Found Footage Friday: WWF IN MLG~! HULK~! HAKU~! HENNIG~! RUDE~! BRUNZELL~! BOSS MAN~! SHARPE~!

MD: This last week there were a bunch of new MLG House Shows that showed up on Peacock, with never released matches on them. We plan on going through them now and again over the next several weeks/months.

ER: Would it have been too much to ask for Ted Dibiase/Koko B. Ware? Don't get me wrong, I couldn't be happier that we got Iron Mike Sharpe/Tommy Angel, but that one match is very conspicuous by its absence. 

WWF House Show Maple Leaf Gardens 9/18/88

Mr. Perfect vs. Jim Brunzell

MD: Hennig still had some remnants of Cool Curt here. No real holds. No real offense outside of punching, kicking, stomping, clotheslines, but there was a nice methodological way he went about things and he was definitely working the crowd. He also played king of the mountain a bit which is the most AWA thing ever. Brunzell is always competent but even Gorilla was ragging on him for not getting fiery enough soon enough. Hennig survived the dropkick by ending up in the ropes. Solid opener though Hennig wasn't quite established yet and no one bought Brunzell as a singles.

ER: Maybe I'm easy, but I thought this kicked ass. I love Cool Curt, and I thought this was a...well, Perfect...blend of late AWA Cool Curt and big bumping heel Mr. Perfect. It had a nice methodical build where Curt would just walk slowly, cockily around the ring, like someone with a back injury who couldn't bend down, or like someone holding something up their butt. This was barely 20 matches into Curt's Mr. Perfect run, and I love seeing early versions of famous characters, seeing what they were working on and what direction they were testing out, see what offense they were using that you know they wouldn't be using a couple years later. The build on this was strong, starting slow (slow enough to actually get a few Boring chants, in 1988 Toronto!) and leading to a great section of Hennig keeping Brunzell on the floor while he corncobbed around the ring, kicking Jim off the apron, punching him in the jaw, a long build with a great payoff of Brunzell fighting his way back into the ring and tossing Hennig to the floor (one of only "Hennig" bumps of the match). By the end of the match both guys were throwing legit potato shots to the face. I mean both guys were flat out slugging each other down the home stretch, and the Maple Leaf Gardens cameras give it this awesome "in the ring" feel where you could really see how hard these punches were landing. I don't think of Brunzell as a guy who punches people in the face, but he and Hennig had loaded fists that were cracking jaws in ways I wasn't expecting. Just look at how hard Brunzell was hitting Hennig with mounted punches, and how Hennig paid him back. No way you would expect that. 

Iron Mike Sharpe vs. Tommy Angel

ER: Canada's Greatest Athlete gets to pose and flex for his adoring countrymen, and I like this Sharpe/Angel pairing because it's a cool look at a mainstay WWF undercarder vs. someone who I think of as a perennial WCW job guy. Tommy Angel looks like the Cars' touring keyboard player and it takes Sharpe at least 3 or 4 minutes to finally lock up with him, and the more Sharpe goes for rope breaks and teases knuckle locks while WHOA WHOA WHOAing, the louder the fans get. It's house show beauty. This is all of the Sharpe greatest hits, and they all work. Everyone knows he's going to cheat when he backs up and begs off into a corner, the way he sells strikes verbally while mostly ignoring them physically, and they react when he runs headlong into arm drags. Sharpe is a big guy and a heavy bumper, and it's impressive that while he stalls a ton he can also be good at taking a big heavy bump and feeding quickly into another one. I think my very favorite piece of commitment from Sharpe is when he gets tied up in the top and middle rope like Andre, and after he manages to fend off Angel with a boot to the stomach he still demands the ref help get him untied. 

The commitment to do a silly spot like get tied up in the ropes and wailed on only works if it looks like you cannot actually get yourself untied from the ropes, and Sharpe understands that the bit doesn't really work if you just walk away after kicking your opponent off. No, this goofball who can't take a step without making noise understands that he is STUCK in those ropes, and him kicking Angel away only gives the referee time to help him finally do his job. Commitment to the bit is 90% of Sharpe's gag, so I always love seeing moments where he could have skipped a step but didn't. He's good at making Angel's nearfalls look like actual nearfalls, too: when Angel got a late match sunset flip there was a 50-50 shot that was going to be enough to walk away with a win, and Sharpe reacted like he knew those odds. For a guy who was mostly bullshit, Sharpe clearly understand what made that bullshit work, and how to pay that bullshit off. 

Brutus Beefcake vs. Ron Bass

MD: It's a new match and I thought maybe, just maybe, there might be some heat to it since it was after the X'ed out angle. Plus, Bass is more than solid all the way from 77 to 85 in at least a few territories. My professional review of this is that Beefcake maybe had one minute worth of viable stuff and then I literally fell asleep while watching it. We tend to find value in most wrestlers somewhere or another and Beefcake was over as a viable star with a connection to the crowd, but this was bad, at least the parts I can remember.

ER: Beefcake did look mostly bad on offense, and I'm pretty sure every single punch he threw landed somewhere past Bass's head. Whatever match there was, was made by Bass occasionally cutting Brutus off. Bass had a nice big kneelift and I liked how he popped Brutus in the eye with the handle of ol Betsy. Gorilla was already setting up the lawn trimmers vs. spurs hair vs. hair match that was still 4 months away, so that was kind of cool. It feels like we should have had more interesting Ron Bass matches from his WWF run.  

Powers of Pain vs. Bolsheviks

MD: It's always weirdly fascinating to see the Powers of Pain as a babyface act. The best part of it is always Barbarian doing sort of a primal scream with his arms out as part of a comeback or demolishing guys. They tried to make a real match out of this, which was a mistake. Barbarian let Warlord work most of it, not tagging even when you'd expect him to. Bolsheviks' only credible offense was shots off the second rope from behind as the ref was distraction. Part of me thinks that Barbarian could have had a singles babyface run but this wasn't quite meshing and it makes sense they do the double turn so soon after.

ER: Haters piled onto Gorilla Monsoon's commentary, but I think Monsoon spending 5+ minutes talking about the haircut choices of all the wrestlers in this match was perhaps the only thing that made this worth watching. It all started with Monsoon considering adopting Warlord's haircut as his own, since he "doesn't have much on top to work with any longer" and humoring Mooney's requests to also get a tattoo. "And Nikolai over there can't seem to decide whether he wants hair or wants to be completely bald," just really going through the benefits of a pronounced horseshoe vs. keeping two days of growth up there. It's bizarre to work this match in such a bland "these teams are equal" style, and more bizarre to have Warlord in there for the bulk of the match. The fans only really came alive during PoP's entrance and the match finishing Warlord powerslam/Barbarian diving headbutt (and Barbarian really flew 2/3 of the way across the ring on that headbutt), but the best parts of this were probably Zhukov's excellently timed axe handle into Volkoff's head, and Volkoff's fun bump over the top onto the ring announcer's table at the finish. Beyond that, enjoy marveling at how bad Warlord's kicks and stomps look. 


Jake Roberts vs. Rick Rude

MD: Sometimes it comes down to what they're trying to accomplish. Here, they wanted their cake and to eat it too and it wasn't nearly as good as if they just stuck to the path of least resistance. Rude was excellent here, every reaction just great. More than solid at leaning on Jake. He ducked the short arm clothesline early and took over for most of the match. The underlying story was that he'd pull down his normal tights for the Cheryl Roberts ones when Jake wasn't able to see, so you figure they're building to Jake finally seeing and then going nuts for a comeback right? Well that doesn't happen. They work it towards a more conventional comeback, then a ridiculous ref bump (he somehow got squashed *under* the DDT). A Rude Awakening got Rude a phantom pin while the ref was out, and then a quick roll up Roberts finish. It's only after the match when Rude doesn't care anymore that Jake sees the tights and rushes back in with Damien (the ref gets the snake in the chaos instead). By that point, Jake had already won, so while it's great for Rude to get menaced by the snake and all for the insult, everything would have been so much tighter and more visceral if they kept it within the confines of the match. Hell, have Jake lose it from seeing the tights, come back, get DQed for not letting up on Rude, and THEN bring the snake out to get over on both Rude and the ref. While the match was going on, there was a real sense of anticipation and build over a guy's tights of all things, so it's too bad that it didn't come to fruition. 

