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

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

Evan Karagias vs. Norman Smiley

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

Jesus, poor Danny Hodge is in attendance. 

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

Booker vs. The Wall

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

Barbarian vs. Tank Abbott

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

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

I Quit: Terry Funk vs. David Flair

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

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

Disco Inferno vs. Stevie Ray 

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

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Brian Knobbs

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

Billy Kidman vs. The Demon

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

Sid Vicious vs. Scott Hall

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


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

Read more!

New Footage Friday: FUNK! BOCK! ALLMARK! GALLAGHER! TANK ABBOTT?!? BOB SAPP?!?

Terry Funk vs. Nick Bockwinkel AJPW 7/12/83

MD: As new footage goes, this isn't as major a discovery as it looks. We had this match pro-shot with commentary, but missing the first few minutes. This gives us a HH version from a different angle with much better crowd noise and a few of those first few minutes of actual action (including a much better listen to Bockwinkel's Bill Murray lounge style Star Wars theme), but then misses a few minutes of great matwork has other, smaller cuts on longer holds throughout.

I still pushed for it for NFF because it's a match I've always loved with two of my favorite wrestlers and because it's a great match to signify that my first post for Segunda Caida was 6 years ago this week. I was really looking for both an outlet then and for a way to keep myself honest and focused on lucha specifically, since I had struggled with working out the ins and outs of the DVDVR set. I couldn't have been happier how that worked out (even if yeah, we're mourning the loss of Cubs' channel this week). In the last few years, starting with the release of the Houston Footage, but then with the weekly WWE Hidden Gems, and Japanese handhelds, big German releases, and now the French Catch collection, it's been just great to scour the net and to unearth and bring this stuff to people's attention. I'm less focused on modern wrestling than Phil and Eric who manage to watch everything that comes their way, but between Tuesday and Friday, I am watching six+ matches a week and having a blast. So thanks to them for letting me be part of this place.

Enough of that; on to the match. I watched this side by side with the pro-shot footage and that's always interesting. This was part of Funk's first retirement run and part of the benefit of the HH is that you see a clear shot of both of them throughout the entire match. While close-ups are good, Funk and Bock stand out compared to almost every other wrestler ever in that you want to see them every moment of a match. They are always acting and reacting. I don't think there's anyone in wrestling history better at portraying his emotions during a moment of advantage than Bockwinkel. A lot of wrestlers barely even try. With Bock, it's the elation and struggle of every single hold. Likewise, no one sells like Funk, especially in this early 80s AJPW setting. That's how he got over there despite being an American in an environment where the foreigners were all heels. He had a willingness, an utter fearlessness, to be vulnerable but resilient. Name another wrestler of this era in this place that would, even in victory, limp his way to the back. Without the announcing, with nothing but raw crowd noise, you can hear the crowd chanting his name, hear them get behind his comebacks. You can feel the energy and the adulation. There are so few matches between these two on tape but in some ways they are the perfect counterparts for one another, two perfectly engaged wrestlers who are able to thereby engage with one another, able to create a sum that is greater than even their incalculably lofty parts.

PAS: 70s and 80s title match wrestling is a style I am pretty much over, it's the reason I have very little interest in revisiting Jumbo matches. These are two guys which can add enough interesting things to a match to get me into a style I am not excited to see. All of the matwork was solid stuff with Bock trying to hold the spastic Funk down, with Terry spinning out and taking different angles then you might expect. Though the knee work was solid stuff which Funk sold great, and the fight on the apron near the end was a real highlight. This was the equivalent of some cool character actor performances in an otherwise standard movie.

ER: Let me say that I could not be happier with what Matt has brought to Segunda Caida over the years, and I can't believe it's been 6 years. I love the match structure analysis that he brings and I'm pretty sure he points something out that I didn't notice in every single post he writes. He's awesome, and this match was awesome. I'm really glad he pushed for it as it's a match up between two legends that I don't think I've ever seen before. I don't think of these two as opponents and I certainly can't recall ever seeing them in a singles match. But I loved it, muga minimalism at its finest, with every headlock and knee attack executed with snug realism. Bockwinkel's knee attacks came off really cruel, and part of that was Funk's less-grandstanding-than-normal selling. Funk still managed to flop around the ring and ringside (throwing himself into the guardrail right in front of the announce table) and continued to prove that it is an impossible feat to throw one individual streamer out of a wrestling ring. I loved how aggressive Funk was with a single leg takedown, and the way Bock punished that knee, dropping his own knee on it hard and peaking at the finish where he was throwing brutal shots that looked like he was trying to dissect Funk's MCL with fists. They did a lot of really cool stuff in the ropes (Funk is always good at flopping around on ropes) and Bockwinkel takes a nice bump to the floor that I assume leads to the Count Out. Again, I'm pretty positive I've never seen these two cross paths, and I absolutely loved it.


