Found Footage Friday: LOW KI~! PCO~! DR. DEATH~! 2 COLD~! MEAN STREET POSSE~! LONDON~! KENDRICK~! FBI~!

WWE Vault Dark Matches

Pierre Carl Ouellet vs. El Tornado(?) 7/7/03

MD: Pretty insane performance by PCO here. Not surprising but he went so far over the top that he did three things in one match probably not otherwise seen in a WWE ring in 2003: a sit out chokeslam, sit out pumphandle slam, top rope exploder. That was on top of both a flip dive to the floor and the flipping cannonball senton he won it with. He also took a gnarly face first corner bump that was not at all warranted by the guy half his size whipping him across the ring. He balanced it with a lot of energy and charisma and a connection with the crowd but it almost all felt like a rib somehow. His opponent was game and along for the ride and got pretty good heat at times but not necessarily through much that he was doing. Just having the offense against PCO here was going to be enough and he didn't capitalize on it by leaning into it in any way. I don't think I'd hire PCO off of this but I sure as hell would give him a 2003 ROH run.

ER: It's crazy how PCO ran the ropes better than every person on the current WWE roster. Not sure who El Tornado(?) is but the man had a fine backdrop and a real nice slingshot senton. It's awesome to see PCO taking bumps off the edges of aprons 20+ years ago, not so different than the Shawn Michaels casket match bump that turned him into one of the worst big match workers of the 2000s. We all know PCO now for his inhuman bumps, but I didn't remember him being so good at bumping into the buckles. Every time he went into the buckles - back first, chest first - it looked so hard. There are some spots in this that they absolutely would not have allowed a regular heavyweight to be doing. The top rope exploder was incredible, both men standing on the top with seemingly no balance issues, PCO getting legs behind it like he was just standing on the mat. Insane. The cannonball hit perfectly, but really everything he did hit perfectly. The man could have been great doing just "basic" clotheslines and slams, but instead he was out here killing himself and a game opponent whom none of us know. 

Mean Street Posse (Rodney/Pete Gas) vs. Low Ki/Vincent Goodnight 8/7/00

MD: We come in on a crazy Low Ki dive (set up well by Goodnight teasing one drawing the MSP in another direction, a set up not used nearly enough now honestly) followed by a great transition where Ki, going for another dive off the apron is knocked off by Rodney knocking Goodnight into him, landing right in Gas' clutches for a world's strongest slam. Gas looked pretty good here, honestly. Most of the rest of the match was a FIP on Ki and Rodney looked ok, but Gas was in the right place and doing the right thing with the right energy. They did a phantom tag (with a clap) as Goodnight had the ref, solid stuff, well taught. The comeback had Goodnight punching one MSP in the corner while Ki kicked the other and they weren't entirely in sync (Ki would have just kicked him all day) before they just crashed into each other and I saw the Gas Mask for the first time in years (I remembered it being more of a full reverse full nelson for some reason when here it was more of a just a lift up). There was probably a really good Ki vs Gas singles match in here somewhere.

ER: I am a big fan of the actual wrestling abilities of the Mean Street Posse, so was excited to see this turn up. Low Ki vs. Pete Gas is one of those oddball EWR pairings that surely never happened in the real world, and yet here's Gas and Rodney hanging in to catch Low Ki's Phoenix splash to the floor, Ki kicking Gas across his very large face, and Gas slamming Ki hard on the floor. Who taught Rodney how to throw his actually good worked punches? Who taught Gas to throw such aggressive low cut missed clotheslines? How many pairs of normal jeans could have been made out of Rodney's double wide legged jeans? How did Gas have such nice form on his vertical suplex? I love Gas choking out Low Ki and breaking before 5, repeatedly telling the referee he could count. What's incredible about Pete Gas and the way he says "I can count!" is that he knows exactly how to say it the way a guy who didn't actually know how to count would defensively and angrily say it. I loved Rodney's sell of Low Ki's short superkick, bumping fast after leaning in chin first. Vincent Goodnight was the only part of this match that didn't work. The guy looked like a worse version of Lenny Lane. Hundreds of guys would have made a better Low Ki partner, but what should stand out the most is how legitimately good the Mean Street Posse looked.  

Paul London/Brian Kendrick vs. FBI (Little Guido/Tony Mamaluke) 8/1/06

MD: This was a hot mess, but still pretty fun. The problem was that the crowd was totally behind the FBI, which Guido (ribs taped even) was able to play into and Spanky, maybe, just a little bit as well, but that no one else could adapt to and the match structure didn't adapt to. London and Kendrick might get a pop for a big move or double team or dive but then the crowd would turn right back on them again. Guido worked really well with both guys. At one point they did a cazadora before Kendrick looped around into a roll up but during it, Guido smacked him right in the back which is a great bit. Mamaluke looked real rough around the edges but when he actually landed, that added more than substracted. There was one missed clothesline where a foot got up somehow that looked nasty, right before London absolutely wiped out on a dive. If they had adapted and really leaned hard into Kendrick/London heeling I think this would have been over huge and could have been honestly great but they stayed the course and ran off the road.

ER: Kendrick's and London's shorts are hands down the worst gear in wrestling history. I fucking hated these enormous culottes in 2006 and they look even worse now. They look like 9 year olds wearing their father's board shorts. I don't think this match was too negatively affected by the teams sticking to their plan and mostly ignoring the fans. Sure, it probably would have been amazing if London and Kendrick came in and chose to be overt heels, but this felt like a crowd worth ignoring, one that wouldn't play along regardless of how you played to them. They were going to react to all the big spots no matter what but they also wanted to get themselves over. I don't think it was a bad crowd, but it wasn't a crowd to cater to. 

As is, I thought this was among the best Guido looked during his long WWE run. This guy was working with something to prove. He looked great against both champs but especially against Kendrick. He and Kendrick worked a lot together but this felt like they were pushing each other hard. Guido blocking Kendrick's majistral, punching him in the back during a cazadora, dropping a knee on his face, both men pushing pace. Everyone else in the match outclassed Tony Mamaluke, who was shockingly behind what I remembered him as. This man couldn't keep up with what anyone else was doing and then he somehow managed to kick Kendrick in the face on a missed clothesline. I skipped back several times and still don't know what he was doing or why he did what he did. It's like he threw he leg up as if Kendrick was supposed to roll over a knee lift with a cradle...but he was also throwing a missed clothesline so what was that leg even doing there? Guido holds Kendrick right after so Mamaluke can hit a cool standing cannonball into him, then everyone lets London splat on the floor on a dive. Nobody came close to catching that man. London's shooting star press vaulting off Kendrick's back looked incredible. 

Justin Credible vs. Kid Kash 9/18/01

 

MD: The crowd did not want to go along for this journey. Kash did small things fine, I'm talking firing back after a big spot or working out of a chinlock. He did some very impressive big things, a run up flip dive to the floor, a pretty complex leaping rana off the top. Credible was... you know, credible, not just sitting arond on the chinlock, working him in the corner, hitting his pull out powerbomb. The fans just weren't buying what they were selling though. In some ways, I think this was a pretty well put together tryout sort of match, but it just didn't click. They even had one unique spot I liked a lot where Credible kicked Kash off of him, pressing him right into the corner hard, only for Kash to fall forward with a headbutt to the crotch. That got a little bit of an "ohhh" but they were right back on their feet a moment later and couldn't really capitalize on it. Or anything else, I guess. At least Kash had the XWF to fall back on.

ER: This is the kind of content the Vault Fans are clamoring for. Justin Credible is one of those wrestlers that is impossible to have a hot take about. There have been a lot of wrestlers who we have worked to change the narrative on, but what if Justin Credible became one of those "actually you know who was really great?" wrestlers. How useless would that be? Maybe it's true. I remember him being an above average bumper and I'm sure there are some other skills he doesn't get credit for. He doesn't get credit for them, because he is someone that nobody wants to talk about. I love talking about guys like that, so let's see if I can further ruin my life by becoming a Justin Credible Truther. His weird minimal contact DDT looks really great when Kid Kash is flying fast onto his face. I also like the way he leaned out of almost all of Kid Kash's punches. One thing you want to do in someone's tryout match is lean out of all their strikes.  He was decent at catching both of Kash's swinging huracanranas and not great at catching his dive, but his scoop powerbomb out of the corner looked good and his superkick was better than I remembered. This was the first Justin Credible match we at Segunda Caida have written about in literally 18 years. Can't wait to revisit his work in my early 60s. 

 

Dr. Death Steve Williams vs. Scorpio 4/28/98

 

MD: I don't know. When this dropped, I saw a bit of "I don't see how this guy could have main evented against Austin" and maybe that would have been an issue. Asking him to do a twenty minute walk and brawl while the stooges were guest timekeepers or whateve rmight have been a problem. This, where Scorpio could create a lot of the motion and Doc could catch him midair off a slingshot with a straight punch or catch a dive and drop him into a tombstone, or just run him over worked pretty well. When he had to bump, he used his whole body, going feet overhead in a slow timbering motion that worked. Credible strikes. A long press slam that got over with the crowd, enough mannerisms to remind him he was alive at all points, a few too many swears that made it all seem just a bit more labored than it had to. I'd watch another twenty matches with this Doc in this environment up against end-run Vader or rookie Edge or Val or Faarooq or whatever.

