Found Footage Friday: WAR GAMES~! DUSTIN~! GOLDUST~! CW~! BUNDY~! CORINO~! A BALDWIN BROTHER~! HOGAN~!

Hulk Hogan vs. King Kong Bundy WWF 1/20/86

MD: Lost Minneapolis house show footage from the Vault. We get glimpses of Harts vs Bees and the full Bundy vs Hogan match, including Heenan laying into a very familiar crowd. "You know, you people..." It's about thirty words and it's perfect. Hogan's out with the bandana in his mouth. That's the era we're in.

Interesting structure here as Bundy attacked Hogan first with the bandana and then with the belt with some pretty nasty shots before the bell. Hogan hulked up early, hit the axe bomber, and tossed Bundy out, nailing him with a chair. Bundy came back with an avalanche for the transition. I don't usually think of that of a transition move but it worked here. Then Hogan had to fight from underneath. He hulked up again, did more brawling on the floor (at some point Bundy started bleeding), hit the legdrop and actually pulled him up at two so Heenan could interfere and they could keep the feud going. 

Post match, Heenan held Hogan's leg so Bundy could hit the splashes and Steamboat made the save with the most over the top kung fu poses possible. He took his shoe off as a weapon. Heenan came back with HIS boot off, and Hogan got to make the save on the guy making the save for him before they both posed. We only have so much of the Hogan/Steamboat pairing but it is a lot of fun, especially post-match when Hogan cut a backstage promo about the energy of the universe and the ninja showing him the dark side while Steamboat made funny noises. 

ER: I'm glad they gave us a couple minutes of Hart Foundation/Killer Bees even if the most revelatory thing about it was how fucking cool beard Jim Brunzell looks in HD. Bearded Brunzell looks like a tanned stud who would beat James Brolin's ass and replace him on Hotel without anybody saying shit. He usually looks like an orthodontist. It also offers us some long crowd shots, beautiful crowd shots that offer us people we've never seen, a deep range of winter Minnesotans with great tight fitting 50/50 blend t-shirts no matter the body side, and a pornographic amount of snap front caps. 

The main was real good, a violent brawl in front of an off route arena crowd. One of the best things about any newly released WWE Vault match has been the sound quality. The sound is incredible on those Omni shows, and it makes house shows pop like the hottest 80s territory wrestling. The ways the sound highlights what's happening in the ring adds to every strike and every weapon crash. Bundy fucking murders Hogan with an early match belt shot, stripping it from his waist and swinging it as hard as he could at the back of Hogan's neck. It sounded like a Hogan getting brained with a slapjack. Beyond Bundy hitting a 1999 level weapon shot, he had a lot of really impressive worked offense. It's one thing for Bret to pull his weight and never hurt anyone on his elbowdrop, but Bundy has so much more weight to pull. He protects Hogan on everything - smart time to tighten up your work and secure the biggest monthly paydays of your life - but all of it looks really great. Precise worked kneedrops always amaze me, the distribution of weight that goes into the best of them. Bundy's is so tight that I'd love to see footage of him testing it out on and not breaking eggs. Is Yokozuna's legdrop our Fattest great worked "drop"? 

I was surprised when the legdrop came so early and exclaimed aloud when Hogan pulled him up at 2 and started punching him. But I appreciate that Hogan's two best punches were thrown at Heenan standing on the apron, short targeted staccato rights to Heenan's forehead before Bundy pulled him off and Heenan held Hogan's legs down for the splash. Even with Tito and Steamboat on the card I'm sure nobody else sold two punches better than Heenan sold Hogan's two. 

WAR GAMES! Team JBL (CW Anderson/Elix Skipper/Hernandez/Homicide/Steve Corino) (w/John Bradshaw Layfield) vs. Team Slaughter (Dustin Rhodes/Kirby Mack/Rick Steiner/Scott Steiner/TJ Mack) (w/Sgt. Slaughter) Sadler UWF 9/21/07

MD: Speaking of things we've somehow never covered. The KrisPLettuce Patreon got its hands on all these Sadler UWF shows. Certainly worth a look. This has Slaughter out to Born in the USA which is not something I remember him coming out to often. Hebner does the coin toss and jaws with the fans about Bret. The one liners between Slaughter and JBL are not great. Obviously JBL wins. Someone in the crowd shouts out "the heel always wins" long before the toss. Best not to overthink it. 

