Found Footage Friday: FINLAY RETIREMENT TOUR~! GRIZZLY!~! BROOKSIDE~! FINLAY, JR~! LAWLER~! SID~!

Fit Finlay vs. Cannonball Grizzly 10/6/12

MD: This was Finlay's last singles match. I hadn't realized that Grizzly was still active this late into the 21st century. He more or less cracked the code by the mid 90s and while you weren't going to get a ton of movement out of these two at this point necessarily, this was buoyed by the advantages of the rounds system, Grizzly's presence and size, and Finlay's selling and ability to strike from underneath.

Watching a rounds match now and again feels like good medicine for your pro wrestling viewing brain. I don't know if it's a sign of getting older myself but I gravitate more towards entry points than finishing stretches and with a rounds match, you get a number of different entry points, which when used smartly and organically, can create different narrative beats. Likewise with the bell at the end of each round. This started with Finlay locking in a few holds and transitioning between one and the next with his usual moments of violence. Grizzly had the size and the strength however, so he took over pretty quickly. The first two rounds had the bell ring with Finlay finally punching out of a hold.

For a meaningful momentum shift to occur, one of two things were necessary: either Finlay would have to turn things around earlier in the round or Grizzly would have to control deeper into the round. The latter occurred as the third round had a long bearhug and when Finlay tried to get out, Grizzly stayed on the back. That meant he could control starting in the fourth as well, but Finlay fought his way out and started to chip away at Grizzly. He pressed forward with that chipping in the fifth, charging right in and working on the arm, with the sixth having Grizzly desperate and charging right in only to have it turned around on him after he made a mistake. So there's a clear narrative through the rounds created by each round playing off of what happened before. It was building to Finlay pressing his advantage and overcoming (which included Grizzly missing a big flip off the turnbuckles) until his second, Brookside, pulled the ropes down and then started unloading on him. That said up the match to come. They still filled a lot of time with the actual match here and they managed it, broken up by the round breaks, primarily with simple holds and hard shots. It's more of what I might expected from 1982 than 2012, but it worked for the crowd due to the skills at play.

ER: I thought this was excellent. I imagine most people will be surprised to learn that PN News was involved in something this good over 13 years after his ECW run. It turns out that Finlay in his mid-50s vs. Cannonball Grizzly in his mid-40s is one of the best Finlay Retirement Tour matches we have. We don't have enough Finlay matches against big fat guys. One of Jerry Lawler's best match types is against big fat guys, and after seeing this it's easy to see Finlay having 4 star matches with Plowboy Frazier. You think of all the big fat men who we never got to see get roughed up by Finlay before flattening him, and it just breaks your heart. Finlay vs. Mabel, Finlay vs. Tenta, Finlay vs. Vader; these are the images that flash like stars behind my eyelids as I pass into slumber. Cannonball Grizzly makes his entrance to the 1992 sounds of Ugly Kid Joe, in 2012, and I easily picture a world where Ugly Kid Joe is a band who successfully tour Europe in the 2010s. I like this idea of Cannonball Grizzly being forever frozen in time in 1992, the peak of his US success. 

But yes, this was excellent. At the time of this writing, it is the greatest Paul Neu match any of us have ever seen. It's also perfect that a German worker's last name is Neu. It makes me want to seek out the work of John Guru Guru or Tom Ash Ra Tempel. This goes 7 rounds and builds slowly and steadily through all of them. It's built around struggling out of convincing and simple holds, and it's done fantastically. Grizzly has really convincing knuckle locks, and is able to hang in and hold onto then even while Finlay is elbowing him from his back foot. Finlay squeezed Grizzly's traps and grabbed at his nose in the 1st round, Grizzly used the first opportunity he got to return the favor why doing it right back in the 2nd. Finlay ends the 2nd by punching Grizzly in the face and then hitting three hard lariats, the first and third especially rough, sending sweat mist exploding off both. Finlay knows that the shot that puts a big man down needs to look like the strongest one. 

