NWA Wildside Episode 19 Review

I notice on their onscreen graphic advertising all of the matches for the 1/8/00 Y2 Kaos says "Y2 Koas", which is like the wrestling ad equivalent of having spinach in your teeth.

1. The Station House vs. Skinny Kenny/Pete Platinum/Frenchy Riviera

Holy hell how have I never heard of the Station House before!?!? Three guys in essentially chippendales firemen gear being lead to the ring by a mustachioed chubby chief, with a faux Mike Post 80s TV piano-driven theme song with intermittent growled sound bites like "Station House this is the Chief, gimme everything we got!!!" I mean god bless the USA. This match was terrible but also 100% fucking flawless. When I saw the name "Skinny Kenny" I thought "god I hope this guy is fat as hell" and Skinny Kenny is faaaattttttt. He's a giant tremendously fat guy with a bad goatee and a pink mid 90s Scott Steiner singlet. Pete Platinum looks like Buddy Lee Parker dressed up as Karl Lagerfeld dressed up as Udo Dirkschneider. Frenchy Riviera is somehow waaaaaay fatter than Skinny Kenny but also 4" shorter and ALSO has a bad goatee and a glorious fat guy ponytail!! The Station House are a fire house version of the Hot Cops, all wearing vinyl pants under their firefighter coveralls, and the announcers say a bunch of outrageously gay stuff without trying to say outrageously gay stuff. When all three Station House members hit "tandem" dropkicks (they were supposed to be tandem, but man none of those dropkicks came close to being thrown at the same time) you get great quotes like "you're talking about three big boys right here!" Frenchy takes a bump directly onto Kenny in a clearly accidental moment. Frenchy I have seen before on some old 90s Memphis TV, but I'm pretty sure he had bleached blonde hair. That kind of massive body can't be on too many workers though, so it had to be him.

You guys....The hunks in the Station House are named - I kid you not - Michael Firehouse, Jay Pumper, and Brian Rescue.  That's....that's just impossible. That's not real! That's impossible. Let's see...Brian is the cute one...Michael is the bad boy...Jay is the funny one...I hope they're like Menudo, and the older ones leave the band so new young hunky members can join. We can end up seeing Tommy Firetruck, Glenn Hose, Cody Red and Brandon Backdraft. Maybe some day we can have our first female member, Kat Inatree. And damn Pete Platinum seems really good, as he comes in and muscles up Jay Pumper for a brutal snap suplex and then hits a crazy fast low dropkick off the ropes. He wrestles a LOT like mid 90s Benoit crossed with Buddy Lee, in other words a wrestler I would like to watch. Frenchy is just morbidly obese and throws in some great comedy shrieking when Michael Firehouse overpowers him on a knuckle lock. Skinny Kenny is kind of holding the team back as Platinum/Frenchy both look really good in completely different ways, Kenny seems older and slower and not as interesting. The announcer do a real good job making him sound more interesting than he is, but as I type that Platinum hits a nasty back elbow and Frenchy hits a huge powerslam while suggestively waggling his tongue. I need more of these dudes. Station House are all really inexperienced but Firehouse especially is plenty willing to throw hard forearms (in that neat stiff untrained way) and some really nice flying lariats. There's a lot of awkward moving people into position while those people don't fight back, but this was plenty of fun and I want more Frenchy/Pete Platinum. Plus it should BASICALLY be a legendary indy wrestling segment, as I'm positive this was the only appearance of The Station House. Does anyone know if any of these Station House guys did anything else?

We get a fun short promo with "Attorney/Agent" Jeff G. Bailey and K-Krush, with Bailey saying "Krush ain't going to fight AJ Styles, he's going to the WWE to rap and dance!" A literal SEVENTEEN YEARS LATER, and Bailey is certainly prophetic, as Krush has essentially just rapped and danced the whole time. "Show them how you dance, Krush!"

2. AJ Styles vs. Jesse Taylor

It's so weird seeing super early career AJ Styles as he already does so many things really well, but is also super awkward and uses a completely different moveset than you ever remember him using. So he throws these great punches (completely different than the way you've seen him punch for years, these were right hand Lawler hookshots, and Styles was totally punching like an old Memphis pro) and hits this insane running plancha, he also already had his fast athletic bumps. But his moveset is so different! I didn't remember Styles doing a bunch of legdrop based offense, but boy does he! Taylor I really like. He works like a green, mulleted Bobby Duncum Jr. or Kendall Windham. And let's face it, those guys had mullets at some point so it's easy to fill in his evolution. But I have no clue what happened to Taylor. He may still be working somewhere! I would be watching him monthly if he was, as he seems like a guy who would make a fun eventual mid 40s southern worker. He takes a flat out great bump as he grabs a chair but it gets ditched on the apron, and when he climbs up on the apron Styles dropkicks him down and he flies back, hits his face on the chair on the way down, and then bumps to the floor. It looked so awesome. Taylor throws nice punches, throws himself into shoulderblocks, has nice movement (he even moves like a Windham, which is a plus) and throws a good powerslam. Both guys were green, but this was real fun.

Romeo Bliss cuts a promo and ends it saying that they better put up Under Construction signs around his house, because he's going to be laying pipe all night, then sucks on his middle finger while miming pounding some girl doggystyle, then takes his now wet middle finger and mimes fingering this invisible girl's asshole. THIS SHOW AIRED ON TV!