This is honestly a pretty good Indie War Games. You start with Dustin and CW Anderson for the five minute period, playing up Dusty and Arn in the classic, obviously. Dustin is in the midst of his Black Reign gimmick at his heaviest but he's going to be in there for 25+ and damn it if he doesn't make a showing of it. People point to this as a disqualifying period and this match certainly seems like a counterargument to that.  They worked a nice little mini-match here with CW feeding for Dustin's strikes (all looked great) and Dustin running into the spinebuster, having to fight his way back. 

Just when he had things under control, it was Corino's time to come in, and they worked a comedy spot or two before taking over. In general, I thought the balance was really good with this one. You had a lot of unique elements, like Hernandez who could just come in and throw people around or Rick Steiner who in his mid-40s could make a believable impact without seeming overly gimmicky (Scott was a bit more so). The Macks were quite adept at getting thrown around. And there was novelty in having Homicide in there teaming with Corino or facing off against Dustin. Skipper was the only guy who felt a little out of place to me. 

It was ultimately pretty chaotic and hard to follow at times, as you'd expect, but that had its own wealth of riches, like looking away from one side of the ring only to see Dustin slamming Corino's head between the rings like a plunger over and over. Finish was silly, with JBL and Slaughter getting involved, even if they did cover it with a simultaneous submission, and it never quite went as bloody as you might have wanted, but overall, it was a pretty well put together War Games with a lot of talent interacting in interesting and unique ways. 

ER: We were all so convinced that we had already covered this match that we had multiple text threads across multiple apps trying to figure out why we hadn't already covered it. I assumed Phil had already covered every single War Games match, but somehow this is THE ONE WAR GAMES that has not been written about by any Segunda Caida member. When Dustin watched our DEAN~! 2 show with us, I wish I had known about this match when the discussion turned to what our favorite War Games matches were. He was obviously proud of his daddy's match concept and was in three straight years of them. I had no clue he was ever in a non-WCW War Games, or that it was one of the three best War Games he'd been involved in. 

Before Slaughter and JBL do the coin toss, some "smart" fan yells out that "the heel always wins the coin toss". Yeah smart guy, you showed 'em all. Nobody wants to see a fucking War Games where the babyfaces have a constant advantage, but there will always be wrestling fans who think they cracked the code about how basic storytelling works. It's like how my dad will turn to my mom and say "Told ya" when a TV/movie character who is clearly the bad guy turns out to be a bad guy. Some people will always seek mysteries to solve while others have long moved past the need to search for mysteries than never pretended to be mysterious. 

I typically hate modern applications of "lore" but I love that this match started with Rhodes and Anderson. It's the best possible throwback to the original classic but also two guys who make logical sense to start a War Games and be in the entire match. I love that heel CW has a manager who needs to be pushed in a wheelchair. This is clearly not a heel manager faking injury that will lead to his chair being tipped over, our heel enforcer just has an actual invalid as a manager and that will sadly never present us with a difficult "wouldn't hit someone with glasses" scenario. Anyway, the whole War Games is shockingly good. I knew the floor would be high just from seeing half of the people involved, but it hit a high note in the first five minutes and I thought maintained that level through all new entries. Some entries were less than others: Rick Steiner accidentally got in the middle of other people's sequences 3x more often than he actively did anything, Kirby Mack looks like the clear worst of the Mack brothers, and Elix Skipper does a couple moves so convoluted that nobody - including Brad Stutts on commentary - could have guessed that it was actual offense he was delivering rather than taking. 

