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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The 2002 WWF Royal Rumble Match: A Great Royal Rumble Match

ER: I had not watched this Rumble since it originally aired, and I was surprised at just how many specific things I remembered. I have real goldfish brain these days and yet I somehow remembered more about this Rumble than almost any of the 20+ that have happened since. I watched this one specifically for the 2002 Boss Man content. Boss Man was good enough in 2002 that it's worth checking out a 70 minute match for what is no more than a few minutes of Boss Man action. This was his final PPV match appearance before spending the next few months working compelling matches on Heat. Going out like a legend. But this match had a lot more value than just a few minutes of Boss Man. This is one of my favorite Rumbles, one with nothing but great punches and ass kicking. Goldust/Rikishi was a great starting two for this Rumble. Honestly, Goldust making his WWE return and looking this damn good is something that should be brought up every time you talk about Dustin career highlights. He and Rikishi were pacesetters for this, focusing snug punches, fast near eliminations and hard bumps, and at least 15 guys in this Rumble focus on the same. Boss Man is actually the third guy in this whole thing, and in a Rumble where half the men involved made a case for having the best punches in WWF, Big Boss Man made the best case for #1. 

Based on this Rumble alone, the 10 best punchers of 2002 WWF were:

1. Big Boss Man

2. Matt Hardy

3. Val Venis

4. Goldust

5. Perry Saturn

6. Mr. Perfect

7. Chuck Palumbo

8. Christian

9. Scotty 2 Hotty

10. Steve Austin

Goldust/Rikishi/Boss Man makes for a really great fast paced three way, with all taking big bumps and throwing stiff strikes. Goldust gets crotched up top, Boss Man gets whipped into Goldust's groin, and Boss Man slips Rikishi ass over elbow with a running forearm shiver. During his few minutes in the Rumble Match, Boss Man threw upwards of 16 different precise punches to Rikishi's and Goldust's body and face. 

He made the most of his too brief time, then took a real tough elimination: He was the matches' lone Stink Face victim, and it was a particularly aggressive and lengthy, just buried. What were they doing out there. How were we a baby step away from a wrestler being allowed to put his balls in his opponent's mouth or something. Boss Man staggered into a big bump elimination, Rikishi blasting him with a fully extended superkick and a freight train clothesline over the top. I still can't believe how great Boss Man was in 2002. 

Goldust has some of the best in-ring timing of any wrestler of the last 20 years, but we get blessed with an unintentionally hilarious Rumble moment where Goldust starts a corner 10 count punch sequence on Bradshaw at almost the exact same time the countdown clock begins, so you have 13,000 people colliding on numbers with everyone going in different directions. 

Undertaker clearing the ring, laying waste to everyone - Goldust claiming best elimination with his chokeslam bump elimination - was really well done. Undertaker felt like a real force and everyone in 2002 moved like they were somehow injected with extra testosterone. But the best past of Undertaker eating waste was Matt Hardy and Lita beating the shit out of him, and it only got better when Jeff Hardy came in because then all three of them kicked the shit out of him. I wish we got more of that before Taker made his comeback, but I just love the Hardys. The Last Ride on Matt was huge, and Jeff got to distract Taker enough for Maven to make him look like a bug eyed idiot. But they got a lot of good mileage out of the Undertaker/Maven brawl, with Undertaker beating the shit out of the never-eliminated Maven and then walking down the aisle to punch Scott 2 Hotty in the face before just walking back to continue the beating. Maven bleeds and gets dragged into the concourse area, security guards having to actively shove fans out of the way as they crowd in. 

There's a lot of star power, and the guys who get less of a reaction all do stuff to make the crowd pay attention. Christian, DDP, Scotty, Chuck Palumbo, Godfather, Albert, all worked hard for their 1-10 minutes, everyone of them throwing hands and bumping big. DDP had this great tumbling backwards bumps through the ropes after a Scotty superkick; Christian, Palumbo, and Perry Saturn all have a face punching challenge and we are all winners, with Saturn and Chuck especially teeing off on each other. 

