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

5/8/99

Frankie Lancaster vs. Disco Inferno

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

Silver King vs. Horace Hogan

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

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

5/15/99

El Dandy vs. Erik Watts

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

The Gambler vs. Dave Taylor

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

Johnny Swinger vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

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

Barry Darsow vs. Chris Adams

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

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


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 6/30/96

Dave Taylor/Bobby Eaton vs. Fire & Ice

ER: This is fun for what we got, but man I really wanted to see an actual full tag match between these two. Just like the Faces of Fear vs. Duggan/Pittman match from the previous episode, the potential was high as there were 4 tough guys who didn’t mind hitting hard or getting hit hard. And there were plenty of guys getting hit hard in this match, it was just a very quick 4 minutes. Taylor and Train do a nice shoulderblock exchange, and Taylor wrecks him with a few uppercuts, high dropkick to the chest, and a nasty forearm smash across the chest. I love Dave Taylor. A C&A Dave Taylor will need to be done in the future. I have a feeling he won’t really have many classic singles matches, but he is never less than enjoyable in a tag or multiman. So the match is going great, but sadly Eaton gets kind of steamrolled. He tags in, throws a couple nice punch variations to a held-by-Taylor Ice Train, then goes for an ill-advised top rope elbow. Once he misses that Fire & Ice just takes over. Norton didn’t seem in the mood to sell anything, Eaton takes a big crooked backdrop, eats Norton’s crippling shoulderbreaker and a big splash from Train, and on the floor Regal advises Taylor to not even attempt to break up the pin. So what we got was real fun, but could have been all time great had it gotten 10 minutes and actually let Eaton shine a bit.

Kurosawa vs. Alex Wright

ER: This had some miscommunication, and the layout left a lot to be desired, but I was impressed by how expressive Kurosawa was. Wright had a bunch of potential but often disappointed. He hit a couple athletically pretty but light landing dropkicks, and a couple European uppercuts that seem a lot weaker when we're merely 10 minutes removed from Dave Taylor. But Nakanishi took Wright's offense in a fun stooge style, really cartoon-y but atmosphere appropriate. Nakanishi has light arm strikes but really heavy legs, so he hit a couple of so so forearms but then aimed to kick a hole in Wright's chest and threw some big stomps. He also committed to a big missed elbow off the top. So there was some heart in the match, but it didn't go to a very interesting place. Nakanishi did some offense for awhile, then Wright came back with a spinning heel kick and German suplex. And, how crazy is it that Nakanishi is basically still working a full schedule?

ER: Macho Man does a promo with Mean Gene to build up the upcoming WCW Theatre at MSG show, and threatens guest referee Bruno Sammartino . Still can't believe they don't use a graphic of Bruno to build this up. 

Rough & Ready vs. Cobra/Bill Payne

ER: Bill Payne was around for a shockingly long time, was a guy big enough to actually get an entrance now and then, but also never win a match. He looks like Super Crazy mixed with Julio Fantastico. Rough and Ready were truly the cruelest gift, an awesome pairing that only got paired 20 times, with half of those not making television. I love the combo of 1996 combo of mid 40s Dick Slater and Pussy Wagon Mike Enos (The Mauler??). Bill Payne eats a full landing vertical suplex from Enos on the spinning stage, painful spill, and I'm now a Bill Payne fan. He also eats a badass fallaway slam off the middle ropes from Enos. Enos is really muscling this guy around and it's awesome. Slater kicks Payne in the gut with a flat out great stomach kick, and Enos hits one of the biggest high rotation power slam you've seen. You need to cherish the Rough & Ready that you come across in the wild. It is nature's endorphins.

The Gambler vs. Booty Man

ER: Gambler has his sick as hell red trunks with all four playing card suits on the back. Gambler is such a great stooge, and a real pro, the kind of guy I really appreciate. I'd rather watch all of the Gambler matches than the best Kenny Omega matches. Gambler is the Chris Elliott of wrestling. A little thicker, but an understanding of physical reaction, a fun but punchable face, and an undeserved smug cockiness. Booty doesn't bring much of interest other than Kimberly Page. Gambler brings nice clubbing arms, solid stomps, big falls, and leans into Booty's high knee. High Knee. Say it.

Kensuke Sasaki vs. The Giant

ER: Surprised they would put Sasaki in with the Giant, as I didn't think Sasaki was there to lose one minute matches. He throws hard chops and hard leg kicks, and Giant's big chokeslam is super impressive, as he lifts him with one arm, then lifts him higher before dropping to his knees with the slam. I wanted more, obviously.

