Found Footage Friday: WWF 1998~! AUSTIN~! TOO SEXY~! AGUILA~! FAAROOQ~! CACTUS~! TAFKA GOLDUST~! QUEBECERS~!

WWF House Show Anaheim 3/13/98

Mr. Aguila vs. Brian Christopher

MD: This was the good stuff. I can't imagine anything else on the show is going to reach this level. Christopher was as on as a human being could possibly be. Fascinating reactions to things, fascinating creative choices. He went for a German out of the corner and Aguila landed on his feet. Yet he celebrated like he had just tossed him across the ring. Surely, he would have felt... well, no matter. Then he ate a massive dive and sold his throat for some reason. I enjoyed it. He had some really nice offense too, not just the power bomb down the stretch but a Stroke and this Bulldog which for some reason Aguila decided to sell by compacting himself in a seated spot. Story of his comeuppance was going for the same thing twice and then having it backfire on him in the most spectacular way possible (bulldog #2 let to him crotched in the corner). Really, this was Christopher wound up and given room to run as fast and as far as possible to amazing results.

ER: I love how long they both took coming to the ring. We've never seen Aguila take this long to walk to the ring, and because of that this is the most we have ever heard of Aguila's music. This is the clearest this theme has ever been played. We're learning more about WWF Aguila than ever before, as this is also a clear beautiful look at his gear. This is a GREAT set of gear on Aguila, great use of bright color against white, Lisa Frank color with a clean white canvas. He uses that canvas to paint something beautiful, like the sequence where he knocked Christopher down with a spinning heel kick, hit an effortlessly high floating dropkick to knock him to the floor, then hit an incredible twisting moonsault press to the floor. Cleanest shit ever. 

Christopher was great at setting up his own offense and Aguila's. His set up and execution of the Stroke, rolling Aguila through and firmly planting him, got a stunned reaction and he knew it, soaking in the crowd's hate even more than normal. His messy bulldog (complimentary) nicely set up Aguila shoving him off the next bulldog, balls first into the turnbuckles. The elbowdrop Aguila dropped right on Christopher's face after he dropped to the mat was the best...or was it the best when Christopher hopped to his feet running in place selling that the elbowdrop smashed his nose. How often did we get to see Christopher use two different powerbomb variations in WWF? Funny that I'm seeing it on a house show. Both men covered from the blown spot well, Christopher worked as base for luchadors far better than anyone could have expected. 

Steve Blackman vs. Faarooq

MD: Farooq looked really good here. Just tons of presence. He called everyone ugly on the mic to start, then got Blackman to pose, lured him into the corner and hit a spinning heelbutt I've never seen him do. It was just the way he carried himself. He went for a handshake and Blackman kicked it away but then he got him to run right into the spinebuster slam. Most of his offense was just tossing Blackman out so D-Lo and Henry could beat on him, and Blackman won far, far too soon with a small package out of nowhere, but Farooq looked great in the few minutes we got here, just like the savviest wrestler going. Post-match there was Nation dissension and Rocky ran out and drew chants to try to calm everything down.  

ER: Faarooq looked so damn good here. As someone who's been throwing 1998 WWF on as a break from 1997 WCW, I can attest that this is the best Faarooq looks in the ring in the entire first half of '98. Was he saving it all for the house shows? I'm so confused. He had a really cool Raw match against Shamrock in January '98, so maybe we just weren't getting enough Faarooq against shooters? Honestly, this is one of the greatest NATION performances we have. This is more than just the leader, this is everybody contributing. Faarooq is out here channeling Jungle Jim Kelly with a corner spinkick that he never otherwise used, showing off his peoples' karate to some white karate champ, while his whole team is putting in great work. How about Mark Henry throwing fucking BODY shots full arm into Blackman's stomach? Mark Henry is in baggy light wash jeans and a leather vest and is so wide it's insane. He looks like prom night Shaq. Kama and D-Lo put the boots to Blackman and Kama throws one of the best punches he's ever thrown. Faarooq's singlet doesn't get enough credit for being as elegant as it was. A truly great piece of pro wrestling gear. The simple band diagonally across his torso and the confidence to have so much of the singlet all black. This is confidence. Blackman's inside cradle finish was so slick and so well executed that it played as a finish just as well as Ogawa beating Akiyama, but this was a whole damn Nation show.

