RIP Virgil: A Weekend With Vincent

For the last 2+ years I've spent every day writing a book painstakingly reviewing every single match that took place in 1997 WCW. One of many guys making this project worth continuing has been Vincent's work as the nWo's Enforcer, the man stationed to the front lines who doesn't actually realized he's the weakest link of the coolest gang. It's a great role made greater by everything that Vincent brings to it. Here are two classic nWo Vincent performances from a summer weekend of 1997 WCW TV. These are the first two WCW reviews I've posted publicly on Segunda Caida since starting the book, and it feels Correct that my first full preview of what my WCW book will be like is to honor Vincent. A Real Character. 

Each match is under 2 minutes and showcase Vincent's incredible charm. His ability to act cool without realizing he's not. I don't think anyone actually did it better. 

DDP vs. Vincent WCW Saturday Night 8/9/97

The story goes that Charles Wright was the guy in line to get Vincent's eventual spot in the nWo, but seeing the perfect way Vincent embodies his Lowest on the nWo Totem Pole Role, I really can't visualize what The Godfather's place would have been. Vincent's role was an important one. A wrestling stable of a certain size needs a clear weak gazelle, a man there to take bumps that the higher ups won't take and stare up at lights the higher ups will never see. Without Vincent, the nWo might be more formidable, but I'm not sure how it would work. Would Wright and Norton have teamed instead of Norton and Bagwell, and would Bagwell have in turn wound up as the nWo Vincent? I'm not sure if that's better, because Buff really thrives in Vicious & Delicious in ways that I don't think Kama The Extreme Fighting Machine would have. Vincent is too damn good at being exactly what he should be in the nWo and to the nWo that the other ways just don't make sense. Adding one guy to the bottom makes the whole group better. 

Who else in the nWo would have been pinned by DDP on a Saturday Night, taking 30 seconds of a 90 second match to even lock up, reacting visually to the boos of the crowd and even flinching at DDP's BANG? Vincent spends the match making a beeline for the ropes any time DDP locked in a slight advantage (which was every time contact was made), sticking his body through the ropes to make the ref back DDP up, DDP kicking him in the ass while Vincent's torso is halfway out of the ring and those tight Guess jeans are framing his perfect set inside the ring. When Vincent finally steps to DDP he walks right into an elbow smash and jabs, a big kick to the stomach. His knees are turned to a fine powder with DDP's pancake piledriver, a move I'm surprised more guys didn't just refuse to take. Vincent takes the Diamondcutter like he was writing a manual for 2009 Christian. Heaven needed a champion, and the nWo needed a Vincent. 

The Giant vs. Vincent WCW Pro 8/10/97

This is incredible. This is the moment. And I fully understand why the cameras cut away from this moment, but whomever chose to  do what, it was incredible. Upon entering the ring Vincent attempts to "roll" in over the top. He doesn't attempt to enter the ring like Solar with any kind of beautiful arc, but more like a guy skinning the cat into the ring. Rolling over the top, casually. Smoothly. Except Vincent, upon holding the top rope and rolling in, clearly gets hung up between the middle and top ropes, and so the camera cuts away for several seconds. When they cut back Vincent is only just getting himself untangled from the ropes. This man rolled into the ring and got hung up in the ropes like they were made of fly paper, then stood up and walked to the center of the ring like a man who didn't just loudly shit his pants while stepping into a room where all eyes were on him, casually removing his sunglasses with the biggest smile on his face. 

I hold firm to my belief that Vincent knows exactly what character he is playing, knows his exact role on the entire roster hierarchy, and perfectly understands that he is the man who needs to act untouchably cool while also stepping on any possible rake in sight. For all we know, the camera cut was only unfortunate timing, and Vincent was actually intentionally lying across the middle rope, in the same way Jeff Jarrett lies across the ropes in the corner to taunt his opponent. But I choose to believe that Vincent was hung up in those ropes like he was caught in a tuna net, and that he 100% knew exactly what he was doing, and fully understood his role as a guy who thinks he's cool and has no actual idea that he is not, but would also do whatever it took to maintain his status as the least cool guy in the Cool Guy stable. 

Getting stuck in the ropes was only the beginning of Vincent's brilliant Zero Offense performance, as the cool guy getting into the ring in the least cool way possible then tries his damndest to stay physically away from The Giant. He avoids contact as long as possible and is scared the entire time he's in the ring, and it's all perfect. He at first acts like he's merely circling behind Mark Curtis while circling the Giant with good intentions, but then he Hey Buddy claps Curtis on the back the way a stranger would when he was about to force a man into doing an unexpected illegal favor. A man passes you on the street and gives you a head not and a shoulder clap, suddenly you find yourself as a human shield. As Vincent fully hides behind Mark Curtis in the corner, Curtis - a human shield who was in no real danger - looked like he had no idea Vincent would be holding him as a shield for so long, and looked to actually be trying to wriggle away so Vincent could take his medicine. And Vincent is that, a child trying to not take medicine. 

He takes comic flat back bumps when he gets thrown to his back and headbutted, gets kicked in the ass when stumbling away, dragged back into the ring as he was trying to frantically army crawl the floor on his stomach. His crossbody is caught, and Giant's backbreaker is among his most backbreaking, even though his insistence on keeping his hands balled into fists while clutching Vincent -  instead of gripping Vincent's back and balls with full increased pituitarily outstretched hands - shows he is a Giant who feels shame and is no wild giant at all. He has the restraint of modern man's guilt showing through those balled fists, and it is a tell that all of Universal Studios can read. Were they to meet an actual Forest Giant, they all know that beast would have no problem gripping them squarely by the ass and genitals for any reason, and now they all know The Giant is no beast, but simply a large man who has been sadly touched by mankind's insistence on feeling shame. Imagine The Giant asking someone which ear is "the gay ear". Sad. 

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On Brand Segunda Caida: More 2002 Big Boss Man

Big Boss Man vs. DDP WWF Smackdown 1/17/02

ER: This era Boss Man really the master at taking 80% (or more) of a match and still letting his opponent plausibly beat him. Boss Man and DDP doesn't have to be an 80/20 match, but I liked how Boss Man turned it into one by using two different attacks out of the ref's view. Early in the match while the ref is trying to break them up, Boss Man punches DDP in the orbital bone to take initial control; late in the match he gets backed into a corner by DDP, and when Teddy Long leans in to tell DDP to break the hold, Boss Man uppercuts him right in the balls. All of Boss Man's offense looked great, like his big spinebuster, his awesome hot shot on the turnbuckle (after punching DDP's balls), and the punch exchanges between the two were fire! Boss Man's punches were the best in 2002 WWF (and that was when they had a roster of cool punchers in all weight classes) and DDP trades back and forth really well with him. At one point DDP just punches Boss Man in the chest to stun him, and that's the kind of thing you don't see anymore unless it's part of an overcomplicated combo. Much of DDP's offense comes from strong reversals or dodges of Boss Man, like a sleeper turned into a nasty jawbreaker, and it makes a lot of sense to make those kind of openings. Boss Man doesn't lay out for the Diamondcutter, taking it more like a Stunner, but the way he took it really made it look like a lot more snap was being done to his neck. Taking the flat stomach bump looks cooler, but I liked the painful way he took this one.

Big Boss Man vs. Shawn Stasiak WWF Metal 1/19/02

ER: Right out the chute this project is getting Shawn Stasiak's name in print for the first time on Segunda Caida. If nothing else, we'll always have that at least. Boss Man is wearing the riot squad gear (would have been awesome if he came back in Big Bubba attire for this run), but there's some confusion around the face/heel dynamics. Boss Man got a good reaction coming out, possibly because the aesthetics of his gimmick play much better in the south (this was in Texas). However, Stasiak was the de facto babyface here, meaning fans were put in a position to cheer Stasiak over Boss Man, which is tough because I cannot imagine many people cheering Stasiak over anybody. They do some things that feel like they would be expressly forbidden in modern WWE, namely Boss Man getting into it with a ringside fan (that guy who wears the same gas station shirt who was profiled on Confidential). It felt like the same way a guy would get heat on a southern indy show, and it just makes me nostalgic for seeing southern wrestling played to an 8,000 strong crowd. Stasiak even gets to go out and side with gas station guy and it feels like the crowd is suddenly far more invested in this. Could you see any wrestler today ever acknowledging or trying to start something with that one fan who sits front row with his mom every show? Boss Man was still really fast, and a lot of this was built around his speed, whether he was bailing quickly out of the ring or unable to slow a charge due to his size/speed combo, and some of his fast bumps were impressive. His offense is made up almost entirely of punches, which is perfectly fine because he still has a great uppercut and overhand right. I wish this one was not so driven by Stasiak offense, as he just wasn't very good and always landed too rigid on nearly everything he did. His crossbody looked like an ironing board being thrown at Boss Man and his leaping back elbow looked like he bounced off Boss Man instead of knocking Boss Man down. This was the last of the Shawn Stasiak I will be reviewing.

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WCW Starrcade 12/29/96

1. Ultimo Dragon vs. Dean Malenko

ER: It's a bold move to start your Nashville PPV with a AAA minis dark tag and a 20 minute cruiserweight match. This is the first 12 minutes of a strong cruiserweight match, with a lot of mid 90s juniors matwork to start, and quick exchanges that don't really go anywhere but give us something to build off. They build to some quick rope running exchanges and some snap suplexes, and it plays like a very crisp New Japan juniors match. The Nashville crowd isn't really on board with it until Ultimo starts working a little more than just de facto heel. He had been the automatic heel by virtue of being Japanese in Nashville, but they wake up a bit when Dragon starts landing nice looking kicks to the grounded Malenko's ribs and a little toe kick to Malenko's temple. Once Ultimo is actually working with mild disrespect the crowd picks up on it immediately. It peaks with a great spot where Dragon feints a dive with Malenko on the floor, landing on his feet in ring with a quebrada and turns that into a flat footed tope with emphasis on making it look like a flying headbutt. Dragon even started selling like a heel, taking a couple of nasty Malenko back suplexes on his shoulders and acting like a heel getting punished. 

It's a match that is building to something strong, but Malenko makes the decision to throw some ice on things by grabbing a kneebar for a couple long minutes, really getting things silent in the arena. It threw off their vibe as Ultimo HAD been working as a luchador working as southern heel, and then in a couple minutes Malenko started working heel legwork while Ultimo valiantly kept having to struggle to the ropes and work a knee injury. It went instinctively against the fans' instincts to cheer the legwork the way it was being worked, as Ultimo was clearly face in these exchanges. A couple of awkward cross ups when they came out the other side of the legwork only extended the weird vibes. Malenko hits a body press with Ultimo leaning in the ropes, but Dragon stays put on his feet while Malenko tumbles to the floor, with Ultimo feebly rolling out after. Crowd is getting silent by the second and suddenly snaps awake in unison when Malenko looks like he has the match suddenly won after a nasty tombstone. The entire Nashville Municipal Auditorium thought they were seeing a Malenko win. With the crowd now suddenly heavily invested in a Malenko win, it really added to the closing stretch. I think they went with a couple too many nearfalls and the Onoo interference to break up Malenko's center of the ring cloverleaf weakened things, but there were some good nearfalls that the fans bit at. A Malenko release sitout Tiger suplex got a huge reaction, he plants Dragon with a disgusting brainbuster for another, and there was a great match-winning go behind waistlock battle that ended with a fantastic Tiger suplex for Dragon. This was the kind of PPV opener that a lot of WCW fans came to expect, with a lot of big moves and nearfalls. There were some stretches that didn't work and felt out of place, and they didn't really explore the stories they set up, but a lot of the action looked really good.

