RIP Virgil: A Weekend With Vincent

For the last 2+ years I've spent every day writing a book painstakingly reviewing every single match that took place in 1997 WCW. One of many guys making this project worth continuing has been Vincent's work as the nWo's Enforcer, the man stationed to the front lines who doesn't actually realized he's the weakest link of the coolest gang. It's a great role made greater by everything that Vincent brings to it. Here are two classic nWo Vincent performances from a summer weekend of 1997 WCW TV. These are the first two WCW reviews I've posted publicly on Segunda Caida since starting the book, and it feels Correct that my first full preview of what my WCW book will be like is to honor Vincent. A Real Character. 

Each match is under 2 minutes and showcase Vincent's incredible charm. His ability to act cool without realizing he's not. I don't think anyone actually did it better. 

DDP vs. Vincent WCW Saturday Night 8/9/97

The story goes that Charles Wright was the guy in line to get Vincent's eventual spot in the nWo, but seeing the perfect way Vincent embodies his Lowest on the nWo Totem Pole Role, I really can't visualize what The Godfather's place would have been. Vincent's role was an important one. A wrestling stable of a certain size needs a clear weak gazelle, a man there to take bumps that the higher ups won't take and stare up at lights the higher ups will never see. Without Vincent, the nWo might be more formidable, but I'm not sure how it would work. Would Wright and Norton have teamed instead of Norton and Bagwell, and would Bagwell have in turn wound up as the nWo Vincent? I'm not sure if that's better, because Buff really thrives in Vicious & Delicious in ways that I don't think Kama The Extreme Fighting Machine would have. Vincent is too damn good at being exactly what he should be in the nWo and to the nWo that the other ways just don't make sense. Adding one guy to the bottom makes the whole group better. 

Who else in the nWo would have been pinned by DDP on a Saturday Night, taking 30 seconds of a 90 second match to even lock up, reacting visually to the boos of the crowd and even flinching at DDP's BANG? Vincent spends the match making a beeline for the ropes any time DDP locked in a slight advantage (which was every time contact was made), sticking his body through the ropes to make the ref back DDP up, DDP kicking him in the ass while Vincent's torso is halfway out of the ring and those tight Guess jeans are framing his perfect set inside the ring. When Vincent finally steps to DDP he walks right into an elbow smash and jabs, a big kick to the stomach. His knees are turned to a fine powder with DDP's pancake piledriver, a move I'm surprised more guys didn't just refuse to take. Vincent takes the Diamondcutter like he was writing a manual for 2009 Christian. Heaven needed a champion, and the nWo needed a Vincent. 

The Giant vs. Vincent WCW Pro 8/10/97

This is incredible. This is the moment. And I fully understand why the cameras cut away from this moment, but whomever chose to  do what, it was incredible. Upon entering the ring Vincent attempts to "roll" in over the top. He doesn't attempt to enter the ring like Solar with any kind of beautiful arc, but more like a guy skinning the cat into the ring. Rolling over the top, casually. Smoothly. Except Vincent, upon holding the top rope and rolling in, clearly gets hung up between the middle and top ropes, and so the camera cuts away for several seconds. When they cut back Vincent is only just getting himself untangled from the ropes. This man rolled into the ring and got hung up in the ropes like they were made of fly paper, then stood up and walked to the center of the ring like a man who didn't just loudly shit his pants while stepping into a room where all eyes were on him, casually removing his sunglasses with the biggest smile on his face. 

I hold firm to my belief that Vincent knows exactly what character he is playing, knows his exact role on the entire roster hierarchy, and perfectly understands that he is the man who needs to act untouchably cool while also stepping on any possible rake in sight. For all we know, the camera cut was only unfortunate timing, and Vincent was actually intentionally lying across the middle rope, in the same way Jeff Jarrett lies across the ropes in the corner to taunt his opponent. But I choose to believe that Vincent was hung up in those ropes like he was caught in a tuna net, and that he 100% knew exactly what he was doing, and fully understood his role as a guy who thinks he's cool and has no actual idea that he is not, but would also do whatever it took to maintain his status as the least cool guy in the Cool Guy stable. 

