Blue Collar Battle: TL Hopper vs. Duke 'The Dumpster' Droese

TL Hopper vs. Duke Droese WWF Superstars 7/13/96

ER: As much as it pains me to say,  this Blue Collar Battle did not quite live up to my (possibly, likely) foolishly high expectations. That's probably on me. There's a chance I was the only one going into Duke "The Dumpster" Droese vs. Toilet Lid Hopper with raised expectations, but I think that's just because I will always side with the working man. This is Toilet's debut, and while the match itself felt a bit short, it was good. The match didn't let me down. I think what actually let me down was the fact that Vince was on commentary yet he seemed to derive no sort of joy from watching a dirty plumber fight a dirty garbageman. I have no doubts that at some point in his life, Vince McMahon has paid money to watch an actual garbageman fight an actual plumber to the death in his home office, and I guess I was expecting a bit more perverted sicko energy from him. Mr. Perfect was sitting in with him and was setting up some very obvious Vince jokes - the kind that make him melt - and Vince just wasn't biting. 

"You know Vince, I bet Hopper has all of his moves numbered. All two of them. Number 1 and Number 2." 

"Yes. Yes, I suppose you're right." 

"I mean Vince, how ironic is it that the plumber's first match in the WWF...is against the DUMPster?"

"Yes. Yes, I believe I see your point."

As Perfect was setting them up I kept expecting Vince's pervert growl to rise in response, until he was throatily yelling "ONLY in WWF can you see these two absolutely vile men roll around in shit and filth. Look at the stains on their clothes! Oh GOD you can smell them. You can SMELL how POOR they are!!! Look at their hands! Look at them! Look how dirty their fingernails are, it's disgusting!" 

Hopper runs into a couple of brick wall shoulderblocks and pinballs back across the ring, eats a big Droese bodyslam and then dodges a corner charge. Droese is really good at missing charges into the turnbuckles, and Hopper goes to work on Droese's back with hard knees and a nice backbreaker. I love when Droese lowers the straps on his work-required lifting brace. It's a great pro wrestling spot and he clearly understands the timing of a strap removal, and it's impossible not to smile when he whips those straps off before going for the Trash Compactor. Hopper slips out the back and throws another knee into Duke's lower back, then sends him down the drain with his brainbuster. As Hopper grabs his trusted plunger Betsy and places it over Droese's nose and mouth, furiously plunging his orifices, Vince can hardly muster an "Oh my! Can you believe that? No!" Two jesters dressed up as their millionaire boss's favorite working class punching bags in an attempt to cheer up that sad boss, but he was just too sad. Rest assured, on his way out of the arena Vince turned down a homeless man's request for change, telling him, "Well, I don't know about that. Perhaps a job would be in order." And as he walked past his chauffeur without making eye contact, he smiled. 

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Bob Cook in WWF Pt. II

Bob Cook vs. Duke Droese WWF Wrestling Challenge 5/28/95

ER: This was practically constructed as if Cook were the underdog babyface and Droese was the mean heel. Droese goes to a chinlock less than a minute in, which just comes off odd. I am not opposed to the chinlock as a move, and Droese has a nice one because he has big arms and locks it in, but it's so strange to do one so early in the match - a match designed to showcase Droese, no less. Did he get unexpectedly winded? Possibly. But this might be one of the few examples I've seen of a babyface showcase squash where the babyface hits a long chinlock in any part of the match. How many *heel* squash matches do you see a chinlock used? It's weird. This is weird. Cook gets to fight out of the chinlock with a nice wristlock, even if it's fleeting as Droese just tosses him to the mat. Cook fights from his knees with a nice punch to the stomach and gets to fire one off standing. And Droese doesn't opt to finish Cook off with the trash compactor, instead hitting a great high rotation powerslam and then coming off the ropes with a nice high windup elbow drop. That chinlock has really thrown me off today. I'm sure the answer is simple, but I may take a break from wrestle writing to think about that babyface squash match chinlock.