ER: I have been so excited for this one since it got uploaded, and, yeah, it didn't fully work. I don't think it was either man's fault, but I don't know what the actual problems were. I am not someone who buys into the whole "Doc wouldn't have been able to work WWF style" because that narrative is almost always based on the fallacy that "all Doc does is dangerous suplexes". Dr. Death Williams (as Howard Finkel calls him) is not a one dimensional wrestler, and in 1997 I thought he was one of the greatest wrestlers in the world. Watch his few early '97 ECW matches and tell me his (great) match against Raven couldn't have worked with the majority of the 1998 WWF roster. His 1997 All Japan work is excellent. Watch Misawa's first Triple Crown defense after winning it back from Kobashi. Yes, Misawa takes several suplexes onto his head - it was his fetish after all - but Doc is so much more than suplexes in that match. His energy and look would have absolutely played in WWF a year later. What's so confusing, is that a lot of that energy was completely absent in this match. Maybe that last full year in AJPW really did break him down, but I'm still not so sure. Before this match, the man had just spent the previous month working long Champions Carnival matches, so it's possible his body was worn out from that. I don't know. He did look a step slower here, in a way that I never saw him look in '97, so who's to say when that started. 

It's also easy to forget (unless you go back and watch the footage) that Scorpio was not at his best in early 1998 WWF. The man's timing in singles matches was so far out of whack. I don't know why, but watch late '97/early '98 WWF Scorpio and the man was a constant timing problem. He didn't start looking like himself again until he started teaming with Terry Funk, magically regaining his old form overnight. This match was during the Funk team run, but his singles match timing still wasn't there. I don't think either man did anything specifically bad here, sometimes things just don't work. I still don't agree with the narrative that Doc wouldn't have been able to adapt to The Style. "His big suplexes wouldn't have played in WWF, they needed punch kick guys in their main events" and well the best parts of this match were every single time Doc turned it into a punch exchange. Punching Scorpio out of the air on a slingshot was easily the best spot of the match, but he had several different punches that all looked tremendous, including a staggering right while both were selling on their feet, and a series of jabs that backed Scorpio into the corner and looked like something out of Valentine/Garvin. The crowd doesn't get into any of it, until a Scorpio back suplex makes it sound like they are getting actually fired up for Scorp's comeback. But then he starts his comeback and it dies instantly down to silence. Oh well. 

Maybe this would have seemed like a good match if the crowd had reacted to any of it. It looked like a match that deserved some reaction. The press slam spot looked great, the punches all looked good, Doc catching Scorpio's moonsault press was a cool spot that wasn't being done in 1998, but even then it looked like the crowd wanted something bigger than just a front slam out of it. The reactions were not there and that killed the match good. But both men also seemed off in ways that I don't think reflect their actual abilities. Anyway, I wish I had a Dr. Death match against every member of the 1998 WWF roster for further research but yeah yeah this didn't work like it should have. 

 

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ECW Cyberslam 2/22/97

I've been casually watching 1997 ECW as a tonal break while writing and reviewing every 1997 WCW match for my book, so you may start seeing more reviews of 1997 ECW.  

1. The Eliminators vs. RVD/Sabu 

ER: This match happened a lot over 96/97 because, as two teams with too much offense but relatively fast pacing, they felt like a natural pairing. In reality, they had no chemistry, and the matches were a night more of odd selling and clunky set up times. Their matches were long, emotionless, clumsy, and athletically stupid, but fun in in the way that some walked through but slightly ambitious too long local indy matches can be. "Hey you remember that match we saw at the Vet's Building, where they thought they could do a grueling spotfest but just fell and hurt themselves?" The Eliminators have no actual idea how to put together a match, and I can't think of another team who looked anywhere near as facially stupid as Saturn and Kronus. They walk around with the cadence and expressions of mental patients. Mental patients who can do flips. They're fucking awful and every single last one of us had a dogshit 4 hours Eliminators comp that we thought was great. That was then and this is now and these matches are just bad. They're all 20 minutes, they have as many minutes as a Ric Blade match, and they never have good vibe that Ric Blade matches had. They don't capture that same He's Trying, Alright energy. 

This is billed as a Tables & Ladders match and it winds up using tables, ladders, and chairs less often than in their awful match three weeks earlier at Crossing the Line Again. This long match even starts with matwork, and I'm good on seeing more RVD/Saturn matwork. Everybody just walks around getting into place for everything, they kick ladders into each other and always half miss the ladder, and there is never any kind of flow. There is some of that yard tard Jeff Hardy charm when they run through overly complicated spots that always seem to come off somewhat wrong but hurt in the way that Jeff Hardy's falls would hurt. You'd expect better from two 16 year olds using a park picnic table as an offensive jumping off point, and if you're going to work an inspired backyard match then you need to make sure your work is ready for the backyard. RVD takes two Total Eliminations at the finish. John Kronus performs that move every time like it's the first time he's ever done it, and it always leads to three guys all trying to get on the same page in real time. 

2. Little Guido vs. Chris Chetti

Tommy Rich in a

Hard Rock Cafe jean jacket

Where did he get it

It's the same color

As his non-boot cut blue jeans

light wash all day long

ponytail pulled tight

face bloated red and purple

We need more Wildfire

Wait you're telling me

Hard Rock Cafe Tokyo shirt? 

Under a fringe vest? 

Who took this man out? 

Who gave him money for this? 

Not to be trusted

I don't remember Guido having such a nice kneedrop. Everything Guido did here looked tight. Chetti was really new, 20 matches in, and had this weird mix of early David Flair lurching stiffness with a rookie willingness to try offense he would cut later. Five-months-in Chetti has a much better standing rana than you would have guessed. You know what's better? Guido's gutbuster. Guido misses a top rope kneedrop, landing on his shins. They try to do a Mikey Whipwreck moment for Chetti, which feels like a waste this early. They shoulda had this boy out there teaming with Rich and Guido, eating pasta fazool, and his whole thing coulda been that he's the good boy from Long Island who always ate too much Sunday sauce with his family.  

3. Stevie Richards vs. Balls Mahoney 

I never think about these two ever wrestling. This wasn't a match ECW would run. This is the only time they wrestled in ECW, then one more match a decade later in WWEC, which is weird. Two Men in Cut-Up Jeans. You can't put your Jeans Guys in the same ring too often. Balls had at least two different good punches in 1997. Stevie does a lot of long really boring arm work that I don't think is going anywhere interesting. Yet? No, this match is at its best when Stevie lets go of the arm and Mahoney unloads fists. Every slightly different punch Balls throws is better than I expect. I always think of Balls as getting really good in 2000s Jersey All Pro but he's been a great Stupid Bluto in 1997. Stevie Richards has some real dogshit offense and has nothing anywhere near as great as Balls' short arm clothesline, which he lays out flat for. His elbowdrop off the middle turnbuckle is closer to Macho Man than CM Punk, his spinning heel kick that sends himself to the floor feels like a more agile Mick Foley spot, and all of his strikes are good.  When he commits all the way to a missed guillotine legdrop, he also sells his balls. I think Balls, selling his balls, and the potential danger of a legdrop - even properly executed - potentially landing you on your balls, is a Rick Rude-level dedication to both nuance and character that I don't think any of us were giving him credit for in 1997. On the other hand, Stevie Richards works like an uninspired Rhett Titus. Hail Balls.  

4. Axl Rotten vs. Spike Dudley 

Spike Dudley takes a full speed head and body first bump into a guardrail and leans into every boot and left hand that Axl Rotten throws at the center of his face. Axl Rotten's left hand is approaching 0.8 Terry Funk and he looks like he has fun throwing it, and those kind of emotions are an important part of great punches. Spike takes such admirable beatings which both makes sense because of his small size, but also must be sheer hell because of his small size. His large bumps have no body to absorb them. He is landing on hip bone points on all of his big, heavy landing crossbodies. Spike Dudley probably had the hardest landing offense of any 150 pounder in wrestling history. His flying forearm hits, his crossbodies land like a full bodybag, and his cannonball off the apron hits Rotten like a bowling ball whipped at a nihilist. His body is heavy because his skeleton is calcified. This had the stiffness and fast pace of a Wildside TV match with the energy of a 1997 ECW match. Bubba and D-Von mess up Spike after the match including a huge thrown into the air powerbomb and Joey Styles is too busy calling the long names of moves to place the beating within context. 

5. Dudley Boyz vs. The Gangstas 

Gangstas matches are known for their weapons shots but New Jack would have clearly been better if he had just dropped all the weapons and shoot punched people in the head and face like this. I'm not sure which New Jack punch is my favorite, but it might be his 1-to-7 punch, where he slowly raises his hand to one before bringing it roughly down across his opponent's head toward 7. Every punch he throws looks really good though. He throws a great elbowdrop too. Also, maybe let him keep the guitar as a weapon because doing his little dance while strumming the guitar before using it is essential. Bubba takes a really high backdrop, and it is possible that Mustafa does not know how to bump. The Dudleys in control isn't anywhere near as interesting as Gangstas in control. Dudleys aren't as lively with their punch and kick, although I do like D-Von's reared back punches. Luckily, New Jack is really great at selling punches and he will also let D-Von hit him in the forehead with a VCR. 

