Found Footage Friday: R'N'R VS FOOTLOOSE~! BENITO GARDINI~! FALK~! HOUSTON~!

Benito Gardini/Al Williams vs. Cyclone Anaya/Walter Palmer NWA Chicago 5/26/50

MD: This was a delightful 27 minutes, with some clipping, but you get so much of it, you hardly care. My buddy Ohtani's Jacket got here first and said I'd love Gardini, and guess what, I do. He likened him to a 1950s Porky, and I can see that on appearance and over the top antics, but, of course, with a deep Italians stereotype. He was great at getting driven down on his face (at one point the commentary said his nose would soon be like a wet donut), at getting caught up in the ropes and on top of the ropes, jiggling along with them, at making faces, and most of all, at getting caught in crowd-pleasing heel miscommunication spots. Meanwhile, he's one of the only US based workers I've ever seen do the headspin escape out of a headscissors. Legitimately funny, great left handed body shots so he could lean on his opponent when he needed to, big bumps. Definitely a fan.

Williams was instantly credible, if only because he had tons of tattoos (commentary said he was a member of Rough and Ready, Inc. or Grief, Inc., just a real nasty character). He was game for feeding into all of the babyface offense and playing into all of the comedy spots, while still keeping a mean disposition and hitting hard, especially with forearms in the ropes. Palmer looked good with his escapes and a big forearm off the ropes but we probably saw more of Anaya who was flashy and fiery and had an abdominal stretch/cobra twist with a few variations that he'd use as a finish. This moved quickly and never wore out its welcome and I'm eager to see more Gardini.

Ricky Morton/Robert Gibson vs. Samson Fuyuki/Toshiaki Kawada AJPW 10/28/88

MD: Pretty sure that the match that has been out there previously was the 5/24/88 one that ends in a count out. This is not that. This is pretty hilarious. We've heard stories of what happened backstage between these two and I don't know about that one way or another. What I do know instead is that Morton and Gibson used their powers for evil on this night. They worked this thing like they were Jr. Versions of Brody with a little 92 Freebirds built in (the former eats the match; the latter eats the crowd). They took and they took and they took.

They really dominated for the first half, quick tags, winning rope running exchanges 80% of the time, constant appealing to the crowd with claps (which worked; the crowd was into them, Rock and Roll chants and all). More than that though, whenever Footlose did get something in, they were quick to fire back. In the second half it was somehow worse even though it should have been better. There was some nominal heat on Morton; he was always so good at using roll ups for his hope spots. He'd eat some offense, some beat down, and then give you hope of a win out of nowhere. Here, however, he used those roll ups but after every single spot done to him. It broke the flow completely in a way that made it seem like it was 50-50 and that he was never in any real trouble. The finishing stretch had some nice nearfalls but the finish itself was a bit of a banana peel with Fuyuki getting a hand up from the outside and one of the R'n'R basically running into it. They were ahead ten to one on points. Just a masterfully selfish performance. 

ER: This is the Rock n Rolls last ever match from the only Japan tours they did in the 80s. I thought this match was clean, man. I watched this match in a Portland Air BnB basement on a TV that had motion smoothing turned on (or off, whatever the bad one is that every single girl in her 30s has on the TV at her place, so when you go over and they're watching Heat or Below Deck: Australia it looks like a fucking soap opera) and I don't know if I've ever watched wrestling this way but it just might make handhelds even better. My sister watching Mandalorian and it looking like people wearing cosplay gear hanging out in a western saloon TV set didn't work for me, but feeling like I'm smack dab in the middle of this crowd on a hot tour closing night of wrestling. It's crazy that the Rock n Rolls hardly went to Japan. For a team I love more than almost any team in history, I guess I assumed Ricky was a guy working Japan more than a couple AJPW tours here, a couple FMW show there kind of guy. Because they seem perfect for Japan and now I understand why the Youngbloods and Fantastics had such sustained (and good!) runs as AJPW gaijin. 