Everyone else though? Everyone else showed up. CW lights Dustin up with elbows during their 5 minutes and goes on to work smart sequences with everyone all match, great at taking TJ's offense, great at stooging when necessary. Dustin works insanely hard all match. I remember watching the Black Reign era and always thinking there were occasional glimpses of Dustin in there but assumed they put him in super short matches because he could no longer go. Nope. Here he is smack dab in the middle of Black Reign and he's breaking out offense I've never otherwise seen from him. He comes off the top rope multiple time, with diving elbow attacks and I can't recall any time past age 25 when Dustin even went to the top rope. TJ Mack is a Hardys trainee but wrestles like a Marufuji acolyte. The thing is he does Marufuji spots with more snap and sounder physics, like the Billy Kidman of Marufujis. He's great at being the guy every heel goes straight after when they enter the match. Homicide murders him with a quick series of strikes and suplexes, Hernandez comes in and press slams him from one ring to the other, he takes a Border Toss from one ring to the other, I'm kind of shocked he wasn't the one to take the Clothesline from Hell. 

There wasn't going to be blood, but the action was strong and the energy level being kept high the whole time elevated things. I expected a lot more lying around time, but these men were here to work. Far exceeded expectations, fits in nicely within the War Games pantheon. I don't think WWE has done one better. 

Goldust vs. Dean (Shark Boy) Baldwin Tribute Championship Wrestling 3/2/13

MD: Somehow this escaped our gaze for years and years, but better late than never. Dean Baldwin is Shark Boy... with a Baldwin brother gimmick, including someone from "hollywood" hyping him up and three valets and a tracksuit. There is a fake Shark Boy as the ref. Dustin is Goldust in between runs. A scene has been set for you.

This was, unsurprisingly, a ton of fun. Match was straightforward. Baldwin would run spots with Goldust, running into a shoulder block or arm drags, then head out to complain and stall and whine. Goldust eventually went out after him. He got over with a banana peel and stayed over with cheapshots even though Dustin did pretty well with his comebacks. He was working this crowd hard, skidding his feet on a backslide or really kicking the leg to get the fans going for a chinlock, just working huge for the back row even though he was also working small from underneath given that Baldwin was tiny compared to him.  

He hit a bunch of his signature stuff on the comeback but it came to the ref losing the mask (beats me who it was) to hit the stunner setting up the final reckoning. Post match they did all the bs you'd want: the shattered dreams, a kid posing with dustin and the ref (re-masked), the valets leaving with Dustin, Baldwin throwing a tantrum, Dustin paying attention to every individual kid in the place. No idea how we'd never seen this one before.

ER: Dean Baldwin looks more like an unsuccessful Jamie Kennedy brother than an unsuccessful Baldwin brother, but he perfectly understands what it's like to be a phony Hollywood douchebag. Coming out to Weezer's "Beverly Hills", a song so bad that it might be the only song that has ever made me spit out my drink the first time I heard it. We got it into our college radio station one Friday afternoon, threw on track one, and I don't think any of us could have possibly expected music this putrid. I sprayed my water out in a fine mist. Had "We Are All on Drugs" been track 1, I may have choked to death. 

This was several months before Goldust was triumphantly brought back to WWE, on his comeback trail to show he was in shape and ready to have TV classics again. In 2013 he was healed up, trimmed up, tapping back into the things that always made him a great babyface. This is pure indy wrestling, a former star on the mend or on the spiral, working in a middle school gym in a small Midwest village that's close enough to major civilization. This is was indy wrestling always was before the 2001 boom, gymnasium shows giving people a chance to see someone that had been on TV for years, filled with kids who likely have no idea who the big TV star even was. Knowledge or no, everyone recognizes Goldust's effective babyface beats, and he works hard to remain underdog and make the smaller Baldwin seem like someone who could control. 

While I would have preferred seeing him work someone with size, like Daniel Baldwin, I thought Dean's punches played as great heel punches (helps when you have a babyface this good at reacting to punches) and Goldust knew how to bump to make him more effective. My favorite Goldust bump was the way he took Baldwin's kitchen sink knee, tumbling painfully and leaning into the bottom rope as he came up holding his stomach. My favorite part was the early match magic show, where Goldust punched and slapped Baldwin around ringside, letting all the kids see up close and personal how good he was smacking this guy around. I can only imagine how much I would have lost my mind if my middle school's gym ever hosted a wrestling show, and Goldust knew exactly how that must have felt. 