2. Akira Hokuto vs. Madusa

ER: This was not the match the crowd wanted to see. The crowd was far less familiar with Hokuto than they were with Ultimo Dragon, but even a Japanese competitor against a white woman wearing a sequined stars and stripes aerobics thong couldn't inspire them to get involved. Hokuto works holds with a short match they probably would have had a better chance going straight to fireworks. By the time they build to some big German suplexes and a couple hard missile dropkicks I was expecting them to react but it was still real light. The best reactions came from two pieces of Sonny Onoo interference, yanking Madusa's ankle from ringside to allow Hokuto to take over, and coming in later with to smack Madusa in the back of the head with a full American flag on a pole. This was laid out pretty heavily for Hokuto, never really feeling like Madusa was going to win, and Madusa's big moments on offense came off flat when a tornado DDT didn't really get pulled off. Hokuto wins with a nasty northern lights bomb, and it come off like an easier victory than the crowd was expecting. This was not the show to have Akira Hokuto win the inaugural WCW Women's Title Tournament, and an omen for how the Women's division would eventually wind up in the coming months. 

Roddy Piper does an interview with Mean Gene, and well, Piper's interviews in 1996 were really bad. He had taken coked up 1986 Hot Rod promos and now it felt more like a man performing comedic impressions of Cocaine Rod. He makes weird references to Strangler Lewis and Sky Low Low, says that he and Hogan ("can I call him Hogan?") are the only two icons, makes a joke about Roseanne Barr that barely felt like a reference (let alone a joke), and hops out on one leg when asked about his hip injury. This was like a hopped up Roger Rabbit promo that made the heavily promoted "Match of the Century" feel like it was about to be a tremendous disaster. 

3. Jushin Liger vs. Rey Misterio Jr. 

ER: This match was a major deal among tape traders, a first time (and last time, it turns out) singles match between two of the very best. So, of course this match starts with an enthusiastic USA chant, which Misterio happily accepts as his, and that's just fine. It also becomes apparent pretty early into this match that this crowd is tired of seeing a Japanese wrestler against a WCW regular. The commentary has some real wild tone shifts too, as Tenay starts the match talking about Liger's brain tumor surgery, and within minutes we take a weird sidetrack. Dusty ends up going on for far too long about Liger "looking heavier" than the last time he saw him, and none of the four man announce crew picks him up. He keeps trying to get anyone else to chime in, repeatedly asking whether or not he's crazy for thinking Liger is heavier. The crowd pays about as much attention to the match as commentary does, but it is surprising that people don't react louder for the beating that Misterio takes. Liger is very punishing, hitting an in-ring powerbomb about as hard as you can powerbomb someone, hits a crazy vertical suplex to the floor (and Rey really splats on that floor), then hits a powerbomb ON THE FLOOR! The actual wrestling in the match is great, it's nothing but offense, but it doesn't draw the crowd in like it should. They occasionally get them to notice, but they don't keep them hooked. 

Liger is super dominant here, brushing aside a missile dropkick and locking in a stretching surfboard, a release German suplex that folds Rey, a kappo kick in the corner, a dragon screw that would snap the surgically repaired knee of 2021 Rey Mysterio, and a really sunk in half crab. Rey had some comebacks, some flash to counter Liger's dominance, but Liger keeps effectively cutting him off. When Rey goes on a big tear with a headscissors and beautiful Asai moonsault, I foolishly thought that all of Rey's offense got backloaded into the match. But Liger immediately blocks a top rope Frankensteiner by hopping down to the mat, nails a kappo kick, and then drills Rey's head into the mat with a definitive Liger Bomb for the win. So far this PPV has had three Japanese wrestlers win the first three matches, and it is clearly not what anyone in attendance expected or wanted. This match was as good as could be expected with no fan involvement, and a suitably entertaining Dream Match with Liger really assaulting Rey and Misterio flying and splatting in cool Misterio ways. But, this also seemed like a match where Rey was to be the OBVIOUS winner, and even the finish looked like he kicked out before 3, which didn't help the reaction. Liger wasn't around in any way in 1997 WCW, so letting him destroy Misterio like this on WCW's biggest PPV of the year was a really strange decision. 

4. Chris Benoit vs. Jeff Jarrett

ER: This was kind of a peculiar match, as it was billed as No DQ but was not worked in any way as a No DQ match. The match didn't need the stip to work, as we find out that they really only made this No DQ to allow for a rush of outside interference right at the end. The match started like a strong Benoit/Jarrett match, both working some nice mat exchanges and Jarrett getting lit up by chops, but there's a weird tone as both men are clearly working as heels. Benoit rubs Jarrett's face in the mat and grinds his boot into the back of Jarrett's head after getting the best of a mat exchange, and later when Jarrett does the same he runs up the length of Benoit's back and then struts around the ring. Jarrett is the Nashville boy but isn't rallying the crowd behind him, and every single thing Benoit does is delivered as a heel. So the crowd doesn't get into this match the way they could have. They both work the match with a lot of aggression, and the pace feels really good, even if Benoit has a lot of strikes that show noticeable light. Benoit's stomps in the corner all whiff by 6" or more, and it's odd that the guy known for working stiff appears to be pulling his shots so much. Woman interferes from the floor, except her and Benoit continue to act like they don't realize the match is No DQ, as she sneaks in her interference behind Brian Hildebrand's back, and later on Benoit does the whole feet on the ropes bit with Hildebrand just missing his cheating each time. 

This is a match where Benoit could have just choked Jarrett with a chair, so holding a grounded headlock with his feet on the ropes behind the ref's back made zero sense. At a certain point Benoit didn't even have his arm wrapped around Jarrett's neck, looking more like he was just pinning him across the shoulders. Jarrett's comeback doesn't get a reaction, since he didn't decide to show the fans of Nashville that he was their guy, but he looked good. I liked his clothesline and super high belly to back suplex, but that's when everything goes to hell. Woman gets on the apron, Arn comes out, Hugh Morrus and Konnan attack Woman, she kicks Morrus in the balls while Konnan holds her in a snug headlock, Kevin Sullivan breaks a wooden chair over Benoit, Arn DDTs Jarrett, and somehow through it all Jarrett just gets rolled back inside and pins Benoit. So we had a No DQ match where it seemed like neither guy realized that was the case, all the DQ worthy events were caused by guys that came out at the very end of the match, and even after the match the crowd had no clue which one of them to cheer for. This felt like nobody knew what role they were actually playing and the match fell apart because of it. 

Arn Anderson and Jeff Jarrett blow off Mean Gene's interview requests after the match, but Steve and Debra McMichael have no problems repping the Horsemen on the mic. McMichael says Benoit is getting too distracted by Woman, and Debra says that Woman is looking rode hard and put up wet (to which Gene covers the microphone) and then calls her plump. I really wish we had been given a Woman reaction to being called "plump" by Debra McMichaels' perfectly slurred judgmental Alabama Christian voice. 

The Outsiders vs. The Faces of Fear

ER: This was heading towards being a truly great big man tag match, but a slow third act that dropped all the big man clubbering left us with a kind of unsatisfying finish. These guys all have great chemistry and have no problem hitting hard, and the match forgoes a lot of structure and instead mostly just exists as four tough guys hitting each other hard. You don't really need to cut off the ring with guys this large, as it's incredibly satisfying to have them constantly cutting each other off, able to turn any tide at any time with a hard clothesline or harder headbutt. It's hard not to get excited for a tag match made up wholly of big guys hitting each other hard, and commentary gets into it as much as the crowd does. The action is steady and nobody remains in control long. Nash really punishes Barbarian in the corner with kneelifts and heavy back elbows, hits a lariat to the side of Barbarian's neck when Nick Patrick steps in. Meng and Nash come off like superstars, with Meng having no trouble standing up to either Outsider and Nash getting roars whenever he gets into the ring. 

Meng's chops look like something that Hall and Nash legitimately hate taking, and you get some cool bigger spots like a Hall second rope bulldog on Meng, a great missed middle rope elbowdrop from Barbarian, Meng fighting to get Hall up for a piledriver before finally spiking him, and not long after that a big Barbarian powerbomb on Hall. The match also has a bunch of cool clotheslines and lariats from everyone, like Hall running the length of the apron to nail Barbarian in the corner, or Hall whipping Barbarian into a Nash apron lariat and then hitting one of the hardest possible diving lariats as Barbarian is reeling. Everyone in the match is showing stiff shots from the apron whenever an opponent gets anywhere near, and I love tag team fights like that. Things do take a bit too much of a cool down when Barbarian locks in a LONG nerve hold on Hall that the match didn't really need. 

The only formula the match had settled into by then was four guys kicking ass, with Hall and Barbarian each being briefly separated from their partners. But this late in the match you don't need a long nervehold to build to a Nash hot tag, as the crowd was hot every time Nash had been in and the hold went on so long that the hot tag was literally Nash's quietest part of the match. The hold cooled things down too much and took the energy away, and then for whatever reason Barbarian didn't make his own hot tag out when Nash made his big tag in. Hall and Barbarian had clearly been building a long sequence that was supposed to build to Meng and Nash absolutely wailing on each other, and instead Barbarian just stays in the ring. It's a bit anticlimactic as Nash tags in and Hall immediately drags Meng to the floor, and Nash fairly easily beats Barbarian with a jackknife. The match deserved a finish that was a bit more thought out than that, but the bulk of this was hard hitting heavyweight wrestling that I loved. 

Hogan cuts a truly unhinged promo backstage with Dibiase and Vincent laughing along with him. If you show this promo back to back with Piper's promo earlier you get 10 minutes of what feels like it is going to be the craziest match you've ever seen. He keeps building towards a big ending but keeps getting derailed, until he's just shouting out the names of celebrities and calling Piper a woman. This kind of manic old man insanity is making this match come off far more exciting than I've been lead to believe.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Eddie Guerrero

ER: This was the finals of the WCW US Title tournament, a very fun match that is perhaps too long, but finishes strong. It's always best when a match goes out on a high note, and the finishing stretch makes this worth seeing. This is cool because Page fights Eddie as an equal and makes it work, going toe to toe with both throwing elbows and chops as heavyweights (even though Eddie is much smaller than DDP here). DDP is great at doing fast armdrag and leapfrog exchanges, and both know how to salvage minor miscommunications by taking big bumps. DDP takes an awesome backwards bump through the ropes off a dropkick, both good at working a back and forth match without it ever feeling like they're just trading moves. It's really hard hitting, with Eddie getting harder than expected impact an avalanche, pescado, and big back suplex. Page has a bunch of cool offense - a couple of unique gutbusters, nice right arm clothesline immediately following a missed left arm one, and a nasty kneeling piledriver - so it's a little disappointing when he locks in a too long abdominal stretch. 

