My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Saturday Night 3/11/00, Part 1

1. Harris Brothers vs. Disorderly Conduct

Pretty fun squash as Mean Mike and Tough Tom are game enough to bump around for these two. The teams pair off and one combo rolls to the floor and the other stays in the ring. I can tell that Mean Mike is on the floor and Tough Tom is in the ring, but I won't be able to tell the Harris Bros. apart. Whichever one is in the ring actually looks pretty decent, throwing a cool uppercut and tossing Tom around nicely. The H Bomb works real well as a finisher, and both members of DO have to take it (with both getting great height). This was a fun enough squash, but is there such thing as an actual good Harris Bros. match? There are 12+ years of these guys on tape, certainly there has to be something good?

2. Norman Smiley vs. Scotty Zappa

Wow, Scotty Zappa. I saw Dweezil's Zappa Plays Zappa show a few years back and it was really awesome. Not sure what Ahmet or Moon Unit are up to these days. I feel bad for Scotty as he got little of the family talent, didn't get to marry Lisa Loeb or Selma Blair, clearly rebelled against his father by not even attempting a career in music. I imagine if he ever worked ECW that Joey Styles gave his finisher some name like "Weasels Ripped My Flesh" or "Chunga's Revenge". This was a weird period for Smiley as he's still billed as "Screamin" Norman Smiley, except he doesn't scream anymore. And he still dresses like he's the hardcore legend, with football pants and minor league hockey jersey, but he wrestles like his weird hybrid World of Sport/UWFi self. Match is not helped much by Zappa, who stinks. Norman still does his awesome scoop and twist bodyslam and has some slick leg kicks. It always stuns me how over the Big Wiggle was. People just jump out of their seats screaming whenever he does it.



3. 3 Count vs. El Dandy, Silver King and Jeremy Lopez

Apparently 3 Count are the collective hardcore champs here but this was probably taped a few months before the title change and there are no hardcore elements (which enrages Scott Hudson!). The match starts out the best way it could possibly start, with Dandy punching Karagias before the bell, then Helms and Moore each running into Dandy punches of their own. 12 stars. This match really is a WCW cruiserweight classic. Outside of one botch from King/Moore (and even that was doing a really ambitious electric chair type roll-up spot) this was 6 minutes of constant spots and cool showcases from everybody. Moore and Helms were such bump freaks at this point (though I haven't watched much pre-WWE Helms in awhile and seeing the size difference between him here and him in WWE was quite jarring) and both guys flew all over for King and Dandy. Los Fabulosos had cool double team offense (loved Silver King hip tossing Dandy into a senton) and this was just exactly what you hoped for when you saw this on paper. Jeremy Lopez was quite the unheralded early 00s junior as random Villano and Fabulosos partner.

4. Barry Horowitz vs. Allan Funk

Cool little 6 minute match that's a really good reference point if you want to throw somebody towards some high end Horowitz. Funk was one of my favorite Power Plant guys but here he had a lot of trouble stringing together moves and transitioning from offense to defense. Horowitz seems to really thrive in these types of matches, though, and he comes off as almost a Fit Finlay "let's let him train the Divas/let's put him with Bobby Lashley" type guy making the young and inexperience looked good by one parts selling big for them and one parts taking advantage of them. Horowitz does cool Finlay stuff he doesn't normally do, like stomp fingers, wrench ears on side headlocks, headbutts, elbow to the throat on the apron, even breaking out a nasty palm strike to Funk's right eye. Jesus (Moses?), Barry! This honestly may have been the best Horowitz has ever looked in a match, and I'm a pretty big Barry fan. Barry controlled for almost 6 straight minutes and Funk won by reversing a cradle and holding the trunks. This match was really awesome. It might have been better with more of a competitive pace, but an extended Barry squash with tiny Funk comebacks peppered in worked great for me.

5. Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs. Frankie Lancaster

I can't believe it took me so long to realize that '99/'00 Frankie Lancaster was just Bob Holly. I bet I could convince somebody that was true. These discs are burned from some pretty deep generation VHS tapes, so they're kinda fuzzy with muffled sound. I'm trying to think of a more selfish worker than Duggan during the syndicated years and the only guy I can think of is Sullivan. Konnan definitely has to get his moves in, but occasionally sells for other guys in between. Sullivan rarely lets other guys have offense, but Duggan is almost worse because he usually lets guys get a couple moves in and never even acts like anything touched him. It makes guys look fucking ridiculous. Lancaster threw a few shockingly nice punches and Duggan doesn't move his head one inch to even give off the impression somebody is doing offense to him. I want a Duggan vs. Sullivan match that is just a 4 minute test of strength with neither gaining an advantage, and then each just choosing to get counted out so nobody has to show any ass.

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Saturday Night 4/1/00

Jeremy Lopez/Tommy Rogers vs. Dandy/Silver King

Dandy/King are wearing their insanely awesome full body suits that I never realized they wore. King's is a full body suit that shows no skin whatsoever, and it is glittery silver and black. Dandy opts for gold and black, but his is sleeveless. King even works the stick to start the match, saying they are Latin America's most wanted men, and slicks his eyebrows down. Match itself was totally awesome. Lopez is a Malenko trainee who I *think* has worked Osaka Pro most of this decade, and would apparently be the worst road trip buddy ever (copied and pasted from his website, Favorite Bands: Creed, Kid Rock, 3rd Eye Blind, Uncle Cracker, STP. Live, Hootie And the Blowfish, 3Doors Down). Here he throws nice chops and gets punched by Dandy (Dandy throws like 4 awesome punches in this btw). I thought Tommy Rogers was ancient here but turns outs he was only 38. He was spry and also threw nice punches. Dandy Roll is incredibly quick and I have now seen 3 WCW matches where Dandy takes the fall!