Bob Cook vs. Adam Bomb WWF Raw 5/29/95

ER: This is surely the peak of the WWF Bob Cook, I absolutely loved this match. This was go go go, an absurd amount of offense packed into barely 2 minutes. And it was rather competitive, Bomb working fast and light while Cook would catch him with gorgeous punches or shoulder shots to the gut. Adam Bomb actually seemed really good in 1995, like he was really figuring everything out. He is a big guy who was working like Barry Windham here, and that's a great step for Bomb. Bomb worked some nice Windham style armdrags and a big hip toss, with Cook feeding him quick on bodyslams and backdrops, and getting up for a big back suplex. But Bomb had a real charm here, and took a lot of time to connect with the crowd after moves, with Cook being a perfect canvas for an Adam Bomb showcase. Bomb was gone from WWF just a couple months later, even though he was kept strong on his way out. I don't know what happened, but I think they gave up on him too early; he could have been a big part of 1996.

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The 1995 King of the Ring Qualifying Matches, Part 2

Duke Droese vs. Kama WWF Superstars 5/27/95

ER: There's something nice about these condensed big boy battles, I mean outside of the fact that it's a big boy battle and therefore the greatest thing in wrestling. The short runtime always turns them into sprints, and I love seeing these guys run around. I also amuse myself with the idea that somewhere, there is someone who champions Kama - the Extreme Fighting Machine - as the best era of Charles Wright's career. Wright is a guy who hung around for a LONG time without having many (any?) matches championed, but one era has to by default be his best in ring era. So why not Kama? I await the heated debates. And I can't get over how many people in the crowd love Droese! Since this was not an era I watched as it happened, all I've heard about was how lame it was that WWF had a garbage man and a plumber and a dentist etc. But the fans were clearly into Droese and he was clearly very good! There is a woman with an infant shown cheering elatedly for the Dumpster, and I wonder where that woman is today? 25 years on, does she remember how excited she was to see Duke Droese banging his trashcan down the aisle? I hope so. I hope that no matter her relationship with modern wrestling, she occasionally thinks back to how happy she was here, that one perfect day at the Superstars tapings. As for the match, I liked it. Kama throws some nice distance kicks, and I really liked his mule kick to counter Droese charging into the corner. But this was a MAJOR Droese showcase, and it's surprising how dominant he was here. He works really fast, really exciting on offense; he hit a high dropkick, really hard pair of clotheslines after some complicated rope running, and his big rotation powerslam on a big guy like Kama was impressive as hell. And my god, let me tell you, we also got my absolute favorite moment, which is Droese TAKING DOWN THE STRAPS OF HIS OSHA REGULATED HEAVY LIFTING BELT before going in for the kill. That's a flat out genius babyface character specific spot and Droese is so much better than I have ever been lead to believe. He and Kama worked a couple fun standing exchanges, and as nice as these sprints are it would have been nice to see them stretch out a bit. Instead, the match ends suddenly with a big Kama spinebuster. Million Dollar Corporation win again. That white male fan rubbing his fingers together during their entrance, eyes smug, showing he knew the international sign of Big Bucks? He was right.


Jeff Jarrett vs. The Undertaker WWF Raw 5/29/95

ER: This was tremendous, an awesome under 10 minute match. Jarrett was a real ace in '95, might be the very peak intersection of his specific set of skills. Here he was still a super fast, hard bumping, graceful moving stooge, a pretty boy in the most garish wrestling gear of the decade, a total non-threat who keeps somehow winning. Jarrett gets flung around the ring in glorious fashion, whipped hard into the turnbuckles, flying high on beals, big bumps off his shoulders. But with Roadie running distraction he is able to gain frequent advantages, able to control Taker convincingly while also seeming like a constant underdog who frustratingly stays ahead. Jarrett throws two stunning dropkicks, the second of which was a picture of a perfect dropkick, his feet perfectly together, body fully extended, feet squarely angled into Undertaker's face. This was the right way to work a back and forth match, and there were 5 momentum changes over a 10 minute runtime; that kind of back and forth can be tiresome in the wrong hands, but this was pretty expertly crafted. This had the feel of a real cool Coliseum Video gem.