Finlay twists his way through a Grizzly bearhug in the 3rd, trying to break it with a leveraged judo throw and getting Grizzly off his feet but not over, turning in the bearhug to try and find any way out, ending when he gets whipped hard into the buckles. I wish we had gotten a 20 minute Finlay/Andre match that was just Finlay trying to find ways out of a bearhug until Andre just fell on him. Grizzly builds off that bearhug and turnbuckle whip in the 4th, immediately throwing elbows into Finlay's kidneys and locking on the bearhug with his hands clasped over them. Finlay finally getting the headlock takeover out of the bearhug felt like a huge escalation and I love how it took a lot out of him, finally lifting Grizzly off his feet enough to turn him over but walking around after like it wasn't quite worth it. 

Finlay pounces on Grizzly's limbs in the 5th while the German commentary still talks about Ugly Kid Joe. Finlay keeps adjusting his leg positioning while working an arm lock, keeping a wide base that looked impossible to get away from. The ropes were Cannonball's only possible escape. When he gets back in the ring he throws two full arms into the side of Finlay's head that make him look like Vader, but more so like Fat Joe wrestling like Vader. I think it's because Vader never had hot dog neck. There's a memorable fist fight to start the 6th and Finlay in his mid-50s still takes the hardest bumps into the turnbuckles since Bret. Grizzly missing an elbowdrop feels like as big of a nearfall as any actual offense you could do to him. Finlay starts the 7th by finding a fourth (at least) new way to painfully run into the turnbuckles, the top buckle hitting underneath the side of his ribcage, staggering him out into a real shutdown clothesline. Finlay's bump to the floor - through the ropes because of a traitorous Brookside low bridge - was a real surprise. Finlay is the absolute master at taking bumps that look like something he was not expecting to take. Brookside's attack on Finlay and the ring crew might be the most violent I've ever seen him. Brookside was kicking at Finlay's ear like he wanted to send him into retirement equilibrium-free.  

Fit Finlay/David Finlay Jr. vs. Dan Collins/Robbie Brookside 12/22/12

MD: Cagematch says this is both Fit's last match and David Jr's first one, and Cagematch would know in this case, I imagine. It wasn't exactly what I expected after the challenges following Brookside's betrayal, but it probably meant a heck of a lot more to Fit than a straight one-on-one street fight would have. David was what you'd expect here given his first match and his pedigree: slight in frame, flopping about with his selling, some promise when it came to shots in the corner and inspiring sympathy in this very specific situation. He had Collins and Brookside to move him about the ring when he was taking a beating and most of his offense was tandem stuff with his dad. Likewise, the structure went how you'd figure, a cycle of Finlay controlling, of David losing the offense and eating a beatdown, of that beatdown creating a handicap situation that Finlay had to overcome and of Finlay first overcoming, second smashing people into things (the apron, a table, any hard surface he could find), and then letting his son join in until he was overtaken again. It was effective and they filled a decent amount of time with it, never losing the crowd despite David's inexperience. With ten years of retrospect and considering that Finlay, Jr.'s had a pretty successful career so far, you can hardly imagine a better end to Finlay's career than hitting stereo finishers with his son in the middle of a German ring against some old rivals in front of an appreciative crowd. It was nice that he got to smash some heads in the process. 

Jerry Lawler vs. Sid Vicious NWA Main Event 11/7/08 

MD: Phil and Eric had reviewed a Lawler vs Sid match from 07 which sounds like an all time great Lawler performance and an all time terrible Sid performance. This pulls more towards the middle for both, as it was a pretty good Sid performance and your standard solid Lawler one. This was on the show that celebrated Lawler's 35th year in the business so you imagine Sid was a little more inspired because of that. He had Jimmy Hart at ringside. Lawler had Jim White, his first tag team partner with him though he was a non factor. They worked a bunch of Sid slams early and a Lawler attempt which let Hart mock him on the house mic (and set up the big moment towards the end). Having Hart here probably made it a little more successful than a similar gambit the year prior. After eating a few Lawler punches with a snap of the head but no overall selling, Sid cut him off with a slam out of a side headlock which was simple but effective. Lawler was going to make Sid's stuff look amazing, of course, but the visual that comes from Sid's size makes that pretty easy. It's not like he has great punches, but when he comes down with more of an arc with them instead of poking forward, it gave Lawler plenty to work with. They moved from hold (or choke) into shots, into a move (like a side slam or legdrop) pretty steadily here, with Hart slipping in shots when he could. Lawler, despite it being his night, still used a low blow to start his comeback. Sid not registering the punches early meant it mattered more when he did register them on the comeback and between that, the slam paying off, and Hart's interference backfiring, everything built exactly as it ought to have. Sid was fairly inspired on this night but I'm not certain this would have worked quite so well with anyone but Lawler.