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Saturday Night 4/1/00

Jeremy Lopez/Tommy Rogers vs. Dandy/Silver King

Dandy/King are wearing their insanely awesome full body suits that I never realized they wore. King's is a full body suit that shows no skin whatsoever, and it is glittery silver and black. Dandy opts for gold and black, but his is sleeveless. King even works the stick to start the match, saying they are Latin America's most wanted men, and slicks his eyebrows down. Match itself was totally awesome. Lopez is a Malenko trainee who I *think* has worked Osaka Pro most of this decade, and would apparently be the worst road trip buddy ever (copied and pasted from his website, Favorite Bands: Creed, Kid Rock, 3rd Eye Blind, Uncle Cracker, STP. Live, Hootie And the Blowfish, 3Doors Down). Here he throws nice chops and gets punched by Dandy (Dandy throws like 4 awesome punches in this btw). I thought Tommy Rogers was ancient here but turns outs he was only 38. He was spry and also threw nice punches. Dandy Roll is incredibly quick and I have now seen 3 WCW matches where Dandy takes the fall!

Little Jeannie vs. Mona

Little Jeannie appears to be working some sort of gun moll gimmick, and Mona still has her awesome tear away evening gown. I don't think I could ever put down a Mona/Molly match. That's like putting down kittens or bunnies. Luckily the match is really fun with a bunch of cool mat-based stuff, and Mona winning with a neat inverted surfboard.

Kid Romeo vs. Allen Funk

This wasn't bad, but felt like two guys that were trying to throw out a whole bunch of cool moves. Funk looked better, though, throwing a big clothesline and a couple cool suplexes. Romeo came out dancing with glow sticks which I guess was an OK attempt to try and tap into a certain type of youth culture. It would have worked better had they had them work the mat and Romeo just couldn't stop rubbing on Funk.

Frankie Lancaster vs. Lash LeRoux

Frankie Lancaster is Bob Holly. I mean, especially in this match. They look like the same person, except Frankie had a mustache. Hmmmm. Same bleached hair, same balding pattern, same gassed physique, nice dropkick, same fucking face...This is also about the best I've seen Frankie look in ring, too, really playing to the crowd and working stiffer than normal. I really hate Lash LeRoux's hair. Frankie takes almost all the match before Lash hits his inevitable finish.

Steve Armstrong vs. Hugh Morrus

I never remember Steve wearing tie dye and blue jeans while he wrestled. I remember Brad worked as Buzzkill a few months before this, but why was Steve doing the same thing? Was there some sort of angle where Steve was making fun of his brother for ripping off one of their other brothers, as a wink wink within a nudge nudge? Because the announcers weren't putting any of that over. They didn't even mention that it might be odd for Steve to be working in jeans and a tie dye shirt, just business as usual. Anyway, Steve doesn't get much offense here. Morrus always takes 95% of his squash matches. He was more entertaining here than he can be (throwing some nice elbowdrops, nailing the No Laughing Matter, pulling Steve on top for the false 2.9), but it would be nice to see an actual match from him.

3 Count vs. Shark Boy/Frank Paris/Elix Skipper

3 Count was really good on a sliding scale. Helms looked really great here and threw nice strikes and was super quick, Moore took some big bumps and was also quick, and Karagias had very nice abs. 3 Count stooge around for a lot of Shark Boy biting offense, and good lord was Air Paris (Frank?) bigger than I remember. He was the biggest guy in this match! Pretty short match, would've liked to see more. A few women in their late 30s were really into the pre-match boy band singing and synchronized dancing.

Chris Harris vs. Chuck Palumbo

Harris blows a couple things and we cut to random kids in the crowd to cover it. Still, he moved quickly for a big guy and that helped. Palumbo still threw an awesome right hand, even this early on. And good gracious his two jungle kick superkicks here were brutal, the last one just blasting Harris under the chin. Palumbo wasn't as good here as he would get, but showed potential. When did he make the jump up to "really really good", like 2003?

