WWF UK Rampage 93

 

I really like how Rampage 93 is filmed. It looks and sounds like an incredibly well produced handheld, capturing a neat up-close house show vibe. It's 12,000 loud people in Sheffield and the crowd and ring are mic'd like you were there live. It's a real house show card too, with tag guys split into singles and a 10 minute Brooklyn Brawler match. 

1. Fatu vs. Brian Knobbs

ER: Nasties were so over that Knobbs was able to go around the ring milking NASTY chants for two straight minutes without anyone losing interest. Knobbs was like a big fat sloppy Hogan to this crowd, and he is a pretty great fat sloppy Hogan. I love how Brian Knobbs runs the ropes like fat guy. Not a fat guy wrestler, just a fat guy. He runs the ropes like an overweight principal who gets in the ring at a school fundraiser to do a completely ill-advised spot. If your principal ran the ropes like Knobbs, you'd think he was just being fun dorky Mr. Wilson. But Brian Knobbs is like the school's weird janitor getting in the ring and running the ropes like a fat lunatic, and kids fucking love it. 

2. Doink vs. Kamala 

ER: Doink keeps wrestling Kamala to the mat and it's so damn cool. Nobody ever rushes in and grabs Kamala in a single leg and then start working half grapevine armbars on him. Doink is working Iowa shooter holds on Kamala and I don't know if I've ever seen anyone do that. Kamala falls in ways he doesn't usually fall, because nobody ever thought to work like Lou Thesz against Kamala. Doink runs into Kamala's comebacks really well, and there was a big time Kamala moment where he got sick of the armbars and just started swinging wildly on Doink as Doink scrambled to the corner. Kamala pinning Doink the wrong way took up too much of the runtime. 

3. Mr. Perfect vs. Samu

ER: Samu is so damn good during their opening rope running. He sticks every piece of Perfect's precise timing. He's the one doing the close call dropdown and leapfrog, and he's hitting them all while also working as careening out of control chubby guy. When they do more rope running he does another dropdown, then shuts it down with a cool clothesline. When Perfect gets thrown over the top to the floor, he REALLY gets thrown over the top to the floor. Perfect goes face first into the ring steps like he's trying to lose an eye. All of Samu's strikes look really powerful and Perfect bumps painfully for them, not doing big athletic bumps. His bumps to the floor were all really fast and I thought they had real complementary body language during their strike exchanges. Good rhythm. Perfect's inside cradle is a really great nearfall, but I do think they rushed to the finish. Needed a bit more build to the Perfect Plex. The whole match felt like a nice slow stiff build and then the finish was just bim bam boom. Bump to the floor, missed splash, Perfect Plex. This was all still really good, one of the best WWF singles matches of the year, but a finish that felt like part of the same match would have made it even better. 

4. Bob Backlund vs. Damien Demento

Why does it feel like I've seen half a dozen Demento/Backlund matches? Were these two just at the perfect corresponding place on the heel/face totem pole alignment, working low stakes face/heel back and forth, and there just happened to be some guy who followed WWF on tour to make sure and document several different Demento/Backlund matches with his camcorder? This is an official release obviously, but it feels like I've seen several Damien Demento/Bob Backlund matches and I'm just not sure how that's possible. They don't really have chemistry but they don't not have chemistry, they just fill about 7 minutes and it's fine, and some part of me has spent my life watching dozens of Bob Backlund/Damien Demento matches that were filmed by a Bad Dad, or perhaps the Greatest Dad. Demento took a big Berzerker bump to the floor and Backlund made a lot of great Popeye Whoa-Whoa-Whoa noises so maybe this was actually fucking great. 

5. Typhoon vs. Brooklyn Brawler

ER: What does it mean to the people of Sheffield, England, to see a man dubbed The Brooklyn Brawler? Had tales of the Brawler's Brooklyn Brawls made their way to South Yorkshire? Was Enzo Castellari's 1990: The Bronx Warriors been an underground UK hit, leading to a rising knowledge among UK teens of the various Five Borough Fighting Styles? Regardless, the people of Sheffield were treated to a real active Brawler performance, one that will no doubt be one of the great showcases of the best of his 1993, where he keeps running away from and running into Typhoon. He is great at getting leveled by Typhoon and building suspense by avoiding getting leveled, but things really jump a level when Typhoon finally misses an elbow and Brawler starts stomping his way through a really fun match. 

Brawler stomps away at Typhoon's head, stomps him right between the legs, stands on his throat, bites at his face, and stands on top of his back while Typhoon is draped over the bottom rope, surfing on him while pulling back the top rope reigns like Chris Elliot riding Melora Walters out to sea in Cabin Boy. He chokes and rakes at the eyes of a prostrate Typhoon, shouting out an amusing "Come on, that's a count!" while Typhoon's shoulders are down during the choke. This is among the longest Brawler control segments I've seen and I thought it was cool how he kept kicked at Typhoon's leg and really dominating this, keeping the big man down. When you knowingly go into a Typhoon match against Brooklyn Brawler, I don't think any of us would have expected it to be a mostly dominant Brawler performance with a quick and definitive Typhoon comeback victory right at the end. When Typhoon takes over, it is for good, and it is great. Brawler, who had been doing so well, makes the mistake of whipping Typhoon into the corner. Typhoon reverses that whip and follows Brawler in with a killer avalanche, then pulls Brawler by the arm directly into a perfect powerslam. I don't anticipate a better 1993 Steve Lombardi match from this one, but this is surely among his best matches of the 90s. 

6. Shawn Michaels vs. Crush

ER: I loved this. Anybody who ever got mad at me online for making fun of how terrible Shawn Michaels was during most of his last decade, should at least acknowledge how in the bag I am for 1993 Shawn Michaels. My 2000s and beyond criticisms come from a place of sadness, not glee. 1993 Shawn Michaels was a high speed John Tatum with better execution. He could push a pace without dropping the story at any point, was great at big momentum shifts, and knew how to work every size opponent instead of just mostly working the same match regardless. He was incredibly active but in ways nobody else was, flopping and stooging and bumping unnecessarily big, a great heel to get over the power of his opponent while looking like a joke, without ever looking like a joke. 

Crush and Michaels seemingly always had great chemistry as opponents. They have two big singles matches after this one in 1993: Their great King of the Ring Qualifier which is one of the great unheralded 5 minute matches, and their bloated but overall good IC Title match at King of the Ring, and there's a 1991 singles match on some Coliseum video or foreign Superstars airing. I wish we had more Rockers/Demolition matches or any of the 1993 Crush/Michaels house show matches to paint a fuller picture, but all the evidence we have paints them as natural opponents. 

This is the better version of the King of the Ring qualifier, as it had a much longer Crush control sequence before the great Crush ringpost bump, and more Michaels offense after his takeover. It's great. Michaels gets his ass beat in a non-stop sprint, getting pie-faced and pinballed across the ring, enough so that Heenan has to start bemoaning a Michaels title loss, and it's hilarious. 

"Can you imagine the embarrassment? 'Where did you lose your Intercontinental Title? In Sheffield?!' How could you ever live that down?"

Crush has a great way of catching a high speed Michaels in a bearhug - which Michaels escapes by throwing punches at his eye - and I love how he's able to go on bursts of matching Michaels for speed, then ends a quick moving exchange with something huge and forceful like a big backbreaker. There's an incredible press slam section where Crush walks Michaels around in full extension press for half a minute, walking him toward several sides of the ring and offering him up to the front row. When they saw how great Crush was at walking Michaels around the ring in a press slam, they really should have set up a Bam Bam/Spike Dudley spot with crowd plants, it would have played in Michaels highlight videos for the next 25 years. We'll settle for Michaels getting clotheslined over the top to the floor in the way that only 1993 Shawn Michaels was getting clotheslined to the floor. 

His comeback after a match-long beating is convincing, working smart spots to control a big man, like driving his knee into Crush's kidneys and then shoving him face first into the ringpost. Who remembered how great Crush was at taking ringpost bumps? Every one that he's taken in his Michaels matches has been Lawler-level great. The finish of this one is a less satisfying "Michaels just leaves" fuck finish than the KOTR Qualifier double count out, but I was really getting into the way Michaels was wearing Crush down after the ringpost bump. He just keeps coming off the ropes with axe handles until Crush gets dropped to all fours, then he comes off the ropes with an elbowdrop to the back of his neck. With an actual finish, this becomes one of the 10 best WWF matches of 1993 WWF. 

7. Lex Luger vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan 

ER: Jim Duggan was such a megastar in 1993 that he was able to drape himself in the American flag and lead the Sheffield Arena in loud USA chants. This was just a couple months after Duggan was the first person to knock Yokozuna off his feet, a moment I loved but wouldn't have thought that it would have a huge impact across the pond. Yokozuna had done an in-ring promo before this match and lingered at ringside the whole match, and when Luger's entrance music hit he was announced as "The NarCISSus" Lex Luger. Like the flower, not like the Greek myth. But they are merely afterthoughts, because the place comes unglued when Duggan's music hits. This is a 12,000 strong crowd and Duggan is wearing his USA singlet and USA kneepads, and gets the entire crowd to chant USA. Can you even entertain the IDEA of a foreign crowd chanting USA at a WWE show any time during the past 20 years?? You'd think this was in Alabama, not Yorkshire. USA chants. Loud. What a different time. Luger might as well have not even been in the ring. 

