My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Saturday Night 5/16/98

Road Block vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan

ER: This was pretty great, maybe my favorite Duggan WCW syndicated match. That's not super high praise, as Duggan was a fairly selfish syndicated worker, prone to no selling punches and kind of gobbling up lower totem pole guys. But Roadblock didn't get gobbled up at all, and got an extended run here as a great 60s style big man. Roadblock wasn't going to move much of a needle in 1998, a guy born way too late. I like his clumsy but heavy kicks to the stomach, high elbow drop, he really gets to beat Duggan around the ring, and he gets a long and awesome bearhug. He's really squeezing Duggan, holding him up in the air, and the camera clearly keeps it above the waist on tight shots, especially when Roadblock starts shaking him. "Nobody needs to see these two violently rubbing mons pubis, keep it high and tight!" Duggan fights out of it with punches and a headbutt, but Roadblock hangs on so we get a cool extended bearhug on television. Duggan works stiff on his comeback, throws a nice "back up" shot, hits this killer and big corner punches. Roadblock misses a huge splash off the middle rope to set up Duggan's clothesline and big kneedrop. This was really competitive for a Duggan match, became an unexpectedly fun big boy banger.

Barry Horowitz vs. Marty Jannetty

ER: Man 1998 Jannetty always looked such a decade behind the times. Horowitz is a guy I really appreciate on these shows. He was beyond the "dependable" tag that gets hung on him, he was a guy who always found a different way to fill 4 minutes. He would experiment with offense, and be entertaining in matches where he dominated (like this one) or ones that he gets worked over. I thought this match was fantastic, Horowitz has nice strikes and dominates the action, throws hard stomps to Duggan's head and drops a leg, comes up with a cool rolling cradle out of a stump puller, a guy who really looks good in control of  a match. But the Jannetty comeback is incredible, as Horowitz comes up with a crazy way to transition Marty back to offense: Horowitz climbs to the top while Jannetty is laid out, but Barry flies balls first into a waiting atomic drop. That's the best transition, totally precision landing, cool concept. Jannetty wins with an absolutely gorgeous fistdrop off the TOP ROPE, truly one of the finest fistdrops I've ever seen, and a fine fistdrop is something that can truly warm my pro wrestling heart. This show could just be one 2 hour GIF.

Mean Gene gives an unfortunate interview with Fit Finlay where they hype his upcoming Slamboree match against Chris Benoit, and Gene says how Benoit is someone who can "really tie you up". What did Gene know?

Horace vs. Juventud Guerrera

ER: My favorite matches on these shows tend to be the ones where the result is somewhat in doubt. And this is a fun example of that. Horace is a guy I seem to be a highish vote on (I like him as a well above average big thug type), but he's not super high on the WCW totem pole. and big guys did mostly steamroll over non Rey Mysterio small guys in WCW, but Juvy was a guy who had been treated as a potential future Mysterio. So this was a fun match with a rare mystery outcome. Horace was great at tossing around Juvy early, and only made Juvy's big comeback more exciting. Juvy looked really explosive on the comeback, even got to hit a big plancha. And Horace does actually win the match, but it big interference from Reese. So Juvy loses, but takes on a full heavyweight and only loses because a freakshow giant crushes him. '98/'99 Juvy was really great.

Johnny Swinger vs. Jerry Flynn

ER: This episode is a real classic so far, full of fun and kind of unexpected gems. Swinger here plays the really underrated role of "overly cocky small guy", and seriously who is the crowd supposed to cheer for in this one? Flynn looks like a meathead doofus karate guy who would be a traitor working as a karate guy for the Vietcong in a direct to video Christopher Mitchum movie. And Swinger is a greasy punk who wears just-sleeves instead of a full ring jacket and grinds his hips in between moves. So you get two stubblemugs working a stiff match, and it's great. Swinger really comes off like an under a under the radar tough guy, always able to eat a beating from tough guys, always seems to get matched up with tough guys and leans into strikes, and always works snug when he gets to work offense, despite a usual size discrepancy. Flynn gets a lot of nice big kicks, Swinger makes those kicks look great, but Swinger also gets a hot start and gets to look on Flynn's level. I'm not sure I've seen Swinger win a match in WCW, but he's a guy I appreciate the more I see.