Cactus Jack vs. Billy Gunn [Falls Count Anywhere] 

MD: This was great fun. Just constant motion with weapon shots and big bumps all around and stooging from Gunn. Gunn landing on the outstretched chair and taking a goofy flopping bump was one of my favorite Billy Gunn things ever. The transitions were otherwise basically of convenience. Gunn would roll out on the Mandible Claw. He'd roll Cactus back in and Jack would take over in the corner with punches and the running knee, etc. So it wasn't exactly rocket science, but it was still very enjoyable and the sort of thing people weren't going to get on TV. 

ER: Also as part of my 1998 rewatch, I have become a much bigger fan of Billy Gunn than ever before. Did I contribute to the not-long-ago Billy Gunn discourse online? I sure did. I don't know why we didn't give him credit for what he was doing in '98 while it was happening, but damn has his work aged well. This man is a true stooge who is incredible at setting up opponents and taking a lot of damage. All of that is on display here, and all of it plays perfectly off Cactus. Gunn is the best part of the brawl on the floor, the way he hits the ring steps for max volume, the way he flops around on all his bumps and the way he and Cactus get so dirty after a suplex. Why is the floor of the Arrowhead Pond so damn filthy!? Was this a cowboy bar on days the Ducks weren't playing and they needed to fill the arena with sawdust? Gunn and Cactus get so covered in dust that they look like they're on a crew who hauls asbestos out of office buildings. 

Gunn is the perfect foil for all of Cactus's offense, from the violent to the absurd. He leans into Jack's best punches and holds firm to take a running knee in the corner. He gets tossed through a table in the corner and later takes a hard whip into the table he broke. But he is at his best getting over through absurdity, and that is on full display when he gets his balls salad tonged by Cactus and the crowd loses their damn minds for it. Gunn lays Cactus out with a chair and lays the chair over his face, setting up a fistdrop off the middle buckle - he even kisses his fist, which is some expert fistdrop knowledge from a guy who I've never see do a fistdrop before - that is of course reversed when Cactus raises the chair to meet Billy. Gunn's running in place face flop to sell the absurdity was divine. His two big pieces of offense looked great, snapping off a piledriver with real torque and sticking the not-yet-named Fameasser when Cactus ducks his head. For the finish, I loved Billy's kickout attempt after taking the double arm DDT on a chair. No life in the legs, no chance of kickout, but a visual attempt to roll his shoulder up at 3 that didn't take away from any of the violent and/or silly damage he took. 

Mark Mero vs. Chainz

MD: No idea how they thought this was going to work. The only babyface out there was Sable (and someone was whistling for her the whole match). Mero's entrance was over with all the lights and Sable was very over in general, getting her own chant as the match started. Mero played to the crowd, especially when it came to her. Chainz was just there, a de facto babyface who didn't get a shine (he tossed Mero out right at the start). Mero's shots and knees and what not looked good, but no one wanted to see Chainz work up from a chinlock (even being choked by wrist tape). He had a brief comeback but missed a Bombs Away kneedrop and ate the TKO. Probably good to see the state of the Mero/Sable act in a setting like this but this was doomed from the start.

ER: Chainz was definitely the babyface here, he was just the least defined character of the DOA. Part of this was because he didn't have a nazi twin, part of it was having a Z in his name like he was a member of the Burger King Kids Club. But he was a babyface at this point of 1998, even if that was mostly because DOA were in a regular feud with the Nation and WWF crowds were definitely going to be in the corner of DOA for reasons beyond face/heel alignment. Would a heel have the kind of shiny, lustrous hair that Chainz had? 

I thought the match worked really well with Chainz as babyface, throwing strong punches that Mero took like a great overpowered heel. I was also surprised at how fast Mero bumped to the floor when Chainz threw him through the ropes. Both men bump real well for the other. Mero goes down hard for a shoulderblock and clothesline, Chainz takes a shockingly cool bump when Mero snaps his neck over the ropes. He took it the exact same way Jimmy Hart took his apron bumps, and bumping was an underrated part of Chainz' game. Yes, I realize while typing that that every part of Chainz' game was underrated, because there isn't a person reading this who can clearly picture their favorite WWF Chainz moments. What did Chainz use as a finisher? I can't ever recall him winning a match during this run. But in the couple months around WrestleMania this year, he seemed like a guy who was trying for the last time to be noticed. We're not counting that weird stretch in TNA where he was losing 10 pounds a week until he was all teeth and jawbone and his hair started suffering from vitamin deficiency, I mean that he was trying to stand out to someone in WWF who might notice. 