Luger works this as a stooge for Duggan, bumping around for Duggan's running clotheslines and playing into spots like trying to smash Duggan's head into the turnbuckles, only to have it reversed. Duggan was treated like Hogan and it was like I was watching this match from some weird alternate timeline. 1993 Duggan's appeal to live crowds was undeniable. 1993 Luger is a far better wrestler than Duggan, but Duggan would have drawn a far bigger number than Luger with a PPV match against Yokozuna. These two work the loosest match I've seen in 1993 WWF, leaning out of every clothesline and every strike, and it didn't matter an ounce. This was a Rick Reuschel/Mark Buehrle soft contact battle and it completely worked for the live crowd. Yokozuna sits down on Duggan's chest out on the floor and rolls him back in the ring, and there's a great show closing segment when Mr. Perfect runs out to start beating on Luger before Duggan can be pinned. As loud as the crowd was for Duggan, they react to Perfect as if he was the biggest name on the show (which was true, so that checks out). The main thing this match accomplished was making me genuinely want to see a Luger/Yoko vs. Duggan/Perfect tag match, which is a match they set up perfectly here and then never mentioned it again. All they did was run Luger/Perfect and Yoko/Duggan singles matches the rest of the tour. It's wild how many interesting workrate and fan service matches they left on the table during this era. 

Go out of your way to watch this for the great Samu/Perfect and Michaels/Crush matches, and a total surprise in Brooklyn Brawler/Typhoon. 

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WWF Superstars 2/27/93: Three Maulings and an Under 5 Minute Classic

1. Yokozuna vs. Brian West

ER: This started with Brian West getting run right fucking over with one of Yokozuna's greatest clotheslines, and things didn't get any better for him. Yokozuna had two minutes to look like an unstoppable physical force, and he did it without breaking a sweat. He looked amazing in his white tights and black mawashi, and Brian West looked disgusting in his inverted singlet. West gets his ass kicked pillar to post while wearing a singlet where the straps go on the inside of the nipples. You never want to be out there in a dickey singlet top while a 500 pound man is throwing punches and headbutts at you. When the coroner is having your family identify the body, you don't want to be wearing something as stupid as Brian West. Yokozuna's legdrop is a thing of all time wrestling beauty: the form, the impact, the way he rolls off, the impressive safety of it all. He throws West with his belly to belly and sets up the banzai splash perfectly, running into West with another clothesline that drops him on his back, right into position. This was Yokozuna working with Terminator efficiency. Imagine a 500 pound Terminator chasing a kid through an arcade. Different ballgame. 

2. Nasty Boys vs. Mark Ming/Jim Gorman

ER: You always see people talk about the bad luck of showing up to your job duty and finding out you were opposite the Steiners, and that's valid. But the Nasty Boys are right there with them for most unfortunate gig worker opponent. Sometimes Knobbs and Sags show up with a literal lip licking intensity and desire to beat a couple guys up. It usually isn't unprofessional, and this match wasn't either. But there are levels of "professional" and a lot of them don't include elbowing a guy in the eye socket to start a Saturday morning. Maybe Mark Ming is a master salesman. There are several examples of Mark Ming doing weekend job work and maybe it would be worthwhile to examine his selling in those matches. So maybe Knobbs pulled his shot and Ming's selling is just so good that he slumped into the middle rope looking like a man who suddenly feared for his safety and was not expecting to be hit in the eyeball on this day. 

Knobbs looks so excited to beat Mark Ming's ass that he really had one of his best back alley ass kicking performances here, just a couple months before the Nasties' WWF exit. There are a lot of guys on this 1993 roster who are really busting their asses and wreaking hell on jobbers before the major spring roster transition. I love when the Nasty Boys throw out all civility and just fall on guys. Knobbs and Sags each do elbowdrops in this match that are real asshole older brother elbowdrops. They are big guys who just flop full weight onto other guys, leaping off one bed and onto the other with no regard for their younger brother or their bed frames. Sags hits an elbowdrop off the top so crushing that I would have rather had a couch thrown onto me. There's a shot of Knobbs standing on the apron at one point, leaning forward on his tippy toes over the top rope, wide eyed in almost childlike glee, licking his lips while Sags beat some dude's ass, and that shot kind of sums up the Nasty Boys. What's the proper term for an occasionally annoying asshole? Ask Rob Dibble or Norm Charlton. 

3. Doink vs. Big Boss Man

ER: This match is insane. It's Boss Man's last taped match of this WWF run, and it's a generous performance that helped Doink look like a very real threat. There's an alternate timeline 1993 where Vince doesn't panic after Hogan's long-forecast exit, and held steady through the year with Bret/Crush/Tatanka/Perfect/Duggan as the top babyfaces, and Yokozuna/Luger/Doink/Bigelow/Razor as the top heels, and every single person would have been better for it. Crush's feud with Doink killed his potential big run, but that's on WWF for unnecessarily keeping both men mired in it for half the year. If Luger stays heel, Crush slams Yokozuna, and Doink continues working amateur shootstyle matwork against guys 100 pounds heavier than he, THEN you have a promotion with a thriving summer. Heel Doink was an incredible role that Matt Borne played to perfection. People fondly remember the series with Mr. Perfect, the PPV gem against Bret, and weekend gems like his technical sprint with Bob Backlund, but I think this match against Boss Man was Borne at his aggressive bulldog matwork best. It being Boss Man's last WWF TV match for 5 years, and how dominant Doink was at the front end, looked like they were destroying Boss Man at his going away party. But the comeback came and showcased how at his best Boss Man was always just Dustin Rhodes, if Dustin was carrying an extra 100 pounds. I mean I don't remember Black Reign being anywhere near as good as Boss Man, but in theory.

Doink hits Boss Man upside the head with a cardboard box, which we are lead to believe was loaded, but either way Boss Man sells a box across the head as if someone cheap-shotted him with a pipe. It was almost shocking how dominant Doink was, but after a win over Tugboat and his mauling of Boss Man, this was the time to show how Doink could dismantle an opponent of any size. As I said up top, this match is insane. You don't often get to see a guy dressed up like a Spirit Store policeman working shootstyle amateur matwork with a clown, so this match had a deranged "technical street fight breaks out at a southern states Halloween party" feel to it. Doink twisted Boss Man's neck into a neckbreaker and dragged him to the mat with a drop toehold, then worked his legs into a fought for STF. It's so surreal watching a man in slightly rubbed off clown makeup work snug hammerlocks and half nelson grapevines against a man as large as Boss Man, and there's a moment where Doink traps Boss Man's arm and shoot turns him into a pin like he was Jack Brisco. Doink even plants him with a high back suplex and a tremendous fireman's carry takedown into an armbar! Doink completely eliminated the size difference while in control, making it look like Boss Man couldn't break these holds or stop these takedowns even if he knew they were coming. 

But Boss Man's comeback is believable and loudly received, as he press slams Doink off the top and goes on a real tear. I love when Boss builds speed and hits the ropes harder and harder, pushing the pace and throwing punches the entire time. He thunders into Doink with a corner clothesline and throws heavy corner punches, short uppercuts under the chin, a big boot, and slides to the floor with an uppercut after using his weight to see if he could break the ropes with Doink draped over them. Does the Georgia lawman get green spray paint sprayed into his eyes at the finish? Yes, but this was a fucking fight and it deserved to end dirty. 1993 Boss Man still had so much left in the tank. In his last couple weeks under contract he worked house show singles matches against Flair and Lawler, which I wish we had. We left a lot of fun potential Boss Man matches on the table that year, but in exchange we got the All Japan run that was probably the biggest gift his career gave us. Watch this match immediately.

4. The Narcissist Lex Luger vs. Jim Powers

ER: Luger and Powers matched up several times in short WCW singles matches a few years after this, Luger a major babyface and Powers with 40 extra pounds of muscle. Their March 1997 WCW match was their best competitive match, an entertaining babyface vs. babyface match. This one is a totally different dynamic obviously, with Luger as a freshly debuted top heel and Powers a babyface who was mostly working house shows. Powers looked like early career Rick Martel here, and four years later he looked like an American Gladiator.  Luger's work as the Narcissist was far and away the best work he ever did in WWF. His offense never looked better, his timing was better utilized, and it was a much more natural fit. He looked more at home taking apart Jimmy Powers in 90 seconds than he did in any 90 seconds of his All American Lex run. Powers was given some good offense in their 1997 encounters, but in 1993 it was all Luger, and he had a tight 90 seconds of material. 

I loved how they started this with Luger flipping out over Powers stealing a pose in his trifold mirror, blindsiding him with an awesome lariat and never letting up. He beats Powers up, and Luger is cool when he's smugly beating people up. He throws Powers chest first into the turnbuckles and lifts him high up for a back suplex, and the bionic forearm he hits would look like one of the sickest match finishers of 2022. Whoever was in production realized this, and we got to see that elbow from several different angles. Luger got up a real head of steam to hit the killshot, and it's a moved that looks as good in real time as it does in slo motion. The best slo mo replay showed Luger holding that elbow in tight to his body, fist to ear, Powers bumping it at the last possible split second. We got robbed of a two year Narcissist run, for nothing. Doctors get in the ring to attend to Powers after the match, Powers selling like he was knocked cold. They could have had Luger murdering men like this all year and built to a huge Bret/Luger title match at Summerslam. What might have been. 