Bob Sapp/Stone Mountain vs. Kevin Northcutt/Tank Abbott NWA Wildside 12/14/00

PAS: Man I have no idea how Cornelia feds were always able to find such huge dudes. Both Stone Mountain and Kevin Northcutt looked to be of comparable size to Bob Sapp and Tank actually looked small. This was a tag with two guys who were basically untrained, but Sapp and Tank both had an entertaining awkwardness, shots would either miss or land way too hard. I really liked Tank's body shots, he seemed to really lay those in and that must have really sucked. Northcutt had a nice crescent kick, although other stuff looked odd. Sapp has an undeniable ring presence, and in a different world would have been a huge wrestling star. I can imagine if WCW didn't go out of business Sapp vs. Goldberg would have been a supernova. Nifty look at an all time WAR level weirdo tag and good to see that Bill Beherns is uploading Wildside to youtube again.

MD: This was pretty fascinating, I suppose. You're here to see Abbot and Sapp in the same ring, and you do for a bit, and it's probably the best part of the match, and it's really just Abbot taking a powder on the outside and stalling. It's hard not to like that because the dissonance of toughman Tank Abbot playing Larry Z. Playing against expectations is good heel wrestling. He was playing Harley Race in a tag match in Japan here; whenever he got in, his side lost control. Sapp obviously wasn't there yet but you still couldn't look away from him. The guy was so big and so exuberant that his muscles were somehow able to get in the way of his own clotheslines. I don't know what to say about Northcutt. I liked his energy slamming guys into the corner. Less so his strikes once he got them there. He could do a slingshot flipping senton into the ring. You get the sense that he and Stone Mountain could have an ok singles match, but it's not exactly one I'd go out of my way for.

ER: Man, give me a pro wrestling match like this every week and I will be a happy man. Wildside was such a great indy, something that holds up as still ahead of its time today. But a match like this will draw my full attention no matter where or when it happened. When the amount of mass in a ring is SO RADICAL that TANK ABBOTT comparatively looks like a tiny little junior. Any fed that throws Green Giants in the ring with any number of shoot fighters is a fed that I will support and a match that I will desperately seek out. The best part of shoot fighters in a wrestling match is the shots that land way harder than they should, and Tank threw a couple shots to the back of Stone Mountain's head that didn't look purposely unprofessional, just accidentally unprofessional. And the Accidental Unprofessionalism is the kind of thing that makes a match like this brilliant. It's the same reason someone like Sean McCully is so endlessly watchable in early Zero-1. That combination of "yeah I'm an athlete but I've never done this before but sure I'll try it!" that always leads to someone taking a super dangerous bump to the floor or accidentally punching a guy in the throat.

Kevin Northcutt was a guy who showed up in dying days WCW syndication that I thought had a ton of potential, and even here he threw an awesome kneedrop to Stone Mountain's temple and some great shots to the body throughout. Stone Mountain was clearly the greenest guy in the match, but his leaping elbowdrop looked fantastic, and that's probably because he just leaped up and dropped his full weight behind an elbowdrop. And that's precisely the kind of thing I WANT to see from a match like this, precisely the kind of untrained wildness I want. And then we get it again when Bob Sapp drops his tremendously large dome down in a killer falling headbutt, and snaps off an effortless powerslam. If I had the choice of seeing a match like this or a previously unseen Flair/Steamboat match, I'm going to choose a match like this every single damn time.


