Found Footage Friday: BABY TAUE~! HARA~! BRET~! VIRGIL~! BABY MONEY INC~! BLONDY~!

Akira Taue vs. Ashura Hara AJPW 10/28/88

MD: This isn't long, but if I'm not mistaken, it might be the earliest Taue singles match on tape. And honestly? It wildly overachieves. I'm used to 89 and even into 90 Taue who is trying to figure out how to be Taue. This is not that guy. This is a big athletic guy trying to figure any of it out. And he's trying to do so against Hara who is stoic and brutal and ready to kill him. Taue hits a Thesz press right at the bell and the crowd ooohs. Great, effective start. The first two minutes of this are pretty sprint light, all building to Hara clocking him with the ring bell on the floor. Throughout this, Taue will throw chops and kicks and there really is the sense that he's learning in the moment, even from a purely kayfabe perspective. He's trying to figure out what angle to throw his strikes from, what technique to use, how to get enough mustard behind the kicks to actually impact Hara, despite his size and presumably strength advantage. It means that every four or five shots from him equals one of Hara's. It means that when he hits the hundred hand sumo slap in the corner and it doesn't register and he escalates to outright smacks across Hara's face, Hara is going to clean his clock with one massive retribution shot of his own. It means when he's able to score four or five kicks, Hara's able to cut him right off with just one off his own off the ropes, even if both of them will keel over after the fact. 

When it comes to the actual execution, Taue bumps big, most especially for the clotheslines at the end, but there is a sense of him telegraphing his stuff (especially the missed stuff) way more than it ought to. We get a great camera shot of Hara managing the same exact thing, a missed clothesline in the corner, with a lot more intensity and grace. I think, and this is just a guess, that Taue didn't know enough to get in his own way yet. He has some single matches with Taue over a year later, right as Taue was on his way out, and in those, he tries to fight from underneath and show fire and I almost see more of that here, naturally, against Hara. Watching the AJPW mainstays this early in their development is so interesting, because you can see all sorts of possibilities and realities that didn't happen. This Taue, one that was more than willing to run into Hara's open hand, and then throw his entire body right back at him, was a different sort of Taue than the one we'd eventually get.

ER: I can't get enough Taue, the man who took over as my favorite pillar sometime post-Misawa death and together we haven't looked back since. I just like how he moves and how he falls and how he sells on his feet. He's a permanently old man and this is the youngest I've seen the old man doing his thing, Akira Taue with the fluffed up city pop hair of All Japan Young Boys. Taue is an athlete who is clumsy in form and clumsy in fall in all of the best ways. He is in his first year - which means he has been thrown to the wolves for over a hundred matches already on the Kings Road schedule - and can barely budge the Hara the Tank. It's one of those fun reaction worthy young boy matches where a brick solid stoic badass in his 40s lets a young boy hit him as hard as he can while he barely budges until he shows him several times how to throw proper kicks to the ribs and butts to the head. Ashura Hara barely reacts to Taue's slaps and yet also feels the need to bash him with a ring bell a couple minutes in. Early! Taue sells slaps really well and Hara knocks him silly really well. He lets Taue kick him in the chest and back if it's hurting him he's wearing it all inside. He catches a kick when he decides to catch a kick - casually, like he was just throwing Taue's leg around with his buddy - and gets to his feet with an uppercut to Taue's left cheekbone. Taue absorbs all of Hara's clotheslines and kicks really well, and Hara literally just clotheslines and kicks him until pinning him. They all looked great and none of them looked clean. 

Fabuloso Blondy/Guerrero Negro vs. Stuka/Apolo Estrada CMLL 1989

MD: Three falls in fifteen minutes or so. Blondy was in his full glory, and Guerrero Negro, sans mask, seemed just happy to be there with him saluting along to the anthem. Tecnicos charged in immediately thereafter. I haven't seen a ton of Apolo Estrada but I like what I have seen. He's very charismatic and over the top in his own particular way. Blondy fouled him to lose the first fall but take over the momentum which is not something you see often actually. They focused in on his stomach and took the segunda after a solid beatdown. In the tercera, Estrada came back after shrugging Blondy into the post on a ram attempt on the floor. Nice pop for it. The fans were into these guys. He got some solid revenge on Blondy's stomach, too, which is again not something you see a lot of focus on. As they cycled through Blondy did a sleeper, which, again isn't usually part of the diction of lucha libra. Finish was fun with Stuka getting Guerrero Negro but Estrada missing a big leap off the top only for Blondy to get overconfident and rolled up. It was a good, over act and here was another look at it, brief, a little slight, but still enjoyable.

Bret Hart/Virgil vs. Ted Dibiase/IRS WWF 8/16/91

MD: This came out of nowhere. They started running this matchup in July, with Duggan sometimes teaming with Virgil. It's still very early in the Dibiase/IRS pairing. We don't have a ton of them with Sherri so it's fun to see it. Super hot crowd and you can hardly blame them as there was always something to look at here. Just having Sherri out there meant that there was a constant reaction to everything that was happening. That meant lots of attempts to interfere which didn't come to anything but drew the eye (and the fancam) to holding her head during a double noggin knocker, to taunting every single person in the arena when Dibiase and IRS finally took over. I almost can't comment on some of Rotunda's holds because the cameraman was more interested in seeing what Sherri was up to. There was a long, long shine here with a couple of false calls on the heels taking over but some very fun stuff, like Bret feigning an eyerake from the outside from IRS (that never happened) which let Virgil unload on Dibiase illegally and this great bit where Virgil did an arm wringer to IRS and then Rotunda's fist right into Dibiase's face. I'm sure I must have seen that spot at least a few times but it felt new to me. The heels had to work three times harder (and dirtier) than the babyfaces to get anything which, I suppose, made the fans care all the more when they finally took over. There was a ton of heat for it at least. Bret ended up taking maybe 80% of this match though Virgil seemed plenty competent when he was in there. Finish was probably what people usually got around this time, with Virgil, almost, almost getting to triumph over Dibiase only to have it stolen out from underneath him (by a loaded purse). Summerslam was just around the corner though.

ER: I have bad taste in wrestling, so this kind of thing is the kind of new match that excites me. I love seeing new WWF pairings from this era, matches that didn't exist in any other form. They ran this tag on a few house shows leading up to Summerslam '91, the peak of Virgil's career and Bret's first singles match title win. Other than these few house show tags, Bret and Virgil rarely associated. Both babyfaces, both careers on the upswing, both in wildly different places one year later. Virgil's World Title Challenge the next year would be by far Bret's shortest match of his first World Title run. This is our lone Bret/Virgil partnership on film and it's a really good tag match, and every person in the match is really great at their role in the match. Bret gets loud crowd sympathy out of getting out of a long chinlock, Dibiase reacts perfectly to a hot tag, IRS works faster and hits heavier than later Money Inc., and the timing of everything is pinpoint. 

But this is a Sensational Sherri. Whatever single Montreal man snuck their camcorder to horsily record Sherri's every single movement at the importance of anything else on the show, was correct to do so. Regardless of the intentions of a lone Quebecois cameraman probably named Edouard, this camera belonged on Sherri. This was one of the hardest working, entertaining, constant motion and broad breathless interaction that few managers in history could replicate. Sherri works an incredible and active manager role with the best looking legs of her life, running around the ring to stop and rub specific fans' faces in it, shouting specific encouragement to IRS or Dibiase in between interacting with fans, physically interact with all four men in the match multiple times ranging from big to small ways, all while adding to the match by getting the crowd more invested in the match by also being more invested in her. She is incredible to watch. It's like she's acting a big scene out for her own biopic; an incredible confident performance that is bigger than any TV performance. You put this performance of hers in any territory and she is a megastar. 

This is a gem of a tag. Every participant did a leaping punch off the middle or top buckle, and any match with jumping or falling punches is going to be a house show gem. But this is a Sensational Sherri match, a match I'm not sure I've seen anyone work better. That it plays like a documentary scene about a Great Manager due to our French New Wave handheld with swirling squeals of in the red crowd noise makes it a wrestling match that should be referenced going forward. 

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WWF Handheld Boston Garden 1/9/93

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

Most of the Show

The Nasty Boys vs. Money Inc. 