The match had kind of been babyface/babyface and DDP wasn't working heel enough to build to a big Eddie comeback. But things really do come alive for the push to the finish, when DDP starts really throwing himself back into offense. He hits a hard shoulderblock in the corner and then misses another into the turnbuckles just as hard. Eddie sweeps DDP's legs and DDP takes it on the back of his head like Psychosis, Eddie lifts him in the air with a European uppercut (that makes Dusty lose his mind),and then drops DDP with a brainbuster. We get a crazy run of bigger and bigger spots, like Eddie catching DDP in an atomic drop off the top rope, and DDP hitting a bananas spinning powerbomb. There were several great nearfalls off of Eddie backslides (set up nicely by DDP's missed spinning clothesline or Diamondcutter attempts). The finish itself is a bit of a stretch, as the ref had to be distracted for far too long so that Scott Hall had time to run in and hit DDP with an Outsider's Edge (for turning down the nWo's invite), and then Eddie hits the frog splash for the title. This match could have gone 12 instead of 15, as trimming out the bullshit would have easily made this the tightest and best match on the card. As is it was strong, and the peaks lift it higher than its valleys lower it. 

The Giant vs. Lex Luger

ER: This was great, the best Giant singles match and performance so far (easily), and an excellent Luger performance that completely rewards the loud crowd. The Nashville crowd were cheering louder for Luger before the first lock-up, than any other babyface so far this PPV (Nash got the loudest cheers, but that's just because people are going to cheer the coolest guy in any room). Giant had a year of ring work at this point and was improving, but having a guy like Luger in there to guide the match really elevated this. Luger knew exactly what to do and the fans were behind him doing just that. I loved Luger's lock-up to start, getting a low base, taking big super ball bumps when Giant would throw him away. Every time Luger got thrown off, he would come back in with left and right elbows, and then began measuring Giant with right hands. Luger would rear back and throw one big right, send the Giant rocking and wobbling in the corner, then throw another. It was a great way to start the match and they used the ring incredibly well to make this feel like a big fight. Luger would get bumped to the opposite corner, and the camera would pull back and show the distance between the men, making Luger look like even more of a walking tall babyface every time he would stomp back across the ring to punch Giant. Both were good at selling the early fatigue, and I liked how Giant shut things down by just charging out of the corner with a straight arm clothesline to the chest. 

I thought Giant looked good in control, and Luger looked great bumping for him. They worked a long control section and the Giant has a lot of ideas on how to fill time, and Luger's selling keeps the crowd interested. The Giant gets insane air on an elbowdrop, throws a stiff kick to Luger's ribs (that Luger bumps through the ropes to the floor) and brings him back in with a big delayed vertical suplex. The Luger comeback teases are good, like a quick bodyslam attempt that ends with the Giant flattening him and then hitting another elbowdrop. We're over a year into the Giant, and he's still trying weird  things and I love it. He weirdly does the Shawn Michaels "draped over the corner ropes" spot after missing an avalanche, struggling to get his legs into position but even getting turned over by kicks the way Michaels would. I don't think I've ever seen a 400 lb. guy do that spot - probably because it looked pretty stupid - but I am all for wrestlers taking a risk of looking stupid. Even better, is how Giant sets up Luger's comeback by missing a running dropkick in the ropes when Luger moves out of the way. Giant really just ran and threw a dropkick into the ropes like he was a luchador, top foot nearly getting tangled on the top rope and sending him to the mat head first. Giant was lucky the landing was better than it could have been, but a giant doing crazy spots is impossible to hate. 

Luger starts punching the reeling Giant and really knows how to milk the reaction, the crowd getting louder and louder whenever it looked like Giant might fall over, and when Giant is reeling back far enough Luger gets the loudest reaction of the night by taking Giant down with a Rude Awakening style neckbreaker. It's a great nearfall, fans literally jumping up and down in their seats after seeing a neckbreaker. It's beautiful. Luger gets pressed onto Mark Curtis during the kickout, and this allows all the bullshit to start, and I loved all the bullshit. Luger finally has the advantage over Giant, but with no ref we get Nick Patrick finally showing up (with Syxx), and I love it when Nick Patrick shows up. I'm someone who is sick to death of rudo lucha refs, and yet I love Nick Patrick's stooging and idiocy. Luger bodyslams Giant and gets him up in the Rack (an awesome feat) and Patrick actually kicks Luger in the back of the knee! Patrick gets thrown across the ring and Luger Racks the Giant again, this time eating a spinkick from Syxx and unceremoniously dropping Giant again. To add to the great bullshit, Sting comes through the crowd, a man who looks like Jimmy Del Ray but with the flat out craziest eyes actually bumps faces with him before being pulled away by security, man looking like he actually wanted to fight or assassinate Sting. There's a great moment where Sting gets in the ring and shoves his bat into Patrick's chest, throws Patrick again to get him out of there, and Patrick punches a still ailing Mark Curtis in the face on his way out! 

The bullshit leads to a really great finish with some great theater, when Sting whispers separately to both Luger and Giant and leaves his bat in the middle of the ring. Commentary was strong this entire match, putting over and questioning everyone's motivations and getting fired up for Luger and Giant, making it really feel like a clash of the titans. They nail all of the visuals, with Luger reaching the bat but Giant getting there right after and standing on it. The crowd really seemed frozen in excitement waiting to see what was about to happen, and finally Luger just punches Giant in the balls and then beats him in the legs and body with that baseball bat. Mark Curtis dramatically drags himself over and counts the pin, and the fans rightly lost their minds for all of this. Luger cannot be denied. 

Hollywood Hogan vs. Roddy Piper

ER: Commentary calls this the biggest match of our lifetimes, and Michael Buffer manages to top that by calling it the Match of the Century. It's ridiculous, sure, and got mocked by smart fans at the time, but over 9,000 people in Nashville all bought into it to some extent. Buffer's intro is one of his best, genuinely adding to the match hype. Hogan looks like he's having a blast as a heel, with his broad MJF-esque "I'M a HEEL" shtick playing out like Hogan had been dying to do house show heel routines for a decade. It's a really great Hogan performance and it really felt like both men were playing up to their current abilities. Piper moves older than his actual age (and it's crazy that Hogan and Piper were only 43 and 42 here, respectively) and so Hogan really carries this by having a super active performance. Piper was limited but spirited, and he's good enough to make that work, but Hogan was the one working to make this big. Hogan stalls and stooges and tries to avoid Piper, slaps him on breaks and bails to the floor each time. Piper is mostly limited to punches and clotheslines and can't move quick, so Hogan avoiding him works and it makes it better when Piper finally tees off. Piper used a few different eye pokes and I love how Hogan sold each one. 

Piper is not going to be above fighting dirty and the crowd was fully behind Piper fighting dirty to combat Hogan's dirty fighting, and Piper moves stiffly enough that he draws a lot of sympathy, and he's able to pull off the performance of an old dog dragged back to another fight. Things get great when Piper gets knocked to the floor, tumbling hard, but fights back against Hogan and Dibiase. Piper gets his belt and whips Hogan around ringside like in a great LA Park match. All the belt shots looked really nasty, Piper not holding back and Hogan leaning into all of them. The whole match was an escalation of dirty fighting, and it peaked when Hogan started kicking at Piper's long visible hip surgery scar, even locking in an abdominal stretch while hammering on that scar. They don't quite know how to transition into the finishing stretch but there are some big moments, like Piper pulling off a vertical suplex while Schiavone wondered if his legs would hold, and a big missed Hogan legdrop. Schiavone was great at covering for things while keeping the excitement live, and his excitement really added to the chaotic ending. 

The Giant comes out and lifts Piper for a chokeslam, but a fan also charges the ring and grabs Hogan's legs, so the Giant has to keep Piper in the air while security roughs up the fan. It throws off the timing but still plays huge when Piper bites Giant in the face and dumps him to the floor, then somehow beats Hogan with a sleeper, with Randy Anderson delivering a great shocked face when Hogan's arm drops a third time. I was really into this match and thought it was far better than most thought at the time. The moment was hurt by being non-title. I'm not actually sure they ever said it was non-title, they just never announced it was FOR the title and didn't talk about it during the match, like they were intentionally avoiding it. Dusty even calls Piper the champ after the win, with some immediate awkward silence as Dusty clearly gets corrected off-mic. 

This was not the great workrate PPV that it has the reputation for being, a rep that it mostly got by having two long singles matches early in the card between cruiserweight legends. This was still a good in-ring show, but not to the level it has been written about being. The two cruiserweight matches have flaws that weren't as glaring in 1996, but even though they aren't the MOTYC that people wanted them to be in 1996 doesn't mean they aren't still entertaining as hell. The Hogan/Piper match doesn't deserve the bile that it got at the time as I thought it was an excellent Hogan performance, working around a guy who hadn't wrestled an actual match in 10 months. It was a top to bottom mix of styles and matches, and that gives a show a high floor. 

Best Matches:

1. Lex Luger vs. The Giant

2. Outsiders vs. Faces of Fear

3. DDP vs. Eddie Guerrero

4. Jushin Liger vs. Rey Misterio Jr. 

Weakest Matches:

1. Akira Hokuto vs. Madusa

2. Chris Benoit vs. Jeff Jarrett

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New Footage Friday: 1994 WCW House Show (+ Bonus Lawler vs. Bock!)

WCW House Show El Paso 7/14/94

Lord Steve Regal vs. Johnny B. Badd - GREAT

MD: 94 house show Regal obviously brings a lot to the table. He stalled a lot early, but paid it off by bumping himself on the way back in for high comedy. The chain wrestling, when they got to it, was good, though everything along these lines, even the good stuff, feels a little low rent after watching so much French Catch. When Regal took over, it was with a brutal variety of offense. Badd really needed a couple more meaningful hope spots, even if he was going to get the reversed banana peel win.

PAS: I thought this was nifty stuff. Any chance to see new Regal is tremendous, and I thought he was awesome here. He had some fun stooging stuff at the beginning, really riling up the crowd and doing the job of a opening match wrestler. When he lays a beating on JBB it was appropriate, Lots of of those nasty left handed forearms to the side of Badd's head, and an incredible counter of a sunset flip where he shifts his weight and drops a knee right on Badd's eye. I really liked Badd's comeback, really worked the heavy bag with his body shots, and hit a very cool looking flying headscissor. Finish was a bit lame, but what you would expect from a house show. Regal really elevates everything he does. 

ER: House show Regal during this era would have been such a treat, and his performance is the kind that makes house show handhelds such a joy. Regal is the TV champ here, and just watching his haughty mannerisms as he reacts to the El Paso fans would be enough to make me love this match. He makes a ring attendant hold the ropes open for him, circles Badd several times while making fake lunges toward him, then when the crowd finally gets excited about Badd laying his hands on Regal...why of course that's when Regal rolls to the floor to avoid the action. Regal keeps grabbing the house mic and asking the fans to please be more quiet so he can concentrate on his wrestling, threatens to leave until he begins being counted out, runs back to the ring and trips on the ropes, landing in his face. This is the kind of stuff that house show dreams are made of, a style that we're getting further and further away from to the detriment of all wrestling joy. 