Getting stuck in the ropes was only the beginning of Vincent's brilliant Zero Offense performance, as the cool guy getting into the ring in the least cool way possible then tries his damndest to stay physically away from The Giant. He avoids contact as long as possible and is scared the entire time he's in the ring, and it's all perfect. He at first acts like he's merely circling behind Mark Curtis while circling the Giant with good intentions, but then he Hey Buddy claps Curtis on the back the way a stranger would when he was about to force a man into doing an unexpected illegal favor. A man passes you on the street and gives you a head not and a shoulder clap, suddenly you find yourself as a human shield. As Vincent fully hides behind Mark Curtis in the corner, Curtis - a human shield who was in no real danger - looked like he had no idea Vincent would be holding him as a shield for so long, and looked to actually be trying to wriggle away so Vincent could take his medicine. And Vincent is that, a child trying to not take medicine. 

He takes comic flat back bumps when he gets thrown to his back and headbutted, gets kicked in the ass when stumbling away, dragged back into the ring as he was trying to frantically army crawl the floor on his stomach. His crossbody is caught, and Giant's backbreaker is among his most backbreaking, even though his insistence on keeping his hands balled into fists while clutching Vincent -  instead of gripping Vincent's back and balls with full increased pituitarily outstretched hands - shows he is a Giant who feels shame and is no wild giant at all. He has the restraint of modern man's guilt showing through those balled fists, and it is a tell that all of Universal Studios can read. Were they to meet an actual Forest Giant, they all know that beast would have no problem gripping them squarely by the ass and genitals for any reason, and now they all know The Giant is no beast, but simply a large man who has been sadly touched by mankind's insistence on feeling shame. Imagine The Giant asking someone which ear is "the gay ear". Sad. 

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WCW Saturday Night 4/10/99

This felt like kismet. I made a sazerac and pulled a complete random disc of WCW out of the stack, and I pulled an episode almost 20 years ago to the date. Out of the couple hundreds of episodes I could have snagged, I get one with a near perfect round number anniversary. My mood is always up when I crank up some 90s WCW, but this feels like a Close Encounters level sign. This episode is guaranteed to rule.

Rick Steiner vs. Fit Finlay

ER: What did I say!? Finlay vs. a Steiner motherfucker! Send these two out to lead off an episode? I'm totally fine with that. It's predictably great, and it's a treat to watch Finlay eat more of a beating than beat up a junior. Finlay is a guy really great at putting over offense but his syndicated matches are most often him dishing the beating. Steiner hits a great lariat, and a fun powerbomb with Finlay holding onto the ropes to try to escape but just getting lifted and dropped. Finlay even eats a nasty hot shot on the guardrail, really crashes down onto it. And obviously Finlay isn't going to be eating a beating the *entire* match, so his makes the strikes count on his comebacks. He's going to hit some full force uppercuts and this is going to rule. What a predictably great start to things.

Norman Smiley vs. The Cat

ER: Six frat guys in the crowd are wearing no shirts and have SMILEY spelled out individually across their chests. Smiley was "men painting on their bodies in adoration" level. And this was a weirdly good bad match. I’ve never been very high on the Cat, although I know he has his fans. Sometimes you get Cat where his strikes look like they land, other times you get a bunch of really pulled sidekicks. Here we got a mix of that, so he’d crack Smiley in the jaw with a low kick, but then later hit a soft kick to the side, but then later he’d hook a crescent kick under the chin. Smiley’s offense looked great consistently throughout, so it was tough seeing him throw out some cool stuff and have Cat only half return the favor. Smiley always has a surprise, and we got classics like his awesome rollercoaster bodyslam, but he also used a trippy escape to get out of a waistlock and tossed out a couple of neat armdrags. We got Sonny Onto interference, things kept threatening to get real good - and then they would get real good - and then they’d go a little soft. Weird match, but felt like Smiley was a good opponent for Cat. Really if they tightened up a couple of hinges in this one, it would have delivered.