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

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

Undertaker vs. Papa Shango

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

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Typhoon

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

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

60 Minute Iron Man: Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

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WWF King of the Ring 1993

Since we're a day away from potentially getting a new forever king, I thought it would be fun to revisit a legendary monarchy based show. I haven't watched this show in at least 25 years, whenever it was that I rented it from New Release Video in Healdsburg. It's a really strong on paper kayfabe show. You look at the 8 guys who made the KOTR quarterfinals, and the choices are all strong and reflective of who was big at the time. Mr. Hughes is the one hindsight question mark, because looking back there are plenty of people who don't even remember his 4 month WWF run. But his inclusion made sense from a kayfabe perspective, as he had aligned himself with Giant Gonzalez and wrecked the Undertaker on TV. He felt like a big new threat, and stood out as physically imposing during a time there were some really large guys on the roster. 1993 Duggan feels past his expiration, but hardly anyone was getting as big a reactions as Duggan was getting in the first half of 1993. The non-tournament matches are just as logical, with Crush/Michaels the logical and anticipated title match stemming from their great double count out KOTR Qualifier, a tag scramble highlighting the top two heel and face teams, plus the big Yokozuna/Hogan rematch (that would have felt like a MUCH bigger deal had Hogan done more than what, ONE taped interview in the months between Mania and KOTR). On paper this is a real strong show, presenting all of the most popular guys in favorable pairings, and a show I remember really enjoying as a kid. Let's see how it holds up!


Razor Ramon vs. Bret Hart

ER: This was a great match, starting off this PPV better than any match on WrestleMania IX. Razor looks incredibly cool with his green gear, toothpick in mouth and one behind the ear, trying to be as unflappable as possible as the fans all chant 1-2-3. It's really impressive how quickly they got Kid over, and how smartly they played it. This stuff isn't difficult, but watching a simple angle like this over 25 years later - and seeing how they just don't have any kind of patience for this sort of thing now - it's even easier to appreciate. Kid beats him, then Razor demands a rematch while they barely even have Kid on TV for the next month, letting the crowd interest build for him and really building a strong underdog common man. At a certain point they just decided the most creative way to debut someone was to have them win a title on their first night in and then just kind of do nothing with them.

But anyway, the great match. Hart's shoulderblocks weren't effective to start, so he started playing a quickness game with Razor with some armdrags, and does some of that great Bret stuff like taking a bodyslam put not letting go of Razor's arm. Razor takes over with an eyepoke and sends Bret flying HARD into the ringpost, then acts like a real dick about it. He slaps Bret around the head, stomping on BOTH of his hands while Hart is trying to get up (love that), hits the fallaway slam, big running powerslam (that I don't really remember Razor doing), and my favorite thing Razor does all match is miss elbowdrops. Razor missed FOUR elbowdrops, and each miss looked great. The first miss was a big leaping elbow into an empty pool, and the three later in the match was total Elmer Fudd missing every shot he took at Bugs, dropping three in a row as Hart kept rolling out of the way. Every miss looked real painful. He wasn't just taking back bumps, he looked like he was really jamming his elbow right into the mat. The crowd was way into the match at this point, and were flipping out more with every missed elbow, getting really loud as Hart made his comeback with a backbreaker and Russian leg sweep (does anyone besides Bret and Brad Armstrong have a good Russian leg sweep? Who am I forgetting?). The match transitioned back and forth really well, both great at coming up with plausible ways to take over instead of just "my turn". Hart takes the sternum bump into the corner but flips through a Razor's Edge, fights for a backslide, and there is an insanely close 3 count on a Hart small package. Waaaaay too close and the crowd was losing their minds at this point (as was I). Now, the finish itself was only kind of a ding because it came immediately after that small package, and felt a little too similar. Razor was going for a suplex off the top and Hart fell on top of him for the 3. It felt like they needed one other thing in between Hart's surprise small package and him falling on Razor for a 3. I'm not sure what that is, but the near fall was such a huge moment that the fans really hadn't come down, and the very next thing ended the match. Does that make sense? Even so, the match ruled.


Mr. Hughes vs. Mr. Perfect

ER: Mr. Hughes is wearing his pork pie hat and braces and looks like the most powerful ska trombonist in history. This is not only a battle of who advances in the King of the Ring, but a battle over who retains the title of "Mr.". This is also the first and last we see of  Mr. Hughes on WWF PPV, and maybe the last time he ever turned up on PPV anywhere, which is really weird, because look at him! This match was a super fun match up, with Perfect pushing a pace meaning we get fast Hughes, and both guys bump big for each other. Hughes working speed spots with Perfect is too good, as this also had to be the biggest Hughes got. He's really quick, takes a wild armdrag that crashes him into the ropes, flies into a hiptoss, and takes a huge backdrop. Perfect obviously tries to outbump him, flying over the top to the floor off a punch, and then taking super painful looking bumps off Irish whips. Hughes looked like he was really chucking him into the ropes and buckles, and if he wasn't, Perfect was certainly making Hughes look like Andre. Perfect and Hart were both good at making a whip into the buckle look like something that should get a nearfall, that PANK sound of a buckle that they're able to make before crumpling to the mat. This could have been something special, but that's not really what this match was. Hughes grabs the stolen urn and clocks Perfect with it for the DQ. It was directly in front of the ref, and they could have milked a really good match out of a long heat segment on Perfect after the urn shot, but this was a blast while it lasted.


Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Jim Duggan

ER: Duggan had the sickest hair during this era: The perfect Johnny Ramone shag. This was the longest his hair ever got, and he had those perfect bangs. With his American flag singlet and kneepads, waving Old Glory, he looked like he should have been doing the best Freedom Rock commercials. I'm picturing him with that hair doing a rad boogie rock guitar solo, just choogling and making the dumbest guitar solo faces. JR and Macho Man say a bunch of platitudes about how Duggan isn't a quitter, and Heenan hilariously butts in "That's not what I heard. I heard this guy is a big quitter. He used to be known as the town wimp." There's value in knowing your limitations, and they work a nice 5 minute match within those limitations. Hacksaw Ramone is so damn over in 1993, far more than I remember, and he throws great big right hands to back Bigelow up. They run into each other, Bam Bam grabs him in a couple of bearhugs, Duggan fights out, simple but effective big man stuff. Bigelow sets up Duggan by missing a falling headbutt, and Duggan takes a really nice headfirst bump into the turnbuckle after missing a corner charge. The Bigelow headbutt off the top is a nice clean finish to a nice tidy match.


Lex Luger vs. Tatanka

ER: Love the smirk Luger wears on his face during his entire entrance, and I love how he jumps Tatanka the second Tatanka is through the ropes. And this match is the very definition of feast or famine, because we get a lot of Tatanka holding an armbar and Luger holding a chinlock, and the crowd is very silent during those portions. BUT, and this is an important but, the ultra hot sections where everyone is bumping and Luger is pistoning his arm up out of pinfalls at the very last possible second, those all came off great. This is overall a great match that happens to be burdened by a long armbar sequence and a shrug of a time limit draw. The time limit draw is a real dry hump in pro wrestling watching. It has its good sides, because Bam Bam Bigelow automatically goes to the finals, and I get why you don't want to have a big fat guy wrestling three times in the same night, and I think I am fine with a Bye due to time limit draw if it gets a cool fat guy heel into the finals. And it helps that Lex Luger makes Tatanka look like an absolute star here, taking hard back bumps on tomahawk chops and crossbody blocks, and a nice high backdrop bump. When Tatanka starts getting 2 counts on top rope chops and a tight schoolboy, Luger has such expert timing and I'm not sure I've seen very many high quality kickouts than the ones Luger provides here. Luger sets up Tatanka so well and is such a great bumping heel. The time limit draw is a bummer, but with a good end result. And I think Luger salvages it by grabbing the mic and DEMANDING 5 more minutes, because he came here to WIN the King of the Ring and he isn't going to let a time limit draw stop him from that. And after handing the microphone back to Finkel, he lays out Tatanka with a hard clothesline and puts the boots to him while laughing about it. I wish we got a finish, and Luger was working hard enough to deserve a good finish, but I get why they couldn't beat Luger. But a Luger DQ for using the metal plated elbow, leading to a DQ win for Tatanka, and a Bigelow/Tatanka semi final....that would have been a real great addition to an already good PPV.


Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect

ER: This is one of those consensus great matches, the kind of match with very few contrarian opinions. It's loved and respected by Meltzer types, 90s kids, and middle aged message board tape trader snobs. It has an easy claim as a top 5 WWF match of the 90s, the kind of match that gets cited as someone's favorite all time match. It wouldn't be controversial to call it Curt Hennig's greatest WWF performance, nor would it be to call it Bret's greatest. It's a legitimately great match and I don't think there's a misstep in the entire match. They keep an incredible pace and have the timing locked down on everything. The opening few minutes was these two showing how easily they could have instantly adapted to any style in the world. Picturing Hart working these same headlock takeover and dropdown exchanges with Negro Casas or Tatsumi Fujinami, and it's watching matches like these makes me realize just how much I love Bret Hart. It might not be a cool pick, but he's high up my personal list of best wrestlers. He and Perfect craft something special, an argument for WWF style, the best example of an extension from the Savage/Steamboat workrate. It's a nearly 20 minute match but there's no fat. The bumping is honest and tough from both men. Perfect wasn't a showoff, but instead landed hard on a backdrop, sold a knee injury through a long home stretch, fit his great ass over crown ropes bump in at the best time, and ate a huge superplex for a great nearfall. 