Also, I had no idea what kind of backstage altercation there was between these teams until Matt told me something happened on one of these tours and Robert Gibson kicked Fuyuki in the face, so I thought this match was going to be worked in Bad Blood...but instead I thought this match was most notable for Robert Gibson working the entire match visibly using only one leg. Is Robert Gibson okay? Robert Gibson looked like he got roughed up and forced to wrestle one legged as humiliation, because every time he moved he was dragging his left leg straight behind him while hopping on his right. I remember seeing a 2000s AAA match where Pimpinela drug his leg the entire time and wondering if these guys are just psychos or they're the greatest salesmen in the world giving themselves a Jorgen Leth/Lars Von Trier  Five Obstructions Dogme 95 task of working a match within a personal challenge. Whatever was happening, this handheld, motion the smoothest it has ever been, had me feeling every shoulderblock and every bump, every kick, every perfectly downward angled Ricky Morton punch, the fucking 11/10 suicide dive Ricky does where his body truly feels like a weapon, this handheld had real live impact. And there was Robert Gibson, shaking his leg on the apron and trying his best not to put weight on it during his (much briefer than Ricky) in-ring interactions. That it was so exaggerated and not gone after in any way by Footloose makes it all the more jarring. Was his leg hurt and they were instructed to stay away from it? Kings Road is a style famous for exploiting shoot injuries of opponents. Years later in 2002 NOAH it felt expected that Kenta Kobashi made a big comeback after his knee injury only to have Jun Akiyama go after his knees so hard that Kobashi missed several more months with knee injuries. Is Gibson doing some kind of Teddy Hart phantom knee injury? To what gain and for what cause? Whatever, he kept it believably up for entire match without seemingly anyone else talking about it, and the match was still somehow the perfect 9 minutes of constant hard contact and no stopping for breath. The heat was up bell to bell with stiff work free from Bad Blood. Handheld wrestling is our greatest treasure. The purest presentation of the best eras of wrestling. 

Tony Falk vs. Barry Houston NWA Worldwide 5/11/00

MD: I came into this expecting Houston to bump all over the ring for Falk. We've seen enough of this Worldwide stuff to know that they didn't give away a ton on TV because they wanted people to come to the shows. Most matches didn't end in a finish. This went around ten minutes though with a commercial in the middle, and it was really Falk bumping around the ring for Houston. He'd rope run with him, would take armdrags and mares and back body drops. Of course, it was Tony Falk, so after every bump, he'd milk it, hang out with his manager, whine to the ref or the crowd, stall, and it was all highly entertaining stuff.

He'd complain about hairpulling too, which was heat-garnering since that was most of his offense through the match. Post-commercial he was in charge with a top wristlock, going to Houston's ponytail again and again. Eventually, after a Falk DDT (again nothing with a big bump), Houston started to fire back and hit one of his own. That set up a frog splash where he almost hit the ceiling. "Basket Case", being Mark Jindrak came in to take out the ref. I thought Houston was saving his bumps for Jindrak to get him over, which would have made sense, but he really only take a press up pancake before Falk leaped off the second rope at him. This had all the Falk I was expecting and more, really, but not nearly as much of those Houston bumps. From the bit of 2000 Houston I've seen, I do wonder if he wasn't working quite like he had a few years earlier.

ER: We have limited amounts of post-'99 Houston available so every match is a gift, and while I thought Houston looked like Barry Houston in this match, this was a Tony Falk show. Houston looked his most professional: His gear and body were the best he'd looked, but the window was already shut for whatever reason. He should have been given some kind of real TV role in 98/99 but it never happened to the degree we wanted, and here he is in Tennessee getting shown up by a Tony Falk who is in his early 40s, looks like he is in his late 50s, and moves like he's in his late 20s. Houston looks good, but it's also one of the few matches we have where he works "on top". We grew so accustomed to Houston bumping bigger than Kidman and leaning into beatings, that he's like a whole new wrestler when we see him work dominant. It's not bad, it's just different. 

