WCW Bash at the Beach 7/13/97

I can't believe they had under 8,000 fans in attendance for this show. I thought the build was great and the lineup on-paper is really strong. This really feels like the kind of show that should have drawn 20,000+, but a hot smaller crowd could be a great thing. 

1. Wrath/Mortis vs. Glacier/Ernest Miller (9:47)

If you found out that WCW was going to essentially have a karate division, with nothing but arcade fighting game characters, this is the best possible version of the kind of matches that attempted to fuse fighting games and pro wrestling. These guys all had varying levels of training and in ring backgrounds, but I don't think you could have laid out a better match for this specific combination of wrestlers, and it resulted in an insanely fun PPV opener. It's 10 glorious minutes of shockingly good spin kicks and crazy double teams, like a cartoon version of a Low Ki/Red match several years before that was a match. I'm not sure Ernest Miller or Glacier ever fit so naturally into a match again, Wrath and Mortis doing a great job of being in all the right places to take some complicated kick landings. This was much more snug than other Glacier/Miller matches, everybody really tightened up their punches and so many of the kicks looked genuinely explosive. The US was still in a big martial arts craze in 1997, and this match fit so well into that, and the crowd reactions showed that. There were some crazy spots here, all using some impressive timing. Mortis and Wrath hit their great powerbomb neckbreaker, Wrath hits a big cannonball of the apron, Miller is trying springboard attacks, and Glacier looks like he gets a concussion on the floor when Wrath hold a chair for Mortis to superkick directly into Glacier's ear. His left ear eats chair, right ear gets smashed into the ringpost. There is a little slow down before the finishing stretch, but when Miller tags in and is hitting spin kicks and James Vandenburg gets superkicked off the apron you won't care. The finish is the best possible Memphis Mortal Kombat, when Vandenburg wraps a chain around Mortis's boot for a loaded karate kick win. Pure brilliance, one of my favorite PPV openers of the 90s. 

2. Ultimo Dragon vs. Chris Jericho (12:55)

This was a pretty good embodiment of a lot of the 1997 WCW juniors matches. There's a lot of great spots that get big reactions, a couple of ambitious spots that look blown, they lose the page a bit and try to make up for it with big bumps, and it works! The best stuff makes up for the worst stuff, they mostly keep a good pace, and throw in some genuinely memorable spots. A lot of it is fairly typical 90s juniors wrestling: some engaging but meaningless matwork, a mirrored move, some cool backdrop reversals (Dragon landing on his feet, Jericho cartwheeling through), a stand off, we all loved it in 1997. It was the reason we traded for WAR tapes before all collectively realizing that the lumpy old sumo main events were the reason to be trading for WAR tapes. The best stuff here is very good, with a couple of very nice Jericho moonsaults and fun Dragon kick combos, a big double powerbomb from Jericho, great Asai moonsault to the floor, and some fun reversals. They get off the page a little bit when both men fall on a top rope spot, Dragon basically leaping to the floor while Jericho leapt back into the ring, and Jericho feels like he's trying to make up for that spot by taking a couple of really big bumps to the floor. It doesn't ever quite seem like it's anything other than a nicely laid out collection of spots, but the effort being put in elevates things. 

3. Steiner Brothers vs. Great Muta/Masahiro Chono (10:37)

This was filled with a lot of miscommunication, but still came off great to the crowd thanks to some huge Steiners throws and a fantastic stooging heel performance from Chono. He yelled at the crowd the entire time he was on the apron, and continues riling them up any time he was in control. He easily crossed any language barrier just by having no problem throwing the sole of his boot into heads with his great yakuza kicks, while also rubbing the crowd’s nose in it before inevitably getting smashed by the Steiners. The match is pretty formless, but the nWo Japan control is very fun and it’s cool seeing them dominating the Steiners and not being eaten alive like has happened. Scott looked absolutely massive here, which only makes it cooler when he is throwing Muta across the ring with his hip switch belly to belly or nailing the Frankensteiner. Muta hits his own big top rope Frankensteiner and Rick hits dangerous overhead belly to bellys on both. Chono also took some big backdrops from Rick, just a great house show main event heel performance. The match was a mess, but a cool mess, with big charisma and big highspots. The finish is dangerous and made everyone in the building get to their feet, with Muta taking an electric chair DDT. It looked as safe as possible, meaning it looked like a man taking a vertical dive off another man's shoulders. Those kind of things made it feel like a bigger, better match than it was. 

4. La Parka/Villano IV/Psychosis vs. Juventud Guerrera/Hector Garza/Lizmark Jr. (10:08)

This was the same kind of fireworks that made the opener so much fun, although the Daytona crowd didn't react as loudly to this as they did to that. It wasn't for lack of effort, and all kept working so hard to impress for 10 minutes that eventually the crowd finally had to respect it. It started a little slow with some nice Psychosis/Lizmark maestro match up, and the crowd reacted kind of confused to it. Even Tenay had to explain to Schiavone and Heenan that it was common for lucha matches to start with matwork. From there they build to some huge flying spots that come mostly at the end of the match, and they build to those big spots with hard bumps and stiff strikes. I don't think the crowd was looking for the luchadors to beat the hell out of each other, it's as if it isn't even happening right in front of them. Villano IV especially just comes in murdering everyone with chops and punches and lariats. La Parka does the same (he hit an amazing clothesline on Juvy in the corner, running down the length of the apron to land it), and Psychosis throws maybe the two hardest lariats in the match. 