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An Exhaustingly Exhaustive Review of WWF Royal Rumble 1/24/93, Pt. 2

Bret Hart vs. Razor Ramon

ER: Another great match. Perhaps too long, but still a great match. The first 75 minutes of the show is one of the best 75 minute stretches of wrestling you'll find in any era of WWF. A couple pieces could have been placed differently, and the crowd gets weirdly restless in the middle (maybe burned out by too many closely strung together nearfalls? I don't know). This starts with a great opening punch exchange, and Razor never got enough credit at the time for his punches. I'm not sure who else could even make the claim to a better whipping right hand in this era, or any era. Razor's punch doesn't allow much wiggle room and requires a lot of moving parts, and I don't know who threw a similar punch better. Also, Razor and Bret are both great stomp punchers. Razor throws those long rights, whips Bret hard into the turnbuckle, and Bret takes just a classic back first bump into them, making it look almost as violent as his classic chest first bump always looks.  

Hart takes over by working over Razor's leg, kicking it out from under him a few times while holding onto his other leg, slamming it into the ringpost, and it's the only part of the match that feels incomplete or misplaced. It never really leads anywhere, Razor doesn't sell the knee, and I don't think you really needed a leg work segment to set up the Sharpshooter finish 12 minutes later. You can just win with the Sharpshooter, you don't need leg work. Now Razor working over Bret's ribs is much more interesting, and it starts with Razor reversing an Irish whip by jamming a kitchen sink knee into things, then whips Hart low into the corner. Bret slides across the mat ribs first and gets wrapped around the ringpost, and the ribs give Razor a cool focal point for the rest of the match. We DO get Bret going hard chest first to the buckles and we realize, yes, the Bret chest first turnbuckle bump IS the definitive violent corner bump. This particular one is one of Bret's best versions, and think of how many matches that covers. I don't know how Bret's arms didn't go completely numb after hitting the buckles. He ran full speed into them like he couldn't see them and had no idea they were there, and then fell backwards, rigid, to the mat. Most match finishes do not look as nasty as Bret running into the buckles. 

We get a lot of Razor working on Bret with his abdominal stretch, stomps, a stiff shoulderblock, and his always nice fallaway slam. Bret's big comeback from all of that is big, with Razor taking a high  backdrop bump to the floor and then Hart nailing a full body tope (with a couple of sneaky mounted punches thrown in after the landing). They work in a lot of momentum shifts down the stretch, which were all handled well but might have benefitted from one or two of them being dropped. Still, it lead to some classics, including proof that Bret might be the only person who can make the jump off the middle buckle into someone's boot actually look damaging and not silly, and the way he crumbles after hitting it is an incredible sell. It also helps that he hits his Hitman elbow off the middle rope so actually has a reason to be leaping off it into a boot in the first place. The match really should have ended with Bret wriggling out of what surely would have been a match finishing Razor's Edge to trap Razor with a backslide. Nothing that came after was necessary, and the finishing itself came off a little clunky (even with Razor grabbing onto the ropes and Earl Hebner's pant leg to desperately stop the Sharpshooter. Pulling a backslide out of the jaws of a Razor's Edge would have kept Razor stronger, and the backslide looked like a finish (most of the crowd bit hard at the late kickout). Still, even with my criticisms this felt like the 2nd best match on a card with four strong matches. 

Lex Luger debuts as Narcissus in an awkward segment where really nothing at all works. They have the trifold mirror set up in the entrance way, but Luger's gear covers up a lot of his body so you can't even see what all the fuss is about. And there IS fuss. Luger poses to an obstructed view while Heenan lavishes such praise over his body that it nearly approaches Power and Glory workout video levels of uncomfortable. My favorite part was when Heenan drooled over Luger's thighs. "Yes! Look at yourself! Enjoy yourself, Narcissus! Look at his thighs!!!"

The Rumble Match

This is a really really good Rumble, with the only flaw being that it is TOO LONG. It has a great first half and almost felt like a love letter to fans of the territories, as it was front-loaded with several different world and regional champs and that early star power felt big. Within the first 10 entrants we had Flair, Backlund, Dibiase, Lawler, Tenryu and Perfect. Flair and Backlund start it off, and neither Monsoon or Heenan talk about what a historic showdown it legitimately was. When you think of early 80s WWF champ, you think Backlund; When you think of early 80s NWA champ, you think Flair. As best I know, this is the only recorded footage of these two facing each other. There was an early 80s "title unification" match at the Omni but I don't think footage of that was ever shown on TV. So you get a fairly decent chunk of a Flair/Backlund match, years later than you would have wanted it, but they work it like an actual match (as opposed to spending the time trying to lift a guy's leg over the ropes). Papa Shango interrupts as the 3rd entrant but gets disposed of immediately, so we get a 4 minute Backlund/Flair match, and that's pretty neat. Now, Backlund was in this Rumble for over an hour, but I thought he looked pretty bad during at least his first half hour, and 1993 Backlund had a ton of weird timing issues. It often felt like Backlund was purposely trying to throw off his opponents' timing during this run, but he doesn't seem the type to do that. 

The two major standouts of this Rumble are Flair and Lawler. They're each in for just 15-20 minutes but their activity and execution and sheer knowledge of how to work a great Rumble is unparalleled. Flair must have had a running bet to see how many eye pokes he could fit in to his run, as he cuts off every single spot with an eye poke and it's incredible. My favorite was right after Max Moon came in and hit a fiery babyface sequence, and Flair tapped him on the shoulder and poked him in the eyes before just walking off. Lawler looked amazing during his whole run, punching everyone in sight and selling even better, getting into battles with guys we never got to see him battle (like Lawler/Backlund, or Lawler/TENRYU! Just the idea of a Lawler/Tenryu singles match makes me angry that they were even in the same ring and it didn't happen). Lawler has an awesome moment with Max Moon, where Max hits his nice corner spinning heel kick on Lawler, goes for it again and eats a huge backdrop bump to the floor. Huge bumps to the floor were one of the great things about this Rumble as I'd say 2/3 of the eliminations were dangerous bumps or bad landings, and that's an insanely high percentage. Also, Lawler has these incredible lowrider car show screen printed tights. Perfect targets Flair and Lawler and anything those three do with and against each other is gold, and if you want to talk about disgusting eliminations then you have to talk about Lawler and Perfect. 

Lawler takes the highest elimination bump of the match, getting launched by Perfect, and then immediately cashes in that receipt. Dibiase and Koko start shoving Perfect over, and Lawler begins yanking him by the head, really making it look like Perfect was desperately trying to hold on to that bottom rope, turning it into a really violent elimination. Referees are trying to pull Lawler away, guys in the ring are shoving Perfect, and Perfect hangs on to the bottom rope as long as humanly possible. It's, ahem, perfect. Knobbs, Skinner, and Samu have really memorable 3 minute runs, and you need a few high end crash and burn guys to make a Rumble good. Knobbs got a huge crowd reaction and had a real fired up run, Skinner came in like a dangerous potato throwing asshole, and Samu came in throwing headbutts. They all took tremendous bumps to elimination, with Samu's maybe the most dangerous. Undertaker had come out midway through (hilariously right as Lawler was headed back through the curtain, and Lawler gives Undertaker a wide berth) and he eliminates Samu by setting him on the top rope and shoving him hard, Samu flipping onto the apron on his head before going to the floor. Berzerker was fun during his 5 minutes, but with a guy who can eat up that much of the ring you hope for more than 5 minutes. I loved how, when Berzerker entered the ring, he went around the ring literally hitting every single person in the match. He didn't focus on anyone (until following Backlund to the floor and hitting him with a chair) but instead just stomped and clubbed his way through everyone. Koko also had a good run, building off 10 year feuds by going after Lawler while gleefully hiking up his gigantic High Energy windbreaker pants. 

The halves of the match are really clearly divided, as the ring needs to be fully cleared so Giant Gonzalez can debut and attack the Undertaker. I liked the Gonzalez debut, even though they never actually learned how to film him. When a guy is *actually* 8 feet tall, you don't need to film him from the floor up. He's the tallest man in pro wrestling history! Show him from far away so you can see how much larger he is than anything else in the arena! When you shoot him ground up it just makes him look like a normal guy, albeit a normal guy wearing a fur and muscle suit.  The problem is, since you had to clear the ring for that angle, and you front loaded the Rumble with most of the best workers, you're left with IRS, Damien DeMento, and Backlund when the smoke clears. It takes quite awhile to build any of that lost momentum back, with even a Natural Disasters Explode moment feeling tepid. Earthquake went right after Typhoon with no explanation, eliminated him, and then it was never mentioned again (Earthquake was gone at the end of the month and worked WAR for the rest of the year). 

Carlos Colon comes out fairly late, but it's really weird because he clearly belonged in the first half of this when it felt like they were legitimately trying to bring in a ton of regional champs. What would Carlos Colon even mean to a 1993 WWF audience? Also, you better believe Monsoon referred to the 45 year old Colon as a youngster after both he and Heenan had spent the entire match using Backlund's age 43 as a negative against him.  I would love a show of hands at the Arco Arena to find out how many in attendance knew anything about Carlos Colon. They had him announced for the Rumble several weeks before the match, but had only showed a picture of him during Mean Gene's Rumble previews, no footage or anything. It would have been far more valuable to see Colon throwing punches and headbutts at Lawler, Tenryu, and Flair; instead we get to see a lot of Colon against Damien DeMento, which is weird! Tatanka was by far the most exciting worker of the 2nd half of this, and his chops in the corner were thrown with more force than any Flair chop. 

