WWF In Your House: Final Four 2/16/97

Shamefully, I've never seen the Final Four main event. It's a big 90s WWF blindspot for me and there's no reason for it, other than I don't love 1997 WWF. The highs are high, but the arenas are cold, the undercards are stale, the house style leaned towards dull, and I don't think the shows are filmed well. But other than that, I can't complain. A fact that can double as a reason, is that I've been watching - daily - a lot of 1997 WCW lately for my wildly entertaining and cumbersome book, and watching something like this does make for a nice comparison point. Plus, In Your House events were still under 2 hours at this point. They're basically a Coliseum Video with worse editing.  

Anyway let's correct the mistake of me never seeing a universally praised match with 3 of my favorites, and also double down and replace that corrected mistake with a bigger mistake: reviewing the entire show. 

1. Marc Mero vs. Leif Cassidy

ER: Marc Mero gets a ring full of sparklers, and Cassidy is already waiting inside that ring of sparklers. How often did they already have somebody waiting in the ring to start a PPV? I really like how the French announce team talks about Chattanooga, but the crowd is cold for this one. A Wildman shouldn't start off a match working a kneeling wristlock, so the cold is earned. Cassidy at least throws in bumps and acts like a dickhead. When Cassidy is kicking at Mero's leg, I buy his look of disgust. Cassidy throwing legsweeps and heel hooks is more interesting than what Mero was doing with the match. Okay we are going into the heel hooks and the elbowdrops to the inner knee a lot more than I was expecting. Interesting to me doesn't mean "interesting to the live crowd", but to the crowd and wrestler's credit they did all come together to root Mero through the legwork. 

It just hit me that the whole thing is laid out like a Tony Garea/Johnny Rodz match, and how a lot of 1997 WWF undercard matches felt like they were doing tributes to bad 1982 WWF undercard style. Not only is that a terrible style to be doing in 1997 - especially compared to what WCW was doing - but this was in Chattanooga and people in Tennessee were getting Lawler/Dundee in 1982, so Salvatore Bellomo vs. Baron Mikel Scicluna wasn't going to cut it. Mero has a cool short runway tope to break up Cassidy threatening Sable, and the shooting star press looks like even more of a crazy 1997 finisher today, but WCW opened their February PPV with Syxx/Dean Malenko like one week after this. People saw the difference. 

2. The Nation of Domination (Crush/Savio Vega/Faarooq) vs. Goldust/Flash Funk/Bart Gunn

ER: What even is this babyface (?) team? What do those three men have in common? Are they all recent TV victims of the Nation? I didn't watch any of the TV surrounding this match, but that's a tenuous reason to have three men teaming up on PPV. One of the clips they showed was Goldust getting jumped on a house show. Was WWF setting up PPV six mans on house shows in 1997?! Also I know I'm a big hypocrite because if I saw this match was on a WAR card I would lose my shit, and I would be right to do so. And this match - what we get of it - might be worth losing your shit over? It's filled with Flash Funk in his Labelle boots, hitting huge planchas (including one he gets Irish whipped into), and a nice run of the Nation cutting the ring off on Funk. Flash has a great sequence to build to his hot tag, back flipping over a Vega/Crush double clothesline and leaping through them with one of his own. 

The hot tag goes to Bart Gunn and it's kind of incredible to have one of wrestling's best babyface hot tag guys on the apron but choose not use Goldust as the babyface hot tag in a match where Goldust was the one shown getting attacked at a house show and makes the most sense as the babyface hot tag. But hey I guess liked the simple usage of Gunn. He comes in, throws left hands, hits a couple clotheslines, and gets a nice visual pin on Faarooq with the bulldog. This is a very fun six minutes, but ends way too early and feels way too incomplete to fully recommend. There was hardly any Goldust, Crush, or Vega. I don't know if you can have a good a trios match while barely utilizing half of the participants. It's useful as a match you can point to when talking about strong Flash Funk performances - maybe the least recommendable era of Scorpio's career - as it has some of his best flying and great selling. That means something. 

3. Rocky Maivia vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley

ER: I didn't actually check the full card for Final Four before I fired up this review, and I gotta say I'm not jazzed about watching a HHH/Rock title match. That said, this was really good. It has a great opening. They do a really cool section around dueling drop toe holds, a bit of a scramble, a loud slap delivered by HHH and returned by Rocky and it snaps the crowd awake. Helmsley hits kind of hard and Rocky bumps bigger and a bit more recklessly than he would a year later. I wish we got a bit more Rocky bumping, as the HHH control after the hot opening was solid, workmanlike, but doesn't give Maivia a ton to play against. Rocky isn't great at emotive selling in 1997. He only knows one move and it's "heave on the mat". He just lies there and heaves, which is the worst way to make a grounded side headlock interesting. But the more he moves, the more the crowd swells, and he's very good at taking offense. He is much more watchable when he runs into Hunter's running knee (which Hunter brings up to face level) and misses a high dropkick than he is is hitting a running crossbody. 

Rocky's big punch comeback has some fire but was missing something, much better taking at a hot shot off the top turnbuckle. Yep, Rock's offense sucked in 1997, but HHH tucked his head painfully on that stupid "hop around you" DDT. This had a really good opening and a second act that felt like it was building to a hot third, and I don't think we got there. Of the Islanders given a surprise title win in 1997, it's clear that Prince Iaukea was so much further along than The Rock. We'll see how this continues to develop, but as of February 1997 it's clear that Iaukea is more advanced as a wrestler and in line for a more successful career. Not one single person could have predicted what Rock would become by June 1998 if they had only seen him in February 1997. Impossible leap. If Byron Saxton had become an all time short term draw a within a year. 

4. Owen Hart/British Bulldog vs. Doug Furnas/Phillip LaFon

ER: This is one of those on paper matches that feels like it should be great, but this was not great. That's partly due to a lot of this being angle instead of match, but also due to the angle itself not being any good. I don't think the Owen/Bulldog team was ever as good as it should have been, and even working normally I don't think they were ever as complementary as they should have been. That means in this match they are a team of non-complementary guys who are now intentionally not communicating as part of an angle. It's awful. And let's just get it out of the way now: British Bulldog looked like shit. He didn't look like shit physically; he actually looked healthy. "Healthy" isn't a word typically used to describe The British Bulldog, but this era is the healthiest he looked. He's noticeably smaller and has none of the inflated muscle he had through most of his career. Every person in this match is basically the same size, even though I don't think of any person in this match being the same size as any other person in this match. Bulldog and Owen are essentially the same exact guy here. So physically, he looks great. 

He just wrestles like shit. His strikes are shockingly bad, just putrid strikes with no kind of weight behind them. His clotheslines look so pulled that you'd think his body was incapable of taking any kind of resistance. Bulldog was much smaller and not wrestling like a heavyweight...sorta. Other than holding LaFon up in a vertical suplex, he does no power spots, instead doing sliding dropdowns and sunset flips. The powerslam is still his finisher, but it's more like Charlie Haas doing a powerslam. British Bulldog is like if Doc Dean had worse stomps. 

 

Owen and LaFon feel like they would be a much better team with better chemistry. I liked the twists they did on their own Malenko/Guerrero roll-ups. I'm pretty burnt out on 2 count kickout reversals but theirs looked fresh, and it helped that they weren't doing these reversals in a bunch of their matches. Owen and LaFon feel like two sides of the same coin and even their movement is similar. None of the Owen/Bulldog offense looked good and they really did feel like a time who never teamed before, more than a team having disagreements. When Bulldog holds up LaFon in a vertical suplex, Owen goes to crossbody LaFon to the mat and instead mostly lands on Bulldog's face. But I did like Owen's spinning heel kick into him when LaFon ducked out of the way. Their best interaction against each other was strong, when Owen actually slapped him and Bulldog responded with his best clothesline of the match.

Furnas and LaFon wrestled like a fucking team. These dudes wrestled like every single tag team on TV today wished they wrestled like. It's crazy you don't hear Furnas/Kroffat every mentioned by modern wrestlers as influences, because there are dozens of guys on current wrestling TV who seem to be wrestling like worse versions of Furnas/Kroffat. They were doing this high speed move chaining so much better than all of the teams who have turned that into the prevailing Big Match tag team style. When Furnas made his hot tag it made the match actually hum for the first time, with nothing but cool shit getting chained. But then it ends with Owen barely hitting LaFon with his Slammy award. Major boner not just giving Furnas/LaFon the titles here. 

5. Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin vs. Vader vs. Undertaker

ER: I'm not sure why I haven't watched this before now. I really didn't know anything about the match other than it still gets consistently praised and that Vader got busted open. I remember seeing the Raw Magazine with Vader's bloody masked face on it in the supermarket, at a time where I hadn't been exposed to that much bloody wrestling. I had bought an old copy of the War Games Bash '87 clamshell VHS at a Healdsburg video store and that had really opened up my wrestling world. That who tape was bloody and had at least two dozen instances of somebody getting their face painfully raked across chain link. I don't think I had seen bloody wrestling before that tape, and I don't think I had seen blood in a WWF match before seeing Vader bloodied up on that magazine. 

And Vader bleeding is really the thing that makes this match great. It's really chaotic, more chaotic than any main event WWF had done, because most of the match is two separate singles matches happening in the direct way of each other, without ever really getting in the way of each other. Impressive feat. It rules that Vader gets busted open like 2 minutes in, running full face into a chair and then taking a big bump into the ring steps, quickly apparent that the cut over his eye is disgusting. It's great that the match became all about Vader's disgusting eye and didn't focus on a goof like Undertaker, a man who is doing his silly rope walk in a match where you can lose by being thrown over the top. Just out here making everyone look like fools. It's only when Vader is swinging wildly at him with a chair - and then getting that chair mashed into his face by Taker's boot - that the match really starts to feel like a match. Well, I guess it felt like something great was going to happen before the match when Vader and Austin were flipping each other off. But Vader is a force and the crowd is hyped and loud. People love seeing Vader get chokeslammed, people love Vader kicking Bret in the balls and beating him with a chair, the people loved Vader and Austin hitting each other with the ring bell and fighting on top of some balding guy who Vader fell on top of. 

Vader gets kicked in the balls by Bret Hart in one of the most teed up kicks to the balls to ever appear in a main event. When Vader is eliminated, he is uppercut in the balls by Undertaker. People get choked with production cables and kicked in the balls in this match, and every time they show Vader's cut it looks worse. His missed moonsault is incredible. It defies physics. That moment where his hand is no longer in contact with the top rope and his body is leaning back before starting his rotation, it looks like you're about to witness the most dangerous accident. But then he gets superplexed by Bret and you begin to wonder which bump is worse for a man the size of Vader to be taking, and how fucking stupid it was that WWF had a 400 pound mastodon who could bleed out of his eye for 20 minutes and still go up for a moonsault and a superplex and then take a bump over the top to the floor, but still not see a role for him as a star.

I liked everybody in this match. Bret was as great as Bret always is in main events, Austin was lean and incredibly fast, Undertaker somehow fit excellently into the chaos, and I guess that's the key to why this worked so well: it was constantly chaotic with very little downtime, without any pairing ever overshadowing the other pairing, no matter who was fighting or where they were fighting. But this was Vader's show, a legendary big man performance that probably would have come off great even without one of the more grisly cuts in modern WWF history.  

