes neck/throat and look awesome. He bumps great, and always makes tagging in Adams a big deal, either by desperately scrambling to him or by cockily strutting over to take him in like "Yeah you know I was just beating your ass, now here's the big man." Match gets tons of time, gets some good nearfalls, and is a great Vincent showcase. Great stuff.

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