Found Footage Friday: BASH 85~!

Great American Bash JCP 7/6/85

Buddy Landel vs. Ron Bass

MD: A twenty minute draw, only a bit cut (we lose some of Buddy's control). I always was partial to this feud so it's nice to get a bit more of it. It filled out the midcard well, just having Bass trying to get revenge on JJ basically for picking a city slicker instead of a country guy. 

This was going long and it had a lot of Buddy getting early stalling and comeuppance. Buddy's body language is almost generational, the way that he scoots through the ropes after taking a shot or gets fired into the corner. He tries to outwrestle Bass and fails, tries to outsneak him and fails, tries to outfight him and definitely fails. When he does take over, it's about grinding Bass down and letting JJ get shots in when he can. The comeback on the floor is fiery and the crowd loves it but it's a prelude to the bell ringing for the draw. Post match, Bass gets his hands on JJ and Buddy tries to intervene only for the two to end up crashing into one another. Satisfying stuff even despite the draw.

Ole Anderson/Arn Anderson vs. Buzz Sawyer/Dick Slater

MD: This was a blast. I love the Sawyer/Slater team, even as babyfaces. Huge energy. They came in hot firing away at the Andersons, with Buzz and his fuzzy boots swinging a title belt around over his head. It was stooging fiery chaos for the first half, with Slater's windmill punches and Buzz running about biting arms and interjecting at every point. He had one charge into the corner where he shot back at high speed with a forearm that was just nuts. 

Eventually the chaos was too much and the ref got distracted so that the Andersons could take over on Slater. Super hot crowd for this as Buzz stomped back and forth on the apron. Some great hope spots and last second cutoffs where an Anderson would lock up the legs. The hot tag was sufficiently hot but things ended pretty abruptly with an elbow drop cheapshot behind the ref's back. Could have used another rotation on the finish but this lived up to my expectations.

Manny Fernandez/Buzz Tyler/Sam Houston vs. Abdullah the Butcher/Superstar Billy Graham/Konga the Barbarian

MD: I haven't talked about what we had and didn't have here but we came in during the heat on the old footage of this one. That's all beatdown on Houston who survives and survives until he's able to get close enough to draw his own guys in and win in the ensuing chaos with a roll up.

All of that is in here and it's pretty good pro wrestling, but we get the front here as well. That was Graham and Konga stooging (as once Abby got in, it would be time for the heels to take over). And it was very good. This is some of the best I've seen 80s Graham look. He was flying around way more than usual and leaning hard into the goofing. Konga did his share as well honestly. And all of that was fine because it set the stage for Houston getting destroyed. The fans absolutely loved the finish. It really seemed at this point that they could make Houston into a big deal in the years to come.

Paul Jones vs. Jimmy Valiant (Dog Collar)

MD: Previously we just had the opening feint and the finish here. The feint was great, as Jones hemmed and hawed and refused to put the dog collar on before trying to slip it on Abby instead. That didn't work but it drew attention so Abby could stab Valiant in the forehead. Previously we had commentary over that but here we got to clearly hear a scream from the crowd and that's the sort of thing that makes all of this better. 

Jones controlled, smacking a bloody valiant with the chain wrapped around his hand. He made sure to bask in it and taunt the crowd. Said crowd went up huge for Valiant's comeback as he manipulated Jones with the length of the chain. He got the sleeper on. Abby tried to interfere. Valiant was too smart for it and he got the win before Abby unloaded on him. Pretty enjoyable piece of business overall.

Russians vs. Road Warriors

MD: This couldn't have been more heel-in-peril. Not only was it Krusher and Ivan, Nikita wasn't even there because he was prepping for the main event. Even though the Roadies were the AWA champions, only the JCP titles were on the line (which given the finish made no sense anyway).

And the Warriors took the brunt of this. Maybe Ivan would get an eye rake or Krusher would get a few body shots in, but then they'd miss an elbow drop and would get swept right back under again. Animal press slammed Krusher into the top rope, then pressed Ivan off the top. Hawk got in on the action. In no case did they really get them up but the struggle made it work nonetheless. It was a bit of diminishing returns though.

They had a sort of convoluted bit to let the Russians take over and they kept control with frantic, almost desperate quick tags. Even then, when the hot tag came, it was while the Roadies were taking shots. They just didn't matter. Things devolved quickly after that as both sides used chairs. It get having the Russians finally look vulnerable but a straight up Clash of the Titans might have been more palatable. 