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The Unheralded Two Minute Long 1998 WWF Chain Match

Savio Vega/Jose Estrada vs. 8-Ball/Skull WWF Raw 4/13/98

ER: WWF was not a Chain Match fed. I don't think they even ran any chain matches during the Hardcore Title era, and before this two minute long match that was much more Great Segment than Actual Match, they hadn't run any chain matches since Hercules or Ivan Koloff had been there. But in 1998 they had Puerto Ricans and Nazi Bikers and it's actually shocking that this is the only chain match the promotion had during that run. But again, this is not so much a match, as it is a great way to have nine guys fighting onscreen at one time. Savio is fighting Skull, Estrada is fighting 8-Ball, Savio swings his chain past Skull's ear into the ring steps, and from there they all have chain-wrapped fists as they brawl to the void as more and more people get involved in a bigger and bigger fight. 

WWF has had putrid, at times unwatchable camera work for the last 20 years, a product filmed and directed by people who don't know how to film or direct pro wrestling. Watch any game from any major sport in 1998, and you will be blown away by how many advancements have been made in filming each of them. All of them have made net positive gains in the way they are presented and shot. Pro wrestling is somehow the only athletic event where every part of the presentation has devolved. This is a segment that shows how well they were able to film and direct a lot of moving parts while always showing every part of the chaos that was happening. While two cool Puerto Ricans punch two Nazis in the face, DX comes out and at once begin to beat Chainz' ass. I am not sure where Jesus Castillo or Miguel Perez were on this night, but Chainz is the only man to accompany his boys, and he is quickly swarmed by DX. 

The cameras perfectly frame the assault on Chainz in the foreground while chains fly in the ring in the background. Billy Gunn and Chainz throw punches at each other's crowns until Chainz takes a chair to the back, and then the chain fight in the back fades out as we close in on Chainz taking just an unnecessarily brutal beating. X-Pac gives him an unprotected chair shot to the head, he takes an even harder shot to the back, HHH gives him a Pedigree on the chair, and the man gets dragged to the entrance ramp to take a spike piledriver on another fucking chair. The Chainz Stretcher Job. DOA and Los Boricuas are all throwing close quarter punches at each other's heads while the chains whip around everywhere, oblivious to the Chainz massacre. 

With Chainz left for dead the assailants spill into the ring and the filming of the action shifts, as DX now joins Savio and Estrada as true heroes unmercifully stomping the Nazis while Chainz is framed perfectly in the background, slowly dragging himself up the ramp like he's futilely crawling away from Leatherface. X-Pac is stomping and choking the hell out of Skull while literally screaming in his face, Estrada is dropping Hitman elbows on 8-Ball, Billy Gunn wraps his fist in a chain and does a fucking chain wrapped fistdrop and it's one of many things that make Billy Gunn perhaps the highest Stock Rising guy of 1998. When the Nazis are lying in their own filth, Chyna finally gets involved and uppercuts Both Boricuas in the Balls. 

This whole segment was one of the only times DX actually came off like full heel total assholes who weren't trying to be cool. There was no preening to the crowd, nothing was done to come off likable, every part of their time on screen was spent fighting. They were dominant but in a real Taking Liberties Because They're Bad People kind of way. They started by jumping one guy 4 on 1 and giving him a ringside beating that stood out as noticeably stiffer than any prior DX angles, then went 6 on 2 to beat up that guy's friends (technically Nazis so that is them being good guys), then went 5 on 2 to take out the two guys who had just helped them out. Real assholes with no redeeming qualities, filmed by a production crew who knew how to highlight everything that made them assholes. 

Not 10 minutes later Mark Henry, The Rock, D-Lo, and Kama have a crazy pull apart with Faarooq, Steve Blackman, Ken Shamrock, and various security guys like Sgt. Slaughter and Tony Garea. This has to be the only Mark Henry/Sgt. Slaughter interaction we've ever seen. 

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Bradshaw & Savio Vega FIGHT

Bradshaw vs. Savio Vega WWF Shotgun 4/4/98

ER: Shotgun Saturday Night didn't air in my area in 1998/1999, and I've never gone back and watched most of it. It's never been uploaded to the Network and surely won't ever land on Peacock, so we have to rely on whatever guy in the Tri-state area recorded these shows at his mom's house and kept the tapes when he moved out. It feels like there are a bunch of potential gems on Shotgun that I've never heard about, and here's one of them. I'm sure others have talked about this match, but never in my company. Nobody was talking up Bradshaw in 1998, choosing to write him off as a lesser Stan Hansen clone instead of being excited that we were still getting Stan Hansen clones on American television. Do you know how incredible someone who wrestles exactly like 1998 Bradshaw would look on 2023 wrestling television? We didn't know how good we had it, and that applies almost equally to Savio Vega, who brawled as intensely here as he would in his best Puerto Rico stuff. Conversely, I'm not sure there are many Bradshaw performances - including the JBL run - you can point to where he looked better. 

Nobody told me that guys were beating the shit out of each other on Shotgun, but Bradshaw and Vega beat the shit out of each other and look like they hate each other while doing it. There was hate on display on fucking Shotgun Saturday Night? You rarely see punch exchanges this good on WWF TV, or any wrestling TV. They have a stand and trade section that is like Eddie Kingston/Chris Hero level. Bradshaw kicks Savio in the face a few times and lands every stomach kick like he really wants to kick him in the gut. Vega throws hands and chops and bumps around into perfect positioning to feed Bradshaw's assaults. I love how Bradshaw kept going for the Clothesline From Hell and threw every one of them like he intended to connect, and how he started going hard after Vega's arm to possibly slow down the return fire. His arm work is really nasty, throwing Savio by the arm and really yanking on it, peaking the attack when he starts throwing stiff punches at Vega's bursa joint. At one point Savio gets sick of Bradshaw's shit and just grabs him by the throat to back him into the turnbuckles. I love when a guy manages to throw a stiff spinning heel kick. The finish was great too, with Vega hitting the turnbuckles hard on his worked over shoulder and it flares up bad enough that it finally leaves him a sitting duck to be sent to Hell. This was a real fucking fight. 

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Loosely Formed 1998 WWF: Boricua Brustle

Jose Estrada vs. Savio Vega WWF Shotgun 3/21

ER: This is a fantastic piece of an inter-gang supremacy fight, buried in the unwatched annals of Shotgun Saturday Night, not listed on Cagematch, one of those gems that felt like another promotion working a showcase match on somebody else's stage. Jose Estrada was the least featured of the Boricuas, worked the fewest WWF singles matches of the group, and this was his finest WWF showcase. I think it's fair to say that he's one of the least likely wrestlers to spend a couple years in the WWF. Did you know he had matches on 4 different PPVs? I sure didn't. That sounds like a lot! But no sane person could actually tell you anything about Jose Estrada's ring style. Nobody out there knows how he threw a punch, what his best offense was, or even how he worked. He had eight singles matches during his run and I think this is the best example of what the man could do. 

Estrada looks like a nondescript bar bouncer and dresses exactly like one, and almost surely has to manicure a unibrow. Savio Vega (Estrada's "leader", as Michael Cole nerdishly refers to him as) opts for his traditional Koko B. Ware-waisted ToughSkins with turquoise swimsuit top. They would both kick the asses of anybody you've ever known. This is a micro-hierarchy war played out to a completely uncaring audience, that didn't let that cold reaction stop them from playing out their story. There's an art to finding the right balance to still tell your story regardless of reaction. Too much focus on not deviating from the plan leads to further crowd detachment. The key is to up the violence and end big, to grow the match while the story plays out, and they do that perfectly. Miguel Perez and Jesus Castillo are out at ringside and interrupt throughout the match, to break up exchanges that get too heated, too plead for...for some kind of sanity. Miguel looks like a Robert Smigel character from a cut 90s SNL Puerto Rican Day Parade sketch. It's great theater. 

The feeling out process is crisp, familiar but not holding back. Both get to end sequences with a showoff one-step-ahead  dropkick, they throw real elbows to break waist locks, the shoulderblocks connect, and the pinfalls and backslides look like they're really trying to hold their brother down. After a frantic exchange, Savio whips Estrada through the ropes to the floor (just one of the bumps that showcase that the largest Boricua might also be the most interesting bumper) and there's more great theater when he holds the ropes for Estrada to get back into the ring, but Estrada opts to enter on the other side. Later, it's paid off when Estrada holds the ropes for Savio and gets an incredible inside cradle when Savio proudly and trustingly accepts the gesture. These two told their cool story, and the icy disinterest didn't matter because it was a story worth telling. They didn't throw hands until the final minute of the match, and that was stopped by Perez and Castillo finally stepping in. Two friends not backing down from a fight and stubbornly going forward without knowing exactly what's being proven. Two friends building to hard punches and slaps before the rest of the group finally has to step in and let cooler heads prevail, is a cool little 5 minute story that felt kind of foreign to WWF. Puerto Rican Lucha Libre worked quietly to start an night out, delivered to a crowd patiently waiting for Mike Tyson's return and a Stone Cold/Rock main event. This match had no chance, but that didn't stop them from doing something worth paying attention to. 

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Dan Severn in WWF

Here's some Sunday Severn for all the beasts: 

Dan Severn vs. Savio Vega WWF Raw 5/4/98

ER: This was like a short, to the point, Dan Severn Bloodsport match, cruelly not even giving us 2 minutes. Severn had split with Cornette the week before, so this was a showcase for the newly on his own force Severn. It's a lot of cool standing grappling, and it looked good because it looks like Severn was trying as hard as he could to take Vega down with double legs while Vega fought his hardest to neutralize them. There were two big belly to belly suplexes from Severn, and Savio was going to be taking those suplexes the easy way or the hard way. Savio looks unhappy that he's out there just to get plowed under, so he hops right to his feet after the second suplex and starts hammering Severn with clubbing forearms. It was pretty clear that Vega wasn't going to be getting much here, some nice corner chops and a hiptoss, before Severn started muscling back. As he's trying to hold Vega down, Severn starts doing these kind of cool uppercut shoulder shrugs from one knee, into Vega's gut, then powers him over with an extremely cool shoot jackhammer before tapping him out. They were trying to get over a new submission for Severn, where he has an arm barred while shoving the opposite way on Vega's jaw. It's same sub he put on Cornette the week prior, and it's a great looking submission. More finishers should just be someone's big hand palming a guy's jaw.

Dan Severn vs. Owen Hart WWF Raw 5/25/98

ER: This was the first time Owen used his new theme music that all my friends in high school made fun of. "Well ENOUGH is ENOUGH and it's time for a CHANGE!" felt like the soundbite you would only use to make fun of someone. He could not have come off whinier and it made us laugh every time. We could never pinpoint if he was supposed to be coming off as a whiny heel or a tough loner who was coming off whiny. One thing is clear: it's tough to try to break out of the pack and be your own man, and also be immediately put into a singles match with Dan "The Beast" Severn. Severn is going to shove you and throw you around the ring against your will, and that's what happens here. Severn keeps taking Owen down with double legs and fireman's carries, slapping him around from the mount. It's tough to look like a guy standing bravely on your own when a huge mustachioed man is smothering you. Severn gets a cool half grapevine rolling cradle that Owen breaks by punching Severn in the eye, and it's probably smart strategy to work Severn as if you're escaping a shark attack. Owen hits a nice gutwrench suplex and punts Severn in the balls when the ref wasn't looking, but weirdly decided to go for a double leg takedown to mount Dan Severn. Severn easily sweeps and promptly resumes smacking Owen around. Severn hits a nice waterwheel takedown into a Fujiwara armbar, and the Nation has to run into save Owen from further humiliation. Severn really gobbles guys up in the ring and they probably should have found someone else to put Owen up against, but I really liked the pairing a lot. Guys that force Owen to grapple and wrestle bring out a cool and underutilized side of him, one I wish we got more often. 