Len Denton vs. Disco Inferno

ER: Here's a rare bird indeed! A 1998 Len Denton sighting! I really liked 1998 Len Denton. Almost a best case scenario Jim Neidhart. He hits hard on shoulderblocks, throws his body into a lariat, sets up a good backdrop, a good workmanlike body slam. Len Denton is the kind of guy you get excited to see on a Saturday Night. Disco Inferno is the world's most successful Ken Marino character, and for those reasons this easily works. Denton really flies into a missed elbow drop off the middle rope, drops fast on the Chartbuster. It was short, but it was what you wanted.

If this episode were closer to Halloween I would assume that Gene was doing some kind of killer Stop Making Sense costume but this is in May. Mean Gene looks like a man dying before our eyes.

And then we get one of those batshit insane but also smug as hell baller Eric Bischoff promo where he keeps casually and "calmer than you are" challenging Vince to show up at Slamboree to get a shitkicking. What a lunatic concept, just trying to challenge your competition to some kind of shoot. And you just know it actually got under Vince's skin and he probably had to be talked out of showing up. There has to be some good stories behind that angle right?

Disorderly Conduct vs. High Voltage

ER: This episode is a thing of marvelous beauty. This match is sweet heroin rushing into my veins, two dudes with mullets and purple singlets versus two guys with on paper better hair but neon green singlets just doing a hot moves sprint. This is the stuff you want. You want Mean Mike breaking out a chinbreaker and body slam double teams, you want Robbie Rage hitting a huge butterfly suplex and Kenny Kaos hitting a huge powerslam running Tough Tom into the turnbuckles. This was the kind of fast paced short tag match that WCW syndicated shows did so much better at than similar era WWF.

Lenny Lane vs. Kidman

ER: Lane is a fun cruiserweight comedy stooge that probably doesn't get enough credit for being a fun TV performer during this era. Lane's stuff is a little telegraphed, but he has a fun roll up, really great headscissors, a couple unique slams. Kidman is game as a bumper but seems a little uninventive in getting to his spots, kind of awkwardly grabbing his bulldog off the ropes when it looked like he wanted to just end things. The shooting star didn't crush Lane's windpipe, so that's a relief. This was at minimum a nicely paced cruiserweight match, unique in its lack of luchador (it was almost always luchador vs. white guy in the weekly Saturday Night showcase match), this added to the episode's already high bang for the buck factor.

Evan Kourageous vs. Saturn

ER: Seeing Evan Karagias (I used the actual spelling they used onscreen up above) run out for a match makes my heart sink a little. The show had been doing so well. BUT, Saturn comes out, and he's a guy who could be a jerk sometimes, so you instantly think this pretty boy with the bad goatee might get roughed up! Kidman gets on the mic before the match and asks Karagias if he wants to get beat by the Rings of Saturn, or the Death Valley Driver? And this is a tremendous beating from Saturn, total great squash. Karagias gets a somewhat sold dropkick, and Saturn bumps for a flippy DDT, but the rest is Saturn throwing high kicks to the face, a big overhead butterfly belly to belly, hard dropkick while vaulting off a chair, Psychosis level height guillotine legdrop, and sticks him with the dvd. Saturn looked like the most fun wrestler in WCW in this match, he really went through some fun bursts.

Yuji Nagata vs. Goldberg

ER: If you asked people when this match happened "Which of these two guys will be in the Observer Hall of Fame in 20 years?" how many people would have met Nagata. Goldberg was a nuclear megastar here. The crowd goes absolutely mental the entire match. Nagata starts throwing fast high kicks and Goldberg shrugs them off, starts with his weird shit like his rolling knee bar and his backflip and catches a Nagata kick to whip him with his cool dragon screw, and the fans are just losing their minds. When he levels him with an absolute battering ram of a spear, these people can't contain themselves. Goldberg holds the Jackhammer for exactly 7 seconds, and Goldberg had to be the most popular man in all of Springfield, Illinois that afternoon.