But Tony Falk is the one who looks like a star. Well, let me rephrase that, because he looks like absolute shit. He looks like Eddie Marlin in the Cowboy Boot match had Eddie Marlin showed up really out of shape. Falk is wearing a singlet and you can tell he has just an awful body under that singlet. And yet, I was consistently surprised and impressed by how quickly he got up for everything. Falk was a real bumper here, body as bad as I've seen but speed undiminished. He took armdrags the way 1995 Barry Houston would take armdrags, went up for a backdrop, and sold punches perfectly. Houston has nice punches and Falk would bump every one of them as a one shot kill. I loved this great telegraphed missed punch Falk threw, holding up his fist, kissing it, and then of course sending it right past Houston's head. His begging off was great because it was less heel and more Tired Man. Gypsy Joe was at ringside for Houston and when Joe got involved we got our meanest punches of the match. Time to find more fat big bumping Tony Falk I guess. 

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Tennessee Indy Grab Bag

Bryan Turner has been posting some great unseen or rarely seen southern indy wrestling, and we've been diving in over the past several weeks. Even cherry picking through the best stuff, there are a lot of things he's uploaded that jump out. Here are a couple that jumped out at me today. 

Yokozuna vs. Tatanka MECW 12/99

ER: This is the last recorded match of Yokozuna's career, recorded sometime in December 1999 (two months after Heroes of Wrestling). Yokozuna didn't work many matches in his three years after WWF, and considering that, the match couldn't be edited more painfully. It being the last match of his excellent career, he was obviously at his largest. Knowing that, you'd go into this match expecting a long nerve hold spot in the middle somewhere. If you were editing a match for time to air on local TV, that would be the couple minutes you edit out. Instead, this match is joined in progress for the duration of Yokozuna's nerve hold. From commentary, you get the impression that the beginning of the match was a lot of active Yokozuna work. 

We start with him already drenched in sweat and breathing hard, and don't get to see what got him that way. It is possible the walk to the ring did all that, but we don't know. When they get standing, you can see Yokozuna still has real quick burst speed. He clearly needed constant rest, as he timed a Tatanka charge really nicely to send Tatanka crashing to the floor, and the entire time Tatanka was on the floor Yokozuna stood bent at the waist, hands on his knees, torso practically horizontal. But, when he had to shut something down or do a quick dodge, he looked surprisingly nimble. His strikes were really good. Arguably the best part of the match was Yokozuna throwing hard rights to brawl down the aisle at the end of the match. He built to his bumps well, with him not bumping (in the footage we have) until Tatanka hits a tomahawk chop off the top, but he takes two more after that one, the third rolling to the floor where this ended. You could tell that there was a great wrestler still in there who could have worked several more years without the extra 150 pounds. Of course, it's much easier said than done for any man to lose my entire literal person in weight. I sometimes think of Yokozuna still in WWF through 2002, working a whole slew of matches that we never got to see with WCW guys. What a great wrestler. 

Barry Houston vs. Jarell USWO 5/23/03

ER: I believe this is by far the latest Barry Houston we have (and the latest listed match of his that I could find), and it's not exactly the swan song a Houston fan would want to see. Barry Houston is so unlike the Barry Houston you're thinking of right now, that there is a non-zero chance this was some guy using the Barry Houston Name in front of 40 people just outside Nashville. Houston is beefy here, like when Chris Harris showed up for a week in WWE, and he shows no signs of the wrestling ability that made him a cult favorite in WCW. Jarell (graphic reads Jorell but that reads like a Planet Krypton ass name and the announcers clearly call him Jarell then whole match), looks reallll green, and is wearing just khakis and a short sleeve plaid shirt, like he just came straight from his grandparents' anniversary party. Jarell's stomach is already heaving when Houston takes him over with a side headlock to start the match. Jarell has to think  about what move to do next after any move he does, he did bad version of a couple things I like; a bad Jumbo knee lift, and raking Houston's face across the top rope. It's better that someone attempt good wrestling than bad wrestling, if it's going to look bad. Houston has a nice back elbow and clothesline, although Jarell took a bad bump for the clothesline that was so "play wrestling" that it minimized the impact a lot. A chain gets involved and Jarell throws a couple punches somewhere over Houston's head and a few inches in front of his face. Houston's punches look better and have better form, but his were only half successful. One of them was an uppercut that landed somewhere around Jarell's upper boob. I'm happy that an unseen Barry Houston match showed up, but some secrets are better left untold. 