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WWF Raw 7/8/96: Three On Paper Bangers

So I threw on this episode of Raw because I wanted to see the main event, a big ol' hoss battle of Vader and The British Bulldog vs. The Godwinns. But then I saw the whole episode was comprised of three matches, all of them intriguing on paper. The whole episode ran 48 minutes long, and I figure watching three intriguing matches in under an hour was a decent enough use of my time. The episode was famously the last WWF in ring appearance of Ultimate Warrior, with Gorilla Monsoon opening the show talking about his suspension, and how he now has to put up a performance bond to guarantee he'll appear. Now, obviously this show was taped before Warrior no-showed one show too many, but it's interesting that they were basically negotiating with Warrior on air, and Vince ends up spending much of his match with Owen saying things like "well we hope we'll get to see more of The Warrior..."


Owen Hart vs. The Ultimate Warrior

ER: This was a real impressive Owen performance, because Warrior gassed hard during his ring entrance. I know that's kind of a thing Warrior is known for, but it seemed especially bad here. The fans liked the entrance, and Owen was really good at filling the recovery time well. He took two big Warriors clotheslines to the floor, ran hard into a powerslam (that Warrior didn't even go down for, just rotated through and stayed on his feet) and got major height on a flapjack. Owen even did a super painful Bret turnbuckle chest bump and staggered back into a Warrior side slam. Warrior was realllly tired, with one incredibly long shot of him just slowly walking around the ring, mouth open the entire time, sucking wind. Owen worked real well with a super tired opponent, and still didn't half ass things like missed clotheslines, cutting low to at least make Warrior duck. Those are the kinds of things you do in a one man performance to make the other guy look like he's contributing, and it works. I liked how Owen finally transitioned to offense, with Warrior catching knees on a big splash, and it's tough work doing your run of offense against someone who can't really move a lot to take offense. Luckily, things like Owen's enziguiri work fine for the circumstances, and when Warrior finally catches his wind his comeback looks good. Owen was really good at setting up hard Warrior clotheslines and his big flying shoulderblock before Bulldog ran in for the DQ. This was 10 minutes of Owen out there catering an entire match to someone who wasn't moving great through much of it, and that's the kind of thing I'll always be impressed with.


Savio Vega vs. Justin Hawk Bradshaw

ER: This was pretty messy, and pretty free of structure, but they tried to overcome those two things by running into each other real hard and real often and that's a good strategy! There was a fair bit of miscommunication, moves that hit when they were supposed to miss, and both being slightly out of position for things. It felt like they got sent out there to fill a LOT of time and didn't have a full plan on just how to fill nearly 15 minutes. It's a lot, and so nothing really stuck, they just kept getting up and hitting each other with something new. Bradshaw had a couple big boots, a couple nice elbowdrops (and a big elbowdrop miss), both hit heavy bodyslams, just a couple guys who have no problem mixing it up. The best part of Bradshaw is when he bites off a little more than he can chew and does a move he doesn't know how to hold back on. An example of this is Bradshaw hitting a killer flying shoulderblock off the top. He doesn't know how to work the move, so he just jams his shoulder flying full force into Savio and then landing just as hard. Savio's corner spinkick is an awesome highlight here, and Vega went into Bradshaw really fast and whipped quickly to the floor. It's such a good visual. The finish is really well done too, as Zebekiah grabs Vega's foot to cause him to stumble, but it was when Bradshaw was already set to level him with the clothesline from Hell! So Vega stumbles under Bradshaw's lariat and Bradshaw does a fantastic miss as he crashes into the ropes, getting hit with Vega's spinning heel kick as he's getting up. Great, great finish. Also, throughout the match Lawler and Vince were speculating on who the mystery partner for Michaels and Ahmed was going to be, and it lead to this bizarre exchange:

Lawler: Maybe it's Anthony Quinn!
Vince: Anthony Quinn? He's 81 years old!
Lawler:...Maybe one of his sons?

Vince responded so quickly, the whole thing played like Jerry and George chatting at the diner.


Vader/British Bulldog vs. The Godwinns

ER: This was a slightly better put together version of the Savio/Bradshaw match. It really felt like none of these guys knew exactly how much time they were going to be filling with their match, making it tough to construct a beginning/middle/end. Owen/Warrior was clearly mapped out for its entire 10 minutes, but this tag was so similar to the prior match in that it had no direction, but with clearly planned finishes. So in both matches they knew exactly where they were going to wind up, but it's as if they weren't told how long they had to get there. That would be really tough to do! But these are all big guys, and so while there was some aimlessness and a little repetition, it's still a ton of beef slamming into everything. Vader and Bulldog felt like they could have been a really awesome team, even thought they only wound up teaming 5 times. Bulldog as the (much) smaller member of a team was a cool vibe, and they had good team chemistry right off the bat. Bulldog would do power spots and Vader would be all about the smashing and flattening. That's such a cool combo. Their finisher here was Vader hitting a lariat to the back of Phineas's head, sending him right into a Bulldog powerslam. Before that we got a lot of these four crashing into each other in cool ways. Dickhead heel Vader is so good, this mammoth man who takes cheap shots without needing to. He gets into the match by throwing a knee from the apron, then comes in and starts throwing body shots. Vader throws one of my favorite elbowdrops in wrestling history, second probably only to Stan Hansen, and he drops a couple of beauties here, the best one to break up a pin. Poor Phineas just eating a Vader elbowdrop to the middle of his back. Vader also throws a mean as hell clothesline, but he also takes a great Henry vertical suplex (probably a little early in the match to eat a big suplex, but that was Vader). This would have been better with a tighter story arc, but I love these four together here and I am saddened at the prospect of so little Vader/Bulldog. Cherish what we do have.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: 1995 WWF

Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs. Matt Hardy WWF Raw 7/10/95

ER: What a squash! A great 3 minute, one-sided, demoralizing beatdown. And yet despite it being one-sided, Hardy never felt quite out of it. Part of that is because 20 year old Matt Hardy is the exact same size as HHH was at 25, so this match reads more like a violently stiff Lenny Lane vs. Kidman match. We get a long cool firm headlock sequence with some nice takeovers, and some big armdrags. But things really painfully leap up to the next level when HHH just waylays Hardy in the corner, laying in some cruel strikes. It starts with a big right hand, and then another, and then HHH throws two whipping chops that graze off Hardy's collarbones and into the underside of his chin, and as HHH throws these two lightning fast knife edges right with his left arm, he follows up with an impossible to block right full arm shot to the stomach. The whipping shot to the stomach lands so hard, just an echoing slap. HHH was working as a real bully and he came off like same era Dave Taylor at times. I don't think I've ever thought to compare HHH with Dave Taylor, so you know this is a tremendous compliment. Hardy takes the Pedigree nearly as violently as Cham Pain took his famous killshot, but I don't think I've ever seen Hardy's take championed. This was a gnarly diagonal landing, the guy who didn't check the pool was empty before diving in. What a great mauling.


Owen Hart/Yokozuna vs. Razor Ramon/Savio Vega WWF Raw 8/7/95

ER: This was a rematch from the week prior, when the show actually went off the air with a classic "We're out of time!" I had no idea they were doing those in 1995! That first match had a pretty cheap moment, where Razor pinned Owen clean after the Razor's Edge, then Hebner - who counted the 3 - decided that Owen wasn't actually the legal man. I'm not sure why you'd actually make the ref go all the way through with the pinfall. Hebner is a really terrible actor, totally the wrong guy to trust in that kind of situation. He counted the 3 and then immediately was just like "no, no, no, you didn't win the match, dummy!" It really needed a referee who could facially take responsibility for the major boner that had been entirely his fault. A second official coming in to alert Hebner to the problem would have been silly, as the second official was almost always an inconsistent crutch to use, but it at least would have made more sense than Hebner counting the 3 and the immediately telling Razor that Razor should have paid better attention. VERY poorly handled.

So they start off the next Raw with an immediate rematch, and the rematch absolutely smoked. This was the absolute best Owen Hart performance I've seen since I started casually skimming my way through 1995 WWF. Owen is a guy who deservedly gets a lot of love, but consider me underwhelmed as I dive back into mid 90s WWF. Literally the day before I watched this match, I was talking to friends about how I was really starting to think Owen was one of the more overrated workers of the era, and how I don't think I could find a place for him on a Top 20 1995 WWF list. I'm still not certain he has a spot in the Top 20 (there were some GREAT performers on the roster that year and he has a tendency to get outshined within his own matches regularly), but with another performance or two like this it would be pretty impossible to keep him off. His timing is so integral to this match, and this match is a killer highlight of the kind of in-ring charisma he and Razor could have together on the right night. Owen and Razor kept working faster the longer the match went, both taking big bumps to the floor (Owen taking a super fast one that almost flings him face first into the guardrail, Razor getting launched so far over the top rope that several kids in the front row actually leapt backwards thinking Razor was going to fly right into them, just insane), and really laying in shots like I haven't seen him do all year. He hits his spinning heel kick so perfectly that it stops Razor cold, to the point that I thought it could have been the finish. It wasn't like he kicked Razor's teeth out either, the timing was just expert (with a wonderful sell from Razor), and you've never seen him crush somebody like he does while Razor is draped over the middle rope. I've seen Owen bounce off a draped opponent countless times, and here he just flies full weight into Razor.

Yoko was really fun from the apron, grabbing at Razor's hair on rope running spots while laughing gleefully. He took some big spills and got lit up by babyfaces when he was in. Savio's hot tag was fire, throwing stiff chops and punches at Yoko in the corner, just immediately making up that 300 lb. (!!) size difference, then pasting Yoko with his own awesome spinning heel kick. I honestly think the two best spinning heel kicks of 1995, from either Owen or Savio, came during this match. It wasn't just the execution, but their placement within the match. Razor was such a strong babyface, and I love matches like these were he plays FIP and works to all sides of the crowd. He really comes off like a proto-Austin or even Cena, as his fired up big babyface punches are thrown into matches the exact same way those two would, and he has that extra crowd connection those two had. There's an alternate timeline where Razor is the top star of the fed going into the late 90s, and performances like this show that it absolutely would have worked.

Sadly, we also get a bad finish on this one, as Razor and Owen suddenly go to the floor to brawl, one of those very obvious "We need to clear the ring so the finish can happen!" moments. It's not a terrible finish if the execution had been better, but Yoko flattened Savio with a Samoan drop and legdrop, right in front of Razor, but Razor had disposed of Owen too early and then had to occupy himself to make sure he was too late to save Savio. So Razor - only 5 feet away from being able to yank Yoko's leg - runs around the ring and comes in much farther away. Poor planning and positioning, really bad. BUT, this match was a real treasure trove, featuring performances that would rank at or near the top of all of these guys' 1995 output.

