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. 

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WCW Worldwide 8/15/98

Stevie Ray vs. Todd Griffith

ER: We get a lot of matches on deep cut WCW where the winner is never in doubt, but we don’t often get an outright steamrolling. But then some guy named Todd Griffith opens the show, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen this guy before. He’s a Kid Kash looking guy with long hair (later during the match Schiavone says that Griffith hasn’t been able to do much, and Larry says “well he’s got a full head of hair!”), and Stevie Ray worked amusingly stiff in a quick 2 minute match. Stevie throws some nice forearm shots, throwing his whole body into them, and throws stomach kicks better than you’d expect Stevie Ray to throw a stomach kick. Griffith is clearly some legendary indy bump freak as he takes the Slapjack at a 0.7 Cham Pain. I’m sure I’ve written a match or two of his before and just don’t remember. Hell I’ve rewatched entire episodes of old WCW with minimal memory of ever seeing it before, how am I gonna remember Todd Griffith? [I checked and I had reviewed at least one other WCW episode from this era that also had Griffith, but I wrote it in 2013, so I’m not gonna beat myself up too much for not remembering the guy]

I’m still on a plane flying to Mania weekend, and we’re circling Newark airport because a couple other planes were in front of us and we were all jammed up, and the pilot gets on the PA and starts with “I just wanted everyone to know that we have plenty of gas” which is DEFINITELY something that NOBODY had been worried about until the pilot LEAD OFF AN ANNOUNCEMENT by saying “Hey everyone, TOTALLY CHILL up here in the cockpit, just thought it would be cool for everyone to know that our fuel tanks are FILLED UP. Nothing at all to worry about here, just takin ‘er easy.” What the fuck dude. He leads off talking about how we obviously have plenty of fuel, and then goes into a long explanation about how we’re in line behind a couple planes so we might be circling a bit, and then ends on, “And again, we have plenty of fuel.” This fucking guy. Just sitting down for dinner with his wife, leading with “You don’t look fat.” Hours later he doesn’t get what he did wrong. “I said you DON’T look fat!!!”

Alex Wright vs. Tim Cheeks

ER: This whole thing felt weirdly long, and Cheeks was very not good. Wright looked pretty frustrated at a couple points when Cheeks rushed timing or didn’t execute well. Cheeks worked this kind of like a not good Owen Hart, trying to moonsault off the top over a rushing in Wright but getting no distance on it, then trying to stumble into an armdrag that goes terribly so Wright just kind of muscles him down with an STO and palms Cheeks’ face. Wright throws some nice elbowdrops but looks a little rattled by Cheeks’ frequently incorrect positioning. Kind of a rough start to a Worldwide. Two Dodgy-by-WCW-syndie-standards and a PA announcement of my imminent death.

Public Enemy vs. Tony Carr/Dusty Wolfe

ER: Weird episode as this is the third straight match with a clear jobber role. We usually know who is going to win on Worldwide episodes, but this might be the first time I’ve seen the bulk of the matches featuring guys not on the roster. This is unexpectedly odd only because Dusty Wolfe gets the most offense of anybody in the match. This is mostly a Wolfe showcase, as until they win, PE is basically working this the same way you’d expect Wolfe/Carr to be working this. Carr is also amusingly working a Marine Corps gimmick, black sleeveless T and camo pants just like Pittman. I don’t think Pittman was around WCW at this point so were they just bringing in another similarly built black marine who was cheaper than Pittman, or still wanted that character and assumed nobody would notice the replacement? I liked Wolfe here, one of those good southern hands who I’d probably watch in 2019. I like that we got a weird Dusty showcase in 1998, and it’s so rare to see a guy not on the roster get so much offense. Really Wolfe’s team was in control the whole time, right up until they tried to tandem suplex Grunge but Rocco pulled him down, allowing Grunge to DDT both of them. Then, Drive-By. Before that the PE was at Wolfe and Carr’s mercy. So bizarre.