Chavo Guerrero Jr. vs. Fit Finlay

ER: Earlier in the episode they announced this match but I thought it was Finlay vs. Chavo, which I'm sure would have been good, but Finlay vs. Eddie is way more legendary sounding. Oh, and it IS Finlay vs. Chavo, because Eddie is so generous that he opts to give his nephew the TV Title opportunity. So that means that WCW blew its own reveal earlier in the episode where at the very beginning of the show they announced Finlay vs. Chavo. I knew I didn't mishear that shit. Why would they film an angle and then blow the surprise 90 minutes earlier? And sometimes Finlay really comes off like a cold-blooded assassin in matches. Here he gives a joyless beating at Chavo, not wanting to get involved in the uncle/nephew drama, and really showing off some great hard wrestling offense. Chavo doesn't get a lot of extended action but doesn't totally allow himself to be swallowed up. Even if he's not getting a string of moves he still would do things like throw body blows when getting picked up off the mat, at least giving us some struggle. Finlay is busy as usual, tossing constant stomps to a downed Chavo, hitting the hardest forearm to the back, lifting him up for an absurdly high bodyslam (he was holding Chavo by his head and shoulders! Like a vertical suplex almost but just yoinked up like a bodyslam), really buries that shoulder to the gut on the rolling fireman's carry, and Eddie is playing faux concerned the entire time on the floor. Eddie even puts his white towel over his head so he doesn't have to see poor Chavo take a nasty as hell tombstone.

What a perfect little episode of 1998 syndicated WCW. I've somehow written up more 1999 Saturday Night episodes than 1998, and that feels like a misguided mistake. 1998 was really my sweet spot at the time, and this episode really backed up my emotions and memories. Total front to back banger right here.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

Read more!

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

Bobby Eaton vs. Scott Putski

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

Stevie Ray vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan

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

Doc Dean vs. Rick Fuller

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

Barry Horowitz vs. Chris Adams

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

Villanos vs. High Voltage

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

Steve McMichael vs. Julio Sanchez

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

Road Block vs. Lash Laroux

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

Jerry Flynn vs. Fit Finley

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

Scott Hall vs. Konnan

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

I live for this.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

Read more!

Dirty Dick vs. Slick Ric: 1996 Syndie Series

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more!

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

Read more!

Fire Fundraiser: WCW Saturday Night Weirdness, Part II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more!

Fire Fundraiser: WCW Saturday Night Weirdness, Part I

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Read more!

Finlay Had Three Million Sides of Old Blind Horses Hides

Fit Finlay v. Meng WCW 1/10/98- EPIC

PAS: Goddamn does Fit Finlay syndie stuff hold up. This was basically a US WAR match, the equivalent of Takeshi Ishikawa v. Ashura Hara, just two lumpy badass dudes just killing each other with chops, kicks, punches and potato clotheslines. Finish was awesome with Finlay catching Meng in a Fujiwara armbar, Jimmy Hart jumps up to distract him. Finlay gets caught in the tongan death grip, and he just viciously headbutts Meng in the nose to break it, but he fails. All you want from a seven minute match between these two guys.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FINLAY

Read more!

Of Finlay I like to Speak a Raparee by Name and Deed

Fit Finlay v. Martin Kirby SWE 2/23/12 - GREAT

PAS: One of Finlay's last European matches had him grind up local star Martin Kirby. Hard to get much of a sense of Kirby as Finlay just beast moded him here. Smashing him around the ring, forearming him in the eye, grinding him down with holds. He has this great posting, where he just two hand shoves Kirby spine first into the post. One possible quibble you can have with Finlay's work is that he can decide to eat someone up. It is so much fun to watch Finlay beat on a dude, that I don't mind, but he really treated Kirby like a WCWSN jobber here, and I am not sure the promotion wanted their top guy Lorenzoed.

Fit Finlay v. Chris Jericho WCW 10/17/98 - FUN

ER: If you heard Finlay/Jericho were given 12 minutes then on paper you'd think that would be a really good match, right? Well, it turns out it was pretty disappointing. Most matches on WCWSN don't get this much time, but these two didn't really seem like they had a gameplan to fill that much time. There were plenty of fine individual moments: Jericho hits a cool running shoulderblock on the floor, vaulting off a chair. Jericho does a cool tombstone reversal by doing a reverse rana, planting Finlay vertically. The coolest and weirdest moment sees Jericho go up top for an axehandle, and Finlay catches him in the breadbasket, like ya do. But what makes it super cool is Finlay sells the arm like a 220 pound human just came crashing through it from the top rope. Well, obviously that makes 100% logical sense, but I have never seen anybody do it before. Of course that would destroy your shoulder if you hit somebody while they fell from above. So Jericho instantly pounces on the arm, stomping on it getting to bust out one of his hundreds of armbar variations. But then the weird kicks in, as after a couple minutes of getting his arm worked over, both of them just kind of stand up and Finlay transitions back to offense, doesn't sell his arm again and Jericho never goes back to the arm. And that's really the story of the match, as both guys do things, they hit moves clean, but nothing went anywhere. It was a pretty solid waste of 12 minutes, but a waste indeed as it just never evolved past "just filling some time".