La Parka is an excellent base for Juvy's headscissors, even catching a nice one through the ropes to the floor, and Psychosis took hiss missed corner bump on the back of his head. The crowd didn't react to any of Psychosis's bumps, even though he was killing himself. Seeing that, you really got the sense of how well Juvy and La Parka understood the timing of spots and how to hit them for the maximum crowd reaction. But the crowd got more involved after a series of misdirections, every member of the match missing consecutive top rope splashes, and it's like it suddenly woke everyone up and reminded them that bodies were crashing for their amusement. The dive train was tremendous, all started by Lizmark flattening V4 with a plancha. Psychosis got backdropped by Garza into a tope con giro, Garza acted as a tabletop for Juvy to get *incredible* height and distance on Air Juvy, just soaring beyond the ropes, building to the big Garza tornillo. A match that deserved to win the crowd over, and eventually did. Very memorable PPV lucha trios, one of the best. 

5. Chris Benoit vs. Kevin Sullivan (13:10)

A tremendous swan song performance for Kevin Sullivan, a real fight feel for its duration with some great use of non-participants and a ton of violence. The violence never dips and it's a painful pace to keep up, things beginning with a punch exchange that makes it clear Sullivan will be throwing fat fists square at Benoit's face. Benoit keeps everything entirely professional the full match, always working snug but clearly working elbow strikes and kicks. Sullivan, however, has no interest in worked shots and beats Benoit up the way someone fighting for their career would. Every punch is thrown to hurt, every kick to the stomach looks upsetting, he stomps Benoit in the balls, double stomps him in the stomach, throws him through a display of surfboards and even throws Jacqueline at him. Sullivan was an expert at taking advantage of Jacqueline and Jimmy Hart's interference, and both of them are great additions to the match. 

Jacqueline is relentless when things spill to the floor, getting flung aside by both Sullivan and Benoit but always screaming back into action. Benoit lifts her up for an atomic drop and instead launches her at Sullivan; Sullivan shoves her at Benoit while immediately following up with a fist to Benoit's eye. Jimmy Hart climbs a lifeguard's chair only to ride it into some fake palm trees after Benoit shoves it over, and the fight continues. Sullivan hangs Benoit in the tree of woe and delivers three hard running knees, and they cool things down a bit with a long crippler crossface. I really liked the long application, Benoit locking his hands right underneath Sullivan's nose, and Sullivan getting a long hard fought rope break and a nice reaction from the crowd after fighting to his feet. The ending pays off the weeks of Sullivan shoving Jacqueline around as she brains him with a wooden chair and leaves Benoit to fling himself straight down with a headbutt off the top. Great fight, worked with the importance of the stipulation in mind, stands out as a stiff brawl in a promotion full of them. 

6. Steve McMichael vs. Jeff Jarrett (6:56)

Very entertaining US Title match, with a crowd loudly against Jarrett. Jarrett knew exactly how to get heat from this crowd, and knows how to rub it in every time he's in control against Mongo. I love how Jarrett bumps and gets upended by McMichael's offense and has to keep spilling to the floor, yelling at fans, then pointing smugly to his head at those same fans whenever he would lure Mongo into a trap. Mongo looks good on offense, hitting a big powerslam and heavy knee lift, but was even more effective bumping for Jarrett. McMichael misses an awesome kneedrop into the corner, patella straight to the top buckle, and Jarrett immediately begins mocking him as he goes after the knee. The crowd hates it when Jarrett goes into a three point stance and takes out Mongo's knee, and just when it seems that Debra is about to step in and save her husband, she instead gives the Halliburton to Jarrett! The finish looks great, with McMichael blocking the first briefcase shot with his forearm and grabbing at it in pain, opening himself up to take the briefcase to the head. The crowd seemed genuinely surprised by Debra turning on her husband, and the announce team all seemed just as shocked. Everyone played their role really well and it lead to a great 10 minute segment. 

7. Randy Savage/Scott Hall vs. DDP/Curt Hennig (9:35)

This show has been really great at keeping every match within a perfect time window, giving everyone long enough to work an interesting and memorable match while not risking them losing the audience. It keeps the audience up the entire time, and this match had a good TV build. A lot of time was spent on who DDP's mystery partner would be, with Hennig and Raven being the ones not so subtly hinted at. In fact, it was hinted at so strongly that it felt more likely it would be neither of those two, so I was actually surprised when Curt Hennig came out as the partner. But even then the announcers had the appropriate reaction when they said "Oh so it IS Curt Hennig!" The match itself doesn't actually build much, as it turns out to be more angle than match, but the rare match ups elevated things and got us nicely to the angle. Hennig and Hall were a strong AWA tag team a decade prior and only fought on house shows and one PPV tag in the WWF.  And, outside of a few possible Royal Rumble interactions, Hennig and Savage is a first time match. So those are fun pairings, and to add to that DDP always works well with Savage so the floor on this one is high. This was an inspired stretch for Savage, always loved the energy between he and DDP. Hennig and Hall square off and it feels new, even though it's not, ahem, perfect. It all builds to DDP skinning the cat which causes Hennig to get slowed by a low bridge, but then he attacks DDP and leaves him prone to the Outsider's Edge/Elbow. I think Hennig made more sense as a heel during his comeback, so I liked the turn and thought it came off unexpected. 

