Loosely Formed Thoughts on WWF Over the Edge 5/31/98

The Propaganda-style intro to this PPV is fucking insane. It's all World War II footage of tanks and soldiers and fucking Stalin and Mussolini and actual Nazi footage and it's all interspersed with They Live CONFORM and OBEY block fonts but also video of Stone Cold doing shit like turkey tapping Vince from several angles. Best possible start. 

 

1. LOD 2000 vs. DOA

It actually feels impossible that LOD 2000 didn't become the biggest tag team of the rest of the decade with Sunny as their manager. I don't think I'm being overly horny here either. I don't think the fact that Sunny looked like this while I was 17 years old matters here, as I don't think this is a matter of bias. I think I'm being a very reasonable and appropriate level of horny in a way that the eyes of history agree with. 

This is Hawk and Animal vs. 8-Ball and Skull but Droz and Chainz are there. Up above I only wrote "LOD 2000 vs. DOA" and I didn't want anyone to get confused about what members of each group of friends was actively involved here. 

Skull throws a nice ugly big man swinging neck beaker and an actual good legdrop. It does not bring me great joy that 8-Ball and Skull's work from '98 is probably better than we assessed at the time. 

Animal is in strong style mode and does a dragon screw and I don't think I've seen that from him before or since. How much of his BattlArts work is available? 

8-Ball vs. Hawk is better than Skull vs. Animal. They did more punching and elbowdrops and an ugly piledriver that Hawk gets to ignore completely because that is Hawk's spot. 

Hawk has a way of looking off balance while also having this incredible balance and sturdiness on all of his clotheslines. He looks wobbly, but takes this incredible bump all the way across the ring off a missed top rope shoulderblock, flying out of the ring into an almost Halloween style sliding bump to the floor. Hard. I liked Drunk Hawk when I was a teenager but I don't think it was because I thought he was GOOD good. Accidentally, time has only proven me right. Further proof of how good he still was on fumes in '98: the 1-2 punch of his  neckbreaker -> fistdrop combo. 

The 8-Ball/Hawk punch exchange is good and should have gone three times as long. It's worth it for Chainz punching Hawk in the balls from the floor in a way that didn't even seem planned. Cameras weren't focused on it. You can see Chainz pop him in the nuts from the floor and Hawk reacts like a guy who just realized he got tapped hard enough in the balls to react. 

Nobody quite knew how to get to the finish, but Animal clotheslining his way through a hot tag and hitting a great powerslam for the finish plays well with any lead up. 

There is a Faarooq! Faarooq! Faarooq is on Fire!! sign and folks, that's a good one. 

2. Jeff Jarrett vs. Steve Blackman

Fuck I hope Steve Blackman tries a piledriver here but I have a parlay on Jarrett doing one. You see, in between matches backstage, Faarooq hit The Rock with the Piledriver To Beat tonight. We're 20 minutes into this show and we've had two piledrivers and we still have over 2.5 hours to go.  

Blackman is really fun to watch during this stretch. We don't get Reformed Musclehead Karate Guys Working Every Pro Wrestling Spot He's Ever Seen anymore. Blackman doing a baseball slide dropkick to start but then press slamming Jarrett back into the ring but also doing Ricky Steamboat double chops but also looking lost and kind of dangerous is just lightning in a bottle. I think he would get a lot less interesting the more he learned, but this is still in that magic window. 

Blackman hits a thrust kick on the floor that looks like the the most violent version of Chuck Norris kicking Jarrett down the aisle. 

Jarrett does a really good job icing this down the right amount while there's an Al Snow angle taking several minutes too long at ringside. Jarrett works Barry Darsow chatter like "He ain't going nowhere now!" and "Ring the bell he's done!" and is able to do essentially nothing for a few minutes, really well. 

They do a preposterously slow 9 count after Jarrett hits a back suplex. Jarrett had been working over Blackman in a chinlock for a minute so I have no idea why Jarrett was as knocked out as Blackman. I thought they would explode a bit more after the Al Snow angle, you know, to get everyone back involved in things, but they kind of do the opposite for no reason. They've turned the entire rest of the match into "every move keeps both of us down for too long" and it sucks.  

Steve Blackman is at his absolute beautiful best when he is doing moves with full commitment without looking as if he's ever even practiced doing the move before. It's only a detriment if a couple of miscues happen back to back, but has a remarkably high ceiling as a style. His elbowdrop is not thrown like any other wrestler has thrown an elbowdrop. It's like he was born with the knowledge but without memory of where the knowledge came from. He knows it's right, but it's informed by something beyond him. He is not inspired by anyone else who came before. 

Steve Blackman is Backyarder Doug Furnas and we didn't know what we had. We didn't know, and he didn't know how to continue giving that to us. 

3. Loser Leaves WWF: Sable vs. Marc Mero

I'll say it again: Mero and Sable were really great during the first half of '98. Neither ever did it better. Maybe when we get into Jacqueline Era Marc I'll determine that it has aged even better than his Sable Forced Separation arc but I'm not expecting it to be. Honestly Sable and Mero are fucking GREAT together. They really seem like they dislike each other, like their marriage was really already over instead of merely being on the start of a 5 year slide towards being over.  

Marc Mero is so good during this entire segment. "Sable what happened to us? This business ruins relationships... It ruined ours."  

Marc Mero pulling a small package after doing the honorable thing and lying down for Sable, then jumping around the ring in celebration is one of those things my sister will bring up unprovoked 25 years later. 

4. Bradshaw/Taka Michinoku vs. Kai En Tai

Bradshaw press slams Taka into everyone within the first 30 seconds. He's so massive, they look like Lilliputians wearing Miller's Outpost jean shorts. 

I remember this being a lot better, with a lot more heat. Crowd really isn't as into it as I remember. I'm not into it as much as I remember. The Kai En Tai stuff doesn't read as fluid or unique today. There are a lot more seams with 2024 eyes. Bradshaw is not actually reckless at all. Did we all have false implanted rose colored memories of Bradshaw recklessly fucking up everyone in the match or was that just me? This Wisconsin crowd doesn't understand a single fucking part of it. Arms are crossed in Milwaukee, politely not understanding any of Dick Togo's excellent senton variations. 