PAS:  I liked this a fair amount more then Eric. I agree it was a little formless, but there was enough cool little moments in it for me to enjoy. This was Jericho at peak douche, and I liked how he would fishook Finlay, and throw in little cheap shots. Finlay is the guy you want mauling a douchebag, and he landed a beautiful elbow drop right on Jericho's throat. The stuff with the chair was a little awkward, but I liked the finish, it was a nuts bump to the floor and a nice variation on the "nobody jobs" syndie finish. Not a great match certainly, but I enjoyed the time I spent watching it.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FINLAY

Read more!

My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Saturday Night 3/11/00, Part 2

1. Todd Perri vs. Tommy Rogers

Damn this is like a WAR six man in its randomness. A Tommy Rogers singles match in 2000? An AWA jobber from 10 years prior, versus a WCW tag champ from 12 years prior. Why the hell not!? And this is a real oddball of a gem right here. After years of seeing Tommy Rogers getting beat down in tag matches, here he's the old vet punishing a pretty boy. They get crossed up a couple times (Denucci doesn't sell a clothesline, but Rogers covers nicely with a fantastic knee lift). Rogers was working pretty stiff here, stiffer than any Fanastics match I've seen. Rogers threw a running back elbow that knocked Denucci through the ropes and it was one of the nastiest spots I've seen on syndicated WCW. It gets even better as Denucci recovers on the floor and charges Rogers, missing a flying shoulder tackle directly into the turnbuckle. It looked fucking killer. I remember Denucci from death throes AWA, but don't remember him being such a bump freak. I dug both guys here, and I'd be really hard-pressed to find a weirder match-up on these shows (god I hope there's a weirder match-up on these shows).

Baby, Chiquita, who are these new generation Nitro Girls advertising Nitrogirls.com? I remember Spice (my personal fave!!) and Tigress, and apparently Stacy Keibler was "Skye". Where are most of these ladies now? I imagined many of them married rich, and/or teach CrossFit classes at suburban strip malls. Chiquita was probably in a Mystikal video or something. Also I looked up Nitrogirls.com and good news everybody!! The domain name is alllll freed up! If you were looking to do a Fyre tribute site, nows your chance to make it look even more official!

2. Mona vs. Little Jeanie

Scott Hudson is flipping his lid for this one. This is a long running WCW syndie feud, and clearly Hudson's personal favorite. Even Larry is rolling his eyes saying he hasn't shut up about this match. This is probably the lesser of their three (so far) matches, but only because it was only given 2 minutes. The other two matches of theirs got 4 minutes, so this was kind of a "greatest hits played faster" version of those matches. Wrestling barefoot is so nutty so Mona always gets bonus points for that. Her armdrags and snapmare takeover look beautiful, and Jeanie planting her with a German was boss. Jeanie throws a couple reckless leaping elbows, with the second going right across the throat. About as good as you can get for two minutes, but disappointing they didn't budget enough time for more.

3. Mamalukes (Vito/Johnny the Bull) vs. Scott & Steve Armstrong vs. PG-13

Armstrongs and PG-13 were both paid off by the Harris Boys to take out the Mamalukes, and there is zero chance Jaime Dundee used that money sensibly. Armstrongs are both wrestling in jeans (Scott has a spectacular pair of white jeans here), and I'm pretty sure Larry just called them the "Marmadukes" but wasn't actually attempting to be funny. Armstrongs working as co-heels with PG-13 is glorious as both teams bully Johnny the Bull while they all take turns taunting Vito. To the shock of everybody that partnership quickly and suddenly breaks down, Vito hits the spinning DDT on Dundee, and Johnny hits a super impressive springboard legdrop for the win. Really wish they had gone home more naturally, as you could tell they were just filling time until getting the signal, as the switch hit and everybody bumped to the floor within a few seconds, leaving Dundee alone in the ring.

So next week they advertise the return of Shark Boy to WCW Saturday Night. That's weird, right? I didn't realize he was ever more than a jobber with a recognizable gimmick in WCW, let alone a "Shark Boy is BACK next week!!! Be there!!!" type character.

