My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Pro 8/17/96

1. Chip Minton vs. Diamond Dallas Page

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

2. Jim Powers vs. The Gambler

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

3. High Voltage vs. American Males

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

***Baseball Rambling Below***

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

***Baseball Rambling Over***

4. Scott Flash vs. Mark Starr

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

5. Chris Benoit vs. Joe Gomez

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

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

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

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

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

7/14/96

Ruckus vs. Joe Gomez

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

Konnan vs. Alex Wright

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

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

7/21/96

VK Wallstreet vs. Jim Powers

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

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

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

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