Hugh Morrus vs. Lex Luger

ER: Luger is a god on these 1996 shows, and he has truly gotten the worst of what WCW has to offer. Who else is having to make chicken salad out of a main event opposite Hugh Morris or Konnan? Luger knows how to craft matches out of these lugs beyond lugs, working this one like a great Hogan match. Morrus gets a couple of big slams to start and they slow play them, with Morrus hamming it up and Luger selling them with a "You think that's a knife" face. Luger let's him think he's at a disadvantage, then just explodes on Morrus with a bunch of nice forearms and shows off a bodyslam of his own and hits a nice powerslam on a big guy. Luger really does work the best version of the Hogan match you're used to, because he's not working with the same level of insecurity. He's cool with his spot on the pecking order, happy with the amount of money he's made, not scared of guys like Hugh Morrus. He knows he can sell for Morrus and naturally look like a star, so it makes a Hogan-style match more like a Nice John Cena match without toddler shorts and goofy faces. Morrus gets to merely miss the No Laughing Matter instead of having Luger take it, then just kick out and go for win. Missing the moonsault that leads to a Luger comeback is a much more organic way of moving the match along, and Morrus also gets to eyerake his way out of a Torture Rack. A Hogan match with him missing a legdrop would make it more interesting, give it some more depth. Morrus didn't look great here, but it didn't matter, because we had Lex Luger running things in 1996.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Saturday Night 10/17/98

1. Lenny Lane vs. Kidman

If you had come up to me and asked "Is 8 minutes a long time", my snap judgment answer would probably be "No, not really". But it really does depend on what that 8 minutes is spent doing. 8 minutes waiting for your food to arrive? Not bad at all as long as the conversation is pleasant. 8 minutes waiting at a traffic light? Very long. 8 minutes of your lunch break? Well that goes by super fast. 8 minutes of Lenny Lane vs. Kidman? Well good lord this is a long 8 minutes. I'm not totally sure we needed a 6 minute Lenny Lane control segment, but brother we got it. Again, 6 minutes doesn't really sound like whole lot of time, but when filtered through the context of "Lenny Lane doing offense" then it becomes clear very quickly that Lane does not have 6 minutes of material. Lane has among the worst punches I've ever seen in a major fed. Sub Chris Chetti. Sub Shad Gaspard. Just punching a foot past Kidman's head. At one point he's clearly just making up stuff as he does some sort of people's elbow type legdrop, coming off the ropes and strutting and then kinda standing there before hitting a legdrop. He and Kidman get brutally crossed up on a bulldog spot which sees them running the same direction, side by side, with neither holding onto the other one, until Kidman just stops and falls onto his face. But luckily for us they redo the spot immediately so we know what it should have looked like. For those scoring at home on the "How badly did Kidman injure his opponent on the Shooting Star Press", his knees landed on Lane's thighs/knees, so Lane likely had some sharp pain and bruising, but is also thankful he didn't catch Kidman's knees squarely in the balls.

2. Barry Horowitz vs. Vincent

Man, I really really like late 90s Vincent. What the fuck? He has no offense whatsoever, but does little things that just work. He's like what Stevie Richards added to late 00's Sunday Night Heat. Here he does some cool hot shots on Barry, then chokes him in the ropes while hitting these awesome body blows. Horowitz does cool things too and I love him stomping both of Vincent's hands while he's on the mat. Vincent does really hilarious "ohhhhhh my hand...OHHHHH MY OTHER HAND!" selling. Some cool spots in this that you don't ever see. Vincent has Barry in a headlock and ran up the turnbuckles with it and when he went to flip it into a bulldog (like Kidman would do) Horowitz just planted him with a back suplex. At another point Vincent had Barry draped over the top rope, and climbed to the top to do a guillotine leg drop! But Barry moved an Vince crotched himself and it was awesome. I loved Vincent's finisher in WCW, too, the single arm DDT rolled into a Fujiwara armbar. I REALLY want to see Vincent against Finlay, Taylor or Regal.

3. Rex King vs. Wrath

Would have rather seen an old Memphis guy against Kidman or Vincent or Horowitz but whatever. King hits a nice dropkick and a really cool spinkick in the corner (that Wrath pusses out on). Wrath...does stuff...until the match ends. Guy just isn't very memorable in squash matches.

4. Meng vs. Hardbody Harrison

An actual fun Meng squash!! I kinda gotta give Harrison some credit on this one as he leaned all in on Meng's offense and took some pretty nutty things. Meng planted him with a powerbomb and hit a brutal piledriver. He also hit two different big boot variations and numerous stiff strikes. He also kept pulling up Harrison on 2 counts which is great. We all KNOW Harrison is a total sleaze bag, but it has to be said that he really LOOKED like a total sleaze bag here. And he had to be pissed that the cameras never focused on the image OF HIMSELF he had shaved into the back of his head. That shit don't come cheap.

5. Bret Hanmer vs. "Hole in One" Barry Darsow

Match sadly never starts as Darsow says he needs to work on his swing and get back into golf shape, so he leaves the ring and Hanmer gets the count out win. Hanmer was a large gassed up guy with a nipple ring (ew) who later got to be Simon Diamond's bodyguard Dick Hurtz in ECW.