Juvy comes out with a tallish guy dressed as Konnan (complete with top buttoned flannel) wearing a Mil Mascaras match, billed as La Cucaracha. Juvy acts as Cucracha’s translator, with the masked man (definitely not Disco Inferno) whispering into Juvy’s ear and having Juvy say things like “This is definitely not Disco Inferno” and “This is a guy who can definitely beat Konnan”. Juvy wasn’t working overtly cocky heel like his excellent Juice run later in the year, he was playing it all more coy. Konnan comes out and does his catchphrases, but does drop a real nice G rated diss, which is a special skill to use and not sound silly (like a Nitro where Hogan said “Fe Fi Fo Fum, the Giant is a big dum dum”. It was fucking brutal.). He makes fun of Juvy’s promo and said nobody could understand him, and then says:

"Your English is as good as La Cucaracha’s Spanish which is as good as Disco Inferno’s wrestling”

It’s not mean, but like I said it’s a quality G rated diss. We get a not very good impromptu match and Konnan unmasks Disco. Fans got into the match portion, really wanted Disco humiliated. It’s an impressive reaction for an upcoming match that I hope I never see,

Barbarian/Hugh Morrus vs. Meng/Jerry Flynn

ER: I could have guessed these four matching up, but I don’t recall the Faces of Fear splitting up. Was this some pre-Russo “split up two regular-to-semi-regular teams and have them switch alliances and feud” thing? Definitely seen a tag with these guys, but haven’t seen it with the established teams scrambled. This is definitely a feud I don’t remember but damn was it great here. This is falls count anywhere and they work 80% of the match on the floor and in the aisle way, and they build it really great to peak it at what fans want to see. This whole thing goes barely 6 minutes, but it’s laid out flawlessly. We start with Flynn/Barbarian and Meng/Morrus pairings, both pairs brawling around the ring, and it’s all engaging stuff, but they knew just went to splinter off into the money pairing of Meng/Barbarian and Flynn/Morrus. It’s a trip seeing Meng and Barbarian go at it, but it’s a trip people want to take. When they splinter back to original pairings that’s when we up the fan factor by getting Jimmy Hart involved. Hart draws the incredible task of jumping Meng, and Hart actually starts kicking at Meng! Meng grabs Jimmy Hart by the fucking head…..

and the camera cuts away. It cuts away to Flynn and Barbarian who are literally just locked in a collar and elbow. It stays on them. Eventually we see Meng walk into frame and we realize that whatever Meng did to Hart was long over and long off camera. This was a porn producer missing the money shot because he was opting for a lingering still frame of the bedside table. Somebody should have been red-faced screamed at for this error. Unforgivable. We get a couple nice bumps into the ring steps (Flynn really flies into them), Meng hits a nice low blow on Morrus AND a really high leap standing dropkick, Flynn gets backdropped into a brutal Barbarian powerbomb (can't believe we got that spot!) and we get an awesome extended Hart chase after the match. Hart got involved again and does an incredible sequence running away from Meng and Flynn, working some amazing shtick and getting an actual loud laugh for me when he escapes down the aisle….but the pod bay doors on the Saturday Night set aren’t open! So we get the genuinely hilarious shot of Hart banging on the doors to be let in before Meng and Flynn catch him. Great segment to end a show on.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

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Dirty Dick vs. Slick Ric: 1996 Syndie Series

Our buddy TomK found an odd two match Syndicated Series of these two matching up in 1996. It is a classic WCW 90s puzzler. It's heel vs. heel, totally random and pretty fun.

Dick Slater vs. Ric Flair WCWSN 3/27/96 (Aired 3/30/96)

PAS: This was a World Title match, Slater's first World Title match since he worked a house show series of Texas Death Matches against Flair in 1989 (CageMatch is the best). This was heel vs. heel with Flair accompanied by Miss Elizabeth and Slater by Col. Parker. This was brawling Flair mostly with a lot of chops and his fun downward punches, and he gives Slater a bunch of offense. Finish was a classic piece of horseshit: Elizabeth tells Parker that Woman wants to see him in the back and he struts to the back in full Robert Parker mode, Woman is tremendous as a soap opera temptress, asking Parker if his ring was really Elvis's ring. While Parker is in the back ready to pull it out, Flair rolls up Slater and puts his feet on the ropes for the pin. No idea why this match happened, no idea why they ran such a goofus angle around the finish, but it was totally great stuff.