4. Billy Kidman vs. The Artist

I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. Iaukea stops and stares silently at a fat guy in a camo hat at ringside during his entrance. The fat guy is mouthing of the whole time but Iaukea just stares at him. I really liked how Artist worked in this gimmick. He threw a couple cool elbowdrop variations, vicious snap suplex and even a neat palm strike. He even outbumps Kidman (although Kidman did have a great bump to the floor) by getting crazy height on a backdrop and Kidman's Rydeen bomb. Kidman goes for a sunset flip and Artist catches him midway and does a Northern Lights Suplex and it looks fucking killer. This match was all Artist and now I really want to see more.

5. Jeff Jarrett vs. The Demon

I've been racking my brain trying to figure out if there is a worker on a regular WCW contract that I know less about than Dale Torborg. I know I've seen him in several matches, but I can't for the life of me remember him doing anything whatsoever in those matches. No signature moves, nothing. So now in the main event (yeesh) I'll finally have my answer! And the answer is....he pretty much doesn't do anything. He punches, sometimes okay, oftentimes poorly. He threw a bad kick to the stomach. He took a nice bump to the floor, but it was nice in one of those "I don't totally know how to do this so I'm going over way faster than I planned and a part of my body may get hung up on the ropes" kinda ways. Like whenever Vince had to bump over the top and he would manage to catch his neck on the bottom rope. Jarrett also throws punches, many of them good. And the Harris Boys interfere. And then The Stroke. And that's it. Punches, punches in the corner, more punches, Stroke.

Read more!

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

1. Yuji Nagata vs. Hardbody Harrison

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

2. Van Hammer vs. Reese

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

3. Stevie Ray vs. Mike Tolbert

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

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

4. Eddie Guerrero vs. Diamond Dallas Page

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

Read more!

My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Saturday Night 6/13/98

1. Saturn vs. Damien

Quick match but really fun. Damien gets exactly one move (running up the turnbuckles into a crossbody) but Saturn is a total beast here, never letting up and working pretty stiff. Saturn just plants Damien with the DVD and also throws out a crazy half nelson duplex that has Scott Hudson going bonkers. Would have liked some back and forth but they were working "Saturn is mad and taking it out on some poor sucker" and it worked.

2. Evan Kourageous vs. Dean Malenko

Oh my lord Evan was so lost in the ring. Why the hell was he even put on TV so damn soon? Evan stumbles pretty early and from there it's mostly Dean stiffing him all over the ring and on the mat, so this is awesome. Dean's mat stuff looked really great, much closer to his mid 90s internet rep than you remember. It probably helps that Evan is basically a sack of potatoes that Dean just did shoot mat transitions with. Really looked like Dean had to do every move legit because if he let up a little bit, Karagias would immediately screw it up and fall the wrong way. So you get cool stuff like leg scissor takedowns where you can tell Dean is really tripping him to the mat. Karagias eventually gets his comeback run and immediately blows it, reversing an Irish Whip and then forgetting to do anything when Dean runs back at him...so Karagias just runs to the opposite ropes while Dean is still running...and eventually stops and squares off. And then Dean just says fuck it and kicks him and clotheslines his throat. Watching Malenko put the Texas Cloverleaf on Karagias was a thing of hilarity and beauty. Karagias acted like he had never seen this move applied in his life and had no idea what to do, so it ended up looking more like me struggling to get my cat in his cat carrier to go to the vet. Karagias keeps rolling the wrong way so Dean finally snaps, forces it on him and then bends the poor guy almost in half as Evan noticeably yelps and starts tugging at Dean's leg to get him to stop.

3. Booker T vs. Barry Horowitz

90s Booker has aged so badly, he really needs a quality opponent to drag him through stuff. Horowitz is a good guy to do that as he leans way in to Booker's elbows and silly side kicks and snaps hard to the mat for them. They had some nice go behind sequences to start with Horowitz getting a cool leg pick but Booker gaining leverage with a nice back elbow. Horowitz got into place for all of Booker's big moves, although Booker was rushing through everything way too fast and getting into position super early. Post match Fit motherfucking Finlay comes out in khakis and a black tank top and boots Booker hard in the side of the knee, then locks on a sick half crab. Weird to think they'd also feud in WWE almost 10 years later.