Doink vs. The Roadie WWF Superstars 6/3/95

ER: Man I am a big fan of 1995 Ray Apollo Doink. He really served the gimmick well and was much closer to Bourne's style than Lombardi's. This whole thing was a really curious decision, even having Roadie in the qualifying rounds of the tournament. Roadie had one match in WWF at this point (the televised handicap match w/ JJ vs. Razor at the IYH that just happened) and was clearly just positioned as a non-wrestling manager. That's why it wasn't deemed an insurmountable threat that he was included as an odds stacker against Razor. The roster was filled with guys who would have made way more on paper sense to have in the tourney: Hakushi, Henry Godwinn, Lawler, 1-2-3, the debuting Candido (if they wanted a new guy in the final 8), Pierre, etc. I had said Jacob Blu was the weirdest inclusion in the tourney, since he had not wrestled any singles matches in WWF, but that's probably not as weird as the manager who had only been in one match to this point. Now the match itself is fun as hell, as Doink works this as he would a match against a non-worker. Apollo is really underrated in the gimmick, as his work is quick and he knows how to fill all of his time with action and gimmick. There is no dead air, he takes a cool approach to Roadie, hits a cool amateur takedown, grabs a single leg and works an ankle while stepping on Roadie's other ankle, flipping him and working for an STF, then passing to work on a grounded headlock, scrapes his boot bottoms across Roadie's eyes, holds him at distance in a collar and elbow, then pops Roadie's head between his knees for a piledriver and just stomps his feet instead to ring his bell. Doink's offense is great, and he comes off more like Mr. Wrestling II than the poor version of the Clown that Lombardi portrayed. Apollo is really great at getting the fans into his offense, knows when to include Doink, knows when to mock along with Roadie's stooging, really shakes his butt and taunts Roadie during the "piledriver" set up, and then his super high gorgeous kneelift while I was typing all of that just confirms that Ray Apollo was a 1984 territory babyface and was great at his job, the Hennig rolling necksnap a delicious cherry on top. Roadie does get offense in, has a really nice falling back elbow, but his strength here is stooging, and when Doink is dropping cool back suplexes like Jack Brisco that is not really an insult. And the finish to the match is far too simplistic for the quality work they had given the match: Doink goes up for the whoopee cushion, jumps down because Jarrett makes a fuss at ringside, then Roadie hits a kneelift to the back and gets a school boy. That's a shame. It's an ending that makes sense with the character and how he had been portrayed in limited physical appearances, but I just wanted something a little more clever. The match itself was super fun and gave me a new perspective on late period WWF Doink, might just have to seek out more Apollo Doink.


Owen Hart vs. The British Bulldog WWF Raw 6/5/95

ER: This was my least favorite of the KOTR Qualifying Matches. It is a 15 minute draw, and the commentary by JR and Gorilla had that exact same annoying quality that Jeff Blatnick's commentary during the Rulon Gardner/Karelin match had. The commentary was clearly dubbed over a previously recorded match, the live crowd clearly was not made aware of any time limit, so JR and Gorilla really started hammering home the remaining time in the last few minutes of the match, then immediately explained that neither man would be advancing since neither man had won. It was a real limp dick result to the match, and their scripted explanation was brutal. It was this blatant "Well you know neither man won the match, and if there was no winner then neither man can advance!" "That's right, rules state that winners advance, and there was no winner here, so that means that they lost their chance!" It came off extremely phony, a seemingly complicated situation shrugged off with some "Well what are you gonna do?" rules chat. It was Jeff Blatnick explaining the very obscure rules that zero people would know offhand, in the immediate moment after the bell, a man buoyantly pretending he didn't have the test answers ahead of time.

