WCW Worldwide 8/22/98

Saturn vs. Mark LaRoux

ER: This must be an early Lash appearance as I don’t remember him being called Mark LaRoux. It’s usually a tough draw when you pull job duty against Saturn, and LaRoux earned his payday here. Saturn, the guy doing high arcing half nelson suplexes at noon on Sundays. Hard clothesline, that suplex, and the best death valley driver in wrestling, this was quick.

Bobby Blaze vs. Brian Adams

ER: This is a full Adams squash, Blaze gets nothing whatsoever, but Blaze makes all of Adams big slams and backbreakers look good. Adams has his big tilt-a-whirl backbreaker which looks good, drops a nice leg, hits a big press slam into a gut buster, all of it looks good. But Blaze is good enough that we could have had an interesting match. Really the best thing about this was Vincent as Adams’ second. That guy was a great hype man and knew how to carry himself with braggadocio, proud to be the bottom rung on the nWo ladder. When Adams went for the press slam Vincent came running around the ring holding both his arms up, like he was sitting on the sidelines when Steph did a no look pass leading to a Klay 3.

Jim Powers vs. Mark Guthrie

ER: Man Mark Guthrie? I had no idea how many randos WCW was using around this time. This must have been right before the next crop of Power Plant guys came through. Guthrie has a real bad dirtbag kid mullet, looking more homemade than styled, the kind of cut that was looking dated in 1995. Powers tries to bring energy to this, hits a nice shoulderblock, decent kneelift, good enough powerslam. This was another short one, kind of a dull couple weeks of WCW syndie TV here. We need a little help on this episode.

Roadblock vs. Mike Sanders

ER: Roadblock heard my plea and answered my prayer! I barely recognized Sanders here, he had a shaved head and wore a plain black singlet. I guess with Sanders and LaRoux showing up here, we ARE in the period were new Plant guys were getting called up. Roadblock works a fun squash, throws a big lariat and hits a big powerslam, misses a huge elbowdrop off the middle rope (really crashing the landing), and he does cool stuff like sticks his knee up in the corner when Sanders tries to ram him. The rope flip moonsault is nice and squishing, always a finisher I love. After the match some dad with a bad mustache is angrily booing Roadblock, but…was he cheering for Mike Sanders? That’s weird. Cheer Roadblock, he’s an awesome big fat guy!

Los Villanos vs. Doc Dean/Manny Fernandez

ER: So, you know by now, this is not THEE Manny Fernandez, but I do like this Manny Fernandez leaning into the camera on his entrance to say “I’m back, baby!” Another fan is doing the “We’re Not Worthy!” bow to the Villanos as they come out, and I now want to meet that man. It’s always going to be a fun watch when you spot a Villanos tag in the wild where you're practically guaranteed their victory. Doc and Manny didn't have ZERO chance, but I'VE never seen either of them pull a win, and we've at minimum seen Villanos beat Disorderly Conduct. So we get to watch a match where the Villanos are showing off their offense and getting to act like the bigger team, like the bullies, and it's a rare treat. Villanos threw a bunch of nice lariats and it's cool seeing them control a team that aren't other luchadors. It's not a total squash as Manny has a brief quick run where he shows off a tight 5 seconds of material, but you want this because it's the Villanos main eventing a taping and cutting off the ring on a couple white guys as the babyfaces. The Doomsday Device crossbody was a great finish, with Manny strongly missing an avalanche chest first, and I thought it was cool that they opted to do their finish on the larger of the two opponents. Nice flex that they earned.

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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.


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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 10/23/99 & 10/30/99

10/23/99

Scotty Riggs vs. Adrian Byrd

ER: I hate when WCW episodes have the ambient noise vacuum running throughout matches. There's no way the live crowd sounded worse than this static. This was a decent match until a couple clunky moments during Byrd's brief comeback caused a flat ending. There was a fun story going on (that likely only existed on commentary) that Byrd had just won a match on the previous episode, and this was his chance to put an actual winning streak together. Riggs had some nice controlling offense, I liked his crossface shots in a chinlock and he had a nicely timed dropkick. But Byrd's comeback was too brief and his dropkick was a less interesting version of the same dropkick Riggs already did in the match. Riggs looked like he was trying to throw punches Lawler style, those low rising angle looping righthand uppercuts. I don't totally remember Riggs punching that way all the time, wonder if it was something cool he had picked up in USWA years before and was airing out. Finish didn't look great as Riggs went for the Showstopper (a Rocker Dropper) and Byrd dropped early. They still showed a replay of it.

Barry Darsow vs. Luther Biggs

ER: Darsow is in his Blacktop Bully gear and comes out yelling how he doesn't know who Barry Darsow is, he's the Blacktop Bully! And who was Luther Biggs anyway? Was he a Power Plant guy or some producer who got to do an occasional onscreen role like Big Dick Johnson (who was never a guy I actually saw but remember reading about in the Observer). Biggs' onscreen roles coming in WCW and TNA make me think he was some kind of writer or something. He had size (he wasn't much smaller than Darsow, and Darsow is a big guy) but no kind of good look. But you know what? This match was a ton of fun. Biggs is really good at playing a non-wrestler learning to wrestle. Darsow worked over his arm in fun ways, and Biggs finally came back with a great eyepoke and two nice body shots (the first one with his bad arm - which he then sold - before switching to his good arm). The whole thing was very satisfying and you could tell Biggs was actually pretty decent. Darsow hits a nice lariat, falling to his knees similarly to a Dustin lariat. He also gets Biggs up high for a nice backdrop suplex. Finish was a well executed 1999 finish, with Johnny Boone getting bumped and taking a really fast folding back bump across the ring, then Bully getting cracked with Coach Buzz Stern's clipboard so Biggs could get the pin. A weird match I didn't know existed, a couple different angles that existed only on WCW's C and D shows.

ER: Also, we may have only had two matches this episode, but that means every match was able to feature a Riggs or a Biggs. That some agent didn't feel the need to swap opponents for two meaningless matches, shows the cruel insides of a truly joyless human. Imagine having the opportunity to give me, 20 years into the future, Riggs vs. Biggs and not taking it.


10/30/99

Hardbody Harrison vs. Chuck Palumbo

ER: During the entrances to this match Larry Zbyszko drops a real gem:

"Hardbody Harrison's a mean guy, he could really hurt someone."

Boy, when Larry's right, he's right. Palumbo would later become a favorite of mine in WWE. His WCW jungle boy persona is a lot more raw, but in hindsight you could see the big potential there. My buddy Jason was an early Palumbo backer, got him some bragging points by the time Palumbo was throwing everybody's favorite big right hands up north. Palumbo was more about showing off his vertical leap in this portion of his career, so we got more leaping spots than ass kicking spots, which aren't as interesting. Several times his leap actually detracted from his offense: He hit a light crossbody that could have landed heavy, but he opted to float over Harrison; later he hit a flying shoulder tackle that focused way more on how much hang time he got on the tackle than how good the tackle looked. But he still had good punches this early on, and his shoulder tackles looked like they would improve with time (and they did). He had a great powerslam here and a cool Booker T spinkick that finished it. Harrison wasn't ever very good. His best feature was that he looked like a total sleaze, and thinking of that as his best feature now just reminds us all how awful pro wrestling is.

La Parka/El Dandy vs. Kendall Windham/Curly Bill

ER: It really doesn't get more exciting on paper than this, for me, when I throw in a disc of WCW. These are four of my syndicated WCW favorites, and it's such a fantastic styles clash that winds up being nothing like a styles clash in the least. And that is because Kendall Windham is a man and treats Dandy and Parka as his equal. This is among the highest in ring respect I've ever seen a heavyweight treat Dandy with in WCW, with Kendall going toe to toe in and excellent punch exchange, Dandy rightfully standing with the big Texan. Kendall is straight fire in this match, maybe his greatest match in WCW. He puts on a total clinic. He felt like CW Anderson working more like Barry Windham, and if that doesn't make you want to see this match then I have no idea why you would be reading this review. His punches all look great, he hits a real bulldog, a big diving lariat, kicks guys right in the gut, looks like a total star. The bulk of this is Kendall/Dandy, and it's awesome to see Dandy not eaten alive and treated like an actual big punching brawler. But this is the Kendall show, he works like someone slipped truckers speed into his beer and he whipped around the ring like this was a handicap match. It was everything I ever could have wanted.


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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 10/8/95

Bunkhouse Buck vs. Ric Flair

ER: My god this is what you LEAD OFF an episode of Worldwide with? And this 100% delivers as an all time syndicated classic. This is a straight up asskicking. Buck beats the absolute hell out of Flair here. This is honestly the stiffest I've ever seen Buck work and Flair leans into a pretty mean beating. Buck is throwing hard back elbows, hard forearms shots to the chest, big punches, a real great corner clothesline, he rips at Flair's nose and mouth, kicks him in the face, drops a boot right down onto Flair's head in a way that Flair looks like his brains rattled, just a total mugging. This looked like Buck got underpaid for a couple of Birmingham, Alabama NWA title opportunities against Flair a decade before, and he's said nothing about it until this match. Flair takes an absolute beating here and it's great. Flair puts on this great big bumping sympathetic performance, with Buck as a real imposing monster. Flair takes three different bumps over the buckles, and they're escalated in a real satisfying way and important to the match: First time he's whipped into the buckles and goes upside down, falling hard back into the ring; second time he goes upside down and falls down the apron and takes a nasty spill out onto the Worldwide stage (with Buck hitting a kickass forearm off the apron); third time is during his comeback when he goes upside down in the corner, but runs the length of the apron to hit Buck with a top rope axe handle! An awesome usage of a signature bump to escalate the story of the match every time it's done. And to put the absolute most perfect cherry on top of this delicious Sunday, Flair wins this match with a running elbow, like he was dispatching of Donovan Morgan on a house show. This was perfection and one of the all time greatest matches in syndicated WCW history.