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Loosely Formed Thoughts on WWF Over the Edge 5/31/98

The Propaganda-style intro to this PPV is fucking insane. It's all World War II footage of tanks and soldiers and fucking Stalin and Mussolini and actual Nazi footage and it's all interspersed with They Live CONFORM and OBEY block fonts but also video of Stone Cold doing shit like turkey tapping Vince from several angles. Best possible start. 

 

1. LOD 2000 vs. DOA

It actually feels impossible that LOD 2000 didn't become the biggest tag team of the rest of the decade with Sunny as their manager. I don't think I'm being overly horny here either. I don't think the fact that Sunny looked like this while I was 17 years old matters here, as I don't think this is a matter of bias. I think I'm being a very reasonable and appropriate level of horny in a way that the eyes of history agree with. 

This is Hawk and Animal vs. 8-Ball and Skull but Droz and Chainz are there. Up above I only wrote "LOD 2000 vs. DOA" and I didn't want anyone to get confused about what members of each group of friends was actively involved here. 

Skull throws a nice ugly big man swinging neck beaker and an actual good legdrop. It does not bring me great joy that 8-Ball and Skull's work from '98 is probably better than we assessed at the time. 

Animal is in strong style mode and does a dragon screw and I don't think I've seen that from him before or since. How much of his BattlArts work is available? 

8-Ball vs. Hawk is better than Skull vs. Animal. They did more punching and elbowdrops and an ugly piledriver that Hawk gets to ignore completely because that is Hawk's spot. 

Hawk has a way of looking off balance while also having this incredible balance and sturdiness on all of his clotheslines. He looks wobbly, but takes this incredible bump all the way across the ring off a missed top rope shoulderblock, flying out of the ring into an almost Halloween style sliding bump to the floor. Hard. I liked Drunk Hawk when I was a teenager but I don't think it was because I thought he was GOOD good. Accidentally, time has only proven me right. Further proof of how good he still was on fumes in '98: the 1-2 punch of his  neckbreaker -> fistdrop combo. 

The 8-Ball/Hawk punch exchange is good and should have gone three times as long. It's worth it for Chainz punching Hawk in the balls from the floor in a way that didn't even seem planned. Cameras weren't focused on it. You can see Chainz pop him in the nuts from the floor and Hawk reacts like a guy who just realized he got tapped hard enough in the balls to react. 

Nobody quite knew how to get to the finish, but Animal clotheslining his way through a hot tag and hitting a great powerslam for the finish plays well with any lead up. 

There is a Faarooq! Faarooq! Faarooq is on Fire!! sign and folks, that's a good one. 

2. Jeff Jarrett vs. Steve Blackman

Fuck I hope Steve Blackman tries a piledriver here but I have a parlay on Jarrett doing one. You see, in between matches backstage, Faarooq hit The Rock with the Piledriver To Beat tonight. We're 20 minutes into this show and we've had two piledrivers and we still have over 2.5 hours to go.  

Blackman is really fun to watch during this stretch. We don't get Reformed Musclehead Karate Guys Working Every Pro Wrestling Spot He's Ever Seen anymore. Blackman doing a baseball slide dropkick to start but then press slamming Jarrett back into the ring but also doing Ricky Steamboat double chops but also looking lost and kind of dangerous is just lightning in a bottle. I think he would get a lot less interesting the more he learned, but this is still in that magic window. 

Blackman hits a thrust kick on the floor that looks like the the most violent version of Chuck Norris kicking Jarrett down the aisle. 

Jarrett does a really good job icing this down the right amount while there's an Al Snow angle taking several minutes too long at ringside. Jarrett works Barry Darsow chatter like "He ain't going nowhere now!" and "Ring the bell he's done!" and is able to do essentially nothing for a few minutes, really well. 

They do a preposterously slow 9 count after Jarrett hits a back suplex. Jarrett had been working over Blackman in a chinlock for a minute so I have no idea why Jarrett was as knocked out as Blackman. I thought they would explode a bit more after the Al Snow angle, you know, to get everyone back involved in things, but they kind of do the opposite for no reason. They've turned the entire rest of the match into "every move keeps both of us down for too long" and it sucks.  