This match has one of the truly crazy New Jack spots - yes, I understand what I'm saying - when he lays D-Von on a table that is very far away from the eagle's nest. He has to take a running, arm swimming, Superman leap that lands him short of the table, meaning he does a running flying headbutt into D-Von's stomach from a 10' drop with 12-15' of distance. I have no idea how he didn't break his neck or wrists or knees or anything upon landing, I have no idea why he set D-Von up so far away, but I love that he got up in that eagle's nest and actually shoved a child in sweatpants aside and knew he couldn't back out of the spot. On the Hardcore TV version of this match they show a different camera angle, not showing any part of the landing but instead showing a shot from across the arena that captured how far out he jumped, like a Gangsta swimming through air. Bubba pins New Jack when New Jack climbs to the top rope, bashes Axl Rotten in the head and throws that chair edge-first down onto him, then leaps off the top into a cutter. It's weird that every single wrestling show in 2023 has a Guy Leaps Into A Cutter spot and I now can't picture anybody doing that spot earlier than fucking New Jack. Was New Jack the best wrestler in 1997 ECW? 

6. Taz vs. Tracy Smothers

This is Smothers' first ECW match, still under contract to WWF for another two months, and in the middle of a Northeast February winter, this legend worked a WWF house show in New Haven, CT and then drove at least three hours over to Philadelphia just to get fucked up by Taz. I know there are better examples of making towns in wrestling history, but what was Tracy even thinking about during that three hour commute? Just listening to area radio on his way to getting shoot slapped a couple times and German suplexed by a man he towers over. Smothers' timing looked a little off here, but that could be because it's not easy to work timing spots with a junior. His standing back elbows looked hard and Taz nicely sold his mouth while Tracy went up top for his flying back elbow, which also looked good. Smothers lost a match to the bad Head Banger and then drove 175 miles to work a match that could have accomplished the same goal had Taz just suplexed Chris Chetti. 

7. Terry Funk/Tommy Dreamer vs. Raven/Brian Lee

Straw Hat Guy keeps yelling "Bullshitter" at Bulldozer Brian Lee, but he is a man who has given more money to Paul Heyman that several actual ECW employees so I'm not sure I would trust his bullshitter radar. It's kind of shocking how low quality this tag match is. It's more of a 20 minute angle than an actual match, except it's supposed to be a match, and the match isn't good. It's extremely lethargic, a walk and brawl in slow motion. Dreamer throws punches with his entire hand open, things only get briefly interesting when Raven and Funk start fighting on the floor, but it's crazy how much worse this was than the Gangstas/Dudley Boyz match on the same card. This is the kind of brawl where people weren't really throwing punches, but more grabbing the back of someone's head and then walking and or throwing them forward into something. Dreamer and Lee spent several minutes on the floor walking each other back and forth at ringside and pushing each other by the head into objects. Raven grabbed Funk by the back of the head and threw him down into the mat a half dozen or more times. Everybody wrestles tired. Funk kicks at Raven's leg and locks in the spinning toehold and things probably peak with Lee stopping the spinning toehold with a trash can shot to Funk's head and knocking Dreamer off the apron with a swing to the side of his head. Then he hits about a dozen trash can swings on Funk that look like the softest weapon shots on this show until the match is stopped and Funk is forced to leave on a stretcher while swearing. This was supposed to be all about furthering the Raven/Dreamer/Funk storyline and distancing Funk from ever getting an ECW title shot but they managed to get there in the least interesting way possible. This was so low energy and I do not know why. 

8. Sabu vs. Chris Candido

Candido is sort of growing out his hair and he has it slicked back, but it's not long enough up top to stay slicked so it just sticks up like a toddler after a bath. Under the white hot lights of the Arena, his white blond hair looks like the hair of Mom's dunderhead sons on Futurama. This match never totally feels like it gels into an actual match, but it does have Sabu jumping off a chair at least a dozen times into a series of leg lariats, huracanranas, legdrops, moonsaults and both are game to bump painfully, but the primary thing that hurts it is the crowd never being that into it in any way. I don't know why, as these people like moves, and this match was mostly move after move after move. Even the punch exchanges all looked good. Shit I wish we had more of them punching each other as every punch exchange here looked good, but without counting I think Sabu jumped off a chair or sprang off the ropes more times than he threw a punch, and that's pretty cool too. A lot of this was just throwing shit at the wall so 25% of it wasn't going to work. Sometimes a piledriver off the middle buckle is just going to look like a guy pulling someone on top of himself. I guess the craziest thing about Sabu going so all out with Air Sabu attacks is that he works in even more spots in this 20 minute match than he did earlier in the night in his 20 minute tag match. How the fuck did this guy take this many ugly landings for 20 straight minutes, two times in one night? 

I mean Candido takes a vertical suplex over the top to the floor that that must have been hell on the ankles and a sheer drop bump to the floor when Sabu tosses him on a charge, and also does an incredible crossbody plancha into the crowd that catches Sabu across the face and shoulders. He also grabs a very long chickenwing that makes the crowd Actually Upset, but more in an Impotently Frustrated way instead of a Drawing Heat way. And so, he spittily yells "It's called wrestling you fucking assholes"and then grabs a ringside mic to yell "Are you people bored? Should I put him in another wrestling hold?" It could have drawn real heat if he kept it up maybe, but instead it wound up looking like he got mad at his own joke. Sabu hit so much stuff and I guess at the end of the day I just love that Sabu had the energy to seemingly make up a bunch of shit on the fly. He does a full triple jump bombs away through a table on the floor when Candido sits up, lands chest first on the guardrail doing a tope, crashes on his butt several times...but also vaults off a chair and hits a flat out gorgeous huracanrana. I love this man and his messiness that can surprise with elegance. Sabu keeps falling off ropes and chairs onto Candido, and eventually one of those times pins him, and Candido cuts this weird promo after about how much of a draw Sabu is and how he doesn't care if Sabu or Taz wins at Barely Legal because "the Triple Threat gets paid either way". His crippling credit card debt and 2nd mortgage were not present in the arena for this promo. 

Best Matches: 

1. Spike Dudley vs. Axl Rotten

2. Sabu vs. Chris Candido

3. Gangstas vs. Dudley Boyz

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Found Footage Friday: CANDIDO~! SCORPIO~! SPIKE~! GUIDO~! TAKANO~! NAKANO~!

Shunji Takano vs. Shinichi Nakano AJPW 9/15/89

MD: Another AJPW Classics drop with a singles match between two guys that I associate more as partners in this era. If you were to look at the entire All Japan roster in 89, the guy who you'd most likely project as a star in 92 wouldn't be Misawa or Kobashi or even Taue, but Takano. He was further along, had size and more presence, hit harder, pressed up better against guys like Hansen. This one bore that out. A good chunk of the first half was down on the mat like you might expect, but it kept building to fiery moments. That might be Takano wrenching Nakano in half with a gnarly elevated half crab and following it with a head-shattering lariat or it might be Nakano coming back with a series of headbutts only to have Takano dive across the ring with a bullcharging headbutt of his own and things boiling over to a visceral slapfest. Nakano would take some big swipes towards the end with a German and Northern Lights Suplex but ran into Takano's feet one too many times (and that's not counting the times that Takano's feet ran into him). It was just over ten minutes but they really put it all out there. This is just how friends hung out in 89 AJPW, by beating the crap out of one another. Hell of a time and hell of a place.

Little Guido vs. Spike Dudley ISPW 7/15/99

MD: Spike had some pretty great forearms. I'm not sure I had registered that previously. It feels like one of those things I knew, forgot, and will forget again. Anyway, this was very much of its time, stemming from Guido heading out to help Corino and Spike making the save for Nova and the two of them just rolling into their match. Guido leaned hard into that with wild, flailing bumps for every one of Spike's shots. Both guys took wild bumps for the setting really, Guido diving to the concrete, Spike crashing out in the corner. The meat of the match was Spike having a ton of great hope spots and Guido gutting him off again and again, even as Guido consistently worked the crowd. Nothing here seemed rote. It was fast moving and all fairly interesting for the time. Eventually it built to a final comeback and Corino and Nova coming back out to build things to a screwy but satisfying finish. This is a good eleven minutes of your time.

Chris Candido vs. 2 Cold Scorpio ISPW 7/15/99

You can't say they didn't have time. Take out the entrances and promos and this went about twenty. You don't want to take out Candido's closing promo as it might be the best thing about the whole experience. This was just these guys calling it out there, doing their thing, being about as much as themselves as could possibly be. That meant Scorpio was making up move after move and hitting things from weird, interesting angles, and Candido was stalling, stooging, feeding, leaning on Scorpio, and overall mean mugging. At times, things didn't feel clean or polished, felt rough or crunchy, but it felt perfect for a 1999 Wildwood main event. They never missed a beat, they never lost their place, even if they went back into a chinlock to figure out what was next more than once. Finish was wonky since it was setting up a 3 way with Ace Darling for the following week. We have that one too and if nothing else, this made me want to see it.