And once Regal does start wrestling he lays a great beating on Badd for over 10 minutes. He leans full body weight behind European uppercuts, works cool knuckle lock exchanges that end with Regal kneeing his way out, blocks a sunset flip by dropping a knee down onto Badd's face. I thought Badd sold Regal's shots so well, loved the way he always looked off balance, the way Regal would uppercut him into the ropes and then headbutt his stomach to get him back into the ropes, Badd had a nice organic way of selling Regal's offense exactly as it was delivered. Badd's punch comeback looked really cool, highlighting how silly modern stand and trade exchanges look, as Bad is landing body shots while Regal and him aren't really focused on each other's timing. It looked like two guys each trying to land strikes while on defense, not like two guys waiting out their turning in the timing to strike. Regal is a slime and tries to put his feet on the ropes for the win just because he can, and it works! Until the ref notices the feet and reverses the call, leading to Regal getting schoolboyed. This was a tremendous Regal performance around a popular but limited performer, but I thought Badd's selling was incredibly strong and only added to Regal's hilarious mannerisms and brutal strikes. 

Brian Pillman vs. Diamond Dallas Page

MD: It's great to see visible proof of Austin sitting and watching matches. I'd guess in this case that Page asked him to for critiques but maybe the guy just liked wrestling and was a student of the game. Pillman here, came off like the world's smallest Hansen, constantly fighting back, constantly making Page fill space with his size and his offense. It meant Page had to take every moment of this with nothing given and that made for a more compelling experience than you might think coming in.

ER: I'm never going to be too into those matches where babyfaces hit arm drags and then hold arm wringers as a big portion of the match, as it always just ends up making me more interested in the heel eventually breaking through and that shouldn't be the goal. But that's what happened here as I wound up being far more excited for DDP bumping around for Pillman, and really loved his hard forearms to Pillman's jaw. I thought he was good at working a big man against a hot babyface, liked how he took the crossbody, but just found myself far more interested in seeing DDP throw those elbows. Maybe the most interesting thing was our cameraman panning the crowd (or well, panning hundreds of empty folding chairs) to catch Steve Austin sitting by the entrance watching the match. I love seeing things like that. 

Stars & Stripes vs. Pretty Wonderful

MD: The highlight of this came early when Roma bumped himself out of the corner on a clean break and declared victory by claiming Patriot took out his eye. Pretty funny stuff. Pretty Wonderful cut off the ring well, but a lot of their offense was more focused on containing Patriot than doing damage to him and that'll only take you so far. The finish worked though, giving us just enough Bagwell and not too much of him.

ER: I have friends who went to a WCW house in Oakland, CA maybe three months after this house show, and they both said that Pretty Wonderful vs. Stars & Stripes was the worst match they had ever seen live, both with memories of the match going 30 minutes and being dreadfully boring. They both acknowledge that they might feel differently now, how their tastes may have changed, and I think it's possible that they might have hated it due to the unnecessary length and the probable amounts of bullshit in the match. The bullshit in this match is really great, but I know I had less tolerance of stalling and drawn out cheating and those sorts of things when I was younger, and now it's something I actively seek. I didn't like those Rockers/Rougeaus matches that started with 15 minutes of them doing showoff poses and playing games of H-O-R-S-E by doing backflips off the buckles, and now I would kill to see wrestling matches like that. 

This match had a lot of bullshit, and it was nearly 20 minutes (with several minutes cut out when the guy stopped recording) of Pretty Wonderful cutting Patriot off from Bagwell. Patriot is one of the more supremely uninteresting wrestlers of the era, and a match focused on PW containing him and his weird punches is a good thing (he throws hooking right hands with nice form, but frequently aims them them so his mid wrist is connecting with the side of his opponent's head, so his fist always lands behind his opponent). Orndorff is great bumping around the ring and begging off from Stars and Stripes, and things get really great when Roma starts using hand claps behind the ref's back to make it look like Patriot is taking cheap shots. Roma backs Patriot into the corner a couple times, and claps his hands right when the ref can't see, bumps backwards holding his face and complaining about Patriot's poor sportsmanship. The first time Roma did it, a woman near our cameraman began loudly, hoarsely CACKLING with laughter. God I wish I could have watched wrestling with that woman. Roma was great at being the batter who is trying to work a hit by pitch, and what really makes the match is how deeply upset the crowd gets with every single cheat utilized by PW. When a crowd is this angry at a heel routine, it's the easiest thing to love. Roma is a guy I never think of, a wrestler I've seen so much yet has made such a small impression on my memory that watching this house show version of Roma gives me a new appreciation for him. This guy knew how to draw excellent heat on an undersold Texas house show, and that's a cool thing. The match builds smartly to a quick Bagwell hot tag, which is the best possible use of 1993 Bagwell. There's a good chance I would not have had the patience for this match in 1994, but in 2020 this was just what I needed.

Guardian Angel vs. Ron Simmons

MD: This was short and weird. You have to call it a disappointment. I've never seen Simmons work heel like this, almost like chickenshit, falling out of the ring and running away from Angel. He had a nice face first corner bump/rope assisted mule kick as a transition move but it didn't go anywhere as Bossman took right back over a minute later (though there was what felt like a small cut which maybe made a difference). Really the best part of this was how the ring shook whenever they hit the ropes.

ER: I thought this kicked ass, and based on the timekeeper's call I think we actually got closer to 4 minutes cut out of this, and I think that was an important cut. I'm pretty positive we missed the 4 minute entirety of Ron Simmons' offense, as the match cuts right after he knocks Traylor to the floor with an awesome falling headbutt/Bret Hart diving elbow, and then joins us back with Simmons missing a big headbutt off the middle rope. What we're left with does indeed feel incomplete, but I loved the match we did get. Simmons/Boss Man really wasn't a singles match that was run a lot (I don't think we ever would have even got a singles match between them 5-6 years later in WWF), and who knows maybe they intentionally did not want to run this match because Traylor so large and it's a tough spot to put some heels in working with a large dominant babyface. 

But large dominant babyface Ray Traylor is some of my favorite wrestling, so I loved seeing him uppercut Simmons around the ring, roll to the floor and uppercut him some more. We get big shoulderblocks and nice collisions, and obviously the big mystery is just what did Ron Simmons do to control Traylor during that missing time. Traylor's comeback after the Simmons missed headbutt is great, a few big clotheslines and a finisher worthy crossbody that Traylor got great big man height on (and Simmons took in a way that landed HARD). We get a hilarious bit at the very end that feels completely out of place (enough that I assume this was played up a lot during our missing time) as Traylor hits a headbutt and then drops to his knees selling Simmons' hard head...only to roll him up in a small package when Simmons tried to capitalize. It's REALLY hard to do a "sell hard head of opponent spot" literally 10 seconds before winning the match, so this had to have been the focal point of the missing time, leading to Traylor exploiting it for the surprise finish. Loved this pairing, glad we finally got to see a nice length singles. 

Dustin Rhodes/Arn Anderson vs. Bunkhouse Buck/Amarillo Slim

MD: We don't get a ton of this. In fact, we lose it right when it's getting good, but I'm sick of hearing Arn say how terrible a babyface he'd be because he has no "babyface skills." He could punch. He had great timing. That's literally all you need.

ER: Oh, how cruel handheld wrestling can be. This was the match I was most excited to see, and what portion of the match clearly showed it to be the best match on the show. Alas, we don't see the finish of the match, and it felt like there still could have been 5 (or 10!) minutes left. The match still could have gone in several ways and we cut out after jumps the gun on the hot tag. It wouldn't be a shock to find out they worked another 5 minutes of Buck/Slim keeping Arn away from the tag. As we finish, Arn has run into the ring throwing punches before getting tossed hard to the floor, and Buck/Slim are just about to start working over Dustin again. We'll never know, but what we do get is as good as its on paper promise. 

There are cuts throughout the match, but those appear to be our cameraman cutting "out of ring" time. Obviously, all of that out of the ring time involves Robert Fuller, so cutting that out of the handheld is a crime. When Bunkhouse Buck takes a huge bump over the top to the floor and Fuller gives him some air by waving his cowboy hat over his face, you know we're missing out on other versions of that. But we do get Fuller on the house mic directing traffic and telling Buck and Slim to keep putting the boots to Dustin. Buck is great at laying in the boots and taking offense, loved how he sold Dustin's atomic drop but also loved how he kept backing Dustin up with a bearhug. At first I thought it was silly that Erik Watts was working as "Amarillo Slim" (I had no idea this was a gimmick he worked at the end of his first WCW run), but heel cowboy Erik Watts is way more interesting than tall clumsy babyface Erik Watts. He takes his own fast bump to the floor and could have really been valuable as a heel patsy who apes Buck and Fuller. Arn as a fired up hot tag babyface is something we didn't get enough of, and something he's great at. He's a powerhouse on the apron, and between his babyface apron energy and Dustin's excellent FIP work, it's not shockingly a great fit. So, watch and love this for what it is, and not for the missing parts we have no control over. We have Amarillo Slim footage now, and for that we should be thankful. Imagine if Virgil had only worked a few house show dates as Curly Bill and had never been on TV under that gimmick. Watts as Slim is not as exciting as that, but it hits the same spot. 

Stunning Steve Austin vs. Sting

MD: Austin was in transition here, no longer the TV champ of 91 or the Hollywood Blonde of 93 but not yet what he'd become a couple of years (and injuries) later. I love watching him squash guys in 95. Here he was still full of stooging and bullshit but had a way that he threw himself into all of his offense that was a portent of what would come. Sting did what he had to, emanating power and authority, a straightman that let all of Austin's manic energy just wash around him, waiting for him to feed into gorilla press slams and back body drops. This had enough time to be fun, but given the number of roll up finishes so far, there was probably no harm in giving Sting something more definitive to end it.

ER: I love Steve Austin, and I really love this era of Austin. I don't know if anyone on the roster at this point delivered offense better than Austin. He wrestles the way 1994 Bret Hart would have wrestled as a stooging heel. Same perfectly executed offense, delivered as if to look like he's really throwing his full weight behind everything. Hart and Austin have very similar styles but tweaked in ways that made them unique and complementary opponents (instead of the parity battle their series could have been), and 1994 Hart was a guy that would have been able to have a great match with Sting. House Show Austin is one of my favorite things, as every time we get to finally see WCW handhelds or unreleased post-Raw dark matches, Austin shows himself to be one of the more engaging crowd work guys in history. I mean, *obviously* Steve Austin was someone who could connect with crowds, but he never really stopped working the way an old 50 year old bullshit artist territory guy would work a 35 person crowd. He clearly relishes getting in people's faces and doing full routines with people in the front row, and the crowd was here for ALL of it. He knew when to be vicious to Sting, he knew when to get his ass kicked, and you get the sense that Austin could have had a match this good with a babyface of any ability. 