ER: Matt is spot on about this match and the one thing I want to add is more emphasis on just HOW stupid that DDT ref bump was. The referee just DOVE underneath the DDT before Jake executed it, and there is just zero reason for any person to do what the referee did in that scenario. I have never seen this done, and after seeing it here there's good reason for that. Jake grabs for the DDT, referee literally dives onto his stomach in between Rude and Roberts, Rude takes the DDT onto the ref. The physics of it don't even begin to make sense, the referee's motivation doesn't make sense, it just looked like a man who was actively trying to get another man to land on him. This referee was clearly a pervert who would see a woman readying herself to sit down on a chair, and then slip underneath real quick just so she would briefly sit on his lap. Derelict behavior. 

Big Bossman vs. Jim Powers

MD: This was for International Challenge so we might have had it before but it's found, if not new. It was very good too, with Bossman really asserting himself, and Powers trying to get shots in but getting cut off. Bossman had a ton of presence, jawing with his opponent and the crowd, shrugging off Powers' stuff, giving him just enough to keep up hope. Finally, Powers was able to knock Bossman back, stagger him, finally dropkick him into the ropes. When he went to finally knock him down, Bossman caught him in the slam and dropped him. This was balanced just right for what it was trying to do. Another point: yes, Monsoon spent a lot of the match giving Powers grief for trying too much power stuff against a massive opponent, but what he accomplished by doing so was making Bossman look big and forboding and unstoppable or at least very difficult to stop. He didn't make Powers look great, but Powers wasn't supposed to look great; Bossman was. He tore apart Powers' strategy but not the reality of what we were watching. It was because of that reality that he was tearing it apart. Just something to think about as we deal with grumpy announcers who manage to bury just about everything but themselves these days. Monsoon, believe it or not, was better than that here.

ER: Boss Man was so good. He really didn't have to give Powers a single thing here, and while he didn't give him anything big, he still treated literally every strike as something that he actually felt, something that at minimum moved him. Boss Man is so much larger than Powers, but I love how much offense he set up by being the one in motion. Powers wasn't sticking and moving so much as just moving, avoiding various Boss Man advances and sneaking in a punch. Boss Man would charge in and get punched in the face, and was so good at selling that a Jim Powers punch to the face would hurt even a gigantic man. Boss Man's timing and speed were so impressive, that when you combine that with high end physical selling it really makes a super worker. Not many were better at just putting the palm of his hand against their teeth and showing pain. Powers never had a chance in this match, but Boss Man made him look like someone who could at least leave a mark, and he did it while also making the middle rope nearly touch the apron when he threw all his weight over it and Powers. That finish run Boss Man Slam timing is the stuff of legend. 

Hulk Hogan vs. Haku

MD: Hogan was between his series of matches with Dibiase and with Bossman here. Haku had recently enough been made King. This was "War Bonnet" Hogan and Heenan was at ringside. It was a one off but it's a fairly unique house show match up. It's been a while since I saw the 88 Hogan act. It has a lot going for it: the reverberation at the start of Real American to get the crowd buzzing, the ridiculousness of the helmet but it also working as a prop to keep things different, and maybe some overall freedom since Hogan didn't need to be in title matches.

Hogan gave Haku a ton here. He wiped out both Heenan and Haku with the helmet pre-match (with a great Heenan bump and him being disheveled for the next fifteen minutes), but then got swept under by a bunch of Haku shots. Having not seen 88 Hogan for a bit, he was excellent working from underneath early, constantly crawling and scrambling back as he recoiled from the shots, retreating so as to try to create some space. Then, when he came back later, it was with a lot of hair pulls and cheapshots. It's all what you'd expect someone like Buddy Rose to do in that situation, but Hogan was a face. For all the talk of whether he was a bully or not, his physical actions here were very "heel coded" but they were also incredibly over with the crowd. He had three or four little hulk ups/comebacks in this but was cut off due to either Haku getting a shot in or Heenan interfering. They went into deep chinlock/sleeper land but they worked in and out of it at least a little bit. The finish, which had Hogan getting the helmet from Heenan and hitting the legdrop with it on his head felt pretty iconic for the time. I'd say overall this felt relatively fresh due to the unique opponent and showed at least a little reinvention for Hogan.

ER: Hogan vs. Haku from the SNME a month after this match was actually the first Hulk Hogan match I ever saw, and also the first episode of SNME I ever saw. I have basically no original memories of that match, but it's cool seeing an earlier, much better version of that match here. Hogan working from underneath is a much more interesting Hogan. Heenan is great at spacing out the distractions to keep Haku's control rolling, from his opening side flip bump after getting nailed by the helmet, to getting knocked off the apron with a punch, to coming in right at the finish and getting punched into the ring trying to get the helmet to Haku. Heenan may have been the best ever at using the ropes to facilitate his bumping. Haku's strikes looked a lot better than Hogan's, and I loved all of his trust kicks and big swinging arm attacks. Hogan had some nice stuff too, and I really missed his elbowdrop when he mostly dropped that from his offense by '89. Dropping two nice elbows and starting a third, only to wave it off and just scrape his boot across Haku's bridge is a great spot (whether it's heel-coded or not). His running elbows and clotheslines look light as hell but Haku gave them a lot of heft with his bumps. I think the best part of Hogan working underneath was it forced him to use speed, and it was cool seeing him move around real quickly here. His little blocks and reversals were really good, like early on when he blocked a 1-2 combo and threw punches of his own, or when he went with a Mongolian chop (!) after blocking a Haku strike later. This is a fully fleshed out, much better version of their SNME match the next month, and it's kind of amazing how different that Hogan was from this Hogan. 

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WWF Superstars 2/27/93: Three Maulings and an Under 5 Minute Classic

1. Yokozuna vs. Brian West

ER: This started with Brian West getting run right fucking over with one of Yokozuna's greatest clotheslines, and things didn't get any better for him. Yokozuna had two minutes to look like an unstoppable physical force, and he did it without breaking a sweat. He looked amazing in his white tights and black mawashi, and Brian West looked disgusting in his inverted singlet. West gets his ass kicked pillar to post while wearing a singlet where the straps go on the inside of the nipples. You never want to be out there in a dickey singlet top while a 500 pound man is throwing punches and headbutts at you. When the coroner is having your family identify the body, you don't want to be wearing something as stupid as Brian West. Yokozuna's legdrop is a thing of all time wrestling beauty: the form, the impact, the way he rolls off, the impressive safety of it all. He throws West with his belly to belly and sets up the banzai splash perfectly, running into West with another clothesline that drops him on his back, right into position. This was Yokozuna working with Terminator efficiency. Imagine a 500 pound Terminator chasing a kid through an arcade. Different ballgame. 

2. Nasty Boys vs. Mark Ming/Jim Gorman

ER: You always see people talk about the bad luck of showing up to your job duty and finding out you were opposite the Steiners, and that's valid. But the Nasty Boys are right there with them for most unfortunate gig worker opponent. Sometimes Knobbs and Sags show up with a literal lip licking intensity and desire to beat a couple guys up. It usually isn't unprofessional, and this match wasn't either. But there are levels of "professional" and a lot of them don't include elbowing a guy in the eye socket to start a Saturday morning. Maybe Mark Ming is a master salesman. There are several examples of Mark Ming doing weekend job work and maybe it would be worthwhile to examine his selling in those matches. So maybe Knobbs pulled his shot and Ming's selling is just so good that he slumped into the middle rope looking like a man who suddenly feared for his safety and was not expecting to be hit in the eyeball on this day. 

Knobbs looks so excited to beat Mark Ming's ass that he really had one of his best back alley ass kicking performances here, just a couple months before the Nasties' WWF exit. There are a lot of guys on this 1993 roster who are really busting their asses and wreaking hell on jobbers before the major spring roster transition. I love when the Nasty Boys throw out all civility and just fall on guys. Knobbs and Sags each do elbowdrops in this match that are real asshole older brother elbowdrops. They are big guys who just flop full weight onto other guys, leaping off one bed and onto the other with no regard for their younger brother or their bed frames. Sags hits an elbowdrop off the top so crushing that I would have rather had a couch thrown onto me. There's a shot of Knobbs standing on the apron at one point, leaning forward on his tippy toes over the top rope, wide eyed in almost childlike glee, licking his lips while Sags beat some dude's ass, and that shot kind of sums up the Nasty Boys. What's the proper term for an occasionally annoying asshole? Ask Rob Dibble or Norm Charlton. 