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New Footage Friday: WWF in Kuwait! WWF in Germany!

Rock n Roll Express vs. Smoking Gunns WWF 7/94

MD: This was basically everything you could have wanted from a random 1994 Smoking Gunns vs RnRs German house show match. Express played the heels and while I've seen that before, I'm not sure I've seen it too much against an over babyface teem significantly bigger than them. They opened up the bag of tricks to really put over their opponents, giving back with a lot of the spots that they had taken advantage of over the years and feeding, feeding, feeding like the pros that they were. For the most part the Gunns' timing was on (there were one or two moments towards the end that were iffier including Gibson having to practically shout to draw a ref distraction for an illegal switch and the finish), and even with the poor VQ, you can tell that they were able to use their size at the right times in the right ways to engage the crowd. It was one of those matches where you worry the heat would never come, but when it did it was great, full of hope spots and cut offs that played to the size and a call-back spot for the big comeback that really worked. If you told me this was the best match the Gunns ever had, I'd believe you and it feels like another tiny feather in the exceptionally large cap of the Express.

ER: I love Rock n Roll heel matches, and I love that the man responsible for the popularity of the undersized babyface in peril is the guy who is the heel against two men significantly larger than he. It's not like they suddenly work more vicious or anything, they just know the small things that make guys the ones to root against in a wrestling match, and they're smart enough about it the fans eventually ignore what their brains tell them about who should and shouldn't be the underdog. For the bulk of this match the only offense they got was a couple of kicks to the stomach, and they're able to expertly take the role of their own foils and show how great they can make the spots look. Gunns handle all these spots and even the ones typically done by a heel (mocking the smaller opponent during a knucklelock) works flawlessly off the strengths of Ricky playing a loudmouth undersize jerk. The Gunns never land with me as a tag team, and I'm not sure why. They clearly have an understanding of basics and their timing is strong, it's just never used in very interesting ways. And I think if they worked more often like this house show version of themselves, they'd come off better for it. Here they used their size to constantly get under the skin of the RnRs, and the RnRs used their deft knowledge of match layouts to craft fun spots around the weird dynamic. I loved the dropdown spot that ended with the Ricky and Robert colliding, and loved that even when they were in control doing their rolling leg grapevines, they were still getting driven crazy from the apron. The Gunns could have really benefitted from more southern tag training, and this made me want to go check out their WWF matches with the Heavenly Bodies.

Steve Austin vs. Marty Jannetty WWF Kuwait Cup 5/8/96

MD: This is the match where Gerry Brisco choked Austin out for fun on his way back from the ring, but we don't see that. This wasn't long after the Jannetty heel turn but he's de facto face here. I vaguely wonder if WWF was a draw in Kuwait in 91, but he even got little chants. At any point in the 90s, you could drop Marty into a situation and he'd be a perfectly fine babyface, even in his sleep or drugged out of his mind. Austin, still having the Million Dollar Belt but now sans Dibiase and already Stone Cold, was more electric than not, with lots of jarring hand and head motions, just full engagement even with the heat. When they worked a grounded chinlock, he was entirely into it. When he targeted the back for a minute or two, everything was focused and credible and inevitable. Marty had a quick but spirited comeback but this was always going to be another notch in Austin's belt.

ER: (I don't think I've heard this Brisco story that Matt mentioned) I love night off Austin because he's not a guy who is boring while taking a night off. He doesn't have to do a lot, but he's classically trained and knows how to work a big crowd in small ways, an easy heel base to play off Marty's classic babyface. Austin is entertaining to me when he's just getting foiled by armdrags and dropkicks, a guy who entertains me by slapping the mat and kicking his feet in frustration while in a move. Jannetty is wearing that hype Jerry Estrada/Ultimate Warrior/Pia Zadora stage wear, tassels flying when he bumps (and he does take a big bump after getting tossed to the floor by Austin). This is all super simple stuff that these two probably threw together on the spot, and I love seeing the bones like that. I'll always pop for Austin draping his opponent over the ropes, and then running in with a missed attack. He finds so many fun ways to bounce on the ropes before getting flung to the mat, and I gotta imagine it was incredibly fun doing a spot like this for fans who had never seen it before.

Bret Hart vs. Leif Cassidy WWF Kuwait Cup 5/8/96

MD: It's very weird to see Bret post-Mania 12. He doesn't show back up on TV until October, past an interview or two. It's even weirder to see him with actual announcing talking about his loss. This was a curiosity to me, because I thought Snow would leap at the chance to wrestle Bret in a setting like this and would try more things. He really doesn't. It's very by the books, but in a way that no one did better than Bret. I assume this had to do with the heat more than anything else because Ross and Hayes don't shut up about it. Instead, Snow leans into the shtick, complaining about the hair before using it himself, then it's a lot of chinlocks and headlocks, with eyerakes and hair pulls for cutoff. The timing's good, with them never sitting in anything for long. Some of the actual cutoffs with Bret trying to escape the headlock look pretty wild and gritty. There's one great eyerake (the main point of transition to heel control actually) off of the side backbreaker (here the first move of doom attempt) that was creative. I like how Bret couldn't therefore hit any of his big moves until he fought free and then he hit all of them at once. Snow let himself get spiked off of a caught leapfrog to set up the Sharpshooter, but that was about the biggest bump he took. This was just a match instead of anything special.

ER: I was way more into this one than Matt was, and thought it was a great heel Leif performance. In fact I would wager than no man among us has seen better "He's pulling my hair" mannerisms than what Leif gives us here. This man goes to Shinsuke Nakamura levels of ropes work to show just how hard Bret Hart yanked his hair. I was dying at Leif practically dropping down into a full back bridge just to show how criminally Bret was yanking his shag. And so of course it's perfect when he exclusively starts yanking Hart by his hair. I thought the headlock spots were really good. Hart is someone who knows how to work a headlock, both sides of it. Hart is really good at being in a headlock and shoving someone off, and he's good at holding onto a headlock when getting shoved off. I loved him trying to shove Cassidy off a side headlock, Cassidy going to the hair and maintaining that headlock, and both skidding to the mat with Cassidy locking it on even tighter. It's two pros working a match with hardly any moves or highspots, all headlocks and lock ups and eye rakes, and it all worked. It felt like the kind of match you'd see Lawler work against Doug Gilbert on a handheld, and Cassidy was a really great Doug Gilbert, because the few moments that needed someone with speed and agility lead to a couple of physical exchanges you wouldn't see from Dougie. The finish was logical and tight, with Cassidy lured into a speed game and baited into doing a leapfrog, with Hart slightly slowing down his momentum to catch him instead in a sidewalk slam and quick tap sharpshooter.

Savio Vega vs. Bob Backlund WWF Kuwait Cup 5/9/96

MD: This was amazing. It's five minutes. They don't touch until 4:30 in, but out of all of these Kuwait matches we have, this has the most heat by far. Backlund stalls and throws a fit and demands a handshake and hides in the ropes and Savio gets more over than anyone else on these shows by playing off of it, pointing and waggling his finger. They run about 1.5 spots before the roll up which just makes the crowd erupt. Just beautiful crowd manipulation.

ER: This really was great. This Kuwait tour gave us the Butch Miller singles match we wanted, and now it's giving us deep cut Bob Backlund in ways I've never seen him before. I don't think of Bob Backlund being around and wrestling when I think of 1996 WWF, but it's great. This is several minutes of Bob Backlund circling the ring, considering getting into the ring, briefly rolling into the ring to restart the count, and then circling the ring. He walks down the aisle, comes back, can't seem to understand why the fans in Kuwait aren't more excited for him. Now, the ring was on an elevated platform in the middle of this stadium, meaning there were a couple of steps from the entrance aisle up to the ringside area. And sadly, Backlund does not just spend several minutes doing the Harvard Step Test on those entrance steps. The best thing about this Kuwait footage (not just this new footage but the 80s stuff we've also reviewed) is how much the old stuff works on these fans. It's fun watching guys in a WWF ring essentially work like they're a 55 year old years removed from active ring time vet working a local high school. I could not believe how loudly the fans reacted when Savio played possum and got a small package. This was the best version of seeing a Honky Tonk Man match live at the fair in 2000 (I saw that).

HHH vs. Bushwhacker Butch WWF Kuwait Cup 5/9/96

MD: Happy Triple H 25th Anniversary everyone. Here at Segunda Caida, we celebrate to the proper level, a ten minute match with Bushwhacker Butch from Kuwait. I'm watching this one because Eric is and either it's solidarity or this is what we do to one another. This was round one of the tournament. Hunter would go on to lose it in the finals against Ahmed, all a couple of weeks before the curtain call, so he was still high on the rise. Despite what I just said, Hunter's a guy who pays attention, who always paid attention. This was the match that immediately followed the Backlund/Aldo match, and Hunter, up against a 52 year old Butch in a place scorching hot enough that one of the first thing we catch in the match is Hayes saying on commentary is that they need more water, is going to go with what just worked. That meant lots of early ducking out of the ring and lots of nose-related stooging, though some of that might not have played to the back row given the size of the crowd. Butch was game and focused, quick to engage by adding to the ref's count or throwing out a Yeaaaaah. This is basically the best Hunter, right? Stooging, pretty selfless in getting his opponent over, really leaning into the mannerisms and crowd interaction between moves when he takes over, even selling the nose post-match. They weren't really into Butch's hope spots but they definitely booed on the cut offs. Hayes and Ross were fun on commentary going on about Sheepherding and talking about seeing Ali in the Superdome together. This was probably the best conventional ten minute match these two could have in 96, but I wouldn't have wanted to follow Backlund vs Vega.

ER: This is really exciting, as this may be the only Butch Miller singles match to exist from his long WWF run. Matt was running through matches from the Kuwait Cup that suddenly showed up, and I said we obviously had to do Butch vs. HHH, as I always enjoy HHH matches when he's in there with a vet that can actually lead him through some simple things. This is the kind of dumb rarity that I love, where we get a Butch Miller singles match in WWF past the point that most people even realized the Bushwhackers were in WWF. The Bushwhackers are super weird to still be around in 1996, and a Bushwhacker singles match just wasn't something that was happening on WWF shows. I love that kind of thing. And this really is a Hunter to celebrate, as not only do we get an insanely late era Bushwhacker singles match, but it goes 12 minutes! I love it. Hunter stooges for good headlocks and comedic nose ripping, and is a good sport for Butch. Butch seems to occasionally move or fall in a totally unexpected way, and Hunter played off that really well. The fans were more into Butch than you'd think they'd be, and that played into some of the fun here. Hunter ramps up the bumps as the match goes on, and peaks things with his roll up the turnbuckles and back down bump, and Butch starts taking fast back bumps as Hunter fires back. Hunter was super giving here and it made for a really fun old guy match, and I couldn't get over what an oddity it was that Miller was still on the roster. I wanted to see a stiff arm lariat from him and eventually got that too. I'm glad we spent time on this.