6. Fit Finlay vs. Chris Jericho

If you heard Finlay/Jericho were given 12 minutes then on paper you'd think that would be a really good match, right? Well, it turns out it was pretty disappointing. Most matches on WCWSN don't get this much time, but these two didn't really seem like they had a gameplan to fill that much time. There were plenty of fine individual moments: Jericho hits a cool running shoulderblock on the floor, vaulting off a chair. Jericho does a cool tombstone reversal by doing a reverse rana, planting Finlay vertically. The coolest and weirdest moment sees Jericho go up top for an axehandle, and Finlay catches him in the breadbasket, like ya do. But what makes it super cool is Finlay sells the arm like a 220 pound human just came crashing through it from the top rope. Well, obviously that makes 100% logical sense, but I have never seen anybody do it before. Of course that would destroy your shoulder if you hit somebody while they fell from above. So Jericho instantly pounces on the arm, stomping on it getting to bust out one of his hundreds of armbar variations. But then the weird kicks in, as after a couple minutes of getting his arm worked over, both of them just kind of stand up and Finlay transitions back to offense, doesn't sell his arm again and Jericho never goes back to the arm. And that's really the story of the match, as both guys do things, they hit moves clean, but nothing went anywhere. It was a pretty solid waste of 12 minutes, but a waste indeed as it just never evolved past "just filling some time".

7. The Gambler vs. Saturn

Boy Saturn has some boring transitions back to offense. He just waits for Gambler to do his stuff, then just immediately does stuff back. Gambler does some cool things though, like hitting stomps with one foot while standing on Saturn's hand with the other. That's a real nice touch. He hits a go behind at one point that Finlay should have stolen. Saturn has him in a waistlock, Gambler grapevines a leg to attempt a trip takedown, Saturn braces to avoid being taken down, and Gambler dupes him by hitting the go behind. Saturn stinks bad in this though and it only goes 90 seconds.

8. Lodi vs. Konnan

Well shit. Those are not really the two names I'd be looking forward to getting this show back on track. And this match is not good. Konnan has the shittiest way of getting guys into position to take his trademark moves. It reminds me of old Eliminators matches where they'd just walk there opponents into position as if they were placing mannequins. Okay, just stand riiiiiight there. Don't move.

9. Scott Hall vs. Disorderly Conduct

Well Hall comes out - to the surprise of everybody - just looking multiple sheets to the wind, and then gives a super rambling drunk promo on Kevin Nash, saying he's giving Nash the night off because he can beat these two "JAY-brones" by himself. He also throws his toothpick at the camera, misses, shrugs it off, then pulls out another toothpick from behind his ear and nails the camera. Well okay that's fucking awesome. Match actually starts out fun with Hall being cocky and then D.O. taking over with double teams. Hall fighting back is cool as he was throwing some nice rights, but D.O. cheating to transition was better with them always throwing Hall into the ropes so the one on the apron could sneak attack. At one point Hall just kinda wants to go home though so D.O. stop doing offense so Hall can hit a couple Outsiders Edge.

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Pro 9/7/96

This show is being billed as a huge deal because it's the long-anticipated debut of GLACIER!! I cannot believe that people had to sit through months and months of hype vids for Glacier, and WCW debuts him on what has to be their weakest show. Were they just petrified of him botching a match on live television? Why couldn't they have at least debuted him on a Saturday Night ep? Or debut him on the next week's Pro, which was at least right before the Fall Brawl ppv. Anybody have any clue why they hyped his debut for so damn long and then just threw it out on the Pro?

1. Scott Armstrong vs. Alex Wright

Battle of a couple 2nd generation workers! But sadly this doesn't get the chance to stretch out as they seem to be held to a pretty strict 3 minute rule. Nothing at all inoffensive about this match, but this felt like a pretty standard house show run of start with some mat stuff, go into some exchanges, one guy gets advantage, other guy transitions to advantage, first guy gets win without ever really transitioning back. Here Armstrong got the knees up on Wright's little slingshot corner splash, but Wright basically just went to his German suplex moments later to end it.

2. Craig Pittman vs. Terry Davis

Terry Davis used to pop up as a jobber all the time on WWF TV when I was a kid. The guy looks like a baby faced Luke Gallows, with no facial hair and horseshoe haircut and the most unflattering singlet/tights combo you've ever seen. This was one of those awesome Pittman matches where he was basically working with a mannequin. Davis got no offense, never attempted offense, he was just like a life-sized wrestling buddy who you could try moves on. And that's what Pittman does. You get the sense from watching some of these Pittman matches that he makes up most of these moves on the fly, and it gives the moves a sense of originality.  At one point he takes Davis up into a torture rack and drops him into an atomic drop. Most of the time I got the sense that Davis was dead weight (or again, not sure at all what move Pittman was doing) so Pittman would just dead lift him and then slam him. At one point Pittman locked on a rad liontamer where he crossed Davis' legs. And I love Pittman's battering ram headbutt finisher. I'm genuinely starting to look forward to Pittman matches. This guy was the great lost worked shoot fighter of the 90s.