ER: Sid felt really uninspired working in front of that 2007 NEW crowd, and while he doesn't "do a lot" here, it at minimum felt like he and Lawler were at least having the same match. In 2007 it felt like Lawler was having his own epic while Sid was fulfilling an obligation that he regretted. The only real difference between Sid here and Sid there, was his presence here always felt like it was building to the match's climax, easily controlling Lawler with his size in a way that was clear we were always building to a fired up Lawler finish. There is so little actual offense in this match, just a handful of bodyslams, some clubbing strikes, a big side slam, and a smothering hold, but they both knew how to milk the thriftiness of it all. Sid's bodyslams looked big and Lawler knows how to expertly sell a large man's bodyslam as well as he knows how to breathe air. 

Lawler tries punching Sid early and gets nowhere, but gets much farther when he punches and kicks Sid in the balls before punching face. The camera crew doesn't know how to film Lawler's fistdrop and they shoot his kneeling punches from his back, but the energy is there. The strap lowering into a dropkick was great, and the bodyslam payoff was real. I love heel Jimmy Hart getting involved. Hart mastered the old man big bump/non-bump, knowing exactly how to get up on an apron and get knocked off it without actually doing anything super dangerous. It's just another example of how everyone in this knew how to do the most without actually dying. How many of the Lawler/Sid USWA matches do we have? Any? It feels like mid 90s Lawler/Sid would have been the best version of their crossed paths.

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: 1986 NJPW BATTLE ROYAL~! SID~! EATON~! GOLGA~! SEVERN~!

Battle Royal NJPW 6/20/86

MD: I've been spending a lot of time with 1986 NJPW in a DVDVR thread with quick reviews that aren't quite SC worthy. While there is a ton of NJPW vs. UWF that you've seen and heard and would expect, there was other stuff going on. Most of that involved KY Wakamatsu doing his best megaphone Jimmy Hart impression managing the foreigners of the tour, which ranged from von Erichs to Samu to yes, Andre. On the same card as the 5/1 gauntlet tag is Andre/Wakamatsu vs. Inoki/Ueda (with Ueda's face turn being one of the real angles of the first half of the year). That said, past the image of Andre hitting guys with a bullwhip, there isn't a lot of actual comedy that's made tape, either TV or handhelds, in the year. That's why this lone battle royal, buried on a handheld disc that contains most of the Sagawa Express Cup one-night tournament, was so surprising. Sagawa Express was a company that Inoki got to invest in New Japan and the tournament has a nice Kimura vs. Maeda double DQ sprint and some good selling by Inoki against guys like Eadie and Murdoch. It also had some short, unsatisfying CMLL type tournament matches. 

And it had this battle royal, with some guys easier to recognize than others, given the video quality: Kido, Fujiwara, Hoshino, Ueda, Cuban Assassin, for instance. It's Japan style so everyone can dogpile one wrestler, and that happens almost immediately to Klaus Wallas, who we have only a few Japanese matches of plus some German stuff I really need to C+A because he was awesome here, killing everyone before the pool had enough of it. They then take out his partner on the tour, Cuban Assassin, just for the hell of it. From there, they do comedy spots putting shine on the ref with him getting boots up in the corner and Hoshino raising his hand, and even him causing Ueda's elimination by back body dropping him, keeping in mind that Ueda was an upper mid-carder at worst here. They do an alley oop spot with everyone tossing one wrestler in the air by grabbing a limb each. They do a goofy 2000s indy multiple headlocks at once spot in 1986! Fujiwara does an airplane spin! I get how they convinced Kido to be in this (a trophy; can't get enough of those), but it's obvious Fujiwara's overjoyed to participate just to mess with everyone, even after he gets eliminated. It's about ten minutes and even living and breathing this stuff for the last few months, I couldn't identify all of the undercard guys who never made TV or tape. But this is a strange burst of fun in the midst of a fairly serious, dour time in the company.