Issac Yankem DDS/Bob Backlund vs. Savio Vega/Yokozuna WWF Kuwait Cup 5/12/96

MD: What a weird match-up. I get that WWF was less calcified in 96 than it was in the late 80s or early 90s and that this was a foreign tour so it was about using what guys they had, but these teams didn't exactly make sense on paper. While a big chunk of this was Yankem and Vega, it was really all about Backlund and Yoko, especially Backlund interacting with Yoko. Backlund as a heel was so manic and wild, just completely bonkers, and him charging at Yoko and immediately retreating or rolling from one side of the ring to the floor on the other side is tremendously entertaining. Just watching Yoko on the apron or interacting with Savio makes me think that they should have turned him earlier. I don't think there was ever a spot for him as the Attraction with Taker in the company, but he had that mix of timing, agility (even a year or so before this), and unmistakable charisma. It was there in the way he leaned on the turnbuckle while the heels were stooging and stalling in the beginning of the match and how he spun around slowly so Savio had to run around him with their hands raised in the end. Just an incredible presence, even in the heat and even as he had put on so much more weight.

ER: Yeah this was all about the Backlund/Yoko showdowns. Backlund was back on his Kuwait bullshit, this time even running into the crowd and mixing it up with actual Kuwaiti soldiers! I laughed every time he would charge at Yoko only to retreat the second he got next to him, the whole thing felt like something Candido would do on an indy show. Charge at the big guy, bump yourself to the floor to get into it with more fans. Yokozuna was enormous here, getting towards the end of his WWF run, but he was still so good. I don't think he had the same charisma as immobile Andre, but Andre was the best at emoting and projecting danger while being immobile. Seeing Yokozuna work the apron and almost rib Vega and his opponents in little ways was a fun side of him that would have played well on TV. I'm pretty sure I've never seen he and Backlund cross paths, two World Champs going at it, both not exactly in their prime but with the skills and muscle memory to make this worth it. I also love that the whole match is Backlund running distraction, flailing arms, butt sticking out, eyes wild, and it all builds to the Yankem/Yoko showdown. And Yoko hilariously just plants Yankem with the Samoan drop, slowly gets back to his feet, and drags him over to the corner for the banzai drop. I loved Savio leaping onto Yoko's back in celebration after the match, Yoko not even acting like a full large grown man is on him.

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WWF In Your House 2: The Lumberjacks 7/23/95

ER: This is straight outta Nashville and we get this sick Hank Jr. MNF theme ripoff that is fun as hell, the whole intro feels like way more of a WCW thing. 1995 WWF felt really WCW in a lot of ways, which is part of what makes it so appealing. And then it gets even better as we cut to Lawler and Vince ringside, and they're both dressed like city slicker cowboys! Black leather vests, Vince in a bolo tie (!), Lawler with a crown over his Clint Black stetson, just the kind of vibe that Vince would never even consider doing today. 1995 Vince is a real honest to god shill with a touch of desperation, and we won't get to see that level of scraping by Vince again. It's too bad, Huckster Vince was great.


1-2-3 Kid vs. The Roadie

ER: Roadie has quickly become one of my favorite workers to watch. A guy who just a few weeks ago had me whining about why he was even in the KOTR tournament, is clearly one of the best performers on the roster. And I think this is a really great roster, no matter what kind of business they were doing. Part of the great thing about this era WWF is that they had no "house style", everyone came off totally different and there was no same-y agenting for every single match, and there was a big southern wrestling influence. And I think Roadie is so much better than Road Dogg, because as Roadie he still hadn't fallen into any kind of formula. As Roadie he is always breaking out weird offense that feels like he's trying it on a whim, no formula and overly established locked in moveset. He engages the crowd and can stooge, and knows to do a lot of his goofy heel taunt dancing when the cameras cut away to something else (here they cut backstage to JJ rehearsing for his big PPV "With My Baby Tonight" debut). These two are great opponents who wouldn't cross paths again for a few years after this, but I love what we got here. Roadie was great at going down hard for Kid's big kicks, and Kid was bumping huge for everything Roadie did. As I said, Roadie keeps on surprising me, here he broke out a cool last minute powerslam (catching a charging Kid by surprise), and another incident that was the best combination of "was that on purpose or accidental, who cares it looked great!": During a rope running exchange, Roadie leapfrogged but Kid went into a forward roll and knocked one of Roadie's legs out from under him, faceplanting him. Roadie so immediately got up selling his face from the faceplant that it had to be how things were planned, but they were both so good at making it look like a great spot that came about organically. Kid takes two HUGE bumps, getting crazy air on a flapjack and a backdrop, but the craziest bump is saved for the finish: Roadie wins the match with a piledriver of the middle turnbuckle!! Not even a tombstone style piledriver, but a Memphis style sitout piledriver, off the freaking second turnbuckle! What a nutso move to attempt, what a nutso move to start a PPV with. Kid's body folds forward in a way that makes it look like his neck snapped, great disgusting visual for the finish. And after the match, ever the professional, Roadie makes sure to test all the equipment for JJ's upcoming performance.


Men on a Mission vs. Razor Ramon/Savio Vega

ER: I love the fan with the "All Hail King Savio" sign, still not ready to accept the results of the prior month's King of the Ring. And what a great tag match this was! It was an economical 10 minutes, and filled with big bumps, hard runs into the buckles, great stooging, simple but very relevant double teams, really worked at a pace that guaranteed the crowd would be into it the whole way. Mo is a really great slime here, but also a guy who is gonna give like he gets. Razor throws his toothpick in Mo's face and Mo responds by slapping Razor with the hardest strike of the match. And like that we're off, with Savio getting whipped hard into the buckles, Mabel missing a really hard charge into the buckles, and Savio eating what felt like a half dozen different body slams from Mabel. Mabel has really Finlay-esque bodyslams, lifting Savio high and really dropping him with force. And I actually laugh when Lawler calls him "Chevy Vega". That kind of thing feels like a vintage Heenan insult. The double teams look good, Mo running Mabel into Savio, doing classic combos like the drop toehold/legdrop combo. That kind of combo is so simple, but the participants make all the difference: Mo really strangles Savio's legs and Savio wipes out with a faceplant, and Mabel times it so he's dropping that big leg a split second after Savio hits the mat. Razor even adds to the chippiness by coming in and booting Mabel right in the back of the head to break up the pin. The big bumps really kick in, with Mo missing the Mo-sault and eating a Razor back suplex off the top, and even Mabel going off the top! Mo and Savio spill super fast to the floor off a big lariat, and we finally get the showdown between Mabel and Razor. It's a cool pairing, and you KNOW Mabel goes right after those injured ribs of Razor's and splats him with a great belly to belly. I loved this tag, thought they worked the perfect pace, MOM came off like real killers, bell to bell joy.

ER: Has anybody ever seen Dok Hendrix and Monterey Jack from Rescue Rangers in the same place? He hosts an interview with some of Diesel's lumberjacks, and Bam Bam kind of quiets the room by saying he's going to set Sid on fire. That interview leads us into Jeff Jarrett's first ever life performance of With My Baby Tonight, and it actually comes off much better than I was expecting? The best part was him cutting a promo before the song, as the live band plays a looping version of his theme in the background. Big Al on guitar picking lines while a lady fiddler gives us those high lonesome notes, J-E-Double F (ha ha ha) rubbing Nashville's noses right in it. After the performance, Todd Pettengill interviews fans at random for their thoughts on the performance, with a shocking amount of them admitting that Jarrett sounded quote, "pretty good".


Henry Godwinn vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

ER: This was so great. Everything on this show has been perfectly timed, knowing the exact amount of time to give to every segment. This goes 6 minutes and is an all out big boy sprint, and we're all the better for it. You don't get many matches involving men this size, that start with three straight backdrop suplexes. This is solid gold from go, with Bammer dropping Godwinn with those suplexes, then firing off a torpedo shoulderblock that sends Henry crashing fast backwards through the ropes to the floor. This was big bumping, hard hitting, heavy landing big man wrestling. Everything hit real hard: Bam Bam running chest first into the buckles, Godwinn hitting a lariat right after, Bam Bam flying fast over the top to the floor off a low bridge, Godwinn spiking himself on a DDT, Bigelow hitting a killer crossbody (like an even heavier version of the later Mike Knox running crossbody), Bigelow misses a nasty headbutt off the top (going down real top heavy), just constant crashing action. The finish was great and logical, with Godwinn missing a huge kneedrop off the top, and Bigelow getting the quick pinfall with a high hooked leg. There wasn't a single misstep in this match, even things like Godwinn choking Bam Bam over the ropes and a simple chinlock read really well, a real unheralded big man match.


Jeff Jarrett vs. Shawn Michaels

ER: This is a truly special wrestling match that earns its legendary status. This was Jarrett's most tour de force performance of his career, and one of Michael's best as well. This was pure Lawler/Dundee in a WWF ring, chock full of stooging and schtick, the kind of thing that Vince wouldn't even glimpse at today, let alone allow it in a 20 minute PPV title match. The whole thing is classically laid out, filled with a ton of Jarrett stalling and stooging, really felt like the most fully unleashed version of Jarrett that we ever saw on a main brand. They worked fast avoidance spots without ever coming off like modern fast dancing matches, milked simple jabs by having JJ roll to the floor and talk trash all around ringside, rolling in just enough to restart the count whenever needed. That's the kind of heel work that is sorely lacking in WWE today. Every heel act today is based around The Evil That Men Do and simple things like running out the clock or catching your breath for too long are somehow lost. It stinks. Jarrett was really on one here, match long, an incredible performance. Every sell was great, every attention to detail looked like he was pulling off the greatest hits of Lawler/Dundee, as if he was working a PPV in Nashville, TN and was representing the great wrestling style of Tennessee. I smiled broad every time he went down fast and came up holding his mouth, and cheered when he hit one of the absolute greatest dropkicks mine eyes have ever seen, floating high almost above Michael's head and landing with great force, an almost physics breaking dropkick.

All interference from Roadie was timed really well, Roadie jumping on the apron to help with interference or to get knocked off the apron by Michaels, and we got a great spot where Jarrett gets sent over the top to crash into Roadie on the floor. If you ever wanted to see Jeff Jarrett do a fantastic tope con giro into Road Dogg, you gotta watch this match to see it. Michaels hits a huge crossbody to the floor into both of them, and the whole thing continues to unroll in the best Memphis fashion. Both men milk slow crawls after big moves, Jarrett is a master of milking nearfalls (barely shooting up his shoulder inches away from potential loss), the whole thing is perfect. This match felt like Michaels working like Jeff Jarrett while Jarrett worked like heel Michaels, and to my knowledge it's literally the only match we have of them opposite each other. I am dying to see any of their house show interactions, any of their singles matches, any of their matches tagging with each other against Diesel/Razor, and the crown jewel of them all: A 1997 WWF house show IN Memphis, with a main event of Lawler/Jarrett vs. Michaels/HHH. Give me THAT on an Unreleased blu ray and WWE will have my money day one. This was a masterful match, fully deserving of all the praise it's gotten the past 25 years.