Go watch how much Chainz puts himself out there in the DOA vs. DX vs. Boricuas chain match angle from Raw 4/13/98 (I fully understand if you do not do this) and it was clear he was trying to be noticed by someone. Was it me? Was it me, Chainz, noticing you 25 years after the fact? I love what you did against Marc Mero, Chainz. I loved your missed kneedrop off the middle buckle, and loved you leaning in to take Mero's kneelift to the side of the head rather than to your breadbasket. Nobody else took Mero's kneelift this way, only you Chainz. And it looked really good! I am a noticer, always noticing things. Your effort was true. 

Steve Austin vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley 

MD: I haven't actually written out the word "Helmsley" in a very long time. It still has a red underline under it. I'm not going back to check. Let me dump in some of the personal stuff here actually. I didn't watch a hell of a lot of wrestling from ~93-98. I remember seeing Hogan turn on scramblevision. Mania XIV was in Boston (I lived in a suburb) so with the public workout and everything, people were buzzing about it at High School and that's when I more or less got back into it, right around here.

That said, I don't go back to 98 WWF much. If we had more house shows, maybe it'd be different. What I have seen tends to be C-Shows. So I haven't seen these guys from this particular year in a long time. And it's fascinating just to see Austin move. I'm more used to the Austin of a couple of years earlier or a couple of years later, but here he was a superstar just ready to get the belt and carry the company. He conducted the crowd and fed off of them. It was a house show. The act hadn't quite calcified yet. So he was a little looser but it didn't feel pandering in any way. 

What I'll say about Hunter here is that he was very giving. His character didn't earn a single thing. He got everything through cheating or Chyna or chance. I imagine it wouldn't have carried through quite as well if TV cameras were on but he let himself be genuinely vulnerable in a way that, after a certain point, he never did genuinely again. And he came off as a better, more effective heel because of it. 

Early on they did a couple of hammerlock bits which were very good. Great back elbow and fun punch out of them. That's probably what I will remember out of this as much as anything else. Austin had to fight his way back from some legwork, but he did. The finish was wonky, overthought. Even vulnerable Hunter is still Hunter. It did six or seven things (too complicated a set up for the comeback with a double down that wasn't really needed, shrugging of the stunner the first time, a ref bump, Chyna, etc.) when one or two would have hit so much better. Still, the good in here was quite good.

ER: Man, I loved this. I loved this. I thought it was great. Austin was flat out incredible and constant motion towards something More, while HHH turned in what might be his best performance of the year. I have seen enough Austin/HHH matches and don't think they always work well as opponents, primarily because of HHH, but this was tremendous and a perfect use of time. If you dare, go ahead and check out their brutally long match a few weeks later from Mayhem in Manchester, and you can see a HHH with no idea how to treat a match against Austin. Here? Like night and day, roles defined perfectly and not a single wasted movement by either. HHH was not attempting to work cool heel, he was just feeding and setting things up for Austin to knock down, which he did spectacularly. The work over Austin's perpetually injured knee/s was interesting, and the ways Austin moved around that knee work was amazing. It's crazy how active Austin was in this era. 

For a guy who would eventually be surrounded by go go go wrestlers, it's wild how much he went went went without making his actual work feel empty and forgotten. It's funny whenever I see Austin talked about as a guy who "didn't do much" in the ring. Maybe that's referring to his "small moveset" (silly) but I watch the guy and see someone who is constantly doing something. Austin is a very active wrestler and this 12 minute and change format is perfect for him to craft this active, cool story. I loved every beat of this. When Hunter was getting his ass kicked, he was actually getting his ass kicked. This was not a self-service stooge performance from Hunter, he wasn't yet at the time where he was "showing people he could work down" he was just the heel taking a beating. Early, Austin rocks him so good with a back elbow to break a hammerlock that I had to rewind it a few times, both to see the elbow and to see the actual anger in Hunter's face. That's how a heel should look when a tough babyface elbows him in his big nose. And, while it didn't smash Hunter's nose, Austin's falling elbow is one of the greatest pieces of offense in wrestling history. What an incredible magic trick. This wife beating beer drinking Texas rattlesnake also figured out how to work an incredibly dangerous elbow, pointed directly at someone's throat and never showing a sliver of light, in a way that looks like he's collapsing a man's trachea. The trust he built with that elbow is incredible, and earned. 