Austin is a great bumper, and here we get to see him give the balcony fans in El Paso a great look off at him as he flew into a sky high backdrop, and not long after went up just as high for a quick Sting press slam, and Austin works so fast his bumps look even better. He's one of the best all time at being perfectly in control while working at a speed that makes it seem like things are about to run off the rails. It's like a 2 year old who has been walking for awhile, but still falls down when running too fast, as if the body isn't quite catching up to the desire. Maybe the best thing about his bumping is how hard his landings look, or how hard he makes his landings look. He hits heavy on the mat for every back bump, which makes suplex landings or falls feel always consequential. His offense all looks so good, and I can't get enough of his kneedrop, his diving elbow off the middle buckle that might be the best version of that elbow ever thrown, and one of the coolest things I've ever seen him do: when he unrolls Sting's arm like he's about to hit a Rainmaker and just assaults him with a back elbow. Honestly, it looked so great it should be a finisher. It all builds to a quick, simple Sting comeback. Austin bumps for three decent clotheslines, holds the ropes on a sunset flip only to have them kicked off by the ref (sincerely one of my most hated spots in wrestling history). Austin kicks out but comes up shoving the ref for kicking his hands, leading to Austin getting shoved into a schoolboy. The finish really felt like the kind that some WCW agent saw Flair use for a couple decades, but Austin pulls off that kind of thing with aplomb. 

Jerry "The King" Lawler vs  Nick Bockwinkle CWA 8/21/78 - GREAT

MD: A Thanksgiving miracle, even if one with a ten minute clip through a lot of the good stuff. I'm pretty certain this was the first time Bockwinkel fought Lawler and some of the only footage (if not THE only footage) we have of Heenan in the Mid-South Coliseum. Heenan had amazing purple and gold California pajama gear that could have only existed in the 70s. Bock wrestled Lawler early on the same way he'd wrestle Chavo Guerrero in Houston a few years later, that Hollywood over-confidence in wrestling a local yokel in front of a crowd that loved him for whatever reason. Even Lance picked up on it on commentary a few minutes in (which is why Lance is so great). It led, of course, to Lawler stooging him with his own offense and looking like a million bucks without diminishing Bockwinkel in the least. Heenan and Bockwinkel spend the first few minutes complaining about hairpulls that don't exist only for Bock to take over for a bit with a hairpull of his own. It's that attention to detail that made him so great. The cut comes just as you can tell they were about to move into something better, so it's frustrating, but when we come back for the finish, it's in the midst of a ton of great Lawler punches and Bockwinkel's full body selling that really got over the weight of what had happened so far. The finish is typical Heenan running in when his guy is doomed, but it's to show that Lawler can beat the champ and set up the rematch the following week, which I bet drew. It's a shame we don't have all of this, but we've got 15 minute more of it than we did last week, and I won't complain about that.

PAS: Odd presentation of this match, we get the first 12 minutes or so of this, which is a lot of feeling out and cat and mouse stuff. Lawler suckering Bock into a side headlock, Heenan grousing at the ref, etc. All prologue. These are two masters, so minor key stuff is going to be well worth watching, but just as Lawler starts to pick it up with big forearms to the ribs and a couple of right hands, they jump right to the last two minutes. I obviously want it all, but if you are going to clip, clip the appetizer, not the main course. Finish is Lawler rolling, and we get an absolutely classic fist drop. He is the best ever at it, and this is one of his best, before Heenan just runs in for the DQ (his Laker's jumpsuit was maybe the highlight of this match, he looked like Jerry West on the prowl for the ladies). A little frustrating, but still this was something we didn't know existed until Wednesday.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 1/15/20

What Worked

-I really liked what Santana/Ortiz brought to the opening tag scramble. Everybody else was worried about what move they were going to not acknowledge while trying to remember the next sequence order, and those guys were the ones who were actually adding any kind of substance. I saw Ortiz multiple times try to grab at guys from the apron as they ran the ropes, liked how they built to drama over kickout saves while most everyone else was just burning through offense to kick out of, liked how they took pratfall bumps and dug their big dives to their floor. They seemed to be the only two guys in there who saw the need for glue in a match like this.

-Guevara is definitely among the most consistent topside guys in AEW, and my favorite part of this match was how he occupied himself during the commercial breaks. He seems to be the only guy who can continue doing worthwhile stuff on a break. Earlier you had MJF saying a bunch of stuff into the camera that nobody but lip readers were able to get, so Guevara brings out his cue cards and knows when to go to that smug chinlock. Everything he did during the mid match break was stooge stuff that played to the fans in attendance, and that's great! If you need to decide which spots to do for the full screen and which ones to do while a Doritos ad is blaring, grabbing a fan's popcorn bucket to beat Moxley with makes way more sense during the Doritos ad. The fireman's carry squats should have been saved for full camera, but that spot is such a great thing for a runt underdog heel to do that it doesn't matter when he does it.

-Six man was a little dry, and the Dustin heat all happened during tiny screen commercial break (Dustin is a great FIP and I like seeing his mannerisms!), but it had enough good moments to get it up here. The first time I saw DDP I thought he was in his mid 50s, and he still basically looks exactly like that. DDP is the Harry Dean Stanton of pro wrestling? Dustin's cannonball off the apron and DDP's very unexpected dive to the floor looked great, and I liked the camera work involved in seeing MJF slip a weapon back to the unfortunately named WARDLOW.

-Give me a Sammy Guevara match and a Darby main event, throw Dustin somewhere into a match, and odds are I'm going to be into the episode overall. Allin is totally fearless and adds a bunch of shine to everything PAC does to him. Loved the coffin drop to the floor, loved his dive plastering Pac into the barricade, and hot damn if Darby doesn't even know how to make a Guerrero/Malenko sequence work and work *well* in 2020. Allin really gets a lot out of roll-ups, and for a tiny guy he's really good about getting into them with force and then actually making them look like legit pinning predicaments. PAC's big finish looked great, no surprise these two matched up so nicely.

What Didn't Work

-Well they sure tried during that opening tag scramble. Kenny point a lot and swung into go behinds like he was doing street dancing choreography, just swinging around street lamps. Matt Jackson doing rolling northern lights across the ring, only for Trent to just hit a tornado DDT on the final one, is one of those really stupid spots these guys are good at. You know, those spots where guys get stronger after taking a move a lot. Page hit a lariat that I liked, and a bunch of backflip stuff that looked awful as usual.

-Is Mel a non-wrestler? She worked that tag with similar amounts of polish as David Flair. I'm not sure the last time I've seen someone on TV with less ring instincts. Literally every single spot she was involved with looked blown. Brandi Rhodes is your partner, and you look like the less trained member of your team? I have no idea what Statlander's backflip off the apron is supposed to be. I've seen her use it in all her matches, no idea what it is. The dumbest way to almost hit a back elbow? It is a bad piece of offense. Shida was ultra exposed in this one too. Her jumping knees look bad, and she had arguably the worst strikes of the match (which covers a lot of ground) with those pitter pat punches (?) she was throwing at Mel's thigh while fighting to her feet. So much of Shida's offense is done in slow motion, looks like someone going through the motions rehearsing spots. I reached around someone at the copier today and accidentally nudged them harder than any of her shots on Mel. The biggest miracle in this was that Shida gave Mel a superplex and they didn't manage to both die. In fact, it was a fine looking superplex.

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WCW A-Sides? WCW Nitro 10/21/96

Bobby Eaton vs. Chris Jericho

ER: This match unexpectedly got a lot of time (nearly 8 minutes) and it really built into something fun after a slow, distracting start. You see, Syxx and nWo Sting came out under a big nWo banner and we would get occasional cutaways to those two in the crowd sucking away a lot of the attention. So there was a longish moment in the first half of this where Jericho held a hammerlock waiting for the crowd to come around. It was feeling like this was going to be a disappointment, but the whole thing snapped to life with a strike exchange. Jericho threw some nice slaps to Eaton's chest, then when they started throwing right hands I was in. Jericho would throw 2 or 3 for every 1 of Eaton's, with Eaton landing a couple doozies. Crowd didn't care about nWo members after this. Eaton fed Jericho some nice stuff, took his big springing dropkick that he bumped off the apron to the floor, Eaton takes a nice post shot then ducks so Jericho throws a back elbow to the post, shoot Eaton even takes a backdrop into the entrance way, far past the point the mats end. Eaton still gets a lot in this one even it's supposed to be building Jericho up for a match with Syxx, and we get a great Eaton kneedrop off the top right to Jericho's chest, and a cool reversal where he snaps a swinging neckbreaker to reverse a Jericho backdrop attempt, and I'm really glad this recovered and then some. It feels like nWo sucked the interest out of a lot of matches from this era, glad these two persevered.

We get a great Rey Misterio Jr. highlight package, him hitting a bunch of fast ranas while we get a lot of experimental 1996 digital video editing color washes and graphics, while some mournful instrumental guitar plays over it. Not mournful guitar like "Maggot Brain", but more like the mournful guitar in one of those scenes in Renegade where Lorenzo Lamas comes into contact with an old flame, and they reconnect somewhere at sunset, which is when he finds out she's now involved with the cartel.

Jimmy Graffiti vs. Dean Malenko

ER: This is the debut of Jimmy Graffiti, which is all kinds of weird 1996 wrestling. Graffiti is known better as Jimmy Del Ray, one half of the Heavenly Bodies, and it's shocking how much younger he looks without his Rod Beck fluffy mullet/handlebar mustache combo. A smooth face, sensible haircut, and his trademark pale complexion makes him look like the cruiserweight version of The Undertaker, if Undertaker was dressed like a 90s John Cena. I have no idea what the plan was, putting Jimmy Del Ray in baggy jorts and a hockey jersey with subway tagged wrestling boots, but he's out there and this weirdo must be face as Malenko was working heel opposite Rey during this time. And these two have a fun back and forth cruiser match, Graffiti getting a lot of nearfalls and taking some big bumps in exchange. Graffiti takes the Harley Race bump to the floor, getting his feet hooked on the bottom rope and dropping onto his head (and it's weird seeing Schiavone and Zbyszko doing commentary from a folding table right against the ring), and later Dean takes them both to the floor with a crossbody (potentially dangerous bump as it sends both to the floor faster than normal, Graffiti sprawling into the guardrail); Graffiti even takes a pretty mean backdrop suplex and eats some boots to the head from Dean. Malenko is overly generous with Graffiti, giving him several roll-ups nearfalls, Graffiti hits a big sitout powerbomb and a missile dropkick, gets to push out of the Cloverleaf a couple times, really he gets way more of the match than I would have guessed going in.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Sgt. Craig Pittman

ER: Fun little match that adds a nice twist into it's sub-3 minute runtime. It looks like it's going to be a Page squash, and we get a cool moment of DDP hitting his great piledriver slam (really looks like he's bouncing foreheads off mat), and when Pittman kicks out it lands DDP on top of ref Nick Patrick (who has worn a neck brace all night) and as he sells back pain from DDP landing on him you wouldn't believe how loudly the crowd cheers his pain. I didn't remember nWo heel ref Nick Patrick being so reviled. DDP does a real clever bit of business here as he is on the floor and starts soaking up Nick Patrick's cheers as his own, allowing Pittman to reach through the ropes and grab DDP's arm, yanking him into the ringpost. Pittman is really vicious going after an arm, and I especially like when he throws uppercuts and short arm shoulderblocks to someone, here he also gets to stretch DDP's arm all around the ropes and even gets a visual tap to the Code Red armbar. Alas, Nick Patrick saw nothing, and Pittman eats a Diamondcutter nicely.

Ron Studd vs. Jeff Jarrett

ER: I like the concept of matching Jarrett up against a giant right before he is facing the Giant at Havoc, but they don't do much interesting with it. Studd lifts Jarrett up by the neck a few times, but then they have Jarrett actually hit a vertical suplex with no struggle at all, just gets on his tiptoes, tosses an arm over Studd, and lifts him right over. Then takes an eternity to lock on a figure 4.