Yokozuna/Owen Hart vs. Lex Luger/British Bulldog

ER: Another good one on a show filled with them. This was probably the weakest of the bunch, if only for an uninventive too easy ending. They are really trying hard with the whole Allied Powers team, and it comes off lame. This feels like a gimmick for guys much lower on the card. When you stick two main event guys in a tag team whose entire identity is "This one is from the US, this other guy is from the UK". Like if Bob Backlund were still a babyface in 1995 WWF then I could actually see Backlund and Barry Horowitz with Luger's gear, American flag trunks with Olympic team puffy jackets. I assume they were just trying to tank Luger's value before he went to WCW. "Look at this goof still carrying on with the red white and blue routine two years after wasting everyone's time with the Lex Express!?" Lex is obviously not ever going to win, but man why were they dragging down the Bulldog with such a desperate babyface grab. This match also leads us to an amusing moment where Owen and Bulldog are both down for the count, and the crowd starts a USA chant. I guess they were probably getting excited for a Luger tag, but a USA chant in a match with a Canadian, a Brit, a fake Japanese guy, and one actual American. But the match was good. It had a bunch of fun moments, like Owen just slapping the hell out of Luger and then running to the ropes before Luger can retaliate, or a long exchange with Owen and Bulldog showing off a bunch of flashy World of Sport wristlock escape flourishes, or a huge double backdrop suplex where Luger and Bulldog drop Yoko and they make it look like the whole arena shook (how often did Yoko ever go up for suplexes? Feels like a cool rare moment). Owen took a super high bump off a backdrop where he never rotated, the Luger/Yoko sections all banged, and really the lazy finish was the only thing keeping this match as the weakest of the night. It was one of those finishes where Luger has the long visible tag over Yoko but instead of counting the pin, Hebner decides to chide Bulldog about something for an eternity, so Owen can fly off the top with an elbowdrop on Luger. They really needed to give Hebner a better reason to be distracted, and the timing of it all took too long. The rest of this was great tag wrestling, another hit.


Lumberjack Match: Sid vs. Diesel

ER: Wow, I loved this match. What a wonderful environment for a huge big man main event. This match had an atmosphere that I don't think WWE could recreate today. This whole show played in front of a super hot Nashville crowd, and they were molten for every single second of this exquisitely laid out match. The visuals of the match was perfect with the ringside area filled with 15 faces and 15 heels, and all 30 dudes at ringside doing an incredible job of rooting for their side. Any time WWE has tried to force group interaction the past (at least) decade, it comes off exactly that: forced. This was an excellent presentation of 15 dudes who wanted nothing more than to see Diesel win, standing across the ring from 15 dudes who were willing to cheat intensely to make sure that Sid won. They did an awesome job of making sure the babyfaces only ever threw Sid back into the ring, never took cheap shots; and of course every single time Diesel spilled to the floor he got 30 different boots stamped all over his body. The layout was so simple, so logical, so perfectly executed and timed, just an absolute classic example of somehow getting 32 different wrestlers to shine at once. The establishment and loyalty of the factions was so strong that it elevated this match for me to a ridiculous degree. Bam Bam Bigelow especially was a superstar from the floor, like a man who would rather his best pal Diesel win the belt than even himself. Every time Diesel would go on a run of offense, the babyfaces would all aggressively root him on from ringside, and not a second of it came off silly or cheesy. And the heels all worked together like the Really Rottens from Scooby's Laff-a-Lympics. All of them cheated gleefully, and they integrated build for the next program seamlessly, as Mabel smashed Diesel into the ringpost with an avalanche, hit a hard bodyslam on the floor, then dropped his big leg.

The in ring action was also simple, with Diesel throwing tighter elbows and strikes as it went on, and Sid throwing his style free boots and clotheslines. Sid moves like such a stiff - his lariat being simply a big man running towards you with a straight arm - and yet his character is so remarkably effective during this era that he is just so captivating to watch. Both he and Diesel take great bumps to the floor, Sid taking two fast ones early through the ropes, and then Diesel taking an even faster, more reckless one right after. All of the action that spilled to the floor was chaotic and exciting, with Diesel eating a beating every time he went down, so finally getting frustrated enough to hit a surprise pescado onto all of them and fight back! Shawn Michaels also flew off the top with insane stage dives two different times, diving into a crowd of heels the first time and then into Sid to set up the finish. We got a fun stretch run of a few heels not accepting defeat, with IRS charging into the ring when a Sid defeat seemed immininet...and then getting launched to the floor by Diesel, with a killer over the top to the floor bump from IRS. Diesel dispatches of a couple more and hits a big boot on Sid for the 3, and the arena exploded. We get an epic closing visual of babyfaces celebrating in the ring, so excited for their friend, hoisting the still-champ up onto their shoulders. This was classic, simple, good guys vs. bad guys story formula, the exact kind of thing WWE today feels is too simple. So they overcomplicate it and make it joyless. It was also jarring how much better the wrestling action was filmed in 1995, compared to today. Wrestling direction is making modern wrestling more and more impossible and ugly to watch, and a 25 year B-show PPV blows it out of the water.


ER: What a wonderful PPV, with the weakest match being a perfectly fine nice length TV tag match, and the other ranging from very good to downright epic. This is right up there with my favorite WWF PPVs of all time, just an incredibly fun and satisfying show, top to bottom. Plus we got two excellent additions to our 305 Live project. Godwinn/Bigelow is a match that has never been hyped but was the one on paper I was most excited for, and it was a crazy bumping sprint. Sid/Diesel was such a classic delivery of good vs. evil wrestling that I'm shocked it isn't mentioned more as a wrestling fan's most treasured childhood wrestling memory. What a great show.


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WWF King of the Ring 1995

"Philadelphia, the city where the Declaration of Independence was signed! But tonight, MONARCHY will reign!" I love that line, and Vince shouts it like a deranged Kent Brockman. I am ready for this.

1. Savio Vega vs. IRS

ER: Razor Ramon injured himself at a house show a couple weeks before the PPV, so this was the match to determine his replacement to battle Yokozuna. IRS honestly has one of my favorite looks in wrestling history. His build was perfect for the Tom Fitton fit, with the sick cuffed short sleeves and deep red braces. It's a great look. The match was quick, 4 minutes, but worked fast. Vega starts the match with a super convincing small package, convincing enough that I thought they were pulling a "4 second record setting victory" type of angle to give Savio a push out of the gates. But Savio gets a good reaction with a couple more quick pins, with an especially nice high cradle. IRS presses the pace nicely, and Vega is good at quick bursts, so it's a surprisingly effective match. IRS goes up top because he's a dummy, and eats boot off an axehandle, then takes an amusing belly flop bump. The finish is a fun quick killshot, IRS running fast into a super high leaping Savio spinning heel kick. I like how this show is starting.

2. Yokozuna vs. Savio Vega

ER: Damn, they really gave Savio the short straw here, starting off the night fighting his way into the tourney and then immediately facing a force like Yoko? I do like Vince's reasoning that this is to Savio's advantage because Savio has his heart rate up and momentum rolling. Yoko is always so stoic to start matches that it makes sense Savio's fired up energy from his win would possibly overwhelm Yokozuna. And, naturally, Yokozuna would have been spending the past several weeks training specifically to fight Razor. Savio has inroads here. Yoko waves that Japanese flag in the faces of these freedom loving Philadelphians, and Savio waves a joint American/Puerto Rican flag to a surprising amount of cheers. 

And they play into that great Savio spinning heel kick I mentioned the match before, and it ties into Yoko training for Razor but gathering intel on Savio, as Yoko belly flops quickly to the mat early in the match when Savio tries to finish early with that same spinning heel kick. Yoko takes a couple of his big bumps here, a large missed elbow and a great transitional missed legdrop. The standing exchanges between the two are really strong, with Vega landing hard strikes and Yoko reeling before hitting back harder. Savio does hit his spinning heel kick but Cornette interrupts the pin, then takes a great bump to the floor after Savio belts him. The finish is lamer than the match deserved, as Owen Hart runs out to attack Razor Ramon at ringside, and then Savio runs out there, and then Yoko runs out there, but the camera completely misses big bump into the ringpost and ring steps, the bump that allows Savio to get the count out win. The count out win is cheap, and I am somewhat resentful of the Savio victory because it kills the chance of Mabel/Yokozuna. That's stupid.

3. The Roadie vs. Bob Holly

ER: Roadie is making his solo PPV debut, and you know he has a nice show vest for his entrance. But dear God the gear on Double J and Roadie is just woeful. Roadie also debuts his new PPV extensions and it makes him look like a weirdo creep maitre'd at a crime front restaurant in Strange Days. But the MATCH rules, outside of a second straight lousy finish. This is an awesome match with a real zilch of a finish, and that's too bad, but there's still a ton of match here that is really great. I kept thinking about 80s Brad Armstrong fast paced 10 minute singles, which is funny because Holly was the one giving me those vibes, not Brad's brother. This felt like a 1995 Rey/Psicosis match, only worked within the parameters of two southern wrestlers. 

It was worked super fast, Holly going for small packages and school boys and other flash pins while confounding Roadie with high hip tosses and shoulder dislocating armdrags. Roadie bails to the floor, comes back in and takes over. Roadie did have really good offense, different than his Road Dogg offense. The dancing was integrated better during his '98 run, but he has a couple things in '95 that he later unfortunately dropped. The best was a hard elbow drop to the back of Holly's neck, while Holly was sitting up. The whole thing was really good, good enough that if a couple of other matches hit this level of quality, I'll come away with favorable impressions of this show. Now, we do get some evidence of an ongoing problem, as this is the second match with a real lousy finish. Bob Holly goes up top, jumps off into Roadie with another downed opponent axe handle (already seen in the opener as a significant transition spot), but here Holly flies into Roadie's boot and gets pinned. I don't think I've ever seen someone get pinned from jumping face first into a vertically lifted leg. To his credit, Holly made it look almost plausible as a finish, and Roadie's scrambling opportunistic pin sank that in. But even though executed well, it came off flat as hell. Starting the main show with two sour finishes is a tough pill.

4. Kama vs. Shawn Michaels

ER: Well we definitely have established the theme of this show, which is very fun matches with very stupid endings. This one goes to a 15 minute draw, fully establishing the 15 minute draw as the Alone, Eating Over the Garbage Can of wrestling finishes. I was fully into this until they popped a countdown clock in the corner. Kama starts by throwing big telegraphed bombs, with Michaels hopping around like Ali, made all the more amusing when they cut to Joe Frazier in the crowd looking absolutely perplexed at Michaels. The two lady companions with Smokin' Joe are even pointing and laughing at what they're seeing. But there's a chance that those ladies were just plain wrong about pro wrestling, and that Frazier - some 20 years removed from his Ali and Foreman beatings - was actually just punch drunk. Because this delivered much more than I was expecting it to. And that's with me still miffed that Kama took Duke Droese's rightful place on this PPV! 