When things settle down into Hunter working the knee, I loved the way Austin would stay in the match while selling, never settling into a long Hunter control sequence (because Austin rightly understood that Hunter has next to no ideas how to control things for that long), which fits perfectly into Austin's style. He is a fighter, a man who wants to constantly advance and who will keep after you after losing a limb, and that's how he sells the leg. There is an incredible spot, my personal favorite moment on this show, where Austin misses a clothesline and falls forward into the ropes, recovering in time for Hunter to kick him straight in the knee. The way Austin missed this clothesline pays such perfect attention to detail, every frame looking like a man who threw to connect, falling into the ropes because your missed momentum carried you there. His fall into the ropes looked like a man who hadn't considered he would ever miss that clothesline. Only the top 0.1% of wrestlers can miss offense with that kind of conviction. 

Chyna's involvement was the perfect amount as well, as her presence was always acknowledged while her threats were mostly implied. When she finally elbow smashes Austin from the floor it played as one of the best moments of an already excellent match. When she finally gets in the ring for the finish, the crowd was rabid for any kind of involvement from her. The way they played Chyna's first year in the company was an incredible use of restraint, totally unimaginable today. Austin's greatest feat in this match is actually making Hunter's goof ass Flair/Race cosplay bumps mean something other than "now is the time Hunter can show that he has watched several Flair/Race matches". His rolling upside down bump in the corner is almost always shoehorned into a match, but here felt like the best possible use and execution, adding an off the rails feel to Austin's comeback fire. 

I honestly don't think I could name 10 better matches in 1998 WWF. If these house shows keep coming, maybe eventually we'll be able to name 20 better. 

Godwinns vs. DoA [Country Whipping]

MD: Three minutes. The fans didn't really care at all until a couple of hard Godwinn shots in the ring towards the end. I was off thinking why they didn't get a couple more hillbillies (Moondog Splat was still active in 97?) and have them as part of the whole gang wars thing. And then I blinked and there was a slop drop and the thing was over. On some level this was kind of Death Valley Days coded. Just guys whipping the hell out of each other for three minutes and going home. If Phil, Matt and Eric booked this though, it'd have way more emotional resonance. 

ER: This was only two minutes long and a mostly useless two minutes, all likely for a very good reason. When you have Nazi Bikers taking on Confederacy Nostalgists it is only a matter of time before they come to some real Can't We All Just Get Along conclusions. Why are we lightly whipping each other for two minutes? We all collectively, the four of us, hate blacks, so why are we fighting each other? Henry and Skull have a moment of understanding that they're wasting their own energy fighting those with the same goals, so they agree to a lazily set up Slop Drop and clear the ring so a full crew of tough black dudes can do something more productive. 

Rock vs. Ken Shamrock

MD: Sort of a tale of two matches here. Shamrock looked great early, charging right in and having a lot of dynamic offense. Rocky fed and fed and fed and he did a great job with it. Some distraction from the outside let Rocky take over and it was a little off to me, a little rough around the edges. He didn't register some of Shamrock's stuff in the hope spots. That sort of thing. They did another ref bump here, but it was a nice one with a ducked clothesline. Then the rest of the Nation got involved and everything fell apart. It looked like Rocky was going to sneak away with a win after a D-Lo chairshot but another ref ran out and the Nation swarmed in. DQ win for Shamrock with the fans getting at least one big moment as he hit the Belly to Belly on Henry after a heated face off. 

Headbangers vs. Quebecers

MD: I had high hopes for this one, and it seemed like they'd be personified in Jacques' look. It was pretty amazing. Quebecers had the blue gear here, but Jacques had his hair pulled back tight, which made him looking like the hairline was really receding, with an almost fluffy ponytail, and a baldspot in the middle. Amazing stuff.