Kamala/Zodiac vs. Scott D'Amour/Terry Morgan

ER: This completely, unironically RULED. This was total chaos in front of a bunch of Florida elderly people and 12 year old kids in large size t-shirts, and that's kind of when pro wrestling is at its best. Kamala is shrieking around the ring throwing overhand chops and big stomps, Zodiac is running around babbling and fishhooking Scott D'Amore while Kevin Sullivan keeps stomping on D'Amore's fingers. This felt more like a crazy cult doing a home invasion than a wrestling match. Terry Morgan has this great jobber mustache, and Kamala picks him up over his head doing a two handed choke and it looked like he was lifting him up 10 feet in the air before dropping him. This whole thing was ugly and ridiculous and completely great.

Tim Horner vs. Diamond Dallas Page

ER: I always forget Horner got a little WCW run around this time, lots of singles and several matches teaming with various Armstrongs. He's an always fun classic babyface, and he milks a few different convincing surprise nearfalls in this one, a guy who never wins who always has an energy level that feels like he just might win. There was a rolling prawn hold in this that was held super snug, really looked like Horner was going to get the win even though that was obviously not happening. Kimberly  Page was a flat out absurd babe in October of 1995, oh and Tim Horner threw a great babyface dropkick. DDP gives Horner 4 different nice pinfall almost wins here, and then simply puts him away with his nice tilt a whirl slam. I wish Horner was around a year later so we could have seen him against some of the luchadors.

Dick Slater vs. Randy Savage

ER: This show was so going so great that you just knew this wasn't going to let you down, and it does not. This a similar kind of asskicking to Buck/Flair - not as good, but same spirit - and made me really hope for a Savage/Flair vs. Buck/Slater tag that gets more than 10 minutes. Seeing what the 4 of them did on this episode makes that tag a lost classic, they could have worked a legendary street fight as evidenced here. Slater and Savage throw nice 80s street fight punches, Savage takes a big bump to the floor, takes hard flat back bumps around the ring for Slater, and the finished has some inspired silliness: Slater puts Savage down and then tries to cheat to win, by removing his cowboy boot to give Savage a good clonking. The Corporal has the ref distracted, and Slater CANNOT get his boot off. He's yanking at it with both hands, kicking at it with his other foot, shaking is leg to get this damn boot off of him, getting more and more desperate to beat Savage with it. He finally shakes it off and Savage gets it and hits a wicked shot right off Slater's forehead. A picture perfect flying elbow finishes it.

This ranks up with my all time favorite episodes of Worldwide that I've watched. A ton of fun from top to bottom, and my review doesn't even cover the genuinely terrific Flair, Johnny B. Badd, and Kevin Sullivan promos that aired throughout, NOR did I cover the three different commercials for 1995 sexpot potboiler JADE, produced by Robert Evans, written by Joe Eszterhas, starring David Caruso fresh off of quitting one of the more lucrative gigs in TV history (which would have been far more hilariously tragic if he didn't somehow land an even more lucrative TV gig a decade later). This episode is what all syndicated WCW should aspire to. And YOU need to watch the Bunkhouse Buck/Ric Flair match linked above. It's genuinely one of my favorite matches I've watched out of allllll the syndicated WCW landscape.


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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 10/1/95

Disco Inferno vs. Barry Houston

ER: Did you know that Disco once got a Goldberg-type security entrance? I sure didn't, but it happened here. His music played for awhile, and he wasn't coming out, and we cut to the back to see Doug Dillinger knocking on his dressing room door. The door opens and Disco is combing his hair in the mirror like Tony Manero, and then he breaks out a hilarious "Ayyyyyyyyy, I'm not done combin' muh hair ova heeya", and then he does some dancing in the mirror, and then we get the long walk of Disco from his dressing room to the ring, where he takes forever to fully undress (he is also wearing the Tony Manero white suit during this era) and the music has been playing for minutes on end and Rachel calls from downstairs "What are you watching up there?" and I yell back "I'm watching WCW and it's an extremely long Disco Inferno entrance obviously!" Barry Houston is always a guy you want to show up on TV, and this is no exception. The match honestly wasn't much, all Disco quickly running through some simple spots and winning with a swinging neckbreaker. But it really made me go on an outloud tangent about how Barry Houston should have got some kind of larger role somewhere. He was too talented to wind up where he wound up, as occasional WCW TV wrestler. He got a lot of WWF attention and I remember reading about him being in their Dory Funk dojo, he was a guy clearly on everybody's radar, who never broke through. Do we know why? Is Barry Houston the best non-Gambler surprise choice for SCI? I want answers!

Kurasawa vs. Scott Armstrong

ER: I love the idea that some WCW writer took a film class in college that showed Rashomon, and a few years later gave the newest evil foreign heel the name, presumably because he couldn't remember   the name Mifune. And my god I was in. to. this. Kurosawa was really cold here, and then explosive in the right moments. He oddly had a kind of Jake the Snake vibe, but replace more of the mind games with bullying. And Armstrong is a great guy to be a bully against, because he'll fight back believably and have nice babyface comeback punches. Kurosawa caught a crossbody that wasn't easy to catch, low around his knees, and then hoisted up Armstrong in one clean and jerk, really no help from Armstrong, just yoinked him up over his shoulder. Kurasawa hits a nasty shoulderbreaker, and it's a move he could have finished with. Instead he throws Armstrong into the ropes and catches him in a great Fujiwara armbar, and holds it for 7 seconds after the ref calls for the bell. There was something incredibly satisfying about seeing that shoulderbreaker set up --> Fujiwara finish.

Alex Wright vs. The Grappler

ER: I don't think I know who the Grappler is here. I think it might be Vern Henderson, but it could be someone younger. I don't remember Grappler as a regular, so it has to be someone pulling double duty. This is kind of messy, but they pulled out some things I didn't expect, and the crowd was amped for Alex Wright, which was fun to see. Also, Bobby Heenan kept making amusing jokes the entire match implying that 19 year old Alex Wright was wearing a hairpiece.

Bobby: "How do you think he keeps his rug on when he does those armdrags?"
Tony: "He's 19 years old! He's not wearing a piece!"

It was a genuinely funny bit they were doing. There are a couple cross ups in the match, at one point Wright just runs into Grappler and get tangled up as Grappler just falls over. But he whips off fast armdrags, gets incredible height on his nice hooking heel kick (crowd especially reacted to that), he  front suplexes Grappler onto the top rope in super impressive fashion, then plants him with a great superplex. It was cool that WCW gave Wright the shot that they did.

Goddamn there have been three commercials for Jade during this episode of Worldwide and I've NEVER SEEN IT and I now really want to make it a point to watch Jade. The 90s was filled with that steamy crime trash, and it's all bad and always makes me want to see more. And Jade was like the penultimate 90s trashy detective romance sleaze, and I know that I will be watching straight to video Jade ripoffs before I ever watch Bicycle Thieves or Tokyo Story.

Big Bubba vs. Johnny Drayton

ER: This goes about 40 seconds, and is the kind of beatdown that makes me proud that this guy was one of my childhood favorites. He was a big fat guy whose belly hung over his pants in the exact same way my dad's belly did, so Bossman to me looked like my dad as a big cool wrestler instead of as a smart, polite dentist. It makes me so happy that Bossman holds up. We've all liked a ton of things at various points in our life that do NOT hold up. I'm sure we've all enjoyed things within the past 5 YEARS that don't hold up today. So 38 year old me still enjoying a wrestler that 8 year old me enjoyed? That's a special thing. I am not familiar with Drayton, but he gets attacked pretty early by a grizzly and we don't recognize the body afterwards. Bubba throws some great uppercuts and a heavy lariat, hits that polo punch lariat you wanted to see, then absolutely STICKS Drayton with the Bubba Slam. You work a 40 second match, you work it like this.

Arn Anderson vs. Sting

ER: Arn is wearing a cool gray/black scheme that I don't remember seeing him in. Looks awesome. He comes out like the best version of "guy bringing cups to a cookout" meme, just raising his hands and apoplectic at the Worldwide crowd's boos. This feels like a really big match to have on Worldwide, and there's a ton of time left in the episode. Now, this doesn't wind up going 15 minutes. Pillman runs in and jumps Sting 5 minutes in, and then Flair comes out to run them off. But up to that point we get the greatness you'd expect, with Arn being someone you couldn't take your eyes off. He stooged and fell on his butt, traded Beat It punches with Stinger, dropped a great elbow onto the top of Sting's head, and the feeling out process alone would be something you'd be into. We even get the great spot where Arn goes for the DDT but takes a hard back bump as Sting holds onto the ropes. Sting hits one of his most joy filled leaping elbowdrops afterwards. He was like a kid jumping into his swimming pool at his already-deemed-kickass 10th birthday party.