But the cat and mouse is good, and it leads to a great moment of Michaels skinning the cat but then getting lambasted with a great Kama lariat. Michaels takes a couple of big important bumps that play into the story, including a great version of his flipping corner bump that is just insanely fast, sending him upside down and over to the floor. Kama works simple stuff like backbreakers and that big man move I love where Michaels is bent backwards over Kama's knee, Kama pressing back on Michaels' chin. And what's awesome is that Michaels punches his way out of that, and he really tightens up his strikes in this match, clearly just punching Kama right in the head several times. That continues when Michaels gets on top and throws mounted punches, throwing 8 shots right into Kama's forehead, hard enough that Kama clearly checks to see if a cut opened. But the countdown clock really dampens the mood, as neither man seems to notice the countdown, so Michaels is doing slow corner 10 count punches with only a minute left to go, and while they built to a good "he woulda had him!" pinfall right as time expired, the fact that neither really acted like they were trying to finish really hurt it. Bob Holly worked the first several minutes of his match, they way they should have worked the final two minutes of this match. The fact that Michaels just immediately hits sweet chin music out of frustration post match, only highlights how stupid it was that he didn't go for that during any of the previous 15 minutes. Also, not having either guy advance is D-U-M-B DUMB. These finishes are brutal so far.

5. Mabel vs. The Undertaker

ER: This lags at times, sputters a bit, but eventually evolves into a real nice Mabel performance. He really got a bad rap from the internet doofuses not long after this, but he's a guy who would have been a big territory start if he wrestled exactly like this 10 years earlier. So it's a shame he never fully took during this era. Was it the shiny purple onesie? If he just had the Big Daddy V gear. All black gear, with his size, big star. This is filled with both guys running into each other with hard shoulderblocks, Mabel falls all over the place, splats Undertaker and sits on him a couple times, and we get cool moments like Undertaker with his foot tangled in the ropes and a tug of war while that happens (Taker trying to pull Mabel to the floor while his foot is tied up, Mabel trying to pull him up), and a huge belly to belly from Mabel that looked really great. Mabel even hits a picture perfect piledriver, and the visual of a 550 lb. man doing a classic piledriver is so bizarre, but so amazing. I thought a lot of Taker's stuff looked a little too tentative here. Mabel had obviously a slower gameplan, slowly crushing Taker, and it needed Taker to respond with a little more energy instead of just working the same pace as Mabel. Mabel whips Taker into the corner and smooshes the ref, allowing Kama to run in and interfere, allowing Mabel to hit a great legdrop to the back of Taker's head for the win. This match really did not need a finish based around interference, and the inability to give any single person a convincing win in this tournament is just bizarre. "People didn't take ______ seriously and that's why business is bad" is a pretty obvious take when everyone who has advanced in this tournament has done so almost by accident. Let Savio pin Yoko, let Mabel pin Undertaker, let The Roadie get a normal win over Bob Holly for goodness' sake.

6. Savio Vega vs. The Roadie

ER: This was a perfectly fine match, treated to a really icy reception from the Philly crowd. It's hard not to buy into the narrative that a series of bad finishes was wearing on this crowd. You had to think all the kids were thinking they'd be seeing a semifinals of Razor Ramon vs. Yokozuna and Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker, and instead they're seeing Savio Vega vs. The Roadie and No Match because of a Draw. They shorted them a match due to a Draw! So I get the icy reception, even though the match was fine. They got real cold during Roadie's control segment, quiet enough that both men verbally appealed to the crowd at different points. It sounds so foreign in a WWF environment to see Roadie first go "What does everyone think of the Road Dogg?" to silence, followed by Savio Vega stopping his comeback so that he could go "Come on!" to the crowd. 

It rattles them a bit and some stuff suffers, like Roadie doing his flashy jab combo with the big finisher right hand at the same time Savio is doing a salsa hulk-up, so Roadie's big punch combo that he is now doing for the first time, is ignored the entire time. It's just a middling layout in a match that could have been better. Savio gets the win, and in what should be his biggest babyface moment yet, he does a full ringside interview in Spanish with Dok Hendrix doing the translating; it's actually a really funny bit, with Hendrix saying things like, "He's saying 'I don't have a shot at beating Mabel...I'm considering just not showing up and going home...I don't know how I made it this far and I'm having doubts..." It's a genuinely hilarious bit, but the whole entire thing was done at the complete expense of Savio Vega. Vega is a guy who had been in maybe 5 TV matches before this PPV, and this was supposed to be his big hard fought struggle through the finals: He won a last minute dark match to make it onto the PPV itself, then had his first PPV match in the very next match! This was a hilarious bit at the expense of the guy who needed some help in that moment.

7. Jerry Lawler vs. Bret Hart

ER: In the TV leading up to this PPV, this match had to have had the most TV time devoted to it. Vince was absolutely giddy at the prospect of the first ever in history Kiss My Foot match, so we had a TON of segments with Lawler showing off comically gunked up bare feet, and so many segments with Bret calling Lawler a scumbag (which, well). But the segments clearly worked because this crowd despises Lawler. They are certainly treating this match as if it was the most important match on the show (though we can compare the reactions to the Bigelow/Diesel tag and Savio/Mabel). And the match itself is fantastic. I've never heard much praise for this match in their feud, but that was tremendous stuff. It's their great complementary styles compacted into 10 minutes, both guys work snug as hell, Lawler takes some of his best and unique bumps, and it's based around such a stupid horseshit mudshow stipulation that is the exact level of stupid horseshit mudshow stipulation that Lawler can get it over in his sleep. 

Hart had some awesome strikes here, really smashing his forearm across Lawler's nose, fast short uppercuts, tight headbutts; late in the match he punches Lawler while Lawler is on his knees, and Lawler takes this gorgeous gunshot bump to the mat. This show did a reported 16,000+ in attendance, and Lawler takes this admirable approach to things and works it like it was in front of 250 people in a church rec room. And this small focus work, getting into verbal spars with fans on all sides of the ring, really hammers home the threat of the stipulation, and this small focus work really starts to work for the entire arena. The match gets great heat and it's a beautiful thing to see small crowd Memphis heel techniques working on a big "workrate" Philly crowd.

Lawler hits three big piledrivers on Bret, all angling Bret off the mat in different ways, but Lawler takes a ton of time between all of them to talk shit to the crowd. Lawler in Philly full time would have been legendary. Then we get a great bit of BS where Lawler takes off his boot and has a bloody moldy sock that he tries to choke Bret with, Bret desperately hold the foot at bay. On the floor Lawler continues to show how he's the best ringpost bumper in wrestling history, getting pulled face first into it in such a convincing bit of magic that I expected to see a bloody nose. There was botched interference from Hakushi, more violent fast bumps from Lawler, a mean snap to Bret's familiar comeback offense (the Russian leg sweep and elbow off the middle rope landed especially sharp), the exact right amount of BS to go with the BS stip, elevated by perfect execution from both. This match was such an excellent use of time and really paid off the perfectly dumb TV time spent on it.

8. Mabel vs. Savio Vega

ER: This was a very good King of the Ring Final, easily the best of the actual KOTR matches tonight. This was an excellent match that the crowd TRIED to turn on with a loud ECW chant, and the match was good enough to get that crowd reinvested in the finish just moments later. Savio came out at the bell looking more impressive than he has in any appearance thus far, as he chopped Mabel into the corner - convincingly - and the visual of him backing up this mountain with chops made him like like a total pitbull. When Mabel is the slumped into the corner, Savio laces in with the best chops of the night; sometimes with both arms, always landing with a huge whipcrack. Savio Vega's attack on Mabel was great, peaking with Savio muscling Mabel over the top to the floor with a huge clothesline, Mabel taking a spectacular tumbling bump. Mabel smooshes Savio, hits his big belly to belly, and works a long bearhug that gets the fans restless. I liked it in the context of the match, Mabel playing the smart game, the odds, but it leads to an ECW chant lead by Straw Hat Guy and several other fans you've been distracted by while watching wrestling shows. But shortly into the comeback they can't deny the quality of the ringwork, and the match gets cheered to the finish. Vega got a great nearfall off a high cradle schoolboy, and also hit one of his best spinning heel kicks, getting unreal height. He gets a big kickout after a huge powerslam, but goes down to a big splash where Mabel really lays him out. This was a main event that did the tournament justice, something the rest of the tournament matches had fallen short of. This eventually got the positive crowd reaction it deserved, but it deserved it earlier.

9. Sycho Sid/Tatanka vs. Bam Bam Bigelow/Diesel

ER: The TV build up to this was all about Sid injuring Diesel's right elbow, Bigelow pledging his undying friendship to Diesel, and Sid making the best possible blinking crazy eyes facials in wrestling. Touched and crazy has always been a mode that wrestlers have struggled with, most commonly going far over the top or being too scared to do so. Sid finds the perfect balance and plays the man just on the edge of snapping better than anyone else. I wish we had a Sid cam, because occasionally the cameras during this era catch Sid on the apron just blinking and talking to himself - and this is during moments where he couldn't possibly know there are any cameras on him. A lot of this is kick and punch, with Bigelow occasionally taking a big dangerous bump to get people back into it. Sid kicks Diesel's elbow from the apron and Tatanka throws some tomahawk chops at it, and we get Sid really bending that bad elbow back across the ring ropes in mean ways, and the heels upheld their end of the bargain. Diesel didn't pay a ton of attention to it, outside of one big moment where he hit an elbowdrop on Sid, using the bad elbow, allowing Sid to go back on the offensive. 

But the problem is Diesel used his bad elbow for EVERYTHING. Every strike thrown, his big side slam, even posting up on the top rope while he was waiting for a tag. He used that elbow the whole damn match, and it really took away from the work of Sid and Tatanka. Bigelow tried some big things, including basically chokeslamming himself off the top rope. Sid backs him in the corner and gets Bigelow seated up on the top, choking him while Bigelow paws at Sid's face. I assume the plan was for him to be chokeslammed off, but Sid, didn't quite grab hold of him, and Bigelow just went for it anyway, taking a nice arcing bump and then selling it well on the mat; later Bigelow his a somersault senton on Tatanka and I'm not even sure that was supposed to happen, as Tatanka drops down and Bigelow does a big cannonball, but lands a little too vertically up on his neck. Considering the cannonball isn't a move that Bigelow commonly used, it felt like he was actually bumping but wasn't expecting Tatanka to be there? Vince and Dok were confused on commentary as well, but I like hearing Vince call it a cannonball. 

They also muff the hot tag to Diesel, as the way everyone was positioned in the ring made it look like Hebner was supposed to miss the tag, and to the crowd used to how tag wrestling works they clearly thought Diesel was going to be sent back to the apron, and even Vince was saying the referee didn't see the tag...but Diesel's hot tag was allowed, and this just means it was performed to no heat. I can't tell if Diesel was selling his elbow when giving Tatanka the Jackknife. He could have been, but if that's the case it just looked like he hit a really poor Jackknife. I do dig the finish of him pulling up Tatanka at 2, then challenging Sid to get in the ring, only for Sid to back down before Diesel pins Tatanka. On a show with too many screwy finishes, at least Sid committed to standing down as a classic heel move.


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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Savio Vega vs. Manny Ferno GLOBE OF DEATH!

