Loosely Formed 1998 WWF: The One Match Tom Brandi Push

Jesus Castillo vs. Tom Brandi WWF Shotgun 2/28

Here is the One Match 1998 Tom Brandi Push in all of its glory, and it's a surprisingly good match with constant focus on a man who would no longer be under contact one month later. If you watched this match and only this match, you would think we were smack damn in the middle of a Tom Brandi push. 

Tom Brandi gets a full ring entrance while Jesus is already waiting in the ring (with no other members of Los Boricuas at ringside). Who among us remembers the Tom Brandi Entrance Theme? Not this guy, but we get it here in full as he high fives his way to the ring while Michael Cole and Kevin Kelly talk about all the titles Brandi is sure to be challenging for. 

But this match is actually good, and incredibly fun. THIS is the high watermark of the Tom Brandi run, and I have no idea why he and Jesus have such great chemistry. The timing in this match was shockingly good, and Brandi had a couple of sequences that I've never seen him pull off before, let alone this well. 

Jesus brought most of the interesting stuff until the closing stretch, but Brandi was a great foil and his speed and timing played great off Jesus. Jesus does normal things in slightly different ways from anyone else, like when he elbowdrops Brandi in the stomach. How many times have you seen someone intentionally elbowdrop into a guy's stomach? He throws a chop block into the side of Brandi's knee instead of into the knee pit and drops more elbows onto the inside of the knee. 

Brandi takes a nice DDT, and his knee selling is surprisingly strong. His selling isn't dramatic or forgotten, he just works with a believable limp, in a way that still allows him to actually hit offense. Tom Brandi: Nuanced Salesman, is not a thing I've considered typing before. 

Bless Jesus H. Castillo and his sick shoulder-first bump in the corner, like Jun Izumida's flying meteor only jacking his own shoulder painfully into a turnbuckle. Jesus gets thrown up HIGH on a backdrop, and the little do-si-do sequence that leads to Tom Brandi's match finishing full nelson slam was actually great.  

Do I need to watch the 10 minute Undertaker/Salvatore Sincere match? What a weird ass looking match. What the hell were they doing in 1996? Mostly unexplored era for me. 

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Dirtbag Barry Windham, Slumming It with Tom Brandi

Barry Windham vs. Tom Brandi WWF Shotgun 2/21/98

ER: This is the Company Man era of Dirtbag Windham, as his thick blonde hair is now long enough to stay slicked back and his black trunks now have "NWA" across the butt in white letters. He's still wearing the leather vest of a wrestler from Texas, but he's cleaning up. I really like heel Barry when he acts all chummy, just hanging with the boys and cheapshotting and playing innocent. As he's circling Brandi at the start of the match, he throws out a low 5 to Robert Gibson on the floor. So fucking cool. This was a really fun scrap, with Brandi throwing a lot of punches and Windham pushing pace and then backing off and then pushing pace again. Brandi's standing punches looked surprisingly good, but they're more exposed when he's throwing 10 count punches in the corner or mounted punches on the mat. When you see him throw from a standing position, he has nice form. When you see him punch from any other position, you see that he only moves his arm, and has no follow through with the rest of his body. Your body needs to react to you punching someone too. Striking a fine pose on a standing punch is one thing, but you need more movement on a mounted punch because it's all you, your opponent can't physically react to the punch as much because he's on the mat. 

Windham took a big high backdrop bump after backing Brandi into a corner and slapping him, so great at playing the larger more imposing man who also cheats and then runs directly into trouble. Windham might have *looked* out of shape in this era but he moved with quick approach speed, so he's good at running into bumps and doing last second dodging. A nice dodge sends Brandi into the ringpost, and there was some great stuff around the Rock n Rolls holding Brandi so Jarrett could show off his punches. This weirdly felt like one of our best Tom Brandi performances, which isn't actually a thing anyone was going out of their way too look for, but it's probably the best I've seen him look. He had to play off several moving parts with the NWA standing all around the ring, and I guess that might not be as difficult when all 5 guys you're playing off (Rock n Rolls, Jarrett, Windham, Cornette) all have elite wrestling timing, but still. Barry has a nice high back suplex and a really great vertical suplex that looked like 1988 Windham. The finish was cool, with Brandi punching Ricky and Robert off the apron (each taking their own big bumps to the floor, quite obvious in retrospect how much they were busting ass during their weird late WWF run) and then getting held up a bit by Jarrett, Windham instantly setting up a lariat off the opposite side ropes. Windham and Brandi worked a week of house show matches a couple weeks after this match, and I don't think I've ever wished someone had taken Tom Brandi handhelds until now. This match was only a few minutes, and a Windham/Brandi house show match with twice as much time could be really good. 1998 house shows in general have a lot of great matches that never got worked on TV, but at least we got the bones of this one. 

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