Steve Blackman is at his absolute beautiful best when he is doing moves with full commitment without looking as if he's ever even practiced doing the move before. It's only a detriment if a couple of miscues happen back to back, but has a remarkably high ceiling as a style. His elbowdrop is not thrown like any other wrestler has thrown an elbowdrop. It's like he was born with the knowledge but without memory of where the knowledge came from. He knows it's right, but it's informed by something beyond him. He is not inspired by anyone else who came before. 

Steve Blackman is Backyarder Doug Furnas and we didn't know what we had. We didn't know, and he didn't know how to continue giving that to us. 

3. Loser Leaves WWF: Sable vs. Marc Mero

I'll say it again: Mero and Sable were really great during the first half of '98. Neither ever did it better. Maybe when we get into Jacqueline Era Marc I'll determine that it has aged even better than his Sable Forced Separation arc but I'm not expecting it to be. Honestly Sable and Mero are fucking GREAT together. They really seem like they dislike each other, like their marriage was really already over instead of merely being on the start of a 5 year slide towards being over.  

Marc Mero is so good during this entire segment. "Sable what happened to us? This business ruins relationships... It ruined ours."  

Marc Mero pulling a small package after doing the honorable thing and lying down for Sable, then jumping around the ring in celebration is one of those things my sister will bring up unprovoked 25 years later. 

4. Bradshaw/Taka Michinoku vs. Kai En Tai

Bradshaw press slams Taka into everyone within the first 30 seconds. He's so massive, they look like Lilliputians wearing Miller's Outpost jean shorts. 

I remember this being a lot better, with a lot more heat. Crowd really isn't as into it as I remember. I'm not into it as much as I remember. The Kai En Tai stuff doesn't read as fluid or unique today. There are a lot more seams with 2024 eyes. Bradshaw is not actually reckless at all. Did we all have false implanted rose colored memories of Bradshaw recklessly fucking up everyone in the match or was that just me? This Wisconsin crowd doesn't understand a single fucking part of it. Arms are crossed in Milwaukee, politely not understanding any of Dick Togo's excellent senton variations. 

Jim Ross makes an extended Gulliver's Travels reference and then explains it and I feel like a stupid asshole who's only read three books in my life out here making the same similes as Jim Ross. JR and I each watched the Ted Danson Gulliver's Travels Two Night Television Event in 1996 and now we use it to describe pro wrestling when big man fights small men.   

Okay it gets good when Bradshaw finally tags in and that's when he starts throwing them around. It's still never unprofessional in the ways I remember it being. In fact, Bradshaw was actually a good sport believably taking Kai En Tai's offense, leaning into dropkicks and struggling really well while the Lilliputians tethered his legs with rope. He does polish Funaki with a clothesline and choose Teioh as his Only True Victim by throwing him - really throwing him - with a tiger suplex, but you could watch this match and have no actual idea that Bradshaw is a miserable prick.  

5. Faarooq vs. The Rock

I think Faarooq looked like a real badass (before the match started). This match was the best his Faarooq gear ever looked on him. Fuck how cool would Jacqueline have looked in Faarooq's exact gear? Faarooq looks like a lean cut Masa Saito, or the most bulked up Bernie Casey. He looks perfect, in other words. He looks like a guy really giving a beating to a guy he dislikes. A beating he's been waiting to hand out. His sparsely African-patterned gear looked great with the straps up, and even better when he takes the straps down. Someone who's good with computers, put Jacqueline in Faarooq's gear. 

I hate how guys like MJF or Austin Theory or Ricky Starks move like 1998 The Rock. It sucks. They all flop the same and walk around with their butts out the same and it's all theater kids goofing around doing People's Elbows. The Butt Out Walk must be the first thing they teach at Brahma School. 

I don't know why the crowd isn't more excited for Faarooq dishing out a beating. The Rock wore a big neck brace after Faarooq piledrove him earlier and takes a fun beating, and that combination of things deserved a reaction. His elbows on the apron looked good, Rock is acting like a real punk doofus, yet nobody cares. 

Real flat finish. This feud never had a chance. There was a weird 3 count that got a silent reaction and the camera shot it in a way where you couldn't see Rock's foot on the rope. This whole thing was only 5 minutes and felt really incomplete. Blackman/Jarrett got twice as much time without even being based around an actual feud, so this whole thing was just set up to fail.  