Bob Backlund is 28th elimination, going past the hour mark and getting the most mixed reaction of the match. For the first half hour the crowd audibly hated him, but the longer he stayed in the more the crowd seemed to be pulling for him. When he was eliminated I genuinely could not tell if the loud reaction was applause for him making it that far, or relief that Backlund was not going to be in the main event of WrestleMania. The finish run is Macho Man vs. Yokozuna, which was better than I remembered, but the execution of the finish is as bad as I remembered. They work a 5 minute singles match as the final two, and it's good. Savage gets Yokozuna reeling with axe handles, Yokozuna hits a great thrust kick, Savage fights back, and eventually hits the big elbow. And then Savage pins Yokozuna...in the Rumble...and Yoko kicks out, sending Savage over the top to the floor. I kinda get it, I guess? The pinfall attempt just looks stupid and makes Savage look like a total dweeb, but I guess I can buy that the two of them had been one on one so long at the end that Savage went into Singles Match Mode. But that elimination? One man just cannot press a man from his back, over the top rope, and make it look like anything other than a man jumping over the top rope. Savage does as well as possible in that situation, but surely we could have figured out a better way for Yokozuna to eliminate Macho Man. This Rumble is way too long and dips hard for a bit in the middle, but that first half has some of the best work in Royal Rumble Match history and that alone makes this one of the best Rumbles, warts and all. 

This feels like one of the best WWF PPVs and it's weird that it doesn't get discussed as such. I thought every match was a varying degree of great, with the Rumble Match itself being too long and having too much deadweight but still succeeding due to a lot of hard work from the entrants. Lawler, Flair, Perfect, Dibiase, and several guys who were only in for 3 minutes all had great showings, and it had some of the nastiest elimination bumps of any Rumble. The other 4 matches are great in their specific way, and I think it's important that they all accomplished something very different, all felt very different. The opening tag is one of the great WWF tags of the 90s, Michaels/Jannetty had a better match at a house show the day before (and a much better match a few months later on Raw) but still delivered here, the big boys fight was fast paced and fun, and Hart/Razor gave us a Bret singles match that we rarely saw (they had two PPV matches and to my knowledge no other singles matches that made tape). This was a great show. Every single match is recommended. 

Best Matches: 

1. Beverly Brothers vs. Steiners

2. Bret Hart vs. Razor Ramon

3. Big Boss Man vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

4. The Rumble Match

5. Shawn Michaels vs. Marty Jannetty

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WWF Handheld Boston Garden 1/9/93

Our brave director missed the Crush/Skinner match that I really would have wanted to see, and also missed out on the Terry Taylor/Jason Knight match (which feels like a really weird match to be happening on a 1993 WWF house show), but managed to get the rest of the show:

Most of the Show

The Nasty Boys vs. Money Inc. 

ER: I was never a big Nasty Boys guy, but I think I might really like babyface house show Nasty Boys? Their face run was only about 6 months at the very end of their WWF run, but the Boston crowd being loudly into them and believing a title change could happen really made this match. It was a simple tag that didn't really have a lot of offense but built to a couple of very clever moments. Dibiase was good at running control, and things settled nicely into Money Inc. keeping Sags away from Knobbs by working over his back. Sags got knocked to the floor, got his back driven into the turnbuckles several times, had his back worked over with bearhugs from both guys, and the longer it went the more fans wanted to see Knobbs. There were two very unexpected beats in the match, cool ideas that Knobbs executed perfectly. 

We get an actual Nasty Boys pinfall that looks like a surprised house show title switch. Sags and Dibiase collided and both went down, referee included. Knobbs, instead of dragging Sags closer for the tag, just drags Sags out of the ring, wakes up the ref, and pins Dibiase. Crowd loses their minds, Jimmy Hart is on the apron freaking out, and of course the match gets restarted. Later in the match, Dibiase is still wearing down Sags, has him locked in a sleeper, and Sags is already down on his knees unresponsive. The ref lifts Sags' arm  twice and drops it lifelessly back down, and as the arm is getting lifted a third and final time Knobbs just sprints into the ring straight at Dibiase, who drops the sleeper to focus on Knobbs *just* before Sags arm would have dropped for the third time. The timing on the spot was excellent, and without the timing it would have looked bad for everyone involved. Sags' arm was clearly going down for a third time and if Knobbs was late it would have looked like an awful botched kickout. Instead, the visual was awesome, with Knobbs charging in and immediately taking the focus off the split second from loss Sags, who drops straight to the mat in a heap, no longer being held up by the ref or Dibiase. It's wild hearing a crowd of children chanting "NASTY! NASTY!" but these kids fucking love getting nasty. There's a good nearfall for the Nasties with a nice pin break by Dibiase, and just as we're about to see Sags get his revenge (awesomely dragging IRS up to a seated position by his necktie) Dibiase bashes him with the Halliburton to retain. My brain never thinks of the Nasties as a babyface team, but I really liked the vibes here. 

Undertaker vs. Papa Shango

ER: I love the theatricality of 1993 Undertaker, reaching back practically to the mat just to throw his big uppercuts, and I love how far Papa Shango bumps for them. Undertaker threw hard stomach kicks (never think of 1993 Taker when I think of great stomach kicks, but he throws them with a great downward angled shove) and some Kent Tekulve release point uppercuts, and this is almost entirely Shango bumping around for everything Taker does. I kept wondering if Shango was going to go on offense at all after Taker misses an elbowdrop as Shango rolled out of the way, but when Papa Shango  got up he walked right into a hotshot. I think my favorite part of the match was Shango bumping that hotshot all the way across the ring, winding up with his boots over the bottom rope. Papa Shango finally does take over on the floor (after maybe hitting Undertaker with the urn or his top hat or something in the corner) and hits Taker with a chair, then drops a couple nice elbows in the ring, finally gets to throw punches of his own (nice ones, too), and lands hard on his butt after a missed legdrop (great timing too, with Undertaker sitting up to avoid it). Undertaker powers up to his feet from a chinlock and hits a Stone Cold Stunner, which was not a thing I was expecting. The match wrapped up a little too simply after a Taker chokeslam, but I really liked the moments where you really got a sense of how large both guys were while slugging it out.  

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Typhoon

ER: This was an awesome Bigelow house show performance, and one of the best Typhoon singles match performances I've seen. They do a few things I wasn't expecting, and kept managing to surprise the people recording the show with cool exchanges (yet didn't get them to stop complaining about the lack of "highspots"). It starts with Bigelow being unable to budge Typhoon with shoulderblocks, so he tries a running crossbody and gets caught WAY high up by Typhoon and then planted with a front slam. Typhoon catching, holding, and slamming Bam Bam felt like a really big spot to go to so early in the match, and honestly felt like something they could have used as the finish. They work some surprisingly quick exchanges, with the best being Bigelow missing a hard charge chest first into the corner and getting slammed, then rolling to dodge a Typhoon elbowdrop, getting to his feet and dropping a headbutt, only to faceplant when Typhoon rolls out of the way. Great stuff. They tussle a bit, and Bigelow grabs Typhoon by the waist and flings him forward into the bottom buckle, and let me say that I LOVE when someone gets grabbed by their waistband and yanked into something and more people need to do that now. 

Bigelow tries to hold Typhoon down and work a front chancery, but in a wild spot Typhoon powers up and attempts a vertical suplex, but Bigelow shifts his weight and lands on Typhoon. It looked really dangerous and almost like Typhoon dropped Bigelow, but Bigelow went for the pin so quickly that it had to be the actual plan. Bigelow really bumps around for Typhoon, getting whipped hard into the buckles a few times and getting flattened when he tries to slam Typhoon and Typhoon just drops on him. Typhoon ran wild with lariats (including a big corner lariat), and really my only gripe is how sudden and tidy the finish is, with Typhoon catching boot on a charge and then Bigelow hitting the top rope headbutt. They really just went home with it and the match really could have soared with a Typhoon kickout and a couple extra minutes. Still, this match delivered and really showed the kind of impressive stuff Bigelow was doing when the TV cameras weren't watching. 

60 Minute Iron Man: Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair

ER: I have never actually watched any of the house show Iron Man Bret matches. I am a huge Bret fan, a guy whose work so far holds up better than almost all of his contemporaries, and huge iron man matches against Flair and Owen have existed on tape since before an old tape trader like me had ever traded on tape. However, the Bret/Shawn iron man match is one of the worst Great Matches in history, an opinion that is far less controversial today than it was 20 years ago. I can't imagine there is a Bret match in existence that I would not watch before watching that WrestleMania main event again, and that alone has probably been the main reason that - until now - I have never seen the other available Bret iron man matches. It's far easier - and more interesting - to see how many 8-15 minute gems Bret had with literally every member of the WWF roster over a decade plus stretch, than spending 60 minutes on one potential gem. But here we are, no turning back now. We've reached the monster at the end of the book. 

One thing this match has over the 1996 match is how bizarre it is that it even happened. 1993 WWF was focused directly at the eyes of 8-12 year olds. A match *guaranteed* to go an entire hour is the literal last thing 8-12 year olds would want to see at a pro wrestling show, and I imagine there were some parents who got dragged to a wrestling show against their will who suddenly found themselves faced with a full hour of one wrestling match. Shows what I know, as over the course of this hour long match the crowd only got louder, only hated Flair more, and only rooted harder for Bret. This match really blows up the theory that people were leaving the Shawn/Bret match in droves because they "just weren't ready for a match that was advertised to be an hour long". I assumed that old talking point would apply here, but the crowd interest did not dip the entire match, growing loud for all if Bret's comebacks but staying invested during limb work and submissions. I would love more insight into the mindset of running this gimmick at house shows, seeing it succeed, and then not ever using the stipulation for a Coliseum Video taping. 