3. Big Ron Studd vs. Chris Benoit

Boy the only way you can describe this is "mismatch". Ron Reis is gigantic, and also not good at pro wrestling. Match still has a couple decent Oh Shit moments, like Benoit hitting a massive German on Reis, and then Benoit finishing with an enormous superplex (which is pretty stupid since Reis went to the top rope to get into position for it, and there's zero chance the guy was going to be doing ANY sort of offense off the top, but whatevs) that Reis baaaarely gets over for and practically spikes himself. Jeez. Benoit gets the pin and then stomps Reis' head after the pinfall which Reis clearly was not expecting.

4. Brad Armstrong vs. Dean Malenko

Cool short match ruined by the stupid, rushed finish. Both guys work super quick armdrag exchanges and the fans are jacked, Larry talks the whole match about the "Armstrong curse", and Brad gets to take like 80% of this. I'm into it, fans are into it, things are looking good. Then Brad hits the Russian leg sweep and instead of going for the pin instantly goes up top. So Malenko gets up from Brad's finisher after being on the mat only 2 seconds, as he has to be up in time to catch Armstrong. Armstrong hits a full impact crossbody off the top, Dean even did that bump where he jumps into the crossbody to take a huge back bump from it with Armstrong splatting right on top of him........and then Dean just rolls him over and pins him. What. The. Fuck. So Dean takes Armstrong's finisher, takes a massive crossbody off the top...and then just wins. I get that he was supposed to roll through the crossbody and use Armstrong's momentum against him, but then you'd think he'd take more of a rolling bump instead of a SPLAT back bump. Just garbage.

5. Glacier vs. The Gambler

So it has to be said that Gambler looks AMAZING here. Usually he comes out in just a satin little league coaches' jacket with "The Gambler" stitched into the back over a deck of playing cards. You know the jacket, because you wanted that jacket. But HERE he comes out decked to the nines as a riverboat gambler and it is INCREDIBLE. I have never seen him decked like this and here he full-on out-Robert Parkers Robert Parker! He's got a white button up ruffled shirt (tucked into his trunks), suspenders, pocket watch, black coat with tails, and dressed bowler hat. Amazing. The guy is doing card tricks on the way to the ring, has a cocky swagger and looks like an actual big deal. I love the Gambler. And I cannot imagine anybody else running into Glacier offense better than Gambler did here. All of the spots came off without a hitch and a lot of the set-up was fairly complicated. It would have been VERY easy for somebody to get lost along the way (though there was no doubt tons of rehearsal put into this), but Gambler made it. He sold all of Glacier's ridiculous 5 fingers of death strikes appropriately, ran into kicks like he was supposed to, and looked downright pro. Bowler hats off to The Gambler. I wish that guy had a job in wrestling today. Any clue what he is up to at all? For a guy who was a part of a major promotion for 5 years, I haven't heard anything about him in ages. Guys less famous than him have done shoot interviews.

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Pro 8/17/96

1. Chip Minton vs. Diamond Dallas Page

This wasn't much and I'm kinda shocked that WCW never tried to push Minton at all. I mean, how often does an actual US Olympian get into pro wrestling? He was pretty raw but had some obvious talent. Instead we get a bunch of Larry Z griping about how bobsledding won't make him a better wrestler and acting as if Minton was leading a bobsledding invasion against WCW wrestling.

2. Jim Powers vs. The Gambler

Alright, I'll be honest with you: Jim Powers is not very good at pro wrestling. But what's even worse is that he's not very good in a completely boring way. He does hip tosses. He rams guys' heads into the turnbuckles. He throws a super light dropkick. He has just nothing going for him at all. You can't laugh at him for being horrible, your brain just goes blank for 4 minutes. So thank god for The Gambler, who tries his damndest to have a fun match with Jim Powers. He doesn't succeed, but he tried. This was at least notable for being one of the few matches where The Gambler controlled the match and took most of the offense. Powers was working comebacks most of the way through so Gambler got to control with Arn Anderson-meets-Chris Elliott charm. I wish actual good wrestlers would try and work a competitive match with him.

3. High Voltage vs. American Males

Hey, you know who used to be good? Marcus Bagwell. I really liked him in this, working the hot tag for Riggs. He had a really nice dropkick, cool shoulderblock and a great crossbody off the top for the win, and this was an enjoyable 7 minute tag. You know who wasn't good back then? Kaos (or "Chaos" as it was spelled here). He was just totally lost and it was a testament to how decent Bagwell was that this thing didn't fall completely apart. Kaos was totally baffled by rope running spots and got way confused during all those exchanges.