The match can be divided up 65/35 between the build to Austin charming the big crowd by running the ring, and the comedown when Austin has to share the ring with HHH. Even though the entire Rumble has good parts, it is top loaded and I like how everyone filled time before HHH was in there. Austin is a great battle royal worker. That's no secret. I love watching him fill time and I loved the gag of him eliminating everyone too quickly, so needing to punch everyone back into the ring to eliminate them again. Austin runs through several guys and it's a weird call to have Val Venis show up for the first time in 8 months and be the first guy in the match to ice down Austin. Turns out, it was a good call. I liked the Austin/Venis stretch so much that I immediately checked for any singles matches they had, and now I'm definitely going to watch their 1999 Smackdown match. I don't think HHH is bad in this Rumble per se, but he's so fucking serious and it kind of spoils all the fun. He's a scowling frowning buzzkill who glowers and sucks the fun out of exchanges, and spends a lot of time lying down and catching his breath. The first 70% of the match is kids having a blast at a sleepover, and the last 30% is like kids still having fun, but it's on a field trip while a teacher keeps telling them to be quiet. 

I really loved this match as Mr. Perfect's last big moment. Making the final three, swatting his gum into the crowd while Austin and HHH try to eliminate. What a guy. Does anyone else swat their gum like they're Mr. Perfect? I think I'd be too afraid of it getting stuck to my hand or whiffing. It takes high levels of confidence to pull Curt Hennig's gum swat success rate. Do you remember the little buzz after Perfect came back after almost a decade? I was on those message boards. I was talking about how great the Perfect/Tommy Dreamer match was on Heat. I didn't know he wouldn't even work 20 matches after that one. Is the Curt Hennig Puerto Rico any good? What about the XWF that he recorded right before returning to WWF? It probably is, and I'll probably watch that along with the Austin/Venis match. This Rumble has a lot of fallout. The push to the finish of the match was exciting enough. Big Show looked really good in the double strap Bundy singlet. Kane lifting, walking, and tossing Big Show over the ropes to eliminate him was legitimately impressive, Kurt Angle had a lot of enthusiasm, the Austin elimination was fairly shocking, and you're left with a 70 minutes match that did not at all feel 70 minutes long. I think that counts as high praise. 

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Two Short Timers: 2002 Boss Man vs. Perry Saturn

Big Boss Man vs. Perry Saturn WWF Metal 2/16/02

ER: Both guys were close to being gone from the company at this point, but I was still surprised by Boss Man beating Saturn in barely 2 minutes. Both had no problems mixing things up, and I would have loved to see 5 minutes of this. It's a weird match, as much of it is spent one them reversing Irish whips and punching each other into place. It's like they went out and decided to do a quick match with no moves other than the Boss Man Slam. It is entirely punches and kicks, and it kind of rules. Boss Man showed off all his great strikes, and his 1-2 combo of hitting a hard knee to the gut to buckle a guy then following it up with a straight right to the jaw. It's quickly becoming one of my favorite combos. Boss Man threw hard body shots, a straight right to the chin, and a palm strike right between Saturn's eyes. Saturn hit his cool springboard dropkick off the middle rope, and I really loved that as he kept throwing Boss Man with Irish whips, that he actually looked like he was muscling him. So many Irish whips are a guy barely going through the physical motions, relying on the guy getting whipped to just start running as he's pat on the back. But here's Perry Saturn doing some deep knee bends to show his work, really showing that he was putting his full strength into whipping Boss Man, and it works. I loved the spot where Saturn whips Boss Man into the corner: Boss Man hits the buckles chest first, and Saturn sweeps his legs as he's staggering backward. These two clearly had the material for a longer match, so I can only assume the Metal taping ran long and they had to cut this match short. 