Sid Vicious vs. Bobby Eaton SCW 5/14/05

MD: The back half of this one had the sound ten seconds off. I don't think it was an issue for the first half but I had to stop it and start it at one point. Point being, that feels exactly how one should watch Sid matches. The impact isn't going to be there on any of his strikes, so best to imagine what you're hearing and average out the two. In a lot of ways, it doesn't matter. No one imposes his reality into a match quite like Sid. This was one of his first matches back after the leg injury, with the premise being: Eaton was his friend and he had claimed to give him a chance to walk away and then attacked him from behind on the way out of the ring. It was all Sid, and I'd argue that the focus on the back was effective as an overall whole, even if you wouldn't want to isolate and gif any of the individual strikes. Eaton treated everything like it was devastating. The announcers were selling it like an all time mauling. There was the visual spectacle of the size difference and of Sid with his jeans with knee braces over them. Bobby's hope spots (and he got two) were a blocked punch, some shots fired back, and attempts at slams where the back gave away, but he almost got him the second time. Wrestling is about getting people to suspend disbelief and when you have a giant imposing emperor that believes completely in his own lumbering strikes and a guy like Bobby Eaton working with him from underneath, it doesn't matter if he's naked or not; we're all going to agree with one another that he's got some of the finest clothes we've ever seen.

ER: The people that want to hate Sid (and I don't think I associate with any of them) never want to give credit to Sid for the intangibles. Sid was someone who always had terrible strikes, but bad stomach kicks and arm strikes that don't even attempt to approximate punches don't really matter when you can connect with people the way Sid could. Sid is someone who had It, and had the confidence to get across his persona without ever needing to refine his skillset. Growing up, my next door neighbors two houses down were the Nordstrom Family, and the Nordstrom children were my best friends. Mr. Nordstrom had curly hair exactly like Sid (styled the same, only brown), he was an electrician, and he had served in 'Nam. He was the kind of man who was so physically intimidating that I didn't realize until well into my adult years that he was only an average sized man. He was not a mean man, but when we were causing ruckus and he raised his voice, there was no parent in the neighborhood you listened to quicker than Mr. Nordstrom. Years later, at a party nowhere near my home, some guy found out I was neighbors with them and it turned into a half dozen different people all telling stories about how scared they were of Mr. Nordstrom when they were kids/teens. And I think that's the same kind of way that Sid worked. I never saw Mr. Nordstrom get physically violent in any way with anyone, and yet everyone knew this man was the toughest dude around. 

Now, I suppose that having Bobby Eaton selling every kneelift and clubbing shot could make anyone appear like a monster. Eaton's selling is divine. As Matt illustrated, he has basically no offense in this match, but for 10 minutes you get to smile while he sells ribs and his back and every single Sid strike. I loved how he fell back into the corner after a Sid kneelift, or how the pain twisted across his face when Sid ran at him with a boot to the ribs. Bobby Eaton is one of the most gifted salesmen in wrestling, and you combine that with one of the most physically charismatic wrestling in history, and you can work a fun match with basically zero offense. 

Dan Severn vs. Golga WPW 9/1/99 

MD: The match itself was just a couple of minutes, but they left me wanting more. Severn, for a guy so legitimate, absolutely embraced bullshit pro wrestling villainy here. He had a pre-match gym coach style promo where he said he'd win and then destroy the Cartman doll. He appealed to the fans after they popped for Golga's hands in the air waving. He celebrated after hitting moves that didn't deserve celebration. Just real shitheel stuff. You never know with Golga matches if it's really Tenta, but there's no one in the world that could miss an elbow drop quite like him. It's still crazy how much weight he had lost. You lament that we never got that Austin vs. Tenta run when they wanted to bring back Earthquake, but you also get how that wouldn't work. It doesn't mean he couldn't have figured something else out, because even smaller Tenta was great at knowing when to give and when to take, at making stuff look credible. Just having the strength to snatch a guy like Severn out of mid-air, and then you had the bonus that he'd go up for hip tosses as he did here. The match paid off the promo work as the second Severn actually was able to slam Golga, he took a powder and that was the match. It was a bizarre match-up on paper but they worked pretty well together. 