Jim Ross makes an extended Gulliver's Travels reference and then explains it and I feel like a stupid asshole who's only read three books in my life out here making the same similes as Jim Ross. JR and I each watched the Ted Danson Gulliver's Travels Two Night Television Event in 1996 and now we use it to describe pro wrestling when big man fights small men.   

Okay it gets good when Bradshaw finally tags in and that's when he starts throwing them around. It's still never unprofessional in the ways I remember it being. In fact, Bradshaw was actually a good sport believably taking Kai En Tai's offense, leaning into dropkicks and struggling really well while the Lilliputians tethered his legs with rope. He does polish Funaki with a clothesline and choose Teioh as his Only True Victim by throwing him - really throwing him - with a tiger suplex, but you could watch this match and have no actual idea that Bradshaw is a miserable prick.  

5. Faarooq vs. The Rock

I think Faarooq looked like a real badass (before the match started). This match was the best his Faarooq gear ever looked on him. Fuck how cool would Jacqueline have looked in Faarooq's exact gear? Faarooq looks like a lean cut Masa Saito, or the most bulked up Bernie Casey. He looks perfect, in other words. He looks like a guy really giving a beating to a guy he dislikes. A beating he's been waiting to hand out. His sparsely African-patterned gear looked great with the straps up, and even better when he takes the straps down. Someone who's good with computers, put Jacqueline in Faarooq's gear. 

I hate how guys like MJF or Austin Theory or Ricky Starks move like 1998 The Rock. It sucks. They all flop the same and walk around with their butts out the same and it's all theater kids goofing around doing People's Elbows. The Butt Out Walk must be the first thing they teach at Brahma School. 

I don't know why the crowd isn't more excited for Faarooq dishing out a beating. The Rock wore a big neck brace after Faarooq piledrove him earlier and takes a fun beating, and that combination of things deserved a reaction. His elbows on the apron looked good, Rock is acting like a real punk doofus, yet nobody cares. 

Real flat finish. This feud never had a chance. There was a weird 3 count that got a silent reaction and the camera shot it in a way where you couldn't see Rock's foot on the rope. This whole thing was only 5 minutes and felt really incomplete. Blackman/Jarrett got twice as much time without even being based around an actual feud, so this whole thing was just set up to fail.  

When DX runs in after the match to ambush The Nation they look like the 4 Horsemen of Rape.

6. Vader vs. Kane

Vader was getting real reactions in 1998. There was a powerful machine working against 1998 Vader. He does the Vader flex, he flashes the V's, a ton of fans have Vader signs. The People believed in Vader in 98 and the people in charge didn't want them to. Vader was done wrong. We all know it. The man was 43 years old, which is not an old age at all. I know this because it is my age and how could I possibly be old? I understand why they instinctively didn't want to get behind a 43 year old Vader, but you see things a couple decades removed from the original context and you realize just how mammoth a star Vader would have been in WWF had they just treated him the same way they treat Nakamura at the same age. 

Kane's punches were better in 1998 - better, not good - but his straight rights are not good. There is a reason he never threw them for most of the rest of his career. They have no weight behind them. His uppercuts don't look good either. He threw a bigger variety of punches then, not just uppercuts, and their form is good but the weight is absent. Kane's strikes look shittier the longer the match goes. He would go on to phase all of these punches out other than the uppercut.  

Vader's offense looks good against a big guy like Kane. His bear attack runs him over, but he smartly did one bear attack that stunned Kane, then a second bigger one that flattened him. Nobody was flattening Kane in 1998. Vader knew we build to that. "Vader using his mass now" fuck yeah he is JR. 

This match should be getting a bigger reaction. Vader is making this look like a big fight. He's swinging arms into all sides of Kane's head, even throwing them to the back of his head. Kane is in retreat! Vader sent Kane into retreat which is a thing that has never happened and nobody is reacting to it. Nobody is reacting to these beefy arms and it doesn't make sense. Nobody thinks it's cool that Kane scoop slammed Vader? Vader is a really big guy to take a scoop slam! He lands completely differently than you've seen because you just don't see 400 pound men getting slammed. 

This has not been a night of good matches, which often hurts a crowd, but I don't know why this crowd was not reacting to this match as if it was not Good or Big. It was both, but the crowd reacting so indifferently and Kane just not being that good limited how good it could get. 

I don't know why I haven't mentioned how ridiculous the mask stipulation is but it really didn't need to happen. It didn't make anyone care more about the match than they would have. Vader getting real red-faced revenge would have been cooler. A match built around "first to grab and use the large comical wrench" would have been cooler, probably.  

Kane's top rope clothesline is the softest contact Signature Clothesline of the modern era. It's a terrible clothesline and it never got better. It was only ever good if used in No Mercy. His running clothesline, which he stopped using, looked like a clothesline that would run Vader over and is the loudest contact of the match. 

Vader bumps to get Kane over but they react more to Vader on the attack than Vader bumping around. If Kane had the energy of Bradshaw it could have been a real fight, but Vader has to create his own energy off Kane's Lesser Jason Voorhees body acting. Vader knows how to build a reaction when going for the Vader Bomb, and he knows how to peak it by pausing briefly on the middle buckle before deciding to climb to the top, Milwaukee swelling as he leaves his feet and deflating when he crash lands. The Vader moonsault is a flat out insane and incredible spot for a man his age and size to be using. Vader understood PPV and They resented him for it. This man got up for a goddamn Tombstone and yep, it looks cool as hell when a guy the size of Vader is Tombstoned. 

I don't actually know how I feel about Vader calling himself a fat piece of shit. I think it's a raw promo, and his delivery is note perfect. I guess the problem is that I don't think they ever did anything other than kind of reflect on how sad it was that Vader called himself a fat piece of shit. I don't know if we needed to see vulnerable, sensitive Vader but I do think it was so memorable because of how real it was delivered. We've all been down on ourselves in our lives. A lot sometimes, for any little thing. Vader felt real, and maybe we didn't need Real Vader. Maybe, if it led to something of substance, a renewed energy and fight, it would have allowed people to reflect on themselves when they get too down on themselves. I don't think WWF was or is capable of writing that kind of character. Whatever. It felt like actual, real frustration, the kind we all go through. We don't get that kind of insight into athletes. They're insulated. Taught what not to say to the media. Me, personally? I do not think Vader is a fat piece of shit, but I believed in that moment that he did, and that's affecting. 