8. Roddy Piper vs. Ric Flair (13:26)

I loved this match. Piper vs. Flair hadn't faced off against each other since 1992, and most of their early 90s WWF feud was house show only. Their interactions in the 1992 Rumble were arguably the best part of one of the most legendary Rumbles, and this match immediately brought back the energy of those Rumble interactions. Whenever I think of the 92 Rumble I think of Piper going after Flair every chance he got, running in and flinging himself onto Flair, and that's exactly how the first several minutes of this match go.  Piper's strikes all look classic, throwing hard overhand right chops, mixing up punch combos, big knife edge chops, Flair off balance the whole time and only making his way into the match by landing a chop block after Piper briefly gets tied up with the ref. Both men are good at both sides of the match, Piper looking like a crazed lunatic going after Flair, but also doing an impressive job selling the damage Flair was doing to his knee. 

Flair stooged and bumped and flopped for Piper's strike barrage, then looked near sadistic every time he would kick or stomp at Piper's knee or ring one up below the belt. Flair takes a couple bumps to the floor and Piper not only kept up the brawl energy at ringside, but he managed to limp around on his worked over leg the entire time. We get a couple of dramatic figure 4 moments, and a great twist when Piper has to deal with Benoit and Mongo. It's a bunch of chaos all at once, with ref Randy Anderson suddenly very easily distractible while people are crashing behind his back, but the payoff is worth it. Piper suckers Benoit into hitting a flying headbutt on Flair, but Mongo absolutely spikes Piper with a tombstone. There's a lot of great Flair/Piper drama as Flair crawls to cover Piper after Mongo's tombstone, and it really felt like it could have been the finish. Flair takes just enough time getting to the pin that it feels like there's a chance of Piper kicking out, and when it does it gets a huge reaction from the crowd. These two knew how to build to convincing pinfalls, with Piper also getting a reaction from a swinging neckbreaker that looked good enough to be the finish. But everyone wanted to see Piper drag Flair to the mat with the sleeper, and it was great seeing Flair's arm drop. This would have easily played as a strong main event a decade prior, and it was great to see both really go at it. 

9. Lex Luger/The Giant vs. Hulk Hogan/Dennis Rodman (22:30)

Buffer really adds to the big main event feel for this one, although he gives the nWo a way cooler intro than our two babyface heroes, saying that Rodman is a bad boy because he's good enough to be as bad as he wants to be. This tale of the tape feels very opinionated, but it does get the crowd buzzing. The match itself is long, but expertly laid out like a Memphis arena main event. It's classic Memphis, with a charismatic heel teaming with an athletic superstar and a charismatic face teaming with a green Giant. Sometimes the athlete is a babyface and sometimes the giant is a monster heel but the Memphis feel is strong. Hogan adds to that vibe by working as total chickenshit heel, and while the match had a purposely slow build, they knew exactly what they were doing as the crowd built along with it. They hide weaknesses and bullshit around strengths, with the Giant not tagging in until over 11 minutes into the match and Rodman being celebrated for every single wrestling move he managed to pull off. Hardly anything happens for the first several minutes and the crowd is along exactly where they need to be the whole time. Hogan takes forever to lock up with Luger, it builds nicely to Rodman entering the match, and the match works as a real impressive way to frame Rodman's first pro wrestling match. 

Rodman has a high floor as a wrestler. His size is impressive, and it makes his slow hesitant movements come off like a dangerous giant, not a tentative celebrity newcomer. Macho Man is the nWo's second, and he and Hogan are perfect cheeseballs who celebrate Rodman's every move as a feat of wonder. He locks up and armdrags Luger, and Macho and Hogan come screaming into the ring like Rodman had just grabbed a rebound to seal a playoff win. A Rodman leapfrog exchange leads to a reaction typically reserved for gold medal sprinters breaking the tape, and it's all great. The fans cannot stand Rodman and hate the idea of giving him credit, so we begin to get loud Rodman Sucks chants, and Rodman knows exactly how to soak it up. But they also can't help getting excited when he got more and more involved, and by the time he was hammering a trio of very nasty looking back elbows into Luger in the corner, he no longer felt like merely a celebrity attraction. They built well to everything the crowd wanted to see, and they especially reacted big whenever Rodman took damage. Rodman's size made his bumping more impressive, the crowd loved seeing him knock Luger down with shoulderblocks and also leap into a huge Giant bearhug. Giant is still real raw here, does a lot of Giant Gonzalez wide eyes swinging arms selling and comes off clumsy and unsure, but Hogan and Rodman are both good at working around him. It's all basic southern house show, but those connect with crowds and these reactions kept getting bigger. 

Not only did we get a steady stream of wadded up garbage thrown at the nWo, but the big spots all felt big. Rodman and Hogan did a double hip toss on Giant that felt shook the building, and the fans reacted like they had just been through an aftershock. Rodman violently manhandles ref Randy Anderson and headbutts him in the back of the head, and it leads to a chaotic finish that works for the match. Sting (a man who is clearly not Sting and instead a 7 footer who steps over the top rope entering and exiting the ring) hits the Giant with a baseball bat but WCW still gets to triumph amid the confusion, with Luger torture racking Hogan, Rodman, and Savage one after the other. It's a strong main event to one of WCW's best PPVs, a match that felt like a main event and properly navigated the egos of two top wrestling stars, one star rookie, and a major mainstream celebrity. It's not necessarily an easy match to book, but they made it look simple. 