There was nothing wrong with this match really, but I wanted more elaboration in the early stooging. Pierre bumped all over the place, but I needed a bit more pluck and comeuppance from Jacques. It's a house show. Do all the bits. They did barely any of the bits. There'd be more bits on a 1989 Rougeaus TV squash. So I was a little disappointed there. I did like the finish where one Headbanger leapfrogged over the other to avoid a whip into one another, only to run right into Quebecers clotheslines. That set up the Quebecers going for their finisher, it getting broken up and the Headbangers hitting theirs. I needed this to have 600% more bullshit and I'm not sure why it didn't.

Undertaker vs. TAFKA Goldust

MD: There were elements to the initial Goldust character which pushed things in clever, if not entirely subtle ways. I don't think much of that was in this incarnation. It was all trying too hard and so little of it landed. Dustin wasn't at his physical best here but he still bumped all over the place for Taker and had his usual timing. Another distraction transition, this time with Taker choking Luna. I liked the comeback though as Taker hit a flurry of punches to the gut like he was playing Punch Out! Then the lights went off and the place went more nuts for Kane than they did for any of the matches. You wonder about the mic-ing with the cameras as they are for most of this, but when the place explodes for something like that it really does make you feel like they've just been quiet for most of the wrestling. I kind of liked Taker's punch exchange on Kane too. Weirdly, the ref didn't call for the DQ even though it would have made total sense (it wasn't a ball control thing either; Kane was getting shots in). But they wanted to send the fans home happy with a "clean" win after the Tombstone I guess and they couldn't do yet another ref bump. 

I'm going to chalk this off as a dubiously agented show. There were good things, but past the Christopher match, which they still might have gotten pre-show, just at half the length, and the Cactus Jack match which they wouldn't be getting anywhere else save maybe PPV (at least until the Hardcore division started up), I don't think it was all that much of a stronger experience than you would have gotten from a Raw of this era, and as a house show, it really should have been.

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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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WWF Raw 4/20/98: A Good On Paper Episode of Wrestling TV

Long Island Street Fight: Faarooq vs. Kama Mustafa

ER: This would have played better as a still photo. I'm not sure if it makes sense, but this was a fairly middling match where both guys looked cool for large portions. The Nation comes out through the crowd, everyone is wearing all black, Kama's street fight gear is black jeans and a black sleeveless T, Faarooq is in black jeans with taped up ribs, just a couple of badass looking dudes. But the match never really matches the intensity of the stip or the look. Faarooq STARTS the match by hitting Kama with a hammer, and it's REALLLL tough to keep up the pace when a fight starts with someone taking a hammer to the head. What doesn't help things is that Faarooq sells a beating like a guy having a restless night of sleep. He's got his ribs taped up, and Kama attacks the ribs, drops a nice elbow, hits him with a heavy ass garbage can (WWF was new to weapons at this point and didn't know to use flimsy cans), and Faarooq sells it like a turtle who realizes he won't be able to get off his back so has given up. This needed a lot more intensity that they gave it.

Dan Severn vs. Mosh

ER: This was really cool, as it was basically worked like a Bloodsport match. Severn shot in with a fireman's carry takedown and double legs and kept Mosh down with his weight, but Mosh was no pushover on the mat. I've never thought of Mosh as someone with amateur wrestling tendencies in the ring, so it was cool to watch him not go limp on takedowns on throws. He was taken down with a reverse waistlock and kept fighting to his right and actually almost pulled off a go behind on Severn. It actually looked like Severn wasn't expecting it and they both tumbled into the ropes. Severn throws him with a couple of cool rolling gutwrench suplexes, and Mosh keeps trying to slow the momentum of them, making them only look cooler and fought for. Mosh even got a big arcing takedown while Severn was distracted, and Severn nearly took a huge head drop off it, like he was Misawa taking a big German. I really dug the two grappling on their feet, ending with Severn throwing what looked like a shoot bodyslam, then doing a similar lift into a powerslam before trapping the arm. The only actual strike that was thrown was a kneelift from Severn (and a really terrible punch on the floor, when Thrasher took out Cornette with a punch that landed somewhere around Cornette's elbow). 