Hart was a perfect dancer partner for Perfect, and vice versa. Perfect got flung over by the neck a few times, and Hart plastered him with an uppercut. Jim Ross sounded downright flush and beside himself when Hart hit that uppercut. Hart moves through his offense well and blends it naturally into their movement. A great backbreaker drops Perfect, and Perfect does a twinkle toes Rick Rude sell on atomic drop, allowing Hart to get the Russian legsweep as Perfect duck walked. Hart made Perfect look like a killer, flying ridiculously hard chest first into the turnbuckle, and Perfect knocks Hart off the apron to send Hart flying really painfully into ringside gear and the guardrail. It was a painful bump that built the possibility of a count out win. When Perfect comes up limping, that's when Hart takes the chance to go after his leg, and they move around each other really instinctively. The fans sounded ready for a Perfect win as they got very excited (maybe it was a nervous buzz?) when Perfect locked on an excellent sleeper hold, dragging Hart to the mat like Bill Dundee. Both men were getting great reactions, and it was one of those matches where they got almost immediately into the pocket and knew exactly what kind of match to work. The finish was really great, with Perfect luring Bret into a small package by feinting the knee injury, and it's a great enough move that you buy the finish. But Bret reverses it and holds on for just a fraction of a second longer than Perfect was able to. Great match, a flagship match from the biggest wrestling promotion in history. It deserves the praise it gets. 

Yokozuna vs. Hulk Hogan

ER: It never gets talked about because it came directly after the excellent Hart/Perfect match, and because the uncool view of Hogan nostalgia, but just as Hart and Perfect had arguably their greatest WWF performance tonight, you could easily make a case for this being Yokozuna's greatest performance. And really, this is a great Hogan performance too. Outside of the absolutely silly and completely ridiculous finish. That finish is something that any tween with observation skills would have seen coming, just because of the comical costume and fake beard they decided to put Harvey Wippleman as the rogue photog. I can still remember my friend Dave - who saw the PPV - trying to relate exactly what happened to everyone at school the next day. "Before the match started they were showing a bunch of cameramen at ringside, and the camera lingered too long on this one guy..."

So we get a silly finish that closes the door on Hulk Hogan in WWF for nearly a decade, but even with that finish I'm not sure there are better 90s Hogan matches than this one. Shoot, even the silly finish included a fireball, so even when compared to other silly finishes it's still far better. Yokozuna turned in a tremendous brick wall performance, allowing short openings for Hogan only by missing moves (a charge into the corner, a missed big splash) but Hogan immediately gets shut down any time he tries to take fight to Yokozuna. He lands punches, then always goes for a bodyslam that ends in him getting smacked to the mat. I love the simplicity of it, with Hogan getting sliiiiightly further each time, so that when he manages to get Yoko on one leg it feels like a big deal. The crowd gets loud whenever Hogan starts to fire back, sensing his win, and cheer on as he gets some mounted corner punches and even bites Yoko's forehead. I loved Hogan fighting out of a strong bearhug by punching Yoko a dozen times in the head, crowd chanting along, but being unable to do more because of his back. 

Yokozuna just throws Hogan around, with the best moment coming off a fantastic belly to belly suplex. Yoko really flattens him and the crowd seems actually stunned by his kickout, but into the Hulking. He hits several big boots (a little weak looking, but Hogan appeared to be moving pretty gingerly throughout), and Yoko is great at selling them, great at selling the clotheslines without getting knocked over, and they spend enough time on Hogan trying to knock him down any way he can that by the time Yokozuna finally timberrrrs over it's a huge moment, leading to immediate genuine shock when he kicks out of the legdrop. Then we get the rogue cameraman, the fireball, and a big fat awesome Yoko legdrop to finish it. The postmatch destruction is the best, as Yoko drags Hogan's corpse around and hits the Banzai drop, and they do my absolute favorite thing by showing a bunch of super sad small children in the crowd. The best is that dweeb front row center dressed entirely like Hogan, looking like an outright maroon as he has to sit there and watch another man he chose to dress as get annihilated. Imagine that guy the rest of the show, walking sullenly to the bathroom, trudging to the parking lot, being approached by the dozenth person asking "What happened?"

I really do think this is the strongest WWF Hogan match of the 90s, and I'm not certain there are any WCW matches better. Had Hogan treated Vader with the level of awe he had here against Yokozuna, those matches could have been classics. Hogan wasn't as interested in letting someone play brick wall in WCW, he was far too insecure at that point. Yoko was allowed to have a monster performance, and he delivered arguably his greatest single match performance here. The timing was excellent, the build throughout was exactly what it should have been, and again, even the silly finish had a fireball to the face. This match gets roundly dumped on and I don't actually understand why. Yokozuna looked like an unstoppable killer, and looked cool doing it. The match long Hogan comeback teases were worked exactly as the should have been, and I honestly don't think they could have had a better match here. 

The Steiner Bros./The Smoking Gunns vs. Money Inc./The Headshrinkers

ER: This was too rushed which is a real shame, as I was really into what match we got. It gets over 6 minutes, but a match at minimum needs at least one minute per participant to be of much value. And it's clear from what they did in these 6 minutes that they had plenty of material to fill 15. Now, it's not a shock on a big show like this that some things probably ran long so some things may have been cut for time during this match. What we get really does smoke. Dibiase does some quick armdrags with Scott Steiner, and I am reminded that Dibiase is the same age here as I am now, and within a few months Dibiase would be retired from wrestling due to injuries. As I type this, back sore from last night's yoga, I am once again reminded of my mortality. There's a great early spot where Dibiase eats a Steinerline over the top to the floor, bumps around on the floor, gets back in the ring and immediately eats another Steinerline to the floor and bumps around again. Dibiase/Scott Steiner is such a fun pairing, and it is really weird that this match just isn't Steiners vs. Money Inc. for the belts. Bart Gunn gets separated from the pack and I like all of the ways Money Inc. and the Headshrinkers cut him off from the others, like a cool double backdrop and IRS leaping off the top rope with a punch. Bart gets a convincing sunset flip and makes a hot tag to Billy, and Billy comes in blazing with nice clotheslines. 

There is some absolutely hysterical commentary, as throughout this match Jim Ross is - as he'll do - running through every participant's college credentials, including a claim that Billy Gunn went to college on a rodeo scholarship. Finally Heenan blurts out "Do you know anyone who didn't go to school!?" I had to pause it I was laughing so hard. Dibiase hits an awesome hot shot on Gunn and then actually makes Gunn collapse with the million dollar dream. The finish is pretty lame, as Dibiase just lets Gunn collapse, brags to the crowd, and then gets small packaged. I have a lot of questions, don't know why they didn't just put the belts on the Steiners, don't know why they (presumably) cut a bunch of the match out, but I really liked what match we did get. 

Crush vs. Shawn Michaels

ER: This wasn't as great as their KOTR Qualifying sprint, was a little more bloated and had a finish that made Crush look like a doofus again, but it was more proof that the two of them have great chemistry. I'm going to have to watch the Demolition/Rockers tags and their Coliseum Video singles match to really see what they might have accomplished. They didn't have a ton of house show singles or tags, but there are a handful so maybe one is out there. Crush really comes off powerful and charismatic, and it's kind of wild that they kept him getting clowned why Doink for so long because the crowd responds to him so well. It helps when Michaels bounces all over the ring and ringside for him. Crush works sequences speed for speed with Michaels while still coming off heavy, trading leapfrogs and dropdowns while also brickwalling him with shoulderblocks. 

There's a great spot where Crush swings for the fences on a missed clothesline and his momentum makes him skid forward a bit too far, giving Michaels enough time to compose himself first and pop him with a jab. That jab gets him his ass kicked though, as Crush hits a couple big dropkicks to knock Michaels over the top to the floor, and obviously a clothesline on the floor because Michaels is going to bump to the floor. Michaels also takes a big muscled up backdrop bump and we get a cool press slam spot with Crush pressing him three times before tossing him onto the ropes! Michaels basically gets no offense until Diesel gets involved, but then he beats the back of Crush's head into the ringpost like 8 times, and the shots really looked like he was trying to crack open Crush's skull. It was a great way for a small guy to erase the size difference, and Crush sold it really well. Michaels' control segment goes a bit long, but maybe we paid for that with all of those Crush armdrags and leapfrog spots earlier. His comeback is good but I really wish we got a different finish than Two Doinks coming out to distract him AGAIN. The finish itself is strong, with Michaels hitting the superkick to the softened up back of Crush's head (a cool variation he never used) but Crush had to stand there staring at clowns for a lonnnng time. 