Fidel Sierra vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan

ER: This really isn’t much, probably most worth it for Zbyszko going on about how Duggan used to be good, but he reached a point where he stopped getting better and had just been coasting. “You’d think most guys would want to be World Champ but here he is just not improving on his skillset!” He’s not wrong here. Duggan is really lazy about getting from a to b, doesn’t give Sierra much to work with. Sierra looked really jacked here, I don’t remember Sierra having big guns, but there they are. ’98-’02 were wild for wrestling bodies. Duggan kinda just kills time here not selling a beating until it’s time for him to hit a lariat and Old Glory. Not the best Worldwide episode we’ve seen.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Psychosis

ER: The onscreen graphic actually spelled Mysterio with the y, but I don’t think that was a thing yet. There are frequent misspellings on these things. Fans are really hyped for this one. There’s a group of late 20s meatheads and their cute girls, and all of them are very invested in this match. A lot of it is Psychosis grounding Rey, cutting him off, not as many Rey showcase fireworks as we could sometimes get. Psychosis hits a pretty big guillotine legdrop off the top onto Rey on the apron, feels like a bigger spot that the camera crew didn’t expect, so didn’t get to shot it as impressively. Rey hit a big springboard legdrop, sold nicely while locked in chinlocks and armbars, and won with a nice rana off the top. A more grounded match than we typically got from these two, with no scary Psychosis bumps, but their expected professional match.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Saturday Night 7/25/98

Bobby Eaton vs. Scott Putski

ER: And at 3:05 Pacific Standard Time on this Saturday afternoon in the middle of Summer 1998, Bobby Eaton was given a task that would have turned away most men. Show opener, tone setter, just do it with one of the bigger stumblebums on the roster. Scott Putski is truly putrid, and had I gone to a Saturday Night taping perhaps I would have brought a poster board sign stating Putski is Putrid, or as long as I was using MAD Magazine type humor on my sign, Scott Pukeski. He being Bobby Eaton, wearing his shiny and sequined ring jacket that looked like a torn open King Cake, wearing that jacket that I’m sure was sold on eBay for much less money than I would have paid for it, he being Bobby Eaton, he has a nice little match against Scott Putski. Until Scott Putski makes his usual conscious decision to cease having a good match. Eaton goes over for some short arm drags, Putski grinds his knee in Eaton’s left arm, Eaton makes it look like Putski can semi-convincingly work an arm and Eaton also rubs this left arm out occasionally after. Eaton throws punches you like and walks directly through a Putski right to the body, Eaton refuses to break stride and silently makes an agreement with the audience that nobody was to acknowledge that punch thrown by Scott Putski. At this point it’s time for us to go home, and Putski runs for that finish line like a man with his boots tied together. He almost drops Eaton on his head during a backdrop where he can’t muscle him up properly, he barely lifts Eaton up for some kind of spinebuster type attempt, and then he almost gets Eaton up for an ugly Lo Down style powerbomb. Putski made everyone sad at the end of this.

Stevie Ray vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan

ER: Boy serves me right for trying to watch 1998 WCW on an early AM plane ride. But this match keeps threatening to get good, and keeps eventually swerving back into not good territory, but maintains its threat of being good. One major thing WCW matches like this have going for them, is the short TV match structure works so much better than WWE’s current structure. Here were two water oxen clubbing at each other and working strikes and slams, and not once did Stevie Ray grab a chinlock for 20 seconds to build to Duggan’s comeback. Once you notice that every 4 minute WWE match has a babyface comeback out of a chinlock, it’s disheartening, and it’s refreshing seeing two meaty guys just clonk each other for the duration of their allotted 4 minutes. Duggan doesn’t always have great punches, but his fists read well; they are round, and he balls them up tight, so the visual of him throwing a heavy hand at your jaw set a high floor for him. Stevie Ray takes an incredibly slow bump over the top to the floor, gets a couple nicely timed eye pokes in on Duggan at different times, grabs a terribly bearhug that Duggan sorta does an okay job of fighting out of….but we get heavy punches the whole time, back elbows, a couple slams, and it all felt like something constantly moving forward without stopping. One thing I was genuinely excited for the entire match was finding out who was taking the pinfall. I always love establishing WCW hierarchies among B-show competitors, and wasn’t sure who outranked who at this point. Amusingly, this match goes to a double DQ when they both shove the ref, and 6 other refs hold them apart as Stevie Ray and Jim Duggan have a pull apart brawl.