ER: I loved Schiavone calling this match like Slater had a genuine shot at the title, and I like Flair in control mode with a guy with some clout. It's fun because Flair would come on the B shows and work stooging matches against guys like Joey Maggs or JL, but then brawl like a heavy with someone like Slater. We get some cool Flair punch angles that we don't often see, like his cool right uppercut that he rarely throws. Sadly we get a weird clip in the middle, not sure how Slater got Flair into the figure 4, but we get an awesome moment with Slater fighting for a backslide for a good 2 count. It looked like something Slater specifically did to make it more dramatic, just act like it's tough to hook Flair into it and then fight it over. We see so much slick execution these days that seeing a guy milk a backslide is just incredibly satisfying. Slater takes a nice bump to the floor and a nice heavy backdrop, and that finish was definitely a Col. Parker-specific WCW finish. I don't think there was another non-wrestler during this era of WCW who got more camera time during matches. At this point when I see one of Parker's boys is in a WCW match I just assume we'll get a few long shots of him being distracted by a wily female. They at least go to a split screen while he's getting conned by Woman (I've seen several matches where they just cut away from a match to see Parker trying to get his dungus wet), and I loved Slater flipping out on him after the loss, but you have Parker as your manager and you know that snake is gonna bite you occasionally. Not intentional Parker/snake reference.

Dick Slater vs. Ric Flair WCW Pro 5/11/96

ER: This is a much more complete match than their prior encounter and had a constant back and forth, with Slater reeling from hard Flair knife edges and throwing some nice punches back, and Slater trying to out-Flair Flair and work the leg by yanking it and locking in spinning toe holds. We get Woman likely driving ringside males crazy with interference while wearing a 90s gothy minidress, looking like if you took all of the hottest qualities from every girl in The Craft. Chris Cruise talks about how hobbled Slater is after 20 years as a wrestler, doing a nice job of building a little sympathy for the guy, and we get plenty of cool moments like Slater kicking Flair in the face from the apron with his cowboy boots, or Flair really planting his knee on a missed kneedrop. Finish was nicely set up by everyone throughout the match, as Slater goes back to the spinning toe hold but leans his face in too close and gets poked in the eye by Dirty Ric, then popped with a weapon from Flair's trunks. I dug how the announce crew was talking about how this match would be a battle over who was the dirtiest player, sounds like a fun weekend show title they could have changed hands a few times.

PAS: I don't really remember seeing Flair work this kind of hide the object match before and it was a fun finish. I love how this was sold like a series, with Dusty mentioning the WCWSN match, and how this was a battle to see who was the dirtiest player in the game. Slater worked this more like a babyface, not really cheating but brawling and taking it to Flair, often preempting Flair's attacks, catching him up on top and blocking his punches. Flair was full heel and had Woman interfere and eventually won with a knucks shot. I feel like a face Stud Stable versus heel Horseman feud could have been awesome and this was a little taste of that.

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Complete and Accurate WCW B-Sides

Syndicated WCW is my anytime mood brightener, my absolutely favorite wrestling to watch and absorb. Gassed up Power Plant guys, one off appearances, matches from guys you didn't know were under contract, theme park tourist fans in a rolling sea of white shirts, just the easiest to digest wrestling ever. This will cover the syndicated programming airing during the Nitro era, but I may expand that with no warning whatsoever.