I forgot this was the PPV they did that weird Lawler/Crusher/Mad Dog Vachon angle. The Crusher, in his early 70s, kept looking cooler the more undressed he got during his segment with Lawler and Mad Dog Vachon. He looked cool the entire time and got a great big reaction from Milwaukee. He looked like such a badass grandpa in his brown Wrangler Wranchers throwing his bolo punches. This was such a weird thing for WWF to do. They had already used Mad Dog's wooden leg in a match and the idea of WWF honoring a local hero who had nothing to do with them is such a non-Vince move. 

7. HHH/New Age Outlaws vs. D-Lo Brown/Owen Hart/The Godfather 

If your friend had never watched WWF programming before, you could convince them pretty easily that Owen Hart was working some kind of hacker gimmick in his caution tape singlet and, well, hacker sunglasses. 

Owen tags in and runs straight into a Billy Gunn clothesline, Gunn punches and press slams him, Gunn goes up for a backdrop for him, really two of the only guys trying to make this work.

Helmsley's running jumping knee and his tilt a whirl backbreaker (!?) looked good. He always really looked like he enjoyed working Owen. 

Why was the Billy Gunn/Godfather pairing so good in this? They worked kind of fast against each other, and Godfather looked like he was throwing his kicks and missed clotheslines with different pep.

New Age Outlaws working over D-Lo is really good too, though not as good whenever HHH tags in. It's wild how much HHH really kills all the pacing and vibe of this match any time he's involved.

More Owen Sucks chants than I remember but his perfect piledriver to Road Dogg brings no reaction at all. Philistines. 

This match is going a lot longer than anyone could have reasonably expected. The fans get real restless whenever anyone considers doing any kind of hold. This thing is dying the longer they go, nobody is doing anything to bring it back to life even if a lot of the work looks good. It's crazy how bad HHH makes the DX act in-ring. He is actively hurting their vibe and wrestling image. 

8. Steve Austin vs. Dude Love 

Pat Patterson is so fucking funny introducing Gerald Brisco as the guest timekeeper. He has his readers on and a stack of at least a dozen 3x5 cards. He actually said that Gerald Brisco's heart "beats like the tom tom drum on the reservation, like the Heartbeat of America." I mean whoever wrote that line was onto something next level. "Some call him the reincarnation of Jim Thorpe. We call him...A Friend." This is incredible. I did not appreciate how amazing his intro was when I watched this as a teen. All my friends and I just wanted to see Austin beat everyone's ass. 

Vince looks like an impossibly hulked up Robert Carradine. A real geek, and a real freak in his flap pocket black chinos and sleeveless ref shirt. Incredible posture, but a freakish build sculpted onto that wealthy flawed Connecticut skeleton and Kennedy hair. He has a million facial reactions and it's incredible how good literally every one of them are. It's a real Gotta Hand it To. 

Foley sells a back elbow like Austin really spiked him in the nose, running himself into the ground like Terry Funk but more real. The longer the match goes, the more I know that each man was really taking these shots. I just didn't realize they were roughing each other up from go. 

Foley takes such a great bump on a clothesline to the floor. Austin really timed it well and collided with him well, but Foley went over so fast, in that way that Foley sometimes does where you don't know how controlled it actually is. Man would just throw his body to the floor with more speed than he used for anything else. Shouldn't really be a shock anymore that Foley took some crazy bumps, but his heavy lower half really whips him over the ropes. Nobody else has really been able to duplicate that. 

Austin throws Foley onto Brisco and then stomps on them both and punches Foley in the back of the head too many times before clotheslining him ass over elbow onto concrete over the guardrail. I probably haven't watched this match since the early 2000s (I bought the Over the Edge VHS from a video store in Healdsburg that was going out of business) and remember it being built around tons of bumps onto concrete, and that is exactly what it is, and they keep escalating. 

Austin taking a backdrop onto the hood of a fucked up old style Honda Civic, boot going through the windshield 20 years before Zona 23. Is Zona 23:16 anything? Austin gets thrown onto and over a tilted old Mercury and Foley sunset flips him off that Mercury's hood, it's awesome. Foley's body makes a wet splat as his weird torso and wide butt land perfectly flat. It's a sound you never hear and Foley has made it like three times in this match alone. 

Austin is bleeding and is always an incredible looking bleeder. The blood doesn't keep up but the initial color is strong. When he bleeds he always gets the best deep red color on his tanned bald head. For a match built around big bumps on concrete I forgot how many hard back bumps Austin takes onto concrete in this match. My man is out here taking backdrops and suplexes in parts of the entrance that at least 7,000 people can't even see. It's insane. This man broke his damn neck 10 months ago and he's bumping on concrete for himself. 

Also, Steve Austin is great because he manages to bounce a chair off the ropes and into his own face and makes it look like a complete accident. It's a spot that a lot of men have tried and few have made work well. I think there needs to be a level of alcoholism involved to make it work. Sandman was good at it too. 

Pat Patterson throws such a punch into Mike Chioda's lower orbital bone. There's no way any of these Patterson/Briscoe matches from 1999 are any good but damn they should have been using Patterson in more physical roles this whole time. He takes one of the best chokeslams of the year through a damn table. This is a man pushing 60 who retired four presidents ago and hasn't done physical stuff on screen since the mid 80s. How did he even prepare to take this? How did Vince psych himself up to get brained with a pre-Chris Nowinski research chairshot? No idea. 

I don't know how well this holds up as an All Time Great Brawl, but it's differently great for its big stunt show feel and old man bullshit that was at the center of a fight. It was messier than I remembered and was more about getting to specific areas and moments, but this is still a standout 1998 WWF match and surely the best WWF match of the year to this point.   

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE 305 LIVE

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Heel Tommy Dreamer: It's a Joke!