Doc Dean vs. Rick Fuller

ER: Rick Fuller is your proto- Rhyno/Albert big man who somehow never got the opportunities those two got. Doc Dean didn’t get much here, and due to him being a foreigner he got roundly booed while not getting much. The match went on a little longer than I anticipated, especially since Dean only got a couple quick corner punches before getting shoved off, and then only got a sunset flip attempt, which was blocked. Fuller owned this match and Dean was there to bump all around for him, and he did. Fuller hit a big chokebomb, and caught a crossbody attempt from Dean and just walked around with him for awhile before planting him with his unparalleled over shoulder piledriver, always a killer.

Barry Horowitz vs. Chris Adams

ER: You know who's really great in '98/'99 WCW? Chris freaking Adams! Until watching several of his '98'99 WCW matches I had no clue that he would have worked really well in similar era BattlArts.  He's really vicious with all his offense, from tight headlocks and a stiff shoulderblock, to hard elbows to the jaw, to a hard kneelift and cool rolling kneebar. Horowitz really gets nothing in this, Adams just roughed him up for 3 minutes. Adams really came off with this badass shooter charisma during this era, it was a really cool coda for his career that was sadly almost over. Honestly a Chris Adams in  WCW C&A is a pretty great idea. I bet there are some awesome gems in there, with nearly two years to pull from. I think it's on!

Villanos vs. High Voltage

ER: Man this was a pretty great little scrap. High Voltage were a super fun tag team with a bunch of fun tricks in their bag. They did a lot of things really well and were always open to ideas, a team that worked really hard and that was probably harder than they needed to. They were always breaking out weird double teams that you'd only see them do once, always looking for something vaguely dangerous that would never stick. Here they make up a couple suplexes (two different times they hold a Villano in monkey flip position but then just throw them into a backdrop), and Kaos drops a leg off the middle rope while Rage holds a Villano in a Boston crab. Rage hits a cool springboard crossbody Doomsday Device, Kaos hits a genuinely great flying double lariat, Villanos are super stiff breaking up pinfalls and hitting a cool missile dropkick, dropping nice elbow drops. Both these teams would be great to see in a series, would be nice to see Villanos get a bit more. But this match was the kind of thing you want to see when you pop in a WCW disc.

Steve McMichael vs. Julio Sanchez

ER: What a weird shitty on paper match that somehow totally works in execution. Julio Sanchez was an indy darling when indies didn't have many darlings, and McMichael was a guy who was no good but had a lot of energy and tried, and that means something. There were some things that sucked, McMichael throws bad clotheslines (a couple variations of bad clotheslines!); but then there are those cool moments that surprise you like Sanchez hitting a nice kneedrop (when have you seen Julio Sanchez drop a nice kneedrop??) and Mongo hitting a big back suplex, great running tackle, cool tombstone piledriver, and then you're taking a look in the mirror over how much you enjoyed a Mongo vs. Julio Sanchez match.