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New Footage Friday: CRUSHER TAKAHASHI!! SANTO! PANTHER! KASH! GUIDO!

El Hijo Del Santo/?/? vs. Blue Panther/Willy Cortez/?

PAS: No idea when or where this was from or who most of the guys in it are. The youtube site has a lot of Willy Cortez matches, so maybe it is run by him or his kids or something. Santo looks young and spry, so maybe sometime in the 90s? Although Santo looked young and spry when I saw him live last year, so who the fuck knows. The other luchadores in this match are pretty replacement level, but fine. Cortez and a guy in a yellow mask have a nice armdrag exchange and the third rudo had a nice tope. You are here to see Santo vs. Panther though, and they don't disappoint. I loved the early matwork, Santo refusing to give up the back and hanging onto the ride was so cool, and Panther is so smooth in between holds. I really dug the beatdown on Santo too, as it felt like it riled up the crowd, there was a point where it looked like people might rush the ring. Any chance to see legends like this must be taken, and there are some more cool looking matches on this channel for future weeks.

MD: To me, this is a definite find. We have some brilliant flashes of Santo and Panther working each other over the years, most especially outside of CMLL/AAA (Japan, UK, Monterrey), but here we have three great exchanges in a match that was otherwise pretty good. They're the third pairing in the primera and the matwork they do here is different than anything I've ever seen out of the pairing. It's much more amateur style, a lot of them riding one another or jockeying for position, building to lucha flourishes and throws and ending with an effective leap up to a 'rana. It was something you don't usually see in lucha, especially from guys as stylized as Panther and Santo. The second exchange was super-high end rope running, with Santo unleashing super athletic twists to his headscissors that weren't part of his usual repertoire, including a pretty amazing one out of a mare position. Then, in the segunda into the tercera, Panther just bullied him about. He served as the anchor for the rudos, the center of gravity that everyone came to as he held his opponents for shots and directed traffic. There was a sequence where he kept placing Santo's head over the top rope from one side of the ring to the other so that his partners could lay in kicks and clothesline his neck from the outside. In the tercera, it devolved into some really effective mask pulling, building to Santo drawing some rudo miscommunication and having a big comeback. I thought the finish was slightly unfocused as it veered off of the Panther vs Santo match-up at the very end but ultimately this showed us something new from a pairing for which one might have assumed we've seen everything there was to see.


Kid Kash vs. Little Guido HRT 3/12/13

MD: Kash had to come out there and get the heat for Sabu not showing up. He pinned it on Canadian border control and heeled on the crowd for it before calling out Fonzie to second him since he had nothing else to do. He followed that up with a bit of stalling and picking fights with the crowd to start. That let Guido be a bit more of a face, though this was definitely a 2013 post-modern smarmy crowd. They were more or less into his comebacks and even clapped along while he was in a hold (though with terrible, out of practice, rhythm). This went about ten if you include the stalling and was a prelim match to set up a triple threat for some sort of belt later on. The early feeling out process was really good as they went at it on the mat. Once they got going, Kash was a solid bully with harsh cutoffs even as Guido kept making organic opportunities for himself. I don't think they quite built to a moment of definitive comeback but everything was crisp and believable, including the miscommunication that led to the finish. Two skilled journeymen working what was unmistakably an indy match, but working it hard and entertaining and looking good in the process.

ER: This was on one of those odd shows where some Canadian fed flies in 9 or 10 old ECW guys to draw 300 people to an cultural community center, but instead of the workers attempting to badly recreate ECW atmosphere and ring carnage, they just work like good pro wrestlers. Now, Kash's stalling mic work was straight out of ECW, as I can't personally remember the last time I've heard someone call people "retarded" this many times in one minute. But he draws heat (though you see, this crowd is very smart, so they are in on the joke and there are dozens upon dozens of them that cannot wait to show off their own comedy chops), and stalls well. The scrambling matwork was aggressive and looked good, and both threw armdrags that looked like they were trying to dislocate shoulders. Their offense wasn't about big highspots, just crisp execution of some of their known tricks, with Guido's Sicilian Slice looking especially good, and Kash is expert at jumping into moves like that. This is the kind of match that stands out at the end of the night when you're driving home, solely because of execution, and you need guys like this on a show that also has Gary Wolfe.

Crusher Takahashi vs Shota 7/21/13

MD: I was (and to be honest still am) completely unfamiliar with these two, but this is the most watchable thing you'll come across this week. Takahashi is a big Japanese journeyman who has a penchant to do tortuous things that you wouldn't expect a guy his size to do, all with an extra bit of oomph due to his mass. When he bridges back in the deathlock, or even stretches the leg over, the whole ring shakes. He has this methodological matter-of-fact way of moving but then explodes around the ring, like with the rolling toehold that set up the finish. Shota, on the other time, is spry and fiery, but also the most consistently over the top seller I've ever seen. At least in this match. He's constantly making noise, constantly wagging a limb or walking something off. It makes me wonder how much of the oomph was Takahashi landing stuff and how much of it was Shota selling during and after the fact. Which is actually how the best wrestling is supposed to work. Given his opponent and the size differential, it never feels like too much selling. He's still staggering around in his comeback but that sets up the finish. Honestly, he came off as a more vulnerable Randy Savage. Like a plucky babyface underdog Randy Savage, as his entirety of his offense were punches (including in the corner), a double axe handle off the top, a neckbreaker, and the misguided top rope elbow drop which tweaked his hurt leg and let Takahashi recover. I almost don't want to see more of him because I can see how the act might get old, but in this one twelve minute match, it was great.

SR: Crusher Takahashi, baby. He's a worker who has basically been doing a southern wrestling tribute working Japanese scum indies since the 90s. I've kind of enjoyed him then as a decent enough guy who could throw a nice punch, but at some point he turned into a genuinely good worker, and this was his showcase match. I am likely to enjoy any fat aging wrestler who throws a great punch (which Takahashi does here), and he did some really great southern scientific type matwork here, which he makes look great. That kind of western style matwork doesn't get much praise as US guys just kind of stopped doing cool matwork at some point in the early 80s, but he was working those toe holds like he was about to dislocate his opponents knee. He also had this really great bridging indian deathlock, and his punch/knee combo in the corner looked like it loosened a few teeth. I didn't get much from Shota during the opening portions here, but I actually liked how he punched his way back to offense, and his selling off the leg as he kept slowly destroying himself was really cool. Really good little match which made me want to go back and check out the rest of Takahashi's maestro back catalogue.

PAS: There is a guy working like Bobby Jaggers in Puro indies? Why isn't this guy headlining New Japan? Loved this, such an anachronistic match for the 2010, all heavy elbow drops and Indian deathlocks. Takahashi has a hard right hand, some punishing looking Alabama mat work and sells well for Shota. Shota was kind of working this like Brett Wayne Sawyer, selling big, hitting some basic highflying moves and losing to a figure four when he can't keep his shoulders off the mat. What a weird wonderful little match.

ER: This is the kind of Japanese wrestler that people need to be recommending to me. I hadn't heard of either of these guys, but Shota is dressed like a pre PG-13 Jamie Dundee and Crusher has hairier thighs than Dutch Mantell, so we get a little bit of Memphis in a small Japanese club. I understand Matt's hesitation to see another Crusher match, worried that the act might get old, but I think the thing that gives this style legs (super hairy legs) is that neither guy plays this for a gag. THAT would make the returns diminishing, but I see nothing in their movements that show they are working this style for any other reason than southern style is the best. Shota as undercard Randy Savage is an accurate descriptor. Mid 90s Savage formula saw him eat a beating for the first 80% of a match then just come back with a quick bodyslam and flying elbow. Shota eats the beating in the first half, makes the comeback, but still loses. Crusher works him over with great matwork, the kind that feels like Ricky Morton working holds rather than the more perfunctory New Japan matwork, working hard Indian deathlocks and floating over to control the arm. There's no wink. This isn't a Japanese Tik Tok teen doing phonetic Bill Engvall routines, this is a hairy Japanese man with a belly working punches and joint based matwork. Shota's left hands are better than his right hands, though I liked the grinding glancing elbows he threw with his right, while Crusher has several great worked punches. Crusher had a nice headlock punch and a straight right hand, and Shota's best punches might have been whenever he threw a couple body shots to comeback. This bridging deathlock finish looked really painful, and I liked how it was set up by a Shota elbowdrop that actually hit (but also caused him to land on his worked over knee). We definitely need to dig deeper into Crusher's catalogue. It would be foolish of us not to.

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AIW Double Dare Tournament Night 1 11/4/16

After really loving AIW Absolution show this year, I got pretty excited that Powerbomb.tv was going to start putting up AIW shows. They didn't have anything from 2017 up yet, but this was a super intriguing set of shows from 2016 a big tag tourney full of fun teams.

Space Justice (Space Monkey/Supercop Dick Justice) v. To Infinity and Beyond (Cheech/Colin Delaney

PAS: Space Justice had their Chikara shit they had to shoehorn in, and it was pretty groan worthy. When this wasn't half assed junior college improv troupe stuff, the wrestling was pretty good. Justice is a really fat dude, he looks like a less athletic Ron Jeremy, but he looked pretty good doing some lucha exchanges with Colin Delaney, he also took a great looking bump on a Delaney dive. The finishing run had some nice fancy stuff, and ended with a double team Kudo driver on Space Monkey which seemed like way too mean of a finish for a comedy guy to have to take.