ER: I'm the guy who hates that we didn't get Yokozuna/Austin in 1999 so I'm definitely someone who would have loved Austin/Tenta regardless of Tenta's weight. Tenta still had size no matter how thin he got, and you could see him use some real strength here against Severn that would have lead to some great Steve Austin bumps. I need to go back and find all the 2002/2003 All Japan Tenta that I can get my hands on. I miss that guy and the way he leans into ring ropes. I love how Severn works this match like a small town indy Iron Mike Sharpe. Bet you never thought about how similarly Sharpe and Severn move in a ring, and I bet you never thought about how they're dressed identically. You're now putting it together that Severn is actually an Iron Mike Sharpe acolyte at heart and that's why he always seemed so uncomfortable and rigid during his WWF run. There isn't a single actual Dan Severn WWF classic, and yet every Dan Severn indy match we have footage of over a 25 year span is great. His speech impediment makes him an even better sneering heel, and I want more of Severn as the bratty kid whose dad owns several car dealerships. 

When they made contact and mixed it up, the match was great fun. All of Tenta's contact looked good: nice shoulder thrusts in the corner, high avalanche, big legdrop, walking all around the ring holding Severn up before finishing the rotation of a powerslam. He also clearly still knows how to build to a couple of big bumps. His missed elbow was a great miss, great crash, and there was an awesome Severn hiptoss that Tenta bumped really heavy for. Severn put his whole body into it and they made a hiptoss look like a violent Red Bull Army throw, like a guy throwing a tree stump on a World's Strongest Man competition. The ending is one of the more frustrating pro wrestling finisher I've witnessed, a way to leave all of the fans confused and annoyed. After that Severn hiptoss, he hits an impressively quick bodyslam...and then Golga just rolls out of the ring, grabs his large size Eric Cartman doll, and runs to the back, out of sight, and does not return. The literal only explanation is that Golga shit his pants and had to get the hell out of there. If you shit your pants in a match against Dan The Beast Severn, you don't stick around to be put in a rear naked choke. Nobody would voluntarily do this finish. Mine is the only explanation that makes sense. 

Read more!

WCW Monday Nitro 2/7/00 from Tulsa, Oklahoma!

Wrestling feds never spent more to swirl the drain than WCW did in 2000. For a fed I loved throughout the 90s, I couldn't stand their main product (Nitro, PPV) in 2000 and avoided it almost entirely. I wasn't alone or unique in that stance, as attendance and buyrates were dropping rapidly. In fact, by the time Nitro came to Tulsa, Oklahoma's Convention Center in 2000, they pathetically only drew 6,358 paid. A few months before they drew nearly 7,500 at this same arena for a house show. Can you imagine a hot, popular act drawing less than 6,500 in Tulsa? Clearly an act on the downswing, if you can't put 6,500 butts in the seats in the Tulsa Convention Center.

Evan Karagias vs. Norman Smiley

ER: This was plenty fun for a 90 second match, with 3 Count all trying to interfere and Smiley running Karagias into them, with Moore taking a bump into the ring and Helms getting bumped off the apron. Smiley punched Karagias in the face a couple times, Karagias threw a nice leaping back elbow, and I liked how Karagias kept scrambling away from the wiggle. This would have been good had they given it just 3 minutes. Low end Nitro matches going from a 3 minute runtime to 1-2 minutes was one of the worst parts about this era WCW. There's just not much that can be done in 90 seconds. 

Jesus, poor Danny Hodge is in attendance. 