Road Block vs. Lash Laroux

ER: "Hey Eric, you wanna see a Roadblock squash to guide us into your MLK day off?" Obviously I want that to happen. Lash looked exactly like current Adam Devine only ginger, and he gets absolutely worked by the gigantic Roadblock. Roadblock turns up on a disc and brother it's like when I bought a 25 cent pack of Donruss baseball cards in the Raley's checkout line with my mom, and found an Elite Series Jose Canseco card. Some dude offered me $250 for that card at a local baseball card show. I did not take that man up on his offer. I don't think I know where that Jose Canseco card is today, and if I did I likely wouldn't be able to sell it for the 25 cents that the pack originally cost me. Unless it turns out the fucking Melendez brothers were sitting in the background in one of those situations that makes day to day life bearable and worth waiting around for. I don't know where that card is (parent's garage?) but I got Roadblock on this disc, squishing the hell out of a cajun who would have a kind of impressive status leap within a year. Roadblock crushing him with huge right arm chops, a great lariat, big boot, leaping elbow drop, just the best Son of One Man Gang. Roadblock was a decade too late. He throws a great powerslam and hits his Dead End, just flipping backwards over those ropes like Charlotte, but belly flopping like Louie Anderson. There really is no 90s finisher more damn fun than the Dead End. This match is pure undistilled joy.

Jerry Flynn vs. Fit Finley

ER: Well you knew this would be a cool asskicking. It was Flynn early and Finley down the stretch, both guys landing shots throughout. Flynn even opens the match with a hard as hell spinkick to Finley's chest that Finley sells like a brick hit him in the chin. He sells it for the next couple minutes of match too. Flynn hits kicks to the head, nice kneedrop, an awesome big left hand in the corner, tosses him around ringside; Finley is really cool in how he sells offense based on how much a guy's offense deserves to be sold. Flynn had nice offense, Flynn gets his offense sold. Finley takes over by getting the boots up and runs through the greatest Finley hits. Hard shots with none wasted, sticks the rolling senton, snaps off the tombstone. Just was the exact kind of asskicking you wanted, that these two always deliver.

Scott Hall vs. Konnan

ER: I really dig this era Scott Hall. The guy had so much personality. He was like an actual tough version of John Tatum. I love coward sniveling pretty boy John Tatum, but Scott Hall is Tatum with stubble and posturing. If you know you know. And Hall is in the driver's seat for a ton of this. Hard short arm shoulderblocks, great stomps to the back of the head, choking Konnan over the middle rope (and also allowing my boy Vincent to sneak in shots), and all the while making all these great expressive faces, totally nailing his character. We even get Vincent helping Hall lock in an extra tight abdominal stretch because that was a THING and the WCW crowds always responded to things like that. Konnan is sluggish on a lot of his eventual offense, but at least he throws some pump behind his seated dropkick. Barely bends on a snapmare, but can throw a dropkick. Konnan goes down kind of shockingly easy here. Sure you had Vincent with some interference on the floor, but Konnan didn't have any kind of run here, not even putting two moves together at any point. Hall and Konnan were both guys who would show up in main event "big name" squash match on Saturday Night, but it's a rare thing to have them together, let alone with one being so dominant. WCW hierarchies are just one of my favorite things in pro wrestling.

I live for this.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Main Event 7/7/96

If that date sounds familiar, it's because this is the pre-show to Bash at the Beach, where something *kind* of huge would go on to happen.

1. The Steiner Bros. vs. Harlem Heat

This match works just fine, until it inevitably turns into the continuing saga of Col. Robert Parker and Sherri, as practically every Heat tag from this era did. In rewatching a lot of this era it was surprising how terrible a lot of the Heat matches were. I remembered them as a decent team but man were they sloppy and man did their tags have horrible structure. But Booker was on during the first part of this, flying into Scott with a huge shoulderblock, working him over with a nice bearhug that Scott turned into an even nicer overhead belly to belly. Rick came in and hit a great powerslam on Booker, and things (shockingly!) slowed down quite a bit once Stevie Ray tagged in. Stevie hits a nice elbowdrop, and then locks on a neverending chinlock until the Parker interference. For his part Parker takes a big hip toss bump into the ring from the apron. On the previous show they were advertising Steiners vs. Rock n Roll Express which would have been awesome. Instead we get this. And this...was probably better than I expected.