Goldust vs. Bradshaw

ER: This was worked the way the opening street fight should have been worked, and this one didn't need weapons. Well, it did have Bradshaw's heavy chaps as a weapon, and Bradshaw charging Goldust with a big boot and beating him with chaps was more violent than anything in the street fight. Bradshaw was at his most Hansen here, and I swear he whipped those chaps straight across Goldust's face. Goldust is a big guy and Bradshaw isn't going to be able to bully him, so instead we get two guys having no problem working stiff with each other. Goldust is a more generous bumper than Bradshaw so Bradshaw is the aggressor, but the punch and chop exchanges all look good, and they are both really GREAT at making missed offense look like it was supposed to hit. Goldust is really fantastic at moving at the very last second, so when Bradshaw misses an elbowdrop it has the feeling of Bradshaw being actually surprised that he hit mat instead. 

Both guys run face first into boots, Bradshaw throws a couple of wicked corner clotheslines, Goldust hits the best lariat of the match (a leaping one after a fast rope run), and this sadly ends when "Club Kamikaze" (forgot that's what Kaientai was called before they actually wrestled) runs in and attacks Bradshaw. Also, Bradshaw hit a fallaway slam on Goldust at one point, and Michael Cole called it a "desperation move". I think we really need to sit down and ask Michael Cole point blank if he can "What is a desperation move?" Because we now have 20+ years of evidence that shows that I most certainly does not know. Goldust went for a crossbody, Bradshaw caught him, held him, then threw that 270 pound man dead overhead. You could not pause a single frame of that sequence and find anything resembling desperation. For whatever reason, Cole has always used the phrase "desperation move/maneuver" to describe the moment that one wrestler stopped the momentum of their opponent, but never to actually accurately point out a desperation move.

Terry Funk/2 Cold Scorpio vs. The Midnight Express

ER: This was a cool match (one that was somehow given 7 minutes) that the crowd could not have cared less about. I don't think there was anything these four could have done to move this crowd. Bob Holly and Bart Gunn were a bad idea for a Midnight Express team, but we won't go into that because it was obviously supposed to fail. But they were a good team, just a team that the crowd couldn't have cared less about. But I was really surprised that a NY crowd didn't care about Scorpio or Funk. The crowd had just gotten their first Austin appearance of the night, a quick but good promo, and it's probable they were still mentally distracted. I felt bad for Funk, because the old man was out there trying. It felt like he was doing a classic album in front of a crowd who didn't recognize the band. His loud chops got reactions, but his buckled knee selling of Gunn's nice left hands played to cruel silence, his nice neckbreaker got no reaction, his comically wild missed punches got nothing, just a startlingly quiet reaction. 

The Midnight Express could have gelled nicely as a team, but that wasn't what they were there to do. Holly was clearly the most shaken by the silence. The guy dropped Funk with a nice piledriver, and again with a spike piledriver, and THAT gets silence? That would bug me, too. Gunn tried to fire people up from the apron and give us some big slams, but you have never heard bumps this loud because the crowd was just that quiet. Gunn and Scorpio each hit over the shoulder powerbomb - which is a really cool move - to nothing, Holly hits a big huracanrana on Scorpio, Midnights set up a nice drop toehold/elbowdrop double team, and nobody cares. It sucks. Scorpio finally wakes them up at the end by hitting a wild plancha into both Midnights, really flying far out past the mats. And the finish is big for this era, with Scorpio catching Holly's knees on a moonsault but still getting to hit the 450 a bit after. Scorpio's 450 was so beautiful and so impactful that I have no clue why he didn't break out as a guy in WWF. Should have been a super popular midcard guy during the Attitude Era. I'm happy we got his great NOAH run, but I've always wondered what if WWF did Scorpio better. 