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Non-WCW Barry Houston

Barry Houston vs. Primetime Daryl D 1998?

ER: So this was great. It appears to take place in some kind of food court, goes about 6 minutes, and has some great bumps (one of them accidental!) from both guys. Daryl D is most famous for being the corrections officer who got MVP into wrestling during his incarceration. He also has "I Wanna Sex You Up" on his tights. That's a choice in 1998, and confusingly, Barry Houston has "I Adore Mi Amor" on his. But this match is all about the bumps, and it rules for that. Houston starts us off with a sky high backdrop bump and a big spill to the shopping mall floor, but Primetime ends up accidentally outdoing him. There's supposed to be a missed corner splash, and Primetime misses...but the top rope breaks and sends him tumbling ass to elbow hard to the floor. My god that could have been bad. Houston kills time by bringing him back in and hitting a great delayed vertical suplex, and with no ropes they decide to spill to the floor (Primetime looks to take another hard - intentional - bump to the floor, but the camera mostly misses it). We build to some really fun floor brawling, and you don't get to see a ton of food court bumps, so this is special. Houston sets up some kind of moveable condiments station or trash kiosk (like a presentable square island that can comfortably house two trash cans, so people don't have to see trash cans), goes to whip Primetime into it, but gets reversed and goes flying into it the way Raven would fly into guardrails. Houston rules. There's also a big bronze statue of a rhinoceros in this food court for some reason, and Primetime gets tossed right into the horn. Houston had a bunch of nice punches, both guys get counted out, great punches continue, I leave after getting exactly what I wanted and more.

Barry Houston vs. Scott Taylor WWA 8/20/98

ER: Man these WWF Dojo shows looked cool. How often did these run? I remember reading about the WWF Dojo guys in WWF Magazine, but some shows in Salem were not going to be seen by mine teenage eyes. Only the fans in Massachusetts were getting to see those Glen Kulka and Shawn Stasiak matches. I would have to wait. And I'm not sure I ever would have made the connection had I not actually seen them working a match, but Scott Taylor and Barry Houston were very similar wrestlers. Both were great at making opponents look good, had an excellent command of basics, and had cool offense when allowed to show it. Those things are all pretty vague descriptors, but they really did wrestle similarly, with the difference being that one of them was a year away from being a huge star and the other was a year away from not wrestling anymore. Both throw nice punches, both throw nice lariats, both take hard suplex bumps, they are the pointing Spider-mans. Taylor really was great. I'm not much of a Scotty II Hotty fan (though obviously all hats off to him for making millions) but 97/98 Taylor had really matured into a great wrestler. Here he eats a big lariat and bumps to the floor, and shows off a couple of really great suplexes. Early on he hits a nice pumphandle, throwing Houston right over his head, but the gem of the match is him catching a hard Houston lariat and turning it into a trap arm belly to belly. Honestly it looked far more like something you'd see from Tamon Honda than Scott Taylor, but nobody thought Tamon Honda was cool during this era either so obviously we were all just idiots. Now we are idiots with better opinions.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Barry Houston

Barry Houston/Todd Morton vs. Terry Funk/Bunkhouse Buck WCW Saturday Night 7/16/94