Tommy Dreamer vs. Hardcore Holly WWF Metal 9/15/01

ER: This was a bunch of stiff violence packed into about 3 minutes, and seeing a match like this makes it clear that Bob Holly is the guy that should have been sent to ECW instead of Aldo Montoya. If Holly came into ECW in 1997 with the same attitude he was carrying to 2001 late night syndicated WWF TV matches, he would have been huge. Bob Holly in 1997 ECW would have been like Jon Moxley on AEW TV now. Dreamer is the heel AND larger, but Holly somehow comes off meaner and stronger while also connecting with the crowd as a babyface. Dreamer goes for a cheapshot and gets his ass handed to him for it, with Holly swinging his full arms as hard as he could to smack Dreamer across the back and face. Dreamer even takes a vertical suplex on the floor after just trying to get away from Holly. Holly is this amusing combination of ugly strikes that clearly land hard, and he works a quick aggressive pace different than the quick paced matches now. Holly fills voids with kicks and punches and maximizes time. Dreamer gets a couple bits of nice offense (a heavy backbreaker and a Russian legsweep he really yanked Holly into), but this was mostly just beating Dreamer's ass. Dreamer misses that Naniwa elbow and Holly commences with hard bodyslams, clotheslines, and a gorgeous dropkick under the chin (gorgeous and pinpoint even in comparison to Holly's typical dropkick). The finish is a super smart way to work into the Alabama Slam, with Dreamer getting a small opening and trying to hit a piledriver, only for Holly to effortlessly stand up and plant him dead center. I wasn't expecting Holly to be such a tsunami in this, as it came off like the kind of match you see someone lose on their way to being out of the company. 

Tommy Dreamer/Chuck Palumbo vs. Taka Michinoku/Funaki WWF Metal 9/29/01

ER: This was the kind of match that made Metal my favorite weekly show around this era. It's incredibly fun, and worked with far more originality that I'd expect a similar tag to be worked in 2021. Taka and Funaki evade Palumbo with their speed, then start working over Dreamer's arm, even hitting a nice tandem vertical suplex on him. Dreamer and Palumbo are good at plausibly selling for their much smaller opponents, never making it seem ridiculous that Kaientai are keeping them on the ropes. Dreamer is nice and vindictive when they gain control, as he starts punishing Funaki for working over his arm by working over Funaki's arm! I haven't really seem something like that, where one guy takes arm wringers and axe handles to the shoulder, then when he gets his chance starts doing the same thing. "You remember this? How do YOU like it?" Dreamer hits a bodyslam with Funaki's arm pinned behind his back, throws him into the ringpost, not planning on working the arm over for the finish, just punishing Funaki for insolence. 

The Kaientai comeback was really good, and Dreamer's timing really made it click. Funaki hit a really awesome reverse DDT, swinging into the position after Dreamer got him in a fireman's carry. It was a super slick reversal, someone needs to steal that. Taka is a great house of fire, nailing Palumbo with uppercuts, and I loved his cool running knee into the corner on Palumbo, flipping over the apron and nailing Dreamer with a springboard spinning heel kick. Dreamer gets knocked to the floor while Funaki holds Palumbo in a camel clutch while Taka slaps him, hits a baseball slide on Dreamer (as he's trying to get back into the ring from the floor), then runs back and dropkicks Palumbo in the face. Funaki goes for a pescado on Dreamer, who dodges and sends Funaki crashing to the floor, only to get kicked off the apron by Taka when he again tries to get into the ring. Dreamer takes a great bump onto the apron to the floor, but Taka kicking Dreamer distracts him just enough for Palumbo to lay him out with his excellent superkick. Palumbo angrily sells his nose and face during the whole pin, still smarting from Taka's dropkick. This match was a super smooth, super smart way of getting from A to B to C, and a style totally absent from WWE TV today.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE HEEL TOMMY DREAMER

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WXW Gary Albright Memorial Show 4/19/00

Full Show


Too Cold Scorpio/Sugaa vs. Tommy Suede/Mark the Body

ER: This wasn't great, but had its moments. The American Hunk Society were both really green, and it would have been cool to take advantage of Scorpio's presence and giving him a singles match against Sugaa or one of the other pros on the card. Tommy Suede would get quite good within a year of this match, but here he was a guy still getting crossed up and accidentally stepping out of the way of offense, making Scorpio look like a dummy a couple of times and somehow not getting his eye socket caved in as a receipt (although perhaps handing out receipts on memorial shows is bad business). Sugaa is a guy who would go on to work WXW for his whole career, and here he was dressed like a shock jock making a wrestling appearance in 2000 (pleather pants, chrome silver button up, wraparound sunglasses), but was clearly jazzed to be teaming with Scorp and took some big risks. He hit an awesome no hands tope con hilo and looked like a guy who you'd be excited to see at your regular indy in 2000. Mark the Body (who they also called Mark the Hunk and a couple other variations) didn't look great hitting offense, but looked great missing offense, including a great missed elbowdrop off the middle rope (I thought UPW trainees were the big bumping, bad offense guys, not WXW?). Scorp's tag ins were highlights, loved his flipping legdrop, and he finishes things off with a heavy ass 450.

Jimmy Snuka vs. Jak Molsonn

ER: When you're getting a 2000 Jimmy Snuka match, it's really up to the opponent how good or bad that match is going to be. From the mid 90s indy Snuka matches were already made up of a heel clubbing away at Snuka for a few minutes, followed by him throwing some chops, a bodyslam, and a Superfly Splash. I would guess by 2000 that it had been at least 5 years since he had worked a match that wasn't laid out that way. Molsonn looks like Scott Norton if Scott Norton didn't lift and was just more of a fat guy. He's really soft on his clotheslines, axe handles, and forearms, but he's also wrestling a near 60 legend so it's very possible he looked better than this in other matches. Snuka takes over with some bad chops but good headbutts, and puts Molson to the mat with a really nice flying headbutt attack (like a nice Tito Santana forearm) and lands an impressive, fully unprotected Superfly Splash. 

Doink vs. Showtime Shane Black

ER: A show like this is going to have a lot of matches that start with 3-4 minutes of heel control, before moving immediately into the one minute of "name" control to finish. Shane Black is a Quiet Storm type ponytailed Little Buff Boy, who doesn't wrestle at all like Quiet Storm, and actually seems like a guy with some nice tight basics. This match could have been good with a couple extra beats, as the 3-4 minutes of Black control were good enough, and Doink's 1 minute comeback was good (this was Ray Apollo, who is an underrated guy who throws a good elbow drop and a nice whoopee cushion), but a match layout of 80% Black/20% Doink taken in that order is the least interesting way for all of these events to happen. An extra kickout, some kind of unexpected beat, this gets suddenly good. 