The match proper was a bit of a bore until a hot but meaningless finishing sprint. They telegraphed going long by the deliberate pace they worked for the first half, and that's fine, but once JR and Gorilla started talking about time limits that made me realize what we were working towards. Bulldog gasses after a run of offense that at least included a nice press slam and a hard delayed vertical suplex, but ended with him holding a chinlock and open mouth panting in Owen's face. Owen had nice comebacks and hit harder to make up the size, really whipping into Bulldog with his spinning heel kick. We got a long kind of awkward moment where Bulldog set Owen up for La Tapatia, which lead to him popping a squat while standing on Owen's knee backs, while the director scrambles to cut through all of the various camera angles to figure out which is the least provocative angle of Bulldog holding that squat. And then after he took all that time to apply and eventually roll Owen through it, the ref immediately counts Bulldog's shoulders down, which is very stupid. Not only stupid visually, but stupid because we sat through a minute of set up for a move that ended in 2 seconds. After planning. The stretch run of this was the greatest stretch of the match, as we go through a real good sprint through pinfalls, handled much better than the frantic Time Limit Remaining endings typically go. Owen and Bulldog are both really good at plausibly holding cradles and pins, making every single pin look match ending. Owen grabbed a small package to stop a rope running Bulldog that felt like a weird World of Sport round ender, and Bulldog hit a cool crucifix pin with a snug high bridge. The rush to that time limit was hot, but even that was marginalized because I was deflated by knowing exactly what they were rushing towards.


Yokozuna vs. Lex Luger WWF Raw 6/12/95

ER: Due to the flat tire that was last week's time limit draw, we get Yoko and Luger announced as the next to potential qualifiers for that 8 seed. They do a kind of hilarious and sad video package with a real insulting timeline: Yokozuna beating Hogan for the title at KOTR '93, Luger slamming him on the Intrepid the next month, Luger getting "the moral victory" at Summerslam, and after that...."Now Luger gets another chance at getting into the mix for the title!" The montage literally covered June thru August 1993, and then skipped straight to June 1995 to explain that this is "arguably" the biggest match of Luger's career. This match would be a big deal if say Barry Horowitz was getting a shot at being the 8 seed, but I'm not sure I should give them credit for painting this as Luger getting revenge after not winning the title 2 years prior. That seems like a hard stretch. And unfortunately for Luger, he comes off as big of a boner as he came off in not beating Yokozuna for the title two years earlier.

The match is really good, with Yoko working as sadistic big striking monster fat guy, buckling Luger with full arm windup chops, hitting him in the face with a big lariat, going down quick for missed elbows and a legdrop. Luger threw nice punches straight into Yoko's face, ran into him on shoulderblocks and axe bombers, hit a big flying clothesline off the top, and we built to Yoko's wonderful banana peel bump and his all time fat guy signature bump (the one where he crashes through the middle ropes to the floor). But the finish is rough and makes Luger look like a real doofus. He runs out to save his American flag, punches Cornette, Fuji chops Scotty Anton in the neck, Scotty Anton is there holding the flag for some reason, and Luger gets counted out when Yokozuna smacks him into the ring post and legdrops him. Yokozuna has haunted Luger ever since the Intrepid, and Luger is the high school QB who washed out in college.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

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New Footage Friday: Funk, Droese, Necro, Jumbo, Rheingans, Hernandez

Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Brad Rheingans AJPW 8/30/83

MD: I'm actually surprised that Phil went for this one when I suggested it and said it was surprisingly good. I'm getting in on this one first so I'm curious if the others liked it. My best guess here is that Jumbo knew that Brad was legit and really wanted to go all out with him. This one had a tremendous sense of struggle from start to end, all the way to Brad's frustration at losing and Jumbo's insistance that they shake hands post-match. I loved how all of Brad's big offense was pure AWA (ok, the gutwrench suplex was a higher level but who else could accomplish so much with atomic drops?) all built to through the match itself. Jumbo had to fight for all of his big stuff, and then they went back around one more time for the finish which is always appreciated. This is the kind of performance which really justifies Brad's intermediary role in Japan years later.

PAS: I really dug this despite being a low voter on early 80s Jumbo. I loved how they started out going full Greco Roman with the grappling, and the first couple of minutes of this really felt like proto shootstyle. We got into more of a traditional 70/80s style heavyweight match after that, but Rheingans has great leverage and power on all of his throws, and those were some really great looking atomic drops. If this was the first you had heard of Rheingans you would think he would have been a huge star in the 80s, this feels like the apex of his interesting but ultimately underwhelming career.