3. Doink vs. Big Boss Man

ER: This match is insane. It's Boss Man's last taped match of this WWF run, and it's a generous performance that helped Doink look like a very real threat. There's an alternate timeline 1993 where Vince doesn't panic after Hogan's long-forecast exit, and held steady through the year with Bret/Crush/Tatanka/Perfect/Duggan as the top babyfaces, and Yokozuna/Luger/Doink/Bigelow/Razor as the top heels, and every single person would have been better for it. Crush's feud with Doink killed his potential big run, but that's on WWF for unnecessarily keeping both men mired in it for half the year. If Luger stays heel, Crush slams Yokozuna, and Doink continues working amateur shootstyle matwork against guys 100 pounds heavier than he, THEN you have a promotion with a thriving summer. Heel Doink was an incredible role that Matt Borne played to perfection. People fondly remember the series with Mr. Perfect, the PPV gem against Bret, and weekend gems like his technical sprint with Bob Backlund, but I think this match against Boss Man was Borne at his aggressive bulldog matwork best. It being Boss Man's last WWF TV match for 5 years, and how dominant Doink was at the front end, looked like they were destroying Boss Man at his going away party. But the comeback came and showcased how at his best Boss Man was always just Dustin Rhodes, if Dustin was carrying an extra 100 pounds. I mean I don't remember Black Reign being anywhere near as good as Boss Man, but in theory.

Doink hits Boss Man upside the head with a cardboard box, which we are lead to believe was loaded, but either way Boss Man sells a box across the head as if someone cheap-shotted him with a pipe. It was almost shocking how dominant Doink was, but after a win over Tugboat and his mauling of Boss Man, this was the time to show how Doink could dismantle an opponent of any size. As I said up top, this match is insane. You don't often get to see a guy dressed up like a Spirit Store policeman working shootstyle amateur matwork with a clown, so this match had a deranged "technical street fight breaks out at a southern states Halloween party" feel to it. Doink twisted Boss Man's neck into a neckbreaker and dragged him to the mat with a drop toehold, then worked his legs into a fought for STF. It's so surreal watching a man in slightly rubbed off clown makeup work snug hammerlocks and half nelson grapevines against a man as large as Boss Man, and there's a moment where Doink traps Boss Man's arm and shoot turns him into a pin like he was Jack Brisco. Doink even plants him with a high back suplex and a tremendous fireman's carry takedown into an armbar! Doink completely eliminated the size difference while in control, making it look like Boss Man couldn't break these holds or stop these takedowns even if he knew they were coming. 

But Boss Man's comeback is believable and loudly received, as he press slams Doink off the top and goes on a real tear. I love when Boss builds speed and hits the ropes harder and harder, pushing the pace and throwing punches the entire time. He thunders into Doink with a corner clothesline and throws heavy corner punches, short uppercuts under the chin, a big boot, and slides to the floor with an uppercut after using his weight to see if he could break the ropes with Doink draped over them. Does the Georgia lawman get green spray paint sprayed into his eyes at the finish? Yes, but this was a fucking fight and it deserved to end dirty. 1993 Boss Man still had so much left in the tank. In his last couple weeks under contract he worked house show singles matches against Flair and Lawler, which I wish we had. We left a lot of fun potential Boss Man matches on the table that year, but in exchange we got the All Japan run that was probably the biggest gift his career gave us. Watch this match immediately.

4. The Narcissist Lex Luger vs. Jim Powers

ER: Luger and Powers matched up several times in short WCW singles matches a few years after this, Luger a major babyface and Powers with 40 extra pounds of muscle. Their March 1997 WCW match was their best competitive match, an entertaining babyface vs. babyface match. This one is a totally different dynamic obviously, with Luger as a freshly debuted top heel and Powers a babyface who was mostly working house shows. Powers looked like early career Rick Martel here, and four years later he looked like an American Gladiator.  Luger's work as the Narcissist was far and away the best work he ever did in WWF. His offense never looked better, his timing was better utilized, and it was a much more natural fit. He looked more at home taking apart Jimmy Powers in 90 seconds than he did in any 90 seconds of his All American Lex run. Powers was given some good offense in their 1997 encounters, but in 1993 it was all Luger, and he had a tight 90 seconds of material. 

I loved how they started this with Luger flipping out over Powers stealing a pose in his trifold mirror, blindsiding him with an awesome lariat and never letting up. He beats Powers up, and Luger is cool when he's smugly beating people up. He throws Powers chest first into the turnbuckles and lifts him high up for a back suplex, and the bionic forearm he hits would look like one of the sickest match finishers of 2022. Whoever was in production realized this, and we got to see that elbow from several different angles. Luger got up a real head of steam to hit the killshot, and it's a moved that looks as good in real time as it does in slo motion. The best slo mo replay showed Luger holding that elbow in tight to his body, fist to ear, Powers bumping it at the last possible split second. We got robbed of a two year Narcissist run, for nothing. Doctors get in the ring to attend to Powers after the match, Powers selling like he was knocked cold. They could have had Luger murdering men like this all year and built to a huge Bret/Luger title match at Summerslam. What might have been. 

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1993 WWF Surprises: Jerry Lawler vs. Jim Powers

Jerry Lawler vs. Jim Powers WWF Raw 4/5/93 

ER: How great is it that WWF allowed a segment like this to happen for Lawler's WWF TV wrestling debut, a wrestling build that played out like a Mr. Show sketch. Three different times throughout the episode we got a "Jerry The King Lawler In Action Next" graphic, and the first two times Lawler came out he just berated the Manhattan Center fans, acted disgusted by them, and baited them into chanting Burger King (an adorable-in-retrospect taunt) so many times. So early in the episode we get the onscreen graphic that Lawler's match is coming up next, and Lawler comes out, decides he doesn't want to wrestle for these fiends, and heads to the back. Middle of the show, same exact thing. By the time the same In Action Next graphic came up a third time, I was dying. And all of that just to build to a match with freaking Jim Powers!! I love it. 

And eventually, Lawler goes out and gives Powers more of a match than Powers had in at least two years, and what has to be the best singles match of Powers' career. Powers jumps Lawler at ringside before Lawler can go to the back a third time, which is a nice excuse for Lawler to take a bump into the ringpost. He gives Powers a ton of this match, bumping around for armdrags and dropkicks and two big backdrops. He whiffs on punches, really gives Powers every chance to shine that he hadn't had in ages. Lawler transitions to offense by holding the ropes to avoid a Powers dropkick, and I love how he gives Powers that extra rub, not even coming back by strikes but by narrowly dodging an attack. Lawler bumps all around for Powers' offense, but Powers doesn't do him as many favors, somehow botching Lawler throwing him into the turnbuckle. Powers thinks he was supposed to be choked on the top rope, and actually fights Lawler's movement, like he knew better! Lawler actually gives him a comeback, which was an unexpected twist. I assumed once Lawler took over he would take over for good, but this guy lets Powers have one last flurry and then catches him with a quick piledriver. To add icing, he held the front of Powers trunks as he pinned him, giving Powers a front wedgie and showing that he was still cheating just to beat Jim Powers. So good. Only Lawler can, in his WWF singles match debut (he was in the Royal Rumble a few months prior), make the choice to get *at most* 20% of the offense against a man who hadn't had a TV win in 3 years, and then cheat to win just in case. What absolute King sized confidence.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE JERRY LAWLER

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WWF Handheld Reno, NV 1/23/93

Running a 2,000 attendance house in a 12,000 capacity arena just a day before the Royal Rumble, this show had a couple unique matches I wanted to see and a nice snowy winter season happening outside. 

1/23/93 Full Show

The Predator vs. Jim Powers

ER: God bless early 90s camcorder dads who knew how short the battery life on their camcorders were, yet always overextended themselves thinking they could afford to record Jim Powers working Tony Garea tribute matches and still have enough battery for the main event. Memories of every plug of the school gymnasium being hogged by dad's charging their extra batteries. Predator is Horace Boulder under a mask, and it's really funny to me to have a guy named PREDATOR but have him working a lot of pointing at his head after dodged charges or complaining about Powers pulling the tights. Predator seems like a risky gimmick to assign someone in wrestling, but it also makes me laugh thinking about the Predator pointing at his head in the jungle right before Arnold sneaks up behind him with a schoolboy. Predator was the only one keeping this match interesting as Powers is all bad punches and arm wringers. There was a nice spot where Predator blocked a sunset flip and then punched the mat going after Powers, and I like  a guy who pulls his opponent face first into the turnbuckles by grabbing the waistband of his trunks. Predator does an admirable job selling Powers' punch and kneelift to set up his match finishing powerslam, and we collectively thank this camcorder dad for editing out a long Predator chinlock where Powers' abdomen was desperately heaving. 