Samu/LA Smooth vs. Big Dick Dudley/Hungarian Barbarian

ER: This kicked about as much ass as something on the lower parts of this show are going to. When there are 11 matches to get to on this show and the file isn't close to 2 hours long, you know you're getting a ton of 3-5 minute matches. So, watching four big guys throw mostly punches and chairshots for 5 minutes is going to be towards the top of the class. Samu is Rikishi size here (thus even better) and LA Smooth is his size equal. Hungarian Barbarian is a guy you'd think would be much worse given he's a guy with genuine size and a good look, totally unsure why he never went anywhere. This has a lot of Samu throwing potato shots, and the other three have no problem leaning into strikes. Chair and stair shots don't get swung at full strength, but the punches look good and that's more important. There are few moves beyond punches, but the big one is a BIG one. Hungarian Barbarian does a gigantic Undertaker style no hands plancha that sends him into everyone and into the front row. Insanity. How did this guy not get used on late 90s ECW house shows?  

Stevie Richards vs. Scotty 2 Hotty

ER: This is daisy duke Stevie, not the then-current Right to Censor Stevie, and at one point he even strips off the cutoffs and threatens to wrestle in his blue briefs. This is the first time these two wrestled, and it's kind of surprising they weren't matched up more often in WWF (they only worked a couple house shows and an international Heat) with at minimum a TV story where RTC wants to censor Rikishi's ass. Stevie vs. Scotty over the Light Heavyweight Title feels like a program most people just think they remember actually happening instead of ever actually happening. It's kind of a funny pairing, as Stevie isn't a guy with offense and Scotty during this era was also a guy with way less offense. Scotty was a great bumper who weirdly had better offense when he was a job guy than when he was peak of stardom. Scotty 2 Hotty filled up 30-45 seconds of his matches with Worm buildup/Worm, dancing, climbing turnbuckles for crowd reaction, and other things to stretch time (like a corner 10 count punch every match). 

Scotty 2 Hotty is the Wrestling Dream, where you put in the years and bruises as a big bumping job guy, and a few years later you're a guy getting insane reactions while working a high school gym Jimmy Valiant act on the biggest shows of the biggest money era of all time. After the first 3 minutes of this match were all about getting crowd reactions from different sides of the ring, I was actually convinced they would go out and work a juniors match using only headlocks and bullshit. I think that match would have been tremendous. This was fine, but not that. They do work headlocks, Scotty does get HUGE crowd reactions for every piece of Too Cool bullshit he does, Stevie hits a nice vertical suplex and excellent Stevie kick, takes a great bump when Scotty flips him into the ring from the apron, then does an incredible sell of an uppercut to the balls. Stevie sells that punch like a Shakespearean stage death, arm extended skyward while his other hand clutches his balls. The Worm is so over that Scotty soaks in literally 30 seconds of reaction before he even takes on hop. Good for them. 

Gillberg vs. Afa Jr. vs. Lucifer Grimm

ER: This did not need to be an elimination 3 way, but this was a very fun short Afa Jr. showcase. I've always been kind of fascinated with the Afa Jr. career, a guy who hardly spent any time in WWE developmental before being brought to the Raw roster, only to be gone 3 months later immediately after having his biggest TV singles match. I really liked Manu in those 3 months, a guy I was weirdly viewing as a someone to be excited about during the grim "everybody looks like Ted Dibiase Jr." 2008 WWE. I don't think "Manu is a cool WWE TV guy" was a real common talking point in 2008, but I always like a guy with a nice bump over the top to the floor. Afa was even more of a big bumper in 2000, because he is literally 15 years old. He gets fantastic height on a monkey flip and double backdrop, hits a big guillotine legdrop, a plancha over the ringpost to the floor, and a huge splash. Gillberg throws several nice uppercuts, nice headbutt, doesn't take a bump, and really smashes into Afa with a spear. This would have been a very fun Gillberg/Afa match, but I don't think we get big Afa bumps or flying offense without Grimm in there to help catch it all, so in that regard Grimm was a necessary presence. A 7 year old Lance Anoa'i does a People's Elbow on Grimm after the match. 

Crowbar vs. Judas Young

ER: The commentary guy who sounds like Sebastian Gorka is trying to figure out why Devon Storm went crazy and became Crowbar, and he hilariously comes up with "I imagine he waited so long to be signed by WCW that he just went crazy." He's joined by Little Jeanne, who lost several times to Mona on WCW TV over a several month period around this time. Crowbar was really generous with Young here, giving him a ton of this match, a ton of time that Young arguably wasn't prepared to fill. This felt like a 4 minute Worldwide match stretched out to 9 minutes, on a show where almost everything has been kept right at that Worldwide match length. Young has a decent elbowdrop and a nice top rope elbow, but he weirdly wrestled the match as a heavyweight peer of Crowbar and Young couldn't be over 170. Crowbar hits his slingshot splash and a nice flying crossbody on the floor (while Young was sat in a chair), gets a good nearfall off a northern lights, but this was just too long. You had Jeanne doing a mid match turn on Crowbar (leading to him taking an unexpected bump over the top to the floor) and then he has to get his revenge back on her, and I don't think they really even established their partnership anyway so it was just time spent that we didn't need. 

Taka Michinoku/Funaki vs. The Head Bangers

ER: I'm sure these teams had better matches on WWF Metal, but this was fine. You hope to see some cool Taka stuff in a match like this, and he is really great at bumping for Head Banger lariats. Take is great at just running in neck first and then getting hooked quick to the mat. He hits a nice rana on Thrasher and then goes for another one immediately after and gets planted by a kneeling powerbomb. Taka does his sick as hell seppuku taunt before appropriately missing a huge moonsault. The Head Bangers spent a good portion of their time making kung fu jokes or doing bad crane kick poses (got their asses for being Asian!), then just win with a flapjack. 

Johnny Smith vs. Maunakea Mossman

ER: This was one of the main reasons I went out of my way to watch this show, as we hardly have any footage of Johnny Smith wrestling in the states. There's some ECW shows and this, basically. And Mossman is being managed by Nicole Bass for...some reason, I suppose. And my time would have been MUCH better spent just watching the match or two on this show I really wanted to see, as this match delivered everything I was hoping it would, and actually got the time to deliver it. Seeing a 10 minute match on a show filled with 4 minute matches stands out as a downright epic, but these two also really expose how much everyone else on this show has either gone through the motions, or just has none of the dedication to making small exchanges look legit. Everybody else on the show had treated their match as an untaped house show obligation, which makes a lot of sense. And then Smith and Mossman come out bending limbs and snapping tendons with dragon screws and really laying it in. Their mat exchanges are super tight, the same kind of fast mat stuff that is popular today, only here none of the steps are skipped. 