***Baseball Rambling Below***

So all through this show they've been showing an ad for an old Sega Genesis baseball game (World Series Baseball 2?) and what so odd about the commercial is Brad Radke is the guy they used as the sports star hawking the game. Now Brad Radke was one of my favorite non-Giant ballplayers of all time. He was a small market guy who played his whole career on the Twins and retired when he wanted to, while he was still a relevant player. What made me really like him was his numbers always looked worse than they actually were, and he regularly got overlooked as a really good player because of that (Matt Cain would later hold many of these traits Radke held, and Cain is one of my all-time favorites. What made me love him so early on was it felt like the Giants finally had their own Radke). I mean, in the last couple seasons before he retired, Radke had a 5+ K/BB ratio. That's great. But this was not later career Radke being featured in a commercial. 1996 was only his 2nd year, and what was notable about his first couple seasons was that he gave up more HR than any other pitcher in MLB over those 2 years, giving up 32 in '95 as a rookie and 40 in '96. His rookie year ERA was 5.32 (5.42 FIP, oooof). And this commercial was amazing because Radke was in it for just that reason: he gave up home runs. The commercial showed him giving up bombs and painted him as a bad luck loser. For a 23 year old player to make fun of himself like that just made me love Radke that much more, and even more awesome that he averaged 5 WAR over the next 5 seasons after this commercial. So not only did Radke make fun of himself, but he had the last laugh. Awesome.

***Baseball Rambling Over***

4. Scott Flash vs. Mark Starr

This could have been a really good jobber match, but Norton just absolutely refused to sell anything that Mark Starr throws. It was real bad. He just walked through punches and kicks and made it pretty clear that Starr was a doofus. It did show just how decent Starr's punches were, when they can look good even when somebody doesn't acknowledge them. Norton was a beast here, so I get it. But I felt bad for Starr. Norton's shoulderbreaker is a vicious, reckless move that looks insanely painful.

5. Chris Benoit vs. Joe Gomez

Jim Powers, why can't you be as hilariously awful as Joe Gomez? Gomez was just awful. Hilariously awful. Even Rachel noticed how often he tossed his hair back while horribly executing basic offense (did BJ Whitmer watch a lot of Gomez when he was younger?). Here he does an insanely slow backslide set-up, stopping midway to whip his hair back TWICE. By far the best part of the match was Gomez missing a running crossbody block off the ropes. What made it so great was the fact that Gomez clearly did not know he was missing the crossbody. This is what a missed crossbody looks like when Joe Gomez clearly thinks he's going to be crashing into Chris Benoit. But Benoit ducked, and Gomez flew hilariously/dangerously/awesomely into the ropes, and then rolled to the floor. It was spectacular. Later in the match Gomez goes up to the top and it looks like he's climbing ropes for the first time right here and now in front of the world. Every step up looks super shaky and he has to stop on each rope to regain his balance. Yes, he did not even climb up on the buckles, he climbed up on the ropes right next to the buckles. When he finally disastrously gets to the top, he leaps off with the worst top rope splash I've seen, coming in way forward heavy, like he was attempting to do the Worm by first leaping off the top. He just flops there hilariously, and then lies there on his face, a total failure pile. Even better, Benoit just kinda lets him lie there for awhile, face down, until casually walking over and putting on the crossface. Thank you, Joe Gomez.

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Pro 8/10/96

8/10/96

1. Kurasawa vs. Jim Duggan

These vacationing Florida fans were going hog wild for Hacksaw (you see this show was the show right before WCW's Hog Wild PPV so what I did there was a little play on words). There was one woman in the crowd who was waving her hat around during his entrance who very clearly said, "Wave that flag, Hacksaw! Wave that flag!" I...kinda like the match for the first minute or so. Kurasawa muscles Hacksaw into the corner and laces into him, and that's kinda how it goes until Duggan decides it's over, reaches into the trunks for some tape, wraps his fist and wins with the taped fist punch. Dusty's gigantic red leather blazer looks like something out of Suze Orman's nightmares.

2. Eddie Guerrero vs. (not THEE) Manny Fernandez

Manny is kind of your 1996 jobber doofus, who always breaks out new offense in every match, but none of it is done very well so it just comes off hilariously inept. Here he busts out a northern lights suplex and a goofy double leg drop (springing off the bottom rope but still holding onto the top rope when he lands. Durp.). He's not good, he's not really awful, he's just not...THEE Manny Fernandez. Eddie slaps fives on the way to the ring and two white girls noticeably shrug away from him in horror. Eddie doesn't get much here before the finish but does throw some amazing corner punches which are some of the absolute hardest punches to make look good. Here he snaps them off right into Manny's neck. Froggy splash looks pretty and Dusty always squeals with glee when he gets to say "froggy".

3. Squire Dave Taylor vs. The Gambler

Holy lord this is like a WCW B-Sides dream match for me. There's no way it can live up to the hype I've already created for it in my brain's fantasy booking chamber. And it doesn't, although it's just about the most fun 2 minutes you could hope for. Gambler starts off with a hip toss and then a running back elbow, which Taylor takes a massive bump over the top to the floor for. Gambler chases him, and from there to the end Taylor beats the shit out of him. 5 nasty European uppercuts, a great yakuza kick to the side of Gambler's head, and finishes with Taylor's unreal fallaway slam which is arguably a top 5 finisher of this period, maybe ever. He holds guys up like he's gonna hit a simple bodyslam, and then just flips back into a float over/overhead suplex. Looks totally nasty and must take freakish strength to pull off. It's like a Spanish Fly variation on the fallaway slam. Taylor is so awesome.

