My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 5/30/98

Johnny Attitude vs. Disco Inferno

ER: You wouldn't think you could get farther down the pecking order than Johnny Attitude, but that guy holds wins over The Gambler, Barry Horowitz, and Lenny Lane. That's right, LENNY LANE. Horowitz and Gambler might be lower than luchadors around this time.  Disco is face here and several moms and children in the audience do some disco dancing and I don't remember him as a beloved face in 1998. And you know who I'm wrong about? Johnny Fucking Attitude. He comes off like a 0.9 Bull Pain here, with a hard back elbow and full force running shoulder blocks, big ass powerslam, really cool body shots in the corner (plus he wears black gloves, and wrestling punches look impossibly cool when performed while wearing black gloves). He's a big guy and still makes Disco look good (though Disco worked nice hard stomps to the chest and dug in on contact moves) misses a big elbow off the top and bumps big for a Disco flying shoulderblock and runs face first into a Disco back elbow. Johnny Attitude looked like the queen of the fucking neighborhood in this match, totally turned me into an Attitude fan. Disco plants him with a great piledriver to win, and really this isn't far off from being a Worldwide classic. Maybe Attitude started to suck when he shaved his head bald? Here he had the cool mullet with baldspot, which is infinitely cooler. I believe most of the Attitude I've seen was from 1999, when he had the shaved head, so we might have a lost WCW superworker here...will do future investigation...

Jerry Flynn vs. The Cat

ER: Flynn would have been a bigger deal if he had turned that mullet into a crew cut earlier. Yeah, I know literally one second ago I was saying Johnny Attitude was better with a mullet. But Johnny Attitude wasn't going to be accepted by fans as "a guy", so he might as well have some character, and a mullet is more character than a shaved head. Jerry Flynn was good, a good heel, a good 5 o'clock shadow mug, nice kicks, nice positioning, nice kneedrops, no problem leaning into kicks; Flynn was good and his looked played too much like a Canon Films karate villain in a pre-irony/pre-nostalgia TV world. And this match is a good one. The Cat tried out a couple kick combos and Flynn knew how to make them look good. Cat had a nice springboard and the match ending Feliner looked like something that should end a match. Flynn positioned himself really well for Cat's offense, missed his own offense with aplomb (with a big missed elbowdrop, a nice missed chest-first charge into the corner), and a nice kneedrop to the temple. I wonder how much of Flynn's team with Finlay exists on tape?

Damian/Ciclope vs. High Voltage

ER: Damian is so skinny here it's insane. He's super slender and isn't wearing faceprint, and looks like Pablo Marquez (in build and in general appearance). And this whole match rules. It's surprisingly competitive and they never come up for air, so the fans are into it the entire time. Damien gets a nice run of offense after ducking some Kaos Klotheslines, hits a nice spinning heel kick, gets caught on a crossbody but gets a nice nearfall when Ciclope dropkicks him over. Ciclope lands a nice stiff missile dropkick and it's great seeing HV bumping around for the luchadors and not treating them like flippy Mexicans. But any generosity paid by High Voltage gets paid in full by Damian and Ciclope. We got High Voltage weirdly working a mat game by targeting Ciclope with half crabs and a snug if not charmingly clunky STF. High Voltage stock is going way up with me lately. I always weirdly liked Rage's early 2000s NJPW run, and liked the premise of Kaos tagging with Eaton for a bit, but I've been enjoying them a lot lately. Kaos was even doing cool little things in this match like missing low on back elbows and a lariat, a cool stop-momentum powerslam, all nice. Oh, and we got to see some crazy suplexes, as if Rage was just ad libbing ways to potentially shift a man's spinal column.