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Bret Hart

ER: On paper, this was the match I was most looking forward to on this show, but I thought it underwhelmed in certain ways and was the weakest of the three Bret matches. I shouldn't complain about such a fun Bigelow showcase - he's a guy I'm happy to see in main events - and this is maybe the most dominant main event of his career. It is very one sided for a long portion of the match, and Hart also comes into the match with a pronounced limp. So the fans get quiet for a lot of it and aren't nearly as loud for Bret's comeback as I expected them to be. The match went 18, but felt more like 24, and the fans in attendance added to that fatigue. Hart really gives a ton of time to Bam Bam, and adds to his own overall very impressive total ring time for the night. The Hart/Razor match was arguably the best match of Razor's WWE run, a top 5 contender at worst. The Hart/Perfect match is a strong contender for best WWE match of the 90s. This match is well regarded but overly long, unable to grab the fans in the same way the prior Hart matches had. 

But this doesn't mean the match isn't plenty fun, and an important match in keeping the opinion of fat guys high against the early internet "Fat Guys Are Bad" rhetoric. Bigelow works a long match and keeps up an agile pace, working methodically over Hart while also hitting more high leaping headbutts than I've ever seen him hit. Every time he took to the air I expected the empty pool landing, except he kept crushing Bret with every. single. one. He gets an incredible false finish with a top rope headbutt, a false finish that I had honestly completely forgotten about, so it played as shockingly as the one in the Juvy/Jericho mask vs. title match for me. Bigelow's work leading up to that pin makes his performance come off like one of the most dominant main events of that era. Hart was limping, and he cannot get anything at all going against Bigelow. BBB hits some of the gnarliest backdrop suplexes I've seen, lifting Hart up soooo high before cutting the elevator cable. Hart came in limping but the match became a compelling methodical back work match. It felt much more like a big WWF late 70s/early 80s main event than a 1993 main event, and that helps the match appeal. Hart gets whipped hard into the buckles several times, getting to show off his all time great corner bump, always making the turnbuckles look rib cage shifting. 

But I do think Bigelow's control goes on for far too long. As much as I love bearhugs, we probably could have dropped one of the four trips back to a bearhug variation. Or, you know what fuck it, this should have had even more bearhug variations. It's the finals of the first ever PPV King of the Ring, have Bigelow lock in half a dozen. His bearhugs do all look great, as crushing as the best Andre bearhugs. We even get a sick over the shoulder variation that Bret sells like a crucifixion. The Luna interference was well utilized and the surprise finish is indeed a surprise to this day. Also, the restart was used well and I like that we didn't get the typical match ending 30 seconds after the restart. We still got another full match once Bigelow's win was (ridiculously) reversed, and that makes this come off like the important main event that it should have. I do think Hart took too long a beating to make the comeback he made, but Bigelow took Hart's offense really well, and the victory roll finish is a believable way to take down a big man. Bigelow had one of his best WWF performances, and it made me want to go back and watch the Hart/Bigelow match on the Bret dvd and see if I still think it's better than this one. Hart worked three very different and all very good matches in one night, and it's the kind of night that solidifies him as one of my very favorite wrestlers. It's not a stylish pick, but I think it's an undeniable one. 

After the match Hart gets a nice coronation, until Lawler comes out and interrupts and absolutely trashes Hart. Lawler smashes the chair over Hart, really bouncing it off his body, and punches the new crown right off Hart's head. I really wish Lawler had been in the KOTR proper, and against all the more freakshow opponents. I think Lawler would have been the best WWF opponent for Giant Gonzalez, and Lawler vs. Mr. Hughes around this time would have been incredible. But the King was such an excellent TV character during this era of WWF, a constant presence while working a quarter the matches as everyone else. There are so many matches I wish Lawler had over his long WWF run, so I savor angles like these that are slices of Memphis inserted in WWF main event angles. 

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A Thorough Review of WrestleMania IX, 4/4/93

This is one of the more maligned WrestleManias in company history, but I'm not sure I've watched it with fresh eyes since renting the tape from the video store some time ago. Let's check it out?

It's great that this show was from Caesar's Palace in Vegas, and Vince just said, "Fuck it, make the ENTIRE SHOW themed after the venue that is hosting this show." Like they just went for it, even though there would have been no way of knowing it was hosted at Caesar's Palace other than them saying so. But it's great. The bright outdoor light is jarring and has the vibes of a mid-afternoon big arena county fair show. The seating arrangement was expertly set up so that 88% of the crowd had absolutely terrible sight lines, and the opening entrances were fantastic. There are a ton of large live animals, and having this many live animals (an elephant, a camel, llamas, birds, etc.) feels like the kind of insane risk that Vince would never take in 2020. Imagine a WrestleMania with the risk of an outdoor elephant rampage!! There are also huge jacked eunuchs (we can assume) carrying people out, and they're so big that I have no idea why any of them weren't recruited into wrestling (unless maybe they were unmarketable because they had no testicles). Caesar and Cleopatra come out, and nobody even talks about how stacked Cleopatra was. Randy Savage gets carried out by the same eunuchs while being fed grapes by vestal virgins, and also telling some dude through gritted teeth to get the fuck off of him when said dude won't let go of one of Macho Man's jacket tassels. Heenan comes out riding backwards on a camel, and does 3 solid minutes of high quality "guy uncomfortably dealing with an animal" comedy, doing a ton of great stumbling and physical comedy in getting off the camel. He gets his toga yanked up (to reveal his big blue Jockeys) and acts completely frazzled while bickering with Macho and Jim Ross. This is a great start.


Shawn Michaels vs. Tatanka

ER: I think this is the one match from this show that gets mentioned in kind terms, and nobody even talks about how - much like Cleopatra before her - how stacked Sherri is. And this IS a really good match, with a really bad finish. The match got actually great at one point, with Michaels' performance in the first half of this ranking among his best 10 minute performances. Michaels has a way of bringing a distinctly Texas heel vibe to his best matches from this era, with genuinely funny physical comedy worked smartly within a pro wrestling match framework. There are some really fun sequences early, like Michaels flying off the top into a Tatanka armdrag and feeding perfectly into another short armdrag right after. Michaels had a sequence of bumps that was so damn fun, truly one of my favorite stretches of any Michaels match, when he takes his super fast flipping corner bump and lands on the apron, turns around and takes a flipping bump off the apron to the mats to sell a Tatanka chop. But my favorite part of the match is right after, when Michaels tries to get back in the ring five different times and every time he gets on the apron he gets tomahawk chopped, causing him to bump to the apron and back to the floor. Michaels played this so professionally, actually factoring in the lousy sight lines and lack of screens at Caesar's Palace, so he runs to every side of the ring to try to get in, runs up the ring steps, really lets every crowd member get to see his ass get knocked to the apron and down to the ground. He finally makes it back in by eyepoking Tatanka before getting chopped.

We got a really good section of Tatanka working over Michaels' left shoulder, and I wish they would have gone further with it. It's a cool two minutes of the match, but doesn't really get followed up on (even though Savage attempts to keep it relevant on commentary). Still, it leads to some cool moments, and they built it really well until the match changed course. It started with Tatanka hitting a leaping tomahawk chop on Michael's shoulder, and escalated a short time later when Michaels threw a clothesline and immediately came up holding that shoulder, then took an insanely great bump into the corner ringpost. I rewound a couple of times to see what he did, because he ran into the corner at high speed, and the sound of the clank made it seem like his shoulder should have been splintered into his body. It was some excellent sleight of hand. And while they didn't necessarily play into his hurt shoulder the rest of the match, Michaels clearly began using his right arm for big offense (including a nice diving clothesline off the apron to the floor).

There was a little awkwardness before the great end run, with Michaels getting a little too clever and Tatanka not quite seeming on the same page, leading to a couple spots that took too long to pull off and didn't look great when they did get pulled off, most notably the weird headscissors/rolling armbar/victory roll (that they did their best to salvage). But the end run was what brought this back, as Tatanka looked like a guy who could win the IC Title, and the fans were clearly excited to see him win the title. Tatanka was really over at this point of '93, and every near fall got a bigger and bigger reaction. They really pulled the fans into this one, and Michaels couldn't have handled the big kickouts better, really nice timing to make it seem like he was narrowly escaping the loss. The finish was well set up, but the finish itself was so bad that it would have been impossible for anyone to make it work. We got the big Tatanka war dance, Michaels bumped all around for the tomahawk chops, fans were sensing the big win, and then Michaels did this great missed swan dive off the apron, crashing to the floor and almost into the ring steps. Ref Joey Marella counts him out and Michaels yanks him out of the ring to stop the count. But Marella never calls for the bell, so when Michaels gets back in and Tatanka hits the Papoose, we get the awkward moment of Marella waving the pin away, even though Marella was standing there in the ring while Tatanka hit the move. Fans are clearly confused, the announcers are confused, Marella went back into the ring way too early and should have either sold on the floor until Tatanka went for the pin, or called for the bell immediately. This was a terrible ending, handled terribly, a real set of two black eyes on what was otherwise an awesome PPV opener.