Samu vs. Owen Hart

ER: This was a better version of the Powers/Predator match in half the time, with our undaunted director also opting to trim out Samu's chinlock. WWF loves having a babyface make their comeback after being held in a chinlock, and this man recognized what he should and shouldn't be filming. Here Owen gets that sunset flip that Jim Powers couldn't turn, but it only gets a one count and Samu hits him with a thrust kick after. There's a fun stretch where it felt like Owen could pull it off, after hitting a nice spinning heel kick and then knocking Fatu off the apron. I thought he was going to put Samu away with a missile dropkick, but Fatu snuck up and knocked Owen balls first into the top turnbuckle, Samu putting him away with a follow-up superplex. After the match, Owen continues selling his balls in the ring long after the Headshrinkers have left, even explaining to the ref what happened from his back. Owen makes the Vader V with his right hand and then uses the edge of his left hand to chop at that V, explaining what the top turnbuckle did to his balls. The ref nods understandingly before exiting the ring. 

Yokozuna vs. Earthquake

ER: This showdown would have looked insane to my 12 year old eyes, a clash of the two (probably) largest men I had ever seen. Little could anyone in attendance have known how rare this match was going to be. Their sumo match on Raw over a year later was their only televised match, and other than that they had only a few scattered house show matches, many of them in California. Seems cruel to present an Earthquake as a babyface in California but that's what they do. This was great in its too brief existence. We get some good shoving to start, Earthquake showing off his footwork to dodge Yokozuna's shoves, running into Yokozuna with shoulderblocks that make both take a step back. Yokozuna takes over with a back elbow to counter an Earthquake avalanche, and runs over Earthquake like it's nothing. Maybe I just get dewy-eyed and sappy during a wrestling match between two gigantic fat guys, but I tell you the air went out of the crowd when Earthquake took that back bump. Yokozuna dropped a gorgeous legdrop and Earthquake did a full body spasm like he had just been decapitated, and I was shocked at how quickly and easily Yokozuna put things away with the banzai splash. This match felt big enough to be a PPV attraction and get 12 minutes. But some things can only be contained in short starbursts. This was only their second match, and all 3 of these minutes were great. But it's a shame that we never got to see them have an actual war of the colossus.

The Beverly Brothers vs. The Undertaker

ER: This was advertised on the arena sign as Undertaker vs. Papa Shango, so I guess they felt like since they blatantly false advertised one of the two matches they announced for this show, the best way to pay that back was by just having three minutes of Undertaker laying waste. The great twist, is that I think this 3 minute sprint is more entertaining than any Undertaker/Soul Taker match I can remember. Undertaker vs. Papa Shango doesn't play as big as it should, but this handicap match was like a T-Rex vs. two velociraptors. But, well, two dumb jock velociraptors. This looked like it was going to be a one-sided mauling, both Beverlys getting run over by Undertaker for a minute straight after cheapshotting him before the bell. Bloom and Enos are both great bumpers, and they play this match like they were Kaientai, and it was the best. They get some brief control, when Bloom hits Taker with a chair and Enos snaps his neck over the top rope. The crowd reactions for Taker's deadman sit-ups keep getting louder, and the Beverlys act more and more annoying the longer they're in control. Undertaker has a fun time with the whole thing, and it looked like he was doing his own separate bit at ringside as he kept stumbling and falling into Mike McGuirk. Beverlys hit a bunch of elbowdrops after hitting a tandem vertical suplex, but leave their backs turned for far too long around a man known for rising from the dead, and the Reno kids lost it when he sat up again and ran wild. Enos takes a huge cartwheeling bump over the top to the floor to sell an uppercut, Bloom gets finished in ring by the Tombstone.

Berzerker vs. Bob Backlund

ER: Berzerker is a great house show act, as he works with the crowd and does unique bits more than any other wrestler from this era, even more than Flair. Here he barks ar Backlund and starts whipping at him with the belt from his tunic while Backlund is folding his ring jacket, that belt coming closer and closer with each whip. The crowd reacts with some real hostility to this one, the Reno crowd booing Backlund's dorkiness at the bell and only mildly getting behind him when he swept Berzerker's leg into Berzerker doing the splits. Berzerker getting his leg swept or kicked into doing the splits is the kind of spot that should get a big reaction every time, but this is a weird pairing and the crowd didn't seem to like it. It's funny when Berzerker rolls out of the ring and is out of camera sight, but you can hear him Hussing around ringside at people. They take a long time to lock up, with Berzerker repeatedly challenging Backlund to reach up and grab his right hand way up in the air, and Backlund responding with trepidation. 

The crowd seems annoyed that the match isn't starting at first, and then Berzerker keeps milking the annoyed reaction to build more and more heat, until the crowd is loudly mocking Berzerker with Huss chants and he is doing back bumps out of frustration. Berzerker finally does get that knucklelock and forces Backlund to his knees, and Backlund valiantly fights to his feet before rolling through to his own top wristlock, which Berzerker breaks with his fist. It's like they're working a Jack Brisco/Killer Khan match straight out of 1979, and that, while simple at times, mostly works. Berzerker eventually takes one of his big backwards bumps to the floor and then marches angrily down the aisle, drawing heat the whole way. In ring he hits a couple of bodyslams and jaws at fans, and works a long (probably too long) bearhug which eventually ends with Backlund somewhat lamely just falling on Berzerker for the pin. A fan either near the camera or holding the camera thinks aloud that this was one of the worst matches he has ever seen. This was not a classic, and was somehow the second longest match on the show, but it did have its rewards.  

Ric Flair vs. Mr. Perfect

ER: This was a real crowd pleaser, the kind of strong 15 minute match that you'd want to see if you were excited to see either of these two, checking off all the greatest hit Flair boxes without ever feeling like it was coasting. Flair is a guy who can play the greatest hits and not feel like he's bored with them and can still throw in a couple surprises with a smile. It's cool seeing how big he can work a house show match, taking some painful high bumps (on a hard ring) while working toward specific sides of the crowd. He's a guy who is excellent at causing a stir in a specific section of the building, knows how to pick fights with people from the ring, and knows how to get great heat for 15 minutes. He does all his shtick and does it get: He shoves Perfect a couple times and gets slapped each time, he takes a long walk down the aisle after eating a shoulderblock, he gets caught going up top and takes a hard bump getting press slammed down, obviously he's going to take a high backdrop. 

When he's on offense he's cheating, and it gets a rise the entire time. I'm gonna give the cameraman credit for partially obscuring the lens when Flair threw a low kick and eye poke, as if he was helping Flair cheat to transition. Flair worked over Perfect's arm and held a grounded headlock while planking his legs on the middle rope. He does the full routine on two sides of the ring, and the spot our cameraman picked couldn't have framed it any better. Flair was practically working this entire routine for this guy. Flair really rubs his cheating in to our side of the ring, at one point holding just one straightened leg on the ropes while bicycling his free leg. We also get a perfectly framed shot of Flair holding his calf over Perfect's throat, like Flair was putting on a show especially for us. The finish stretch is great, with stiff chops from both, Flair getting his trunks yanked down for a good sunset flip nearfall, and then keeping them down to the glee of the crowd when he ducks his way right into a Perfect Plex. Classic house show stuff, 100% success rate. 

Shawn Michaels vs. Marty Jannetty

ER: Shawn gets announced first and does a great job getting heat just by taking off his chaps. He also tries to grab Mike McGuirk a couple times and it gets people upset because he looks like a guy who would definitely try to grab a woman. Marty is wearing fantastic turquoise and zebra tights with perfect tassels, honestly some of his best gear. A stark, damning contrast to the atrocities he would would inflict upon the Royal Rumble crowd the next night. This match had the finish stretch of that next night's match but was pretty different overall, and probably even better. There's a long Michaels abdominal stretch spot that has an excellent first act but then probably carries on a bit too long in the second act before rushing through the third. You can usually wrap up your abdominal stretch spot in one act, but it was still a great hammy Michaels performance. The best kind of hammy Michaels is house show shithead Michaels, where he's shaking his ass at the crowd and giving people in the front row cocky asshole smirks, and those abdominal stretches give him plenty of time to rub some specific fans' noses in it. Michaels goes into control really quick in this match (he skipped and floundered around the ring for a lot of okay Marty offense the next night), sending Jannetty frisbeeing into the ringpost. 