Here you can see WHY Mossman had to turn a certain way to ease pressure off his arm, you can see WHY Smith had to roll the way he did to shake Mossman's grip on his ankle. They weren't just working the sequence they rehearsed and thinking about their next beat, they looked like they were naturally working to those beats. Smith whips over so fast for Mossman's armdrags, really everything they did made me expect a joint dislocation. Smith has such cool body control on his matwork, that kind of tripped out Regal wrist control spiraling out of a feinted kip up. Mossman goes after Smith's leg, Smith goes after Mossman's arm, and all of it is great. Mossman beats Smith up with a couple kicks, Smith hits a great bridged German (Smith is one of wrestling's great bridgers) and catches him in a great death valley driver, hits his fine middle rope dropkick, all of it looks great. This was a simple touring match but with expert execution, and that execution makes all the difference. They worked go behinds, wristlocks, and takedowns the same way Bret Hart would work them, and that kind of dedication to simply "making the moves look like what they're supposed to be" can be really exciting. 

Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Jericho

ER: This was disappointingly only 5 minutes, keeping with the theme of most of the matches on this show, but both had just worked a week of house shows, and this show was the literal day after they had just taped a Raw on Monday and Smackdown on Tuesday. So they're good enough dudes to work a memorial show on what surely would have been a well earned day off. And Jericho responds by doing some Y2J mic work and that's about it. Because these 5 minutes are the motherfucking EDDIE GUERRERO show. Small show Eddie is really special, as I've yet to see any evidence of this guy not putting on a show. This was bigger than any indy show Eddie worked during his rehab tour the next year, but this show came the day after working a show in front of 20,000+. So here he comes out just scowling at the fans, looking at these memorial show fans with real disgust. He lets Jericho run through his catchphrases, and then, for 5 minutes, Eddie hams it up. 

He gets thrown onto his face twice after trying to lock up with Jericho, and immediately starts playing some greatest hits. He runs on his knees to the ref after getting embarrassed, he complains of hair pulls, and - and I've never seen him do this - he then starts trying to trick Jericho into locking up, only to pose. Was Eddie ever doing pose down stuff during heel exchanges? I have no memory of Eddie ever working Narcissist poses, and I love it. He tries to get a knucklelock, then flexes a bicep, then keeps doing it with a new flex each time. It's the best. He spends the first 70% of this match entertaining the crowd as only Eddie can, then of course hit a low dropkick into Jericho's knee, running around the ref to hit it. It was a short match, so it didn't get to go far, but I loved the (abbreviated) finish, with Eddie running up the ropes to hit his whipping headscissors, only for Jericho to catch him in the Walls. I wish we got more, but this was 5 special Eddie minutes I'd never seen before, and that's a great thing.  

Road Dogg vs. Rikishi

ER: This was a punch out until they gave every fan the exact thing they wanted to see that night: Rikishi grinding his ass into Road Dogg's mouth. I liked the kick-punch stuff a lot, with the match peaking around a fantastic punch exchange. Road Dogg dropped his knee and smashed Rikishi into the railing outside, and back in threw a few great right hands in the corner, really knocking Rikishi's head back, and Rikishi popped him with on solitary right hand after. Road Dogg sold the punch the way one might sell a punch to their nose/cheekbone, then took a couple of really hard whips into the turnbuckles before dropping to his seat, mouth open, head leaned back, fans dying to see his nose buried into Fatu's ass. And they got it. After, Road Dogg danced in the ring with Rikishi, Too Cool, and Jericho. Jericho didn't know the Too Cool dance moves so started doing Thriller Zombie instead. 

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Blowbama Togo They Call Him Living Legend

Dick Togo/Sho Funaki/TAKA Michinoku vs. Gran Naniwa/Gran Hamada/Jushin Liger MPRO 8/18/96 - EPIC

PAS: This match was the speedball that killed John Belushi, just a non-stop lighting bolt. Liger fits right into the MPRO house style and is awesome interacting with all of KDX. He was especially fun against Togo coming off their singles match a couple months earlier, it is a shame those two didn't have a long series of matches against each other. The level of speed and precision on the KDX triple teams is really breathtaking, they just whip that stuff off so fast, it is like watching the Spurs team that won the 2014 finals. We got a great dive train too, TAKA's spaceman quebrada is still one of the great dives in wrestling history. I also loved the big run of Naniwa offense to finish the match off, I remember us thinking Naniwa would ended being a huge start around this time, he was a guy who's career really ended too soon.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

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Dick Togo's Out Here By Himself, Ask Steve Jobs Wealth Don't Buy Health

Dick Togo/Sho Funaki/Men's Teioh vs. Masashi Aoyagi/Azteca/Tarzan Goto Indy World 7/22/98 - EPIC

PAS: Wild bit of violence which starts crazy and gets nuttier. Opener has Goto choking Wally Yamaguchi (Kaentai are in full WWE gear) and Togo comes out of no where to wipe him out with a dive. Goto is a rampaging beast in this though, hurling Togo through chair, busting him open, wasting him with clotheslines, just kicking his ass. We get some nice karate offense from Aoyagi, but this was basically a Goto vs. Togo singles battle with cameos from the rest. It is a trip to see Togo, a guy who normally is a dominant bully, play the tiny underdog. Man is he great at it too, Togo is such a versatile talent. Finish is awesome, Goto ties Togo to the ringpost by his throat with the ref's belt and and breaks a beer bottle. Aoyagi decides he didn't sign on for a murder, and makes the save, allowing Togo and crew to take out Azteca. I really need to get my hands on the Goto vs. Aoyagi war that this clearly sets up. Props to Jetlag for finding this, it was a blast.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE MASASHI AOYAGI 

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PRO WRESTLING FUJIWARA-GUMI 2/28/94

Shoichi Funaki v. Minoru Tanaka

Man this was great. It is so weird that Funaki went from this kind of strict shootstyle to being a beloved comedy jobber in the WWE for so long. Tanaka dominates most of this, throwing big kicks, locking on super tight chokes, even throwing a couple of plausable looking shoot drop kicks. Funaki had some nice takedowns, but spent almost all the match on defense. Finish is great, Tanaka hits a super nasty, super fast judo throw and gets an 8 count. When Funaki gets up, Tanaka rushes him to try for the KO, throwing knees, and Funaki spins him into super fast kneebar/ankle lock combo for the quick tap. It was a very Fujiwara finish to the first match on a Fujiwara show.