HHH/New Age Outlaws vs. Owen Hart/LOD 2000

ER: This was a good longer match that the crowd also iced out, so there was just something with the crowd tonight. They win them over in the end, but LOD gets a big reaction during their entrance, DX obviously gets a big reaction, plus you have Chyna, X-Pac, and Sunny at ringside, so this match should have had some real heat. The opening Owen/Gunn sprint was really good, the two had good chemistry. Owen and HHH always had good chemistry too, so a lot of the pairings were crisp. Owen's spin kick to Gunn looked really good, he had a great drop toehold on HHH (and HHH was always strong at taking drop toeholds, underrated part of his game), and Road Dogg was great getting tagged in at the same time as Animal and doing some "Are you kidding me?" faces. His work with Owen was strong too, and he ran hard into LOD offense. LOD looked a little slow, but still hit hard. Hawk might look clumsy during this era, but he's still going to throw a strong lariat. Animal is a little more energetic, and the crowd does get into the finish. LOD gave Road Dogg a wicked doomsday device, Chyna grabbed Sunny and carried her off like King Kong, Animal decked X-Pac, lots of good action. This was a good trios match with over guys, and a lot of men suggesting oral sex throughout. It should have been hotter.

Steve Blackman vs. Dude Love

ER: This was the weakest match of the night, and it made me realize that there aren't any actually good Dude Love matches other than the two Austin PPV matches. Foley worked the character pretty consistently for a year, mid '97 to mid '98, and outside of those two matches I can't think of a single Dude Love gem. The tag title win was more of an angle, and I don't think he has any other singles matches of note. It's odd that a wrestler as good as Foley could go nearly a whole year with so few quality matches. There aren't even any intriguing on paper matches that I haven't seen, just a bunch of 4 minute matches against guys like the Sultan. This was really dry, and Foley looked like an actual untrained wrestler at different points. The dancing never got over, he paced matches slower, and his execution was loose and uncaring. It was like he was a proto Orange Cassidy except the joke never actually got over. Foley threw a swinging neckbreaker that physically went the wrong direction, and it was one of the only spots of the match. Blackman is another guy who would have been a fun add to modern Bloodsport indies. He had a Zero-1 mostly untrained MMA McCully brothers vibe (but more wooden), constantly looking for new offense that would stick, so he would always try out new strikes or surprise you with a diving headbutt. This mainly served as an angle, with the match kind of just killing time until Austin ran out to blast Dude with a lariat, then throw McMahon hard to the ground. Hot quick angle to end the show.


ER: I was unprepared for the crowd to be so quiet during these matches. The card looked real hot on paper with a lot of good pairings, but the Nassau crowd really didn't care about a lot of this. The strength of a lot of the matches was still there on the screen, but they all would have benefited from an engaged crowd. The unique matches made it well worthwhile.

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WWF Raw 2/9/98: A Good Episode of Wrestling TV

I threw on this episode of Raw because I wanted to see the cruiser tag, but I found myself captivated by what looked like a top to bottom rock solid pro wrestling card. Every match looked fun on paper, figured I would dive back into my teens.

Jeff Jarrett/Barry Windham vs. Legion of Doom WWF Raw 2/9/98

ER: How did I not remember the killer fast working cutthroat big bumping tag team of Jeff Jarrett and Barry Windham? I very much remember the bad NWA reboot, but forgot we got actual cool tag teams with them, where Jarrett looked flat out the best he ever looked (work wise, look wise, everything). This is a flat out 1985 NWA tag match taking place on 1998 WWF TV, and it's great. Windham and Jarrett were an awesome team that didn't get enough of a chance, and this whole tag played like a stiff old guy brawl. LOD and Windham are all 38 and up, which was old for this era WWF. But Hawk worked stiff the whole match, dropping Windham with a heavy Thesz press and punching him right in the ear, and later throwing chops to Jarrett that looked like backhands right across Jarrett's face. Windham bumped around for LOD but also gave right back, hitting a couple great lariats and his best punch of the match right on the floor while close to some fans. The crowd was lit up for LOD the whole match. Neither Hawk or Animal were working any complicated power spots here, but they were working quick and throwing themselves into punches and shoulderblocks. Hawk took a really nasty bump for the finish, charging into the ringpost and falling to the floor. The crowd was already into LOD, just two big dudes in face paint running into people would have been enough, but Hawk is out here taking bumps like this. Cornette comes out and we get a hard racket shot, and Bradshaw runs out and looks as pissed and dangerous as peak Stan Hansen. this was great TV tag wrestling.