Little Jeannie vs. Mona

Little Jeannie appears to be working some sort of gun moll gimmick, and Mona still has her awesome tear away evening gown. I don't think I could ever put down a Mona/Molly match. That's like putting down kittens or bunnies. Luckily the match is really fun with a bunch of cool mat-based stuff, and Mona winning with a neat inverted surfboard.

Kid Romeo vs. Allen Funk

This wasn't bad, but felt like two guys that were trying to throw out a whole bunch of cool moves. Funk looked better, though, throwing a big clothesline and a couple cool suplexes. Romeo came out dancing with glow sticks which I guess was an OK attempt to try and tap into a certain type of youth culture. It would have worked better had they had them work the mat and Romeo just couldn't stop rubbing on Funk.

Frankie Lancaster vs. Lash LeRoux

Frankie Lancaster is Bob Holly. I mean, especially in this match. They look like the same person, except Frankie had a mustache. Hmmmm. Same bleached hair, same balding pattern, same gassed physique, nice dropkick, same fucking face...This is also about the best I've seen Frankie look in ring, too, really playing to the crowd and working stiffer than normal. I really hate Lash LeRoux's hair. Frankie takes almost all the match before Lash hits his inevitable finish.

Steve Armstrong vs. Hugh Morrus

I never remember Steve wearing tie dye and blue jeans while he wrestled. I remember Brad worked as Buzzkill a few months before this, but why was Steve doing the same thing? Was there some sort of angle where Steve was making fun of his brother for ripping off one of their other brothers, as a wink wink within a nudge nudge? Because the announcers weren't putting any of that over. They didn't even mention that it might be odd for Steve to be working in jeans and a tie dye shirt, just business as usual. Anyway, Steve doesn't get much offense here. Morrus always takes 95% of his squash matches. He was more entertaining here than he can be (throwing some nice elbowdrops, nailing the No Laughing Matter, pulling Steve on top for the false 2.9), but it would be nice to see an actual match from him.

3 Count vs. Shark Boy/Frank Paris/Elix Skipper

3 Count was really good on a sliding scale. Helms looked really great here and threw nice strikes and was super quick, Moore took some big bumps and was also quick, and Karagias had very nice abs. 3 Count stooge around for a lot of Shark Boy biting offense, and good lord was Air Paris (Frank?) bigger than I remember. He was the biggest guy in this match! Pretty short match, would've liked to see more. A few women in their late 30s were really into the pre-match boy band singing and synchronized dancing.

Chris Harris vs. Chuck Palumbo

Harris blows a couple things and we cut to random kids in the crowd to cover it. Still, he moved quickly for a big guy and that helped. Palumbo still threw an awesome right hand, even this early on. And good gracious his two jungle kick superkicks here were brutal, the last one just blasting Harris under the chin. Palumbo wasn't as good here as he would get, but showed potential. When did he make the jump up to "really really good", like 2003?

Cassidy Riley vs. HAIL

I liked O'Reilly (Riley?) in TNA as one of the Hotshots, but here he doesn't get to do much. Announcers were putting over HAIL as a giant (6'9" 350 lb!!!) which is completely absurd since he was only slightly bigger than Chris Harris or Chuck Palumbo in the previous match. But to get over his size Hudson was pushing Cassidy as being 6'2" 220 lb. which is awesome. This match was not much, although HAIL's jumping piledriver looked really good. His finisher was called Hail's Bells, which is both awesome and horrible.

Kory Williams/Ashley Hudson vs. Vito/Johnny the Bull

Vito actually looked really good here, with the Mamalukes finisher being a Hart Attack but with Vito doing a yakuza kick (so he had to do a massive yakuza kick way over his head and it looked really great). Kory Williams threw some alright punches and some really high & pretty dropkicks. He also gets his head kicked in by Vito. Match was kinda boring when Ashley Hudson was in, which was most of it. Hudson looked a lot like Crowbar, but had a silhouette of Australia on his singlet, and came out wearing a boomerang. Since he didn't get any offense, though, it remains unknown whether or not he has Australian-named gimmick offense.

Brian Knobbs vs. Adrian Byrd vs. Dave Burkhead vs. Rick Fuller vs. Norman Smiley vs. The Dog*

Yeaahhhh! Hardcore main event 6 man, title on a pole match! Dog and Fuller disappear through large portions of this, and the star of the match is probably Dave Burkhead. This was basically 6 guys wandering around a ring filled with garbage, hitting each other with chairs and trash cans and trash can lids and ladders, all while trying to grab the title from the pole. Burkhead is always seemingly right in the way of plunder here, so he wins best in match. He takes chairshots, trash can shots, a ladder shot to the back of the head (then takes a huge running bump from the ring to the floor), then while lying on the floor gets a ladder thrown from the ring onto his face! It all made me root for him and when he climbed to the turnbuckle to reach for the title I was actually getting excited. "Will Burkhead win the title here!?" But no, Knobbs beats him with a trash can and grabs the belt : ( It was fun while it lasted.

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