"What a bad ending to a great match" ~Macho Man Randy Savage, summing things up accurately


The Headshrinkers vs. The Steiner Brothers

ER: The Steiners' singlet game is incredible here, among the best of their Lisa Frank designs. Rick's especially is only missing acid dripping dolphins leaping out of purple waves against a neon blue sun. His singlet is all of the deepest, richest neon palm fronds. Scott's singlet looks more like a Trapper Keeper wearing Body Glove shorts, but that's only because Rick's is shining so brightly beside him. And this match also rules! It's a great match on paper, as Samu/Fatu are big guys who won't let the Steiners manhandle them, but the Steiners love manhandling big guys, so it's just the best kind of clash. All four of them had a bunch of cool stuff, and the match has one of the most career shortening deadly transitions I've seen. Fatu was really great at bumping for the Steiners (love the way he runs into a Steiner Line and bumps big but lands with heft), and Samu must have had some kind of bet going because I swear he does more back rake variations in this match than I've seen (at least in a match where they are actually delivered seriously and sold, I'm sure there's some yukfest indy match out there where someone does 70 back rakes before pretending to be eaten by an inflatable pool alligator). An island savage using his sharpened claws to deliver body rakes is awesome, and Samu's best were raking Rick from his clavicles down to his hips, raking hard down Scott's traps, and raking Scott across the eyes before popping him in the eye with a straight jab. So many spots I loved here, like Scott slamming Fatu's face into the mat only for Fatu to immediately pop up and hit a superkick (because duh, that head is impervious to slamming), or both Steiner's coming off the same top turnbuckle to hit tandem Steiner Lines that should have resulted in tandem torn ACL/MCL.

The spot of the match (and surely the spot of 1993 WWF, as not much will be able to top this) is when the Headshrinkers transition to control, and they are supposed to merely hotshot Scott. Instead, Fatu pulls down the top rope and Samu essentially launches Scott headfirst over the top rope straight down. We sadly don't get a camera angle from that side, but it's not the bump Scott prepares to take so the landing couldn't have been good. He clearly, somehow, wasn't injured from it, but both Steiners came off as invincible at this point so  - just as conventional weapons could not harm them - neither could the world's most dangerous hotshot. Headshrinkers were a fun control team and they must have really assumed Scott was cool after that hotshot because they also deliver a (much safer) Demolition Decapitation not long after! The Rick hot tag has the stiff clotheslines and big throws you'd want and expect, and the home stretch has a couple huge spots that didn't get executed 100%, but they're great spots. They really ramped the crazy when the Headshrinkers went for a Doomsday Device on Rick, but Rick caught Samu while sitting on Fatu's shoulders and fell to the mat with him for a powerslam. It didn't come off clean, but it's such a crazy spot that it really shouldn't come off clean. Samu also bumps a little too early for the Frankensteiner finish, doing a somersault bump a split second before Scott had snapped it over, so the finish doesn't come off as cool as it should. Still, the match was fun as hell and delivered on the on-paper potential.


Crush vs. Doink

ER: This one didn't really play like a WrestleMania match, but it played like a perfect Coliseum Video match, so even though it felt out of place on the card it was a style I liked. Matt Borne always had the best makeup fade as Doink, the perfect amount getting rubbed away to reveal his stubble, making him look like when Barney Gumble got hired to play Krusty. A big portion of this is Crush taking it out on Doink, kicking him around ringside, with Doink trying to stumble escape. It's a little sluggish, but Doink is a good stumbler so it works. A thing that does not work about the match is Savage on commentary. He was really on one and taking a long time to get to the point on every point he tried to make, and it got bad enough that Heenan kept having to jump in and talk over Savage just to save him. Savage was rambling on and on about how it's harder to perform on the big stage and he was taking an age to get there, so Heenan has to blurt out LOOK AT THAT! to just get him on another topic. That's the most noticeable moment, but it happens throughout the whole match. Doink goes on control by hitting a stunner over the top rope, Crush springing back nicely, and things then got really good. Doink was allowed to come alive a bit, smiling at the camera, all while hitting axe handles and punches off the top and middle ropes. His piledriver is fantastic and makes the match worthy on its own. It looks cool with the size difference, and Crush sells it well. I did wish it meant a little more to the overall match, but alas. This is the match where we get the infamous Two Doinks finish, with Steve Keirn smashing Crush in the face with a mannequin arm and doing mirror comedy with Borne. I do like how the ref was bumped, with Doink throwing a hard back elbow, hard enough that it made for a convincing knockdown. Your mileage may vary on the finish. I liked the idea but thought they could have done more with it. Using Keirn just to hit Crush with a prop isn't very creative, and WrestleMania would have been a cool time to show off Doink's more vicious side and really make the attack on Crush hurt. Overall, a fun match.


We get a brutal Talk to the Audience segment with Todd Pettengill, with the added bonus of racial Asian humor with a couple plants. Pettengill is right in the thick of the crowd, with one distractingly hot woman who looked sorta like Callie Thorne beside Pettengill the entire time, WOOOOING in a loop, while a guy next to her who looked like Fat Seinfeld kept literally trying to edge her out of frame. It didn't appear that they knew each other but it did appear that he had bad ideas about personal boundaries. Another man just uncomfortably shoves his way past Pettengill mid segment, looking like Weird Al if Al had become a copy clerk instead of a genius. Just shoved right past and walked in front of the camera with a slight shrug and look into the camera.


Razor Ramon vs. Bob Backlund

ER: Tough dynamic in this one. Fans are way into Razor to start, but Backlund is a never give up babyface. Fans are even chanting RAZOR to start, but then his beatdown on Backlund goes for a couple minutes and Backlund can't help be draw underdog babyface comeback cheers. But there appears to be a constant mix up with every bit of offense Backlund delivers to Razor, as Razor does two real late rotations on hiptosses, Backlund falls short on a dropkick that wasn't supposed to fall short, a clothesline lands weird and Razor clunkily falls straight over, everything looked a full step off and I couldn't tell who was at fault. But it confused the hell out of the fans as they were about ready to start cheering Backlund, then the the messy comeback just made them not want to root for either. Backlund does a cool chickenwing suplex and his impressive long delay atomic drop, but even the atomic drop falls a little flat as Razor falls on the landing and takes Backlund down with him. So not only is the crowd kind of silent at what is going on and confused about who they should be cheering, but then Razor wins with a freaking small package! Razor, the Bad Guy, with 40 pounds and plenty of height on Backlund, ekes one out with a small package. I couldn't believe it. He jumps up likes it a triumphant victory, even though his victory felt like Bob Backlund getting a small package on Razor. It's like that was supposed to be the finish (it obviously wasn't) and someone just said "Eh keep the finish and just let the other guy do it."


Money Inc. vs. Hulk Hogan/Brutus Beefcake

ER: This wasn't far off from being quite good, but it needed some things changed. It has a few fatal flaws, and it's a shame because it should have been an easy sell and a lot of the layout was smart. Hogan hadn't wrestled in a year, so his coming back was genuinely a big deal, and Beefcake had missed nearly three years with his face injury. I think the angle with Money Inc. immediately going after Beefcake's face was strong, and IRS's briefcase shot looked great. When you think of the kind of match build you get from WWE today, there's nothing that compares to the old school no brainer simplicity of this build. A huge star returning to the ring after a year, and - regardless of what you think of him as a wrestler - Beefcake coming back to the ring after a horrific injury. Heels immediately attack the injury, top guy returns, this is all slam dunk stuff. But the match ends up going way too long, a lot of smoke and mirrors, and another messy finish which was starting to be a problem on this show (up to this point nearly every single match has had a bad finish, whether poorly executed or indecisive).

This was a nearly 20 minute match that would have been far more successful edited down to 10. I thought Dibiase was strong throughout, especially his facial reactions to both Hogan and Beefcake. From the moment he walked to the ring in his resplendent white suit, he looked like a man who belonged, and I love how he was committed to being a heel and trying to purposely take shine away from the returning Hogan. Maybe my favorite part of the match was Dibiase jumping Hogan during Hogan's entrance, as Hogan was clearly going to soak everything up, but I liked Hogan's part of it too. Hogan basically worked this match like Jimmy Valiant, and that MAKES SENSE because Jimmy Valiant would know exactly how to work a match like this. So here's Hogan getting into the ring, dancing on the apron exactly like Valiant, and Dibiase puts a stop to it by jumping him. Now, of course, Hogan just runs him off and celebrates before the match anyway, and that's part of why I thought they were SO CLOSE to getting to something good. They clearly KNEW what they had to do, and yet they made some bad choices. 