87. Jack Gallagher vs. Dean Allmark NGW 9/14/14

PAS: Really nifty juniors match between two of the best 21st century British wrestlers. We start with some WOS matwork, and this is something that these two guys do much better then most of the British indy guys. It doesn't feel like a pair of a guys slowly going through dance choreography but incorporating that stuff in an actual wrestling match. My favorite spot of the whole match was probably Allmark's simple single leg takedown, which he landed with real velocity and force. The finish is a bit wonky with Gallagher arguing with the ref only to get smashed with a superkick. There was some big moves near the end of this match that would have been better finishes. Still this was good stuff.

MD: Fun thematic inversion of the Funk/Bock match as this one has had a handheld out there for a few years but now we get to have a pro shot version. This was a ten minute TV-style match as part of the Davey Boy Smith cup tournament. Very back and forth but everything was good. Gallagher isn't a big guy and doesn't have a huge palette to work with but he's great at changing up his look in interesting and iconic ways. They didn't have a lot of time to tell a story, especially considering how evenly this was worked, so it was down to the counters (and repetition, like how Gallagher went through the legs on an escape once but got caught the second time later; little things like that) and how they engaged the crowd. Allmark was quick to appeal to them or to try to get a clap going while Gallagher was delightfully smarmy, mocking Allmark while shaking his hand, clapping his own hand with Allmark's while he had him in a hold, etc. They tried plenty of tricked out chain wrestling flourishes and a few rope running spots and everything seemed pretty smooth and not too cooperative. They set things up for the finish and had a few good near falls but I would have liked this to have more time so Gallagher could control longer and Allmark's comeback would mean more.

ER: This was about the smartest way to work a quick 50/50 TV match, as both guys got to fit a ton of cool stuff into an short overall runtime, without ever feeling like either guy was shrugging something off to get their own stuff in. Gallagher wasn't on my radar until about a year after this match (even though he'd been a 10 year vet by that point, it's hard to keep tabs on EVERY wrestler) and I fully agree with Phil that these are likely my two favorite modern WOS guys. There's so much flash they do that is much more than merely flash, and even the slickest sequence felt like it had purpose. I loved things like Allmark trapping Gallagher's arms before popping off a straight Rockette kick to the chin, or knocking out Gallagher's legs to plausibly trap him in the ropes long enough to stomp on his neck and snapmare him off the turnbuckles. One of my favorite things about Gallagher is that he's so consistently good about making each individual piece of offense count, so that even though he's working from the same offensive toolbag each match, he's not just going through rote sequences. He mixes his offense differently into matches, so things like his massive corner dropkick always come off as a surprise and keeps it a finisher-level move. The early matwork in this was good enough to write up, but I love how the bumped it up into exciting juniors wrestling, with a big bump to the floor and actual quality nearfalls (at least three things down the stretch could have been finishes). I thought the finish was done well for that finish, as Gallagher wasn't overtly turning his back to Allmark while arguing with the ref, and it just showed that only a couple of seconds was enough for Allmark to take advantage with a nasty superkick.


2014 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

Mini Complete & Accurate: David Arquette, So Far

So somehow, this is the 3,000th post in the history of Segunda Caida. I wish I was more prepared to provide statistics as that feels like a fairly major and improbable milestone, but here we are. The wrestler we have written about the most is Negro Casas. That feels about right. But there are many wrestlers we haven't written about at all, so I wanted to pick one of those for our 3,000th. I went with a guy whose comeback is just about as improbable as us writing 3,000 different blog posts. For a guy with a career spanning almost 20 years, you could say that David Arquette has had some pretty wide gaps in his career, and I don't actually think I've seen any of his wrestling appearances. He feels like a guy who deserves some digital ink on the pages of Segunda Caida, and when we hit 6,000 posts I can then cover the rest of his career from 2019-2026.