This was a strongly built 60 minute match that felt shorter than its one hour, which is a strong point in its favor. The first 30 was simple house show work, strong body selling from both, and the kind of attention to crowd work that you'd expect. Bret even started things chippier than normal, slapping Flair to break in the corner, which I thought was notable as Flair had done nothing untoward to earn that slap. I could just hear Jesse Ventura griping about this on commentary. There's strong work around hammerlocks, with Flair wrenching one in before reaching down and picking Bret's ankle to loud WHOOOOOS. The pro-Flair contingent was quite loud through the first 20 minutes, never really turning on him but eventually getting drowned out by the louder pro-Bret fans. Flair is good about begging off in good spots peppered into this hour, with the first (and maybe my favorite) when they go back to standing hammerlock exchanges and Flair snaps Bret to the mat by pulling his hair, but backpedals quick when Bret kips up immediately. Bret had some great selling around being whipped into the turnbuckles, but not from his usual chest first bump (which came much later). Flair had taken over with stomach kicks and whips, and Bret hit the buckles and slowly dropped to his knees like his arms went temporarily numb. Bret had small touches like that through the entire match, and it felt like Flair's selling was stronger as well (and I've seen plenty of long Flair matches where that gets thrown out the window). 

Flair works a long hammerlock with his feet on the middle rope, really milking the rope cheating to get the crowd out and angry. Heenan would intentionally cause a disturbance on the floor, and whenever Earl Hebner would go quiet him down not only would Flair continue using the ropes to cheat, but he would rake at Bret's eyes. Flair did all the tricks really well, making sure the ropes shook just enough when he would remove his feet, enough for Earl to be suspicious but not enough to get him to actually do anything.  Flair threw chops in the corner and Bret came firing out with great right hands, backing Flair into a different corner and climbing the buckles for 10 count punches, only for Flair to drop Hart with an inverted atomic drop so impactful that I have to assume Bret was working this iron man match with Iron Balls. Fantastic atomic drop. Bret finally takes over when he rolls out of the way of a Flair elbowdrop, gives Flair a big backdrop, and starts working a figure 4 to loud cheers. Flair made it to the ropes and Bret took him right back to the mat with a nice vertical suplex and middle rope Hitman elbow, then went back to the figure 4. Flair wisely goes back to Hart's eyes, and Flair going to the eyes was something that got played up the entire match, always the thing Flair could reliably go back to, always a thing that would make the crowd angrier every time it happened. After raking Bret's eyes, Flair was a real asshole and threw headlock punches right into the eye he snagged (and would hold the headlock so the punch to the eye was obscured from Hebner's view). 

They manage to do a great job shifting the momentum of this match very believably, with neither guy in control for too long and all the transitions being simple things that made sense (and most of Flair's transitions back to offense were from eye rakes). There's a great sequence where Flair nails his big kneedrop and comes up limping theatrically, but still goes for another only to miss, and find himself right back in the figure 4. Bret works a legbar and a couple rolling leg snaps, but Flair tosses him through the ring ropes by yanking on his waistband (see Bigelow/Typhoon from earlier). Bret makes it back in with a sunset flip but Flair stays on his feet walking backwards alllllllll the way to the other side of the ring, then uses the ropes for stability as he punches Bret to break, eventually leading to a huge delayed back suplex (I love when Flair works suplexes into his game). Flair seems in control but Bret gets the surprise first pin after an Irish whip and missed clothesline allows him to get a very slick O'Connor Roll around 27 minutes in.

Flair begs off and gets a cheap 1 count to restart, but nicely counters a Bret side headlock with a nasty knee breaker, then starts tugging on Bret's leg like he wants that leg separated from Bret's hip. If you wanted to rip a man's leg clean off his body, I don't see it looking much different than what Flair was doing to Bret here. Flair worked a figure 4, eventually getting Bret to tap around the 35 minute mark when Flair grabbed the middle rope for leverage. Great - possibly unintentional - when Bret taps out on Hebner's knee, but then grabs Earl's leg right after to try to get him to notice Flair holding the ropes, tripping Hebner and giving Flair time to get off the ropes undetected. Bret is great at selling the leg, bumping and crumbling in fine ways as Flair throws pointed kicks right at the patella before, locking in another figure 4 to draw ANOTHER tap less than 3 minutes after the prior tap. It's real smart psychology to go right back to a submission that just got you the fall in an iron man, but it's not often you actually see someone getting a logical tap like this and I loved that they did it to put Flair up 2-1.

Flair drapes Bret's leg over the middle rope and throws kneelifts into his inner knee and thigh, drops him hard with a headlock punch, and I love how Bret takes hard drops from corner punches the way a 1968 French Catch babyface sells uppercuts in the corner, falling with one limb draped over a rope, looking like a man who is actively being aided by the ropes. We get a nice throwback to early in the match when Bret fires back with punches from the same corner of the ring where he first tired of Flair's bullshit, leading Flair to hit another knee breaker. Bret absorbs the knee breaker and feels it, but as he's bumping the knee breaker he manages to grab Flair's head of hair and smash him with a headbutt, sending Flair down to the mat with him. They have a nice punch out and Flair gets whipped upside down into the buckles, runs the length of the apron to the top rope, gets caught with a punch to the stomach on his axe handle attempt, then dropped with a vertical suplex. Flair working with a lead is a fun thing, as he starts cheating in different ways while still keeping the classics, and a Flair mule kick gets a great angry reaction from the now loud Bret crowd. There's a firm denial to Hebner, but that mule kick to Bret's iron balls will not be enough to go up 3-1. Flair starts going for a bunch of quick falls, and there's a great bit where he has his legs over the middle buckle while going for four straight pins, Hart nudging his shoulder up each time, and this crowd is getting tired of all of this rope cheating. 

They fight over a real solid backslide that looks like it could tie things up, and as Hart bears in on Ric in the corner after the kickout, Flair does the most cool, casual, perfect eye poke you've ever seen, strutting out of the corner past Bret and his closed up eyes. Bret just stormed up to him and Flair poked him in the eye as easily as he slapped a thousand stewardesses on the ass. Flair hits a nice vertical suplex, but gets caught and slammed off the top when he goes up. Hart moves to recover in a corner, and when Flair throws a big knife edge Bret pulls the straps down and gets Flair to beg and backpedal all the way to the opposite corner. Fans react huge to the straps coming down, and Flair takes some of his biggest bumps of the match on this hopeful comeback, including an even higher backdrop than earlier. Bret really drags him to the mat with a neck wrenching bulldog, hits the backbreaker, another Hitman elbowdrop, but Flair will not stay down and time is getting short. Bret keeps upping his offense and hits a superplex (while also selling the damage that he took delivering the suplex so well) and evens things up 2-2 with the Sharpshooter with just 5 minutes left, causing children to literally jump up and down in the aisles. 

Bret sets Flair up for another superplex (which I thought was interesting within the match, to go back to the superplex instead of going back to the sharpshooter the way Flair went right back to the figure 4) but Flair rakes at the eyes AGAIN, then nails Bret with a loaded fist. You see, after Bret tied things up, Heenan got in the ring to cause a big stir, but slyly slipped something into Flair's hand while checking on him. Flair made strong use of the weapon, distracting Hart by going to the eyes first and then putting him down hard when Bret staggered back towards him. Bret took a hard flat back straight body bump, going down like someone who has been hit with a weaponized fist. It's not enough to beat Bret, and we get a nice throwback to that earlier blocked sunset flip, with Bret once again landing one and not giving Flair time to back out of it, instead pantsing Flair to finally get him down to the mat. This is not stooging bare ass Flair, as Ric responds angrily to having his ass bared in Boston, going right back to yanking at Bret's leg and spinning into a figure 4....which leaves him wide open for a small package with 15 seconds to go, giving Hart the 3-2 win and making a hot Garden crowd lose their minds. 

This was a really great iron man match, great enough to at least be arguably better than their title change match. I usually lean towards a tighter match, but they did a really great job filling 60 minutes and that is an impressive feat. Both men looked great on offense, and both sold compellingly enough for a crowd of all ages to stay engaged. Bret was really credible at selling all of Flair's cheating, doing some genuinely great physical acting that put over exactly how Flair was gaining an advantage. Flair's cheating wouldn't have been half as effective at drawing heat without Bret kicking his heels into the mat and really struggling through every hold, not to mention his excellent move-appropriate bumping. Flair had a great performance too, one of his best in WWF. He looked like he was in his absolute comfort zone here, knowing exactly how to work these 5,800 people into a lather while hitting all the expert notes his fans would want. He had so much charisma here and knew how and when to play it to the crowd or play it to one specific person. The match peaked in great ways and made it feel like any result was in play, and that's going to keep it above most iron mans. 

Because, for all the stories we've heard about working 60 minutes every night 8 nights a week in front of 10,000 loud fans, there are only *so many* great 60 minute matches, and this is one of them. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

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WCW Monday Nitro 2/7/00 from Tulsa, Oklahoma!

Wrestling feds never spent more to swirl the drain than WCW did in 2000. For a fed I loved throughout the 90s, I couldn't stand their main product (Nitro, PPV) in 2000 and avoided it almost entirely. I wasn't alone or unique in that stance, as attendance and buyrates were dropping rapidly. In fact, by the time Nitro came to Tulsa, Oklahoma's Convention Center in 2000, they pathetically only drew 6,358 paid. A few months before they drew nearly 7,500 at this same arena for a house show. Can you imagine a hot, popular act drawing less than 6,500 in Tulsa? Clearly an act on the downswing, if you can't put 6,500 butts in the seats in the Tulsa Convention Center.