ER: I showed up to this party mostly to watch my boy Weird Body, but caught the end of this one, and Phil is right, that Kudo driver is WAY too nasty to use against freaking Space Monkey. They practically dropped him vertically, seconds after he was doing comedy Baba chops (and some surprisingly nice headbutts to the midsection). Dick Justice is fat enough that I probably need to seek out more of him.

Jollyville Fuck-Its (T-Money/Dirty Russ) v. Weird World (Worldwide Alex Kellar/ Weird Body Evan Adams)

PAS: One of the reasons I was most excited to dig into this show was to see more Fuck-Its, and they didn't disappoint. Weird Body is one of the oddest looking wrestlers in the world, he has this hesher hair and a famine victim physique, but being such a tiny guy he takes a huge impressive beating. Worldwide is a big dude who kind of looks and wrestles like a young Bugsy McGraw, and he basically uses Weird Body as a weapon. Meat of the match is the Fuck-Its laying a beating on Weird Body which is exactly what I want. T-Money does multiple violent bodyslams that feel like they might break him in half, at one point T-Money hits the pounce and Weird Body flies violently into the ropes. Really fun beating, great first round match from the Boys from Jollyville.

ER: This was really fun, Weird Body is just totally entertaining to me, for reasons I can't explain. Maybe it's because his body looks like the David Cross acid bath character in the Mr. Show Titannica sketch, probably more because I've always been drawn to the weirdos and the chubsters and the freaks in my pro wrestling. Now that Ellsworth is out of WWE, I can't think of anybody more worthy of a strange Gowen/Delaney/Ellsworth contract. I guarantee you Weird Body would get over in WWE. Bring him in, sell a few t-shirts, send him to 205 Live, quietly release him. Then someday Chikara will bring in Delaney/Weird Body/Ellsworth for their trios tourney. And yes, this match is what I wanted it to be. I have absolutely no clue how long Adam's weird body will actually be able to hold up to pro wrestling bumps. He has absolutely nothing except his skeleton to absorb the shock. I imagine there is a finite amount of brutal T-Money bodyslams he'll be able to take before his skeleton just shatters apart, ruining the lives of everyone in attendance. But until then, we get to see him getting pounced violently into the ropes and getting suplexed while atop another man's shoulders. Alex Kellar has preposterously small "over trunks", as if he stole them from Adams. He borrows his boy's trunks, he needs to do a better job of protecting him from savages like T-Money! T-Money really did look awesome, and I don't think it was because he mostly matched up with a guy smaller than any female wrestler. Money has a Chris Dickinson aggressive jerk vibe, smashing headbutts and full force. Weird Body has some fun offense, most of it ineffective due to his size, so you see him hit a crossbody with his opponent draped over the ropes and instinctively go OH! and then immediately realize oh wait he's 85 pounds. But no matter, this was a blast. Finish is great as Russ drops a huge elbow/senton off the top (like Izu's old falling meteor)on Kellar, and Weird Body bursts in with the save!! Which is a huge mistake, as T-Money then wastes him, and Kellar gets pinned anyway.

Massage NV (Dorian Graves/VSK) v. Twerk Time (Marti Belle/Ray Lynn)

PAS: Ick. Massage NV's gimmick is that they give unwanted massages to their opponents to unnerve them, so watching them work a team of women was basically Harvey Weinstein the wrestling match. Even worse, Twerk Time are part of Gregory Iron and Alex Daniels crew, so team inappropriate touch were the baby faces. No one in this match seemed particularly good at straight wrestling (Marti Belle was famously the worst part of the MYC) so the parts of this that were a standard match weren't good either. This was gross and I wish the OCD completist part of my brain allowed me to tap out after the first minute or so.

FBI (Tracy Smothers/Little Guido) v. Team IOU (Nick Iggy/Kerry Awful)

PAS: Lots of pre-match horseshit with Smothers coming out with a Cubs shirt and Cubs flag to taunt the Cleveland audience. Smothers is a master of cheap heat, and it feels like he is beneath baseball team cheap heat, he wasn't bringing his best. Smothers is clearly in the no bumps portion of his career, which is fine his chops and karate thrusts still looked good. Not sure why Guido isn't booked all over the place, he still looked really good and the initial takedown and grappling section with Iggy was the highlight of the match for sure. Match itself was about half as long as the pre game stuff, and was a fine but unmemorable use of all four guys. Looking forward to seeing what IOU/Carnies did for the rest of the tourney.

Tracy Williams/Matt Riddle v. EYFBO (Mike Draztik/Angel Ortiz)

PAS: This was an enjoyable tag. I was really impressed how good EYFBO looked when they were doing some grappling early, you would expect them to get smoked, but they both looked good. There was a longish beatdown section on Riddle with a bunch of fun double teams, including an insanely high cannonball by Draztik. There was some SAT memorial silly double teams, including a goofus looking romero special on one guy, camel clutch another guy which definitely was the result of some stoned late night brainstorming. Finish run was exciting including a brutal tombstone right into a German finish by the Catch point team. Didn't out stay it's welcome and had some real exciting moments. Good stuff.

ER: I really liked this, and liked how it kind of evolved out of a semi-joking around atmosphere (fitting in with the rest of the card) into violence, big risks and some big nearfalls. I thought the early wrestling was really good, haven't seen anything close to this interesting from them during their entire Impact run. And during the opening half we get a nice look at what a solid underdog babyface Riddle is. He's an amazing athlete but his athleticism can cause him to go overboard on offense sometimes. Here we get to see his athleticism putting over the attacks from EYFBO and it makes them look like credible threats. The (brief) comedy moments are kept during the moments where EYFBO is cutting off the ring, so the match never stopped for everybody to work a bit, it was instead worked in as heel taunting: Ortiz posing while throwing weak mocking stomps to Riddle, or breaking out several backrakes while isolating him in their corner (though on a show where Weird Body already did an electric chair backrake, we had already reached peak backrake). It all lead to a super hot tag to Williams (perhaps Fiery Hot Sauce?) that sees him sprint across the ring to boot Draztik in the face, then kicking at him until he's off the apron, and hitting a nasty back elbow on Ortiz. We get hot nearfalls, some awesome BroSauce double teams, a dope Ortiz tope con giro through the ropes that smashes Williams into the guardrail, Riddle's big splat senton, just a super hot finish. The match built nice and really exploded.

Crime Tyme (JTG/Shad Gaspard) v. Brian Carson/Dr. Daniel C. Rockingham

PAS: I am too old to get any nostalgic thrill out of semi-crappy early 2000s racist WWE gimmicks. This was fine, but if you are going to book the Gangstas, book the Gangstas not some ripoff team aimed squarely at the Trump voter inside of Vince. This had some amusing shtick from the student team who cheated a bunch, until Crime Tyme got pissed and smacked Carson with the hoverboard in front of the ref. I did like the part where they blew a leapfrog and JTG started potatoing Dr. Dan, outside of that it was very skippable.

Crazy Pain (Steve Pain/Gringo Loco) v. NES (Facade/Flip Kendrick)

PAS: Always happy to see Segunda Caida favorite Flip Kendrick, having two great rudo bases like Pain and Loco is a perfect fit for all of Kendricks fancy shit. Liked the early lucha rope running section, both Pain and Loco are crazy agile for portly dudes. We had a rudo beatdown, which including Loco hurling Kendrick in the air into a Loco cutter. Cool dive section with a nutso multi spin dive by Flip and a fun finish run, with the rudos really winning convincingly with Pain hitting the painkiller and slamming Facade hard on Kendrick. This probably maxed out as a fun IWRG opening tag, but I really like IWRG opening tags.

ER: This was a perfect vehicle for the super impressive lucha stylings of Loco and Pain. Both have big bellies and seem like they have only grown since buying their ring gear, but damn are they just as quick as any tiny flier out there. The rope running and armdragging to start was maybe my favorite I've seen all year, just gorgeous stuff and the kind of flippery I love. Facade is a guy I always forget that I like, as I see him on sight and immediately go "ugh look at this guy" but he brings big strkes from weird angles, really feels more complete than a lot of juniors. Also, tagging people's signs during his ring entrance is a genuinely cool touch. The flying in this had a nice dangerous feel to it, as after we get past the super fast armdrags and quick exchanges, we get into some daredevil flying, quick ranas (Pain and Loco take fast ranas perfectly) big power moves (that alley oop into the cutter Phil mentioned was insane), the whole thing was tons of fun.

Headhunters v. Lucky 13/Eric Ryan

PAS: Pretty shocked that the Headhunters have all four of their feet at this point, much less actually moving around pretty good. Lucky 13 and Ryan are deathmatch guys brought in to eat the bumps for the Headhunters and both guys get killed and bleed all over the place. Headhunters really weren't taking bumps, but they were getting hit hard with chairs, and one of them even takes a Van Daminator from 13. Hunters are still flying, with each Hunter hitting a tope rope splash and one of them hitting a splash off the ring apron crushing a plastic table. I have no idea where the Headhunters had been for the last 20 or so years, but for nostalgia guys they looked pretty good.