David Arquette vs. Eric Bischoff  WCW Nitro 4/24/00

ER: This is some first class bullshit right here, with several people getting involved in a 3 minute match, but everyone working stiff. Stiff work will make bullshit succeed. Arquette comes out and visually looks very year 2000, wearing tight black vinyl pants and a black mesh top as if he were heading out to a Sisters of Mercy concert after the show, and just in case we didn't know we were smack dab in the shittiest fashion period, he's got a crushed velvet button up shirt over it. Year 2000 fashion was all about being futuristic, and apparently fashion's idea of the future was that everybody was going to be producing skateboarder pornography on a space station. Bischoff throws some decent kicks and stomps Arquette in the collarbones, but then starts gloating, allowing Arquette to rush him and blast him with an awesome spear. And then the match lifts off to entirely different stratosphere, as Arquette hops around on one leg to get into position for The Worm. The crowd erupts and it's hilarious seeing the super popular goofus move of a guy on the other brand get the biggest reaction of the evening. Except this is flat out even MORE incredible because Arquette doesn't seem to actually know how to do the worm, and whips his face hard into the mat TWICE before dropping a great elbow. He seriously whipped his own face right into the mat, the first time enough to make me go "oh MAN he just hit his face!" and he kinda shakes his head a little...before doing it twice as hard on the second dip. Legendary status. Oh, and remember when I said people get involved? Yeah. Jeff Jarrett yanks ref Slick Johnson out during the probably pinfall, DDP tries to clothesline Jarrett (you see because earlier in the show Kimberly Page had presented DDP with divorce papers, so she was also out here) but Jarrett moved and DDP just decked ref Slick Johnson with an awesome lariat to the side of his neck, and then Jarrett nails DDP with an actual hard shot with the World title. Bischoff recovers and punches Arquette in the balls, then holds him for JJ to hit with a guitar, but you know Bischoff eats that guitar shot. And then, because the ring was not littered with enough people at this point, Kanyon runs out and throws some stiff punches on Jarrett, clearing the way for Arquette to win. This whole segment had an extremely rare combination of genuine excitement, high energy, and true idiocy.

David Arquette/Diamond Dallas Page vs. Eric Bischoff/Jeff Jarrett  WCW Thunder 4/25/00

ER: This is similarly overbooked as the first Arquette match, with Kimberly as the heel ref and naturally Jarrett's World Title on the line. Arquette and Bischoff brawl to the back right away, Bischoff eating decent shots into the guardrail, Arquette throwing weird but effective full swinging arm strikes to Bischoff's back. DDP and Jarrett work a more normal match, with only Kimberly's slow/fast counts making it feel out of the ordinary. '99/'00 DDP was really great, a wrestler who should probably have more written about him at some point, and he's awesome here throwing big punches (way better punches than any of us remember DDP having), a cool sitout powerbomb, works a nice nearfall kickout, and of course JJ only really gets openings when DDP starts arguing with Kimberly. Bischoff comes back out dusting off his hands, and he and JJ pick apart DDP. Bischoff - unintentionally or not - was a great stooge striker, because he was a "karate tournament champ" who somehow managed to stumble after every single strike he ever threw. Arquette makes his triumphant return hobbling down the ramp, selling injured ribs, and gives Eric another great spear for the World Title victory. And to his credit, Tony Schiavone gives an actual tremendous call of the title win, really hits all the notes you'd need someone to hit in this kind of ridiculous situation. And it's weird that WWE doesn't seem to have this match on the Network in any form. You'd think they'd at minimum want to point and laugh and pretend they never made similarly bad decisions.

David Arquette vs. Tank Abbott  WCW Nitro 5/1/00

ER: Nitro actually opens with a GREAT segment featuring Courtney Cox yelling at her husband to cut this wrestling business the hell out:

Arquette: "I just wish the belt fit a little better."
Cox: "Yeah, you know why it doesn't? Because you're NOT. A. WRESTLER!!"
Arquette: "Babe, that's no way to talk to the HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE WORLD!"
Cox: "Oh good god."

Arquette goes through like 7 costume changes during this episode. He was wearing something entirely different in every single segment he was in. No overlap. New awful pants, new awful shirt, every single time they cut to him. It was amazing. For his actual match he is wearing white wrestling boots with red and gold lighting bolts and blue stars (great looking wrestling boots, actually), brown and tan rider pants tucked into those boots, and a sequined forest green button up nudie suit shirt. Abbott manhandles Arquette, slamming him backwards into the buckles after Arquette jumped on his back, and hitting a big double leg slam. Arquette goes for his big spear but Abbott totally brick walls him. Abbott shoves the ref which allows DDP to run down for a Diamond Cutter. WCW hilarious shows Tank standing in the ring waiting for DDP to get there for 30 seconds, then cuts backstage to Bischoff so entirely misses the Diamond Cutter. DDP drags Arquette's carcass onto Abbott, but the ref is still KO'd forever, so Arquette is just stuck in time for eternity with his arm and hand draped across Tank Abbot's heaving bare belly.