4. Chavo Guerrero Jr. vs. Chris Jericho

Well this was a little surprising, as Jericho wins clean in less than 2 minutes and Chavo gets zero offense in. His ribs were taped up, and Jericho went after the ribs, but you'd expect some sort of comeback or something. I think I remember a period where Chavo feuded with Eddie and Chavo went crazy and would not use offense during matches, or something. But it's odd for a guy to get completely squashed right before a PPV where he's in a featured match.

5. Kidman vs. Juventud Guerrera

Lodi is holding an awesome sign that says "Kidman vs. Juvi Best of 467 Series". These matches are basically as strong as the amount of blown spots contained within, and everything hits in this match so it's a win. It's 7 minutes of a bunch of moves that hit, with cool slams and big missed moves off the top. When Juvy is on he is my favorite non-Rey cruiserweight to watch. He bumps huge and moves so damn fast. Here he just whips all around Kidman and all his moves have some great extra oomph to them. He really makes his plancha to the floor look like full contact. Kidman is good here, too, doing something different than his usual bump machine specialty. Here he cuts off a lot of Juice comebacks and does little things like missed clotheslines really well. Juvy does his cool missed 450 spot where he lands on his feet, and then plants Kidman with the Juvy Driver for the clean win. He was facing Reis at the PPV, ya know. Really awesome 90s WCW cruiser match, one of the reasons I was so into this style when I was an innocent teen.

Read more!

My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Saturday Night 2/7/98

WCW Saturday Night 2/7/98


1. Glacier vs. The Cat

I always have a soft spot for the WCW karate matches. Most of them aren't very good but they're always just 3 minutes and have enough dumb fun. Cat doesn't move early enough for the planned missed Cryonic Kick spot, so he ends up "dodging" it by just swatting it away, which looked hilarious. The Feliner actually always looks really good, though, and Glacier leaned into it. Can't ask for much more than that I guess.

2. Scott/Steve Armstrong vs. Public Enemy

This was awesome because it was Armstrongs working as heels which is soooo great. Armstrongs are always great, but their heel offense is awesome. Tons of cool double teams, uppercuts and stooging. PE do their thing, which is OK. Grunge takes a bump into the stairs really nicely. Rachel says Rocco sells a body slam like a turtle flipped onto his shell, and she's 100% right.

3. Bobby Blaze vs. Barry Horowitz

Cool short match that had Horowitz working really stiff and Blaze tossing some cool suplexes. Finish was really great as Horowitz got thrown into the turnbuckles, stopped himself and came out of the corner and leveled Blaze with a GREAT rolling elbow. Then he picked Blaze up to finish him off with a DDT, stopped to pat himself on the back, which allowed Blaze to reverse with an awesome snap northern lights suplex for the win.

4. Chris Jericho vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Total 90s cruiser workrate 5 minute sprint. This was during my favorite Jericho period, when he was a total John Tatum tantrum-having crybaby. Chavo seems pretty loose here but Jericho is really great at getting into position for all his stuff and taking the offense nicely (he bumped gigantic off a dropkick). My sister and I LOVED him during this period.

5. Mark Starr vs. Louie Spicolli

I haven't actually seen tons of Louie Spicolli, maybe just a few matches. He didn't look as good as Mark Starr here, but he looked like a guy with potential. Starr threw some nice punches and took offense well, and Spicolli was a guy that had some pretty cool offense. Nice spine buster, big enziguiri, a lot of agility for a chubby guy. Are there any recommended Spicolli matches?

6. Disco Inferno vs. Goldberg

I love Goldberg. Disco is a pretty perfect foil for Goldberg because he knows how to stooge and holy shit do the fans go apeshit for the Jackhammer ALREADY. This was probably only 20 or 30 matches into the streak and the fans were way into it at this point. The guy just had "it".

7. Chris Adams vs. Brad Armstrong

Armstrong worked heel here and threw tons of cool shots to the neck and threw great uppercuts (hmmmm as did Scott Armstrong earlier tonight...) but this was kind of an Adams squash. He got some cool stuff in, including great forearms from the mount to the back of Brad's head and ending with an epic superkick (Brad spits at just the right time to make it look like a tooth flew out of his mouth and it looks SOOOOO GREAT) and AFTER the match we get the start of the Adams/Glacier SUPERKICK FEUD!!!! Awwwwwww yeah, baby. But holy shit did Adams' superkick look amazing here. I wish he could have kicked the shit out of Marufuji.