PAS: Nothing blow away from the first night, but all of the right teams advanced for the most part, and I dug the Fuck-Its beating of Weird World, lucha tag, Catch Point and the Headhunters. Very excited for night 2.

ER: I greatly enjoyed the matches I watched , and we decided that the BroSauce and Pain/Loco AND the Weird World tags deserved a spot on our 2016 Ongoing MOTY List. AIW delivers the goods, again.

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ECW One Night Stand 2005

Wow. This was 9 years ago. I guess without counting some of those weird 1997 Raws (also from Hammerstein) or that weird business where Tazz as ECW champion lost to HHH on Smackdown (which prompted some guy from back east to call into my college radio show at the time and rant about it for what felt like a very long 15 minutes), I think that most would agree that this is the first WWECW show. It's weird to think that this started a long, sad parade of ECW reunion nostalgia that is impossibly still being milked today on actual real television by a somewhat real wrestling company. I remember watching this show years ago when it came out on DVD, using the JBL commentary track which featured a drunk JBL throwing every ECW worker under the bus in hilarious fashion (and if you didn't think it was hilarious, maybe you would by the 8th time you heard one of his repeated jokes).

1. Lance Storm vs. Chris Jericho

Jericho is nerdily announced as "Lionheart" Chris Jericho, and is wearing his old tights and vest. Crowd is crazy hot for this, flipping out after an opening arm drag sequence. They also are so desperate to shit all over women that they immediately chant "She's a Crack Whore" at Dawn Marie, who decidedly looks nothing like a crack whore. Jericho levels Storm with a face high dropkick and this is starting really good actually. They're pretty good at working Storm ECW nostalgia spots (high dropkick, springboard back elbow from the turnbuckles) into the match with a more modern indy style worked in. Old ECW had a lot of exhibition style work, with guys doing their familiar spots without so much regard to segueing smoothly into those spots. One moment a guy would be taking offense, the next he'd be on his run of signature offense. Here Storm hits his long vertical suplex, but Jericho kicks his legs a bunch to try to reverse it, and when Storm runs up for his back elbow, Jericho dropkicks him on the way down. We do eventually merge back into classic exhibition style, and Storm's comebacks leave a lot to be desired here. His comebacks mainly just involve him standing up after taking moves, and then doing moves. Jericho plants him with a mean Tiger suplex and some nasty knees in the clinch, Storm just shrugs it off with a spinning heel kick. Jericho reverses a piledriver with a backdrop, Storm just pops up and hits a superkick. Jericho tries to glue this together, but Storm just wanted to hit all of his moves. He hit them all nicely, but his insistence on hitting all of his moves made the match mean less. Storm wins when Jason and Justin Credible interfere and Joey Styles hilariously starts using JR's Owen voice, talking about what a horrible shame it was that Storm had to win things that way, in what could possibly be his last match ever. Styles goes on for well over a minute. "Shame. Just a shame. Why did it have to be this way, Lance? You're better than this."

Pitbull Gary Wolfe gets a weird payday for showing up in full Pitbulls garb to introduce a tribute to the fallen stars of ECW, and shockingly there aren't too many at the time this show happened. I wish I knew what song originally played behind this package (since I assume most music has been changed for the Network airings) as I really want to hear some Sarah McLachlan playing while they show slow motion clips of Big Dick Dudley flexing through clenched teeth.

2. Tajiri vs. Little Guido vs. Super Crazy

FBI comes out to an instrumental loop of No Sleep Til Brooklyn, and Smothers is awesome waving the flag and doing all his weird Smothers mannerisms. This show needs more Smothers in the ring, but I'll settle for Smothers at ringside. Full props to Tommy Dreamer for managing to get JT Smith a WWE payday in 2005. Mick Foley is absolutely horrible on commentary here, playing up a folksy late career James Stewart persona. "Aw shucks Joey, they're going to be doing a lot of moves I've never seen here, but I-I-I I'll just try to keep up, best I can." Actually, now that I think about it, he may be just mimicking Terry Funk. Re-read that sentence in Funk voice. That adds up. That awful commentary is a running theme throughout the match (and the show) "you know I've known Tajiri for 11 years and he's just the nicest guy you could imagine". Kewl insight. This match is really fun for the first few minutes, as every single person at ringside (Sinister Minister, Mikey Whipwreck, Smothers, Smith, Tony Mamaluke, Big Guido) all interfere at some point in the match, but it's actually done in a way that's integrated perfectly into the match. Big Guido goes to powerbomb Tajiri, gets low blowed by Minister, Tajiri sprays mist at Little Guido, Smothers runs in with karate and gets leveled with a superkick, Mikey hits the big top rope Whipper Snapper on the misted Guido, all the while Mamaluke and Smith keep Crazy busy by sweeping his legs on a rope run and crotching him around the ring post. Interference doesn't usually add to the match but I can't think of a way to better integrate 9 people in one match within 1 minute. Match as a whole is fairly short, at barely 6 minutes, which had to disappoint most. Tajiri looked somewhat lost at points and was kinda awkward getting into position for his offense, but Crazy and Guido were on point. Guido did some of his big silly bumps, and Crazy's stuff looked good, hitting some big moonsaults with heft (including a wild one off the balcony) and nasty seated dropkicks. Still, too short to mean much. Also, I couldn't tell if it was two unfortunate tongue slips, or if Styles was throwing out hack racial humor, but two different times in the match he distinctly said "soo-prex" after Tajiri threw a suplex. The first one could have been an accident…but twice in the same match?

3. Rey Mysterio vs. Psicosis

I remember a lot of people being disappointed in this match at the time, but the match was perfectly fine. If this was on WorldWide it would definitely make a WCW B-Sides comp. Psicosis takes some nutty bumps as you hoped he would, doing an insane guillotine legdrop off the top to Mysterio (who was draped over the guardrail), doing his trademark missed corner attack that ends with him dumped on his head, and taking a nice Cassandro bump, wrapping himself around the post and flying into some ladies in the front row, which Mysterio follows up with an awesome Thesz press from the top into the crowd. Psicosis also draws boos by locking on a headlock. I didn't put on my good hockey jersey to go out and see Mexicans do rest holds!

Then we get JBL and Angle coming out to plenty of boos and chants, JBL stiffing Gertner with a mean shove and kick to the ass, and RVD coming out and cutting the best promo of his life. He had a knee injury and couldn't compete which was tearing him up inside since this show was something he worked years to make happen. I mean, I fast forwarded through some of his promo, but it was about the most life-affirming promo you can get if you were ever an ECW fan. RVD showed actual real passion and it was nice to see. Joey Styles threatens to ruin everything with his awfulness: "Gotta love a shoot promo on live TV!!" Ugh. And then Rhyno came in and absolutely folds RVD in half with a Gore. The lights go out and while everybody hopes for a return of Midnight, Joey dorkily starts going "we blew a generator! We lost power!" Which naturally leads us into...

4. Sabu vs. Rhyno

…which starts out awesomely, with Rhyno hitting a big belly to belly and going to the top rope (for reasons?) so that Sabu can just brain him with a chair. Rhyno takes a massive bump off the top and Sabu hits a sweet chair assisted springboard dive. The whole match was pretty crazy, and both guys complemented each other nicely. Sabu threw a bunch of great right hands, tossed chairs at Rhyno's face and hit all the spots you'd want to see Sabu hit. Rhyno was a monster, not only taking all of Sabu's stupidity, but dishing out a bunch of cool stuff you don't remember Rhyno doing. I remember he had a nice piledriver and he really spikes Sabu with it here, but he also does a cool running yakuza kick on Sabu, and leans way into all of Sabu's stuff (including a bunch of neat Sabu legdrops and springboard stuff). Sabu throws Pee Wee into the way of a Gore and he takes it like a man, almost bouncing his neck off the bottom rope. At this point RVD gets in the ring in real awkward length jorts (not baggy, but not ironically short, just that horrible relaxed fit/above the knee jort style), white socks and cross trainers, limping horribly on his bad knee. I have to assume his knee is absolutely wrecked, or else it's the only time he's ever consistently sold a body part in his career. He comes in and actually works spots with Rhyno, including nuttily skateboarding a chair right into Rhyno's face and setting up a table spot for Sabu. Sabu drops a chair through Rhyno and the table just explodes, and this whole thing was a great spectacle. Awesome stuff that I have to believe is the best possible match that could have happened .

Eric Bischoff and the Raw crew arrive, including future ECW superstar Gene Snitsky. Joey does uncomfortable and sad and just plain poorly delivered play by play as they walk to their seats. "There's Raw superstar Edge. I'm glad I didn't bring my wife tonight [long pause]. Because Edge is a wife stealer."

5. Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero

Well speaking of uncomfortable. Mick Foley immediately completely misreads the room "This is the match that never got to happen in ECW. The dream match that never happened because Bischoff lured both of them away. And now finally the fans get it and want to see nothing more" as the fans proceed to direct all of their attention to Edge in the balcony while chanting things about Lita being a whore for over half of the match. Seriously at any given screen shot about 2/3 of the crowd is turned totally away from the ring. Eddie is pro enough to get at least some of the fans to actually watch the match, and damn does he look great here. His mat exchanges are quick and powerful and he really snaps the fans into it by outstiffing Benoit on chops and grinding his boot over Benoit's face. Benoit bumps maniacally through the ropes to the floor on a missed charge and Eddie really seems pissed at the crowd. Mick and Joey really put over just how suicidal Benoit is after he does the diving headbutt, talking about his neck surgery and really putting over how he has a real death wish. Good grief. Thankfully they didn't point out the hanging vertical suplex he did earlier. Match ends fairly abruptly with Eddie tapping to the Crossface. Match was really weird. Eddie seemed genuinely pissed the whole match (and understandably so, if it was directed at the crowd), and purposely ground the match to a halt on a few occasions with chinlocks until the fans stopped chanting at Edge in the balcony. Things were short and didn't really flow, although Eddie looked really good and to a lesser extent so did Benoit. This is probably the most recent Eddie stuff I've seen since it originally aired (by recent I mean within 6 months of his passing) and his body is just shockingly freakish. He was freaking huge here and just looked like he had no flexibility whatsoever. Watching him take suplexes and bump was painful as it looked like he physically couldn't bend his spine or bend at the waist. I remember at the timing reading how riddled with injuries he was and how he needed time off, but damn 9 years of not rewatching him during that period really opened my eyes to just how bad off he looked.

6. Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka

So this is a pretty famous match - I think - within the WWECW canon. People were pretty split down the middle on this one when it happened. Some thought it was incredible and that both men would be hired immediately by WWE, others thought it was a laughable collection of dangerous spots thrown together with no build-up that ensured neither man would *ever* be hired by WWE since they wouldn't want reckless workers like that on the roster. Both sides make sense. I certainly sided much closer to the latter at the time. The match has major flaws, and neither guy would have made sense in WWE as anything crazy they did in this match they would not be allowed to do in a WWE ring. JBL infamously mocked the match the whole time on commentary, repeatedly stating that Tanaka looked like his doorman, and after Tanaka had kicked out of several finishers started shouting at other people about what a badass doorman he had. But watching the match within the context of the show, within the context of the crowd, and keeping in mind who both men are in regards to their feud (which I'm sure many ECW fans would rank as a favorite from the fed) then I think the match totally and completely works. It's probably very hypocritical of me, as I've seen plenty of matches like this on the indies where guys kill themselves with no rhyme or reason, no selling, no build to anything, and then at some point the match ends because of a move that for whatever reason made a guy keep his shoulders down for one extra second. And I've hated all of them. Even while watching this match and enjoying two men try to cripple each other in the name of fond memories, I pictured some clown like Davey Richards doing a match like this, and I would certainly hate that match. But in the moment it came off more like a violent and entirely stupid (but awesome) IWA-MS match. If this match happened in front of 60 people in the back patio area of a rural bar, between two guys named Dick Nasty and Tony Sack, I'd be yelling at Phil to go out of his way to watch the Tony Sack match.

I've criticized plenty of matches that I thought were garbage, but worked for the crowd they were presenting to. This match could easily fit into that category. "Bad match, awful structure, crowd loved it." But I'm with the crowd on this one. Despite being unreasonable and selfish, I remember the complaints at the time about Rey, Benoit, Eddie, etc. not working "like they were in ECW". Rey was booed for doing his 619, Eddie didn't...I don't know, do any Malenko/Guerrero roll-up sequences? Whatever it was, fans were agitated that some guys looked like they were working the show like any old TV taping and not the GREATEST EVENT OF THEIR LIVES. Again, it's wildly unreasonable, and illogical. They had real wrestling jobs and would go on to those jobs after this show. So within context of this show, Tanaka and Awesome going out there and just completely destroying themselves for the crowd, for ECW, to try and get a job, to stick it to JBL in the balcony, whatever they had to prove I don't know, but they clearly pulled out everything within their abilities and threw it out there. And I thought it worked for that reason. Again, stuff that's context-dependent doesn't always hold up, but I can say I enjoyed this match more now than I did at the time. Granted, there were still moments I laughed out loud during the match, and I fully get why JBL was laughing about it in the balcony (his fake cheerleading and shock when they keep kicking out of stuff is still funny to me), but on this show, at that moment, with these guys, this was the best they could have possibly done, and they did more than they probably should have, more than anybody else on the card, and more than anybody probably needed. Within a minute or two of the bell Tanaka gets powerbombed from the apron through a table, head and shoulders first. Things get more ridiculous from there. Both guys get brained with chairshots, more tables explode in insane fashion, Awesome hits one of the nastiest gores I've seen, and then more tables explode. Awesome's knees had to be pencil shavings at this point, and he's still doing his big splash off the top and dives into the crowd. Tanaka's brains had to be mashed potatoes at this point (still unclear how he's managed to work more than most Japanese workers for the last decade) and he willingly takes every stupid powerbomb and finisher Awesome pulls out of the hat. Match ends spectacularly with another powerbomb from the ring through a table on the floor, and then Awesome ridiculously following up with a straight up nosedive of a plancha, just dive bombing Tanaka and coming in vertical. Ridiculous structure, none of the moves meant anything, both guys needlessly killed themselvs, but it was the perfect match for this show.

We get a long, fairly lame Heyman promo (with SHOOTS!) filled with a bunch of flat disses (yelling "Matt Freaking Hardy" at Edge, which Joey Styles points out is a SHOOT because Matt isn't even employed by WWE!!!!!!!!).

7. Dudley Boyz vs. Tommy Dreamer & Sandman

This was a chance to get more guys a payday, and it was fine for that reason. Sandman takes years to come out, which is certainly an accurate ECW throwback. The bWo comes out and Styles over laughs the whole time, worse than the absolute worst possible Jimmy Fallon bit. While the bWo are just walking to the ring, just normally walking to the ring, Styles literally says "This is the funniest thing I've seen in my life". This guy is terrible. We get Balls & Axl, The Impact Players (with Francine looking better than at any point during the original ECW), Spike Dudley comes out, Kid Kash hits a wild and awesome flip dive on about 10 people, Beulah makes her wrestling return, and people got hit with trash cans. At one point Bubba raked Dreamer's forehead with a cheese grater which is just the grossest. I don't know if it was worked or not, but Dreamer had tons of color and Bubba made it look great. God thinking about a cheese grater on flesh is just disgusting. Beulah and Dreamer have the most revolting hug I've seen, with Dreamer covered in blood and Beulah pulling away when it's over with blood caked in her hair. Yuck. Match ends with a flaming table spot, and then all the Raw and Smackdown crews get called out and there's a big schmozz. This is where JBL infamously roughed up Blue Meanie (even though it wasn't really caught on camera). Tracy Smothers stood out to me during the brawl as really looking like he was having a ball out there, jumping in and punching people at will. The crews get run off and Bischoff ends up alone in the ring with the ECW guys, but it's pretty anticlimactic as he takes a couple finishers but still gets to yell "Fuck ECW!" Really should have had him take more finishers, or not allowed him to look so fearless and never say die.


WWECW MASTER LIST

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ECW Hardcore Justice!! Report

When I first got back into wrestling around 1997, I became a huge fan of ECW. Because of ECW I started tape trading, and it opened my wrestling world up to puro and lucha and helped turn wrestling into an obsession for me. I didn't have too much nostalgia for it at the end, but thought the One Night Stand show a few years after was a fun idea that provided a good atmosphere (and I really dug the Funk tag from the 2nd one). But there wasn't anything when the ppv ended that made me think "Man, I wish we could relive these days more often." But damn if I didn't start getting really excited when this TNA version came about.

Now, in fairness to you dear reader, I'm not really sure WHY I got so excited for this ppv. I know a large portion of my glee was because TNA was devoting one of its 12 yearly ppvs to a promotion that is entirely owned by its competition, and I am still endlessly tickled by that. This was entirely a commercial for something that they cannot profit off of! They paid their own money, to hopefully turn people onto a wrestling product that WWE is currently making money off of! "If you liked these matches, you should consider subscribing to WWE 24/7, or picking up one of the many ECW DVDs they've released." I cannot wrap my head around ANY of that, no matter how hard I try. Owl City didn't come out with an album under the name "Fed Ex" and take breaks between songs to say things like "If you dug that track, you should consider giving money to Ben Gibbard, and Sub Pop, and dating a girl with S.A.D., and taking a trip to Seattle." Nope, he just made an album that sounded like really bad Postal Service, presented it to people that had never heard Postal Service, and made a good deal of money.

But bands cover other bands all the time. Small acts cover legendary acts, legendary acts cover obscure acts, and they'd probably be tickled if fans then went out and discovered those covered acts. But a cover and a blatant rip-off are two different things. Kurt Cobain would probably be elated to see the Vaselines make a 2009 comeback (were they ever even here?) when most people only knew they existed because of "Molly's Lips". He would probably be less excited to see Sponge make a comeback (since they were essentially a Bush cover band, who were a Nirvana cover band). But they were all able to exist and they were all able to make money and fans of Sponge didn't care that they were a really bad Nirvana, they just really liked "Plowed". But TNA isn't merely ripping off a rip off.