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RIP Silver King

Silver King was one of the absolute best wrestlers in the world at the exact time my love of wrestling went from love to all out obsession. When I began college and was finally on my own independent schedule, combined with finally having internet fast enough to regularly use, I dove right into tape trading and acquiring tons of lucha and puro. Silver King was a guy who would regularly be added to my WCW perm tapes, and I sought out his new Japan matches for that reason. That was a great era for him, and I wanted to look back at some matches I remember being standouts.

Falls Count Anywhere Mexican Hardcore Match: Silver King/La Parka vs. Halloween/Damian WCW Nitro 6/7/99

ER: This is the infamous match where these four guys beat the shit out of each other, while Schiavone and Heenan giggle to themselves the entire time because it's a MEXICAN hardcore match.   And it's as crazy and great as you remember. This whole match is made up of these psychopaths interrupting each other's spots by throwing chairs at each other's heads. Halloween topes headfirst into a Parka chairshot, Damian baseball slides Parka off a chair, Silver King gets a chair bounced off his head on his Silver King plancha, Park hits a dive into a seated Damian, Silver King moonsaults with a trash can onto everyone; it's constant insanity and really should have been treated with flat out awe and respect. These guys were all total asskickers here and should have been treated like gods backstage. Trash cans get bounced off heads, Silver King hits a tornado DDT off the apron through a table on Halloween, Halloween shows what a bump god he was going to be for the next several years, La Parka powerbombs Damian through a table and Damian KICKS OUT! Damian probably still regrets kicking out of the table bomb, as Parka then immediately powerbombs him through two set up chairs that DO NOT BUDGE. It's absolutely sick and Damian gets pinned while his kidneys contemplate whether or not to keep functioning. Damian had taken a couple wicked flipping bumps off lariats earlier in the match, another example of Damian under the radar stealing the show in a WCW match. Total legendary brawl during the hardcore era, as violent as it ever was.

Silver King/El Dandy/Villano V/Damian vs. Kendall Windham/Barry Windham/Curt Hennig/Bobby Duncum Jr. WCW Thunder 6/24/99

ER: What a killer little gem. The luchadors aren't treated like a joke even though the Rednecks all tower over them. Rednecks treat them like total equals which is practically guaranteed to get an awesome result. This was tremendous. The Rednecks didn't have to be this generous to the luchadors, but the match was given enough time that every single person got time to shine. This was a great complementary effort with some fantastic moments. This is a total El Dandy showcase, he gets to wail on so many Rednecks with his big time whip crack punches, and the fact the crowd was really responding to Dandy (and all the luchadors) made this extra special. There was a fun run where each member of the lucha team got to hit a big move off the top, with a Redneck bumping big for it. Silver King and Dandy each hit big missile dropkicks, Villano V hit a heavy crossbody, and when it got to Damian they added some great psychology by having Hennig sidestep it. Rednecks transitioned to offense and cashed in on all the big bumps they took. Hennig especially looked mean, throwing hot punches and hitting real stiff in general. At one point during a casual luchador corner headstand Hennig just cuts it off with a quick headbutt to the dick. I've never seen that before and it rocketed Hennig up my list of great workers. This was during Barry's absurd "pretty sure he's wearing women's jean shorts" period, but Windham was nicely motivated and moved like his body was healed, so had some nice moments. Duncum was a fun overlooked guy, I like his more John Nord slower bruiser style, kicking Silver King right in the face at one point. Kendall gets to seal the deal on this match, hitting a mammoth headlock style bulldog on King, King taking it like a total nutbar. Great showcase for 8 really fun wrestlers, really shows how well the fans would have accepted luchadors as legit guys if they were actually treated regularly as legit guys.

Silver King/Villano IV/Villano V vs. La Parka/Juventud Guerrera/Psychosis WCW Thunder 9/30/99

ER: Another one of those great WCW compact trios matches that deliver on it's on paper delicious junkfood promise. These things move quick, and it's cool when every guy in the match totally delivers during their moments. King hits some nice power and agility spots, big spinkick, big bump flipping off the top rope and landing on his stomach, always seemed at the center of the important action. Villanos looked like killers and hit one of the great tandem bits of offense here, a sky high flapjack into gutbuster on Juvy. The way Juvy's chest sticks the landing over their knees is disgusting, the whole move looked designed to kill. Parka worked like a maniacal goofball throughout, and we got an awesome spot where the Villanos caught a Juvy springboard 450 to the floor (yep) and then Parka wiped out everyone with a suicide dive. Juvy was a terror throughout, always flying into frame with a fast wild springboard attack, and Psychosis misses a couple big spots with gusto and plants his big guillotine leg for the win. This whole thing was good and even had time to take a couple pace shifts, giving us a nice Villanos control segment in the middle of some big highspots. These guys always shone when given the chance, just another of countless examples by this point.

We are planning on celebrating some more Silver King over the next several days. This one is hitting me hard and I really want to enjoy justifying my love for the guy.