Evan Karagias vs. Norman Smiley

ER: This was plenty fun for a 90 second match, with 3 Count all trying to interfere and Smiley running Karagias into them, with Moore taking a bump into the ring and Helms getting bumped off the apron. Smiley punched Karagias in the face a couple times, Karagias threw a nice leaping back elbow, and I liked how Karagias kept scrambling away from the wiggle. This would have been good had they given it just 3 minutes. Low end Nitro matches going from a 3 minute runtime to 1-2 minutes was one of the worst parts about this era WCW. There's just not much that can be done in 90 seconds. 

Jesus, poor Danny Hodge is in attendance. 

The nWo comes out and cuts a long and horrifying promo, although Scott Steiner was in typical Scott Steiner form. He goes on the mic hard after Ric Flair, saying that he stole the gimmick of the legend Buddy Rogers ("I know, I know, Buddy Rogers is dead, rest his soul") and says that Rogers is rolling over in his grave and that Flair won't ever have the class of Rogers. And speaking of class, he calls Flair an ass kissin', back stabbin, butt suckin' bastard and also runs down the people of Tulsa. Mark Madden asks Schiavone if he knows what Tulsa spelled backwards is. Good lord. 

Booker vs. The Wall

ER: The Wall was raw as hell at this point, and it's kind of surprising he was put on TV. He didn't really know how to sell punches or bump, but Booker is professional and makes this mostly work. Booker's punches looked really good and he made sure to fly hard into Wall so Wall would know when to fall over. Wall had a great high kick, and that was his only real asset at this point. He kicked like a Rockette, and Booker was smart and clearly had Wall use that kick for a couple of misses (to lead to Booker spin kicks) and then once to land. Wall did fly off the top into a Booker spin kick, which looked cool and also looked silly because again, Wall didn't know how to bump and bend his body. So he just kind of falls over like a mannequin. Booker took a big bump to the floor and really slammed Wall with his rock bottom, then we got some interference because of course. 

Barbarian vs. Tank Abbott

ER: How hard is it to just let these two stiff the hell out of each other for 3 minutes? This doesn't even go 1 minute, which is just cruel. The 1 minute goes as you'd want it to go, with Barbarian throwing big clubbing hands on Tank the second Tank gets on the apron, he and Tank throw blows (literally the easiest pairing to book), Tank backs him in the corner and throws some mean back elbows, and then the moment they start throwing again Barbarian just goes down from the first clean punch. After, Tank blows off Big Al who has come to see him in person!

Oh cool, Oklahoma is out and brings out a plastic surgeon (Dr. Jeter) to talk about all the work Madusa has had done, and the crowd seems into the misogyny at first but it goes on a bit too long for their liking. Madusa comes out and kicks everyone in the balls and also stands on Dr. Jeter's balls. Cooooool. 

I Quit: Terry Funk vs. David Flair

ER: I think David Flair is the worst wrestler to get any significant run in a major wrestling company. This guy didn't even know how to STAND like a human, let alone move like a professional wrestler. This man had no instincts for STANDING! His face was the face of a man who looked like he constantly had to be thinking "stand normal stand normal stand normal" and whenever he had to think about anything else he would naturally revert back to forgetting how to stand. David Flair's movements were so wooden that before his matches he would oil up with Minwax. This match starts with Funk taking 6 straight chairshots to the head, and Flair doesn't know how hard or soft to throw them but also has a hard time because he doesn't know how to bend his arms. If you've seen David Flair stand badly, you've also seen how weird his arms look. They don't quite dangle, but they don't look usable. They look locked in place like old action figure arms, no points of articulation. He's all hunched over with possibly not working arms, and a loose as hell stretched out t-shirt collar. He has dead eyes and rosy cheeks and looks like he's a day away from shooting up a church in the south. 

Terry Funk somewhat works a miracle here, because he takes those chairshots and then starts throwing Flair around ringside, while trash talking Ric Flair on he mic. He tosses David into the guardrail and then pulls back the ringside mats and hits a nice piledriver on the floor, and a hard DDT. "You better come and get your kid, Flair. While he's still alive." Funk piledrives David through a table (Madden makes sure to remind us three different times while this is happening that Funk piledrove Ric through a table at Music City Showdown). Funk goes on a long and awesome old man Terry rant, calling Flair banana nose and then quitting, giving David the technical win. Funk really made this far and away the most entertaining segment on the show. Even though that's a super low bar so far this episode, that shows that 55 year old Funk can still have the best segment on a wrestling show while paired with the worst wrestler of all time. 

Disco Inferno vs. Stevie Ray 

ER: I forgot Ahmed Johnson was here at this point, as Big T. And he's at least 40 pounds heavier than his WWF days. I always thought he looked cool as hell in WWF, and here he's still a different kind of cool. He's wearing a green windbreaker suit, leather fanny pack, chain, and looks like a sinister cookout uncle who is always the first to initiate an altercation. Totally forgot the cool Big T vibe. This was certainly a 2 minute Disco/Stevie Ray match, and none of the match looked as cool as Big T looked at ringside. 

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Brian Knobbs

ER: Finlay is the ref for this one, and even though this only goes a couple minutes it's still got a lot of asskicking. Knobbs took a bunch of nasty shots and spills and Bigelow happily continued to hit him with stuff. The match starts with Bigelow throwing a trash can at Knobbs from the ring, then hopping down and bashing him with the lid. Knobbs really takes some hard bumps, working way harder than I remember, really running hard chest first into the guardrail, gets his cast smashed into the ring steps and hit by a crutch, gets run into a ladder and then the ladder falls over RIGHT onto his face. Guy is taking a beating. We get a funny moment where Finlay hands Knobbs a trash can to use without Bigelow seeing (well timed by Finlay) and Knobbs uses it, but then Finlay hits Knobbs with a chair to give Bigelow the win. These guys sure take a lot of headshots.

Billy Kidman vs. The Demon

ER: So The Demon isn't very good, and the crowd chants for Torrie Wilson for the entire match, but things aren't all bad. Kidman takes a nice bump to the floor off a so so Demon clothesline and he makes a Demon DDT look like a credible finisher. Kidman's match winning frankensteiner looked really great.

Sid Vicious vs. Scott Hall

ER: Sid was such a megastar, and as they show Hall and Sid walking backstage before the match, it appears that Sid is chanting his own name. He's doing it the exact same way as the Yes! chant, arms over his head, just chanting his name. When he comes out for his entrance he gets a huge reaction, and is just lighting up the fans with fistbumps on his way to the ring. This guy had charisma and anyone who has badmouthed Sid is clueless. I think Hall has always been a good Sid opponent, as he has size but knows exactly how to bump for Sid, goes down fast for Sid's punches and weaves his head just right to cover for Sid's weird corner punches. He stooges and stumbles for Sid but doesn't come off like a joke at all. The fans go wild when Sid grabs Hall for the chokeslam and drags him all around the ring so everyone can get a glimpse. We get a great ref bump when Hall does a killer fallaway slam that clips Nick Patrick, and really for an era that did constant ref bumps this was one of the well orchestrated ones. Patrick was standing in the right spot, Hall didn't awkwardly change direction with his throw, it looked real good. Then Jarrett runs out and wrecks Sid, and Hall hits an awesome Razor's Edge on Sid, but then Jarrett turns on Hall for trying to win (what was Hall expected to do in his title match? I don't understand any of this) and the nWo disbands.


This was not a good episode of wrestling television, but it's kind of amazing how enthusiastic the whole crowd remained the entire time. It's cool that a crowd of under 7,000 could maintain that kind of enthusiasm for something that is clearly falling apart right in front of them. They're watching this promotion that looked damn near unstoppable just three years prior, and now they're looking at this offensive, lumbering, wounded, leaking monstrosity. And you'd think it would leave the arena awkwardly quiet in the wrong spots and leave a bunch of embarrassing photos which show how empty large sections were, but we don't get any of that. We get to witness a crowd of about 6,500 Oklahomans actually having a good time, regardless of the sad presentation they were witnessing. I'm glad the people of Oklahoma got that, at least. 

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Even More 80s Christmas AWA

Jerry Blackwell/Greg Gagne vs. King Kong Brody/Masked Superstar AWA 12/25/84

ER: More nice tag formula, although Gagne got kind of swallowed up by Brody. Gagne was FIP for most of this with Blackwell getting a big hot tag, but the money match-up throughout was Blackwell/Brody. There was one great moment where Brody was firing up big boots right to Blackwell's forehead, with Blackwell leaning into them and powering through them while the crowd went nuts. Brody played monster well, and AWA is probably the Brody era that I have seen the least, but I thought he was a great fit here. Blackwell is also a guy who is a great babyface (which is also not the role I've seen from most of my Blackwell viewing).