He works over Marty's arm with hammerlocks and strikes, and once he's worked over the arm enough he starts working over Marty's midsection. I love when a heel switches targets after suitably damaging one area. There's a great spot where he drops Jannetty stomach first over a chair on the outside, which at least gives us good reason to work that abdominal stretch for so long. The great first act on that stretch that I mentioned earlier, is Michaels locking it in near the ropes (for cheating purposes) and a nice build to Marty hip tossing his way out of it. But right as Marty gets there, Shawn holds onto the tope rope to block, and the blocked toss re-injures Marty's arm. GREAT spot. The finish stretch has a lot of similarities to the PPV match the next night, working out the timing for a couple of spots: Jannetty catching Michaels with a DDT after Michaels thought he got out of the way of a fistdrop, and Michaels missing a superkick only to be nailed with one for a close 2. If anything, Earl Hebner was really rushing counts, which didn't give a lot of time for the nearfalls to settle in, but added a manic feel that the crowd did respond to. Since Sherri wasn't here, the finish was different, simple, and well done. Michaels gets thrown into the buckles and slumps into them, but ducks out of the way of a great Jannetty missed avalanche and then scrambles onto him for a quick pin. He shoots a quick Fuck Yeah glance at a person at ringside he'd been taunting the whole match, and BAM, Shawn Michaels has left the building. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BERZERKER

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WCW Worldwide 8/22/98

Saturn vs. Mark LaRoux

ER: This must be an early Lash appearance as I don’t remember him being called Mark LaRoux. It’s usually a tough draw when you pull job duty against Saturn, and LaRoux earned his payday here. Saturn, the guy doing high arcing half nelson suplexes at noon on Sundays. Hard clothesline, that suplex, and the best death valley driver in wrestling, this was quick.

Bobby Blaze vs. Brian Adams

ER: This is a full Adams squash, Blaze gets nothing whatsoever, but Blaze makes all of Adams big slams and backbreakers look good. Adams has his big tilt-a-whirl backbreaker which looks good, drops a nice leg, hits a big press slam into a gut buster, all of it looks good. But Blaze is good enough that we could have had an interesting match. Really the best thing about this was Vincent as Adams’ second. That guy was a great hype man and knew how to carry himself with braggadocio, proud to be the bottom rung on the nWo ladder. When Adams went for the press slam Vincent came running around the ring holding both his arms up, like he was sitting on the sidelines when Steph did a no look pass leading to a Klay 3.

Jim Powers vs. Mark Guthrie

ER: Man Mark Guthrie? I had no idea how many randos WCW was using around this time. This must have been right before the next crop of Power Plant guys came through. Guthrie has a real bad dirtbag kid mullet, looking more homemade than styled, the kind of cut that was looking dated in 1995. Powers tries to bring energy to this, hits a nice shoulderblock, decent kneelift, good enough powerslam. This was another short one, kind of a dull couple weeks of WCW syndie TV here. We need a little help on this episode.

Roadblock vs. Mike Sanders

ER: Roadblock heard my plea and answered my prayer! I barely recognized Sanders here, he had a shaved head and wore a plain black singlet. I guess with Sanders and LaRoux showing up here, we ARE in the period were new Plant guys were getting called up. Roadblock works a fun squash, throws a big lariat and hits a big powerslam, misses a huge elbowdrop off the middle rope (really crashing the landing), and he does cool stuff like sticks his knee up in the corner when Sanders tries to ram him. The rope flip moonsault is nice and squishing, always a finisher I love. After the match some dad with a bad mustache is angrily booing Roadblock, but…was he cheering for Mike Sanders? That’s weird. Cheer Roadblock, he’s an awesome big fat guy!

Los Villanos vs. Doc Dean/Manny Fernandez

ER: So, you know by now, this is not THEE Manny Fernandez, but I do like this Manny Fernandez leaning into the camera on his entrance to say “I’m back, baby!” Another fan is doing the “We’re Not Worthy!” bow to the Villanos as they come out, and I now want to meet that man. It’s always going to be a fun watch when you spot a Villanos tag in the wild where you're practically guaranteed their victory. Doc and Manny didn't have ZERO chance, but I'VE never seen either of them pull a win, and we've at minimum seen Villanos beat Disorderly Conduct. So we get to watch a match where the Villanos are showing off their offense and getting to act like the bigger team, like the bullies, and it's a rare treat. Villanos threw a bunch of nice lariats and it's cool seeing them control a team that aren't other luchadors. It's not a total squash as Manny has a brief quick run where he shows off a tight 5 seconds of material, but you want this because it's the Villanos main eventing a taping and cutting off the ring on a couple white guys as the babyfaces. The Doomsday Device crossbody was a great finish, with Manny strongly missing an avalanche chest first, and I thought it was cool that they opted to do their finish on the larger of the two opponents. Nice flex that they earned.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

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73 Shockingly Great Berzerker Matches. #54 Will Leave You Speechless!

1. The Viking vs. Tommy Landell - Superstars 1/28/91

"I'm the guy who's gonna get his hands on ya! I'm the guy who's gonna know exactly what to do when he gets his hands on ya! I'm the guy who's gonna conquer the WWF and won't be stopped! I'm the Viking!! Huss! Huss! Huss!" ~The Berzerker

The big Superstars debut, with Nord merely referred to as The Viking, billed from Iceland. Amusingly, he gets a cut screen promo and essentially cuts a promo exactly like Jim Duggan. "I'm the guy who's going to beat you up with my fists!" In 1991 I only knew of Iceland because of Carmen San Diego, but I don't think I pictured their people as a large screaming white man with a Midwest accent threatening a beating with fists. Viking has a pretty awesome debut as he certainly acted like no other wrestler. He quickly boots Landell in the stomach and drops him with a powerslam, then runs the ropes really fast and starts doing back bumps. He drops a big knee, ties Landell in the ropes and then does a brutal running high kick to Landell's chin, then whips him hard into the mat with a front vertical suplex. After, he hits his finisher, which is picking up a man and throwing him over the top rope to the floor, to win by countout. Then he runs the ropes even more, really fast. And then, completely unexpectedly, he hits a freaking plancha on Landell, while Landell hasn't even gotten to his feet!! Nord is a huge guy, and he just launched himself over the top to the floor, essentially splashing a recumbent Landell. Tons of people in the crowd noticeably jump out of their seat, understandably so. I don't think anybody was expecting to see that. Pretty excellent start to our Berzerker love fest.

2. The Viking vs. David Isley - Wrestling Challenge 1/29/91

A pretty by the books Viking match, against owner of a Tarheels starter jacket David Isley. Isley got off a little easier than Landell, but Viking still hit a super high dropkick, awesome falling front slam, big front suplex, and got chucked to the floor. AND, he did his crazy plancha AGAIN! I've never seen this. It's like Super Calo's rolling senton to the floor, except a giant 300+ pound man is just doing a plancha splash while his opponent is lying on the mats. It's insane. He lands in a half splash/half kneedrop, just a pillaging lunatic flinging himself way down onto his opponent. It's a crazy spot for anybody, let alone a man of this size. The next year, Isley did an All Japan tour.

"Mr. Fuji go faaaar and wide, and look what I found: The Viking! So vicious, so rugged, so devious, and only I, Mr. Fuji, can control him" ~Mr. Fuji

3. The Viking vs. Danny Brazil - Superstars 2/18/91

Dude, Dan Brazil. Who. Are. You. This ain't his first rodeo, and he looks a lot like Dennis Stamp. A little grimy, and he leaps out of the way of Viking's dropkick, but makes up for it by standing up to three running big boots. Viking tosses Brazil to the floor, and after he's counted out he does his plancha kneedrop right to Brazil's chest. "Well, that'll end a career," Roddy Piper says nonchalantly.

"Only I can control the Viking. Who is the most cruelest, meanest and wildest wrestler in the WWF? I will turn him loose on EVERYbody!" ~Mr. Fuji

4. The Viking vs. Brian Costello - Wrestling Challenge 2/19/91

Viking tries a couple new things here, mainly a huge flying shoulderblock, coming in fully horizontal at Costello's head. He does his great falling front slam, ties Costello in the ropes and delivers two big boots (except Costello is short, and usually Viking gets the boot under their chin so they spring back and forth in the ropes. Here he just clonks Costello in the forehead a couple times and Costello doesn't move a lot). He tosses him to the floor for the count out win, then does an awesome kneedrop plancha to his gut. The kneedrop plancha will never not be awesome. In 1994 Costello would get to go on a tour of All Japan, even teaming up a few times with some guy named John Nord.