We end the show with an absolute barnburner of a promo from Flair. Flair is up on the Worldwide stage with Sting and Okerlund (and they rarely did promos from the Worldwide stage this late, in fact I don't think I've ever seen it on Worldwide after this), begging Sting to be his friend. Sting doesn't trust Flair for a second and Flair is doing all of this incredible foot stomping and demanding Sting shake his hand, begging from his knees, jumping to his feet to have a fit that Sting won't shake his hand. Flair even tries to settle for a high five and Sting won't let him have it, and we fade out with Flair finishing one of his all time great moments in comedic timing. This was no hyperbole one of the best Flair promos I've seen, total megastar. He knew the right amount of seriousness, bombast, and comedy.


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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 5/8/99 & 5/15/99

5/8/99

Frankie Lancaster vs. Disco Inferno

ER: In the WWE/WCW mirror universe, Lancaster is Bob Holly. A tag team of Holly/Lancaster would have been amazing. They could have done the Killer Bees switcheroo, unmasked. And this is a quality enough match, constant action and some nice overall work by Lancaster. I hadn't remembered Lancaster still in the company this late, but he worked there for a year after this match! I like him. He's big enough that it looks impressive when he takes offense, and he's surprisingly good at taking offense. He takes a bunch of armdrags and hip tosses to start, eats a backdrop, and doesn't gas even though he looks like someone who would definitely gas. He also hits a really great left arm lariat, really straight arms Disco. The finish is one I don't love, but couldn't have been handled better by Lancaster: He goes up to the middle rope to do something onto Disco, who is on the mat, and Disco gets his boot up. I hate guys jumping off the ropes and landing on their feet, face to boot. What move would they have been doing had that boot not been there? But Lancaster takes it on the chin and does a great stagger while holding onto his chin, the kind of knee knocking stagger that Rick Rude would do after taking an atomic drop. And while Lancaster is stumbling he gets hit with the Chartbuster, continuing to sell that chin. All well played.

Silver King vs. Horace Hogan

ER: For a match that's 85% one guy in control, this is plenty fun. Horace is out with Stevie Ray and Vincent, and what's great about this is the nWo cheat the entire time. I love they come out here against Silver King, a guy who was rarely even on the winning team during trios matches in WCW, and felt the need to cheat to win. But here's Horace choking King with his nWo belt, throwing King to the floor so that Stevie can put the boots to him. Horace has some nice shots to the body, King takes a big bump into the guardrail and a ringside chair off an Irish whip, and King gets a nice mini run after landing on Horace during a Horace back suplex attempt. Vincent is really good at ringside, that guy really knew how to act (?) like a chump, loved when King hit a kick to a grounded Horace and ran up top, backing Vincent off with a kick from the apron. Vincent acts tough a charges towards him and then does this huge flinch when King barely even threatens to kick him, then Vincent acts like he did everything to stop him once King easily gets to the top. There was no way King was winning this, but since it is WCW you knew we'd be getting 4 solid minutes, which is part of the joy of these.

In an ad after this episode, I find out that Home Movies actually debuted on The CW. It's a show so associated with Adult Swim, and a show I watched from the beginning on AS, and I had no clue until now that it had a remarkably unsuccessful run on CW before getting scooped up by AS.

5/15/99

El Dandy vs. Erik Watts

ER: This is the kind of match up you're going to get in syndicated '99 WCW. Dandy is wearing bright purple gear that I've never seen, and Watts as you know is wearing those gigantic Jnco jeans with legs wide enough to completely engulf his boots. I had no memory of Watts being so muggy. He worked half this match like he was Hugh Morrus, cracking jokes with Charles Robinson, mugging to fans, working like a real jokester for some reason. "What can I do to get noticed? Maybe do some Hugh Morrus shtick? Watts goofing off is what gives Dandy openings to offense. There is a little miscommunication early. Dandy likely carried some luchador loads, but a 6'6" guy tripping over his own jeans is another story. Once they're on the same page it gets pretty decent, with Dandy laying in a nice kick to Watt's jaw and flashing that big right hand that always makes Mike Tenay rightfully swoon. Watts has a lot of indy offense that looks somewhat out of place, but also effective. He kicks Dandy in the stomach and hits an amusingly aloof Rocker Dropper, shrugging before stepping over Dandy to drop the leg over the back of his neck. He also hits a buckle bomb before that was a thing, and his finisher is some kind of weird Flatliner/reverse chokeslam, where his left arm is over Dandy's chest and wrapped around his neck, while his right hand is grabbing the back of Dandy's neck. Erik Watt's: Late 90s imitator. If I could have remixed these episodes I would have much rather seen Dandy vs. King and Horace vs. Watts, but we know how this goes.

The Gambler vs. Dave Taylor

ER: Well this is a WCW syndicated dream match if there ever was one. Gambler looks like old pictures of everyone's dad from when you were a kid. It didn't seem weird at the time but then you look back through photos from a camping trip and there's your dad shirtless and wearing short cut off shorts and tinted sunglasses. Dad's looked like less cool Arn Andersons, and we had no responsibilities. Oh, and this match rules - obviously - but in a way I couldn't have expected, because The Gambler takes 90% of this match, with Taylor getting 5% to start and 5% to finish. This was the most Gambler Showcase I have ever seen in a match. Dave Taylor was mentioned and talked about at the beginning of the episode and hyped up, talked about like a guy everyone was naturally excited to see, "The Bigun from Wigan", talking about him like he was an old friend of the program. And then Gambler comes out later and just eats him for lunch before losing to one move. Taylor's bit of offense at the beginning is a kick to the stomach, dropkick, and a European uppercut, and Gambler takes that uppercut by reeling back into the ropes, then firing off them with an elbow right to Taylor's throat. Gambler hits a couple really nice kneelifts and hits a huge lariat sending Taylor over the top to the floor, then flips him back over the ropes when Taylor tries to get in. This is already as much Gambler offense as I've probably ever seen, but we're not at all done. Gambler has a bunch of really great Arn Anderson offense, as well as a really great Arn Anderson hairline, throwing Taylor into the ropes just to punch him in the stomach, then kneeing Taylor in the face when he buckles from the punch. Taylor is reeling almost the entire match, Gambler wrenches on a cravate, throws in a couple stomps, hits an axe handle off the top, this whole thing is flat out bizarre. Alas, Gambler goes up for another axehandle and gets caught, and Taylor hits his gorgeous butterfly suplex/floatover pin to win it. What the hell happened here!? Because whatever it was I want it in pill form.

Johnny Swinger vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

ER: Swinger comes out wearing his weird tinsel silver collar, looking smug, and then Scott Hudson says "Johnny Swinger, taking an undeserved bow in the ring." Damn, knocking Swinger down a peg there Hudson. Swinger always comes off well in these matches, a guy with a cool cravate, nice elbow to the jaw, nice backdrop suplex, cool running punch, and nice little things like when he really claps Chavo with his knees to kickout of a sunset flip. Johnny Swinger is really good you guys. This is a really cool Swinger showcase. The finish is really cool too, with Swinger burying a knee in Chavo's guy, then hoisting him up for a vertical suplex that Chavo reverses into a gnarly tornado DDT. He really got vertical on the suplex before  whipping straight down into the DDT, it the visual was fantastic and Swinger snapped right into it.

Barry Darsow vs. Chris Adams

ER: What a main! I don't remember Darsow wearing the World of Sport swimsuit singlet before but it looks cool. He looks like Ken Patera or something. Always like seeing that singlet, but maybe because only cool wrestlers wear it (think Finlay, Regal, most recently Dunne). Adams was treated as a real badass during this era, so it's kind of wild to see him get handled by Darsow here. Darsow is a big guy but I don't remember him always working stiff, whereas Adams had been working a cool semi-shooter gimmick. Adams doesn't get steamrolled or anything, he's too good for that, but it's definitely a controlling Darsow performance. They kept a lot of this real tight, as in they were scrapping in close quarters a lot, which is an awesome touch that you really weren't seeing a lot in mainstream 1999 wrestling. Darsow throws a cool right hand that I don't remember him using, and Adams grabs Darsow's arm and bends it a lot of ways while the two are standing, so you get a lot of them standing in the center of the ring working snug headlocks and wristlocks and it feels more like a  Nick Bockwinkel match in Japan than two olds wrestling in North Dakota (I had no idea WCW was running North Dakota tapings in '99, but this taping was two Saturday Nights and a Worldwide and had plenty of good matches, nice bang for your buck tapings). Darsow even gets an insanely dominant victory, winning by REF STOPPAGE after he locks in a nasty camel clutch while ripping at Adams face. The ref straight steps in and throws in the towel for Adams! God bless these shows.

Episode closes with a drunken Hak promo and he's in that hilarious to watch drunken phase of "No no no you don't understand, LISTEN." Gene is trying to corral him and Hak is wandering around stacking ladders and sighing and saying he doesn't know a wristlock from a wristwatch, and when Gene asks him about his plans he's like "Look I don't know I'm just gonna do it or whatever," while his chin is planted in his hand. Brilliant. I love that Sandman got such a great WCW run. It was only a few months, but the guy was EVERYWHERE. He made several PPVs and was on TV all the time. A major bright spot of 1999.