Earthquake Ferris vs. Brian Knobbs AWA 12/25/86

ER: Ferris was the football coach or wrestling coach or P.E. coach or some kind of sports coach at the high school my girlfriend from like 20 years ago went to, and every year he would run a wrestling benefit show for the school. The year I was dating her I went and saw Greg Valentine, saw Sabu, her parents sat through a pro wrestling show and had zero respect for me, it was fun. And guess what, this rules. Brian Knobbs is just a couple months into his career here, and looks like a spitting image of Bridget Everett. Ferris works a couple of really fast cool armdrags and drops Knobbs with a big body slam. Knobbs talks trash about how fat Ferris is. Ferris is more of a bump machine than I remember, especially loved this massive missed elbow drop. Knobbs had some of these weird and violent, almost World of Sport movements on some of his attacks. He drops a super quick knee on Earthquake's leg, and does these great slashing attacks to the arm, started wrenching the arm he was attacking around the ropes. He really brought a more violent attack than I was expecting. I might need to do a rookie year Brian Knobbs deep dive. Ferris shows nice spunk on his comeback, hitting this sky high avalanche, just throwing arms back and diving in with nothing but belly, way high up. Then he gets Knobbs up in an airplane spin (The Ferris Wheel!!!) which leads immediately to a quirky splash finish. This match was fun as hell. When you're grinning your ass off and loving the 1986 melted candle body fat boy wrestling, you tell 'em Eric sent you.

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Big Time Wrestling TV 8/26/16

I like the simple black polo shirts on Dragon Dave and Hank Renner Jr., comes off way less gimmicky than their previous tuxedo/plaid blazer/fedora. Man I hated that hat (and the too large striped shirt under the plaid blazer). The simple black polos with BTW's logo on them are a nice, classic touch.

1. Kikyo Nakamura vs. Dementia D'Rose (7/15/16)

This was from their very recent Dangerous Damsels show, an 8 woman tournament, and I'm really really happy they're showing matches from it. There were several match-ups I was excited to see (sadly I missed last week's TV and I think they showed other first round matches from this show). Good for BTW to be so up to date on their programming. I was excited for this one as I like Kikyo and have never seen D'Rose before, and overall I think this worked. Both are similar size but I was still surprised to see Kikyo work from underneath. I'm used to her being a kind of monster, but I think she works really well as a FIP. It's just not usually appropriate in her matches. She has great underdog babyface facials, and I dug Dementia's bombs away and especially dug her camel clutch; she really wrenched it in and Kikyo sold it great. D'Rose doesn't do Kikyo a ton of favors on her comeback, as she wasn't really expecting what appeared to be a Thesz press, but Kikyo saves it by muscling it into a kind of back leg trip takedown, and followed up with nice mounted punches. D'Rose does lean into Kikyo's yakuza kick, and Kikyo always throws a nice one. I was disappointed with the finish even though it was executed well, with D'Rose biting Kikyo's arm unexpectedly and then rolling her up with a tights grab. Kikyo sold the bite as well as someone reasonably could, and the roll up was a nice high roll up that looked tough to get out of. So it was executed nicely, but I was hoping for a little more throw down for a finish.

2. Brittany Wonder vs. Raze (7/15/16)

Fun match, I like both women and I imagine Raze is a favorite to win this whole tourney. Wonder is really fun and always tries new things. Sometimes those things don't work, but she's ambitious and has a certain charisma. I like all her butt based offense (though a normal butt bump would probably work better than a handspring version), she takes big bumps and works a fun sort of relentless, pesty style. I like Raze as a bully, and how every time she can slow down or catch Wonder then bad things happen. Wonder hits a top rope splash, tope (that Raze kinda saves her on), also throws a nice yakuza kick, bullies Raze into the ring announcer and time keeper, and Raze occasionally launches her with great throws. Raze played her part nicely, giving Wonder plenty of nice moments to shine, taking a big bump over the top to the floor, and Wonder paid her back by getting dumped a couple times on suplexes. The match ending head and arm suplex was a fitting finish, with Raze really snapping her over.

3. The Nasty Boys vs. Dustin Ardine & Vinny Poochanelli (5/21/11)

Amusing Nasty Boys steamroll. I have no clue who Ardine or Poochanelli are, but their job was to run into things the Nasties were doing, and they did that well. Ardine is kind of a loon as he lets Sags give him a powerbomb on the floor, just a straight up powerbomb on concrete. Thankfully the camera picked it up as it was *ahem* nasty. Poochanelli gets bodyslammed by Knobbs on the floor, some chairshots are thrown (at least Sags takes a couple shots), but yeah if you were hoping for any kind of offense from non Nasty Boys, you'd be leaving the match disappointed. The powerbomb was nuts, and there was another super fun spot with Sags dumping Poochanelli into a rolling trash can, and then wheeling him straight into a stiff Knobbs back elbow. I was hoping for some classic Knobbs unprofessionalism, but he seemed totally on the level.


Another fun episode, real tightly run as always. The camera work is something I don't think I've ever complimented them on but their work on their shows is very good. They have a satisfying way of filming matches and changing angles, not just showing stuff from a hard cam. It's an overall good production.

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Fire Fundraiser: WCW Saturday Night Weirdness, Part II

Part II of our donor-requested WCW Saturday Night Weirdness:

~The Victory Lap, 9/4/99: This episode was notably weird because it featured one-time only appearances and appearances from wrestlers you had assumed were fired years earlier. Scott Putski worked his best of 70 series against Scotty Riggs, and NOBODY was thinking Scott Putski was on their payroll this late in 1999. Clearly an example of a guy who kept showing up for work so they kept using him, until Janice in Accounting realized "Wait a minute we haven't paid him since April 1998!" And speaking of that, this show also has a Disciple match. You know, The Disciple, Brutus Beefcake's short-lived gimmick as a Ultimate Warrior acolyte. For some reason he pops up on this show against the Cat, one full year after Warrior had left WCW. It's possible this match was taped a year earlier, but regardless we have a gimmick one year removed from storyline relevancy. Maybe WCW just wanted to give Disciple the sendoff he and the FANS DESERVED. A proper farewell to all of Disciple's fans, like the worst possible Derek Jeter thanks for the memories tour, Ed Leslie working round the horn with all the worst possible match-ups on the roster.

Perhaps MOST importantly, however, was that this episode featured the lone match of No Limit Soldier 4x4, the largest, fattest member of the NLS (even bigger than Swoll...I think!). I had no clue 4x4 even wrestled a match in WCW, but if I had to draw up a short list of "Worst Possible Opponent for Debuting 4x4" then #1 on that list would be Brian Knobbs. Now, specifically, that list was who the worst opponent FOR 4x4, the person. Knobbs was a great choice of opponent for me, the viewer. There are wrestlers who work stiff, like Finlay, but you rarely get the impression that Finlay is putting his opponent in danger by being unprofessional. Knobbs has the feeling of being unprofessional FAR more than he feels like a guy with his opponents' best interests in mind. So as 4x4, he of the mammoth prison yard weight routine body (all arms and chest, no ab work), wearing his absurd spaghetti strap camouflage tank top, as 4x4 rolls into the ring Knobbs immediately makes clear to everybody that 4x4 is not safe by stomping him in a really violent way. 4x4 stumbles to a corner and Knobbs throws some expectedly unprofessional stiff elbows. 4x4 clearly has no idea what to do in a ring and so therefore is reliant upon the guidance of his partner in, who - again - Knobbs would be the worst choice of somebody to guide a rookie gently through a match (maybe New Jack would possibly be worse). Knobbs actually does take a couple bumps for 4x4 (Knobbs at least usually had no problem taking violence in return, he would also just clearly take cheap shots where his opponent normally would not) and the First Family and No Limit Soldies eventually run in. 4x4 was just silly. He looked about 400 lb., but couldn't have been more than 5'10". His tiny tank top straps made it look like he was wearing a tube top. And these lucky fans were there to see it!

~Spyder Baby, 9/25/99: If you're ever looking for specific examples of late period WCW having too many guys on the payroll, they don't come much better than Spyder. Spyder was Art Flores, and before this the only thing he did in WCW was act as Eddie's bodyguard in the LWO. He was the non-wrestling member of the LWO. And yet here we are, 8 months AFTER the LWO has disbanded, with the only LWO member to never wrestle during the LWO's tenure, wrestling on television. Yes, here we are, months after the LWO disbanded, watching the least known member of the faction having a match. And it turns out that Spyder isn't very good at pro wrestling. His attempts at punches were almsot cute, and then he threw a clothesline at Disco Inferno's lower chest and Disco didn't actually know what move he was supposed to be taking. The confusion on Disco's face looked like the face a man would make in a sitcom, attempting to plug his electric razor into a Russian outlet. Glad they kept Spyder around 8 months for this 80 second match. Where have you gone, Art Flores?

~He's Coming Back!, 3/11/00: This episode featured a bumper announcing "Shark Boy returns to Saturday Night NEXT WEEK!" Weird, because I've never seen them announce ANYbody coming back who had been away, but preposterous because they chose to hype SHARK BOY as the person returning. And you know there was one kid out there asking his friend, mom, self "when is Shark Boy coming back" and that kid got really excited during that going-to-commercial bumper. And, as we all know, the ratings for the following week got a significant bump*.

*I did not look up the ratings for the following week

~Buncha Weirdos in a Pole Match, 4/1/00: The main event of this episode was a Hardcore 6 man for the Hardcore Title, with the Title on a Pole. And the participants were Brian Knobbs, Adrian Byrd, Dave Burkhead, Norman Smiley, Rick Fuller and The Dog. That's the main event. And it is 6 men who normally don't make it into main events, all beating each other with weapons. Sounds pretty basic for this era. Chairs, trash cans, assorted garbage, ladders, etc. all get used. But then something weird happens: Dave Burkhead becomes the sympathetic babyface that the crowd wants to see win the title. It can't be understated how shockingly over Smiley still was here, but at a certain point this became the Burkhead show. Burkhead took far more punishment than everybody else in the match. I picked up on it. Fans in the audience picked up on it. And we all willed Burkhead towards the 100% completely meaningless WCW Hardcore Championship. Burkhead takes a bunch of gross late 90s style unprotected chair shots, trash can shots, gets smacked in the back of the head with a ladder, takes a rough bump to the floor, gets a ladder thrown from the ring ONTO HIS FACE while he's lying on the floor after his bump, but there he was, on the turnbuckles, reaching for that title, championship gold literally at his fingertips.....eh but Knobbs hit him with a trash can and just grabbed it. This was the last match Dave Burkhead worked for WCW. Truly, it was his Waterloo.