2. Billy Kidman vs. Hardwork Bobby Walker

So let's start off by saying that this match gets 90 seconds. Let's go on to say that these guys clearly knew they were only getting 90 seconds, and proceeded to do as much as they possibly could in 90 seconds. Something seemed up right from the beginning as both guys are just working lightning fast. It looked like things were on double speed and I'm thinking "man how are these guys expecting to work a full match at this pace??" Oh, they weren't. But it was fun seeing a noted schlub like Walker going fullspeed, with both guys doing these super quick dropdowns and leapfrogs, Kidman taking a wild bump to the floor off a dropkick, and both working in kooky offense I've never seen either do before. Kidman hit a quadruple jump Asai moonsault (follow me here) starting on the apron, leaping to the middle rope, then the top rope, then the inside middle rope 90 degrees to his left, and then the moonsault. It's like a crazy Aerostar move, with about 70% of the grace of an Aerostar move. Walker jumps to the middle turnbuckle, leaps BACKWARDS from the middle buckle to the top, almost loses his balance and falls backwards to the floor (because it's fucking crazy to jump backwards from the middle to the top) and then hits a crossbody/headbutt block from the top to win. Weird little match with the circumstances dictating unique work.

3. Rock N Roll Express vs. Fire & Ice

Another 2 minute special that really could have been a good tag match if it had been given just a few more minutes. Norton rushes Ricky to start and hits some pretty stiff shots, a couple pretty big slams. Ice Train tags in and hits a rough avalanche. This Morton guy is pretty decent at playing Ricky Morton. Finish is clever but would have loved for it to come after more of a match, as Norton tags back in, picks Ricky up in a gutwrench and Ricky's legs hit Ice Train on the apron causing Norton to stumble. Gibson runs in and takes out Norton's knee allowing Ricky to hit the backslide. That's a pretty decent finish, but yeah didn't get a whole lot of match before it happened.

4. Eddie Guerrero vs. Steven Regal

Now this is the kind of thing you hope for when you pop in an old WCW disc. Is it too short? Yes. Does it have a lousy finish? You betcha. Is everything awesome before that? Well of course. Regal looks so damn good here, with he and Eddie doing all sorts of cool grapples and take downs. Eddie lands on his feet after a monkey flip, hits a cool armdrag off a Regal butterfly suplex attempt, Regal starts lacing in elbows and then Eddie takes a super fast bump to the floor off a Regal toss. Weirdness ensues when Regal fakes a knee injury, suckers Eddie in for a double leg for what you think is going to end it. But something weird happens as Nick Patrick just stops counting at 2, even though Eddie didn't kick out. It looks like Regal was supposed to have his feet on the ropes, but he never puts them there, so Patrick just has to stop the count for zero reason instead of stop the count after witnessing the cheating. The Eddie just rolls up Regal for the win. Folks you won't see a finish worse than that one. But god that first 90 seconds of the match was all the stuff you want in pro wrestling.

Okay, Cubs, that one was a whole lot more...interesting as an episode. Still waiting for an actual good match as so far we've gotten some big time potential that was cut short with bad finishes. We'll keep trying until I think your donation has been worth it for you. Again, thank you SO MUCH for your help.


***I'm still desperately trying to raise money for my friend and coworker whose home burned down. I'm matching every contribution and will continue writing above and beyond for those who donate. This means a lot to me, guys***

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Main Event 9/6/97 & 9/13/97

1. Harlem Heat vs. Texas Hangmen

Man, did Harlem Heat work syndicated shows more than any other team? Feels like I have seen more than enough HH for one lifetime. You know you aren't going to get much of a competitive match here, and when Stevie Ray leans into the camera and says "This won't take long," I believe him and I hate that he is so convincing with these words. Sure enough Harlem Heat takes pretty much all of this with their Harlem Heat offense. I get briefly excited when the Texans side step Booker, then come in and hit him with a double clothesline. But that's it as Booker spins his way up and hits a nice double dropkick. HH win with a Booker jumping sidekick. So much damn Harlem Heat on these discs.