Ready to Rumble Cage Match: David Arquette vs. Diamond Dallas Page vs. Jeff Jarrett  WCW Slamboree 5/7/00

ER: I've never seen this match, but it is an actually matched which was talked up as a miracle match at the time. The triple cage looks impressively absurd, and they eat up a good 5 minutes lowering the cage to the floor, shooting off tons of sparks as each part locked into place. Quite the amazing bloated bullshit show. Arquette is wearing a red and silver bellbottom suit like Vegas Elvis, but it's got these wild red vinyl lightning bolt suspenders that makes him more look like he's playing bass in Sweet. And this whole match looks incredibly dangerous but did make it genuinely seem like a big deal. This felt like the most dangerous version of a 90s Nickelodeon game show. Arquette doesn't really get involved in any of the action, more just used as a moving prop around the match long DDP/Jarrett fight. You have to actually go up through each level of the cage to get the title hanging at the very top of the arena, and there are weapons in the middle cage, and to climb to the top cage you have to be outside the cage standing on the middle cage. What the fuck you guys. Jarrett and DDP each blade and get good color, the weapon shots all look suitably violent and the brawling is good in a messy way. We get a lot of great, unique visuals when they get to the middle cage, as the brawl around on the outside of it, do a Dundee type spots where Jarrett gets hit and leans way off the cage while only holding on to a support cable; there's an awesome visual when DDP and Jarrett go crashing through the wall of the middle cage, filmed straight on so both of them came crashing at us, looking like they were going to fly right off the edge of the cage. Arquette gets involved after being not shown for a long time, and scrambles up and past everyone to get to the top of the cage first. He doesn't grab the title and instead waits until both JJ and DDP are climbing up to him...and Arquette turns on DDP to let Jarrett win the title, hitting him off the cage to the next level. I have no idea how I didn't expect Arquette to turn even while I was explaining to Rachel just how frequently people turned in this era. And to cap off this PPV, Kanyon runs out to attack Mike Awesome on top of the cage...and Kanyon takes a freaking insane flip bump, getting tossed off the cage and crashing splat dab in the middle of the entrance ramp. This was an honest to god lunatic, movie level stunt, a stunt that would look just as crazy if done in an actual movie. It was a Spiro Razatos level bump, completing insane. Schiavone does a great flip out as Kanyon lies motionless and the slightly caved in rampway, "We can't go off the air like this!" My god so many things could have gone horribly wrong on that bump.

David Arquette/Alex Riley vs. Randy Orton  WWE Raw 12/13/10

ER: Arquette is out in a full American flag stars and stripes karate gi to go with his brown belt, and is mostly on the apron during this match. He's really fun on the apron though, locking on a full arm choke on Orton at one point. His only match involvement is coming in and hitting an almost Bret Hart diving elbow on Orton, which Orton stand right up from. Alex Riley, who is not as relevant to 2018 pro wrestling as his partner, looks pretty good here; he has surprisingly good grounded punches and cuts low on a lariat, really making Orton duck as he ran off the ropes. In a match with David Arquette, it's notable that Riley is also the one who gets pinned. Miz and Arquette jump Orton after the match and a table gets involved, and Arquette gets powerbombed through it while Lawler makes fun of Ready to Rumble 11 years later.

David Arquette/RJ City vs. James Ellsworth/Frank the Clown  Warrior Wrestling 9/2/18

ER: I am unsure who RJ City is, but he and Arquette have matching tights. Frank the Clown is a guy who I've avoided until now, who apparently shot his shot from full court and landed Noelle Foley. Ellsworth has a really nice showing here, knowing exactly how to work Arquette into the match, throws some nice straight rights, works from the apron (including a great leveraged choke on Arquette at one point). We build to Arquette calling for the Diamond Cutter, which is nice to know that relationship has maintained itself over 18 years, and eventually he plants Ellsworth with it (who takes a great celebrity cutter), and then hits a big flying elbow drop onto Frank. After the match Arquette does a dive off the top onto everybody.

And tomorrow, we *just* might have ONE MORE Arquette match review. For now...

Read more!