ER: This was such an incredible idea that I'm quite frankly an idiot for not writing about something like this sooner. This is a pretty spectacular "What if Segunda Caida booked a random WCW tag match" lineup right here. And this is one of the greatest Barry Houston showcases we have, a long tag match that is essentially an extended Barry Houston beatdown with some nice comebacks. Todd Morton is in only for about one minute, still working his Ricky Morton underling look with his Morton mullet and bandana boots. Morton comes in, takes a couple shots from Buck, takes a great backdrop bump because that's what he does (this one doesn't have his usual height, but it takes a flipping bump the way Jannetty takes a clothesline and it's amazing, never seen a guy take a backdrop like this before), and then eats a nasty Funk piledriver. That's all we see of Morton. The rest of this tag match is Buck and Funk destroying Houston. Houston was just so damn good at eating a beating, he relegated himself to a career of eating a beating. He gets a couple fun mini comebacks, the rolling prawn hold was a solid nearfall, but it's so much of Funk and Buck just manhandling him. 

The whole thing starts with him eating a lariat right in the back of the head and goes downhill from there. Buck and Terry are so damn mean here, Funk just tosses him around and his a hard bodyslam, Bunk slams him and stomps his head, Houston takes two huge back bumps from the ring to the floor (landing with a real slap), Funk and Buck hit loud chops and slaps, Funk hits a hard shoulderblock, freaking powerbombs Houston on the floor AND gives Houston a nasty DDT on the floor....it's a freaking massacre. The finish of this is bananas: Funk drops True Man Barry Houston with THREE straight piledrivers. And Barry Houston takes a piledriver as well as ANY man who has ever taken a piledriver; Houston always whips his legs and knees towards the mat instead of keeping his body stiff like most. It really creates the illusion that his neck is snapping, just looks absolutely stomach turning. It's the perfect example of how his gift is his biggest curse: Picture Terry Funk voice saying "Barry - I like that name, sounds like my name - Barry, I remember how well you can take a piledriver. Tonight you're gonna help us out by taking three of 'em." Each one looks better than the last, and this video has a whole highlight reel after the match showing Houston taking 8 different nasty bumps. This is the match that secures Barry Houston a place in the eventual Segunda Caida Hall of Fame.

Barry Houston vs. Steve Austin WCW Worldwide 8/6/94

ER: Man this was a savage beating. Whereas the Funk/Buck tag was a total asskicking that saw Houston get a couple nice comebacks, this was 3 minutes of Austin showing just why he's an all timer. Houston gets not one split second of any kind of offense against Austin, this is just a freaking bear attack. Houston barely got a chance to breathe throughout this as Austin just fired on him the entire time. Austin backed Houston into a corner and threw a fantastic right hand to the jaw and an elbow that really used his whole body. Really every single thing Austin did in this match was with his whole body, looked like he was throwing all of his weight behind every shot. It was 3 minutes of Austin just being the meanest bully, doing everything so explosively. He drops a great knee, throws great body shots, and then does some of the meanest legwork I've seen. He spends the last 2 minutes just yanking and stomping and doing incredible butt drops on the inside of Houston's knee. The amazing thing was all of Austin's attacked looked completely worked, it didn't look like he was just stiffing the shit out of Houston, but I don't think it's possible for anybody to throw worked shots that look better than any of Austin's here. The leg work was great, every shot to the inner knee was brutal, and the stump puller figure 4 that he finished with was disgusting. God bless Houston and all he's done, but my god was this the Stunning Steve Austin show. This man was never not a star.

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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.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Worldwide 11/16/97