Cassidy Riley vs. HAIL

I liked O'Reilly (Riley?) in TNA as one of the Hotshots, but here he doesn't get to do much. Announcers were putting over HAIL as a giant (6'9" 350 lb!!!) which is completely absurd since he was only slightly bigger than Chris Harris or Chuck Palumbo in the previous match. But to get over his size Hudson was pushing Cassidy as being 6'2" 220 lb. which is awesome. This match was not much, although HAIL's jumping piledriver looked really good. His finisher was called Hail's Bells, which is both awesome and horrible.

Kory Williams/Ashley Hudson vs. Vito/Johnny the Bull

Vito actually looked really good here, with the Mamalukes finisher being a Hart Attack but with Vito doing a yakuza kick (so he had to do a massive yakuza kick way over his head and it looked really great). Kory Williams threw some alright punches and some really high & pretty dropkicks. He also gets his head kicked in by Vito. Match was kinda boring when Ashley Hudson was in, which was most of it. Hudson looked a lot like Crowbar, but had a silhouette of Australia on his singlet, and came out wearing a boomerang. Since he didn't get any offense, though, it remains unknown whether or not he has Australian-named gimmick offense.

Brian Knobbs vs. Adrian Byrd vs. Dave Burkhead vs. Rick Fuller vs. Norman Smiley vs. The Dog*

Yeaahhhh! Hardcore main event 6 man, title on a pole match! Dog and Fuller disappear through large portions of this, and the star of the match is probably Dave Burkhead. This was basically 6 guys wandering around a ring filled with garbage, hitting each other with chairs and trash cans and trash can lids and ladders, all while trying to grab the title from the pole. Burkhead is always seemingly right in the way of plunder here, so he wins best in match. He takes chairshots, trash can shots, a ladder shot to the back of the head (then takes a huge running bump from the ring to the floor), then while lying on the floor gets a ladder thrown from the ring onto his face! It all made me root for him and when he climbed to the turnbuckle to reach for the title I was actually getting excited. "Will Burkhead win the title here!?" But no, Knobbs beats him with a trash can and grabs the belt : ( It was fun while it lasted.

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R.I.P. IWA-MS, 2/8/03

PAS: To memorialize IWA-MS, a promotion which has provided entertaining shows for over a decade, we are going to review some random shows over the next couple of weeks, after which I imagine the promotion will be back in business.

Shark Boy v. Vortex

PAS: Vortex was accompanied by American Kickboxer who trained him. This match was mostly built around an apparent Shark Boy v. the ref feud, and ended with a restart fast count bullshit finish. Vortex had some impressive athletic spots for an unathletic looking dude, but definitely looked a little rookieish in his other stuff. It was good to see the crazy old dude smoking a pipe though.

ER: Vortex had some pretty OK looking stuff here, and I was fully expecting sub pretty OK. Good to see American Kickboxer coming out and talking shit while wearing a full-on all over print button up Gundam shirt. If you can still sound credible starting shit while supporting Mobile Suit Gundam then more power to you. And that old man's pipe was full on Hans Landa size, just puffing away in the front row.

In between matches saw Todd Morton work the STICK and it was great. He cut a genuinely threatening promo, really intense and hate-filled. What doesn't this guy do? Dave Prazak tries his best to make lame jokes over it man I hate that guy.

Mark Wolf v. KO

PAS: KO was a legit Scottish Games competitor who was green as grass but probably a better athlete then pretty much anyone who ever worked IWA-MS. There were moments where both guys seemed to be visible calling spots. KO looked good on offense, and not so good on defense, dropping early on a bulldog ect. Wolf was solid too, although he kind of had one good looking move, one weak looking move.