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RIP Silver King, Pt. 2

Silver King/Juventud Guerrera vs. Kaz Hayashi/Blitzkrieg WCW Thunder 10/21/99

ER: This is a fairly infamous WCW TV match, where they let these four go fast for 10 minutes and everyone broke out new and crazy offense. Blitzkrieg is just as much fun in 2019 as he was in 1999, a guy much more in line with Amazing Red than a few dozen Red clones that came after both. He was constantly moving forward and always coming up with some fresh attack, occasionally getting hung up but more like how the best short stops are the most aggressive short stops. Derek Jeter may have barely made errors, but he also didn't get to anywhere near as many balls as Jack Wilson. I'll take Wilson. Blitzkrieg is one of those great flyers who throw nice strikes and stiff shots in between their spots so it actually ties things together, instead of just moving to new spots. He gets great height on offense and really leans into Silver King beating the shit out of him. And King looks incredible here. He hits the highest flapjack possible on Blitzkrieg, throws these super high and violent knee lifts, stiff kicks, his great flipping legdrop, really helps Blitzkrieg through a couple tough spots, hits a gorgeous double springboard moonsault, just a total superstar showcase for King. But if King looks like a superstar here, then I suppose that would make Juvy a megastar. Juvy probably has a pretty solid claim at being the #1 wrestler in 1999 WCW, and this match is one of his masterpieces. He glues this whole thing together and really keeps all the parts moving, really keeps segments sharp by hitting a ton of wicked knife edge chops, snaps off impossible ranas, makes all of Kaz/Blitzkrieg's offense absolutely soar, I mean he and King should have gotten pushed to the moon after this. This whole thing holds up remarkably well. It's a fantastic spotfest that reads as well as classic M-Pro or the JAPW stuff not far after. The flying still looks tremendous, with Kaz hitting a crazy height Asai moonsault to the floor and making it back in time to break up the pin after King's epic moonsault, and there's bananas stuff that is crazy enough that it would still seem crazy in 2019, like King picking up Blitz for a powerbomb but getting hit with a Kaz missile dropkick, causing him to then take a reverse rana over the top to the floor. I mean my god. This is rightly a legendary WCW b-sides match, as fun as ever.

Silver King/El Dandy vs. Dean Malenko/Saturn WCW Thunder 10/28/99

ER: This was a fairly thankless performance for King/Dandy, but I thought it was important as it was the first TV appearance of Dandy and King as a team, and I love that they ended up getting a little TV push because of the team. Malenko and Saturn swallow them up for a lot of this, though we get a great moment down the stretch where Dandy hits a big missile dropkick and punches Saturn in the face. Saturn and Malenko (and Benoit) were getting a big EDGY push at this point, so the match was definitely designed to be their showcase, and they looked good! They looked like two guys who should get showcased. Malenko even punches Dandy with a chain wrapped around his fist, which is a very weird thing to see Malenko doing. This whole thing was more than worth it just for King getting murdered with an absolutely insane Demolition Decapitation, with Saturn hitting a brutal kneedrop while King was draped over Malenko's knee. That King agreed to take it at all is all the proof you need of his legendary status.

Silver King/El Dandy vs. Kaz Hayashi/La Parka WCW Thunder 11/11/99

ER: Give these four a tight 5 and watch what they can do! Total blast, the first half is basically Park working misdirection spots around King/Dandy, doing goofy dancing, making King accidentally punch Dandy, moving away from offense and then mocking them; but King hits a big dropkick while Park is dancing, and we get a funny moment where Park hits an awesome lariat and then goes for his headlock takeover/headscissors on both of them...and Dandy just drops him to the mat and puts the boots to him. Why hasn't anybody else ever thought of that? Los Fabulosos work nicely together and Dandy was given a lot to do here, really showing off a couple nice bumps but looking tough as hell on offense. Both were great at integrating Parka's comedy into things, and the Park/Kaz team playing chair guitar was weirdly something that could have had legs. I coulda watched these teams match up all the time.