4. Dean Malenko vs. Rey Misterio Jr.

This gets a full 11 minutes and starts off completely awesome, with Malenko keeping Rey in place with some nasty elbows in the corner (don't actually remember Malenko working this stiff), taking him down with a GREAT single leg and wrenching him around with a knucklelock. By the time he ran through Rey with a stiff clothesline (with Rey bumping lightning fast onto the back of his head), I was hooked. This didn't look like two guys remembering sequences, it looked like a competitive fight. What made that single leg so great is that it actually looked like Rey didn't want to go down, and Dean was actually taking him down. There was none of that far-off look certain wrestlers get where it looks like they're just thinking about the next spot, it looked like two guys making things look believable to fanny-pack sporting tourists (the only venue in all of wrestling where the fans wearing fanny packs outnumber the wrestlers wearing them).

And then around the 3 1/2 minute mark it just gets...not good. Rey appears to hurt his knee, so Malenko begins to work over every other body part except for Rey's knee, and it comes off really odd. Malenko locks on a Fujiwara armbar, Rey holds his knee. Dean hits a brainbuster (sick brainbuster, for the record), and Rey comes up holding his knee. At this point we go into some very long body scissor portions with Dean wrenching Rey's neck...which Rey comes out of holding his knee. But Rey's knee selling comes off far too campy for me to believe it, as he strongly limps around as if he's wearing only one platform shoe. He still hits high dropkicks and hits a springboard dropkick and beautiful springboard rana flawlessly, and also lands off the top rope onto his feet without his leg buckling at all.

So...if Rey was working an injury for 9 minutes of this match...why didn't Dean attack the leg at any point? It's very surreal to see a guy get his neck cranked on and then not act like his neck is hurt in the slightest but instead act like he can barely walk...until the moment of the match where he gets all his offense in and is suddenly fine again. I've seen countless matches where selling is ignored when a guy has to get his stuff in, and whatever. But I don't think I've ever seen a match where a guy sells a different body part from the ones being worked over, and then ignore his own fake injury.

Finish is a real dud here too as it was supposed to be Rey rolling through a samoan drop and getting the roll-up win, but instead Dean fucking PLANTS him with a samoan drop...and then Rey just rolls him over for the pin. In theory I assume it was supposed to look like Austin Aries' old samoan drop slam, but it just looked like Rey took a move, no sold it and instantly got the pin. Blech.

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Pro 3/23/96

WCW Pro 3/23/96:

1. Joey Maggs vs. Lex Luger

So people bagging on Luger officially needs to stop. Dude was damn good as late as '97. He looked real good here and bumped around for fucking Joey Maggs, who doesn't actually jump as often as his name would have you believe. Luger worked this match 50/50 and it was weird for everybody.

2. Ice Train vs. The Gambler

Boy Ice Train was not very good. Here he blows a couple hip tosses and botches a shoulderblock. Gambler, however, was great, as The Gambler always is. His sateen little league coach jacket always looks primo, and he always gets his gimmick of being a gambler over pre-match, whether it be holding a deck of cards, or throwing dice like he did here. The problem here was that the cameras didn't do a good job of showing the dice before he starting rolling, so it looked like he was uncomfortably miming jacking off while looking straight into the camera. This went on for too many seconds before the big dice reveal (he rolled a 3). His character feels like something that would really work today, in one of those "ripped from the headlines" type deals. He could lose all his money in some sort of Bernie Madoff scam, or lose his home in a subprime lending scenario.

There's a man in the crowd with a tucked in Dolphins jersey who clearly has no idea how to boo while giving the double thumbs down. It's like he's doing a weird combo of "revving a motorcycle" miming, and "crying baby with fists balled into eyes". His buddies all walk that line of a) wrestling fan or b) developmentally disabled...or c) developmentally disabled wrestling fan (it's almost always C).

3. Kurasawa vs. Randy Savage

Best part about this was Savage has Hogan at ringside holding a chair, cheating for him the whole match. Savage needed Hogan's interference to beat Kurasawa. All the while they're building up Hogan and Savage about to face 6 dudes in a cage at Uncensored, but Hogan helps Savage beat Kurasawa.

4. Konnan vs. Kanyon

Boy Kanyon will bump fantastically to put over crummy Konnan offense. Kanyon takes no fewer than two moves onto his head here, including the finish DDT which Kanyon plants himself on gorgeously.

5. Meng vs. Hulk Hogan

I actually like this match-up and it is hilarious how much Hogan cheats like a motherfucker through this whole match. Not one move he does is legit or done after being provoked. Right out of the gate he's biting Meng on the forehead, arm, leg, backraking him, choking him on the mat, hitting him with a chair, all while the announcers are putting him over. But then Meng does all that shit back to him and Dusty says like only Dusty can "Well he kinda had that comin to him." I don't want to see Meng job to the legdrop and luckily Zeus and the Ultimate Solution run out and Rachel is like "That guy from the Ice Cube Coors Light commercial did wrestling?!" and Savage wisely pulls a chairshot instead of hitting Meng as hard as he could in the face, because Meng would have bit his nose off backstage.