The match goes on long enough that the announcers run out of things to talk about, and there are a lot of holds and a lot of moments with guys lying on the mat. This is not a good thing, especially with Heenan already trying to rein in Macho Man, and the match's stretches of inactivity lead to a Macho Man moment that is impossible to not laugh at. Ross and Heenan are in the middle of actually talking about something, and Savage just shouts out of nowhere "WHAT AN INCREDIBLE WRESTLEMANIA SOFAAAAAA" (he was saying "so far"). This match just didn't work, and this should have been the easiest match on the card to book. They must have known the finish was going to bum out the crowd, as after a bunch of clumsy stuff surrounding the briefcase (it looked like they couldn't decide to work Briefcase Blunder comedy spots or actually work stiff briefcase shots to the face), Hogan and Beefcake threw money to the crowd. This crowd is the first crowd in one year to see Hulk Hogan - still beloved by many - and you have to have him throw money to the crowd to get them to cheer? That is some desperation planning right there. And who would be happy with one of those "the guy I wanted to win lost but he's still celebrating like the loss isn't really a bad loss" finishes?


Todd Pettengill chats with Natalie Cole in the crowd while Real American blares and she puts over the money Hogan threw to the crowd as being real money. I don't know if she was working or not, and that's how you know Natalie Cole is legit. Was it real money? I mean probably. But why is IRS carrying around a briefcase filled with money? I just thought he had important documents in there. Why would he have needed money out there? For bribing Hogan? Pettengill also interviews the CEO of Caesar's Palace, who talks for a VERY long time about the frankly uninteresting sounding relationship between Caesar's Palace and the World Wrestling Federation. I wonder why Todd Pettengill hasn't cut him off, because the man just keeps talking, and as I'm wondering when and how the cutoff is going to happen, Pettengill puts the guy in a headlock. What the fuck! It's like Pettengill couldn't think of any other way to make him stop and just jumped on him like a friendly drunk guy after a playoff win. I'm picturing Vince screaming in his earpiece to stop this man at any cost, and Pettengill just decided the best way to do that was by jumping on the man. 


Lex Luger vs. Mr. Perfect

ER: Lex Luger gets a great entrance, flanked by four women in bikini thongs, an outdoor arena filled with 10 year olds in disbelief that they're seeing butts. They hold his mirrors with sparklers on them, and it seems windy for that. Luger poses for a really long time, and heel posing Luger is so much better than face posing Luger. Perfect gets a loud reaction for his entrance music and Luger's girls are walking out as he's walking in, and he jumps out of the way of one of them while making an ewwwwww face. Perfect just working his own bit out here. And this match feels like it should have gotten a bigger reaction. Maybe it was half the crowd looking directly into the sun, or maybe they were burnt out from a day just spent out in the sun, or burnt out from the Hogan segment. But this is quiet. It is good, but feels like it should have been better, and there were some miscommunications that looked clunky. But it still should have gotten a louder reaction. Perfect is really smart and senses the silence, so starts playing to the crowd by working stiff and making some loud noise. He hits a super loud chop in the corner and laughs along with the crowds' louder reaction, so he goes back to that in a couple fun ways. He hits another chop for the crowds' approval, slaps Luger in the stomach off an Irish whip, and starts kicking him in the hamstring all around the ring.

Perfect's knee work was really cool, and it's a shame they didn't let that play into the rest of the match. Similarly, Luger's back work was really cool, and it's a shame they didn't let that play into the rest of the match. Each had nice powerslams, Perfect almost wrecked his leg on a missile dropkick, Luger knows hot to take a catapult into the turnbuckles really well, there's a really fast rope running exchange with a slick Perfect leapfrog, a fun match. The finish is another bad one, with this cursed luck that others have had in that it's a bad idea on paper, and a poorly executed idea in reality. It was supposed to be a battle over backslides (that's not the part that sounds bad, battles over backslides are almost always cool as hell), and Luger sets it up by swinging a full 360 on a missed clothesline. Except Perfect doesn't duck or anything, so Luger just spins in a circle and then they clumsily locked arms back to back. Luger gets one and Perfect's whole body is in the ropes, but Marella counts the 3 anyway and it stands. Marella has just been given the worst finishes possible, looking like a guy purposely trying to get fired for the duration of this PPV. We JUST HAD a match end where a ref ran out and reversed a decision, and then this happens. I guess no other refs wanted to take a killer over the top to the floor bump like Danny Davis did the match before. Oh yeah, Hogan fucking THREW a referee! I didn't mention that, and it surely didn't do Perfect any favors. Luger salvages things some by blasting Perfect with the forearm after the match. I loved that KO forearm as a killshot.


Giant Gonzalez vs. The Undertaker

ER: This is the kind of thing I'm here for. I'm always gonna be about the freaks. At first the cameras totally blow this by filming right next to Gonzalez as he walks out, taking away the sense of scale. Finally they cut to the wide shot so you can see how high he is walking among the sea of fans. It's a real good Patterson-Gimlin homage. And I like this match, but I'm a sucker for this kind of thing. Gonzalez has some impressive visuals and I like his offense. He is not, however, a good seller, with big comical Wuh oh Wuh oh bug eyed facials like he's doing Don Knotts. So I like the big Gonzalez control segment, with him throwing big clubbing forearms. The clubbing looks good just because of that wingspan. He hits a big boot to stop a Taker charge, and hits a nice clothesline running out of the corner. My favorite visual is when he throws Taker to the floor, then follows, and the dude just steps from the apron down to the floor like he was navigating a slightly higher than normal step. He throws Undertaker into the stairs a couple times and Taker really slams hard knees first into them. When Taker makes his big comeback he's throwing his nice uppercuts, but it loses a little oomph with Gonzalez's selling. 

They go to the chloroform finish right away, and I think it's a smart finish that unfortunately came on a show that has had literally nothing but poorly executed or iffy or bad finishes. You don't want Gonzalez taking a ton of punishment at this point, and I thought Savage, Heenan, and Ross put over the danger of the chloroform well enough that a 10 year old would buy into it. Heenan is the one who gets it, as he knows to sell the visual of a rag over the mouth. He's the first one to go "What's that smell? What is that?" and cues the other two. Another weakness of Gonzalez, is that he does not act like enough of a bigfoot. He's yelling at fans to shut up, moving too much like a human. He needed to be more beast than man, and I am someone who is a fan of the muscle fur suit. I think the look is there, would have loved to see an even wilder beard. Gonzalez should have looked like an 8 foot tall Bruiser Brody. But it's a great moment when Taker comes back out to attack Gonzalez after being taken out on a stretcher. The fans flip out and he knocks Gonzalez off his feet with three flying clotheslines, and I would have been losing my mind if I was in attendance. Also, there were a couple of biker goths in the crowd holding up a dot matrix banner that said "Rot in Peace Gonzalez" and they were yelling at the camera and looking pissed as Taker got stretchered out.


They do ANOTHER Todd Pettengill talk to the audience routine, and while I think he handles it well considering, it's just something that's always going to be death. He asks a kid where he's from and immediately yanks the mic away and makes fun of him for not answering, but then talks to two frat guys in Motel 6 togas for an eternity. He also pie faces a 10 year old kid out of the way while he was talking to the two doofs. This kid was just trying to get through and they clearly had nobody blocking off the camera, just had Todd out there in the wilds without a net. Always a bad idea. No chance for upside, nothing but constant chances for you to look like a clown. Too risky. Nobody wants to be put in the position of shoving a kid on camera.


Yokozuna vs. Bret Hart

ER: I thought this was great, although I wish it would have had basically any other finish. This was a finely crafted match between two good characters: Hart the fighting champion and Yokozuna the monster who had hardly been off his feet. Both guys were so good here, but they always had strong matches against each other. Bret's running dropkick to knock Yoko into the corner was such a killer way to start, and I was continually amazed at how intense Bret was working while also being completely safe. Bret could have easily just worked more stiff to make up the size difference, but Hart is out here killing himself to work every move! It was really apparent when he hit his Hitman elbow off the middle rope and made it look great, but you could also tell that Yokozuna would have had no idea anyone had even touched him. This whole match was an exercise in Hart's impressive close up magic. Yokozuna's cut off spots were strong, with him just running full speed into Hart to send him flying, and later hitting a big lariat and a flattening legdrop. It was smart to set up a couple moments of Yokozuna steaming full speed into Hart, as those moments later in the match were used to stage Hart's comebacks, with Yoko missing a great chest first charge into the corner (a cool way of showing a man over twice Hart's size doing his signature bump) and later missing a flying hip attack the same way. The visual of Hart locking the Sharpshooter on Yokozuna's legs (legs that I can say with no hyperbole weigh more than I do) was so cool, and I wish we could have paid this off with a better finish. But instead we get salt in the eyes, quick pin, and you know what comes next.