2. Greg Valentine vs. Lex Luger

Really fun match that I'm not sure I ever knew happened in a competitive way. Valentine gets a tons of stuff in here which is nice to see against a big opponent like Luger. Luger treats Valentine like a real threat and Valentine plays up Luger's speed and strength. It's kinda worked with Luger evading Valentine's strikes with speed, and Valentine always trying to catch him. When he does catch him it's awesome as you get a couple big Valentine chops and his excellent elbow drops. Even his missed elbow is pretty much greater than anybody's elbow. Valentine even gets a fun fake win, when he gets the boots up on a corner charge and then pins Luger with the feet on the ropes, he ACTUALLY gets a full 3 count which makes me flip out. Valentine jumps up with his arms raised and then Mark Curtis tells him he saw his feet on the ropes. Valentine flips out and that's when Luger puts him up into the rack for the real win. Really shocked Valentine not only got a visual pin, but an ACTUAL pin, before Luger won. Good on Luger.

1. Prince Iaukea vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Good match, much better than I remember their regular match being (feels like I've seen these two match up a few times). We get some solid mat stuff to start with Chavo having nice go behinds. Iaukea takes a massive bump when he misses a springboard body press to the floor, bumping that barefoot onto the Pro/Worldwide stage is just crazy. Iaukea also admirably misses a springboard splash into the ring and sells his tummy but really could have sold his chin. Looks like he whipped it right into the mat (clearly he didn't hit his chin, but it would have been believably faked). Chavo looked sorta off in spots, as it took him too long sometimes to set up more of the lucha-ish spots. Like he wasn't sure what side to start his La Majistral, so he had to awkwardly walk all around Iaukea. Iaukea looked like a guy here with a lot of promise, but I can't ever remember seeing a really good Iaukea match.

2. Hugh Morrus vs. Jerry Flynn

I talk about having to see a bunch of Harlem Heat matches, but man have I seen a lot of Hugh Morrus. I've now seen more than enough to know that I normally don't like Hugh Morrus matches. But Morrus matches where Jerry Flynn gets to work equal? Okay, that's better. Flynn is really underrated, always bumps big and his strike offense always has great snap. His best matches are against the guys who don't mind getting kicked a few times, and Morrus to his credit takes a lot of kicks here. Flynn takes a big clothesline bump on the floor, landing really hard on that Worldwide stage. Back in and he dishes all sorts of cool kick combs on Morrus, even nailing his one in the corner where he holds the ropes on the way over. Morrus' offense is pretty nice here, hitting a big avalanche and dropping a bunch of nice elbows. Flynn gets set up for No Laughing Matter and looks waaaay too far away, but Morrus actually hits it. Also has a cool little finish touch as Morrus does his bit where he drapes his KO'd opponents arm over him, kicks out at two, and then pins Flynn…but Flynn mixes it up by kicking out RIGHT after the 3. I really dug how that little move showed that Morrus goofing around alllmost cost him.

3. High Voltage vs. Villano IV & Super Calo

Man this coulda been really cool. As it was it was fine, but disappointingly short. It's not a total HV squash, as Calo gets some flashes, and then when Villano tags in he wins all the exchanges against Rage. Rage throws a bunch of punches and Villano blocks all of them, returning fire with his own and backing Rage into the corner to hit a spin kick. Villano looks like a badass throughout, even charging into the ring at one point after Kaos takes a swipe at him, with the ref barely able to hold him back. But fairly quickly Calo gets dumped and Rage hits the nice springboard spinning heel kick for the win. This only got like 2:30. If it got just 5 minutes it could have been a nice little lost gem.

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Worldwide 9/15/96

I'm currently on a train from San Diego on up to LA to visit my buddy Will and go to an Angels/Dodgers game. It's a 3 hour train ride, and I figure what better way to tell everybody on the train "don't talk to this loser for 3 hours" than put on 18 year old wrestling with all the gassed bodies, mullets, and neon singlets that 1996 still contained. I snuck on train liquor, I got grapz on the laptop (grapz on lapz!) and I'm set.