The nWo comes out and cuts a long and horrifying promo, although Scott Steiner was in typical Scott Steiner form. He goes on the mic hard after Ric Flair, saying that he stole the gimmick of the legend Buddy Rogers ("I know, I know, Buddy Rogers is dead, rest his soul") and says that Rogers is rolling over in his grave and that Flair won't ever have the class of Rogers. And speaking of class, he calls Flair an ass kissin', back stabbin, butt suckin' bastard and also runs down the people of Tulsa. Mark Madden asks Schiavone if he knows what Tulsa spelled backwards is. Good lord. 

Booker vs. The Wall

ER: The Wall was raw as hell at this point, and it's kind of surprising he was put on TV. He didn't really know how to sell punches or bump, but Booker is professional and makes this mostly work. Booker's punches looked really good and he made sure to fly hard into Wall so Wall would know when to fall over. Wall had a great high kick, and that was his only real asset at this point. He kicked like a Rockette, and Booker was smart and clearly had Wall use that kick for a couple of misses (to lead to Booker spin kicks) and then once to land. Wall did fly off the top into a Booker spin kick, which looked cool and also looked silly because again, Wall didn't know how to bump and bend his body. So he just kind of falls over like a mannequin. Booker took a big bump to the floor and really slammed Wall with his rock bottom, then we got some interference because of course. 

Barbarian vs. Tank Abbott

ER: How hard is it to just let these two stiff the hell out of each other for 3 minutes? This doesn't even go 1 minute, which is just cruel. The 1 minute goes as you'd want it to go, with Barbarian throwing big clubbing hands on Tank the second Tank gets on the apron, he and Tank throw blows (literally the easiest pairing to book), Tank backs him in the corner and throws some mean back elbows, and then the moment they start throwing again Barbarian just goes down from the first clean punch. After, Tank blows off Big Al who has come to see him in person!

Oh cool, Oklahoma is out and brings out a plastic surgeon (Dr. Jeter) to talk about all the work Madusa has had done, and the crowd seems into the misogyny at first but it goes on a bit too long for their liking. Madusa comes out and kicks everyone in the balls and also stands on Dr. Jeter's balls. Cooooool. 

I Quit: Terry Funk vs. David Flair

ER: I think David Flair is the worst wrestler to get any significant run in a major wrestling company. This guy didn't even know how to STAND like a human, let alone move like a professional wrestler. This man had no instincts for STANDING! His face was the face of a man who looked like he constantly had to be thinking "stand normal stand normal stand normal" and whenever he had to think about anything else he would naturally revert back to forgetting how to stand. David Flair's movements were so wooden that before his matches he would oil up with Minwax. This match starts with Funk taking 6 straight chairshots to the head, and Flair doesn't know how hard or soft to throw them but also has a hard time because he doesn't know how to bend his arms. If you've seen David Flair stand badly, you've also seen how weird his arms look. They don't quite dangle, but they don't look usable. They look locked in place like old action figure arms, no points of articulation. He's all hunched over with possibly not working arms, and a loose as hell stretched out t-shirt collar. He has dead eyes and rosy cheeks and looks like he's a day away from shooting up a church in the south. 

Terry Funk somewhat works a miracle here, because he takes those chairshots and then starts throwing Flair around ringside, while trash talking Ric Flair on he mic. He tosses David into the guardrail and then pulls back the ringside mats and hits a nice piledriver on the floor, and a hard DDT. "You better come and get your kid, Flair. While he's still alive." Funk piledrives David through a table (Madden makes sure to remind us three different times while this is happening that Funk piledrove Ric through a table at Music City Showdown). Funk goes on a long and awesome old man Terry rant, calling Flair banana nose and then quitting, giving David the technical win. Funk really made this far and away the most entertaining segment on the show. Even though that's a super low bar so far this episode, that shows that 55 year old Funk can still have the best segment on a wrestling show while paired with the worst wrestler of all time. 

Disco Inferno vs. Stevie Ray 

ER: I forgot Ahmed Johnson was here at this point, as Big T. And he's at least 40 pounds heavier than his WWF days. I always thought he looked cool as hell in WWF, and here he's still a different kind of cool. He's wearing a green windbreaker suit, leather fanny pack, chain, and looks like a sinister cookout uncle who is always the first to initiate an altercation. Totally forgot the cool Big T vibe. This was certainly a 2 minute Disco/Stevie Ray match, and none of the match looked as cool as Big T looked at ringside. 