"Berzerker make Mr. Fuji VERY proud. He a little crazy, like Mr. Fuji, and make opponents suffer hahaha." ~Mr. Fuji

5. Berzerker vs. Jim Kolhep - Superstars 3/26/91

This starts with Berzerker throwing a lariat at the back of Kolhep's head, then bulldozing him around with 3 JYD headbutts. Berzerker throws a big boot to Kolhep's chest, takes a couple back bumps, then plants him with that front slam, twice! Kolhep takes a nasty spill, getting tossed to the floor almost past the mats into the entrance way. Berzerker makes up the difference by just crashing into him off the plancha shoulder/side first. He landed flush on Kolhep and then HUSS'd off into the good night.

6. Berzerker vs. John Allen - Prime Time Wrestling 3/26/91

Allen is a bigger guy and takes some great flop bumps. And this is really go go go and a high end squash. Berzerker delivers two falling front slams, super high dropkick, tons of big boots, does a fabulous JYD headbutt to Allen's ribs (and he really didn't hold back on it, just flew into him head first without pulling it), and really boots Allen under the chin a couple times while tied in the ropes. Allen was a good sport here. And after the match Berzerker does his best (so far) plancha to the floor, just splatting a prone Allen.

7. Berzerker vs. Dan Robbins - Superstars 4/15/91

Dan Robbins looked like an early 20s version of a kid roaming around a trailer park with a Koolaid mustache. He's got a 1991 John Daly style chopped blonde mullet, but with a full dark brown beard, and a couple high bicep tattoos that don't look like much of anything, but you know they weren't well thought out. He's also a crummy bumper, taking things rigid and not believable. Berzerker hits a great over the shoulder powerslam, and does what looks like a shoot biel, as Robbins doesn't help him at all and it looks like Berzerker just picking up and throwing the guy. Robbins does get tossed to the floor nicely, and Berzerker does an awesome rolling knee drop plancha.

8. Berzerker vs. Randy Fox - Wrestling Challenge 4/16/91

Fox is a lean and muscular guy with a great head of hair on him, looking like same-period Steve Vai. And Berzerker must despise guitar histrionics as he charges hard at Fox and just headbutts him in the stomach, pushing Fox all the way into the buckles with just his head. I've never seen that before. He just treated Fox like a tackling dummy, and then tackled him with his damn head. Then kicked him in the face. Huge chokeslam, then he violently ties Fox in the ropes and clonks him with a couple boots (begging his master Fuji to let him do a second one). Fox gets tossed to the floor and bounces around off the guardrail in comical floppy ways. Berzerker does a slingshot bombs away from the ring to the floor, then does a couple back bumps back in the ring. Poor Randy Fox.

9. Berzerker vs. British Bulldog - UK Rampage 4/24/91

This was a shockingly long and shockingly Berzerker-dominated match. This match goes 16 minutes!  That's an awful lot of time, and much of it is spent with Berzerker in control, totally dominating Smith. Smith would get occasional hope spots but they would mostly get shut down, almost immediately. Berzerker hadn't been in WWF very long at this point, and hadn't had any televised matches against "name talent", so it's surprising they'd let him have a 16 minute match against Smith, who I imagine was one of the big draws on this show. That's a big position for him to be put in. But maybe they knew something nobody else knew, as he was awesome here. The first thing that jumps out is just how massive he is, really towering over Bulldog. And the whole match is just Berzerker crushing Bulldog, hitting shoulderblocks, legdrops, locking him in a nice cravate, big bearhug, booting him in the face, hitting a couple powerslams, etc. He also showed how huge a bumper he was, taking three separate, increasingly crazy bumps to the floor. The first was off a clothesline and was his trademark fast flip back over the ropes and landing feet first on the floor. I'm still blown away by this bump as I've never seen a guy his size take it this way, this quickly, this wildly. He did another one later that was even faster. But his craziest bump comes when he ties Bulldog up in the ropes, doing his trademark big boots to a trapped opponent. He hits a couple, comes running in really fast for another, Davey Boy moves and Berzerker misses a high speed running boot over the top to the floor. Absolutely insane spot. Later he takes a mammoth backdrop bump, getting more height than maybe anybody I've seen, as if he was Zach Gowen getting launched by Brock Lesnar. Just crazy. Berzerker even hits an all time great piledriver, letting Bulldog think about it for a long time and just planting him. A truly great piledriver. So the match had plenty of great moments, and Berzerker looked really great, but there really wasn't enough drama to justify the long run time. For dominating as long as he did, Berzerker never really got any convincing nearfalls. And while he fed into Davey Boy's end of match comeback nicely (loved the missed shoulderblock into the buckles to set up a powerslam), it did feel that after a while they were just killing time - a lot of time - until Davey Boy's inevitable comeback. Still, I love that they trusted him to go out there and give them 16 minutes, and considering how little Bulldog did it was a pretty impressive time fill.

10. Berzerker vs. Jim Powers - Prime Time Wrestling 4/30/91

Powers gets a full entrance and sprints to the ring, surely wanting his beating to be done quicker. Berzerker does little frog hops around the ring and does shadow karate. He hits a big boot and bigger leg drop (surprised they let someone the same size as Hogan use a legdrop as just a throwaway move), then starts working over Powers' knee with JYD headbutts!!!! That is awesome!! Just headbutting Powers right in the hammy. He whips Powers into the ropes and catches a Powers crossbody with a chokeslam! Just yanked him out of the air and dropped to his knee with a chokeslam. So awesome. Powers tries dropkicking Berzerker in the knee, but aims too low and just looks like he slid terribly into 3rd. Berzerker covers for him by just kneedropping him. Powers goes for a crossbody, gets caught again, this time with the falling front slam. IMPORTANT: Berzerker wins the first match I've seen of his by pinfall, after hitting a killer kneedrop from the middle rope. History, right there.

"I'm going to turn him loose on EVERYbody in the World Wrestling Federation! HAhahahaha!" ~Mr. Fuji

11. Berzerker vs. Gary Jensen - Superstars 5/6/91

One of the least notable Berzerker matches so far. Jensen has a hard time staying on his feet, really staying down selling far too long. Berzerker clubs him, Jensen stays down for 15 seconds, so Berzerker frog hops around the ring. He hits a killer powerslam and does then bombs away plancha, and Jensen takes a decent bump off the toss to the floor, but this was low end on the Berzerker squash totem.

More tomorrow!!


COMPLETE & ACCURATE BERZERKER

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Worldwide 9/15/96

I'm currently on a train from San Diego on up to LA to visit my buddy Will and go to an Angels/Dodgers game. It's a 3 hour train ride, and I figure what better way to tell everybody on the train "don't talk to this loser for 3 hours" than put on 18 year old wrestling with all the gassed bodies, mullets, and neon singlets that 1996 still contained. I snuck on train liquor, I got grapz on the laptop (grapz on lapz!) and I'm set.

1. Jim Powers & Renegade vs. Harlem Heat

Haven't done one of these in awhile and boy did I pick a winner to jump back in on. And you know I talk shit about these guys (for 100% deserved reasons) but this was probably better than it had any right to be. I mean, it wasn't great, but you look at those 4 names and…woof. Harlem Heat has been maybe my least favorite thing about this project, as they're both awful, sloppy, horrible long match workers. But this was probably the Heat match I've enjoyed most from the era so far. When they're in there with a more work rate team it's just always sloppy and awful and ugly looking. But here they are with a couple gassed guys trying to be athletic and it's pretty fun. Really Renegade and Powers don't seem much worse than Heat here, pretty even working level. Powers - despite his ghastly 0.5 Abyss punches - was kinda fun; had a nice go behind, stomped Booker in the face at one point, worked an arm wringer alright. Renegade looked awful but bless him for trying. He tried a sort of slingshot dropkick at one point and kinda landed one foot and almost buckled on the other..but shit it's Renegade trying to do some shit. Good for him. His body press earlier was decent enough. Booker hits a wild standing spin kick that looked cool, and match ended with a potentially grisly double powerbomb where the timing was all off and Renegade almost gets spiked. Harlem Heat: We'll almost dump you on your head at least once in a 5 minute match!