Really fun episode, even though it was heavy on recaps. Still, they got an event to build for so that makes sense. The six man was a great segment due to the absurdity of the Station House gimmick, and the Styles/Taylor match was a real fun match between a couple of new guys. Another fine episode of TV. Man I'm jealous of anybody who got to see this fed regularly. It's the best.

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NWA Wildside- Throwback Review Episode 42

http://www.twnworldwide.tv/nwawildside42.html

6/26/00

Long intro, starting with Steve Martin (was not in Roxanne) and Jeff G. Bailey riding to the arena, Martin explaining how he is going to confront Stone Mountain (may or may not have shot his father). Then the NWA Elite goes into the ring and Martin goes "like I told you in the car, I am calling out Stone Mountain." I am not sure why I needed the car ride about the confrontation and the actual confrontation. Martin offers Mountain a place in the NWA Elite, gets the third finger and we get a big brawl between Scotty Wrenn and Mountain with chair shots and broken handcuffs.

Jesse Taylor v. Stan "The Man" Lee

A match with plenty of entertaining pieces to it, although didn't really come together as a match. Lee is an old school Southern indy guy I have always enjoyed, kind of a poor mans Mike Davis. The match was going along at a nice pace before the blew a top rope rana which ended up spiking both guys awkwardly on their necks. It was touch and go for a bit, although they were able to bring the match back eventually.

Jon Phoenix v. Lazz

Onyx runs out during Lazz's dance routine and hits him with the light heavyweight belt (which looked like crap because Lazz went down way too early.) Phoenix hits a top rope splash and pins him. Lazz's shtick is starting to get really over with the crowd.

They have a WOW magazine segment with Bill Apter where a young wrestler named Ron Starr (a black guy, not Rugged Ron Starr) calls out Bill Beherens for not returning his calls, or giving him a booking. Kind of a weird angle, not sure if it ever went anywhere

SHANK!! is in the ring. He wants to give a shout out to all of his Overweight Lovers in the house. God has healed his hand, and he is challenging Timber the Lumberjack to a Cellblock Rules match at Freedom Fight, that is a steel cage match out in the parking lot. He tells Timber that there won't be any Vaseline, and he he can either run and hide, or bend over and take it like a man. Everything you want it to be. Man I hope they show us the Cellblock match.

Rock and Roll Express v. Bad Attitude

Joined in progress which is a bummer. We see Young get worked over and make the hot tag and Bad Attitude get the pin with a couple of top rope moves. Steve Martin (not King Tut) comes out and changes it to a 2/3 falls match. Rock and Rolls get a sort of double dropkick (Morton hit it, Gibson looked like his dropkicking days were in the past) and win a quick second fall. Fun third fall with the heel Rock and Rolls working over Michaels leg, until a hot tag, a mistimed chain throw by Martina and a Bad Attitude win. NWA Elite jumps Young and Michaels, but Morton and Gibson revert to their babyface ways and run them off.

First part of the show is skippable, but the Shank promo is Shank at his best, and I dug the main event tag.

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NWA Wildside- Throwback Review Episode 39

http://www.twnworldwide.tv/nwawildside39.html

6/5/00

Steve Martin (not working a Steve Martin gimmick) starts in the ring, and he cuts a promo about how he started NCW, but has lost it all thanks to Bill Behrens. He calls out Bad Attitude, tells Rick Michaels that they started in wrestling together, trained AJ Styles and he turned his back on them. He gives what is left of NCW to Michaels and quits the wrestling business.

Scottie Wren v. Stone Mountain

Wren calls out Mounain and they have an impromptu match. There was some back and forth at DVDVR whether Stone Mountain was Abyss, I am not sure, but he does suck like Abyss. Short match with Wren bailing to the back after getting hit by the landslide.

Jeff G. Bailey and AJ Styles brag about Steven Martin leaving the promotion.

Rusty Riddle v. Sean Royal

These guys would go on to form the tag team Total Destruction, this was before that. The announcer mention that Royal hadn't wrestled in 7 years, and how the New Breed's first match was against Rusty Riddle. Total Destruction was a brawling biker tag team, but this wasn't worked like biker v. biker. Royal was doing all kinds of weird submission moves on Riddle's leg including the Great Muta bridging indian death lock. Riddle is able to take over and hit a rope walk bulldog for a pin. Post match Royal puts him in a crazy lucha leg stretch and has to be dragged off. I am not sure whether it was a good match, but it was certainly entertaining.

Christopher Sampson comes out to demonstrate his Christian strength, by ripping a phone book apart. Terry Knight comes out and talks about people invading wrestling with their Christian strength demonstrations. Amusing old school wrestling angle, capped off by Sampson telling Knights valet that she was too beautiful inside to wear revealing clothes, and that a man will never love a woman he can't respect.

Jesse Taylor v. Thunder

Thunder is Jeff G. Bailey's surprise opponent. I would guess that he is of Thunder and Lightening fame. He is a pretty entertaining crowbar, as he really chucked Taylor around the ring. Taylor had some nice comebacks and had him beat with a belly to belly before the NWA Elite ran in, which lead to a show closing brawl with the babyfaces. Enjoyable little match

Nothing must see on this show, although I enjoyed both Riddle v. Royal and Taylor v. Thunder

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