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Brian Knobbs

ER: Finlay is the ref for this one, and even though this only goes a couple minutes it's still got a lot of asskicking. Knobbs took a bunch of nasty shots and spills and Bigelow happily continued to hit him with stuff. The match starts with Bigelow throwing a trash can at Knobbs from the ring, then hopping down and bashing him with the lid. Knobbs really takes some hard bumps, working way harder than I remember, really running hard chest first into the guardrail, gets his cast smashed into the ring steps and hit by a crutch, gets run into a ladder and then the ladder falls over RIGHT onto his face. Guy is taking a beating. We get a funny moment where Finlay hands Knobbs a trash can to use without Bigelow seeing (well timed by Finlay) and Knobbs uses it, but then Finlay hits Knobbs with a chair to give Bigelow the win. These guys sure take a lot of headshots.

Billy Kidman vs. The Demon

ER: So The Demon isn't very good, and the crowd chants for Torrie Wilson for the entire match, but things aren't all bad. Kidman takes a nice bump to the floor off a so so Demon clothesline and he makes a Demon DDT look like a credible finisher. Kidman's match winning frankensteiner looked really great.

Sid Vicious vs. Scott Hall

ER: Sid was such a megastar, and as they show Hall and Sid walking backstage before the match, it appears that Sid is chanting his own name. He's doing it the exact same way as the Yes! chant, arms over his head, just chanting his name. When he comes out for his entrance he gets a huge reaction, and is just lighting up the fans with fistbumps on his way to the ring. This guy had charisma and anyone who has badmouthed Sid is clueless. I think Hall has always been a good Sid opponent, as he has size but knows exactly how to bump for Sid, goes down fast for Sid's punches and weaves his head just right to cover for Sid's weird corner punches. He stooges and stumbles for Sid but doesn't come off like a joke at all. The fans go wild when Sid grabs Hall for the chokeslam and drags him all around the ring so everyone can get a glimpse. We get a great ref bump when Hall does a killer fallaway slam that clips Nick Patrick, and really for an era that did constant ref bumps this was one of the well orchestrated ones. Patrick was standing in the right spot, Hall didn't awkwardly change direction with his throw, it looked real good. Then Jarrett runs out and wrecks Sid, and Hall hits an awesome Razor's Edge on Sid, but then Jarrett turns on Hall for trying to win (what was Hall expected to do in his title match? I don't understand any of this) and the nWo disbands.


This was not a good episode of wrestling television, but it's kind of amazing how enthusiastic the whole crowd remained the entire time. It's cool that a crowd of under 7,000 could maintain that kind of enthusiasm for something that is clearly falling apart right in front of them. They're watching this promotion that looked damn near unstoppable just three years prior, and now they're looking at this offensive, lumbering, wounded, leaking monstrosity. And you'd think it would leave the arena awkwardly quiet in the wrong spots and leave a bunch of embarrassing photos which show how empty large sections were, but we don't get any of that. We get to witness a crowd of about 6,500 Oklahomans actually having a good time, regardless of the sad presentation they were witnessing. I'm glad the people of Oklahoma got that, at least. 

Read more!

1991 Match of the Year

Ric Flair/Barry Windham/Sid Vicious/Larry Zbyszko v. Sting/Brian Pillman/Steiner Brothers WCW WrestleWar 2/24

PAS: Yes indeed this holds up really well, it had been years since I had seen it and had totally forgot that Zbyszko was in instead of Arn (was Arn hurt? Larry was fine but Arn is Arn). Opening of this is totally amazing, Pillman is the focus of this match and this is one of the great babyface performances in wrestling history. I loved him demanding to go in first even with the damaged shoulder while Ross describes how he has been and underdog his whole life. Pillman was really great at using the cage like a jungle gym, swinging into a headscissors, grabbing the roof for a dropkick ect., Windham is a big bumper, great bleeder and nasty fucker, everything you want from a heel in this match. Flair was a bunch of fun too, coming in and having a great chop exchange with Brian, taunting the other faces. Sting and Rick Steiner are both great houses of fire and the moment where the babyfaces even up the match is always one of my favorite parts of of Wargames. Sid was Sid, although turning the first powerbomb into a ganzo bomb did add to the nastiness of the finish, not sure if two regular powerbombs get us to a ref stoppage.