WCW Worldwide

4/9/95
4/16/95
10/1/95
10/8/95
11/5/95
11/19/95
12/10/95

6/23/96
6/30/96
8/4/96
8/11/96
9/15/96
9/22/96
10/27/96
11/3/96

5/4/97
5/11/97
8/10/97
11/9/97
11/16/97

5/30/98
6/15/98
7/4/98
8/1/98
8/9/98
8/15/98
12/5/98
12/12/98
12/19/98

2/13/99
2/20/99
2/27/99
3/6/99
3/13/99
3/20/99
3/27/99
4/3/99
5/8/99
5/15/99
10/23/99
10/30/99
12/5/99

WCW Saturday Night

2/7/98
2/14/98
5/16/98
6/13/98
6/20/98
7/25/98
10/17/98

1/16/99
2/13/99
4/10/99
6/26/99
7/31/99
9/4/99
11/27/99

3/11/00 Pt. I   3/11/00 Pt. II

WCW Pro

3/23/96
3/30/96
4/6/96
4/13/96
6/15/96
6/22/96
8/10/96
8/17/96
8/24/96
8/31/96
9/7/96

WCW Main Event

6/23/96
7/7/96
7/14/96
7/21/96

5/24/97
5/31/97
9/6/97
9/13/97

WCW Nitro

10/21/96

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Fire Fundraiser: WCW Saturday Night Weirdness, Part II

Part II of our donor-requested WCW Saturday Night Weirdness:

~The Victory Lap, 9/4/99: This episode was notably weird because it featured one-time only appearances and appearances from wrestlers you had assumed were fired years earlier. Scott Putski worked his best of 70 series against Scotty Riggs, and NOBODY was thinking Scott Putski was on their payroll this late in 1999. Clearly an example of a guy who kept showing up for work so they kept using him, until Janice in Accounting realized "Wait a minute we haven't paid him since April 1998!" And speaking of that, this show also has a Disciple match. You know, The Disciple, Brutus Beefcake's short-lived gimmick as a Ultimate Warrior acolyte. For some reason he pops up on this show against the Cat, one full year after Warrior had left WCW. It's possible this match was taped a year earlier, but regardless we have a gimmick one year removed from storyline relevancy. Maybe WCW just wanted to give Disciple the sendoff he and the FANS DESERVED. A proper farewell to all of Disciple's fans, like the worst possible Derek Jeter thanks for the memories tour, Ed Leslie working round the horn with all the worst possible match-ups on the roster.

Perhaps MOST importantly, however, was that this episode featured the lone match of No Limit Soldier 4x4, the largest, fattest member of the NLS (even bigger than Swoll...I think!). I had no clue 4x4 even wrestled a match in WCW, but if I had to draw up a short list of "Worst Possible Opponent for Debuting 4x4" then #1 on that list would be Brian Knobbs. Now, specifically, that list was who the worst opponent FOR 4x4, the person. Knobbs was a great choice of opponent for me, the viewer. There are wrestlers who work stiff, like Finlay, but you rarely get the impression that Finlay is putting his opponent in danger by being unprofessional. Knobbs has the feeling of being unprofessional FAR more than he feels like a guy with his opponents' best interests in mind. So as 4x4, he of the mammoth prison yard weight routine body (all arms and chest, no ab work), wearing his absurd spaghetti strap camouflage tank top, as 4x4 rolls into the ring Knobbs immediately makes clear to everybody that 4x4 is not safe by stomping him in a really violent way. 4x4 stumbles to a corner and Knobbs throws some expectedly unprofessional stiff elbows. 4x4 clearly has no idea what to do in a ring and so therefore is reliant upon the guidance of his partner in, who - again - Knobbs would be the worst choice of somebody to guide a rookie gently through a match (maybe New Jack would possibly be worse). Knobbs actually does take a couple bumps for 4x4 (Knobbs at least usually had no problem taking violence in return, he would also just clearly take cheap shots where his opponent normally would not) and the First Family and No Limit Soldies eventually run in. 4x4 was just silly. He looked about 400 lb., but couldn't have been more than 5'10". His tiny tank top straps made it look like he was wearing a tube top. And these lucky fans were there to see it!

~Spyder Baby, 9/25/99: If you're ever looking for specific examples of late period WCW having too many guys on the payroll, they don't come much better than Spyder. Spyder was Art Flores, and before this the only thing he did in WCW was act as Eddie's bodyguard in the LWO. He was the non-wrestling member of the LWO. And yet here we are, 8 months AFTER the LWO has disbanded, with the only LWO member to never wrestle during the LWO's tenure, wrestling on television. Yes, here we are, months after the LWO disbanded, watching the least known member of the faction having a match. And it turns out that Spyder isn't very good at pro wrestling. His attempts at punches were almsot cute, and then he threw a clothesline at Disco Inferno's lower chest and Disco didn't actually know what move he was supposed to be taking. The confusion on Disco's face looked like the face a man would make in a sitcom, attempting to plug his electric razor into a Russian outlet. Glad they kept Spyder around 8 months for this 80 second match. Where have you gone, Art Flores?