When DX runs in after the match to ambush The Nation they look like the 4 Horsemen of Rape.

6. Vader vs. Kane

Vader was getting real reactions in 1998. There was a powerful machine working against 1998 Vader. He does the Vader flex, he flashes the V's, a ton of fans have Vader signs. The People believed in Vader in 98 and the people in charge didn't want them to. Vader was done wrong. We all know it. The man was 43 years old, which is not an old age at all. I know this because it is my age and how could I possibly be old? I understand why they instinctively didn't want to get behind a 43 year old Vader, but you see things a couple decades removed from the original context and you realize just how mammoth a star Vader would have been in WWF had they just treated him the same way they treat Nakamura at the same age. 

Kane's punches were better in 1998 - better, not good - but his straight rights are not good. There is a reason he never threw them for most of the rest of his career. They have no weight behind them. His uppercuts don't look good either. He threw a bigger variety of punches then, not just uppercuts, and their form is good but the weight is absent. Kane's strikes look shittier the longer the match goes. He would go on to phase all of these punches out other than the uppercut.  

Vader's offense looks good against a big guy like Kane. His bear attack runs him over, but he smartly did one bear attack that stunned Kane, then a second bigger one that flattened him. Nobody was flattening Kane in 1998. Vader knew we build to that. "Vader using his mass now" fuck yeah he is JR. 

This match should be getting a bigger reaction. Vader is making this look like a big fight. He's swinging arms into all sides of Kane's head, even throwing them to the back of his head. Kane is in retreat! Vader sent Kane into retreat which is a thing that has never happened and nobody is reacting to it. Nobody is reacting to these beefy arms and it doesn't make sense. Nobody thinks it's cool that Kane scoop slammed Vader? Vader is a really big guy to take a scoop slam! He lands completely differently than you've seen because you just don't see 400 pound men getting slammed. 

This has not been a night of good matches, which often hurts a crowd, but I don't know why this crowd was not reacting to this match as if it was not Good or Big. It was both, but the crowd reacting so indifferently and Kane just not being that good limited how good it could get. 

I don't know why I haven't mentioned how ridiculous the mask stipulation is but it really didn't need to happen. It didn't make anyone care more about the match than they would have. Vader getting real red-faced revenge would have been cooler. A match built around "first to grab and use the large comical wrench" would have been cooler, probably.  

Kane's top rope clothesline is the softest contact Signature Clothesline of the modern era. It's a terrible clothesline and it never got better. It was only ever good if used in No Mercy. His running clothesline, which he stopped using, looked like a clothesline that would run Vader over and is the loudest contact of the match. 

Vader bumps to get Kane over but they react more to Vader on the attack than Vader bumping around. If Kane had the energy of Bradshaw it could have been a real fight, but Vader has to create his own energy off Kane's Lesser Jason Voorhees body acting. Vader knows how to build a reaction when going for the Vader Bomb, and he knows how to peak it by pausing briefly on the middle buckle before deciding to climb to the top, Milwaukee swelling as he leaves his feet and deflating when he crash lands. The Vader moonsault is a flat out insane and incredible spot for a man his age and size to be using. Vader understood PPV and They resented him for it. This man got up for a goddamn Tombstone and yep, it looks cool as hell when a guy the size of Vader is Tombstoned. 

I don't actually know how I feel about Vader calling himself a fat piece of shit. I think it's a raw promo, and his delivery is note perfect. I guess the problem is that I don't think they ever did anything other than kind of reflect on how sad it was that Vader called himself a fat piece of shit. I don't know if we needed to see vulnerable, sensitive Vader but I do think it was so memorable because of how real it was delivered. We've all been down on ourselves in our lives. A lot sometimes, for any little thing. Vader felt real, and maybe we didn't need Real Vader. Maybe, if it led to something of substance, a renewed energy and fight, it would have allowed people to reflect on themselves when they get too down on themselves. I don't think WWF was or is capable of writing that kind of character. Whatever. It felt like actual, real frustration, the kind we all go through. We don't get that kind of insight into athletes. They're insulated. Taught what not to say to the media. Me, personally? I do not think Vader is a fat piece of shit, but I believed in that moment that he did, and that's affecting. 