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WCW Worldwide 8/22/98

Saturn vs. Mark LaRoux

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

Bobby Blaze vs. Brian Adams

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

Jim Powers vs. Mark Guthrie

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

Roadblock vs. Mike Sanders

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

Los Villanos vs. Doc Dean/Manny Fernandez

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

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

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Hey, This Happened: Bart Gunn and Saturn Stiffed the Hell out of Each Other, 13 Years Ago

Mike Barton vs. Perry Saturn TNA 4/9/03

13 years ago Mike Barton made his one TNA appearance, as he and Perry Saturn stiffed the holy hell out of each other, and none of us saw it because we were all in our early 20s and we weren't watching TNA. The match starts in the back (a clear reminder of who was in charge...) and Barton throws a dozen hard left hands right at Saturn's eye as they brawl to and into the ring. Saturn fires back with an occasional stiff right of his own, Barton fires him meanly into the guardrail, Saturn gets busted open over his right eye, and - it being TNA - the camera also zooms in to watch him blade his left eyebrow. Barton hits a cool shoulderblock off the ropes, and Saturn hits an awesome springboard dropkick (looks even better while bleeding) plus a couple of awesome German suplexes. We get a tremendous spot where Barton holds up the bleeding Saturn in a loooong delayed vertical suplex, and you can see the blood dripping off Saturn's head and down Barton's chest. Saturn really has no problem leaning into all of Barton's shots, and the finish was really great. Barton threw one of his hardest lefts, and then shook his hand out afterwards and started kind of pulling at his glove. Saturn pounces and maneuvers around Barton, takes him down and starts wrenching on Barton's hurt hand to get the tap. I love a good brawl, and I was a wild teenage super mark for the Brawl for All, so this was really fun to see all these years removed. Saturn ending a fight by capitalizing on a guy possibly breaking his hand from too many punches, improvising a street fight submission on Barton, was a pretty high concept finish for a match nobody knows about. 

Also, as a fun aside, one of the first email conversations Phil and I ever had was about Saturn. Phil and I traded tapes in the early 2000s, and I would make compilation tapes of lucha and WWF Metal/Heat matches so he could watch guys for DVDVR 500 consideration. On one of the last WWE syndicated comp tapes I sent him I was REALLY impressed by a wildly resurgent Saturn. Saturn had come back from injury and was really tearing up the early 2002 WWE landscape (at 1 AM on Saturday nights on my local affiliate). I have fond memories of doing my midnight to 2 AM college radio show, then picking up Taco Bell, going home and watching the episodes of Metal and WCW Worldwide that had aired during my radio show.

Well, I searched my old ass email inbox and found one of the earliest email conversations between Phil and I, from 4/30/02:

Eric: "Just wondering if you got the Lucha/B/O WWF Metal/Heat tapes I sent you. I sent them a week ago, so I was hoping the WWF comp would be there in time for the 500 ranking. I guess if it didn't get there in time, there will be some sad WWF undercarders who won't get their rightful place. Anyway, good luck with the 500."

Phil responds: "Yup got it watched it all, you were totally right about Saturn. Although he is hurt so he won't end up preposterously high on the 500 like he would have. Me and Tom totally dug the Metal and would be into future tapes like that every six months or so. Really fun wrestling, although it was frustrating to watch Funaki refuse to mat wrestle even with jobbers or Saturn."

There you have it. Two guys bonding over their love of 2002 syndicated Perry Saturn matches. Still going strong today! <3 .="" 3="" p="">

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Saturday Night 6/13/98

1. Saturn vs. Damien

Quick match but really fun. Damien gets exactly one move (running up the turnbuckles into a crossbody) but Saturn is a total beast here, never letting up and working pretty stiff. Saturn just plants Damien with the DVD and also throws out a crazy half nelson duplex that has Scott Hudson going bonkers. Would have liked some back and forth but they were working "Saturn is mad and taking it out on some poor sucker" and it worked.