1. Jim Powers & Renegade vs. Harlem Heat

Haven't done one of these in awhile and boy did I pick a winner to jump back in on. And you know I talk shit about these guys (for 100% deserved reasons) but this was probably better than it had any right to be. I mean, it wasn't great, but you look at those 4 names and…woof. Harlem Heat has been maybe my least favorite thing about this project, as they're both awful, sloppy, horrible long match workers. But this was probably the Heat match I've enjoyed most from the era so far. When they're in there with a more work rate team it's just always sloppy and awful and ugly looking. But here they are with a couple gassed guys trying to be athletic and it's pretty fun. Really Renegade and Powers don't seem much worse than Heat here, pretty even working level. Powers - despite his ghastly 0.5 Abyss punches - was kinda fun; had a nice go behind, stomped Booker in the face at one point, worked an arm wringer alright. Renegade looked awful but bless him for trying. He tried a sort of slingshot dropkick at one point and kinda landed one foot and almost buckled on the other..but shit it's Renegade trying to do some shit. Good for him. His body press earlier was decent enough. Booker hits a wild standing spin kick that looked cool, and match ended with a potentially grisly double powerbomb where the timing was all off and Renegade almost gets spiked. Harlem Heat: We'll almost dump you on your head at least once in a 5 minute match!

2. V.K. Wallstreet vs. Ice Train

Woman across the aisle from me has a Powerpuff Girls text alert song, the song by Apples in Stereo, and it goes off every fucking time she gets a text. Which is like every minute. I like Apples in Stereo. I do not like this trend  though. Mute yer phone! I'm watching my trash on headphones, because I'm courteous like that. She also has a shirt that says "I woke up looking this good" which is really only a shirt that can be properly worn by really fat men who are comfortable in their skin. If you have even a tiny amount of good looks in you, this shirt will make you look like a real asshole. And worse, if you're like this woman, you don't want to risk the shirt sounding 100% believable. Somebody wears a shirt that says "I woke up looking this good", and my reaction is "Yeah. That probably checks out," and that can't be the reaction they wanted. Anyway, holy shit Ice Train both looked awful in this, AND won the match in 90 seconds. Was not expecting that. Wallstreet gets a clothesline, rest of the match is all Ice Train. Was not expecting a finish this soon as Ice Train doesn't do any cool squash match offense. He does a body slam, knocks VK's head into the turnbuckles a few times, Irish whips him into the turnbuckles…and then pins him with a standing splash. Huh.

Awwww yeah a commercial for Last Man Standing! That movie was pretty awful but totally enjoyed by me. Fun Bruce Dern role, fun William Sanderson role, Christopher Walken as a villain which is always great. Total piece of garbage, but I'll watch Walter Hill's garbage before almost any other director's garbage. Love that guy's vision, whatever it is.

3. Pat Tanaka vs. Rey Misterio Jr.

Goldberg's music hits and the one the only Pat Tanaka comes strolling out in his kung fu jacket. Boy that's weird. I would've loved to see this get some time, but it goes 2:15. Great. Tanaka is working a weird Kung Fu master, lots of odd tai chi poses and karate strikes. It's amusing so I get the guy trying to find a gimmick for himself. Why not? Rey is a little sloppy with some of his stuff, he kinda whiffs on a headscissors that Tanaka has to bump anyway. But this era Rey is always super watchable due to his bumps. Here he gets planted with a powerbomb off a rana attempt and does a great flip bump on a clothesline. Heenan is pretty smart on commentary saying that in the future guys will try and imitate Rey, but nobody will be as good at it.

We get a commercial for Levis wide leg jeans. "You can live your life however you want. I'm gonna live mine WIDE." Catch that wide leg fever.

4. John Tenta vs. Konan

Weird little match with Tenta taking 90% of it. Tenta had his ridiculous half shaved skullet at this point, which really seems like the next look someone like Skrillex will have (maybe without Tenta's cop mustache though). Konnan is usually pretty selfish in his matches, making all his opponents work within his sequences, but Tenta takes this whole thing. I wish he looked better as I'm a Tenta fan, but he didn't look great. He didn't look bad, still throwing a great elbow, nice legdrop and a nice powerslam. But he also had a lot of less than devastating stomach kicks and an ugly missed splash. Konna wins with a somersault senton off the middle rope to a standing Tenta. Never seen Konnan pull that one out before.