I forgot this was the PPV they did that weird Lawler/Crusher/Mad Dog Vachon angle. The Crusher, in his early 70s, kept looking cooler the more undressed he got during his segment with Lawler and Mad Dog Vachon. He looked cool the entire time and got a great big reaction from Milwaukee. He looked like such a badass grandpa in his brown Wrangler Wranchers throwing his bolo punches. This was such a weird thing for WWF to do. They had already used Mad Dog's wooden leg in a match and the idea of WWF honoring a local hero who had nothing to do with them is such a non-Vince move. 

7. HHH/New Age Outlaws vs. D-Lo Brown/Owen Hart/The Godfather 

If your friend had never watched WWF programming before, you could convince them pretty easily that Owen Hart was working some kind of hacker gimmick in his caution tape singlet and, well, hacker sunglasses. 

Owen tags in and runs straight into a Billy Gunn clothesline, Gunn punches and press slams him, Gunn goes up for a backdrop for him, really two of the only guys trying to make this work.

Helmsley's running jumping knee and his tilt a whirl backbreaker (!?) looked good. He always really looked like he enjoyed working Owen. 

Why was the Billy Gunn/Godfather pairing so good in this? They worked kind of fast against each other, and Godfather looked like he was throwing his kicks and missed clotheslines with different pep.

New Age Outlaws working over D-Lo is really good too, though not as good whenever HHH tags in. It's wild how much HHH really kills all the pacing and vibe of this match any time he's involved.

More Owen Sucks chants than I remember but his perfect piledriver to Road Dogg brings no reaction at all. Philistines. 

This match is going a lot longer than anyone could have reasonably expected. The fans get real restless whenever anyone considers doing any kind of hold. This thing is dying the longer they go, nobody is doing anything to bring it back to life even if a lot of the work looks good. It's crazy how bad HHH makes the DX act in-ring. He is actively hurting their vibe and wrestling image. 

8. Steve Austin vs. Dude Love 

Pat Patterson is so fucking funny introducing Gerald Brisco as the guest timekeeper. He has his readers on and a stack of at least a dozen 3x5 cards. He actually said that Gerald Brisco's heart "beats like the tom tom drum on the reservation, like the Heartbeat of America." I mean whoever wrote that line was onto something next level. "Some call him the reincarnation of Jim Thorpe. We call him...A Friend." This is incredible. I did not appreciate how amazing his intro was when I watched this as a teen. All my friends and I just wanted to see Austin beat everyone's ass. 

Vince looks like an impossibly hulked up Robert Carradine. A real geek, and a real freak in his flap pocket black chinos and sleeveless ref shirt. Incredible posture, but a freakish build sculpted onto that wealthy flawed Connecticut skeleton and Kennedy hair. He has a million facial reactions and it's incredible how good literally every one of them are. It's a real Gotta Hand it To. 

Foley sells a back elbow like Austin really spiked him in the nose, running himself into the ground like Terry Funk but more real. The longer the match goes, the more I know that each man was really taking these shots. I just didn't realize they were roughing each other up from go. 

Foley takes such a great bump on a clothesline to the floor. Austin really timed it well and collided with him well, but Foley went over so fast, in that way that Foley sometimes does where you don't know how controlled it actually is. Man would just throw his body to the floor with more speed than he used for anything else. Shouldn't really be a shock anymore that Foley took some crazy bumps, but his heavy lower half really whips him over the ropes. Nobody else has really been able to duplicate that. 

Austin throws Foley onto Brisco and then stomps on them both and punches Foley in the back of the head too many times before clotheslining him ass over elbow onto concrete over the guardrail. I probably haven't watched this match since the early 2000s (I bought the Over the Edge VHS from a video store in Healdsburg that was going out of business) and remember it being built around tons of bumps onto concrete, and that is exactly what it is, and they keep escalating. 

Austin taking a backdrop onto the hood of a fucked up old style Honda Civic, boot going through the windshield 20 years before Zona 23. Is Zona 23:16 anything? Austin gets thrown onto and over a tilted old Mercury and Foley sunset flips him off that Mercury's hood, it's awesome. Foley's body makes a wet splat as his weird torso and wide butt land perfectly flat. It's a sound you never hear and Foley has made it like three times in this match alone. 