~He's Coming Back!, 3/11/00: This episode featured a bumper announcing "Shark Boy returns to Saturday Night NEXT WEEK!" Weird, because I've never seen them announce ANYbody coming back who had been away, but preposterous because they chose to hype SHARK BOY as the person returning. And you know there was one kid out there asking his friend, mom, self "when is Shark Boy coming back" and that kid got really excited during that going-to-commercial bumper. And, as we all know, the ratings for the following week got a significant bump*.

*I did not look up the ratings for the following week

~Buncha Weirdos in a Pole Match, 4/1/00: The main event of this episode was a Hardcore 6 man for the Hardcore Title, with the Title on a Pole. And the participants were Brian Knobbs, Adrian Byrd, Dave Burkhead, Norman Smiley, Rick Fuller and The Dog. That's the main event. And it is 6 men who normally don't make it into main events, all beating each other with weapons. Sounds pretty basic for this era. Chairs, trash cans, assorted garbage, ladders, etc. all get used. But then something weird happens: Dave Burkhead becomes the sympathetic babyface that the crowd wants to see win the title. It can't be understated how shockingly over Smiley still was here, but at a certain point this became the Burkhead show. Burkhead took far more punishment than everybody else in the match. I picked up on it. Fans in the audience picked up on it. And we all willed Burkhead towards the 100% completely meaningless WCW Hardcore Championship. Burkhead takes a bunch of gross late 90s style unprotected chair shots, trash can shots, gets smacked in the back of the head with a ladder, takes a rough bump to the floor, gets a ladder thrown from the ring ONTO HIS FACE while he's lying on the floor after his bump, but there he was, on the turnbuckles, reaching for that title, championship gold literally at his fingertips.....eh but Knobbs hit him with a trash can and just grabbed it. This was the last match Dave Burkhead worked for WCW. Truly, it was his Waterloo.

First runner up for maybe the most impressive thing about this episode is, at the time of this writing, nobody featured on the episode is presently deceased. No small accomplishment, that, when watching 15+ year old pro wrestling. There were 32 workers on the 4/1/00 broadcast! ALL of them are still alive! (I admittedly am assuming that Adrian Byrd is still alive, which could backfire on me since at this point he would be a black man in his late 40s with a history of steroid use. Those right there are several checked boxes on the "Are You at Risk of Imminent Death?" questionnaire.)

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Fire Fundraiser: WCW Saturday Night Weirdness, Part I

"I'm looking for the oddest matches or occurrences...matches that make you say "only on Saturday night"." So said friend and donor Sean, when requesting what wrestling he would like to see written about. So I set about on a search for WCW syndicated weirdness. I specifically focused on 1998-2000 as by that point the show was able to operate completely under the radar from all the people who were busy with Nitro and the general circus. It was in a total vacuum and it wouldn't be stunning if you found out over half the office never actually watched this era of WCWSN. With that in mind, I think that era had more weird potential. So here are several of my favorite weird, only in WCW syndicated TV moments:

~Prophetic Canadian Murderer, 2/7/98: The main event was Benoit vs. Raven, and Benoit starts off with some mic work (yeesh) and drops the line "Now obviously, the book on my life has yet to be written." And how! If it HAD been written you would now probably have to reprint a new edition with AT MINIMUM an updated prologue.