I'm not going to defend the Hogan segment, because it sucks. I thought it sucked the first time I saw it (did not see this show when it aired, but later rented it from New Release Video in Healdsburg!) and it doesn't look any better now. The visual of a reeling and defeated Bret telling Hogan to take the shot was a bit too much. Hart was a real team player for even agreeing to do that and not rolling his eyes on camera. "Mr. Hogan, sir, I couldn't bring my wife to climax, please sir, could you make my wife cum while I go recharge with some Gatorade?" But the fans live exploded, every single person jumped out of their seat, and at least in the moment it felt like something that the live crowd really wanted. But I'm sure they would have leapt out of their seat had Hart pinned the monster himself, so I can't really give that reaction too much credit.


This show is much better than it has ever been given credit for. It 100% deserves criticism for a full night (afternoon?) of bad finishes. Every single match had a bad finish, whether that was intentional (making referees look like idiots in literally half of the matches in finishes that would disappoint any fan), or just poorly executed by the wrestlers, this was arguably the widest variety of terrible match finishes I have ever seen in one night of wrestling. You couldn't get this many bad finishes unless your goal was to run a card with the Most Bad Finishes record in your sights. But there was a lot of very fun wrestling on this show, and tons of memorable spectacle. And fun wrestling with memorable spectacle is never going to be something that I consider bad, let alone part of the worst WrestleMania of all time.


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WWF King of the Ring 1995

"Philadelphia, the city where the Declaration of Independence was signed! But tonight, MONARCHY will reign!" I love that line, and Vince shouts it like a deranged Kent Brockman. I am ready for this.

1. Savio Vega vs. IRS

ER: Razor Ramon injured himself at a house show a couple weeks before the PPV, so this was the match to determine his replacement to battle Yokozuna. IRS honestly has one of my favorite looks in wrestling history. His build was perfect for the Tom Fitton fit, with the sick cuffed short sleeves and deep red braces. It's a great look. The match was quick, 4 minutes, but worked fast. Vega starts the match with a super convincing small package, convincing enough that I thought they were pulling a "4 second record setting victory" type of angle to give Savio a push out of the gates. But Savio gets a good reaction with a couple more quick pins, with an especially nice high cradle. IRS presses the pace nicely, and Vega is good at quick bursts, so it's a surprisingly effective match. IRS goes up top because he's a dummy, and eats boot off an axehandle, then takes an amusing belly flop bump. The finish is a fun quick killshot, IRS running fast into a super high leaping Savio spinning heel kick. I like how this show is starting.

2. Yokozuna vs. Savio Vega

ER: Damn, they really gave Savio the short straw here, starting off the night fighting his way into the tourney and then immediately facing a force like Yoko? I do like Vince's reasoning that this is to Savio's advantage because Savio has his heart rate up and momentum rolling. Yoko is always so stoic to start matches that it makes sense Savio's fired up energy from his win would possibly overwhelm Yokozuna. And, naturally, Yokozuna would have been spending the past several weeks training specifically to fight Razor. Savio has inroads here. Yoko waves that Japanese flag in the faces of these freedom loving Philadelphians, and Savio waves a joint American/Puerto Rican flag to a surprising amount of cheers. 

And they play into that great Savio spinning heel kick I mentioned the match before, and it ties into Yoko training for Razor but gathering intel on Savio, as Yoko belly flops quickly to the mat early in the match when Savio tries to finish early with that same spinning heel kick. Yoko takes a couple of his big bumps here, a large missed elbow and a great transitional missed legdrop. The standing exchanges between the two are really strong, with Vega landing hard strikes and Yoko reeling before hitting back harder. Savio does hit his spinning heel kick but Cornette interrupts the pin, then takes a great bump to the floor after Savio belts him. The finish is lamer than the match deserved, as Owen Hart runs out to attack Razor Ramon at ringside, and then Savio runs out there, and then Yoko runs out there, but the camera completely misses big bump into the ringpost and ring steps, the bump that allows Savio to get the count out win. The count out win is cheap, and I am somewhat resentful of the Savio victory because it kills the chance of Mabel/Yokozuna. That's stupid.

3. The Roadie vs. Bob Holly

ER: Roadie is making his solo PPV debut, and you know he has a nice show vest for his entrance. But dear God the gear on Double J and Roadie is just woeful. Roadie also debuts his new PPV extensions and it makes him look like a weirdo creep maitre'd at a crime front restaurant in Strange Days. But the MATCH rules, outside of a second straight lousy finish. This is an awesome match with a real zilch of a finish, and that's too bad, but there's still a ton of match here that is really great. I kept thinking about 80s Brad Armstrong fast paced 10 minute singles, which is funny because Holly was the one giving me those vibes, not Brad's brother. This felt like a 1995 Rey/Psicosis match, only worked within the parameters of two southern wrestlers. 

It was worked super fast, Holly going for small packages and school boys and other flash pins while confounding Roadie with high hip tosses and shoulder dislocating armdrags. Roadie bails to the floor, comes back in and takes over. Roadie did have really good offense, different than his Road Dogg offense. The dancing was integrated better during his '98 run, but he has a couple things in '95 that he later unfortunately dropped. The best was a hard elbow drop to the back of Holly's neck, while Holly was sitting up. The whole thing was really good, good enough that if a couple of other matches hit this level of quality, I'll come away with favorable impressions of this show. Now, we do get some evidence of an ongoing problem, as this is the second match with a real lousy finish. Bob Holly goes up top, jumps off into Roadie with another downed opponent axe handle (already seen in the opener as a significant transition spot), but here Holly flies into Roadie's boot and gets pinned. I don't think I've ever seen someone get pinned from jumping face first into a vertically lifted leg. To his credit, Holly made it look almost plausible as a finish, and Roadie's scrambling opportunistic pin sank that in. But even though executed well, it came off flat as hell. Starting the main show with two sour finishes is a tough pill.

4. Kama vs. Shawn Michaels

ER: Well we definitely have established the theme of this show, which is very fun matches with very stupid endings. This one goes to a 15 minute draw, fully establishing the 15 minute draw as the Alone, Eating Over the Garbage Can of wrestling finishes. I was fully into this until they popped a countdown clock in the corner. Kama starts by throwing big telegraphed bombs, with Michaels hopping around like Ali, made all the more amusing when they cut to Joe Frazier in the crowd looking absolutely perplexed at Michaels. The two lady companions with Smokin' Joe are even pointing and laughing at what they're seeing. But there's a chance that those ladies were just plain wrong about pro wrestling, and that Frazier - some 20 years removed from his Ali and Foreman beatings - was actually just punch drunk. Because this delivered much more than I was expecting it to. And that's with me still miffed that Kama took Duke Droese's rightful place on this PPV! 

But the cat and mouse is good, and it leads to a great moment of Michaels skinning the cat but then getting lambasted with a great Kama lariat. Michaels takes a couple of big important bumps that play into the story, including a great version of his flipping corner bump that is just insanely fast, sending him upside down and over to the floor. Kama works simple stuff like backbreakers and that big man move I love where Michaels is bent backwards over Kama's knee, Kama pressing back on Michaels' chin. And what's awesome is that Michaels punches his way out of that, and he really tightens up his strikes in this match, clearly just punching Kama right in the head several times. That continues when Michaels gets on top and throws mounted punches, throwing 8 shots right into Kama's forehead, hard enough that Kama clearly checks to see if a cut opened. But the countdown clock really dampens the mood, as neither man seems to notice the countdown, so Michaels is doing slow corner 10 count punches with only a minute left to go, and while they built to a good "he woulda had him!" pinfall right as time expired, the fact that neither really acted like they were trying to finish really hurt it. Bob Holly worked the first several minutes of his match, they way they should have worked the final two minutes of this match. The fact that Michaels just immediately hits sweet chin music out of frustration post match, only highlights how stupid it was that he didn't go for that during any of the previous 15 minutes. Also, not having either guy advance is D-U-M-B DUMB. These finishes are brutal so far.

5. Mabel vs. The Undertaker

ER: This lags at times, sputters a bit, but eventually evolves into a real nice Mabel performance. He really got a bad rap from the internet doofuses not long after this, but he's a guy who would have been a big territory start if he wrestled exactly like this 10 years earlier. So it's a shame he never fully took during this era. Was it the shiny purple onesie? If he just had the Big Daddy V gear. All black gear, with his size, big star. This is filled with both guys running into each other with hard shoulderblocks, Mabel falls all over the place, splats Undertaker and sits on him a couple times, and we get cool moments like Undertaker with his foot tangled in the ropes and a tug of war while that happens (Taker trying to pull Mabel to the floor while his foot is tied up, Mabel trying to pull him up), and a huge belly to belly from Mabel that looked really great. Mabel even hits a picture perfect piledriver, and the visual of a 550 lb. man doing a classic piledriver is so bizarre, but so amazing. I thought a lot of Taker's stuff looked a little too tentative here. Mabel had obviously a slower gameplan, slowly crushing Taker, and it needed Taker to respond with a little more energy instead of just working the same pace as Mabel. Mabel whips Taker into the corner and smooshes the ref, allowing Kama to run in and interfere, allowing Mabel to hit a great legdrop to the back of Taker's head for the win. This match really did not need a finish based around interference, and the inability to give any single person a convincing win in this tournament is just bizarre. "People didn't take ______ seriously and that's why business is bad" is a pretty obvious take when everyone who has advanced in this tournament has done so almost by accident. Let Savio pin Yoko, let Mabel pin Undertaker, let The Roadie get a normal win over Bob Holly for goodness' sake.