TNA's scenario would be more if Nirvana and Sponge were the only two bands in existence, and Nirvana owned the Vaselines back cataloge, and Nirvana was gobbling up 95% of the music industry money, and Sponge had a really rough 10 years, losing a bunch of money, but then decided to do a small club tour doing nothing but Vaselines songs, but they couldn't record any of the shows, and they couldn't promote the tour as them playing Vaselines songs since they didn't own them, and it wasn't a sold tour, so they had to pay for everything themselves....then....

What the fuck am I even talking about!? It should be obvious to everyone involved that this ppv was a collossally shitty idea, with minimal chance to make money short term, and zero chance to make money long term for them, all while positioning their own company as a #2 to a fed that lasted about as long as they have and has been dead for years.

They wanted Jerry Lynn to headline the ppv, which makes no sense as he was in TNA longer than he was in ECW, and they never felt he was a headliner while he was IN TNA, and they could have signed him back at any point over the last 3 years, but had no interest in him! And suddenly they want him to headline!

I just don't get it. Nobody was clamoring for this, and they appeared to not even be sure what the fans wanted. As far as reunions go, the 1997 Dukes of Hazzard reunion was booked far better. They knew what the fans wanted, and presented the characters with satisfying backstories: Bo was a race car driver, Luke was a fucking parachuting forest fireman, Daisy was divorced and getting her PhD (meaning she was both smart AND sexually available), Jesse was the Grand Marshal for the reunion, Enos was with the LAPD, Cooter's a Congressman, etc. If something was different, they addressed it directly: No Boar's Nest? It burned down. Sorrell Booke died years earlier? Well, Boss Hogg done passed away from stress, but he wrote a book about grifting before he went! No Waylon Jennings? Have Bo and Luke make a new song detailing all the fine memories they created. Denver Pyle has lung cancer? Throw a wig and a beard and a fucking fat suit on him and pretend he's still the same ol' Uncle Jesse!

In the end, CBS presented these characters in ways that fans would fondly remember them. They didn't bring out fucking Coy and Vance and poke fun at what a shitty idea this was. CBS didn't call attention to how disappointing it was to not have Boss Hogg. TNA would've been far better off pretending Paul Heyman was dead, instead of Dixie tweeting about the contract negotiations between them and the fat, excitable, bald man in a suit who runs the town. She should've just written Boss Hogg out of it. CBS knew that Tom Wopat and John Schneider still looked good, and the fans were happy that Catherine Bach still looked great in shorts. TNA didn't even bother to have people get in something resembling shape.

I.. just...don't...get this ppv!

But I was excited for it (mostly for all the wrong reasons, essentially to laugh and laugh at TNA and their continual blunders), as excited as I would be for ANYthing featuring Tracy Smothers, Scorpio, or CW. So here we go. I'll keep the rest of this short.

1. Tracey Smothers/Little Guido/Tony Luke w/ Big Sal vs. Kid Kash/Simon Diamond/Johnny Swinger

Smothers is like James Woods, I'll pretty much watch him in anything. Guido looks good and so does Mamaluke. Kash looks the same as last time I saw him, and Diamond is so fat that Tazz tells him to invest in a singlet. When you're so fat that Tazzzz is calling you out, time to take a good long look in the mirror. No Mitch, Muskateer, Dick Hurtz. Diamond threw some nice punches and Smothers did his awesome Smothers-Fu, Mamaluke took a big bump to the floor and a nasty bump into the corner, Kash got crazy distance on his springboard dive, Mamaluke hit a great missile dropkick that the camera mostly missed (since TNA cameramen still don't actually know how to film wrestling) and Guido actually gets the pin! Fun stuff.

We do some video promo/memories segments that are all really strange.

Gary Wolfe is apparently still alive. I figured him for dead years ago. And he apparently has prior commitments. So he couldn't be there. And his titties are more on display than Francine's. Good lord his gynecomastia is out of control and in our face.

Blue Meanie treats his promo as if he's doing a "good luck to the bride and groom" video at a wedding, or a video yearbook on the last day of school.

Then TNA guys talk really unconvincingly about what "that promotion" meant to them.

2. CW Anderson vs. 2 Cold Scorpio

This was actually a match I had hoped would happen and we're pretty much through all the announced names I was excited about at this point. This match was legitimately awesome, though. I'm not sure how these two have not found themselves in a regular promotion. The punch exchanges looked great and were capped off by CW's AWESOME left hand that Scorpio sold perfectly. His thousand yard stare afterwards was the best. Scorpio is one of my favorite workers of all time, as his flying offense ALWAYS looks super impactful and hits the mark most of the time. Here, the tumbleweed looked great, the missed moonsault was nice, and the moonsault legdrop was awesome. CW was totally game here and this was just constant fun. Alvarez said the fans were trying hard to be polite during this one and I am completely puzzled as this was EASILY the best TNA match I have seen since JJ/Angle from 1/09. This easily smoked TNA's last 18 months.

RVD really coulda put on some shorts or something during his promo while he iced his sac.

3. PJ Polaco vs. Stevie Richards

This was pretty decent, but it was kinda poor booking. Both are wrestlers with little offense who were really good bumpers, so not too shocking to me that there wasn't a lot of offense here. Stevie took PJ's DDT nicely, and the end superkick was cleverly hit during the middle of PJ spouting his catchphrase, acting as Jerry McDevitt slapping a C&D right under TNA's chin.

4. Brother Runt vs. Al Snow vs. Rhyno

Boy...I just don't remember much of this. Huh. I mean, there is just nothing that sticks with me here. I remember Spike taking the Gore really nicely at the end...nope, I got nothing on this one.

Francine looked really nice. The further away she gets from wrestling, the better she looks. "I was gonna be there to relive the days of me getting piledriven while fans chant something about my cunt. But I guess I'm doing OK here with my family and my flattering age-appropriate hair cut. I really miss those days, guys, seriously!"

Cut to TNA workers having a really fucking boring Nitro Party during the show.

5. Dudleys vs. Kahoneys/Axl Rotten

Axl Rotten looks like Frank Mir after a twinkie-assisted depression-addled post-Brock/Carwin loss bender, and he can't move very much, but his punches still somehow suck less dick than Mick Foley's later in the show. Balls was the correct answer for "Who has the worst meth teeth from ECW". I know many of you had a lot of money riding on Bill Alphonso. I'm sorry. Balls is winner. Brother Ray's super face plants ruled and most of this sucked and then New Jack came out to hit people and then hug them and then talk about raping other people. I thought Bubba sold the lightsaber stabbing really well. The camera shot it really nicely from the opposite side, really looked like that thing went right through him.

6. Raven vs. Tommy Dreamer

Wow, this felt really really long. Raven hit a really nice kick while they were brawling in front of 4 year olds. Those daughters faces really said "Fuck is our dad a loser. We wore our nice matching summer dresses for this!?" They both looked alright taking the drop toe hold onto stuff and I actually enjoyed the ending story of "Raven gets the win, but Tommy has a nice wife and family". I'm not sure if Taz picked up on that, he was fucking terrible tonight. Buuuuuut not as terrible as Mick Foley's punches. I think it is beyond safe to say that Mick Foley now has the shittiest punches in wrestling, even shittier than Abyss. I mean, Abyss' punches are insanely, impossibly bad, looking like a cross between a confused teen doing a sieg heil and a girl weakly throwing a baseball. But Foley's 2010 punches? Holy shit, I have zero idea what he's even going for with these things. He appears to be aiming his wrist at the space 6" above his opponent's forehead, throwing it horizontally and with no clear intention to come close to the person's head. I'm just dumbfounded at what those things could possibly be. He can't be miming punches. He cannot be doing any sort of approximation of fist-based violence towards his opponent. So somebody PLEASE help me. What was Mick Foley doing? What were those supposed to be? And while you're at it, please explain to me what Kofi Kingston is doing what he's supposed to be doing 10 count corner punches. I have no idea what the fuck those are supposed to be either.

7. RVD vs. Sabu

Ah, I missed the days of RVD setting people up in precarious spots and then making them awkwardly hold their position while he posed and chatted with fans while setting up the spot, then eventually hit the spot. Sabu was awesome because he would sit in awkward positions while RVD hit his shit, then he would just get up and punch back to offense. Sabu hits a great dive into the crowd, RVD takes years to set up spots, Sabu gets monkeyflipped onto the edge of a chair and somehow Taz fucks that up! "He was aiming for the center of the chair, and he kinda sorta hit his elbow on the side of it, but not really what they were going for." Fuck, really!? That's the guy getting over your talent? This shit doesn't really hurt! Teacher, you forgot to give us homework! You usually give us homework, and class is almost over and you haven't given it to us yet! What a doofus.

Post show Dixie looks like THEE biggest money mark in the history of wrestling. Bubba motorboats her and carries her around the ring, and she is sooooooo stoked to be one of the boys in the back. I was praying for the show to end with her getting 3Dd and then piledriven through a table by Rhyno. ECW wasn't about being thankful for women!

Man. This show. Why? Why!?

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