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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 6/15/98

Barry Horowitz vs. Chris Benoit

ER: Kicking off my deep Saturday night with pro wrestling's #1 rated murderer! But this is probably 100% my favorite Barry Horowitz match in WCW. It's freaking great. Benoit gives Horowitz 60% of the match, smack dab in the middle of Benoit thick in the TV Title hunt. Benoit is a guy finally getting up the card, and he's somehow generously giving Barry Horowitz a chance to showcase all of his genuinely great offense. It was 10 days after Barry's 38th birthday. Had Benoit felt bad about forgetting Barry's birthday, and thus decided to gift him the longest stretch of offense in his career? Whatever the reason, it was the best. Barry chokes him with his boot, throws an awesome headbutt you don't remember him throwing, sinks a nice knee, crisp legdrop, rakes Benoit's back like a motherfucker, comes off like an old territory legend. Surely Benoit eventually takes over with a hard back elbow, snap suplex, and big diving headbutt, but Horowitz looked like a guy who really belonged and completely crushed it in a nice late career opportunity. Made me love that guy even more. Worldwide Classic right here.

Scott Louden vs. Fit Finlay

ER: Scott Louden: Man Who Gets An Actual Ring Entrance and Onscreen Graphic. Who the hell is Scott Louden? He looks kinda like Bob Backlund if Backlund weren't fanatical about his workouts, but his singlet game is on. Yellow and black singlet with a tornado on the back, and STO on the leg. Was this guy some gaijin used by UFO? Florida indy guy? Also, Schiavone calls Penzer "Dave Lonely Man Penzer". That rules. This is a complete majestic mauling by Finlay, 3.5 minutes of ass kicking. Louden is a bit bigger than Finlay but his entire match-long offense consisted of catching Finlay with a kick to the stomach as Finlay charged the corner. The rest of this was what you wanted, Finlay roughing some dude up. He dekes him a couple times, makes him think they were doing a collar and elbow but ducked aside and dished a knee to Louden's gut, and later he held onto the ropes on an Irish whip and Louden missed a dropkick in one of those "I don't think HE thought he was missing" ways. The rest of this man, Louden may as well have been a bag of yard trimmings. Finlay hits the hardest short arm clothesline possible, kicks him in the spine THREE different times in the match, hard body slams, big bombs away, big kneedrop, all done with the expected vicious precision that makes Finlay the best. His rolling fireman's carry into snapped off Tombstone are an awesome finisher 1-2. RIP Louden. You couldn't have drawn a much worse name for your appearance.

Leroy Howard vs. Goldberg

ER: Howard was Rastaman in BattlArts, and he regularly gets put in with tough dudes in WCW, but it's frustrating as he never actually gets to do anything against them. He would have been a really fun semi-competitive job guy on WCW C shows, there were lamer guys who got more offense in than him. But this match is the exact thing that every single person in the building wanted to see. Goldberg no sells a hard shoulderblock from Howard, and then it's basically the spear into the jackhammer, and people are just losing their shit. Every single person went home talking about how awesome that spear and jackhammer were, it likely didn't even matter what else was on this taping.

Kendall Windham vs. Tim Cheeks

ER: Damn they are not letting the results of these matches be much in doubt. WCW had like 300 guys on the roster, how are Tim Cheeks and Scott Louden breaking into TV matches? But Kendall Windham is secure as fuck in his wrestling ability, he's got that Windham boys confidence and that Windham boys generosity. Windham gave Cheeks a lot of moments here, including a big comeback pop. He ate a couple hip tosses from Cheeks, missed THREE different elbowdrops over the course of the match to allow Cheeks back on offense, and Cheeks got to come up after one of those missed elbowdrops and hit a big clothesline and fire up the crowd. Windham made the guy look on his level, which is awesome. Cheeks dodged a corner charge from Windham by moonsaulting off the top and landing on his feet, and later misses a springboard crossbody that I certainly wasn't expecting him to attempt. Kendall let the guy shine a bit, and the rest of the time smothered him with uppercuts, great body shots, an awesome diving lariat, and finished him off with a great classic bulldog. Kendall rules.

Villano IV/Villano V vs. Disorderly Conduct

ER: Well this is totally great. You've never seen more Disorderly Conduct offense in a match, which is something all of you should watch. This is fun as hell and go go go, WCW syndie tags are always so good at time management, so much good action always packed into just a few minutes. V5 hits a couple hard lariats, one sending Tom to the floor, just these nice stiff arm lefts. Late in the match he hits an awesome flying clothesline on both Mean Mike and Tough Tom. Both teams make frequent tags, both attack nicely from the apron, crowd doesn't care who they're supposed to be booing as they cheer both teams on. The result is up for grabs as neither of these teams beat anybody (my brain gets excited for things like that while watching old WCW, helps out my constantly updating WCW hierarchy depth chart). V5 is working this more like a stiff brawler, V4 is going for more elegant lucha, hitting a crossblock and some spinning kicks. DO are good asskickers here, guys that know how to drop a nice elbow and hit a nice shoulderblock. Mike misses a charge in the corner, Tom gets dropkicked to the floor, and Los Villanos hit a Doomsday Device crossbody, and really stick it. Crowd was amped for all of this, and this brisk 4-5 minute tag really needs to be adopted by WWE as a TV formula. They really unnecessarily slow things down at times, but I know that teams could adapt to this style. There's no reason why most teams in WWE can't be as consistently fun as Disorderly Conduct.

Reese vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan

ER: Man I don't care, Reese vs. Hacksaw was pretty good. Reese is huge and really didn't make TV a ton, and I'm a guy into freakshow stuff. Reese locks in a big bearhug (you obviously need to do a bearhug if you're 7' tall) and Duggan bites his face to get out of it, also goes for a huge big man elbow drop, and squishes Duggan in the corner with his butt. Duggan throws nice big swinging lefts and rights, slams into the big man a couple times, upends him with a lariat and drops a good enough knee.  This was a fun big boys battle. But it's pretty funny how Hacksaw was in the main event of a show that had freaking Goldberg on it, as late as June 1998, 3 weeks before the Georgia Dome main event.


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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 5/30/98

Johnny Attitude vs. Disco Inferno

ER: You wouldn't think you could get farther down the pecking order than Johnny Attitude, but that guy holds wins over The Gambler, Barry Horowitz, and Lenny Lane. That's right, LENNY LANE. Horowitz and Gambler might be lower than luchadors around this time.  Disco is face here and several moms and children in the audience do some disco dancing and I don't remember him as a beloved face in 1998. And you know who I'm wrong about? Johnny Fucking Attitude. He comes off like a 0.9 Bull Pain here, with a hard back elbow and full force running shoulder blocks, big ass powerslam, really cool body shots in the corner (plus he wears black gloves, and wrestling punches look impossibly cool when performed while wearing black gloves). He's a big guy and still makes Disco look good (though Disco worked nice hard stomps to the chest and dug in on contact moves) misses a big elbow off the top and bumps big for a Disco flying shoulderblock and runs face first into a Disco back elbow. Johnny Attitude looked like the queen of the fucking neighborhood in this match, totally turned me into an Attitude fan. Disco plants him with a great piledriver to win, and really this isn't far off from being a Worldwide classic. Maybe Attitude started to suck when he shaved his head bald? Here he had the cool mullet with baldspot, which is infinitely cooler. I believe most of the Attitude I've seen was from 1999, when he had the shaved head, so we might have a lost WCW superworker here...will do future investigation...

Jerry Flynn vs. The Cat

ER: Flynn would have been a bigger deal if he had turned that mullet into a crew cut earlier. Yeah, I know literally one second ago I was saying Johnny Attitude was better with a mullet. But Johnny Attitude wasn't going to be accepted by fans as "a guy", so he might as well have some character, and a mullet is more character than a shaved head. Jerry Flynn was good, a good heel, a good 5 o'clock shadow mug, nice kicks, nice positioning, nice kneedrops, no problem leaning into kicks; Flynn was good and his looked played too much like a Canon Films karate villain in a pre-irony/pre-nostalgia TV world. And this match is a good one. The Cat tried out a couple kick combos and Flynn knew how to make them look good. Cat had a nice springboard and the match ending Feliner looked like something that should end a match. Flynn positioned himself really well for Cat's offense, missed his own offense with aplomb (with a big missed elbowdrop, a nice missed chest-first charge into the corner), and a nice kneedrop to the temple. I wonder how much of Flynn's team with Finlay exists on tape?

Damian/Ciclope vs. High Voltage

ER: Damian is so skinny here it's insane. He's super slender and isn't wearing faceprint, and looks like Pablo Marquez (in build and in general appearance). And this whole match rules. It's surprisingly competitive and they never come up for air, so the fans are into it the entire time. Damien gets a nice run of offense after ducking some Kaos Klotheslines, hits a nice spinning heel kick, gets caught on a crossbody but gets a nice nearfall when Ciclope dropkicks him over. Ciclope lands a nice stiff missile dropkick and it's great seeing HV bumping around for the luchadors and not treating them like flippy Mexicans. But any generosity paid by High Voltage gets paid in full by Damian and Ciclope. We got High Voltage weirdly working a mat game by targeting Ciclope with half crabs and a snug if not charmingly clunky STF. High Voltage stock is going way up with me lately. I always weirdly liked Rage's early 2000s NJPW run, and liked the premise of Kaos tagging with Eaton for a bit, but I've been enjoying them a lot lately. Kaos was even doing cool little things in this match like missing low on back elbows and a lariat, a cool stop-momentum powerslam, all nice. Oh, and we got to see some crazy suplexes, as if Rage was just ad libbing ways to potentially shift a man's spinal column.