At one point Rage lifts up Damian in the most flat out pornographic, tender embrace. He lifts Damian up for what I think is going to be a bearhug, but ends up cradling Damian with both hands clasped under his buttocks. They pause there, in that accidental seeming embrace, making eye contact, Rage refusing to admit that he accidentally started holding him by his butt, cradling him like a lover he's about to lay on a bed. You give me 5 chances to open up a random page of any 70s Viva magazine, and I bet you one of those 5 will reveal a couple holding this same position. Is this the suplex version of that thing where someone misjudges a handshake and ends up punching someone in the boob while someone has a half hug on them? But Rage is gripping under those buns, and - if you want a sweeter visual - and it's almost as if now Damian is Rage's child, pulled sleeping from the backseat of the family auto, asleep after a long day driving back from grandma's. And Rage lifts him out of that backseat, and Damian isn't totally asleep, but he's tired and likes being carried by his father, who he heard adults sometimes address as Mr. Robert Rage. But then, his short but hulking gassed out dad named RAGE just throws him over his head, as far as he can! Yeah, Rage held Damian seemingly accidentally under the buns, and then said "No. I can still make this a suplex!" Maybe even briefly thought, as he was propelling Damian by the buttocks, future merch sales flashed through his head as time stood still, picturing shirts and Slim Jim style commercials where High Voltage yells "Make it into a SUPLEX!"

He tosses Damian FAR with this butt throw, and then, does the exact same thing the exact same way with Ciclope. I played in a few jazz combos in college, and a jokey trope I always heard was that if you play a brown note during a solo, go back to hit that sour note another time or two, make any know it alls in the crowd think that it was your intention to squawk right there and also there. It always felt like the only carny trick I was ever taught. I'd love to think that Robbie Rage was also taught this jazz con, and after chucking Damian across the ring he thought, "Well, better do it again, to this other guy, and also more dangerously close to the ropes." I love this little match! Skinny Damian taking splatty backdrop bumps High Voltage's big springboard Doomsday Device lariat, a tough Kaos press slam and powerslam, and of course, that one special moment we all got to share.

Super Calo vs. William Worthy

ER: Worthy is not a guy I remember at all, and before he was introduced (already in the ring) I just assumed Ice Train's original run went WAY longer than it actually did (before they weirdly brought back Ice Train during the promotion's death years). Worthy is smaller than Train, but muscular, and looks good. He makes Calo look really good, whips himself really fast into a sunset flip and goes over hard and low on the match winning top rope headscissors, also misses a big elbowdrop with great height. I want to see more of Worthy. Also, how many singles matches was Super Calo winning at this point? I had never heard of Worthy before this match but I figured "eh he has a good build and some symbol on his tights, probably a guy who is going to beat Super Calo in a singles match."

Brian Adams vs. Bobby Eaton

ER: This doesn't even go 2 minutes, which is a real damn shame. Because for less than 2 minutes, it was really fun. Eaton throws some big punches, Adams drops a nice legdrop (which Eaton actually shifts to bring the leg closer to his throat), Eaton almost gets his teeth kicked on on a huge Adams big boot (Adams was raising it right as Eaton was ducking and the toe of Adams boot swung up about 2" away from Eaton's swinging down face, could have been realllllllly ugly) and hits a nice powerslam, but that's it! What a drag, feels like it suddenly got the call home, but it's a taped show so who cares how long they run? This could have been so much more, and they cram a lot into a very short runtime, but under two minutes in a main event? Get out of here with that.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Saturday Night 11/27/99

Chris Adams vs. Saturn

This was short but fun, with Adams getting nice comebacks spots until Shane Douglas shoves Adams off the top, allowing the Rings of Saturn to get locked on. Adams looked really great in this, taking a nasty bump running full speed into the ropes, getting tangled up and falling hard to the floor. He also used a Stunner as a move to transition into hitting the superkick (with the superkick looking great to the shock of nobody). Saturn didn't look bad, but threw some real loose forearms and punches. Douglas was wearing this awful unbuttoned glittery red shirt, like something a "fun dad" would wear to embarrass his teenage daughter during her slumber party.