Shinobu Kandori/Utako Hozumi v. Harley Saito/Mikkiko Futagami

This was a LLPW exhibition match, and worked like an exhibition match, so the stakes felt sort of low. Still there was a lot of fun stuff in this match. Saito and Futagami are both kickers and they were throwing heat rocks, Saito especially throws with recklessness. Hozumi was very much in the Manami Toyota spirit, but her bodypress and dropkick shtick felt out of place on a card where ladies were headhunting.  I loved Kandori's tribute to Fujiwara headbutts, and her finishing cross face chicken wing submission was really neck cranking.

Next we have a pair of kickboxing matches, which appear to be shoots. Cagematch didn't have match listings, and there were no brutal KOs or anything, so I skimmed past these.

Diusel Berto v. Shupo Toto

Toto is a Thai Kickboxer, and Berto is an early UFC fighter who is the father of ex middleweight boxing champion and Mayweather opponent Andre Berto. This might have been a shoot, as it was a little dull for a work. Berto eats some kicks until he gets close enough to throw Toto and neck crank him for the tap.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Katsumi Usuda

This is a classic Fujiwara versus a young guy match. Usuda throws out everything he has with kicks and takedowns, and Fujiwara counters and perries. The outcome is never really in doubt, and the match only goes about three minutes,  it is more like figuring out when Fujiwara will finish the fight. There are some cool bits of technique, including Fujiwara reversing a top wrist lock from his back, and a nice neck crank. This match up would certainly be better a couple of years later when Usuda wasn't a rookie, but it was fun to watch Fujiwara show off his skill, the way he works an ankle lock is a pretty bit of extreme violence.

Yuki Ishikawa v. Glen Jacobs

This was really good, one of my favorite Jacobs matches ever (admittedly a low bar). Jacobs is pretty great as a shootstyle bruiser he has nasty looking overhead slaps, and he is good at big throws and proto attempts at ground and pound. I loved Ishikawa crawling all over Jacobs like a jungle gym, grabbing and twisting arms and legs. There were also some moments where he just slaps the shit out of Jacobs which feels really satisfying if you have had to sit through years of shitty Kane matches. Liked the finish with Jacobs putting on a grounded full nelson and cranking Ishikawa's neck.

Battle Royal

I am amused how this show ends with a battle royal like every mid 90s US indy show. This was one of those weird Japanese battle royals where someone gets knocked down and they all dogpile on top them. There was a couple of amusing moments with Jacobs ragdolling everyone who attacked him, and I liked Don Arakawa directing traffic. The whole thing seems purposeless though, although it was fast.

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Dick Togo is Kim Jong of the Crack Song

Dick Togo/Sho Funaki vs. Christopher Daniels/Steve Boz WWF Shotgun 6/1/98 - FUN

This is a longish Shotgun Saturday Night match which lets the bemulleted Chicago indy team get in their 1998 indy offense. Boz hits four or five leg lariats, and Daniels gets a goofy "DDT one guy neckbreaker the other" spot in. Nothing much from KDX that stands out. Togo hits a nice senton, but most of the match has them weirdly selling for team Windy City Pro. I didn't remember the angle of Kaientai as Japanese street gang who childhood friend TAKA broke away from, that might have been just something that Cornette made up.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

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Dick Togo is Rondo on The Bongos When Give You His Convos

Dick Togo/Sho Funaki/Men's Teioh vs. TAKA Michinoku/Bradshaw WWF Over the Edge 5/31/98 - FUN 

PAS: All of the TAKA vs. Kaientai stuff was really good, especially any time Togo and TAKA matched up. Togo unloaded probably the fastest and most awesome powerslam in his long storied career of fast and awesome powerslams, and he just launched himself with the senton bomb. Bradshaw sold nothing and just ragdolled Kaientai like midget jobbers, and it wasn't even that nasty of a beating. It was a big mistake to have Kaientai wear street clothes, Togo looks fine in his Mikey Whipwreck shirt and jorts, but both Funaki and Teioh look like middle school kids in their hoodies and jeans. Togo and TAKA were cooking though, too bad they never really got a chance to have a long singles during this period. 

Dick Togo vs. HARASHIMA DDT 2/27/11 - GREAT 

PAS: Another off the charts Togo singles match, he is really on a hell of run having great and varied singles match, all with pretty limited guys. HARASHIMA is sort of a Chris Dickinson to Marifuji's Davey Richards, basically a slightly more tolerable tribute act to the intolerable original. Early part of the match is Togo working as Ric Flair. HARASHIMA misses a kick into the ringpost and Togo does a nice job working it over, including a fun Nature Boy style battle around a figure four. After that section we have a juniors near fall run, which normally isn't my thing. Togo however totally makes this with his facial selling and charisma. The look on his face when HARASHIMA kicks out of the pedigree/senton combo was great, and when HARASHIMA hits the KO kick, you buy that Dick got his lights snuffed. I loved the very end with Togo snatching HARASHIMA out of mid air with a crossface and battling to hold on to it, including when HARASHIMA breaks it whipping out a satellite headscissors right back into the crossface, and then shifting it into a choke with HARASHIMA's own arm, awesome ending, great carry job, don't go Dick Togo, don't go. 

Dick Togo/Great Sasuke/Jinsei Shinzaki vs. Arik Cannon/1-2-3 Kid/Darin Corbin CHIKARA 4/15/11 - SKIPPABLE 

PAS: Terrible match. There was a couple of entertaining Waltman vs. Shinzaki moments, Togo hit two nice sentons, and Sasuke did a flip dive onto concrete, but everything else stunk. The slow motion wrestling spot Corbin does is one of the most idiotic things I have ever seen in a wrestling match, and pretty much everything I hate about winking US indy comedy wrestling. Even worse is he breaks it out a second time in the middle of the end run of the match, killing any momentum they were trying to build. Cannon looked like refried shit in the match too, timing was off, moves looked bad, just completely lost. There was one moment where Sasuke hits a spin kick, where Cannon turns around, looks outside, and just jumps to the floor. It looked bad enough that I thought for a second it was his signature comedy bump. Corbin wrestles in slow motion, maybe Cannon awkwardly pauses before all of his bumps. Complete waste of the MPRO team and Waltman, and a huge disappointment. Really glad I didn't drive to Philly.