At one point Rage lifts up Damian in the most flat out pornographic, tender embrace. He lifts Damian up for what I think is going to be a bearhug, but ends up cradling Damian with both hands clasped under his buttocks. They pause there, in that accidental seeming embrace, making eye contact, Rage refusing to admit that he accidentally started holding him by his butt, cradling him like a lover he's about to lay on a bed. You give me 5 chances to open up a random page of any 70s Viva magazine, and I bet you one of those 5 will reveal a couple holding this same position. Is this the suplex version of that thing where someone misjudges a handshake and ends up punching someone in the boob while someone has a half hug on them? But Rage is gripping under those buns, and - if you want a sweeter visual - and it's almost as if now Damian is Rage's child, pulled sleeping from the backseat of the family auto, asleep after a long day driving back from grandma's. And Rage lifts him out of that backseat, and Damian isn't totally asleep, but he's tired and likes being carried by his father, who he heard adults sometimes address as Mr. Robert Rage. But then, his short but hulking gassed out dad named RAGE just throws him over his head, as far as he can! Yeah, Rage held Damian seemingly accidentally under the buns, and then said "No. I can still make this a suplex!" Maybe even briefly thought, as he was propelling Damian by the buttocks, future merch sales flashed through his head as time stood still, picturing shirts and Slim Jim style commercials where High Voltage yells "Make it into a SUPLEX!"

He tosses Damian FAR with this butt throw, and then, does the exact same thing the exact same way with Ciclope. I played in a few jazz combos in college, and a jokey trope I always heard was that if you play a brown note during a solo, go back to hit that sour note another time or two, make any know it alls in the crowd think that it was your intention to squawk right there and also there. It always felt like the only carny trick I was ever taught. I'd love to think that Robbie Rage was also taught this jazz con, and after chucking Damian across the ring he thought, "Well, better do it again, to this other guy, and also more dangerously close to the ropes." I love this little match! Skinny Damian taking splatty backdrop bumps High Voltage's big springboard Doomsday Device lariat, a tough Kaos press slam and powerslam, and of course, that one special moment we all got to share.

Super Calo vs. William Worthy

ER: Worthy is not a guy I remember at all, and before he was introduced (already in the ring) I just assumed Ice Train's original run went WAY longer than it actually did (before they weirdly brought back Ice Train during the promotion's death years). Worthy is smaller than Train, but muscular, and looks good. He makes Calo look really good, whips himself really fast into a sunset flip and goes over hard and low on the match winning top rope headscissors, also misses a big elbowdrop with great height. I want to see more of Worthy. Also, how many singles matches was Super Calo winning at this point? I had never heard of Worthy before this match but I figured "eh he has a good build and some symbol on his tights, probably a guy who is going to beat Super Calo in a singles match."

Brian Adams vs. Bobby Eaton

ER: This doesn't even go 2 minutes, which is a real damn shame. Because for less than 2 minutes, it was really fun. Eaton throws some big punches, Adams drops a nice legdrop (which Eaton actually shifts to bring the leg closer to his throat), Eaton almost gets his teeth kicked on on a huge Adams big boot (Adams was raising it right as Eaton was ducking and the toe of Adams boot swung up about 2" away from Eaton's swinging down face, could have been realllllllly ugly) and hits a nice powerslam, but that's it! What a drag, feels like it suddenly got the call home, but it's a taped show so who cares how long they run? This could have been so much more, and they cram a lot into a very short runtime, but under two minutes in a main event? Get out of here with that.


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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 6/30/96

Dave Taylor/Bobby Eaton vs. Fire & Ice

ER: This is fun for what we got, but man I really wanted to see an actual full tag match between these two. Just like the Faces of Fear vs. Duggan/Pittman match from the previous episode, the potential was high as there were 4 tough guys who didn’t mind hitting hard or getting hit hard. And there were plenty of guys getting hit hard in this match, it was just a very quick 4 minutes. Taylor and Train do a nice shoulderblock exchange, and Taylor wrecks him with a few uppercuts, high dropkick to the chest, and a nasty forearm smash across the chest. I love Dave Taylor. A C&A Dave Taylor will need to be done in the future. I have a feeling he won’t really have many classic singles matches, but he is never less than enjoyable in a tag or multiman. So the match is going great, but sadly Eaton gets kind of steamrolled. He tags in, throws a couple nice punch variations to a held-by-Taylor Ice Train, then goes for an ill-advised top rope elbow. Once he misses that Fire & Ice just takes over. Norton didn’t seem in the mood to sell anything, Eaton takes a big crooked backdrop, eats Norton’s crippling shoulderbreaker and a big splash from Train, and on the floor Regal advises Taylor to not even attempt to break up the pin. So what we got was real fun, but could have been all time great had it gotten 10 minutes and actually let Eaton shine a bit.

Kurosawa vs. Alex Wright

ER: This had some miscommunication, and the layout left a lot to be desired, but I was impressed by how expressive Kurosawa was. Wright had a bunch of potential but often disappointed. He hit a couple athletically pretty but light landing dropkicks, and a couple European uppercuts that seem a lot weaker when we're merely 10 minutes removed from Dave Taylor. But Nakanishi took Wright's offense in a fun stooge style, really cartoon-y but atmosphere appropriate. Nakanishi has light arm strikes but really heavy legs, so he hit a couple of so so forearms but then aimed to kick a hole in Wright's chest and threw some big stomps. He also committed to a big missed elbow off the top. So there was some heart in the match, but it didn't go to a very interesting place. Nakanishi did some offense for awhile, then Wright came back with a spinning heel kick and German suplex. And, how crazy is it that Nakanishi is basically still working a full schedule?

ER: Macho Man does a promo with Mean Gene to build up the upcoming WCW Theatre at MSG show, and threatens guest referee Bruno Sammartino . Still can't believe they don't use a graphic of Bruno to build this up. 

Rough & Ready vs. Cobra/Bill Payne

ER: Bill Payne was around for a shockingly long time, was a guy big enough to actually get an entrance now and then, but also never win a match. He looks like Super Crazy mixed with Julio Fantastico. Rough and Ready were truly the cruelest gift, an awesome pairing that only got paired 20 times, with half of those not making television. I love the combo of 1996 combo of mid 40s Dick Slater and Pussy Wagon Mike Enos (The Mauler??). Bill Payne eats a full landing vertical suplex from Enos on the spinning stage, painful spill, and I'm now a Bill Payne fan. He also eats a badass fallaway slam off the middle ropes from Enos. Enos is really muscling this guy around and it's awesome. Slater kicks Payne in the gut with a flat out great stomach kick, and Enos hits one of the biggest high rotation power slam you've seen. You need to cherish the Rough & Ready that you come across in the wild. It is nature's endorphins.

The Gambler vs. Booty Man

ER: Gambler has his sick as hell red trunks with all four playing card suits on the back. Gambler is such a great stooge, and a real pro, the kind of guy I really appreciate. I'd rather watch all of the Gambler matches than the best Kenny Omega matches. Gambler is the Chris Elliott of wrestling. A little thicker, but an understanding of physical reaction, a fun but punchable face, and an undeserved smug cockiness. Booty doesn't bring much of interest other than Kimberly Page. Gambler brings nice clubbing arms, solid stomps, big falls, and leans into Booty's high knee. High Knee. Say it.

Kensuke Sasaki vs. The Giant

ER: Surprised they would put Sasaki in with the Giant, as I didn't think Sasaki was there to lose one minute matches. He throws hard chops and hard leg kicks, and Giant's big chokeslam is super impressive, as he lifts him with one arm, then lifts him higher before dropping to his knees with the slam. I wanted more, obviously.

Hugh Morrus vs. Lex Luger

ER: Luger is a god on these 1996 shows, and he has truly gotten the worst of what WCW has to offer. Who else is having to make chicken salad out of a main event opposite Hugh Morris or Konnan? Luger knows how to craft matches out of these lugs beyond lugs, working this one like a great Hogan match. Morrus gets a couple of big slams to start and they slow play them, with Morrus hamming it up and Luger selling them with a "You think that's a knife" face. Luger let's him think he's at a disadvantage, then just explodes on Morrus with a bunch of nice forearms and shows off a bodyslam of his own and hits a nice powerslam on a big guy. Luger really does work the best version of the Hogan match you're used to, because he's not working with the same level of insecurity. He's cool with his spot on the pecking order, happy with the amount of money he's made, not scared of guys like Hugh Morrus. He knows he can sell for Morrus and naturally look like a star, so it makes a Hogan-style match more like a Nice John Cena match without toddler shorts and goofy faces. Morrus gets to merely miss the No Laughing Matter instead of having Luger take it, then just kick out and go for win. Missing the moonsault that leads to a Luger comeback is a much more organic way of moving the match along, and Morrus also gets to eyerake his way out of a Torture Rack. A Hogan match with him missing a legdrop would make it more interesting, give it some more depth. Morrus didn't look great here, but it didn't matter, because we had Lex Luger running things in 1996.