Pierre vs. Henry Godwinn

ER: A slow burning hoss battle and a rare singles match appearance from 1998 Pierre, who takes several crazy bumps. Both guys hit hard, really swinging limbs into each other, and Pierre kicks things up a notch with a bonkers no hands tope that falls a little short, so the big man just does a gigantic belly flop to the floor. Godwinn takes a nice spill to the floor, too, but here's Pierre taking a big lariat over the top to the floor, missing a huge in ring cannonball, and getting super height on a backdrop. They kept a real pace here, really filling the minutes with a lot more movement than I expected from two tag guys. This was a big man's match where the misses were just important as the hits, and both landed heavy.

Pantera/Brian Christopher vs. Taka Michinoku/Aguila

ER: This show is an easy 3 for 3 so far. This match got 6 big minutes and everyone here made the most of those minutes. Pantera gets catapulted over the top and gets big air before crashing hard, and then Christopher gets backdropped to the floor, with Pantera taking a somersault bump into him after getting dropkicked off the apron. Aguila hits a killer corkscrew plancha, Taka hits one of his breathtaking no hands springboard planchas; this was a hot freaking match and the crowd was reacting well. Christopher had a long heel control segment on Aguila that was real good, and I forgot how strong the reactions were for Aguila. There's a great moment where Christopher narrowly ducks a high arcing, 2/3 across the ring Aguila moonsault press, and Aguila grazes vertically over the top of him and lands belly first on the mat. The finish was a great Memphis finish, with Christopher digging in under his balls to pull out a fake weapon, and Pantera shoving the crotch weapon into the nose of his mask. Pantera leaps off the middle buckle right into Taka, and Taka bumps as if he just got hit in the face with a sock of nickels. High end WWF cruiser match for the time. Pantera had this incredible 6 match run in 1998, bounced, then came back for more a year later. I'd love to know who was asking about Pantera every year.  

Ken Shamrock/Chainz vs. The Rock/Faarooq

ER: I really liked Chainz here, he of arguably the dumbest WWF wrestling name of 1998. But he hit with big clubbing hands to the side of Rock's ear, took a nice Nation beatdown, and took a big bump over the top and into the guardrail. Faarooq had a nice powerslam and took Shamrock's sillier MMA strikes (he still hadn't figured out punches, but his kicks were thrown nicely), and Shamrock hits a really cool standing rana. Rock stooged around nicely and took advantage of cheating with such confidence, he was really operating at peak heel power already. House show Rock was probably amazing during this period. The match ends with a DQ when Rock absolutely obliterates Shamrock's brain cells with a chairshot. Good lord. Rock swings a chair right into the flat of the forehead and this was a 19 fucking 98 chairshot indeed.

Steve Blackman vs. Recon

ER: This ruled. Blackman does a bunch of karate blocks and chops and a big armdrag, and suddenly the Truth Commission's (genuinely great, almost John Carpenter influenced) music starts up and Jackal gets lowered from the ceiling speaking over the house mic from a podium. He cuts this wild Jim Jones promo about how the WWF fears him, and Blackman and Recon bizarrely have a match like they have no idea it's going on. They don't stop once to look over at Jackal's sermon, just continue having a very normal (and very fun) match. It's so weird!! Blackman comes off as a more interesting worker than Shamrock at this point (though he has no crowd connection whatsoever. He steadfastly refuses to acknowledge anybody other than his opponent), and here he's awesomely and robotically going through every single move he knows, landing weird elbow drops, high spinkicks, a fast sunset flip, and finishing with a cool rings of Saturn variation. The whole presentation of this was strange in a great way.

Goldust vs. Thrasher

ER: This is the late 90s, and so Goldust is dressed as Marilyn Manson (and really is wearing almost the exact same gear Charly Manson would later use), and we have to hear JR obnoxiously call him "Marilyn Manson Dust" the entire match. I hated how he said it every time. Mare-uhh-lenn MAN-sun Dust. We don't get too many Thrasher singles matches, and this is a unique match up, and a Goldust singles match is almost always going to work even if it's Goldust working with a stupid wig. They do oddly get mixed up on who is supposed to be the heel, with Mosh choking Goldust from the floor and Goldust getting a babyface comeback right after. But this match had Goldust throwing several great punches, Thrasher hitting a cool springboard back elbow, a nice Goldust hotshot on the barricade, the kind of stuff I wanted to see.

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