Terry Funk vs. Marshall Duke CWA 10/18/97

ER: I'm a pretty recent convert to Duke Droese, as in I'm not even sure I'd seen an actual match of his before this year. I missed 2-3 years of WWF while in high school, before coming back to the pro wrestling fold. Droese was a guy I knew of only because of people making fun of his gimmick. He was a wrestling garbage man, and that was what I knew. But when I actually watched the footage I saw a guy with great size, great punches, hard offense, someone that the 1995 WWF crowd was genuinely excited to see. So when we unearthed a Duke/Funk match, I flipped. The match is slow paced but engaging, made up mostly of headlocks and punches, building to some bigger bumps and some nice nearfalls. It probably didn't need to go nearly 25 minutes, but I'm also glad it did. From what I've seen of 1995 WWF, Droese was the best non-Lawler puncher on the roster, so seeing he and Funk take turns teeing off on each other's foreheads is something I don't mind watching at length. This was Duke working a Funk match, and Funk took us to plenty of great places. 

We got weird hijinks like Funk's second opening up a canister of blue gas right in Duke's face, like he was Cesar Romero or something. We've all seen salt and powder, I'm not sure I've ever seen someone get Joker gassed. Funk starts taking all of his pratfalls and setting up Duke to interrupt his attacks with punches, coming in slow with axe handles so Duke can throw great body shots and uppercuts, teeter tottering on the ropes so Duke can line up punches, and Funk falling into the ropes and off the apron is one of the most entertaining things about Funk matches. Terry takes a couple nasty spills to the floor in that theatrical Terry way, eating a big lariat over the top to the floor, gets run into the ringpost from the apron and stumbles most of the way back across the apron before falling off, hangs by his feet in the ropes, and in one of my absolute favorite moments of the match he does a trademark Funk Stumble and falls backwards over an on-all-fours Duke right into a nearfall. Funk goes to Germany and starts taking his bumping cues from the Phillie Phanatic, and it's the best. Funk brings some nice weapon shots, smashing a set of rolling metal steps into Duke's leg, and violently throwing a table on him on the floor. And they come back to the ring to work some simple but effective nearfalls and escapes, with a nice sunset flip from the apron by Duke, a few torture rack escapes from Terry (including one where he just punches Duke right in the eye to escape), before Terry gets caught in a nice over the shoulder powerslam for the win. Mid 90s CWA is definitely an untapped source for hidden gems, and the timing on this unearthing was perfect for me.

MD: Here you have ECW era Funk playing a heel against and completely disrupting the orderly German round system with his antics. I had a professor who worked on European Integration that told a story about a resort on the border of France and Germany. On the resort there was a pool and in the pool, the Germans would swim about in an organized line around the edge. As they were doing that, the French jumped in splashed through the middle. I'm not going to say that the German round system is exactly like that, because we've seen too many pirate chain matches (3?) but it's what I thought of here as Duke calmly backed off at the bell and Funk, when he had the advantage, would just press it in the most outlandish fashion on the floor between rounds.

When they did make use of the round breaks, it made for some interesting stuff: the double clothesline to set up the finish and especially Funk's amazing crawling, head-down sell out of the ring. Funk was sufficiently wild (picking up a table on the outside completely uncaring if the legs took out members of the crowd) and Duke was properly indomitable, with solid punches and a sense that he deserved what was probably one of the biggest wins of his career. Huge novelty value and a pretty good match. I'm very glad this one turned up.


Necro Butcher vs. Hotstuff Hernandez TASW 2001

MD: So, this was something completely different. What I liked the most about this was the volume. They started at 7, with a chop exchange and the dismantling of the valet, stuff that you'd generally expect in the back third of a match. That let the things that followed like the (completely misguided but structurally sound) dueling chairshots and the barbed wire to feel like proper escalation. The crowd didn't deal well with Hernandez' mix of underhanded tactics, big bumping (the guy had great, charismatic range of motion at this point, working for a back row that didn't even exist), and huge spots. Necro felt like he was working from underneath, but after a Hernandez dive, the fans were more than happy to cheer for him. It worked out in the post-match but it made the journey a little bumpy. The finish was sick. Absolutely sick. But hey, at least it ended the match, right?