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Invisible Set, The Rolex is Faceless, Dick Togo is Young Rich and Tasteless

Dick Togo/Men's Teioh vs. Great Sasuke/Solar MPRO 12/7/97 - GREAT 

PAS: This was the period right before Sasuke was going out for knee surgery, where every match had his opponents viciously destroying his knee, you got the sense Sasuke really wanted his moneys worth out of that surgery. Togo and Teiho are a pair of guys who can viciously rip up a knee, and they are nasty fuckers in this match. Teiho brakes out the figure four around the ringpost, which was a really hot new move in 1997, and Togo hits a couple of sentons directly on the side of the knee. Brawling Solar isn't really the Solar you want to see, but he was fun as a fired up babyface, whipping out the quebradoras and hitting a nice tope. This probably could have used one more big Sasuke comeback, but I enjoyed the hell out of Togo and Teiho as the Andersons taking out a body part. 

Dick Togo/Ikuto Hidaka/TAKA Michinoku vs. Jody Fleisch/Curry Man/Jinsei Shinzaki MPRO 3/2/03 - EPIC 

PAS: Man this was awesome. In some ways it was more impressive then the 90's MPRO six man tags, because this had a more random cast of characters. Togo and Fleish match up early and Dick was amazing working with all of Jody's flashy shit. It really made me want to see Togo do a US Indy tour of all the current indy mulatto spotfest dudes (Togo v. Flip Kendrick, Togo v. Ricochet, Togo v. AR Fox.) This is also the perfect kind of match for Chris Daniels as he can come in, hit his athletically impressive stuff and get out without having to construct a match. The WWE run clearly took a physical toll on TAKA, as he doesn't have the same kind of jaw dropping athleticism as he had in the 90's. Here he is kind of like Wizards era Jordan, using timing and guile to still score 50. His sections with Shinzaki were great. The match started at 8 and cranked to 11 by the end, the last 6 minutes were nuts, with crazy dives (Fliesh's top rope shooting star press is stupendous), saves, nearfalls. Pretty much everything current indy wrestling tries to do but fails. It ends just when it should, and all of your high difficulty stuff was hit on point. Felt like a longer crisper version of a WCWSN lucha match, which is about as high a praise as I can give something like this. 

Dick Togo/Shoichi Funaki/Men’s Teioh/Shiryu/TAKA Michinoku vs. Katsuya Kishi/KUDO/Milanito Collection AT/Shinji Nohashi/Makoto Oish Indy Summit 12/3/06 - FUN 

PAS: This was the KDX reunion match, the first time they had teamed in about 9 years. Pretty much an opportunity for Kaientai to run through their signature stuff, which they did well. The technico team was an odd group, but they all got to run through some stuff. I thought Kudo was probably the standout, as he laid in some nasty kicks. We got a cool dive train, TAKA acting like a douchebag and a great looking Togo senton to finish it off. A better more credible set of opponents would have pushed this to the next level, but this was an enjoyable showcase. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

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Dick Togo Conversates a Bit About Your DNA, and His Salmon Suit From the VMAs

Dick Togo/Shoichi Funaki/Danny Collins/Shiryu vs. Gran Hamada/Super Astro/Alexander Otsuka/Super Delfin MPRO 9/23/96 - GREAT 

PAS: What an awesome weirdo lineup, it was like someone took a bag of my favorite wrestlers, shook it up, and drew eight out at random. Your MPRO regulars were as great as usual, Shiryu was just blindingly fast at this point, his flip out of the german suplex looks like it is in 8X fast forward. Hamada wasn't featured, but man is his signature stuff beautiful, that high rana he hits is just crazy, how he can get such ups off of such stumpy legs is a mystery. Your special guest stars were all awesome. Collins is a stubby little pissed off British guy, he wrestle similar to Dynamite Kid at his best, all nasty knees to the face, uppercuts, suplexes and scowls. Otsuka is a little out of his element, but we got to him rock some sweet mat wrestling with Shiryu and chuck some folks with suplexes. If anyone is tailor made to be thrown into a 96 MPRO 8 man it is Super Astro, he is such a breathtaking wrestler, and watching him and Togo match up is a portly dream match. Two tiny pot bellied men moving with a totally unexpected grace and beauty. Stunning stuff. Dick Togo/Men's Teiho v. El Hijo Del Santo/Super Delfin MPRO-11/10/96-FUN Perfectly enjoyable professional wrestling, although ultimately disappointing. Santo v. Togo is such a tremendous on paper match up, but it never really kicked into the next gear. This was worked much more like a Puro tag, rather then the awesome lucha tag it should have been. There were a couple of nifty moments where Santo and Togo do some rope running and we get to see Santo rip off a headscissors and see Togo fly for them. Still Santo felt like a bit of an afterthought, and the match was mostly Delfin being worked over by KDX. Again I want to judge the match on what it was, not what it should have been, but it is hard considering how good it should have been. 

Dick Togo/Sonjay Dutt v. Alex Shelley/Masato Tanaka Z-1 3/15/05 - FUN 

PAS: Lots to like in this match, but enough to hate to drop it below great status. This is a TLC match and those are what they are. Match starts out looking like the weird bifurcated Santo/Onita matches from LA with Togo and Tanaka doing some nasty brawling on the floor, with Togo sprinklering blood out of his head, meanwhile in the ring Dutt and Shelly are running through their horseshit. Match gets better when Tanaka and Shelly double team Dutt smashing him through tables and such. Togo makes an awesome hot tag, with a bloody white towel wrapped around his head like zombie Lawrence of Arabia. He just explodes with an awesome run of offense ending with a phenomenal tope con hilo That was the high point of the match, as the rest is a bunch of prop bumps, some of them cool, some of them awkward. Hard to avoid getting drawn in at points, also hard to be drawn out. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

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