ER: I liked KO here, and Phil is overstating how bad the bulldog looked. Most people wouldn't have even noticed it. Plus, I hate when it looks like dudes leap into a perfectly positioned front flop. This dude made the bulldog look REAL, but stumbling and falling way more painfully than if he had taken the bulldog as planned. If you're gonna stumble during a spot, might as well do it when you're supposed to land on your face anyway. Wolf was wearing some classicly torn Balls Mahoney shorts. I can just picture these guys sitting at home, carefully tearing their pants JUST so, just so they'll be PERFECT when they throw shitty forearms to some guy's chest.

Adam Gooch v. Drake Younger

PAS: This was pretty great, Adam Gooch was totally awesome in 2003, great height on his bumps, great looking execution on his moves and a legit sleazeball heat machine. He had this great run for a couple of years and then totally disappeared. He was accompanied by Michael Todd Stratton (AKA Todd Morton), and he is always awesome to watch, even when he is the apron. This was Younger's IWA debut and he looked pretty good, a bunch of energy and some cool spots. It got a little two county for my taste at the finish, but this was blast.

ER: Man, I forgot how great Gooch was earlier this decade. Pre-match heat garnering with Stratton was awesome. They turned an old bit into a forgotten classic, something that easily could've been botched in most others' hands. Fan gives Gooch a wifebeater as a gift, wifebeater says "Gooch is da MAN!" on the front, Stratton urges him to put it on and then poses Gooch to all sides of the crowd, which naturally reveals the back of it says "Who takes it in the ASS!" and Stratton does the slow reveal then reacts in all sorts of awesome "Boss Hogg getting worked by the Dukes" mannerisms. Stratton was the ultimate second in this match.

Steve Stone/Ballz v. Devon Fury/Cornbread

PAS: This was a Pro-Am match, the concept being that a professional was teaming with an amateur. I assume what that means on an IWA show, is that the pros were working for free and the amateurs were paying to work the show. Cornbread was the better of the two backyarders, as Ballz was there mostly there so the announcers can make dozens of puns. Still I never thought I would appreciate the polish and professionalism of Devon Fury.

ER: You can also tell the pros are the ones with new jean shorts and a non-faded black t-shirt. Steve Stone had some good offense including a real nice kneedrop and some good spunk on the ring apron. Cornbread was a pretty enjoyable backyarder, but I'm kind of a chubby chaser as far as wrestling is concerned. If a fat guy does a nice leg drop I'll think he's the best guy in the match. Ballz is my new least favorite wrestler, as Fannin/Prazak with their fucking awful "balls" puns were just constant. Not a one of them funny. Fury slammed balls! Fury punches balls! Fuck you guys.

Danny Daniels v. Spider Nate Webb

PAS: Daniels is a guy I have never particularly cared for, I love Nate Webb but wasn't expecting much. I was plesantly surprised at the beginning of this match as they had some really nice sequences, including Webb climbing Daniels body while in a knucklelock and ripping off a sweet rana. Match fell apart though about six minutes in and never really recovered. Nice moonsault by Nate though.

ER: Nate Webb's pedo-stache always looked so funny with the rest of his vinyl/mesh Hot Topic look. Really came off as a guy who had a friend that worked there and would regularly steal stock, so Nate just gets a bunch of free clothes. There is always a bunch of cool stuff in Webb matches, and Daniels really SUWA's the aforementioned hurracanrana. But that really was the highlight of the first 10+ minute match of the night, and it came in the first minute.

Ian Rotten v. Brad Bradley

PAS: Man was this great. Classic Ian Meth Cook Battlarts. Bradley is a big dude who got a WWE deal at one point. Apparently he was coming off of a MAW victory over Ian, so Ian was coming at him hard. Bradley wasn't really firing back hard enough for this kind of match, although Ian did a great job selling the shots. Ian just goes after Bradley's leg, slapping on some nasty looking leg locks, and even pounding at his thigh with punches. Finish was great with a bloody Ian grabbing a steel chair and decimating his leg with chair shots and then putting on an STF for a submission.