2. Evan Kourageous vs. Dean Malenko

Oh my lord Evan was so lost in the ring. Why the hell was he even put on TV so damn soon? Evan stumbles pretty early and from there it's mostly Dean stiffing him all over the ring and on the mat, so this is awesome. Dean's mat stuff looked really great, much closer to his mid 90s internet rep than you remember. It probably helps that Evan is basically a sack of potatoes that Dean just did shoot mat transitions with. Really looked like Dean had to do every move legit because if he let up a little bit, Karagias would immediately screw it up and fall the wrong way. So you get cool stuff like leg scissor takedowns where you can tell Dean is really tripping him to the mat. Karagias eventually gets his comeback run and immediately blows it, reversing an Irish Whip and then forgetting to do anything when Dean runs back at him...so Karagias just runs to the opposite ropes while Dean is still running...and eventually stops and squares off. And then Dean just says fuck it and kicks him and clotheslines his throat. Watching Malenko put the Texas Cloverleaf on Karagias was a thing of hilarity and beauty. Karagias acted like he had never seen this move applied in his life and had no idea what to do, so it ended up looking more like me struggling to get my cat in his cat carrier to go to the vet. Karagias keeps rolling the wrong way so Dean finally snaps, forces it on him and then bends the poor guy almost in half as Evan noticeably yelps and starts tugging at Dean's leg to get him to stop.

3. Booker T vs. Barry Horowitz

90s Booker has aged so badly, he really needs a quality opponent to drag him through stuff. Horowitz is a good guy to do that as he leans way in to Booker's elbows and silly side kicks and snaps hard to the mat for them. They had some nice go behind sequences to start with Horowitz getting a cool leg pick but Booker gaining leverage with a nice back elbow. Horowitz got into place for all of Booker's big moves, although Booker was rushing through everything way too fast and getting into position super early. Post match Fit motherfucking Finlay comes out in khakis and a black tank top and boots Booker hard in the side of the knee, then locks on a sick half crab. Weird to think they'd also feud in WWE almost 10 years later.

4. Chavo Guerrero Jr. vs. Chris Jericho

Well this was a little surprising, as Jericho wins clean in less than 2 minutes and Chavo gets zero offense in. His ribs were taped up, and Jericho went after the ribs, but you'd expect some sort of comeback or something. I think I remember a period where Chavo feuded with Eddie and Chavo went crazy and would not use offense during matches, or something. But it's odd for a guy to get completely squashed right before a PPV where he's in a featured match.

5. Kidman vs. Juventud Guerrera

Lodi is holding an awesome sign that says "Kidman vs. Juvi Best of 467 Series". These matches are basically as strong as the amount of blown spots contained within, and everything hits in this match so it's a win. It's 7 minutes of a bunch of moves that hit, with cool slams and big missed moves off the top. When Juvy is on he is my favorite non-Rey cruiserweight to watch. He bumps huge and moves so damn fast. Here he just whips all around Kidman and all his moves have some great extra oomph to them. He really makes his plancha to the floor look like full contact. Kidman is good here, too, doing something different than his usual bump machine specialty. Here he cuts off a lot of Juice comebacks and does little things like missed clotheslines really well. Juvy does his cool missed 450 spot where he lands on his feet, and then plants Kidman with the Juvy Driver for the clean win. He was facing Reis at the PPV, ya know. Really awesome 90s WCW cruiser match, one of the reasons I was so into this style when I was an innocent teen.

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

Chris Adams vs. Saturn

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

Villano IV vs. Juventud Guerrera

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

Curly Bill vs. Lash LeRoux

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

Adrian Byrd vs. Jeff Jarrett

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

Elix Skipper vs. Allan Funk

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

Sonny Siaki vs. Rick Cornell

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

Johnny Attitude vs. Meng

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

Berlyn vs. Frankie Lancaster

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

Texas Outlaws vs. Creative Control

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

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