1. Los Villanos vs. Barry Houston/Doc Dean

Oh hell yes. I don't even need to watch. This is 8 stars. But of course I watch and it's awesome. I wanted more but was happy with the 4 minutes it went. It was cool to see Villanos as the guys squashing jobbers. I don't think it happened very often as I've seen them eke out wins, but never seen them in WCW as "well these guys are clearly going over" guys before the bell. Tony and Bobby put them over huge the whole time, with Tony actually being able to tell them apart and Brain going on about how crafty they are and how they'd be challenging for the tag titles. It's great seeing them jaw with the crowd and sneak in cheap shots from the apron. Houston you know as the lost superworker of the 90s, able to adapt to any style. It's a shame he had that chubby face and Napoleon Dynamite mouth so never got a national shot. Damn I wish some of his sessions in the WWF "Funkin Dojo" made tape. We need to make a definitive Barry Houston comp, with his WCW work, any IWA Japan work and whatever Memphis work exists. Who wants the Complete & Accurate Barry Houston?? After the win the Villanos do a bunch of stooging with the crowd, shadowboxing with each other and doing a bunch of cocky lucha tumbling post match. V4 does the worm into a headstand into a bridge and the fans are hating it. So awesome to see these guys actually treated as something important.

2. Mike Anthony vs. Steve Regal

Oh my god this was amazing! I don't think I've ever heard this match mentioned but although just 4 minutes long it's one of the most awesome Regal performances ever. If anybody needed a 5-minutes-or-less primer on why Regal is incredible this would be a perfect "greatest hits" to show them. He works a whole bunch of trippy British matwork into it and does a bunch of cool standing wristlock reversals and does all sorts of neat things like grabbing a wristlock, kicking Anthony (you've maybe seen him from his ECW run as Mike Lozansky) with yakuza kick variations, stomping his fingers, throwing brutal knees from the clinch, etc. He was just dishing all sorts of cool things and then strutting around and flexing and stooging. Anthony threw some Lance Storm-level soft offense and deserved to be clowned.

3. Jim Powers vs. Dave Taylor

Before the match they have a Dave Taylor promo/highlight package that includes a genial sit down interview that shows what a nice cool guy he is and how excited he is to be in WCW, makes a joke about how he's accomplished a lot because he's so damn old. And then we cut to his entrance where he's jawing with fans about being a better human being than them because he's British. What? Match was weird as Taylor put over Powers a bunch. Probably put over Jim Powers a bit too much, as he was Dave Taylor and he was wrestling Jim Powers. But Taylor still got to be Taylor and that's something I will always greatly love. He threw some great duplexes, and his floatover butterfly suplex finisher was epic. Also of note, Tony called him "Regal" twice in the match, and Powers threw possibly the greatest punch of his career here. I mean, I think he accidentally punched Taylor in the face, and rightfully got the shit kicked out of him for it, but it was still likely the best Jim Powers punch ever.

Yeah we got a commercial for Valtrex! You know that they should have gotten wrestlers themselves to be spokesmen for a herpes medication, but I suppose just advertising during wrestling works well enough. But seriously, what WCW contracted wrestler during this time do you think MOST needed a Valtrex prescription? I'm gonna go with Bobby Blaze, just for reasons. Dude looked like he just...got with the rattiest ring rats.

4. Bobby Eaton vs. Kevin Northcutt

I used to think Northcutt was all sorts of cool because he was an indy guy with size (my 15 year old opinions may have been affected by his PWI 500 placement). Turns out, he was just a tall tubby dude with soft offense wearing latex overalls like Willem Dafoe in Streets of Fire. This works because it's just Northcutt missing offense, followed by Eaton doing an awesome punch, followed by Bobby and Tony talking about how great Eaton's punches are. Eaton also hits his awesome knee drop from the top to end it.

5. Syxx vs. Chris Benoit

Now this was awesome. I loved Waltman when he was fast and reckless and here he bumps all over for Benoit and then Benoit returns the favor. Waltman at his lunatic best, bumping crazy through the ropes to the studio floor and then splatting again on the floor from a Benoit baseball slide (Benoit returns the favor later on Waltman's baseball slide). Hall cheats to Waltman transition by clotheslining Benoit's legs out from under him on the top rope, leading to Benoit hanging in a tree of woe while Syxx hits a nasty but non-anus busting Bronco Buster. I don't think I've ever seen him hit it that way and it looked killer. Syxx actually gets the win with his cool modified rear naked choke/crossface chickenwing. This was all so much damn fun. Everything you want in 5 minutes of pro wrestling.

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