8. Mike Tolbert vs. Greg Valentine

I have zero memory of Mike Tolbert and when I did a google search for him the first thing that came up was a link to a blog titled "beefcakesofwrestling" and when I clicked on it, it took me to a page that asked me whether "I understood and wished to continue" or "I do not wish to continue" that the site had adult content and decided that I did not wish to continue. But now I'll forever wonder "why Mike Tolbert!?" I mean, in this episode alone I would have rather seen hunky oiled photos of Steve and Brad Armstrong and Chris Jericho, why is Mike Tolbert considered such a beefcake? I fully accept that I may not have my finger on the pulse of 1998 gay men society, so therefore acknowledge that I may not know who is a stud and who is not. I mean, I've seen the movie Longtime Companion and own a bunch of Hüsker Dü and R.E.M. records and have one gay Facebook friend I went to high school with (and shared a bed with on drama tour!! gasp!! Also, I was on the drama tour), but that doesn't really make me an authority on who is a beefcake in wrestling and who isn't. I guess I'm just disappointed in the gay community. I do hope that we get a little more gay interest traffic to the site here now that we'll boast one Mike Tolbert review. I think there's a lot of potential new readers.

A lot of readers have found the site by googling "Phil Schneider comps". A totally equal amount of people have found the site by googling "Jack Birthrider". I don't know if there was any crossover between those searches. Hell, we have one person within the week who found this site by searching for "Jack Birthrider".

I guess overall I'm just disappointed in the gay community for this whole Mike Tolbert: Beefcake fiasco. I mean, there were a bunch of Buff Bagwell nWo commercials on this episode. I just think they could set their sights way higher. Tolbert is such a bland, puffed up roids guy. So bland. That's what the gay community finds interesting!? Really!? You're telling me that if you're at an Erasure concert, and you see Mike Tolbert there, or you see Ray Lloyd or Chavo Jr., you're going for Mike Tolbert? And you're gonna tell all your friends about the beefcake you met while dancing to "A Little Respect" is some bland gassed white guy who has no idea how to run the ropes? For shame, gays.

9. Silver King vs. Eddie Guerrero

Hey, you know what two guys were good at pro wrestling? These two guys. Don't be fooled by the deceptively stocky physique of Silver King. Loved these two matched up against each other and would have loved a tag run. I'm glad King eventually got that great NJPW run as he really started coming into his own around now and became a big favorite of mine in 2001. I got nothing to add to this and yeah my write up sounds like I didn't even watch the match, but I just couldn't think of new ways to say "I enjoy how these guys run and tumble around each other".

10. Raven vs. Chris Benoit

Benoit starts with some mic work that contains this gem: "It's obvious, the book on my life has yet to be written." Uhhhhhh....yup. I fast forward through Raven on the stick. The flock does a run in about 30 seconds into this. Sick Boy spectacularly blows a springboard something and Benoit kicks him in the face.

Read more!

My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Saturday Night 10/17/98

1. Lenny Lane vs. Kidman

If you had come up to me and asked "Is 8 minutes a long time", my snap judgment answer would probably be "No, not really". But it really does depend on what that 8 minutes is spent doing. 8 minutes waiting for your food to arrive? Not bad at all as long as the conversation is pleasant. 8 minutes waiting at a traffic light? Very long. 8 minutes of your lunch break? Well that goes by super fast. 8 minutes of Lenny Lane vs. Kidman? Well good lord this is a long 8 minutes. I'm not totally sure we needed a 6 minute Lenny Lane control segment, but brother we got it. Again, 6 minutes doesn't really sound like whole lot of time, but when filtered through the context of "Lenny Lane doing offense" then it becomes clear very quickly that Lane does not have 6 minutes of material. Lane has among the worst punches I've ever seen in a major fed. Sub Chris Chetti. Sub Shad Gaspard. Just punching a foot past Kidman's head. At one point he's clearly just making up stuff as he does some sort of people's elbow type legdrop, coming off the ropes and strutting and then kinda standing there before hitting a legdrop. He and Kidman get brutally crossed up on a bulldog spot which sees them running the same direction, side by side, with neither holding onto the other one, until Kidman just stops and falls onto his face. But luckily for us they redo the spot immediately so we know what it should have looked like. For those scoring at home on the "How badly did Kidman injure his opponent on the Shooting Star Press", his knees landed on Lane's thighs/knees, so Lane likely had some sharp pain and bruising, but is also thankful he didn't catch Kidman's knees squarely in the balls.