Villano IV vs. Juventud Guerrera

Villano vs. Juvy was spot after spot after spot, no cares to selling, but who cares? They take it to the mat for a bit, do a bunch of cool headscissor rolls, neat ranas, Villano comPLETEly no sells a huge suicide dive (Juvy hit the dive over the top rope to the floor, Villano just took it, didn't budge at all, slapped Juvy, then threw him head first into the floor. WTF?), Juvy going for a headscissors out of the corner, but V4 tossing the headscissors onto the ref, who tossed it back onto V4 who then took the scissors, Juvy doing the People's Elbow (Scott Hudson: "Is that supposed to hurt!?"), with Juvy winning with the Juvy Driver. buncha spots crammed into 4 minutes, most of them looking cool. What's not to love?

Curly Bill vs. Lash LeRoux

Curly Bill/Vincent has been a real treat in rewatch. Somewhere between Virgil and here he got good. Here he carries Lash to a real fun match, missing a giant fistdrop off the middle (and selling it great), bumping big from the apron to the floor (almost smacking the back of his head on the guardrail), stomping on Lash's face after a failed sunset flip, scraping his boots on Lash's face, and wearing baggy Tommy Hilfiger jeans while portraying a redneck. Lash was along for the ride, and of course won, but this was Curly Bill's match.

Adrian Byrd vs. Jeff Jarrett

The constant hum of piped in ambient white noise and fake boos during syndicated WCW makes any episode of Saturday Night sound like I'm watching Eraserhead. Creative Control does a run-in to help JJ handle Byrd (::groooooaannn:: I forgot their names were Patrick and Gerald. Bleccch), and this was a basic squash until Byrd got a couple nice hope roll-ups at the end. One of the schoolboys was actually really close, and briefly fooled me. Whatta sucker I am.

Elix Skipper vs. Allan Funk

Funk LEVELS Skipper with a shoulderblock to start, like when Albert Belle mowed down Fernando Vina. Match wasn't much, just a couple rookies. Funk gets his spots in the first half, Skipper gets the 2nd half. Funk hit mostly power offense (big powerslam, nice German) and looked better than Skipper (whose offense was bunch of light as air crossbodies and a big springboard dropkick that was also light and floaty and looked like it would not hurt a man).

Sonny Siaki vs. Rick Cornell

Man were Siaki and Cornell on the gas. Cornell does a couple cool leg sweep takedowns that I never remember him doing when he later became Reno. Siaki chokes Cornell with his own ponytail, which is a pretty great use for a stupid looking ponytail. But man these Power Plant matches aren't that good. Every one of them is worked with one guy taking the 1st half, and the winner taking the 2nd half, and none of the guys really have their own personality at this point. This match might mark the moment when the "Roll the Dice" took the indies by storm!

Johnny Attitude vs. Meng

Meng/Attitude was real odd, with Meng eschewing an ass-beating, and instead doing normal pro wrestling moves (vertical suplex, snap mare, body slam), and then just hitting the Tongan Death Grip. Even Larry seemed perplexed. "Why is he doing all these wrestling moves? Why isn't he just beating this guy?" For a guy I don't remember at all, I have now seen 3 Johnny Attitude matches.

Berlyn vs. Frankie Lancaster

Wow Lancaster really was the Bob Holly of WCW, just without ever getting pushed. Same balding bleacher hair, same juiced up physique (their body shape is also almost identical), both throw a nice dropkick. Berlyn was a gimmick I actually liked, and I thought Alex Wright actually looked cool and pulled the whole thing off. But I can see why Berlyn never went anywhere after that Duggan PPV match, and matches like this where he works 50/50 with fucking Frankie Lancaster.

Texas Outlaws vs. Creative Control

This went 2 minutes, CC won with a sideslam. I don't think one of the guys even tagged in. Creative Control, everybody. The Powers That Be. For dudes that were as large as the Harris Bros. were, they sure had a way about them that didn't make them feel very dangerous or tough or scary. They were 6'8" tall guys that looked odd with no facial hair, threw the punches that whiffed, weak big boots, slams with no impact. I mean, just not threatening for guys that took up so much space in a ring. Outlaws masks were totally badass, btw.

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