Austin is bleeding and is always an incredible looking bleeder. The blood doesn't keep up but the initial color is strong. When he bleeds he always gets the best deep red color on his tanned bald head. For a match built around big bumps on concrete I forgot how many hard back bumps Austin takes onto concrete in this match. My man is out here taking backdrops and suplexes in parts of the entrance that at least 7,000 people can't even see. It's insane. This man broke his damn neck 10 months ago and he's bumping on concrete for himself. 

Also, Steve Austin is great because he manages to bounce a chair off the ropes and into his own face and makes it look like a complete accident. It's a spot that a lot of men have tried and few have made work well. I think there needs to be a level of alcoholism involved to make it work. Sandman was good at it too. 

Pat Patterson throws such a punch into Mike Chioda's lower orbital bone. There's no way any of these Patterson/Briscoe matches from 1999 are any good but damn they should have been using Patterson in more physical roles this whole time. He takes one of the best chokeslams of the year through a damn table. This is a man pushing 60 who retired four presidents ago and hasn't done physical stuff on screen since the mid 80s. How did he even prepare to take this? How did Vince psych himself up to get brained with a pre-Chris Nowinski research chairshot? No idea. 

I don't know how well this holds up as an All Time Great Brawl, but it's differently great for its big stunt show feel and old man bullshit that was at the center of a fight. It was messier than I remembered and was more about getting to specific areas and moments, but this is still a standout 1998 WWF match and surely the best WWF match of the year to this point.   

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE 305 LIVE

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Found Footage Friday: PUNK~! LOD~! DANDY~! SILVER KING~! SHU~! PANTHER~! SUPER PARKA~!

IWRG Retro 7/27/00

El Dandy/Silver King/Black Dragon vs. Shu el Guerrero/Mosco de la Merced/Hijo del Diablo

MD: VQ is tough with a lot of freezing but you can tell what's going on and the talent is so much here that you want to see it through. No real signature pairings here. I'd say that this was driven by the talent, energy, and star power on the tecnico side and structured accordingly. That meant in the primera, each tecnico got a chance to lean into rudo miscommunication and entertainingly fight them all off at once. There are things you'd note, like Silver King sliding across the ring or Dandy's punch or Black Dragon's crave dive at the end of the caida, but it was all good.

Rudos took over in the segunda after they teased pairings and they did the bit where they flip their opponents over and toss them into a kick in the corner. This could have probably used a couple more minutes, for once they hit the tecera, it was a quick reset and into in and out submissions and break-ups and really overall chaos with things breaking down. Finish had Dragon roll forward into a tapitia which you don't see often and Dandy hitting a jumping DDT for the win. Rudos did their job but this really was the tecnicos show, and even with the freezing, it was a good show.

ER: It's a shame this has so many freezes and bits of missing action because everything we get is really great. Everybody got their own moments to cook and I love a trios like this where everyone tries to take over the show the longer it goes. Mosco de la Merced and Hijo del Diablo were the real standouts to me but every brought something big. Silver King is so good at pushing pace and guys like Mosco and Diablo rise to that pace and it makes their bumps even crazier. The Segunda opening with King and Diablo really cooked, Diablo early on looking like the one guy in the match who was going to hang back and let everyone else handle things, building to him stooging and bumping as big as anyone. Mosco took at least four big bumps and worked comedy into half of them, including a great bit where he kept removing pieces of clothing while ramping up for a one on one confrontation, whipping his shirt and bandana into the crowd and firing up by almost removing his pants. Black Dragon is a guy who I literally only remember because of his incredible tope over/past the ringpost into the corner, which he hits beautifully here after pulling off a super smooth rana. His tope is one of the great lucha topes in history, one of those spots like Super Calo's slingshot senton that makes a luchador's career seem bigger than it really was. Shu el Guerrero is a total tank of a luchador, or dream build Valiente, but Mosco and Diablo handle all the toughest basing and catches. Shu's best bit of basing is sliding across the entire ring for a frankly breathtaking Dandy headscissors, Dandy getting full glorious extension and not tucking early, really making it look like he flung Shu 10 feet with his ankles and leverage. It would have been great to have the full uncut action (and crowd noise, and the actual screen presentation instead of the annoying TV screen aesthetic) but there's no denying the action we did see. 