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WCW World War 3 11/24/96

From beautiful (?) Norfolk, Virginia, in front of over 10,000 wrestling fans looking at three large gleaming wrestling rings set up like the Tri-Force, comes the only PPV appearances of Roadblock and Tony Rumble. Who wouldn't want to watch this!? I've never seen it. Let's ride.

1. Rey Misterio Jr. vs. The Ultimate Dragon

ER: This was wild. Ultimo (I'm going to call him Ultimo, but used their weird Ultimate spelling above since they had it in their graphic) took like 85% of this match and won the thing about as definitively as someone could win a match. I guess I had forgotten that Rey became a big star, but they were still pushing Ultimo as a clearly bigger star. Dragon broke out every single piece of offense he knew and it all looked great. This whole thing is just a straight run of bigger and bigger moves. His leg kick combos looked crisp and looked really good for a guy who prides himself on not working stiff. His bodyslams looked Finlay stiff, so that was an awesome surprise. Soon he was building up to big backbreakers, a great tombstone piledriver, a piledriver on the floor, a powerbomb, a RUNNING powerbomb, vicious brainbuster...I mean it was a crazy one-sided beating and Misterio is really great at taking a one sided beating. The crowd gets almost uncomfortable watching Dragon just wreck Rey over and over.

Heenan: "Misterio has landed on the back of his head at least 15 times in this match!"

He's not wrong. Rey finally makes a little run by getting a boot up in the corner, but he overshoots an ambitious two rope split legged moonsault. Even Dusty has to point out on commentary that Misterio got like none of it. Rey has a couple nice rana roll ups, but it just makes more want to see more of Ultimo's awesome video game offense. And boy do I ever get my wish. Rey goes for a huge springboard rana, but Ultimo catches it, bounces him off the top rope, and then absolutely PLANTS Rey with a sitout powerbomb. It finishes the match, and looked like something that should have DEFINITELY finished the match.

2. Nick Patrick vs. Chris Jericho

ER: Goddamn this match rules. This makes me so pissed that we didn't get a run of Nick Patrick as a worker during this era WCW. He's like a god tier Danny McBride character in this match, just a magnificent stooge who genuinely looked like a better worker here than half of the active roster (and WCW had an impressive as hell roster). This match is brilliant. Jericho has one arm tied behind his back, and they work a fantastic match not only based around Jericho with one good arm, but Patrick doing mean offense to a guy with one arm while also convincingly taking a beating from that same man. Both guys' offense looks really good in this, Jericho pulling out a really impressive performance with use of only one arm, breaking out with a cool kick combo, a big leaping shoulderblock, actually some pretty impressive stuff with your body balance thrown off. But Nick Patrick is a real marvel here. He works like a great Memphis worker, throwing nice submarine angle uppercut right hands and fast excellently worked left jabs. He has as many doofus stooge faces as John Tatum, and any wrestler who tips the Tatum Scales for me is going to immediately be a guy who I champion. Patrick is not only a great bumper, he's able to take great bumps while conveying a guy who isn't someone who should be taking bumps.

I remember seeing an interview with Martin Landau about his wonderful performance in Ed Wood, where he talked about how seriously he took the role of Bela Lugosi; how he thought Lugosi was a true legend who he wanted to honor, so much that he thought out each aspect of the character in detailed fashion. And he talked about the crazy method depths he went to properly capture Bela, down to the fact that he didn't just want to do an accurate Romanian accent, he wanted to do an accent of a Romanian man who was insecure about his accent negatively affecting his career. Nick Patrick seems to understand his role in this match as well as Landau knew what tone to use to play Lugosi. Nick Patrick brawled like Windham and stooged like Tatum, and that's something I'm going to be impressed as hell by. Patrick uses the setting really well, brawling to the floor, hitting a cool ring post bump into a ring post joining two rings, setting up a spot where Jericho missed a punch and decked the ring post (Jericho played into all these transition spots GREAT), Patrick found cool ways to take this match into a couple rings and show off to several sides of the arena. That's an AMAZING skill. Patrick throws a ton of great punches throughout, great quick jabs, and then to show you how much of a rebel badass he is Nick Patrick does the Curt Hennig rolling neck snap! Patrick even takes a back drop bump, with Jericho setting it up impressively for a guy with one arm. This match was an absolute blast, I can't believe it isn't some kind of cult favorite. It's really great. Patrick is a legend and there's no sign that he'd even worked a match in the prior decade, and then he turns in this incredible performance?? I would have this super high on a 1996 MOTY List, as ridiculous as that sounds. Not just a superior gimmick match, but a superior pro wrestling match.

3. Giant vs. Jeff Jarrett

ER: This was pretty great, a cool bout derailed by a Crow Sting appearance that should have pissed off Jarrett and Giant. This match felt like a cool Coliseum Video hidden gem, like a cool Doink vs. Giant Gonzalez match that you've never heard anyone talk about. Giant was really quick and had different movement than when he was older and slower, so it was cool to see him throw a hard lariat with a lot more lunge. Jarrett bumped nice for him but also made sure his own shots looked good, and I like seeing the kind of shots in David/Goliath matches where the smaller guy jumps up for corner 10 count punches but gets shoved off, bumping backwards, and these two do a great version of that. Sting comes out and walks around the rafters, and Jarrett and Giant have to continue showing interest while literally the entire crowd is now watching Sting. But these two are good soldiers and this is a fun professional well worked match. Giant takes a big bump to the floor, and misses a big elbow drop off the middle buckle. He hits a hard bodyslam and this whole show can do no wrong.