5. Hugh Morrus & MAXX vs. Nasty Boys

Wasn't expecting much from this, but whatever it was, was okay. Nasty Boys both made a point to stiff Maxx (ne Muscle) for the whole match, every time he was in. Knobbs threw a bunch of nasty punches  to the side of Maxx's head, and Sags did the same. Maxx does his part by not shying away from them, so that's kinda neat. Hugh Morrus is junk, but he hit his moonsault pretty flush here and mostly stayed out of the way. Knobbs took a nice bump after getting posted by Maxx on the floor. So much like our opening tag, 4 guys I'd rather not watch a bunch, putting forth pretty decent stuff. I'm okay with this.

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Saturday Night 6/20/98

1. Yuji Nagata vs. Hardbody Harrison

Hardbody Harrison was like the least surprising sex trafficker in the history of sexual slavery. I'm assuming most people who watched WCW around this time just thought that he was working a "forced sexual slavery" gimmick. It was like Clay Aiken's interview announcing he was gay. I assume most people in attendance were expecting actual news, not something that everybody had known immediately when they first found out who Clay Aiken was. It would be like B.B. King holding a press conference to announce he has hypertension. All that aside, match itself was really fun. Nagata kicked a dirtbag around the ring and Harrison bumped around really nicely. That's pretty much all I wanted.

2. Van Hammer vs. Reese

This wasn't very good at all, but WCW's match structure made bad matches better than similar WWE bad matches. WWE matches are much slower paced and always have to feature a chinlock spot before the babyface starts his comeback. WCW lower card matches were usually just guys go-go-go for 3 minutes. So even if their offense wasn't very good, at least there wasn't much lying around building to a heatless comeback. You had guys rushing through spots and bad matches seemed more action-packed than they probably really were. I get the freakshow aspect of Reese and probably wanted him to be better than he was. It was stunning how bad Van Hammer looked here since he'd probably been wrestling 8+ years at this point.

3. Stevie Ray vs. Mike Tolbert

So this was better than it should have been. Maybe it looks better because it immediately followed a Van Hammer match. But Stevie Ray actually looked pretty decent here, with some nice elbow drops and big right hands. Mike Tolbert was not very good here, but I have a new weird appreciation for him after a recent Segunda Caida review drew some well-worded, humorous and most importantly informative criticism from a gay interest blog. I'm planning an actual response to the Mike Tolbert = mega hunk post, so I'll go into that more when I eventually write that. Tolbert is a green bodybuilder type who isn't very good at getting into position for things, so that results in some chinlocks with Stevie Ray trying to get him on track. The guy is not very good. But this was one of the better Stevie Ray performances (whatever that means).

There's a commercial for an N64 baseball video game and the player in the ad is Ken Caminiti. Phil is gonna have no clue what I'm talking about, but there is literally no more perfect baseball player to have during an ad featured on pro wrestling than Ken Caminiti. The ONE baseball player whose heart exploded due to steroid and drug use, and he's promoting a video game that's sponsoring a pro wrestling program. It is too 100% perfect. Ken Caminiti does pro wrestling better than most pro wrestling (including nailing the death spot).

4. Eddie Guerrero vs. Diamond Dallas Page

Really good fast-paced 6 minutes here. Eddie is maybe the wrestler I miss most (out of those that have died, not just retired). It's a treat watching him here as he hams it up with the crowd the whole time and challenges DDP to keep up, which DDP seems pretty game to do. There's a fun armdrag mirror sequence with Eddie stooging a bunch. Eddie bumps big for DDP and the crowd is way into both. Match ends with an awesome DDP powerbomb into Diamond Cutter and the crowd loses it. Surprised to see Eddie go down fairly easily, but DDP was becoming a pretty massive star at this point.

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