2. V.K. Wallstreet vs. Ice Train

Woman across the aisle from me has a Powerpuff Girls text alert song, the song by Apples in Stereo, and it goes off every fucking time she gets a text. Which is like every minute. I like Apples in Stereo. I do not like this trend  though. Mute yer phone! I'm watching my trash on headphones, because I'm courteous like that. She also has a shirt that says "I woke up looking this good" which is really only a shirt that can be properly worn by really fat men who are comfortable in their skin. If you have even a tiny amount of good looks in you, this shirt will make you look like a real asshole. And worse, if you're like this woman, you don't want to risk the shirt sounding 100% believable. Somebody wears a shirt that says "I woke up looking this good", and my reaction is "Yeah. That probably checks out," and that can't be the reaction they wanted. Anyway, holy shit Ice Train both looked awful in this, AND won the match in 90 seconds. Was not expecting that. Wallstreet gets a clothesline, rest of the match is all Ice Train. Was not expecting a finish this soon as Ice Train doesn't do any cool squash match offense. He does a body slam, knocks VK's head into the turnbuckles a few times, Irish whips him into the turnbuckles…and then pins him with a standing splash. Huh.

Awwww yeah a commercial for Last Man Standing! That movie was pretty awful but totally enjoyed by me. Fun Bruce Dern role, fun William Sanderson role, Christopher Walken as a villain which is always great. Total piece of garbage, but I'll watch Walter Hill's garbage before almost any other director's garbage. Love that guy's vision, whatever it is.

3. Pat Tanaka vs. Rey Misterio Jr.

Goldberg's music hits and the one the only Pat Tanaka comes strolling out in his kung fu jacket. Boy that's weird. I would've loved to see this get some time, but it goes 2:15. Great. Tanaka is working a weird Kung Fu master, lots of odd tai chi poses and karate strikes. It's amusing so I get the guy trying to find a gimmick for himself. Why not? Rey is a little sloppy with some of his stuff, he kinda whiffs on a headscissors that Tanaka has to bump anyway. But this era Rey is always super watchable due to his bumps. Here he gets planted with a powerbomb off a rana attempt and does a great flip bump on a clothesline. Heenan is pretty smart on commentary saying that in the future guys will try and imitate Rey, but nobody will be as good at it.

We get a commercial for Levis wide leg jeans. "You can live your life however you want. I'm gonna live mine WIDE." Catch that wide leg fever.

4. John Tenta vs. Konan

Weird little match with Tenta taking 90% of it. Tenta had his ridiculous half shaved skullet at this point, which really seems like the next look someone like Skrillex will have (maybe without Tenta's cop mustache though). Konnan is usually pretty selfish in his matches, making all his opponents work within his sequences, but Tenta takes this whole thing. I wish he looked better as I'm a Tenta fan, but he didn't look great. He didn't look bad, still throwing a great elbow, nice legdrop and a nice powerslam. But he also had a lot of less than devastating stomach kicks and an ugly missed splash. Konna wins with a somersault senton off the middle rope to a standing Tenta. Never seen Konnan pull that one out before.

5. Hugh Morrus & MAXX vs. Nasty Boys

Wasn't expecting much from this, but whatever it was, was okay. Nasty Boys both made a point to stiff Maxx (ne Muscle) for the whole match, every time he was in. Knobbs threw a bunch of nasty punches  to the side of Maxx's head, and Sags did the same. Maxx does his part by not shying away from them, so that's kinda neat. Hugh Morrus is junk, but he hit his moonsault pretty flush here and mostly stayed out of the way. Knobbs took a nice bump after getting posted by Maxx on the floor. So much like our opening tag, 4 guys I'd rather not watch a bunch, putting forth pretty decent stuff. I'm okay with this.

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Worldwide 5/11/97

1. Alex Wright vs. Bobby Eaton

Short match that could have been really good, but was more of a Wright moves showcase. The whole thing goes only a couple minutes. Eaton's offense was one great looking punch, and then a missed punch that led to the finishing German suplex.

2. Kevin Sullivan vs. Doc Dean

This was during that period where 75% of the match was Sullivan throwing his opponent to the floor so Jacqueline could do her sequence of snap mare-body slam-suplex while the announcers flipped their shit. "She's a woman! But she's doing these moves to a MAN!" It's main purpose was to turn 1 minute Sullivan matches into 3 minute Sullivan matches, so I'd call that a fail.

Good lord there are so many ads for vacationing in Myrtle Beach. Every commercial break, Myrtle Beach ad. I've never seen these before on any other WCW episode. It's like they had an ad budget and just blew it all on one Saturday night. The ads show a lot of golfing and old people having a good time having dinner together. Sounds nice.

3. Mark Starr vs. Ice Train

Segunda Caida: Now with more stuff written about Mark Starr than ANY other website!! Because Mark Starr is actually really good, and ends up losing to Ice Train on these type of shows pretty often. Schiavone says Ice Train will be a "big star" in this business in a few years, which even without the benefit of hindsight seems like a bad projection. I mean, did Tony really think a 35 year old juiced up guy with a high top fade was really gonna break through and it was only experience that was holding him back? Starr looks great here bumping around for all of Ice Train's powerslams and shoulder blocks. Ice Train looks like a guy who wouldn't look very good without Starr bumping around for him.

4. Konnan vs. Johnny Swinger

God so much Konnan on these '96/'97 shows. Here he busts out a nice octopus hold on the mat (that takes him like 20 seconds to apply). Swinger has nice kicks to the stomach. And then Konnan drops Swinger right on his head with the 187. I mean good lord there has to be some vertebrae damaged there. Was there just some company directive to shoot injure Swinger whenever he was your opponent?  I'm glad he eventually got some WWE paydays.

5. La Parka vs. Robbie Brookside

I was not actually aware that Parka got any singles matches against non-lucha guys, but here he was totally dominating Brookside. So that means he was getting a minor push as early as '97, yet somehow they never pushed him any further than this, or being the guy who cleans the ring in lucha 6 mans. Obviously one of WCW's many screw-ups was not giving more of a push to Parka. A chubby, dancing skeleton who did corkscrew moonsaults and hit people with chairs. He does kip-ups, he kicks people in the face, and he would have sold tons of merchandise. I'm not saying he should have been World Champ (although really, it would have worked) but the fans loved cheering Park.

6. Jim Powers & Bobby Walker vs. Public Enemy

I know most of you are with me on this, but there are many combinations of 1997 WCW wrestlers that I would rather see show up as the main event of an episode that still has 12 minutes remaining. And you know? This isn't totally terrible. Powers is actually alright as a heel, which is a shame that he works face 95% of the time. I'm a fairly easy man to please. I know how to judge things on scale. Every match doesn't have to be Dundee/Lawler. And this match really didn't need much to exceed expectations. Walker hit a nice elbow drop, Grunge hit a nice elbow drop, Rocco tossed out an ugly asai moonsault, I fell asleep for the final two minutes...

maybe this wasn't actually that good.

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Worldwide 11/16/97

1. Los Villanos vs. Barry Houston/Doc Dean

Oh hell yes. I don't even need to watch. This is 8 stars. But of course I watch and it's awesome. I wanted more but was happy with the 4 minutes it went. It was cool to see Villanos as the guys squashing jobbers. I don't think it happened very often as I've seen them eke out wins, but never seen them in WCW as "well these guys are clearly going over" guys before the bell. Tony and Bobby put them over huge the whole time, with Tony actually being able to tell them apart and Brain going on about how crafty they are and how they'd be challenging for the tag titles. It's great seeing them jaw with the crowd and sneak in cheap shots from the apron. Houston you know as the lost superworker of the 90s, able to adapt to any style. It's a shame he had that chubby face and Napoleon Dynamite mouth so never got a national shot. Damn I wish some of his sessions in the WWF "Funkin Dojo" made tape. We need to make a definitive Barry Houston comp, with his WCW work, any IWA Japan work and whatever Memphis work exists. Who wants the Complete & Accurate Barry Houston?? After the win the Villanos do a bunch of stooging with the crowd, shadowboxing with each other and doing a bunch of cocky lucha tumbling post match. V4 does the worm into a headstand into a bridge and the fans are hating it. So awesome to see these guys actually treated as something important.

2. Mike Anthony vs. Steve Regal

Oh my god this was amazing! I don't think I've ever heard this match mentioned but although just 4 minutes long it's one of the most awesome Regal performances ever. If anybody needed a 5-minutes-or-less primer on why Regal is incredible this would be a perfect "greatest hits" to show them. He works a whole bunch of trippy British matwork into it and does a bunch of cool standing wristlock reversals and does all sorts of neat things like grabbing a wristlock, kicking Anthony (you've maybe seen him from his ECW run as Mike Lozansky) with yakuza kick variations, stomping his fingers, throwing brutal knees from the clinch, etc. He was just dishing all sorts of cool things and then strutting around and flexing and stooging. Anthony threw some Lance Storm-level soft offense and deserved to be clowned.