~Everybody Gets a Trophy Day, 2/14/98: This episode was fascinating and weird because El Dandy AND The Villanos each got pinfall wins in separate matches. Think of how many Villano wins you can picture in a WCW ring? Try and imagine what the Villanos finisher was. Until this episode I couldn't do either. And they didn't even beat other Mexicans! They got to beat good ol' Mean Mike and Tough Tom clean in the middle. Their finisher was like Road Warriors' Doomsday Device, but instead of getting clotheslined off of their shoulders, Mean Mike got hit with a Villano IV crossbody off the top while perched on V5's shoulders. Miracle. And then later in the episode El Dandy got to level Super Calo with a punch and then pin him with the Dandy Roll. It was Dandy and Silver King vs. Juvy and Calo, which immediately made me assume Juvy was going to be pinning Dandy. But somehow El Dandy was the winner. Dandy! Dandy was winner! This episode also featured a Sick Boy vs. Renegade match which I genuinely loved. I cannot think of one other match from either Sick Boy or Renegade that I even passively enjoy. So this episode was chock full o' weird.

~Scott Hall's Celebrity Roast, 10/17/98: I titled it that, because this whole segment Scott Hall came off like a wasted out of his mind Dean Martin on one of his old celebrity roasts. This was a handicap match of Scott Hall vs. Disorderly Conduct. Hall comes stumbling out and just looks dangerously drunk, grabs a microphone and starts rambling and telling a bunch of inside jokes about Kevin Nash, then saying he's giving Nash the night off because he - pointing to Disorderly Conduct - "can beat these two JAY-brones (that's how he pronounced it!!) by himself". Then Hall takes his toothpick out of his mouth, flicks it at the camera, misses the camera, drunkenly shrugs...then pulls out A SECOND TOOTHPICK to flick at the camera. That's incredible. But what's shocking is Hall proceeds to work a totally normal handicap match, with D.O. taking most of the match by constantly cheating and double teaming Hall. Hall had a couple fiery babyface comebacks and threw some nice rights, but D.O. would go back to controlling. You've never seen so many Disorderly Conduct control segments. After awhile though, and without building to any finish, Hall clearly and loudly signals that he just wants the match to end and then hits an Outsiders Edge to win.

~Mr. World Class, 1/16/99: Lost in the syndicated late 90s was a brief feud between Chris Adams and Chip Minton over who should have the rights to call themselves "World Class". Chris Adams had been using the nickname World Class for some time, as well as Gentleman (which really is the best), but Minton started using the name Mr. World Class when he debuted in USWA a few years prior. Minton was a legit two time Olympian, as the pusher on the US 4 man bobsled. This was truly something that could only be settled in the ring! It was a weird two week feud and THIS was the blowoff! And then the match was just painful if your name was Chip Minton, because Minton got steamrolled by Adams. Adams came out wearing a gi, and then proceeded to do a bunch of shoot looking stuff with Minton getting next to no offense. Adams would regularly take him down with single legs, do dickhead stuff like stomp on Minton's calves, really hammered him with elbows, hit one of his meanest superkicks (and think of the ground that covers) before locking Minton into a gross submission for the win. Adams was choking Minton with his legs and then grabbed his arm to start hyperextending it. Minton did not look along for the ride. Minton had lost the battle. HOWEVER, two years later Chris Adams DIED. Who won that war? AND to my knowledge Minton was never even questioned. It is telling that NOBODY else has challenged Minton for the title of Mr. World Class. Makes you think.

~Barry Windham's Nut Stranglers, 6/26/99: This was during the West Texas Rednecks period for Windham, and for whatever reason Barry just could not get any good look going. Not redneck chic, not cowboy, not even a simple trunks/vest/cowboy hat. Instead, here, he decided to sport cowboy boots, a gigantic knee brace, a way too undersized wife beater, gardening gloves....and the most impossibly short, unbearably tight cut off jean shorts you have ever seen. He looked ridiculous. He looked like a man who lost a bet, and the person he lost to just kept coming up with punishments off the top of his head. But damn those shorts were the worst. Those shorts haunt me. Those shorts will just stare at you with a feral look, like Angela at the end of Sleepaway Camp. These shorts were just so tight, and the denim so uncomfortable looking, that every single time Windham moved I expected one of his testicle to rupture. It was terrible.


We'll be back with Part II of this WCW Weirdness series tomorrow. Thanks again to Sean for donating and requesting this delightful madness.

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