First runner up for maybe the most impressive thing about this episode is, at the time of this writing, nobody featured on the episode is presently deceased. No small accomplishment, that, when watching 15+ year old pro wrestling. There were 32 workers on the 4/1/00 broadcast! ALL of them are still alive! (I admittedly am assuming that Adrian Byrd is still alive, which could backfire on me since at this point he would be a black man in his late 40s with a history of steroid use. Those right there are several checked boxes on the "Are You at Risk of Imminent Death?" questionnaire.)

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Worldwide 9/15/96

I'm currently on a train from San Diego on up to LA to visit my buddy Will and go to an Angels/Dodgers game. It's a 3 hour train ride, and I figure what better way to tell everybody on the train "don't talk to this loser for 3 hours" than put on 18 year old wrestling with all the gassed bodies, mullets, and neon singlets that 1996 still contained. I snuck on train liquor, I got grapz on the laptop (grapz on lapz!) and I'm set.

1. Jim Powers & Renegade vs. Harlem Heat

Haven't done one of these in awhile and boy did I pick a winner to jump back in on. And you know I talk shit about these guys (for 100% deserved reasons) but this was probably better than it had any right to be. I mean, it wasn't great, but you look at those 4 names and…woof. Harlem Heat has been maybe my least favorite thing about this project, as they're both awful, sloppy, horrible long match workers. But this was probably the Heat match I've enjoyed most from the era so far. When they're in there with a more work rate team it's just always sloppy and awful and ugly looking. But here they are with a couple gassed guys trying to be athletic and it's pretty fun. Really Renegade and Powers don't seem much worse than Heat here, pretty even working level. Powers - despite his ghastly 0.5 Abyss punches - was kinda fun; had a nice go behind, stomped Booker in the face at one point, worked an arm wringer alright. Renegade looked awful but bless him for trying. He tried a sort of slingshot dropkick at one point and kinda landed one foot and almost buckled on the other..but shit it's Renegade trying to do some shit. Good for him. His body press earlier was decent enough. Booker hits a wild standing spin kick that looked cool, and match ended with a potentially grisly double powerbomb where the timing was all off and Renegade almost gets spiked. Harlem Heat: We'll almost dump you on your head at least once in a 5 minute match!

2. V.K. Wallstreet vs. Ice Train

Woman across the aisle from me has a Powerpuff Girls text alert song, the song by Apples in Stereo, and it goes off every fucking time she gets a text. Which is like every minute. I like Apples in Stereo. I do not like this trend  though. Mute yer phone! I'm watching my trash on headphones, because I'm courteous like that. She also has a shirt that says "I woke up looking this good" which is really only a shirt that can be properly worn by really fat men who are comfortable in their skin. If you have even a tiny amount of good looks in you, this shirt will make you look like a real asshole. And worse, if you're like this woman, you don't want to risk the shirt sounding 100% believable. Somebody wears a shirt that says "I woke up looking this good", and my reaction is "Yeah. That probably checks out," and that can't be the reaction they wanted. Anyway, holy shit Ice Train both looked awful in this, AND won the match in 90 seconds. Was not expecting that. Wallstreet gets a clothesline, rest of the match is all Ice Train. Was not expecting a finish this soon as Ice Train doesn't do any cool squash match offense. He does a body slam, knocks VK's head into the turnbuckles a few times, Irish whips him into the turnbuckles…and then pins him with a standing splash. Huh.

Awwww yeah a commercial for Last Man Standing! That movie was pretty awful but totally enjoyed by me. Fun Bruce Dern role, fun William Sanderson role, Christopher Walken as a villain which is always great. Total piece of garbage, but I'll watch Walter Hill's garbage before almost any other director's garbage. Love that guy's vision, whatever it is.

3. Pat Tanaka vs. Rey Misterio Jr.

Goldberg's music hits and the one the only Pat Tanaka comes strolling out in his kung fu jacket. Boy that's weird. I would've loved to see this get some time, but it goes 2:15. Great. Tanaka is working a weird Kung Fu master, lots of odd tai chi poses and karate strikes. It's amusing so I get the guy trying to find a gimmick for himself. Why not? Rey is a little sloppy with some of his stuff, he kinda whiffs on a headscissors that Tanaka has to bump anyway. But this era Rey is always super watchable due to his bumps. Here he gets planted with a powerbomb off a rana attempt and does a great flip bump on a clothesline. Heenan is pretty smart on commentary saying that in the future guys will try and imitate Rey, but nobody will be as good at it.

We get a commercial for Levis wide leg jeans. "You can live your life however you want. I'm gonna live mine WIDE." Catch that wide leg fever.

4. John Tenta vs. Konan

Weird little match with Tenta taking 90% of it. Tenta had his ridiculous half shaved skullet at this point, which really seems like the next look someone like Skrillex will have (maybe without Tenta's cop mustache though). Konnan is usually pretty selfish in his matches, making all his opponents work within his sequences, but Tenta takes this whole thing. I wish he looked better as I'm a Tenta fan, but he didn't look great. He didn't look bad, still throwing a great elbow, nice legdrop and a nice powerslam. But he also had a lot of less than devastating stomach kicks and an ugly missed splash. Konna wins with a somersault senton off the middle rope to a standing Tenta. Never seen Konnan pull that one out before.

5. Hugh Morrus & MAXX vs. Nasty Boys

Wasn't expecting much from this, but whatever it was, was okay. Nasty Boys both made a point to stiff Maxx (ne Muscle) for the whole match, every time he was in. Knobbs threw a bunch of nasty punches  to the side of Maxx's head, and Sags did the same. Maxx does his part by not shying away from them, so that's kinda neat. Hugh Morrus is junk, but he hit his moonsault pretty flush here and mostly stayed out of the way. Knobbs took a nice bump after getting posted by Maxx on the floor. So much like our opening tag, 4 guys I'd rather not watch a bunch, putting forth pretty decent stuff. I'm okay with this.

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Saturday Night 9/4/99

The Cat vs. Disciple

Well...there was that opener. Did you actually know Disciple of all people was still appearing on TV this late in '99? I mean, Warrior hadn't even been in WCW for almost a year at this point. Maybe WCW thought there were just too many more match-ups his fans wanted to see. They wanted to send him off properly.

Villano V vs. Lash LeRoux

This was pretty darn fun. Villano got tons of offense including a couple senton variations and an awesome Thesz press off the apron that was much more a running leaping balls to the face. Awesome. I don't care much for Lash, but he gives Villano most of the match before finishing him, so for that I am thankful.

Scotty Riggs vs. Scott Putski

OK, somebody name a WORSE major roster worker in 1999 than Scott Putski. First, I did not realize Putski was still gainfully employed in late 1999; second, I cannot see HOW he was gainfully employed in 1999. He is clearly the worst guy on this entire roster. His punches were totally absurd and even little things like running ropes were totally baffling to him. Who could have been sitting in the back justifying Putski's spot on the roster? It's a shame we didn't get Putski vs. Disciple, since I'm sure this was their last appearances with the company. They could have gone out in a real blaze of glory. And it deprived us of Putski vs. Konnan. Or Putski vs. Stevie Ray.

Brian Knobbs vs. 4x4

OK, I was insanely excited for Knobbs vs. 4x4, and for 90 seconds I was not let down. I actually didn't even realize 4x4 ever wrestled a match. His size is absolutely silly as he's fat, but also lifts, so he has these enormous arms and lats but a really flabby stomach, and he's squeezed into this awesomely goofy spaghetti strap camouflage tank top. The second he sloooowly rolls into the ring Knobbs is ON him and starts stiffing the shit out of him in the corner with some nasty front and back elbows. 4x4 doesn't really know what to do as he is clearly lost and out of his element, and Knobbs nails a nice corner charge. Knobbs bumps around nicely for 4x4 and I am beginning to really enjoy 1999 Brian Knobbs. This ends WAY too soon as Flynn and Morrus of the First Family run in, followed by a hilarious run in by Swoll and Brad Armstrong (seeing 4x4 and Swoll standing on either side of Brad Armstrong and the look of confusion on my girlfriend's face as she walked in the room was awesome. I could not explain very well to her why Swoll and 4x4 were hanging out with Brad Armstrong). Quite the spectacle of a match here.

Texas Outlaws vs. Barry & Kendall Windham

And YES! The Windhams IN ACTION! Seriously, best team of 1999 right here. The more I see of them the more I am convinced. I always thought it was the Texas Hangmen, btw, not Outlaws (assuming this is Mean Mike/Tough Tom under the hoods). Barry and Kendall cut off the ring all through this bitch and this is WRASSLIN right here. Outlaws get a great hope fall with a hooded switcheroo/roll up (which I totally suckered for, seriously. I mean, usually hooded switches lead to wins. I can't think of one that didn't off the top of my head...), and then more big ass boots from Kendall and this is just the best. Kendall and Barry had a contest to see who had a better punch (I think Kendall won), and you could tell they were having a blast just teaming together.

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