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Worldwide 8/4/96

WCW Worldwide 8/4/96

1. Craig Pittman vs. The Gambler

Pittman/Gambler was odd but really fun, as it was just a squash, but one that got 3 minutes more than Pittman squashes usually get. So we get a 5 minute match with Pittman getting to show off every single move he's ever known to fill time, with tons of hardway suplexes and forearm shots to the throat and random submissions. Gambler is always awesome and here he gets to mug a bunch and gets his one offensive move no sold (a real nice German suplex). Heenan: "The more I see of the Gambler, the more he improves. He used to hit the mat WAY harder."

2. Scott Norton vs. Manny Fernandez

Norton/Fernandez was hilarious because it was 2 minutes of Norton just clubbing (not thee) Manny Fernandez, and it was all building up to Manny's ONE bit of offense...which he promptly blew, and blew spectacularly. His ONE move, and he goes for some ridiculous asai crossbody type thing, and just falls off the ropes 2 feet short of Norton, who then just picks up Powers and crushes him with a shoulderbreaker to win. Brutal. Imagine just waiting around the whole day during everybody else's match, knowing that you are going to get ONE MOVE for your reward, and then just slipping and falling on your face. That shit would give me nightmares 16 years later. This match might need to be on the WCW set just for that spot, just to show kids that if they ever follow their dreams they'll likely fail in their one chance, just like Manny Fernandez.

3. Billy Kidman vs. Dean Malenko

This was a fun 6 minutes that I probably would have watched a million times back when it happened, and now at least seems like fun 90s junior work. Basically worked like a squash, with Dean getting about 5:30 of the 6 minutes, tossing Kidman around with powerbombs and brainbusters and a bunch of pointless leg locks scattered throughout the match. Kidman gets a couple sunset flip type reversals and hits a nice crossbody off the top (the way Dean took it made it seem like he had a piano dropped on top of him). Loved Dean finishing with the Finlay rolling fireman's carry senton.

4. Kurosawa vs. Konnan

was not good in any sort of way, and that shouldn't shock anybody at all. Konnan was so fucking awful it's almost hard to describe, just moving around in the ring and positioning himself in the most out of position ways possible. Konnan's signature offense is the most "here, you get into position right here and I'm going to go over here and do this thing right here" of anybody since Public Enemy. I wonder how many times Konnan/Public Enemy matched up? Any matches featuring Stevie Ray, Konnan and PE?

5. Jim Powers/Joe Gomez vs. Arn Anderson/Chris Benoit

Benoit and AA get 9 minutes with Gomez and Powers, and it is just not good at all. Gomez and Powers bring less than nothing to the table and Arn looks like he just has open disdain for Powers; not so much in a "We're gonna stiff the shit out of you." but more in a "I've been working matches with this asshole for EIGHT YEARS now. Fuck." Arn just looks at him like "Uggggggghhhhh Jim Powers." The eyeroll is palpable. Jim Powers has the superpower to have the largest-man-to-lightest-crossbody ratio that I've ever seen.

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 8/1/98 & 8/9/98

My buddy Charlie was down from Portland and we had picked up several Simpler Times 6-packs earlier in the day and had been putting them to good use all afternoon. At some point around midnight he wanted to watch wrestling, which was odd as he hadn't watched wrestling since the boom period of '97-'00. So I threw in some '98 WCW which is the greatest wrestling to watch drunk, sober, happy, depressed, neutral, angry, melancholy, etc. If you are feeling complete and utter ennui in life, I think it's fair to say that a couple episodes of WCW syndicated television are a nice cure-all. These shows are infinitely rewatchable, and they're pretty much the greatest possible wrestling you could ask for. Everything is a surprise, as WCW had about 600 people under contract and taped things 3 years in advance, so you never knew who was gonna show up. "Didn't Billy Joe Travis die 2 years ago? John Nord was getting a TV push in '99?" Those kinda questions get asked every episode. The wrestling is booked in a vacuum and at times you feel like a kid again because you don't know who will win. When you get match ups like Silver King vs. Super Calo, that's a push right there. No way I know who's winning. Armstrongs vs. Disorderly Conduct? Jeez, I've never seen those teams beat anybody, so no clue who goes over when both sides meet. This is only a few of the reasons why WCW syndicated TV is, was, and will always be my favorite wrestling. You get it all. Lucha, tassles, fat guys, face punching, hillbillys, awesome fans, relaxed commentary, and the sweet, sweet wrestling. So enjoy the new feature: My Favorite Wrestling!

WorldWide 8/1/98

1. Ultimo Dragon vs. Saito

SAITO either wrestles now (or recently) as Ryo Saito or Super Shisa I think, and this was good fun as a teacher/student match should be. Saito looked real good here eating Ultimo's offense. Saito got to do a ton of moves and the crowd was way into it. Ultimo threw a spin kick that caught Saito right under the chin and it was great. For a guy who hates stiffness, Ultimo sure popped him there. I can't think of any other situation where two Japanese guys working in a vacuum would get the crowd this excited.