ER: Yes yes yes! This was what I needed after a dull day at work and lousy traffic. I'm lock step with Phil on this one, right down to wondering why Arn was hanging at ringside instead of being Arn in a WarGames. But whatever, this was an all time WarGames, filled with some great performances, and not just the wrestlers; this may very well be Jim Ross' best match call ever. You could not have asked for a better opening than Pillman/Windham, with JR saying all the right things about Pillman while Pillman unleashes every piece of offense he knows on Windham. Windham gets overwhelmed by Pillman and projects it to the back, scrambling, bleeding, bumping all over (good lord that bump into the second ring where he hits the top rope and flips over!). Then Flair comes in and they both go after Pillman's taped up shoulder. Everybody tightens up everything in this and it makes the whole thing play so well: Sting is potatoing people, Larry is working cheap shots and interference, Rick Steiner is stiff arming everybody and just when you think he can be selfish he bumps a Sid lariat right on the side of his head, Scott showed awesome fire from even before getting in the cage, having to be held back by Nick Patrick until the countdown was over. Everybody had some awesome star moments, with Pillman and Windham especially standing out throughout the whole massacre. The Sid finish was vicious, and Phil is right that after all Pillman went through it would have been kind of a downer if he had gone down to two regular powerbombs, so that ganso bomb was just an accidental high end finish. Blood, violence, theatricality, chaos, the amazing kind of wrestling that needs to storyline explanation and can be put on cold to liven spirits.


ALL TIME MATCH OF THE YEAR LIST

Read more!

The King Got Kind of Lost, Lost in Giving

Jerry Lawler vs. Sid Vicious NEW 8/25/07 - FUN

ER: Frustrating match as Lawler turns in an epic performance but Sid works the match at half speed. I'm always a sucker for matches where the mean age of the participants is over 50, but damn if Sid had hustled things up a little bit this could have been great. "Methodical" is how announcers politely refer to the pace Sid worked this match, and because of that it felt like it never really got going. If you cut out all of the Sid downtime this match instantly becomes awesome, and that's including Sid's weird punches (alternating between politely knocking on a door with your knuckles, and pounding on a door with the side of your fist). So, about that Sid downtime. It basically forces a match restart every 90 seconds, completely grinding any momentum to a halt. There would be a lock up exchange, Lawler would sneak in a punch, and then Sid would lean on the ropes for 20 seconds, staring. There was a great exchange where Lawler snuck out of a lock up in the corner, started wailing on Sid and then started stomping the life out of him, getting the crowd completely fired up. So Sid rolls to the floor, walks around for awhile,  then eventually rolls back in and we start all over again. At one point Sid also locked on a looooong d'arce choke that looked more like when my cat is sleepy but wants his mouse, so he lies on his back stretching his arms above his head to grab for it. But hot damn did Lawler look great in this with cool corner stomps I've never really seen him do and built to a super high dropkick to knock Sid off his feet for the first time. He also did some nice callback stuff including hitting a bodyslam to a huge pop, that he had earlier attempted and failed at. He also threw some of the best punches I've ever seen him throw (I'm sure you know the ground that covers), lobbing them right at Sid's nose. I think Sid was trying to sell them with intense seething anger, but he came off as more lethargic than intense.

PAS: Yeah it was too bad such a great Lawler performance was wasted on such a dogshit Sid performance, it feels like Lawler would have a better match with an enthusiastic ex-Huskies center. I imagine if it was Lawler v. Haseem Thabeet it would have had more heat and Thabeet might have tried. Nothing Sid did suggested he was a trained wrestler and he looked like he couldn't give a shit. I did love Lawler though, the set up to the big dropkick and the big bodyslam were perfect, and his offense and selling were great looking, but man Sid, fuck that dude.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE KING

Read more!