PAS: Really cool early look at both guys and you get a sense of what would make them both such compelling guys in a couple of years. I loved the simple stuff in this match, Necro has great looking punches and headbutts and Hernandez had these awesome looking underhanded thumping shots to the ribs. I honestly could have watched a minimalist fist fight between the two and been super happy. Instead we get sort of an indy version of a Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka match with crazy bumps into barbwire boards and tables and some gross head shots with chairs and stop signs. These are a pair of really fun guys to do Awesome vs. Tanaka. I love Hernandez's no hands tope and we get a crazy Necro flip plancha, it builds to the huge pair of bumps to end the match, Necro getting awesome bombed off the ring apron, and Hernandez eating a sheer drop powerbomb through a stop sign. Not everything was hit cleanly, but man this was a spectacle.

ER: This is definitely among the earliest Necro matches I've seen. This is when he was skinnier and wore facepaint, so he looked like Buffalo Bill if he were into Darkthrone instead of women's skin. I love seeing early career work from guys like this, it's a fun time to see totally different version of guys you liked. Both are still raw here, and what's hilarious is Hernandez is the one trying more stupid dangerous stuff, while Necro is the one who did stupider things the longer his career went. And this was a pretty awesome indy match. If I had plunked down $15 to see this on a Saturday night, I'd be talking about it years later. Fans get on Hernandez a bit when he hits a sloppy spear, chanting "You're not Goldberg", but he was pretty hard to root against by the end of this. He had Necro willing to take some wild offense, and he dished out some risky stuff. He hits a couple huge missile dropkicks, one of them with Necro crotched over the top rope, the other while Necro is stuffed into a garbage can. Phil is totally spot on calling this an Awesome/Tanaka match, because it was exactly that. We got unprotected chairshots, a couple big powerbombs through a table, big bumps on shoulders, and Hernandez breaking out his always crazy missile launch dive. That dive is one of the craziest moves in wrestling the past 20 years and deserves to be talked up more. This was great garbage from two guys who would go on to have real memorable careers, and it's cool to see how great their instincts were this early.

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WWF 305 Live: Dumpster! Bigelow! Sid! Vader!

Duke Droese vs. Bam Bam Bigelow WWF Superstars 10/8/94 - VERY GOOD

ER: Duke Droese may have had the most consistently great punch of any non-Lawler guy in WWF during this era, and that's a crazy thought that nobody talks about. His straight right hand looks like it should bust an eye socket, and totally works as his equalizer. Duke is really good at bumping around, and he takes a hard bump to the floor when Bigelow tosses him, then gets knocked off the apron again right after. Bigelow is quick but Duke can match his speed, and it's fun seeing guys this size working quick exchanges. Bigelow attacks with elbows, a big vertical suplex, shoulderblocks, and a couple nice headbutts, but Droese throws a mean clothesline, decent legdrop, and a huge powerslam on the larger Bigelow. That clothesline of his is a real treat, the way his arm cuts straight and quick, much more of a tight impact than a long outstretched arm. Bigelow has a real nice roll up to win, really lying with his full weight buried in Droese's knee pits. I really liked this whole thing. Two big guys working quick, working snug, working big. Working.

Vader/Mankind vs. Sycho Sid/Undertaker WWF Raw 3/10/97 - FUN

ER: This was worked just a little too carefully to actually get really good. We get a long section of Vader holding Sid down with a headlock, which isn't bad but I was hoping for something more explosive here. Undertaker and Sid each appeared to be working gingerly for at least the first half of this. Vader was taking bumps throughout, taking a lariat over the top to the floor and a Taker uppercut the same, taking a flat bump off the floor on a punch, got up high for a Taker chokeslam, big splash on Sid; but even Vader felt like he was holding back on punches. This actually did get explosive when Taker leaped onto Vader and Sid off the apron but mostly got Sid, so Sid took that as an invite to start throwing hands with his upcoming Mania opponent. Taker hit his huge no hands plancha on Vader and Mankind, Sid hit an awesome powerbomb on Taker, so this had some merit. But 8 minutes with these guys could have been way bigger.