We got a really great Hogan/Piper contract signing, genuinely up there with the great contract signings of all time, and I'm someone who really likes a good contract signing. The whole nWo is out there surrounding Piper, Hogan, Nash, Hall, Bischoff, Giant, all closing in as Piper talks tall. Hogan is really mean on the mic, some of his best mic work I've heard from this era. He keeps needling Piper about his hip, makes Piper lift up his kilt to show his hip surgery scar, says "I normally don't beat up cripples, but I can't wait to beat up a gimp!" Holy shit, that's pretty cruel. Piper getting jumped and doing his best to fight back while going down was great, and him staggering back to his feet before the nWo had completely left was a strong visual. I'd never really heard about this segment (and wasn't watching wrestling when this originally aired) but this should be talked about as one of the best examples of building interest in a match with a hot contract signing. I really want to watch Starrcade 96 right now.

4. Amazing French Canadians vs. Harlem Heat

ER: Guess what, this also ruled. This felt like an ECW house show tag, 4 big guys hitting hard and bumping hard, building to some awesome highspots. Rougeau was a great bumper in tags like this, really made Harlem Heat look like stars. Booker misses a high sidekick and catches the top rope, and the Canadians take control and the match keeps getting more fun. We build to this insane spot where the Canadians stack up a table across the ring corner, then put the RING STEPS on top of that table, and then already-insane-in-1996 PCO climbs to the top buckle and to the top of the ring steps, and MISSES the biggest cannonball ever attempted. This would have actually murdered Stevie Ray if he didn't get out of the way. I watched his ROH match from Mania weekend the day before I watched this and in that he gets powerbombed from the ring down to the floor - nobody catching him, just literally a powerbomb to the floor - and miss a cannonball from the top to the ring apron. This guy really is genuinely crazy, it's been happening for at least 23 years and at a certain point it can't be a work. PCO is nuts. Booker throws a ton of cherries on this delicious sundae with a vicious Harlem Hangover, that leg whipping perfectly and safely across PCO's jaw. Great 10 minute banger, best PPV ever so far.

We get a brief brawl between Col. Parker and Sherri Martel as part of the tag match stipulation, and it's freaking great. Sherri jumps him and the fans get way into it. Parker takes a huge bump over the top to the floor and Dusty is losing his shit the entire time, going absolutely bonkers. Sherri hits a couple flying clotheslines and a big crossbody off the top and the entire crowd is standing when she hits that crossbody. This is the perfect way to do a manager brawl, and I even wish we got a longer version of it.

5. Psychosis vs. Dean Malenko

ER: Goddamn this PPV absolutely smokes. This is a tough match with both guys staying tight and grounded, relying on some nice strikes and building to a couple big bumps, working a lot of more BattlArts style submission sections. The crowd is silent as hell which is a shame, they've been so hot for everything else and maybe they were already burned out? The PPV has been nothing but great matches and great promos. It's such a fun match to be quiet during, and they seem like a crowd who would be into their thing. Psychosis does his rope flip bump but lands on his feet instead of head, and turns it into a cool spinkick comeback; it's like he used that bump the same way you see a rebound lariat and it was cool. Psychosis does make up for the missing "crazy bump" quota and take a nutso leap to nothing off the top, catching his face on the guardrail. It's one of those dangerous Psychosis bumps where you can't tell if he botched something, or if he's an all timer and missed that ugly on purpose (I think it was the latter). Dusty excitedly says "We in the midst of it" and it sounds cool and he's absolutely right. This whole thing had a cool WCW BattlArts vibe, cool subs and matwork with some flashy quick armdrag variations and some nice strikes, something that I might not have known how to process when this originally aired. Maybe that's why the crowd was so quiet. I seem to remember the general opinion being that these two were a disappointing "mainstay" cruiserweight match-up in WCW, but maybe that was just a stupid guy's opinion that got amplified too loud? Because this match ruled.

6. The Outsiders vs. Faces of Fear vs. The Nasty Boys

ER: Shit this PPV really does feel like the total embodiment of Where the Big Boys Play. This PPV has had a ton of big dudes running into each other. This match is filled with a cool mixture of stiff motherfucker and sneaky motherfucker, and that's a combination you don't often get from a big time professional wrestling company. This is more like a three way race on Scooby's Laff-A-Lympics, and Laff-A-Lympics as Wrestling is something I want right this very second. FoF and Nasty Boys especially kick the shit out of each other, mean knees to the face, chops to the neck, full force collisions; at one point Meng clotheslines Knobbs so hard that you wonder why you ever watch anything that isn't pro wrestling. Outsiders do an amusing job of staying out of this while the other two teams beat bruises into each other, clapping from the apron at the men performing for them. BUT then they get tagged in and Hall is throwing a nice right hand one moment, but then being choked and thrown violently into the corner by Barbarian. This is a legendary big boys battle and nobody is talking about it! I've heard absolutely no opinions on this show and it's fucking incredible. Barbarian slams into Hall with an avalanche that is not so much an avalanche as it is just Barbarian running full speed into Hall. We get an incredible moment of various guys leaping at and attacking guys on the apron, the whole thing feels messy and violent in the best ways. I think every guy in this match misses an elbow drop that they don't actually expect to me a missed elbow drop. Like there is honestly a match-long prank war to see who can make someone miss an elbow more painfully. There are multiple piledrivers, Jimmy Hart is wearing his Misfits jacket with fucking skulls on the shoulders, this whole thing rules. It's a long match, too, over 15 minutes, and it completely rules. I am so in the bag for this show. My god.