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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 6/23/96

J.L. vs. Brad Armstrong

ER: So like...nobody really knew who Jerry Lynn was...and he's under a mask...so why were they married to acknowledging what his shoot initials are? He's under a mask, fucking call him anything. Bobby Heenan, on JL: "I...I don't really know anything about this guy." Brad Armstrong's mullet is the embodiment of "business in the front, party in the back". The front looks so damn professional, a nice high and tight, and a one millimieter turn to either side makes him immediately look like a total degenerate. Like, straight on he's a nice guy your sister met at church, then he turns and he's that nice guy's speed dealing ex-friend from high school. And this is pretty great as Brad doesn't actually work heel, but he gives JL most of the offense, takes some nice rolling Tim Horner armdrags and eats a tough missile dropkick (man I can never spell "missile" right on the first go through. My fingers just move in all the wrong directions), Lynn really shotgunned him to the chest. But they do that spot I hate where JL hits a flush crossbody off the top, Armstrong splats on the mat fully 100% taking the crossbody, hits the mat hard...and then rolls it through for a 2 count. That takes me so far out of the match. The Russian legsweep does look nice, but they took a dumb route to get there.

Arn Anderson/Taskmaster vs. Leroy Howard/Bill Payne

ER: Ohhhhhhh shit Leroy Howard is Rastaman from BattlArts!! IS THIS THE ONLY TIME ARN ANDERSON HAS FOUGHT A BATTLARTS GUY!?!? He somehow only has ONE listed match opposite Valentine? None against Backlund...There's got to be a really obvious one that I'm forgetting or a completely bonkers one that nobody would know ("oh yeah I think he wrestled Urban Ken on a charity show"). This is history! I had also forgotten all about an Arn/Sullivan tag team. And this match was kind of weird. Howard is only in this match for the first 20 seconds, and the rest is basically Arn and Sullivan stomping Bill Payne. Sullivan gets all rowdy when he tags in, and goes for a fucking headscissors! Like a Ricky Morton/Marty Jannetty style headscissors where you pose for a bit with your legs around your opponent's head while your body is jutting diagonally away from his torso. There's a major problem, which is that Kevin Sullivan has zero hops, so when he comes running in, his legs make it somewhere around Payne's waist. And BLESS BILL PAYNE because he grabs onto Sullivan's leg and is holding Sullivan upside down, and still manages to take a bump as if he had been headscissored. Sullivan kicks him in the eye as a thank you. Later Arn would hold him in a Boston Crab and drag him to the ropes so Sullivan can kick him in the head a bunch. I liked Arn in this, which shouldn't be a shock. He dropped a nice knee and obviously hit a great spinebuster. I do wish we could have seen more of Leroy Howard though.

ER: There's a Mean Gene promo segment promoting the upcoming (June 30th) WCW house show at the MSG theater. This feels like a big deal, and BRUNO is on the card as a guest ref. I'm sure there's a 6 hour Between the Sheets pod that covers this house show in detail. WCW touring into New York City feels like a big deal (even if running at "The Theatre at the Garden" feels like a pretty good self-own, like laughing about doing a merely passable job at ironing your exes' clothes), and a quick check shows that this upcoming house show will only be the 2nd time WCW ran NYC in the 90s. AND they only ran NYC *FOUR TIMES EVER*! And the two shows in 1998 were free PR events, one of them a free show with a few matches in Bryant Park and the other an event in conjunction with MTV called MTV Ultimate Video Bash, which was a flat out absurd event. It was an outdoor event in the pouring rain, maybe a hundred fans in attendance, with the original idea that wrestlers would represent bands whose videos would play throughout the show (Barry Darsow represented Run DMC!) in a tournament. But it was pouring so hard that the only match that happened was Public Enemy, representing LL Cool J, which...I...you ARE ALREADY NAMED AFTER A LEGENDARY HIP HOP ACT. Anyway, PE fought High Voltage (representing Will Smith, which feels like a MAJOR missed opportunity to not be representing Public Enemy) in the rain, while we got the (probably?) never again commentary team of Shiavone, Zbyszko, and Matt Pinfield. The match is a couple minutes long, but High Voltage are great in it. This two minute match would have given them a standing on a DVDVR500. The ring is soaked and slippery as hell, and there are no mats around the ring, and they both go full speed on a spot where they get Irish whipped into each other, Rage bumps big to the floor, then takes an awesome tumbling bump into the barricades (remember, no mats) AND gets a Drive-By through a table. High Voltage owned this event.

Anyway, yeah, WCW only ran 4 times in NYC, in their entire history, and only two were "real" shows. This upcoming show on 6/30 was the realest, as the other was from 1993. This show was when they were much bigger as a company. The show looked good on paper, but it feels like a weenie move to only run the Theatre. Run MSG, even if you "only" get 4,000 people in there. Was there a deal in place where only WWF could run there? This whole show feels like a major moment in the promotion's history, and it's treated in this promo like just another house show. You'd think they would be advertising Bruno's name more. They bring it up and Mean Gene sounds like he thinks it's a big deal, but it only gets a quick mention. Before this I had zero idea that Bruno had ever done business with WCW in the mid 90s. I can't believe they didn't even have an onscreen graphic.

Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero

ER: I know it's easy to make these kind of statements after the fact, but my god can Benoit look like a dead-eyed soulless psychopath. Here he came out with Arn and Arn promo'd to the camera while Benoit just vacantly stared. Yeesh. I have a real hard time focusing during this one, but Eddie was a machine here. Benoit came off really sadistic - my perception or real, not sure - with some casually tossed off violent dead eyed offense; suplexing Eddie onto the top rope gut first a couple times, mean chops, hard knees to the stomach, all with this joyless killer face. Eddie bumps huge for all of it, but his comeback is a little bit too convenient. He just kind of snaps and then comes back with a snap suplex and hits a knees to the ribs frog splash. Kind of unsatisfying but it was hot as hell with the crowd. I don't like crapping on something the crowd is clearly hot for, and Eddie had great fire, just thought Benoit went from ice cold killer to overwhelmed a bit too quick. Arn Anderson had a great ringside cheat by pulling the top rope down to send Eddie flying to the floor. This was hot but I guess I just wasn't in the mood for it, but nobody could have any arguments with the move execution here.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Kensuke Sasaki

ER: A kid mugging for the camera by the entrance gets surprised when suddenly large thick Asian man with a mullet and leather jacket walks by an inch from his small head. DDP’s gear seemed so dated in 1996, I still think it is completely unfathomable that he became as big a star as he did. Two years after this he was huge, and here he’s coming out in lime green tights with a shiny pink vest, smoking a cigar and wiggling his fingers at the camera. Who was this look based on? What type of person was he mimicking for his character? I love how well it ended up working out for him. And this match rules. It has an unexpectedly hot start that it can’t really maintain, but DDP knew exactly what he was doing and how to work through with a Japanese guy who Florida tourist fans would automatically boo just for being Japanese. DDP made Sasaki the clear face despite Sasaki not being great at playing to fans, at all. DDP takes a nice amount of time to get Sasaki to agree to a handshake, then as their hands have barely touched DDP is already booting him in the stomach and throwing hard elbows, Sasaki hits a sharp back elbow right under the chin, DDP eats a fast lariat that sends him to the floor, and he writhes on the floor on his back, comically. It’s a great start to the match. DDP’s basics are nice, throws a good kick to the stomach, nice stomp to he gut, a couple nice short elbow drops high on the chest, and his long gangly limbs almost whip around when he takes offense. Sasaki was a short little bull, hits a nice big rotation powerslam, and takes the Diamondcutter really well. His sell was one of the best I’ve seen, landing normally, but slowly lifting his face off the mat like he was a cat running into a sliding glass door. He naturally rolled over for the pin, really expertly getting into position after the cutter. Very nice.

The Mauler vs. Sting

ER: The Mauler is Mike Enos, not called Mike Enos on the onscreen entrance graphic, but instead called The Mauler. His hair is breezy, chin length and flops when he walks. He has a small mustache, and looks to be the inspiration for Buck, who likes to Fuck. And this match is an absolutely perfect 3 minutes of wrestling. Flawless. It crams everything you want to see into 3 succinct minutes. These two (three, with Col. Robert Parker out with Mauler) could have worked much longer than that, but a perfect 3 is sublime. Sting gets to shine early and Enos bumps big all around for him, ending with him being tossed hip tossed and stumbling and bouncing through the ropes to the hard stage, then having Parker hold him back for running recklessly back into the ring. He eventually does, and he ends up taking an even bigger, more spectacular bump over the top to the floor, onto that hard freaking stage, and the fans are flipping out for Sting. Sting even grabs Parker’s cowboy hat and sees which side of the crowd is loudest so he could throw it to them. Every time Sting pretended to throw the hat, ref Randy Anderson would jump in front of him like he was Secret Service jumping to stop a bullet from hitting the president. Sting then threatens to stomp the hat and Parker is flipping out, but Mauler has snuck quietly around the ring and sneaks in and lariats Sting in the back of the head, a hard backbreaker, then hits a HUGE powerslam that gave him a nice strut as he walked by Kensuke Sasaki later that taping. THAT’S how we do powerslams in Florida, motherfucker. We end quick but it's a quality ending, as Parker gets up on the apron to cheat by Mauler gets reversed into him, then Sting kicks Mauler’s leg out and locks on the Scorpion Deathlock. This was aces, 3 minutes of the best stuff.