3. Jim Powers vs. Dave Taylor

Before the match they have a Dave Taylor promo/highlight package that includes a genial sit down interview that shows what a nice cool guy he is and how excited he is to be in WCW, makes a joke about how he's accomplished a lot because he's so damn old. And then we cut to his entrance where he's jawing with fans about being a better human being than them because he's British. What? Match was weird as Taylor put over Powers a bunch. Probably put over Jim Powers a bit too much, as he was Dave Taylor and he was wrestling Jim Powers. But Taylor still got to be Taylor and that's something I will always greatly love. He threw some great duplexes, and his floatover butterfly suplex finisher was epic. Also of note, Tony called him "Regal" twice in the match, and Powers threw possibly the greatest punch of his career here. I mean, I think he accidentally punched Taylor in the face, and rightfully got the shit kicked out of him for it, but it was still likely the best Jim Powers punch ever.

Yeah we got a commercial for Valtrex! You know that they should have gotten wrestlers themselves to be spokesmen for a herpes medication, but I suppose just advertising during wrestling works well enough. But seriously, what WCW contracted wrestler during this time do you think MOST needed a Valtrex prescription? I'm gonna go with Bobby Blaze, just for reasons. Dude looked like he just...got with the rattiest ring rats.

4. Bobby Eaton vs. Kevin Northcutt

I used to think Northcutt was all sorts of cool because he was an indy guy with size (my 15 year old opinions may have been affected by his PWI 500 placement). Turns out, he was just a tall tubby dude with soft offense wearing latex overalls like Willem Dafoe in Streets of Fire. This works because it's just Northcutt missing offense, followed by Eaton doing an awesome punch, followed by Bobby and Tony talking about how great Eaton's punches are. Eaton also hits his awesome knee drop from the top to end it.

5. Syxx vs. Chris Benoit

Now this was awesome. I loved Waltman when he was fast and reckless and here he bumps all over for Benoit and then Benoit returns the favor. Waltman at his lunatic best, bumping crazy through the ropes to the studio floor and then splatting again on the floor from a Benoit baseball slide (Benoit returns the favor later on Waltman's baseball slide). Hall cheats to Waltman transition by clotheslining Benoit's legs out from under him on the top rope, leading to Benoit hanging in a tree of woe while Syxx hits a nasty but non-anus busting Bronco Buster. I don't think I've ever seen him hit it that way and it looked killer. Syxx actually gets the win with his cool modified rear naked choke/crossface chickenwing. This was all so much damn fun. Everything you want in 5 minutes of pro wrestling.

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Pro 8/17/96

1. Chip Minton vs. Diamond Dallas Page

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

2. Jim Powers vs. The Gambler

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

3. High Voltage vs. American Males

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

***Baseball Rambling Below***

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

***Baseball Rambling Over***

4. Scott Flash vs. Mark Starr

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

5. Chris Benoit vs. Joe Gomez

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

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Worldwide 8/4/96

WCW Worldwide 8/4/96

1. Craig Pittman vs. The Gambler

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

2. Scott Norton vs. Manny Fernandez

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

3. Billy Kidman vs. Dean Malenko

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

4. Kurosawa vs. Konnan

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

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

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

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Main Event 7/14/96 & 7/21/96

The Main Event was probably the weakest of your WCW syndicated shows. It aired on Sunday afternoons in my neck of the woods, which were always filled with dread for me since in my house we always got to goof around on Saturdays, but Sundays were when we did yardwork and chores and before you knew it another week of school was here. So you had Sunday afternoon wrestling, sometimes used as a PPV lead-in (the Konnan/One Man Gang U.S. Title change was actually shown on The Main Event!), but usually the matches were really short and nobody good ever wrestled on there. I've yet to come across a match from The Main Event that I'd give the full two thumbs up to.

But you know? It still has its charm. The crowd is always excited and almost too quick with a jingoistic chant if there is a foreigner wrestling, you get sit down studio bullshit sessions with Bobby Heenan, you get Dusty in full-on hilarious "Even I don't know what I'm saying" commentary, and you get highlights from Saturday Night and Nitro. So you get a pretty decent package, bookended with some matches that are rarely awful. It's WCW syndicated wrestling, so it at least has its charms.

This was also a neat random pick out of the stacks because it originally aired almost exactly 15 years ago. Remember how full of dreams you were 15 years ago, as you watched Konnan and Joe Gomez matches?

7/14/96

Ruckus vs. Joe Gomez

Ruckus is Robbie Rage, and they even bill him as being part of High Voltage. Never knew he went under a different name in WCW. Gomez is not very good, but he's not very good in a really entertaining way. Rage has a waistlock and does a takedown, Gomez tries to get his hands out to block his face, somehow goes forehead first into the mat. Rage does a REALLY cool armbar/headscissors takedown (that somebody today should steal), Gomez takes the bump right onto the top of his head. So he looks really lost out there, but when he's match against a powerhouse like Rage fun things happen. I'm sure there is a Gomez/Jerry Flynn match out there, and that Gomez somehow manages to take a boot to the eyeball in it. Match only goes 90 seconds, Ruckus takes the whole match until Gomez wins with a sunset flip. Forgettable, but Rage always breaks out moves I don't expect from him, and therefore Rage is starting to be someone I genuinely look forward to seeing on these shows.

Konnan vs. Alex Wright

Man, was Konnan on every single fucking episode of Main Event in '96? Jesus, I have seen soooo many Konnan matches already, and this was a real odd one, and I'll be honest...I was really getting into it, until Konnan. Starting to get into it, match was building nicely, and then Konnan. Konnan. The match starts with 14 minutes left in the show and I am filled with dread at the prospect of a long Konnan match, but also excited to see what Wright could do. Will Wright get the title of superest superworker ever, by having the great 10+ minute Konnan match?

Well, the first 3 minutes are all on the mat and while Konnan doesn't look great, he doesn't look bad at all. Wright bends himself into some painful looking holds, pulls out some nice reversals, twists Konnan around by the wrist, Konnan jams his knee in Wright's back, neither guy gets an advantage, some cool stuff. Then they stand up, and Konnan rolls him up for the win, immediately. What. The. Fuck. But to add to that, Wright was not only under the ropes, but had both arms wrapped around the bottom rope. So Wright is looking to get the count broken, but the ref just counts three. This is literally the 2nd time a '96 Konnan match on Main Event has ended this same way, that I've seen. It's as if only Konnan and the ref know when the match is finishing, and it makes everybody look bad. Wright was in the ropes, HOLDING the ropes, looking right at the ref, and the ref just slowly counts three, while making awkward eye contact with Wright. "I know this looks bad Alex. I can clearly see you making love to those ropes. I know it's now taken me 7 seconds just to count to 2...but....I'm counting 3."

7/21/96

VK Wallstreet vs. Jim Powers

I always had a soft spot for Wallstreet/IRS/Rotundo, as I thought he looked like Will Clark when I was a kid, and Will Clark was my favorite thing in the world when I was 9. I still think he kinda looks like Will Clark as an adult, and Will Clark is still one of my favorite things in the world. I was wearing a Will Clark t-shirt yesterday. Wallstreet actually looked really good here, but good lord was Jim Powers not very good at pro wrestling. Wallstreet had a couple nice clotheslines, and GREAT short elbowdrop (boy but he really shoehorns that abdominal stretch while holding the ropes into every match, huh? What's great is the camera pans to the crowd during the payoff of the ref finally catching him cheating, so Powers doesn't even get his comeuppance shown) and the Stock Market Crash is a great name for his Samoan drop finisher.

Bobby Eaton/Dave Taylor vs. Jim Duggan/Craig Pittman

This was only 3 minutes but very fun. Not tons of offense aside from punches, but Eaton can obviously punch, Taylor can throw some blows, Duggan can throw alternately great and horrendous punches, so 3 minutes of punches isn't really an awful thing with these guys. But it was Pittman's punches that were the star here. They had the look of someone who didn't actually know how to throw any kind of punch, worked or real, so was just kind of moving his fist towards Eaton's face...but they looked brutal! Not sure how much of it was Eaton putting them over big, but it looked like he was not so much selling them as he was trying to get out of the way of them. Regal runs distraction on the floor, making a bunch of funny Don Knotts mannerisms to get the crowd hyped and put over Teddy Long as some sort of threat. Duggan gets the win with a nice taped fist punch.

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