6. Savio Vega vs. The Roadie

ER: This was a perfectly fine match, treated to a really icy reception from the Philly crowd. It's hard not to buy into the narrative that a series of bad finishes was wearing on this crowd. You had to think all the kids were thinking they'd be seeing a semifinals of Razor Ramon vs. Yokozuna and Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker, and instead they're seeing Savio Vega vs. The Roadie and No Match because of a Draw. They shorted them a match due to a Draw! So I get the icy reception, even though the match was fine. They got real cold during Roadie's control segment, quiet enough that both men verbally appealed to the crowd at different points. It sounds so foreign in a WWF environment to see Roadie first go "What does everyone think of the Road Dogg?" to silence, followed by Savio Vega stopping his comeback so that he could go "Come on!" to the crowd. 

It rattles them a bit and some stuff suffers, like Roadie doing his flashy jab combo with the big finisher right hand at the same time Savio is doing a salsa hulk-up, so Roadie's big punch combo that he is now doing for the first time, is ignored the entire time. It's just a middling layout in a match that could have been better. Savio gets the win, and in what should be his biggest babyface moment yet, he does a full ringside interview in Spanish with Dok Hendrix doing the translating; it's actually a really funny bit, with Hendrix saying things like, "He's saying 'I don't have a shot at beating Mabel...I'm considering just not showing up and going home...I don't know how I made it this far and I'm having doubts..." It's a genuinely hilarious bit, but the whole entire thing was done at the complete expense of Savio Vega. Vega is a guy who had been in maybe 5 TV matches before this PPV, and this was supposed to be his big hard fought struggle through the finals: He won a last minute dark match to make it onto the PPV itself, then had his first PPV match in the very next match! This was a hilarious bit at the expense of the guy who needed some help in that moment.

7. Jerry Lawler vs. Bret Hart

ER: In the TV leading up to this PPV, this match had to have had the most TV time devoted to it. Vince was absolutely giddy at the prospect of the first ever in history Kiss My Foot match, so we had a TON of segments with Lawler showing off comically gunked up bare feet, and so many segments with Bret calling Lawler a scumbag (which, well). But the segments clearly worked because this crowd despises Lawler. They are certainly treating this match as if it was the most important match on the show (though we can compare the reactions to the Bigelow/Diesel tag and Savio/Mabel). And the match itself is fantastic. I've never heard much praise for this match in their feud, but that was tremendous stuff. It's their great complementary styles compacted into 10 minutes, both guys work snug as hell, Lawler takes some of his best and unique bumps, and it's based around such a stupid horseshit mudshow stipulation that is the exact level of stupid horseshit mudshow stipulation that Lawler can get it over in his sleep. 

Hart had some awesome strikes here, really smashing his forearm across Lawler's nose, fast short uppercuts, tight headbutts; late in the match he punches Lawler while Lawler is on his knees, and Lawler takes this gorgeous gunshot bump to the mat. This show did a reported 16,000+ in attendance, and Lawler takes this admirable approach to things and works it like it was in front of 250 people in a church rec room. And this small focus work, getting into verbal spars with fans on all sides of the ring, really hammers home the threat of the stipulation, and this small focus work really starts to work for the entire arena. The match gets great heat and it's a beautiful thing to see small crowd Memphis heel techniques working on a big "workrate" Philly crowd.

Lawler hits three big piledrivers on Bret, all angling Bret off the mat in different ways, but Lawler takes a ton of time between all of them to talk shit to the crowd. Lawler in Philly full time would have been legendary. Then we get a great bit of BS where Lawler takes off his boot and has a bloody moldy sock that he tries to choke Bret with, Bret desperately hold the foot at bay. On the floor Lawler continues to show how he's the best ringpost bumper in wrestling history, getting pulled face first into it in such a convincing bit of magic that I expected to see a bloody nose. There was botched interference from Hakushi, more violent fast bumps from Lawler, a mean snap to Bret's familiar comeback offense (the Russian leg sweep and elbow off the middle rope landed especially sharp), the exact right amount of BS to go with the BS stip, elevated by perfect execution from both. This match was such an excellent use of time and really paid off the perfectly dumb TV time spent on it.

8. Mabel vs. Savio Vega

ER: This was a very good King of the Ring Final, easily the best of the actual KOTR matches tonight. This was an excellent match that the crowd TRIED to turn on with a loud ECW chant, and the match was good enough to get that crowd reinvested in the finish just moments later. Savio came out at the bell looking more impressive than he has in any appearance thus far, as he chopped Mabel into the corner - convincingly - and the visual of him backing up this mountain with chops made him like like a total pitbull. When Mabel is the slumped into the corner, Savio laces in with the best chops of the night; sometimes with both arms, always landing with a huge whipcrack. Savio Vega's attack on Mabel was great, peaking with Savio muscling Mabel over the top to the floor with a huge clothesline, Mabel taking a spectacular tumbling bump. Mabel smooshes Savio, hits his big belly to belly, and works a long bearhug that gets the fans restless. I liked it in the context of the match, Mabel playing the smart game, the odds, but it leads to an ECW chant lead by Straw Hat Guy and several other fans you've been distracted by while watching wrestling shows. But shortly into the comeback they can't deny the quality of the ringwork, and the match gets cheered to the finish. Vega got a great nearfall off a high cradle schoolboy, and also hit one of his best spinning heel kicks, getting unreal height. He gets a big kickout after a huge powerslam, but goes down to a big splash where Mabel really lays him out. This was a main event that did the tournament justice, something the rest of the tournament matches had fallen short of. This eventually got the positive crowd reaction it deserved, but it deserved it earlier.

9. Sycho Sid/Tatanka vs. Bam Bam Bigelow/Diesel

ER: The TV build up to this was all about Sid injuring Diesel's right elbow, Bigelow pledging his undying friendship to Diesel, and Sid making the best possible blinking crazy eyes facials in wrestling. Touched and crazy has always been a mode that wrestlers have struggled with, most commonly going far over the top or being too scared to do so. Sid finds the perfect balance and plays the man just on the edge of snapping better than anyone else. I wish we had a Sid cam, because occasionally the cameras during this era catch Sid on the apron just blinking and talking to himself - and this is during moments where he couldn't possibly know there are any cameras on him. A lot of this is kick and punch, with Bigelow occasionally taking a big dangerous bump to get people back into it. Sid kicks Diesel's elbow from the apron and Tatanka throws some tomahawk chops at it, and we get Sid really bending that bad elbow back across the ring ropes in mean ways, and the heels upheld their end of the bargain. Diesel didn't pay a ton of attention to it, outside of one big moment where he hit an elbowdrop on Sid, using the bad elbow, allowing Sid to go back on the offensive. 

But the problem is Diesel used his bad elbow for EVERYTHING. Every strike thrown, his big side slam, even posting up on the top rope while he was waiting for a tag. He used that elbow the whole damn match, and it really took away from the work of Sid and Tatanka. Bigelow tried some big things, including basically chokeslamming himself off the top rope. Sid backs him in the corner and gets Bigelow seated up on the top, choking him while Bigelow paws at Sid's face. I assume the plan was for him to be chokeslammed off, but Sid, didn't quite grab hold of him, and Bigelow just went for it anyway, taking a nice arcing bump and then selling it well on the mat; later Bigelow his a somersault senton on Tatanka and I'm not even sure that was supposed to happen, as Tatanka drops down and Bigelow does a big cannonball, but lands a little too vertically up on his neck. Considering the cannonball isn't a move that Bigelow commonly used, it felt like he was actually bumping but wasn't expecting Tatanka to be there? Vince and Dok were confused on commentary as well, but I like hearing Vince call it a cannonball. 

They also muff the hot tag to Diesel, as the way everyone was positioned in the ring made it look like Hebner was supposed to miss the tag, and to the crowd used to how tag wrestling works they clearly thought Diesel was going to be sent back to the apron, and even Vince was saying the referee didn't see the tag...but Diesel's hot tag was allowed, and this just means it was performed to no heat. I can't tell if Diesel was selling his elbow when giving Tatanka the Jackknife. He could have been, but if that's the case it just looked like he hit a really poor Jackknife. I do dig the finish of him pulling up Tatanka at 2, then challenging Sid to get in the ring, only for Sid to back down before Diesel pins Tatanka. On a show with too many screwy finishes, at least Sid committed to standing down as a classic heel move.


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