2. Sick Boy vs. Julio Sanchez

Sick Boy was not a good wrestler. Time has told us that. And I will forever hate Sanchez since ECW used him regularly as a wrestler while employing Chris Hamrick as a manager. Travesty. These guys looked like mirror images of each other here, one in cutoff shorts, one in tights. These guys weren't great. Although Sick Boy's pedigree really plants guys painfully. He doesn't let go of the arms like HHH. And Sick Boy did a fist drop, so what more could you really ask for?

3. Kendall Windham vs. Disco Inferno

This might sound like hyperbole to some, but Kendall vs. Disco might be the best WCW match I've seen in ages. Not sure how much influence the Simpler Times are having at this point. The only syndicated matches (off the top of my head) that could compete with it are Benoit vs. Big Train Bart (Necro's trainer) from '95, Kendall/Barry vs. B.A./Swoll from '99, Hak vs. Bull Pain from '99, and Raven vs. Kaz Hayashi from '99. Kendall vs. Disco was just too completely awesome and -- no joke -- made Kendall look like one of the best in the world. Kendall's left hand is arguably the greatest punch in wrestling...EVER. Seriously. It looked like a million bucks in this match. Kendall punched Disco the whole time, stomped him in the corner, kicked him hard in the stomach, and MAN did Disco sell it all well. He sold each of Kendall's punches perfectly, whipping his head back, writhing on the ground holding his face. Disco's comebacks were peppered in perfectly as well with a great swinging neckbreaker and a piledriver that Kendall took and sold GREAT! This match was awesome and Kendall just looked like a monster, completely badass. Disco helped that out to a big degree. These guys made each other look great and this was just a killer match that gets a bunch of time, like 7-8 minutes. I would rate this 8 stars.

4. Juventud Guerrera/Psychosis vs. Villano IV/V

For those of us who got big into lucha, I assume WCW syndicated TV had some hand in that, and stuff like Villanos IV & V vs. Psychosis/Juvy gave us a short fun sprint with some big dives, a big springboard dropkick, Psychosis dumping himself on his own head, and good times had by all. If all lucha was like this, but longer and with even more guys, then of course we were going to start buying tapes.

WorldWide 8/9/98

1. The Gambler vs. Hugh Morrus

Morrus really stinks here but THE GAMBLER is a guy I've always dug, and he gets even better the more I see him. Morrus is always really selfish in his squash matches, taking like 95% of them with so-so offense. Gambler had a nasty back elbow and not much else, which is a shame as whenever he gets the chance he always has great offense. It's funny that Gambler was a jobber back then, but somebody like Karl Anderson gets regular Japan bookings these days with the same look and less talent. Anderson doesn't even have a jacket with playing cards on it. Idiot.

2. Vincent vs. Frankie Lancaster

This was a real nice Vince showcase and he really made the most of it. Just stiffs up Lancaster the whole match, takes a big bump for him, and ends it with one of the nastiest arm bars I've seen. He did a single-arm DDT and looked like he just posted Frankie's wrist right into the mat and then wrenched it into a great Fujiwara armbar, but working it from his back. Just awesome. Vincent/Curly Bill could really work, and it would only come through in small flashes of brilliance like this. You know Frankie Lancaster today from his debilitating kidney disease (I assume).

3. SUWA vs. Jerry Flynn

SUWA match! SUWA at one point was my favorite wrestler in the world, and with Finlay is the man I most wish would return to wrestling matches. SUWA was my favorite in the workd like 5 years after this match. I'm not even sure Toryumon had started at this point. Flynn's matches are always best when his opponent doesn't mind being a punching bag (erm...kicking bag). When he's in with a bigger star, usually that guy won't take any of his stiff kicks. But lower card guys and foreigners? Yeah. You're getting kicked. SUWA was not the biggest dick in wrestling as he would become a few years later, but he still was doing stuff like eyepokes and snarling at all the wide eyes in the crowd. Flynn kicks him a bunch and this was awesome.

4. Sick Boy vs. Hardbody Harrison

To the surprise of everybody, this wasn't that good. The only thing Harrison was worse at than wrestling, was defending himself in court.

5. British Bulldog/Jim Neidhart vs. Steve & Scott Armstrong*

This was a perfectly fine little tag to main event the start of My Favorite Wrestling, with Armstrongs getting plenty of offense and heeling it up. Bulldog has looked pretty lousy at other points in WCW, but he looked alright here. But these kinds of matches are almost always the Armstrong show, and an Armstrongs tag that gets 6+ minutes is almost always going to be good.

And that's kinda the best thing about WCW syndicated TV. For some reason (atmosphere, sense of surprise, beer) even the crummy matches have worth and are fun. It's the ultimate pro wrestling comfort food. And it's why it will always be My Favorite Wrestling.

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