Faces of Fear vs. Sgt. Craig Pittman/Jim Duggan

ER: Weird, disappointing match. It’s almost entirely Duggan and Pittman, and Duggan is working pretty light, Meng acts afraid of Pittman, Barbarian fights with Teddy Long over Duggan’s 2x4 for way too long, just an unsatisfying match. There is early intrigue in the Meng/Pittman sections, Pittman goes for a couple cool amateur takedowns, and the best part of the match was the two of them getting tangled in the ropes, but neither wanting to break. So Meng had gone to the ropes to break a hold but then had a standing grapevine on Pittman’s leg and neither man was budging. It could have gone somewhere interesting, but it didn’t. Faces of Fear kind of looked like doofs here which just isn’t totally what I wanted to see. I bet there’s a cool match between these two teams. Duggan isn’t always a lame, and the potential for some amateur tough guy shenanigans seems high.

COMPLETE & ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

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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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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW WorldWide 11/3/96

We continue our little mini journey through '96 WCW. This episode turned out to be one of the all time best episodes of WCW syndicated TV. Catch it!


1. Scott Norton vs. Mike Marcello

Total glorious massacre. Marcello was like the nerdy Masao Inoue of waiting in the ring jobbers. He had a cotton ball in his ear and Schiavone talked about how he had an ear infection. Good grief. Marcello starts off really fun by rolling under a Norton clothesline, hitting a dropkick, rolling out of the way of a Norton elbowdrop (and Norton really plants his elbow on the miss), then leaping onto Norton's back like Inigo Montoya, but from there it's all Norton massacring him. Norton breaks out a couple headbutt variations that I've never seen him use (one with him holding Marcello's head and the other more of a thrust headbutt). Marcello was really good selling the headbutts, checking his head for blood. Okay, he clearly just thought he got busted open hardway, but it added to the match. He bumps around real nice for Norton, Norton destroys him with the shoulderbreaker. Yeah, this is what you'd want out of Norton vs. Mike Marcello. Mike Marcello, the poor man with the ear infection.

2. Dave Taylor vs. Bobby Eaton

We cut to the crowd booing Taylor, particularly a mother and her 10 yr old daughter, both of whom are seen wearing midriff halter tops. And oh shit this match is great (except for the stupid pinfall finish). This gets almost 6 minutes which is surprising, but Taylor jumps Eaton before the bell and just blasts him with a couple uppercuts, but the whole match is Eaton fighting back with his gorgeous and violent punches. Taylor does a bunch of fun bumps for all the punches, a few slow falling tree bumps, a comic spill through the ropes to the floor, and Eaton mixes up the blows between his beautiful shot to the jaw and blows to the body. A great spot sees Taylor go for a boston crab only for Eaton to punch him in the stomach, dropping Taylor at the waist, who then takes a punch to the face. Do you like perfect punches? Do you like nasty uppercuts? You'll like all of this. Finish is goofy now but may have seemed novel 20 years ago, as Taylor traps Eaton in the same boston crab position and does a flip over cradle, but Eaton gets a shoulder up and Taylor is the one who gets counted down. Which obviously makes no sense since nobody would have possibly thought Eaton was pinning Taylor in his position, but they tried to get cute on us. Taylor kicks the shit out of Eaton afterwards, as he should. Both guys looked killer here. Taylor had some cool leg picks and both had no problem dishing out stiff shots. One of the best Taylor syndicated matches, as usually his matches (win or lose) only get 2-3 minutes.

We get a perfect Arn Anderson promo on Luger, talking about how Luger has unquestionably the best body in the biz, and Anderson says "And you know, I think I look pretty good myself, but nobody would say I have a perfect body. But beneath your exterior, your body is made of paper mache, and I'm gonna expose that." There have been a lot of great promo guys in wrestling history, but I think Arn Anderson is far and away the greatest pre-taped backstage promo guy in wrestling history. There were always cool little layers to his backstage promos, things he would set up at the beginning and wrap up throughout the whole promo, neat little moments of personality, just perfectly delivered. Go ahead, name me one guy who is better at these type of promos. NAME ONE!

3. Faces of Fear vs. Casey Thompson & Cliff Sheets

What an odd little jobber squash. Casey Thompson and Cliff Sheets sound PRECISELY like the names of two men who deserve to have the shit kicked out of them by Faces of Fear. Except Thompson and Sheets didn't quite get the message. Meng jumps them at the bell with some absolutely nasty shots that neither of them expected, but they kept doing little things to be really annoying to Meng and Barbarian. Sheets and Thompson were wearing these ill-fitting matching singlets, but keep seeming to go against the script. They take the double teams, they take some nasty vertical suplexes (with a follow up stiff Meng splash off the top), but then do these little irritating things that just...feel like things they're not supposed to do. Like when Meng goes for an elbowdrop and Sheets moves, Meng seems like he didn't expect Sheets to move. THAT'S not supposed to be what happens!! Sheets is supposed to be the guy taking an unexpected elbow to the face. Meng isn't supposed to be the guy unexpectedly whiffing on a elbow! Later we get some hardway powerbombs where is seems like neither of our heroes Thompson and Sheets would quite rotate and land properly. Barbarian hits a nasty Kick of Fear and....Thompson saves his partner from the pinfall? Jobbers don't break up pins against the Faces of Fear! FoF actually seem genuinely confused, looking at each other like "who the fuck are these guys!?" Sheets and Thompson take headbutts, shots to the throat, Meng fishhooks one of them while biting their face, Hugh Morrus gets involved with actual capable punches, and these men finally get pinned. Who were these men, who tried to go off script with Meng? I fear for them and their loose cannon brains, but am also glad they existed 20 years ago. With their clear deathwish they probably drove home that night headlong into traffic.

4. Juventud Guerrera vs. Konnan

Holy shit you guys. This was great. Wanna see Konnan trying to work like Negro Navarro? Here ya go. Konnan locks on some weird submissions, works a cravate, works some weird Regal leg reversals, the world is confused. Juvy was crazy in '96, and Konnan clearly respected him as this might be the only '96 Konnan match I've seen that wasn't just a sloppily assembled Konnan moves exhibition. Konnan is a total dickhead standing and jumping on Juvy's face, but he also gives Juvy a bunch of stuff, taking all of his spin kicks and dropkicks. Juvy takes a wild flapjack bump to the hard rotating WorldWide stage, then flips out of a Konnan powerbomb on the floor, and since Juvy is a crazy person he ends up taking an electric chair bump on the freaking ring apron. You picture that being done in 1996. That feels like something that would happen in a modern indy dream match. Back in and Juvy botches a springboard whoknowswhat, redoes it into a backflip only to get brained by a brutal Konnan lariat for the win. I never EVER would have thought a Konnan match could have made a comp tape, but ladies, here it is. This match was bananas. Maybe the only good Konnan WCW match I've seen.

5. Diamond Dallas Page vs. Eddie Guerrero

God I miss Eddie. He looked so damn good here. DDP also looked good and is a guy who ages really well on rewatch, just because you can tell he's always working so damn hard in his matches. Eddie starts the match at a super fast pace, and DDP is a loon so he aims to match Eddie's pace for the entire  8 minutes. That's awesome, and the result is awesome. You get him taking fast Eddie armdrags, and early DDP gets hung up in the ropes like when TJ Perkins does his Spiderman feint, grasping the ropes horizontally to lure his opponent. DDP treats it like a "Andre trapped in the ropes" spots and it works smashingly. God I love DDP. Eddie is not to be outdone in this so the match sees him taking three different and unique flapjack bumps (one off a super high flapjack, another with DDP doing a belly to back suplex but Eddie lands on his stomach, and another flapjack bump from the ring to the floor!), DDP does a really cool gutbuster, holding Eddie up on his shoulder like Scott Norton's shoulderbreaker, but then dropping him down stomach first over his knee. We get a hold the ropes abdominal stretch spot, but DDP spices it up by taking palm strike shots at Eddie's ribs. Eddie does a cool little armdrag to get out of it.

And then...

We hit one of the absolute worst WCW syndicated finishes I've seen. Maybe THEE worst. I had no memories of there being so many terrible finishes to these syndicated matches. I foolishly remember the opposite, with there being a nice hierarchy established and there being actual satisfying finishes. Clearly I was a fool. Here's the finish to Eddie/DDP: Eddie takes a bump to the floor, lands near Chavo. Eddie then gets DQ'd for Chavo interference. Chavo never touched anybody, literally was just standing at ringside. Eddie fell near him. Eddie was the one who took the bump, and then got DQ'd immediately after the bump. DDP was nowhere near either man at this point. It would have made just as much sense to say the overweight woman sitting on the Rascal wearing a No Fear shirt interfered, as she was just as close to DDP. We've officially found the worst ending of any match in history. If whatever happened here was worthy of a DQ then I'm not actually sure how pro wrestling exists. The DQ bell would sound whenever two guys looked somewhat cross at each other.

Horrible, awful finish to an otherwise completely awesome episode.

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 10/27/96

1. Kevin Sullivan & Konnan vs. John Peterson & Johnny Boone

Well this was a sloppy massacre. Sullivan drags Boone into the MGM crowd and throws him over the top row railing into the entranceway. Boone later takes a splash mountain powerbomb on his shoulder and took a big flip bump off a Sullivan clothesline. No idea who Peterson was but he took a big snap bump off a lariat. You knew what this was.