Road Block vs. Lex Luger

ER: This episode is clearly booked around my sensibilities, as not only did we get the Jimmy Graffiti debut, but Road Block debuts on the same episode?! And I love how WCW used to handle the debuts of guys like this: Basically pretend you have no idea who they are. Road Block isn't going to beat Luger, but they're at least saying things like "who is this guy? He's huge!" There's a lot of Irish whipping in this match, both guys setting up nearly every attack by first whipping the other into the ropes or buckles, with Road Block standing up to lariats and throwing a few mean ones of his own. Big moment is Luger clotheslining Road Block to the floor, big bump for Block. Road Block is dressed like the world's largest swashbuckling pirate, with his two lane highway capris and a striped tank top that looks like something a lifeguard would wear, but the guy is huge, throws a nice lariat, and does an impossibly cool kneedrop right to Luger's face. The finish could have been really awkward, but Luger is so damn over and knows how to milk reaction that it totally works: Luger tries to get Road Block up for the torture rack, but can't. He tries twice and drops him. It doesn't appear that he is intentionally dropping him, just feels like he can't actually rack Road Block. Block just keeps standing back up after falling and getting back in position to be racked. After the second failed attempt Luger even looks to the hard cam and shrugs. But the fans never turn on him and nobody knew about the You Fucked Up chants, and since these are wrestling fans they just actually want to see him rack Road Block. So Luger tries it a third time, succeeds, the crowd flips out, Bischoff and Heenan flip out on commentary, and it turns out some actual human error made the moment a FAR bigger deal than if Luger had just got him up for the rack on the first attempt.

American Males vs. Harlem Heat

ER: Dear WCW, could you please show me the two teams from this era that I would LEAST like to see against each other? Great. Thank you. Also, WCW, could you give it more time than any match on this episode? Just let it go 10, see what these two teams have to offer? Cool. The match starts with Stevie Ray missing a stomach kick by 18", but does get better (although not enough to justify the runtime). Best moment came from Riggs hiptossing Booker T over the top to the floor and Booker bumping big for it (with Heenan rightly wondering why that wasn't a DQ). The rest was filled with a ton of AM dropkicks, a nice Stevie Ray lariat, Col. Parker taking his banana peel bump on the apron when Riggs hits him first, and one of those finishes that always seem to happen in matches with Buff Bagwell, where a pinfall gets broken up slightly too early or slightly too late, so the finish is really confusing and everyone stands around waiting for what to do. It feels like it happened too often in Bagwell matches to be a coincidence. Also, I gotta say I am loving Nick Patrick in his neck brace, holding his neck every single time he counts a pinfall.

The Fantastics vs. Faces of Fear

ER: 1996 Fantastics on my TV screen? What kind of magic episode is this!? But also, it's really weird that they went well over an hour into this episode without a tag match, and then ran back to back tag matches with two blowjob teams working the exact same match back to back. If you have the Fantastics making a weird one off 1996 TV appearance, maybe don't have your lame in house version of the Fantastics wrestle immediately before them. Also, as much as I like FoF, there's this expectation for Meng matches that rarely actually lives up to reality. Meng is regarded as one of the toughest dudes in pro wrestling history, so everybody always assumes that he has a laundry list of matches where he just takes mean liberties with opponents. But really, he doesn't. I have seen hardly any instances of Meng looking even slightly unprofessional - or even working slightly more stiff than normal - in any match. Look at any heel tag team squash match from 90s WWF and you will likely find a team that treats opponents worse than Meng does. That doesn't mean the matches aren't still fun though. This is mostly the FoF show, and honestly until the final 30 seconds of the match I wasn't sure that any of Bischoff/Heenan/Tenay even knew which Fantastic was which, or even knew their names. After hearing all of them repeatedly refer to each member of the team as "The Fantastics" the entire match (as in "The Fantastics really need to tag out here!"), it wasn't until Tenay actually mentioned Tommy Rogers during his hot tag that I figured at least Tenay knew. But then he *does* just call Bobby Fulton "Fulton", so it's possible he wasn't confident he could identify him as Jackie or Bobby. But just like with the American Males, we get mostly dropkicks from the Fantastics, with most of this worked as an extended FoF squash. We get one really great moment of Bobby taking a backdrop from Meng, but getting caught and powerbombed by Barbarian. Tommy takes a nice bump getting knocked off the apron by Meng, and even kicks Meng in the head a couple times to break up pinfalls (and again, someone knowing Meng's rep would then think that Meng was going to serve up a cruel receipt to Tommy, but that doesn't happen, because Meng only bites off noses outside of the ring), Fantastics throw a tandem dropkick off the middle and Tommy hits one off the top, but FoF amusingly win when Barbarian picks up Tommy for a front slam and Meng just kicks him in the head.

J.L. vs. nWo Sting

ER: I never understood why Jerry Lynn just went by "JL" in WCW. He was under a mask, he could have literally been any name, and it's not like the majority of fans knew who Jerry Lynn was in 1996 anyway. "Gotta keep these initials to stay true to my fans." This show was IN Minnesota. These are his people right here, and nobody knew he was a Minnesota boy. Had he been something 1996-cool like Laser Swarm or if the JL stood for something weird like Jett Lust, then he would have at least gotten a reaction for that. It doesn't get more non-starter than the name JL. nWo Sting gets a great reaction until people realize it's not actually Sting, and I love how he plays up all the mannerisms. The match is more angle than match, but I liked Sting's nice falling powerslam.

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 6/23/96

J.L. vs. Brad Armstrong

ER: So like...nobody really knew who Jerry Lynn was...and he's under a mask...so why were they married to acknowledging what his shoot initials are? He's under a mask, fucking call him anything. Bobby Heenan, on JL: "I...I don't really know anything about this guy." Brad Armstrong's mullet is the embodiment of "business in the front, party in the back". The front looks so damn professional, a nice high and tight, and a one millimieter turn to either side makes him immediately look like a total degenerate. Like, straight on he's a nice guy your sister met at church, then he turns and he's that nice guy's speed dealing ex-friend from high school. And this is pretty great as Brad doesn't actually work heel, but he gives JL most of the offense, takes some nice rolling Tim Horner armdrags and eats a tough missile dropkick (man I can never spell "missile" right on the first go through. My fingers just move in all the wrong directions), Lynn really shotgunned him to the chest. But they do that spot I hate where JL hits a flush crossbody off the top, Armstrong splats on the mat fully 100% taking the crossbody, hits the mat hard...and then rolls it through for a 2 count. That takes me so far out of the match. The Russian legsweep does look nice, but they took a dumb route to get there.

Arn Anderson/Taskmaster vs. Leroy Howard/Bill Payne

ER: Ohhhhhhh shit Leroy Howard is Rastaman from BattlArts!! IS THIS THE ONLY TIME ARN ANDERSON HAS FOUGHT A BATTLARTS GUY!?!? He somehow only has ONE listed match opposite Valentine? None against Backlund...There's got to be a really obvious one that I'm forgetting or a completely bonkers one that nobody would know ("oh yeah I think he wrestled Urban Ken on a charity show"). This is history! I had also forgotten all about an Arn/Sullivan tag team. And this match was kind of weird. Howard is only in this match for the first 20 seconds, and the rest is basically Arn and Sullivan stomping Bill Payne. Sullivan gets all rowdy when he tags in, and goes for a fucking headscissors! Like a Ricky Morton/Marty Jannetty style headscissors where you pose for a bit with your legs around your opponent's head while your body is jutting diagonally away from his torso. There's a major problem, which is that Kevin Sullivan has zero hops, so when he comes running in, his legs make it somewhere around Payne's waist. And BLESS BILL PAYNE because he grabs onto Sullivan's leg and is holding Sullivan upside down, and still manages to take a bump as if he had been headscissored. Sullivan kicks him in the eye as a thank you. Later Arn would hold him in a Boston Crab and drag him to the ropes so Sullivan can kick him in the head a bunch. I liked Arn in this, which shouldn't be a shock. He dropped a nice knee and obviously hit a great spinebuster. I do wish we could have seen more of Leroy Howard though.

ER: There's a Mean Gene promo segment promoting the upcoming (June 30th) WCW house show at the MSG theater. This feels like a big deal, and BRUNO is on the card as a guest ref. I'm sure there's a 6 hour Between the Sheets pod that covers this house show in detail. WCW touring into New York City feels like a big deal (even if running at "The Theatre at the Garden" feels like a pretty good self-own, like laughing about doing a merely passable job at ironing your exes' clothes), and a quick check shows that this upcoming house show will only be the 2nd time WCW ran NYC in the 90s. AND they only ran NYC *FOUR TIMES EVER*! And the two shows in 1998 were free PR events, one of them a free show with a few matches in Bryant Park and the other an event in conjunction with MTV called MTV Ultimate Video Bash, which was a flat out absurd event. It was an outdoor event in the pouring rain, maybe a hundred fans in attendance, with the original idea that wrestlers would represent bands whose videos would play throughout the show (Barry Darsow represented Run DMC!) in a tournament. But it was pouring so hard that the only match that happened was Public Enemy, representing LL Cool J, which...I...you ARE ALREADY NAMED AFTER A LEGENDARY HIP HOP ACT. Anyway, PE fought High Voltage (representing Will Smith, which feels like a MAJOR missed opportunity to not be representing Public Enemy) in the rain, while we got the (probably?) never again commentary team of Shiavone, Zbyszko, and Matt Pinfield. The match is a couple minutes long, but High Voltage are great in it. This two minute match would have given them a standing on a DVDVR500. The ring is soaked and slippery as hell, and there are no mats around the ring, and they both go full speed on a spot where they get Irish whipped into each other, Rage bumps big to the floor, then takes an awesome tumbling bump into the barricades (remember, no mats) AND gets a Drive-By through a table. High Voltage owned this event.

Anyway, yeah, WCW only ran 4 times in NYC, in their entire history, and only two were "real" shows. This upcoming show on 6/30 was the realest, as the other was from 1993. This show was when they were much bigger as a company. The show looked good on paper, but it feels like a weenie move to only run the Theatre. Run MSG, even if you "only" get 4,000 people in there. Was there a deal in place where only WWF could run there? This whole show feels like a major moment in the promotion's history, and it's treated in this promo like just another house show. You'd think they would be advertising Bruno's name more. They bring it up and Mean Gene sounds like he thinks it's a big deal, but it only gets a quick mention. Before this I had zero idea that Bruno had ever done business with WCW in the mid 90s. I can't believe they didn't even have an onscreen graphic.

Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero

ER: I know it's easy to make these kind of statements after the fact, but my god can Benoit look like a dead-eyed soulless psychopath. Here he came out with Arn and Arn promo'd to the camera while Benoit just vacantly stared. Yeesh. I have a real hard time focusing during this one, but Eddie was a machine here. Benoit came off really sadistic - my perception or real, not sure - with some casually tossed off violent dead eyed offense; suplexing Eddie onto the top rope gut first a couple times, mean chops, hard knees to the stomach, all with this joyless killer face. Eddie bumps huge for all of it, but his comeback is a little bit too convenient. He just kind of snaps and then comes back with a snap suplex and hits a knees to the ribs frog splash. Kind of unsatisfying but it was hot as hell with the crowd. I don't like crapping on something the crowd is clearly hot for, and Eddie had great fire, just thought Benoit went from ice cold killer to overwhelmed a bit too quick. Arn Anderson had a great ringside cheat by pulling the top rope down to send Eddie flying to the floor. This was hot but I guess I just wasn't in the mood for it, but nobody could have any arguments with the move execution here.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Kensuke Sasaki

ER: A kid mugging for the camera by the entrance gets surprised when suddenly large thick Asian man with a mullet and leather jacket walks by an inch from his small head. DDP’s gear seemed so dated in 1996, I still think it is completely unfathomable that he became as big a star as he did. Two years after this he was huge, and here he’s coming out in lime green tights with a shiny pink vest, smoking a cigar and wiggling his fingers at the camera. Who was this look based on? What type of person was he mimicking for his character? I love how well it ended up working out for him. And this match rules. It has an unexpectedly hot start that it can’t really maintain, but DDP knew exactly what he was doing and how to work through with a Japanese guy who Florida tourist fans would automatically boo just for being Japanese. DDP made Sasaki the clear face despite Sasaki not being great at playing to fans, at all. DDP takes a nice amount of time to get Sasaki to agree to a handshake, then as their hands have barely touched DDP is already booting him in the stomach and throwing hard elbows, Sasaki hits a sharp back elbow right under the chin, DDP eats a fast lariat that sends him to the floor, and he writhes on the floor on his back, comically. It’s a great start to the match. DDP’s basics are nice, throws a good kick to the stomach, nice stomp to he gut, a couple nice short elbow drops high on the chest, and his long gangly limbs almost whip around when he takes offense. Sasaki was a short little bull, hits a nice big rotation powerslam, and takes the Diamondcutter really well. His sell was one of the best I’ve seen, landing normally, but slowly lifting his face off the mat like he was a cat running into a sliding glass door. He naturally rolled over for the pin, really expertly getting into position after the cutter. Very nice.

The Mauler vs. Sting

ER: The Mauler is Mike Enos, not called Mike Enos on the onscreen entrance graphic, but instead called The Mauler. His hair is breezy, chin length and flops when he walks. He has a small mustache, and looks to be the inspiration for Buck, who likes to Fuck. And this match is an absolutely perfect 3 minutes of wrestling. Flawless. It crams everything you want to see into 3 succinct minutes. These two (three, with Col. Robert Parker out with Mauler) could have worked much longer than that, but a perfect 3 is sublime. Sting gets to shine early and Enos bumps big all around for him, ending with him being tossed hip tossed and stumbling and bouncing through the ropes to the hard stage, then having Parker hold him back for running recklessly back into the ring. He eventually does, and he ends up taking an even bigger, more spectacular bump over the top to the floor, onto that hard freaking stage, and the fans are flipping out for Sting. Sting even grabs Parker’s cowboy hat and sees which side of the crowd is loudest so he could throw it to them. Every time Sting pretended to throw the hat, ref Randy Anderson would jump in front of him like he was Secret Service jumping to stop a bullet from hitting the president. Sting then threatens to stomp the hat and Parker is flipping out, but Mauler has snuck quietly around the ring and sneaks in and lariats Sting in the back of the head, a hard backbreaker, then hits a HUGE powerslam that gave him a nice strut as he walked by Kensuke Sasaki later that taping. THAT’S how we do powerslams in Florida, motherfucker. We end quick but it's a quality ending, as Parker gets up on the apron to cheat by Mauler gets reversed into him, then Sting kicks Mauler’s leg out and locks on the Scorpion Deathlock. This was aces, 3 minutes of the best stuff.

Faces of Fear vs. Sgt. Craig Pittman/Jim Duggan

ER: Weird, disappointing match. It’s almost entirely Duggan and Pittman, and Duggan is working pretty light, Meng acts afraid of Pittman, Barbarian fights with Teddy Long over Duggan’s 2x4 for way too long, just an unsatisfying match. There is early intrigue in the Meng/Pittman sections, Pittman goes for a couple cool amateur takedowns, and the best part of the match was the two of them getting tangled in the ropes, but neither wanting to break. So Meng had gone to the ropes to break a hold but then had a standing grapevine on Pittman’s leg and neither man was budging. It could have gone somewhere interesting, but it didn’t. Faces of Fear kind of looked like doofs here which just isn’t totally what I wanted to see. I bet there’s a cool match between these two teams. Duggan isn’t always a lame, and the potential for some amateur tough guy shenanigans seems high.

COMPLETE & ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW WorldWide 11/3/96

We continue our little mini journey through '96 WCW. This episode turned out to be one of the all time best episodes of WCW syndicated TV. Catch it!


1. Scott Norton vs. Mike Marcello

Total glorious massacre. Marcello was like the nerdy Masao Inoue of waiting in the ring jobbers. He had a cotton ball in his ear and Schiavone talked about how he had an ear infection. Good grief. Marcello starts off really fun by rolling under a Norton clothesline, hitting a dropkick, rolling out of the way of a Norton elbowdrop (and Norton really plants his elbow on the miss), then leaping onto Norton's back like Inigo Montoya, but from there it's all Norton massacring him. Norton breaks out a couple headbutt variations that I've never seen him use (one with him holding Marcello's head and the other more of a thrust headbutt). Marcello was really good selling the headbutts, checking his head for blood. Okay, he clearly just thought he got busted open hardway, but it added to the match. He bumps around real nice for Norton, Norton destroys him with the shoulderbreaker. Yeah, this is what you'd want out of Norton vs. Mike Marcello. Mike Marcello, the poor man with the ear infection.

2. Dave Taylor vs. Bobby Eaton

We cut to the crowd booing Taylor, particularly a mother and her 10 yr old daughter, both of whom are seen wearing midriff halter tops. And oh shit this match is great (except for the stupid pinfall finish). This gets almost 6 minutes which is surprising, but Taylor jumps Eaton before the bell and just blasts him with a couple uppercuts, but the whole match is Eaton fighting back with his gorgeous and violent punches. Taylor does a bunch of fun bumps for all the punches, a few slow falling tree bumps, a comic spill through the ropes to the floor, and Eaton mixes up the blows between his beautiful shot to the jaw and blows to the body. A great spot sees Taylor go for a boston crab only for Eaton to punch him in the stomach, dropping Taylor at the waist, who then takes a punch to the face. Do you like perfect punches? Do you like nasty uppercuts? You'll like all of this. Finish is goofy now but may have seemed novel 20 years ago, as Taylor traps Eaton in the same boston crab position and does a flip over cradle, but Eaton gets a shoulder up and Taylor is the one who gets counted down. Which obviously makes no sense since nobody would have possibly thought Eaton was pinning Taylor in his position, but they tried to get cute on us. Taylor kicks the shit out of Eaton afterwards, as he should. Both guys looked killer here. Taylor had some cool leg picks and both had no problem dishing out stiff shots. One of the best Taylor syndicated matches, as usually his matches (win or lose) only get 2-3 minutes.

We get a perfect Arn Anderson promo on Luger, talking about how Luger has unquestionably the best body in the biz, and Anderson says "And you know, I think I look pretty good myself, but nobody would say I have a perfect body. But beneath your exterior, your body is made of paper mache, and I'm gonna expose that." There have been a lot of great promo guys in wrestling history, but I think Arn Anderson is far and away the greatest pre-taped backstage promo guy in wrestling history. There were always cool little layers to his backstage promos, things he would set up at the beginning and wrap up throughout the whole promo, neat little moments of personality, just perfectly delivered. Go ahead, name me one guy who is better at these type of promos. NAME ONE!

3. Faces of Fear vs. Casey Thompson & Cliff Sheets

What an odd little jobber squash. Casey Thompson and Cliff Sheets sound PRECISELY like the names of two men who deserve to have the shit kicked out of them by Faces of Fear. Except Thompson and Sheets didn't quite get the message. Meng jumps them at the bell with some absolutely nasty shots that neither of them expected, but they kept doing little things to be really annoying to Meng and Barbarian. Sheets and Thompson were wearing these ill-fitting matching singlets, but keep seeming to go against the script. They take the double teams, they take some nasty vertical suplexes (with a follow up stiff Meng splash off the top), but then do these little irritating things that just...feel like things they're not supposed to do. Like when Meng goes for an elbowdrop and Sheets moves, Meng seems like he didn't expect Sheets to move. THAT'S not supposed to be what happens!! Sheets is supposed to be the guy taking an unexpected elbow to the face. Meng isn't supposed to be the guy unexpectedly whiffing on a elbow! Later we get some hardway powerbombs where is seems like neither of our heroes Thompson and Sheets would quite rotate and land properly. Barbarian hits a nasty Kick of Fear and....Thompson saves his partner from the pinfall? Jobbers don't break up pins against the Faces of Fear! FoF actually seem genuinely confused, looking at each other like "who the fuck are these guys!?" Sheets and Thompson take headbutts, shots to the throat, Meng fishhooks one of them while biting their face, Hugh Morrus gets involved with actual capable punches, and these men finally get pinned. Who were these men, who tried to go off script with Meng? I fear for them and their loose cannon brains, but am also glad they existed 20 years ago. With their clear deathwish they probably drove home that night headlong into traffic.

4. Juventud Guerrera vs. Konnan

Holy shit you guys. This was great. Wanna see Konnan trying to work like Negro Navarro? Here ya go. Konnan locks on some weird submissions, works a cravate, works some weird Regal leg reversals, the world is confused. Juvy was crazy in '96, and Konnan clearly respected him as this might be the only '96 Konnan match I've seen that wasn't just a sloppily assembled Konnan moves exhibition. Konnan is a total dickhead standing and jumping on Juvy's face, but he also gives Juvy a bunch of stuff, taking all of his spin kicks and dropkicks. Juvy takes a wild flapjack bump to the hard rotating WorldWide stage, then flips out of a Konnan powerbomb on the floor, and since Juvy is a crazy person he ends up taking an electric chair bump on the freaking ring apron. You picture that being done in 1996. That feels like something that would happen in a modern indy dream match. Back in and Juvy botches a springboard whoknowswhat, redoes it into a backflip only to get brained by a brutal Konnan lariat for the win. I never EVER would have thought a Konnan match could have made a comp tape, but ladies, here it is. This match was bananas. Maybe the only good Konnan WCW match I've seen.

5. Diamond Dallas Page vs. Eddie Guerrero

God I miss Eddie. He looked so damn good here. DDP also looked good and is a guy who ages really well on rewatch, just because you can tell he's always working so damn hard in his matches. Eddie starts the match at a super fast pace, and DDP is a loon so he aims to match Eddie's pace for the entire  8 minutes. That's awesome, and the result is awesome. You get him taking fast Eddie armdrags, and early DDP gets hung up in the ropes like when TJ Perkins does his Spiderman feint, grasping the ropes horizontally to lure his opponent. DDP treats it like a "Andre trapped in the ropes" spots and it works smashingly. God I love DDP. Eddie is not to be outdone in this so the match sees him taking three different and unique flapjack bumps (one off a super high flapjack, another with DDP doing a belly to back suplex but Eddie lands on his stomach, and another flapjack bump from the ring to the floor!), DDP does a really cool gutbuster, holding Eddie up on his shoulder like Scott Norton's shoulderbreaker, but then dropping him down stomach first over his knee. We get a hold the ropes abdominal stretch spot, but DDP spices it up by taking palm strike shots at Eddie's ribs. Eddie does a cool little armdrag to get out of it.