23. Savio Vega vs. Manny Ferno IWA Puerto Rico 9/7

ER: Shout out to Tim Evans for being one of the sets of eyes keeping a look out for modern Puerto Rico, otherwise I might have never even heard of this absolute dynamite keg of weirdo ultraviolence. I have never seen a wrestling match held in a Globe of Death. This was One Step Beyond Lion's Den Match right here, a bloody ass fight that was like my family went for a weekend Reno trip and stayed at the Circus, Circus, and I'd play arcade games all day in their actually weird in-hotel midway, and I'd watch every single one of those Globe of Death motorcycle stunt shows. I can't even ride a bicycle, but looking up at two motocross racers driving upside down inches away from each other, I was fucking transfixed. And this is me watching those stunt shows, only this time one of the racers fucked up a stunt and the other racer has stopped the performance to beat the shit out of him. This was incredible, a bizarre setting with a bunch of old dirty weapons in that Globe of Death, Savio bleeding from the first minute and nothing but hard spills into slatted metal and thick old metal road signs bouncing off heads. It's a real dirty fight and Vega spends much of the match looking like a guy who is going to pass out from blood loss. Outside of great visuals like signs and heavy trash can lids being covered in blood, the unique environment added a ton to our few highspots: Savio Vega's leaping spinning heel kick and a big back drop inside the Globe of Death. Those two moments felt epic in this setting, happening amid ragged end board stabbings and bloody hard punches. This was an awesome concept worked exceptionally violently.

PAS: The Globe of Death was such an awesome looking structure. It felt like they bought it at a bankruptcy auction of a Circus which went out of business years ago. It was rusty and neglected looking, and all of the old stop signs and wooden boards they were smashing each other with looked old and dilapidated too. It felt like a Tetanus death match. Nothing fancy here, no big set up spots, just two guys bleeding profusely and smashing each other with things they had lying around. Manny Ferno absolutely wears Savio out with board shots, smashing it until it was pulverised. Savio is old and not particularly mobile, but he took the biggest bump of the match, eating a high backdrop into the globe allowing Ferno to escape. I am a sucker for weirdo gimmick matches, and this was a cool idea executed flawlessly.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Monday AIW - JT Lightning Invitational Tournament Night 2 6/15/19

Dominic Garrini vs. Nick Gage vs. Zach Thomas vs. Joshua Bishop

PAS: This was a four way with some really cool moments and some issues inherent in four ways. We get a renewal of the Bishop vs. Garrini feud, including a crazy spot where Bishop breaks a rear naked choke by throwing himself and Dom off the ring apron through a table. I also really liked the final offensive run that Gage used to put away Thomas. Still I think I would have been more interested in any version of these four guys in a singles match, and there was some goofy stuff like everyone going around in a circle elbowing each other. I liked this, but it isn't anything I am going to remember for long.

Mance Warner vs. Pat Buck vs. Savio Vega vs. Lee Moriarty

PAS: I enjoyed Warner vs. Savio throwing hands, and Warner getting the Duke's belt and cosplaying Austin vs. Savio. Moriarty pretty much just took bumps and shoehorned in his Johnny Saint stuff, and Buck didn't make much of an impression either way. I did like Moriarty's bump on the finishing lariat by Warner, it was almost Pat Tanaka-ish.

ER: This match was kind of enough for me. I really liked this return of Savio, he's a guy who in his current state really appeals to me. He's a bigger, slower guy now, but he hits as hard as ever and I kind of need a modern Abby who wanders around and throws violent throat thrusts, hard overhand chops, and even hard kicks to the stomach. I don't need much more out of a guy. I dug Warner poking Savio in the eye while Savio was shaking his hand out after a hard chop, dug the strap getting brought in, could have watched Mancer waste Moriarty with lariats a half dozen more times. I need more 2019 Savio, but this scratched a good itch.

Marko Stunt vs. Matthew Justice vs. Kid Kash vs. KTB

PAS: This was the best of the three semi-final matches, as they just went out there and did 8 minutes of crazy spots. Kash was running around cracking people with chops and punches, and did a dive into the crowd. Stunt was taking nutso bump after nutso bump, including taking a second rope sunset driver from Justice. There are a lot of tiny guys in wrestling, but Stunt legitimately looks like a small child, not a tiny adult, so Justice brutalizing him has extra spice.

ER: This was good fun but criminally short, not quite getting 5 minutes. These are guys with more than 4 minutes of material, and at least we got to see some good material jammed into the short runtime. Agree with Phil about Stunt, he kind of trips me out as nothing about him reads "adult" so it just feels like somebody's kid getting tossed around. Imagine what kind of push he would have gotten if Feinstein or Pena were still allowed to run shows/alive. Kash throws Marko to the floor with an awesome press slam, KTB and Justice take nice bumps into the crowd, Stunt hits a nice flip dive off the top into them, Kash crashes into them, and we get some fun in ring car crash stuff. I liked KTB throwing Kash around with Irish whips and planting a diving headbutt on Justice, enjoy the gusto that Matt Justice has for setting up big spots, fully agreed with the commentator who says Kash reminded him of Marty Jannetty, and loved the exclamation point ending with Justice sticking Stunt with the money in the bank. I wanted at least 5 more minutes of this.

Eddie Kingston vs. Tim Donst

PAS: This was pretty by the numbers Eddie Kingston, which is still going to be pretty enjoyable. He and Donst have a bunch of history, including Eddie mauling him when he was a rookie, so this match was full of stiffness and shit talking (although this is more of a good natured shit talking King then we have gotten recently). There is a nasty bump into the guardrail by Kingston where he just torches his knees, and we get a great backfist for the pin. Post match there ends up being a heated pull apart between Kingston and Lawlor, and that definitely got me amped for that match.

ER: This felt pretty one-sided for a King match. Donst never felt out of it until the final backfist, but he felt like a guy struggling to pull ahead. It wasn't a long match (10 minutes) but felt a little all over the place, though I'm not going to be one to complain about King breaking out offense. Brawl through the crowd was good, as a big thing Donst has going for him is he's a guy who reads "pain" when he takes a tumble. He always looks like a guy in over his head at a pick up basketball game, so every landing feels like something that will end with him wearing a protective boot for several months. He hits a great dive here on King, and both take nasty spills over the guardrail, into the guardrail, King gets his knee tied up in a chair, all good stuff. I dug the commentary putting over King's attention to detail, speculating on him breaking a knuckle after he shakes his fist out punching Donst in the hard part of the forehead. Donst really risks his body at points, in addition to that dive he also leaps off the apron into Kingston, not trying for anything fancy, literally just leaping off with an avalanche. I would have like to see a couple comebacks from Donst before King put him down, but overall I really liked how they worked with each other.

To Infinity and Beyond vs. Aeroform

PAS: I really enjoyed this, it took a bit to get going, with 2IAB jawing with the crowd, but really picked up when they isolated Louis Lyndon. Cheech and Colin are a really great 2019 heel offense team, and I love all the cutoffs and hope spots which they gave Lyndon. Flip is a great hot tag, landing an insane capoeira kick, and a combo sunset flip bomb into the corner with a Lyndon high kick. Nice run of crazy nearfalls, which ends with a brutal looking double team with a double knees to the stomach of Lyndon while Kendrick is powerbombed on his brothers back. Nasty duo of cheapshotting heels against a pair of highflying sympathetic babyfaces, tag team wrestling at its base done really well.

ER: ER: I love Cheech and Delaney! They're easily one of the best teams at doing these kind of breathless 10 minute tags with several intricately set up double team spots, and not make them look hokey or overly prepared. They keep some of those sharp edges on sequences, and the important thing is their complicated stuff actually looks like it would hurt. I never see them with that vacant look in their eyes as they miss clothesline by 2 feet, too busy thinking about the next dance step. Their stuff is fun, and they can make some improbable stuff look probable. I love all of Delaney's inside out and outside in dropkicks, and I somehow never see it coming when he slides out of the ring to dropkick someone through the turnbuckles. They're good at setting up moments for their opponents, both really good at being guys who get momentarily distracted only to turn around and run into a boot. They're also really good at simple cut off spots, and it's crazy more teams don't do stuff as simple as running across the ring to elbow your opponent on the apron. The finish was nasty as hell, a powerbomb onto your partner that looked this painful for both opponents should be the finish.

Allie Kat vs. CPA vs. Dr Daniel C Rockingham vs. Manders vs. Erik Taylor vs. Mike Montgomery

PAS: This was a rest of the locker room six way, it had it's moments. I enjoyed some of the reckless bumping and highflying of the two students Taylor and Montgomery, and Manders was fun chucking everyone around. There was the section where everyone tried to get their comedy spots over, and there was too much Allie Kat, but this was mostly enjoyable.

40 Acres (PB Smooth/AJ Gray/Tre Lamar) vs. The Production (Danhausen/Derek Director/Eddy Only)

ER: This was a well done angle that I didn't really want to see. Eddy Only hurt his ankle on the earlier show, so this is a handicap match, putting the Production as the underdogs with only Derek Director and Danhausen going against the 3 man 40 Acres. I really like The Production as heel indy scum Kaientai, attacking in numbers that is sometimes effective, sometimes leads to them being crash test dummies. They were good here at being sympathetic underdogs - Only even runs out on crutches and momentarily comes out ahead before getting killed in short order - but it's a role I don't really want to see them in. This goes less than 4 minutes and is mostly 40 Acres dominating, until PB Smooth accidentally takes AJ Gray out with a pump kick. This fleetingly evens the odds and gives us a nice brief run of heroic Derek and Dan. But I like these guys as big bumping schemers, not heroes! Everyone did a real good job here, Derek and Danhausen are big bumpers so obviously they're going to get crushed by 3 dudes with nice offense (Derek gets killed on a clothesline, Only eats a huge slam for the finish), but this could have been a killer 10 minute trios match - and on paper when I saw "40 Acres vs. The Production" on the card I thought it could be the low key match of the night. This angle was well done, but I got greedy.

PAS: Yeah this wasn't much of a match, but a fun segment. I agree with Eric about the Production as faces, they are much more fun as sleazy heels, but they did do a nice job. Derek's bump on AJ Gray's clothesline was especially nasty, Gray was great as a bruiser heel, a role I haven't seen him in before, his clip of Only's bad ankle was especially nasty. I think this could be a fun feud, but I imagine it would be more fun with a role reversal.

Tom Lawlor vs. Erick Stevens

PAS: There was a lot of cool stuff in this match, but for some reason the Fite TV replay has a pretty significant clip in the middle which makes it hard to fully rate. I really liked the opening with Stevens hitting a low top right into Lawlor's back when he was walking to ring side, and the have a fun brawl into the crowd including Steven's taking a big bump into chairs and Lawlor hitting a long airplane spin through the crowd. Stevens catches Lawlor with a powerslam on a guardrail, and we jump to both guys in the ring and Lawlor in control, no idea how we got there. Finish run had some cool stuff, including Lawlor kicking the shit out Stevens should with upkicks and some cool chokes. They do go into a pop up suplex exchange which I hate, and I though there was one too many kickouts. Still this was some stiff, violent stuff, and I could see it making a list if we can find a copy with the missing chunk.

Mance Warner vs. Matthew Justice vs. Nick Gage

PAS: This was pretty fun, but flawed. They started just throwing bombs out of the block, with Warner trying quick KO's on both guys, with a running knee and big pop up headbutt. Pretty much the whole match was big finishers, spots on chairs and spears through tables. When you start a match at 10, you really can't push it higher. Middle of the match Jock Samson comes down and jumps Warner and the Duke turns on Warner to eliminate him. Justice and Gage kill each other, but there is a big no sell section in the middle which I hate (last two matches both have it, and they need to retire it). I am amused at Justice winning a match with nothing but finishers by using a small package, but I was basically indifferent towards this.

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