7. WORLD WAR 3!!!

ER: These things were terrible, right? I have a very large TV, and when they cut to three separate screens you officially can barely see a thing. I would wager most 1996 viewers were watching this, somehow, on a TV at least half the size of my 2019 TV. This is a 60 person nude beach fuckfest filmed by a guy hiding a half mile away in the bushes. It's the kind of thing that would actually be better if it was just fullscreen and they just switched cameras a ton. It's a damn shame really, you hate to see it, because you can't see it. Because from every minuscule camera shot this whole match REALLLY looked like it ruled. First, it's freaking weird. The entrance might be the best part as 60 different WCW guys just walk out single file and the order is almost completely unplanned, just an endless parade of guys that you mostly know. The whole thing had great energy, you just couldn't see 90% of it at any given time. 

We start with Benoit jumping Sullivan on the floor and brawling through the crowd (with Konnan and Ray Traylor?), Tony Rumble is not only in this match for reasons that wouldn't make any sense to me or anybody, but he's also the first eliminated and Dusty yells out on commentary "Tony Rumble IS GONE!" From there we get flashes of brilliance when we can actually see any of what's going on. Villano IV punches the hell out of Jarrett, Parka punches people, a ton of eliminations look fantastic (Dave Taylor flies wildly off an Alex Wright dropkick, Road Block - in his only PPV appearance - eats a huge clothesline, we get a spot where 8 different guys do running corner attacks on Ron Studd and then DOGPILE him in the ring!), and the final 10 is a fantastic collection of the nWo vs. DDP, Regal, Luger, and Rey. It's so damn good. 

Once they get back to fullscreen and run through all the nWo vs. WCW, it really shows how hot of a battle royal this appeared to be. Regal tricks DDP into charging him and DDP flies to the floor, it takes Hall, Nash, and Syxx to eliminate Regal and he fights the whole way, and while the Giant win was exciting it really should have been Luger. The EASY MVP of the match was Regal. Every single time he popped into camera he looked like a megastar, and he was by far the greatest part of that final 8. Regal was an incredible fighting babyface here, and he stood out more than anybody throughout the entire match; from lacing into Riggs early on to walking tall right up to his elimination, this is an underrated great Regal performance.

ER: Wow, what a PPV. This is honestly one of the best PPVs I've ever watched. This needs to be discussed more. I need to do a podcast where I have a new guest on and we just watch and talk about World War 3 1996. New week, new guest, same PPV.

World War 3 and Me.

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WCW Worldwide 8/15/98

Stevie Ray vs. Todd Griffith

ER: We get a lot of matches on deep cut WCW where the winner is never in doubt, but we don’t often get an outright steamrolling. But then some guy named Todd Griffith opens the show, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen this guy before. He’s a Kid Kash looking guy with long hair (later during the match Schiavone says that Griffith hasn’t been able to do much, and Larry says “well he’s got a full head of hair!”), and Stevie Ray worked amusingly stiff in a quick 2 minute match. Stevie throws some nice forearm shots, throwing his whole body into them, and throws stomach kicks better than you’d expect Stevie Ray to throw a stomach kick. Griffith is clearly some legendary indy bump freak as he takes the Slapjack at a 0.7 Cham Pain. I’m sure I’ve written a match or two of his before and just don’t remember. Hell I’ve rewatched entire episodes of old WCW with minimal memory of ever seeing it before, how am I gonna remember Todd Griffith? [I checked and I had reviewed at least one other WCW episode from this era that also had Griffith, but I wrote it in 2013, so I’m not gonna beat myself up too much for not remembering the guy]

I’m still on a plane flying to Mania weekend, and we’re circling Newark airport because a couple other planes were in front of us and we were all jammed up, and the pilot gets on the PA and starts with “I just wanted everyone to know that we have plenty of gas” which is DEFINITELY something that NOBODY had been worried about until the pilot LEAD OFF AN ANNOUNCEMENT by saying “Hey everyone, TOTALLY CHILL up here in the cockpit, just thought it would be cool for everyone to know that our fuel tanks are FILLED UP. Nothing at all to worry about here, just takin ‘er easy.” What the fuck dude. He leads off talking about how we obviously have plenty of fuel, and then goes into a long explanation about how we’re in line behind a couple planes so we might be circling a bit, and then ends on, “And again, we have plenty of fuel.” This fucking guy. Just sitting down for dinner with his wife, leading with “You don’t look fat.” Hours later he doesn’t get what he did wrong. “I said you DON’T look fat!!!”

Alex Wright vs. Tim Cheeks

ER: This whole thing felt weirdly long, and Cheeks was very not good. Wright looked pretty frustrated at a couple points when Cheeks rushed timing or didn’t execute well. Cheeks worked this kind of like a not good Owen Hart, trying to moonsault off the top over a rushing in Wright but getting no distance on it, then trying to stumble into an armdrag that goes terribly so Wright just kind of muscles him down with an STO and palms Cheeks’ face. Wright throws some nice elbowdrops but looks a little rattled by Cheeks’ frequently incorrect positioning. Kind of a rough start to a Worldwide. Two Dodgy-by-WCW-syndie-standards and a PA announcement of my imminent death.