WWF COMPLETE AND ACCURATE 305 LIVE

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Duke "The Dumpster" Droese

Duke Droese vs. Jeff Jarrett WWF Superstars 8/27/94

ER: This wasn't much of a match - the match itself ended fairly quick with a feet on the ropes JJ schoolboy - but the whole thing made for pretty great theater. Jarrett attacks Droese during his entrance and controls in ring, hitting a nice dropkick and axehandle and letting the larger Droese run into things as he dodges. Droese really worked like a guy used to wearing a back support lift belt, so he was really good at selling a stiff back. I worked at FedEx and he moved exactly like a couple of the drivers who were on lift restrictions, only able to lift 25 lb. and getting the driver next to them on the line to load heavy Dell computers into their truck for them. Droese does get a nice straight right but Jarrett wins with the feet on the ropes. And then the amount of energy put into the postmatch of a 2 minute match is charming and really made it feel like things mattered. Oscar comes out to let the refs know what happened, the second ref comes out to reverse the call and the triumphant announcement goes out that the match WILL be restarted and the crowd explodes over the fact that Duke Droese has another chance to beat Jeff Jarrett. Jarrett disagrees with the decision and leaves in a huff down the aisle, shoving Oscar off the apron in the process (and Oscar takes a nice bump to the floor) only to be met by Mabel in the entrance area. As Mabel and Droese close in, Jarrett opts to run away through the crowd, up the stairs and out of the arena. This was literally 2 minutes of match in a 6 minute segment, but the entire thing was super entertaining to me. Jarrett totally made the postmatch reversal work, flipping out and refusing to play ball. The fans really went wild for Droese, too. This would not have worked or have been interesting if the fans hadn't cared about him getting wronged. The only thing I disliked was this tease of a Mabel/Droese team that I don't think ever happened once. Have Jarrett start an uneasy alliance with Bigelow, and Bigelow/Jarrett vs. Droese/Mabel is a tag I would be so down for.

Duke Droese vs. Jerry Lawler WWF Raw 9/19/94

ER: Once I saw that the two best punchers in 1994 WWF faced off against each other, I couldn't watch this match fast enough. And it ruled. Obviously it ruled. Droese is no stiff, but Lawler made a career out of being the best worker in history against big immobile stiffs. So if Lawler is a master at working big immobile stiffs, clearly him working a big mobile guy was going to rule. The first half of the match is classic heel Lawler, grabbing Duke in a side headlock only for Duke to pick him up and just toss him across the ring. Lawler's facials during spots like that are perfection, as are the claims of a dual hair pull/tights pull. Lawler stalls around and bumps big for Duke (going down super fast for a Duke right hand, big hard backdrop bump, and takes a big spill to the floor, eats 10 punches in the corner and faceplants), and really milks every one of these moments. He bails to the floor after each big bump and spot, really works the crowd up into a lather by stumbling around ringside. He finally turns things around with a hidden weapon right hand, suckering Duke into a knucklelock and then clocking him with the right. From there it's all Lawler punches, a bunch of fast impactful left jabs, left right combos, and a big fistdrop from the middle rope. He even sticks Duke with an awesome piledriver, which leads us to our era-specific finish. Lawler wants to shove Droese into his trashcan - how humiliating, to shove a garbage collector into his own personal trash receptacle - but you guessed it, Dink is in that trashcan. Dink squirts Lawler with a squirt gun, and Lawler sells a squirt gun shot as well as anyone could. Even more impressive is he manages to chase Dink without catching him while also looking like he's really running. We get some comedy with Duke tripping Lawler, Doink coming out, Lawler getting counted out, etc. This was Droese's first feud (this match had been built up seemingly for months) and he really could have used an actual pinfall on Lawler. There were ways to do it that would give Duke the pin, and still protect Lawler. I think that pinfall visual would have really helped him, as opposed to eating a piledriver (and selling a piledriver really great, holding his neck with both hands and rolling around like he had learned to sell a piledriver from Tenryu) and triumphantly winning after Lawler got chased by a small clown.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Bill Irwin in WWF (Non-Goon Edition)

So Bill Irwin is a guy I've been digging a lot lately, and I had planned on writing up all of his matches as The Goon. But then I noticed three separate appearances he made with WWF - two Before Goon and one After Goon - and that kind of stands out. Were these tryout matches only televised? It's odd for an established guy to just work occasional one off matches with a major fed without having some kind of deal. But, here we are. Three non-Goon WWF Bill Irwin matches, and they are all genuine gems:

Bill Irwin vs. El Matador WWF Mania 1/16/93

ER: I love these kind of oddities. Here we get a territories battle between two guys who would have never crossed paths. I don't know why WWF brought in Irwin for a one-shot debut at the age of 38 (we already established they also brought in and pushed Pierroth at 38, which makes me - a 38 year old man - still feel viable) but it's a fun match. Tito works armdrags and hiptosses, Irwin takes a couple surprising bumps. The first is off a do-si-do hip toss, where they keep reversing each other until Irwin is tossed over the top to the floor. Later Irwin gets plastered by the forearm and falls butt first out the bottom two ropes to the floor. Irwin always has a couple surprises, from something little like a short jab, to something unexpected like a slingshot splash. The finish is cool too, with Tito hitting the forearm to the back of Irwin's head, almost like a slash attack. Irwin would not appear on WWF TV for another 3 years. The announcers talked the entire time like Irwin was an actual established guy, he got his "Wild" Bill nickname announced, got to  use the bullwhip before the match, then he went and had a great match...but this was it for 3 years. 

Bill Irwin vs. Duke Droese WWF Superstars 3/16/96

ER: Oh, so...this was great? This was really great? Is Duke Droese actually great and people haven't told me about it? This was during the era when I was not watching wrestling, so I have blindspots throughout (when I started playing catch up 20 years ago I wasn't running through Superstars episodes from a couple years prior to do so), but never remember hearing anyone talk up Droese. Droese fires off hard and fast straight right hands to start, and absolutely nothing was skimped on. Droese's punches looked great, he keeps a good base on his chops so he can throw them fast and cutting, lands boot on kicks to the stomach, even clonks Irwin with a hard trash can shot behind the ref's back. This whole thing was pretty relentless and Irwin hit back just as hard as he was being hit, hit a diving headbutt WAY too far across the ring, scraped his boot across Droese's face in nasty fashion, hit a full extension pump kick that didn't seem like it would reach (he started way early as Droese had barely come off the ropes) and yet it landed clean, clubbed him hard in the back of the neck, oh, AND Irwin takes a crazy high speed Harley Race bump to the floor. Irwin gets whipped in, flips backwards to the floor, hits the apron just about headfirst and then spills to the floor. Irwin took some great bumps in his first two WWF matches (three years apart), so we can only hope that he's the curly haired bump freak that WWF lost when they sent Berzerker on his Viking funeral. This whole match was an excellent pairing. It was a total hidden gem, just the tastiest peanut butter/chocolate combo, and it ruled.

Bill Irwin/Kit Carson vs. Mark Henry/D-Lo Brown WWF Shotgun 2/21/98

ER: The third and final of our "Bill Irwin" matches in WWF, and he remains an odd guy to only be bringing in for occasional job duty. If that's all they wanted out of him then I'm sure it would have been easy to offer him full time work, put him in a team with Windham or Bradshaw or job him out on weekend shows. But it's also weird for them to bring in a guy in his mid-40s for job duty, so I don't know what to make of these scattered Irwin appearances. I do know that WWF talent has looked fantastic opposite him (which again makes it weird that he wasn't used full time, this Irwin ouroboros is confusing me) and that's what matters. This match is basically about the asskicking team of D-Lo and Henry. D-Lo was a mean dude here, and everything he did landed hard. Hard punches, back elbows, and the best lariats I've ever seen him throw. We get this awesome sequence of Irwin getting ahold of D-Lo's left arm and wrenching it, leading to D-Lo rattling his teeth with a right back elbow, unspooling his arm from Irwin (like he was rewinding a Rainmaker), and nails him with a short arm lariat. Hell yeah. This was early in Henry's TV time with the company, and he had just joined the Nation a month before, so he was green but clearly had the goods. I loved his brick wall stuff, big man elbowdrop, and two humongous slams. His powerslam finish is great, and a huge arc Henry powerslam topped by a D-Lo splash is a great team finisher. This made me want to go watch a bunch of D-Lo/Henry tags.

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