And then...

We hit one of the absolute worst WCW syndicated finishes I've seen. Maybe THEE worst. I had no memories of there being so many terrible finishes to these syndicated matches. I foolishly remember the opposite, with there being a nice hierarchy established and there being actual satisfying finishes. Clearly I was a fool. Here's the finish to Eddie/DDP: Eddie takes a bump to the floor, lands near Chavo. Eddie then gets DQ'd for Chavo interference. Chavo never touched anybody, literally was just standing at ringside. Eddie fell near him. Eddie was the one who took the bump, and then got DQ'd immediately after the bump. DDP was nowhere near either man at this point. It would have made just as much sense to say the overweight woman sitting on the Rascal wearing a No Fear shirt interfered, as she was just as close to DDP. We've officially found the worst ending of any match in history. If whatever happened here was worthy of a DQ then I'm not actually sure how pro wrestling exists. The DQ bell would sound whenever two guys looked somewhat cross at each other.

Horrible, awful finish to an otherwise completely awesome episode.

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2015 WWE Royal Rumble Live Blog

ER: Well, this show doesn't look that good on paper, but Rumble has been my favorite "big" WWE match since I was a kid so I always go in with unrealistic hopes. I'll do my not-normally-necessary skim through of the kickoff show. I really love Renee Young's short haircut. Looks awesome. Byron Saxton looks like he's animated.

1. The New Day (Big E & Kofi Kingston w/ Xavier Woods) vs. Cesaro, Tyson Kidd

ER: Well this match would have been much more promising if they had dropped Rose and Kofi. But a 6 man is a pretty hard thing to mess up so we'll see. I haven't seen The New Day as a team before, but I like that their gear looks like a coordinated Christian rock band. I'd like to see promo photos of them on a beach, all facing different directions, one of them with arms lifted towards the heavens. Boy has anybody's stock dropped more than Cesaro's over the last calendar year? He's one of my favorites but teaming with Kidd and Rose (two guys who would be non-shocking future endeavors) on the pre-show is just brutal. And hey I just realized that the match is actually Cesaro/Kidd vs. Kofi/E. I'm gonna go ahead and edit that match description, but leave in my opening remarks so I sound like a doofus. This was a pretty forgettable match with a nice little finishing stretch. Cesaro threw some nice boots and hit a nice uppercut on Kofi leading to the pin, Big E got some nice moments with a massive belly to belly and his cool spear through the ropes. Kofi's offense still can't crack an egg. Crowd was actually really hot for this match, which is a good sign going into the show.

ER: I always actually dig the Royal Rumble by the numbers segment they introduced a few years ago. Though this year when it went "38: Number of participants who are WWE Hall of Famers" they showed a bunch of dead guys, so it made me wonder what the number of deceased participants all time.  Also a lot of dead guys when they were talking about the largest Rumble participants. Also made me remember that every year until I knew better I would always pick the fattest or largest guy to win. Stupid kid.

2. New Age Outlaws vs. The Ascension

ER: I have not seen a whole lot of the Ascension, couple of squash matches. The look like a couple of goons from The Guild of Calamitous Intent. Viktor in particular could make a really convincing cosplay Monarch. Like he could probably get his picture on Buzzfeed or something. Viktor locks on a chin lock 2 minutes in, but then follows it up with a nice fist drop so my heart is torn but neutral. Road Dogg looks like he gassed pretty hard. Really the final stretch when Gunn tagged in was pretty fun. But this was 5 minutes and basically wouldn't even stand out on an episode of Raw. All that goodwill the crowd was giving the kickoff match appears to have dried up. Hmmmm.

ER: Annnnnd my feed cut out. "Error. Cannot play video at this time. Please try again later." I do not have a weak internet connection. But this has happened to me literally every PPV I've tried to watch on the Network.

3. Usos vs. The Miz & Damien Mizdow

ER: Mizdow is really, really over which was something that I wouldn't have actually predicted. I also couldn't really get into this match. Maybe I'm in a grumpy mood or something. I just don't really care for the Mizdow tag team, and would rather see The Usos against practically any other team. The Mizdow stunt double spots don't really have much legs with me, especially in a match that could have actually been good. Miz also rarely interests me. I don't like much of his offense, and for the most part he also takes offense poorly. Miz set up a lot of Uso offense really lazily in this. Half the Usos moves seemed to be "foot gets caught, Uso spun around, ends up kicking Miz on the way back around." Pretty flat overall. This is looking like a horrible Sunday night decision so far. If I wanted to blow an evening I could at least watch The Doll Squad or something.

ER: I was amused by Jamie and Joey's poor read while playing WWE Immortals (is that like WoW but with WWE guys?).

4. Bella Twins vs. Paige & Natalya

ER: I really enjoyed the first 2-3 minutes of this. Things kind of went to hell when the crowd started singing and Brie blew a reverse somethingorother driver. I always enjoy Nikki Bella and think she's underrated as a worker. Always does nice kicks to the stomach, throws nasty back elbows, has surprisingly good timing a lot of the time. But yeah this was pretty much 3 good minutes and then 5 minutes of sputtering to a finish. I liked Brie's running Brie Mode knee, but Nattie wasn't a very engaging person to watch take a beating for half a match. And I'm still not sure what Paige is.

5. John Cena vs. Seth Rollins vs. Brock Lesnar

ER: Well this match was completely bonkers, and I completely loved all of it. Total show saver right here. Usually I hate 3 ways but Brock may just be the answer to this type of match as his offense is so destructive that it makes sense for guys to be out of the match for minutes at a time. There was so much great stuff in this. Lesnar basically wrestles a match the way somebody would win at King of the Coliseum. Match starts, immediately just starts throwing people as far as he can. I love it that John Cena is still powerless against his Germans. Cena always takes the Germans really great and seeing Brock toss him violently never gets old. Then you add in Brock double suplexing Noble and Mercury, Rollins taking suplexes in the most painful ways possible (jeez one of the Germans had to have jammed his shoulder). Brock is just an incredible personality to watch. I never want him to go away. Then they go and spectacularly take Brock out of the match by Rollins leaping a million feet to elbow drop him through an announce table. Brock obviously has freakish strength and it was on full display throughout, but he's also always been an incredible bumper, and not just bumper but always makes stuff look great. I'm not sure I've seen anybody make Rollins' curb stomp look as good as Brock made it look. I also love Brock being the one guy to just sell the AA as a standard back bump and just get up from it. This whole thing was a ridiculously fun blur of large men getting dumped on their heads. There were a bunch of great saves in this with my favorite being Lesnar emerging from his table to do a mighty deadlift German on Rollins. Loved all of this.

6. Royal Rumble Match

ER: Oh good, was hoping I would get to maximize my Miz viewing for the evening. R-Truth is #2. These two starting would lend creedence to somebody's "The Rumble is actually booked with guys drawing numbers out of a hat!" theory. If these two were main eventing Superstars it would seem like an off week. Bubba Ray Dudley is #3 and that's a fun surprise. Miz took the 3D nicely so I'll give him credit there. #4 is Luke Harper. Harper/Bubba Ray is a fun match up I never realized I wanted. BRD works a little light against Harper though so I am disappointed. He threw those Mick Foley punches where he kinda aims for above the forehead. #5 is Bray Wyatt. Miz, Truth and BRD are gone at this point. #6 is Curtis Axel and I can't imagine a quieter reaction. But apparently Rowan takes his spot which is very much better. #7 is The Boogeyman. Hey. How about that. One of the only men to not have a good match with Finlay. Wyatt stiffs him with a hard clothesline and is all alone. #8 is Sin Cara. I take back what I said about Axel's quiet elimination. Since Axel never made it to the ring does that mean he's still in this thing? Surprise finalist!!! #9 is Zack Ryder. Wow the WWE has a lot of guys I do not care about. #10 is Daniel Bryan so I do love he and Wyatt getting the ring to themselves.

#11 is Fandango. #12 is Tyson Kidd. Rachel points out the stupidity of Bryan putting Wyatt on the top rope to do a rana, instead of just pushing him off the top. #13 is Stardust. Crowd is pretty quiet even though Stardust comes in with a bunch of stiff shots. #14 is DDP who comes in throwing a bunch of Diamond Cutters. #15 is Rusev and I want him to go on a run. I dig Bryan doing his big dive as you really don't get many legal dives in the Rumble. And Bryan gets hilariously eliminated because HA! I guess they just really wanted Bryan chants the rest of the night. Even Rachel assumed Bryan was going all the way to the end, and she basically only watched Total Divas and doesn't know how booking works. #16 is Goldust. #17 is Kofi Kingston. Goldust looks awesome upon entering, hitting his powerslam on Rusev and getting into it with Cody. The Rumble is pretty much the only reason to keep Kofi around as it's basically the only time I find myself enjoying him. #18 is Adam Rose. Boy. This guy still has a job. Obama could use him as an example of just how much employment is on the rise. But his horribly named Rosebuds do get an awesome spot by catching Kofi's fall on a potential elimination. #19 is Roman Reigns. #20 is Big E. Rusev does his really fun cannonballs.

#21 is Mizdow. I do not care about their storyline. #22 is Jack Swagger. #23 is Ryback. #24 is Kane. #25 is Dean Ambrose. Good, we've had a bunch of people just milling about in there for a bit. #26 is Titus O'Neill. Looks like they were trying to do a "new quickest elimination" angle with Titus, but somebody botched something and Titus didn't go over cleanly, so they had to re-do it. Yeah, JBL immediately goes "Did he just break Santino's record!?" It would be amusing if Titus were booked to break it, and then accidentally/on purpose didn't go over properly. Getting eliminated in 4 seconds instead of the 1 he was booked for would be arguably the most amusing reason to get cut. #27 is Bad News Barrett. #28 is Cesaro. It makes me sad how audibly disappointed the crowd was when they figured out who it was. What did the poor guy do wrong? #29 is Big Show. #30 is Dolph Ziggler. I hope there was some dummy out there who wanted Rock. Are they really doing Reigns/Brock at Mania? They're doing Ambrose/Brock next month anyway, right? So that would be weird if Ambrose wins even though I would love that. Still time for Curtis Axel to make his triumphant return. Damn I wonder what cut Reign's mouth up. That's some good blood and nobody is really mentioning it. "Bullshit" chants starting, crowd is turning on Reigns to the shock of not one person. This is a horrible and totally predictable reaction to Reigns winning. And then Rock comes out and I'm pretty much not interested in Rock at this point. I would be interested in Rock/Rusev. That is about it. Wait Rusev is still in the match!? Oh. There he goes. Huh. Let's cut to the "Roman Reigns in the shot look at Wrestlemania sign" (they cut to that shot while I was in the middle of typing it). Man. Bryan didn't even get eliminated by any nefarious means or anything. Dude just wasn't good enough to hang.

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