Blue Panther vs. Super Parka

MD: WWA Title match. Parka's the champ. It's worked like a title match with just a bit of the dancing/histrionics from Parka, which he tends to pay for whenever he does. I liked the primera a lot. Nothing too tricked out but they kept close body contact for a lot of it in a way you don't always see in lucha matwork. It was all up tight and combative. Parka had advantage for a lot of it working over the arm. When they got moving towards the end of the caida, you had no idea who would get the ultimate advantage but Parka took it with a snap 'rana. 

Segunda was super short, but Panther won it with the old French Catch standard waistlock into a leg nelson (no roll). Not something you see every day, even from him. Then the tercera had all the bells and whistles and drama. Parka took out Panther's leg early and worked it over. Panther sold big on his comeback attempts. There was another 'rana for a nearfall and a long Cavernaria. Parka hit this amazing tope sending both of them over the barricade. Then Panther went for a submission and then pinned themselves. Only a couple of spotty moments VQ wise with the freezing, thankfully, as this was a very good title match to be unearthed. 

CM Punk/Doug Delicious vs. Legion of Doom WWE 5/13/03

MD: As WWE Vault stuff goes, this is better than something we already had, worse than if they had given it to us in full, and especially worse than giving us Omni shows or something. But it has its novelty and we should cover it, clipped as it is. Punk explaining that he had been on the banned list for doing a hammerlock DDT the night before gives his performance here color. Obviously, just in general facing the Road Warriors in this setting, he's going to do everything he could to stand out and bump and feed and stooge for them.

Since he was in hot water, however, he really went above and beyond, on from the get go. The fans absolutely loved seeing the LOD as a surprise and popped huge for them as Punk covered his head in shock in the ring. They cut out a lot of the stuff with Delicious and only give us Punk but I don't really mind that too much. He screamed as he went over for Animal's power slam and went sailing for the belly-to-belly throw. Hawk was totally on too, hitting his shoulder first post-bump to the floor. He even ate a Punk snap suplex. This isn't the first or hundredth thing I would have wanted, especially not clipped, but I was still smiling despite myself as I watched it, so I'll certainly take this sort of thing over nothing. 

ER: I was not actually expecting this to be really good but I have a feeling the full uncut match was actually quite good. I'm a big fan of 1998 LOD even though history says they were totally washed. Well, they were pretty washed, but Washed Legends is one of my favorite kinds of wrestler. 1998 Hawk was a particular favorite of mine. He wasn't lifting much anymore so he wasn't working as a power wrestler, so he just leaned into being a puncher with a couple of surprising big bumps. Hawk was a great puncher and a guy with great bumps, so it really felt like a super vulnerable version of the Road Warrior Hawk, boiled down to his most basics; still dangerous, now beatable. I loved it. It's a shame they were stuck feuding with DOA for most of the year during their final real run. I have a feeling that some good Hawk stuff was cut from this tag in cutting the Doug Delicious work, and that's a shame. I don't know much about Doug Delicious so maybe they were right to cut most of his work out of this, but I sure stood at attention when he lit Hawk the hell up with chops on the floor. I cannot imagine someone chopping either Road Warrior the way Doug was chopping Hawk in 1986 but this is 2003. That's the kind of things that makes vulnerable legends so compelling. They're on the way down and now fucking Doug Delicious is doing things that would have gotten greater men killed. 

Punk was great in this, reminded me again of why I liked him so much during this era. He bumped huge for everything the LOD did and even sold their entrance music. He fed really well for them both and I was pretty shocked at the amount of offense he got. The snap suplex on Hawk was a real surprise, but I liked how he worked the match as a guy who really belonged in the ring with the Road Warriors and not just a stooge who just lied on the mat in between moves. He set up Hawk's ringpost bump perfectly, moving out of the way at the last second so it made it look like an actual miss and not a set up bump, and Hawk spills past the apron to the floor as well as any of those times a missed western lariat sent Stan Hansen tumbling to the floor. I thought Animal looked good here too, taking on the bulk of the match (well, at least the way the match was edited) and I thought his movement looked strong. That leaping elbowdrop was fire and they each seemed real pumped at the crowd's loud reaction and chanting for them. WWE always hated the idea of bringing back older legends to work undercards but I wish we had years of All Japan old men matches on the undercards of house shows, it would have been incredible. They only viewed people on what they could potentially add to the top of the card but any time they brought back an older name and just plopped them in the third match it worked perfectly. I needed more runs like the Tatanka or, well, Road Warrior Animal mid-2000s Smackdown run. 

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