2. Juventud Guerrera vs. Eddie Guerrero

Oh shit yeah this was great. I cannot imagine more stuff being crammed into 4 minutes. Juvy does every single move he knows and Eddie makes them look amazing. Both guys were fast and violent, and say what you will about MGM crowds but they literally screamed "Go Eddie!" the whole time. Juvy pulls some wild stuff out of his ass for '96, hitting a springboard rana into the ring and with Eddie on the top rope, and then breaking out a 360 corkscrew springboard splash. Eddie gives Juvy tons of offense here, even getting dumped with a snap brainbuster. Juvy is constant motion here, never letting up, dropping Eddie and following up with elbow drops, leg drops, always throwing punches and elbows while standing; Eddie hits a mean slingshot senton and huge superplex before just planting the frog splash. When you see this match on paper you hope for something as spirited as this. These guys were great.

3. Ron Studd vs. Rick Steiner

Match only went a minute, and had a classic WCW syndie finish where a guy kicks out on the two count and everybody is confused for a while until the bell just rings. Studd hit a pretty decent big boot and Steiner took his knee out with a chop block. He finished with the Steiner Line and Studd kicked out, but Steiner stood up holding his arms up like he won, so nobody knew what to do. How the hell did this happen so much!? Studd was even more mammoth than I remembered; he was literally tall as Steiner while he was kneeling. That's crazy.

4. Disco Inferno vs. Rey Misterio Jr.

Short little match with Rey hitting a flurry at the end to win it. Disco does some fun exaggerated punches and shakes his fist out after. Love that. Rey threw himself wildly into all of Disco's moves, taking a high speed hotshot and whipping himself into a swinging neckbreaker, gets planted on a powerbomb. Disco admirably tries to busy himself while being draped over the middle rope as Rey hits a springboard legdrop. Disco also misses a nasty kneedrop off the middle. Quick Rey springboard dropkick and rana roll up for the win. Watching this show it's kind of crazy how Juvy may have been *this* close to being the crossover superstar instead of Rey. Does anyone know what specifically made them choose Rey over Juvy for that spot?

5. Jerry Lynn vs. Chris Benoit

Some girl wearing a gigantic football jersey at ringside touches Benoit on his entrance, and he turns and just stares a fucking hole through her. What a creep. The girl looked genuinely frightened. Some really old woman is also booing him. Double thumbs down. And then Benoit proceeds to beat the shit out of Jerry Lynn for 3 1/2 minutes. Lynn gets a nice tilt-a-whirl armdrag and a rana roll-up, and the rest is all Benoit throwing brutal chops, nasty kicks to the stomach, stomping Lynn in the back of the head, hitting one of his all time brain damage causing headbutts, just really annihilates Lynn.

6. Dean Malenko vs. Chris Jericho

Wildcat Willie is warming up the crowd with some hot moves. Heenan, on Malenko: "He seems like the kind of guy who would walk you to the electric chair, and then beg to pull the switch." I mean, he'll at least make excuses for you after you murder your family. So there's that. And this match is killer. It's worked fast like a 3 minute match, except it goes almost 8. Jericho is in full on fired up babyface mode and Dean is cold calculated murder(er apologist). Dean breaks out every little trick he knows, doing all his counter wrestling porn. Some of the sequences get a little too rehearsed with Dean focusing on when to somersault bump instead of waiting for Jericho's enziguiri to actually connect. But who cares? A lot of that 90s workrate counter wrestling hasn't aged well, but this match holds up shockingly well. The pace was tight, they didn't go for an absurd amount of nearfalls, and they tossed in a couple of large unexpected bumps. Malenko at one point was out on the apron near the turnbuckles and Jericho hit a running forearm that sent Malenko sprawling. Jericho followed it up with a stiff springboard shoulderblock to the floor. Back in and Jericho got two real good nearfalls off roll ups, and they lead to a smart finish where Malenko rolls through a Jericho crossbody and only wins by holding the tights. Malenko had just the right amount of heel work here, and the crowd was rabidly behind babyface Jericho. This was not Malenko working 2.9 nearfalls and random leglocks in a silent vacuum, this was an actual competitive match with the fans really loving Jericho going tit for tat with Malenko. Awesome stuff.

Huge thanks again to CubsFan for not only donating to a great cause, but making me go back and watch some really fun '96 WCW. There's still more to come :)


***I'm still desperately trying to raise money for my friend and coworker whose home burned down, completely disappearing every single one of her possessions. The donations are coming in and the requests are getting weirder and I fear they're going to start purposely torturing me. BUT NO MATTER! I'm matching every contribution and will continue writing above and beyond for those who donate. This means SO MUCH to me and you all are making me so happy***

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Worldwide 9/22/96

1. Jerry Lynn vs. Juventud Guerrera

This was really fun, got about 7 minutes and both guys were just sorta throwing stuff against the wall. Lynn is wearing his absurd purple and gold puffy sleeve sequin jacket that says "Dynamic Lynn" on the back. Both guys spend the whole matches plumbing the depths of their offense, which is one of the most fun things about this era of Juvy. He does a crazy springboard somersault dropkick that looks like it should've caved Lynn's chest in. Lynn does some cool armdrags that Juvy bumps fast, as Juvy will do. This was the kind of stuff I ate up when I originally watched it. Fast armdrags, big ranas, missile dropkicks, springboard stuff, all of it. A lot of those matches have been kinda disappointing on rewatch, but occasionally you get one like this that fills the time admirably and delivers.

2. DDP vs. Disco Inferno

A guy who looks a lot like Dwight Gooden is in the crowd here with his kids, and Schivaone even says that Dwight Gooden is here. Which would be weird since He would've been on the Yankees at this point, who certainly would have been in middle of a playoff push in the middle of 1996. I'm not sure when this was taped but unless it was taped over the All Star break, that's the only time I could see Gooden being in the front row here. He could have been at tons of 1995 tapings. Dude had nothing going on that year. This match was short but fun, with DDP being enjoyable as a muggy, cigarette smoking heel. At one point he drops a low elbow on Disco and gets up slapping his belly, saying "you know where that was". Disco was a pretty easy guy to appreciate looking back. He seemed like he enjoyed his gimmick and here he had nice stomach kicks, solid jabs, a nice eye poke and bumped all over for DDP's offense.

3. Super Calo vs. Brad Armstrong

Short match, with Armstrong going over! Wasn't actually expecting that as the luchadors were getting a good push at his point and Armstrong was Brad Armstrong. Calo hits a sweet back elbow after running up the turnbuckles, and then hits his awesome slingshot senton to the floor on the Worldwide stage! Crazy. Armstrong takes luchador offense really nicely, and he folds Calo in half with a clothesline and then rolls him right through for the Russian Leg Sweep. Wish we could have gotten more than the 2 minute they delivered, but both guys looked killer in the wimpy time given.

4. Meng, Barbarian, Ray Traylor & Hugh Morrus vs. Scott & Steve Armstrong, Pepe Prado & Tony Mella (?)

Boy I couldn't tell you much about the two non-Armstrong boys. Heenan clearly doesn't know their names and keeps saying things like "Hey Tony, you know this guy who Meng is beating, right? I'm just checking to make sure YOU know." I assume they're both just Florida area workers. Mella is a big dumpy guy, and Prado looks like a more Cuban Keith Hernandez. Shoot "Cuban Keith Hernandez" would have been a cooler gimmick. I normally love when Saturday Night or Worldwide throws on a random WAR multiman, because they almost always get time and then you get to see weird 10 minute matches with an entire team made up of jobbers. But this barely gets 3 which is a waste. Traylor looked good here and laced into Steve Armstrong, who then tagged out to Prado, and the rest of the match was basically the Dungeon of Doom taking apart Prado. Barbarian launches him with a belly to belly off the top, Morrus splats him with the No Laughing Matter. Mella comes in for the save and gets punted out the ropes to the floor. Scott Armstrong wisely stayed on the apron through all of this. Not a horrible payday for Scott Armstrong.

5. Rock & Roll Express vs. Arn Anderson & Chris Benoit

Needless to say I was pretty excited to see these teams hit the ring with 10+ minutes left to go on the broadcast. And the match is totally great. Both teams get to go on nice long runs, neither works face or heel, which is really best option here as they work more of a mutual respect thing but with neither team going over the top with any of the "I respect you!" stuff. Instead we get a hot match with some nice turns, and then a long heat segment on Morton  (you're shocked, I know). All of Ricky's comebacks are really good, and all the Rock & Rolls showing off offense was really fun. It's always a kick seeing Gibson break out the delay headscissors. Morton does a real slick armdrag reversal of a Benoit powerbomb that I loved. Another great moment was Gibson going in for a deep armdrag, whiffing the hook, and just getting kicked by Benoit. Everybody throws snug punches and elbows and it makes the overall work more desirable. Ricky throws some nice corner punches, Benoit elbows Ricky in the mouth. There was some real great arm work on Arn, starting with him missing an elbow to the post. Ricky and Robert tearing the arm apart was real cool, matadoring Arn into a missed shoulder-first corner charge, and Robert doing a neat little slingshot knee drop to the arm after tagging in. I mean, Arn stops selling the arm at one point, but it doesn't really matter in a match like this. Finish is cool with the RnRs getting a visual pinball on Arn after hitting the double dropkick, but Benoit drops a cool top rope elbow on Ricky and flips Arn on top. Not a match I ever realized happened, let alone on a C-show main event, and didn't know the Rock n Rolls were even signed this late into '96, but it was as good as it sounds on paper.

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