Public Enemy vs. Tony Carr/Dusty Wolfe

ER: Weird episode as this is the third straight match with a clear jobber role. We usually know who is going to win on Worldwide episodes, but this might be the first time I’ve seen the bulk of the matches featuring guys not on the roster. This is unexpectedly odd only because Dusty Wolfe gets the most offense of anybody in the match. This is mostly a Wolfe showcase, as until they win, PE is basically working this the same way you’d expect Wolfe/Carr to be working this. Carr is also amusingly working a Marine Corps gimmick, black sleeveless T and camo pants just like Pittman. I don’t think Pittman was around WCW at this point so were they just bringing in another similarly built black marine who was cheaper than Pittman, or still wanted that character and assumed nobody would notice the replacement? I liked Wolfe here, one of those good southern hands who I’d probably watch in 2019. I like that we got a weird Dusty showcase in 1998, and it’s so rare to see a guy not on the roster get so much offense. Really Wolfe’s team was in control the whole time, right up until they tried to tandem suplex Grunge but Rocco pulled him down, allowing Grunge to DDT both of them. Then, Drive-By. Before that the PE was at Wolfe and Carr’s mercy. So bizarre.

Fidel Sierra vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan

ER: This really isn’t much, probably most worth it for Zbyszko going on about how Duggan used to be good, but he reached a point where he stopped getting better and had just been coasting. “You’d think most guys would want to be World Champ but here he is just not improving on his skillset!” He’s not wrong here. Duggan is really lazy about getting from a to b, doesn’t give Sierra much to work with. Sierra looked really jacked here, I don’t remember Sierra having big guns, but there they are. ’98-’02 were wild for wrestling bodies. Duggan kinda just kills time here not selling a beating until it’s time for him to hit a lariat and Old Glory. Not the best Worldwide episode we’ve seen.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Psychosis

ER: The onscreen graphic actually spelled Mysterio with the y, but I don’t think that was a thing yet. There are frequent misspellings on these things. Fans are really hyped for this one. There’s a group of late 20s meatheads and their cute girls, and all of them are very invested in this match. A lot of it is Psychosis grounding Rey, cutting him off, not as many Rey showcase fireworks as we could sometimes get. Psychosis hits a pretty big guillotine legdrop off the top onto Rey on the apron, feels like a bigger spot that the camera crew didn’t expect, so didn’t get to shot it as impressively. Rey hit a big springboard legdrop, sold nicely while locked in chinlocks and armbars, and won with a nice rana off the top. A more grounded match than we typically got from these two, with no scary Psychosis bumps, but their expected professional match.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

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Inside La Parka's Burning I Can See Clear Through

La Parka/Psychosis/Villano IV vs. Juventud Guerrera/Silver King/Hector Garza WCW 6/30/97 - GREAT

PAS: This was a dark match for a Nitro and all six guys just went all out for seven minutes. Everyone was moving at a pretty breakneck speed, Villano IV is a stout guy, but he is flying all over the place, and even hits a great looking tope. La Parka comes off like such a big star in matches like this, even when he isn't the guy doing the most work. I like how they mixed in some classic lucha trios spots like the Star and everyone missing dives from the top. WCW Lucha trios were so much fun I really wish they ran them on every TV show and we had hundreds to watch, cool that a HH showed up though, I imagine there are dozens of house show trios which were just as good.

ER: So many of us were so lucky to have been exposed to lucha through WCW trios matches, just a bunch of unselfish guys trying out material, knowing they weren't even making tape but still going all out on a Nitro dark march (though I guess there's a chance they didn't realize it was dark...). What I loved about these guys going all out in a Vegas dark match, was they structured the match so that 2/3 of the moves missed. I don't know if I've seen that before. By the end of the match we got a few big dives, bullet topes from Villano and Juvi, Silver King's plancha, and a huge hangtime crossbody from Psychosis; but outside of the traditional multiman lucha spots (the Star, the tandem surfboards while Juvi crawled underneath everyone for a nearfall), most of the moves were designed to miss! We had a huge section where everybody misses splashes and sentons off the top rope, and the crowd gets more and more excited the more guys dive into an empty pool! But it's not just missed top rope moves, a lot of spots are set up by guys missing everything: missed dropkicks, missed clotheslines, missed spinning heel kicks, all misses! Most of the bumps in this match come from guys missing their moves. I've never seen a match so built around offense completely missing. La Parka and V4 were my favorite guys in the match. V4 threw a couple hard lariats and was working like a little bulldozer. Parka gets easily the best reactions of the match, that guy could have been a real superstar in WCW. Phil is right that he always stood out in matches like this, even with everyone doing crazy things, he had such a style to his hits and misses. Here he's taking bumps bigger than 1997 Psychosis, which are indeed huge bumps. Watch him violently miss that upside down in the buckles bump, and listen to the crowd get louder everytime he runs in and cuts someone off. Silver King took a big spill early to the floor, V4 and Parka had a contest to see who could take a bigger backdrop bump, and it really is a shame that so many other matches just like this just weren't recorded. There is no excuse for WWF/WCW to not be setting up a hard cam at house shows for the past 30 years. No vision.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LA PARKA

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