ER: I was a big supporter of Brad Bradley/Ryan Braddock in WWE. I really loved all 9 total minutes he got on Smackdown. Loved the Festus match, loved the tag he had opposite Festus, thought he had good heavyweight offense and a nice dropkick. Anything he had in 2008, he did not have here. Steen-esque bod and a bland face/haircut, this was the Ian show. Ian sells a stomp to the face better than anybody. Bradley was throwing some really wimpy stomps to the face and Ian really made it look like his skull was getting caved in. Those chair shots to the leg were so damn nasty.

Shaq Daddy v. Rollin Hard

PAS: This is another Pro-Am match, with Rollin Hard in the traditional Ian roll of guy potatoing a backyarder. No John Calvin with a kendo stick here, and Rollin actually sells for this guy a bit which kind of kills the gimmick. Shaq Daddy seemed kind of over with the crowd and this feels like the kind of thing that can't be understood out of context.

ER: Shaq Daddy didn't just seem kind of over, he was practically the most over guy on the whole show. Maybe he was a popular local tattoo artist? I have no explanation for this match. It gets like 11 minutes, Shaq gets a lot of bad looking offense, Rollin' really doesn't actually stiff him at all, puts him over afterwards like they had just gone through an epic war, crowd goes apeshit. I have no fucking clue what happened. Rollin' took a real nice spill through some chairs at ringside, but....I just guess you had to be there?

Bull Pain v. Corporal Robinson

PAS: Pain comes out with Mickie Knuckles as his valet, which is an angle that I didn't remember happening. This started out a little underwhelming, but man did it kick in gear. Both these guys really convey "tough guy" well and there were large parts of this that felt like the two craziest guys in a small town clearing out a bar. At one point Bull does a frog splash off the bleachers to the floor, which is a totally insane spot for a veteran to do, I could see Nate Webb or Vortex doing it, but Bull Pain worked in the AWA for fuck sake.

ER: Mickie rocking the little black dress and stylish bob! Cut to 6 years later and she has tangly long hair and a scarred up forehead. Bull is one of the most intimidating guys in wrestling, and Cpl. can do a real nice brawl. Their brawl through the crowd was a lot more impressive than most. Really had a cool fight atmosphere. Bull's bat shots are so awesome. They always look so nasty. They should've used him as an advisor to Ox Baker on "Escape from New York".

Chris Hero v. Michael Todd Stratton

PAS: I had seen this match years ago and I remember it fondly, and man does it hold up well. Stratton (aka Todd Morton) is just amazing at drawing heat, this is the day after Hero and Punk went 90+ minutes, so Hero is coming into this with a disadvantage. Lots of cool shit here, this building has a support poll off to the side of the ring and Stratton takes a huge flying bump into that poll, which looked just brutal. Stratton also breaks out a ladder and they do some cool spots with that, including Stratton pinning him in the corner with the ladder and blasting him with a perfect dropkick. Finish looked to be super overbooked, with a ref bump and Bull Pain and Adam Gooch run in, they get cut off by KO and Mark Wolf and Wolf smashes Stratton. That felt like the finish, but instead Stratton kicks out at two, and they do an amazing kneeling punch exchange, leading to Hero sweeping his legs and getting the Hangman's clutch. Awesome, awesome match, really one of my favorite Chris Hero matches ever, and another spectacular Todd Morton performance.

ER: I am usually not a huge fan of 30 minute matches, as more often than not it seems like the guys could've accomplished just as much in 16-18. But this 30 minutes flies right on by. Everything here was great. Phil mentioned all the cool spots. Hero dropkicking Morton off the apron into the support pole was a real rewind moment. Hero started the match out with real bad punches, but by the time they got to the kneeling exchange he was finally opening up and belting Morton. Of course Morton's punches started great and by the time the exchange rolled around they were just perfect. The size difference was really noticeable here, too, as Morton is a short guy, but they worked the match really believably around that, as even a big guy can get hit in the face. This whole show was a really great showcase for Todd Morton. This would be a real good place to start if you've been wanting to get into him.

Say, we should do some sort of Complete & Accurate Todd Morton list after the Fujiwara one...

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