2. Barry Horowitz vs. Vincent

Man, I really really like late 90s Vincent. What the fuck? He has no offense whatsoever, but does little things that just work. He's like what Stevie Richards added to late 00's Sunday Night Heat. Here he does some cool hot shots on Barry, then chokes him in the ropes while hitting these awesome body blows. Horowitz does cool things too and I love him stomping both of Vincent's hands while he's on the mat. Vincent does really hilarious "ohhhhhh my hand...OHHHHH MY OTHER HAND!" selling. Some cool spots in this that you don't ever see. Vincent has Barry in a headlock and ran up the turnbuckles with it and when he went to flip it into a bulldog (like Kidman would do) Horowitz just planted him with a back suplex. At another point Vincent had Barry draped over the top rope, and climbed to the top to do a guillotine leg drop! But Barry moved an Vince crotched himself and it was awesome. I loved Vincent's finisher in WCW, too, the single arm DDT rolled into a Fujiwara armbar. I REALLY want to see Vincent against Finlay, Taylor or Regal.

3. Rex King vs. Wrath

Would have rather seen an old Memphis guy against Kidman or Vincent or Horowitz but whatever. King hits a nice dropkick and a really cool spinkick in the corner (that Wrath pusses out on). Wrath...does stuff...until the match ends. Guy just isn't very memorable in squash matches.

4. Meng vs. Hardbody Harrison

An actual fun Meng squash!! I kinda gotta give Harrison some credit on this one as he leaned all in on Meng's offense and took some pretty nutty things. Meng planted him with a powerbomb and hit a brutal piledriver. He also hit two different big boot variations and numerous stiff strikes. He also kept pulling up Harrison on 2 counts which is great. We all KNOW Harrison is a total sleaze bag, but it has to be said that he really LOOKED like a total sleaze bag here. And he had to be pissed that the cameras never focused on the image OF HIMSELF he had shaved into the back of his head. That shit don't come cheap.

5. Bret Hanmer vs. "Hole in One" Barry Darsow

Match sadly never starts as Darsow says he needs to work on his swing and get back into golf shape, so he leaves the ring and Hanmer gets the count out win. Hanmer was a large gassed up guy with a nipple ring (ew) who later got to be Simon Diamond's bodyguard Dick Hurtz in ECW.

6. Fit Finlay vs. Chris Jericho

If you heard Finlay/Jericho were given 12 minutes then on paper you'd think that would be a really good match, right? Well, it turns out it was pretty disappointing. Most matches on WCWSN don't get this much time, but these two didn't really seem like they had a gameplan to fill that much time. There were plenty of fine individual moments: Jericho hits a cool running shoulderblock on the floor, vaulting off a chair. Jericho does a cool tombstone reversal by doing a reverse rana, planting Finlay vertically. The coolest and weirdest moment sees Jericho go up top for an axehandle, and Finlay catches him in the breadbasket, like ya do. But what makes it super cool is Finlay sells the arm like a 220 pound human just came crashing through it from the top rope. Well, obviously that makes 100% logical sense, but I have never seen anybody do it before. Of course that would destroy your shoulder if you hit somebody while they fell from above. So Jericho instantly pounces on the arm, stomping on it getting to bust out one of his hundreds of armbar variations. But then the weird kicks in, as after a couple minutes of getting his arm worked over, both of them just kind of stand up and Finlay transitions back to offense, doesn't sell his arm again and Jericho never goes back to the arm. And that's really the story of the match, as both guys do things, they hit moves clean, but nothing went anywhere. It was a pretty solid waste of 12 minutes, but a waste indeed as it just never evolved past "just filling some time".

7. The Gambler vs. Saturn

Boy Saturn has some boring transitions back to offense. He just waits for Gambler to do his stuff, then just immediately does stuff back. Gambler does some cool things though, like hitting stomps with one foot while standing on Saturn's hand with the other. That's a real nice touch. He hits a go behind at one point that Finlay should have stolen. Saturn has him in a waistlock, Gambler grapevines a leg to attempt a trip takedown, Saturn braces to avoid being taken down, and Gambler dupes him by hitting the go behind. Saturn stinks bad in this though and it only goes 90 seconds.

8. Lodi vs. Konnan

Well shit. Those are not really the two names I'd be looking forward to getting this show back on track. And this match is not good. Konnan has the shittiest way of getting guys into position to take his trademark moves. It reminds me of old Eliminators matches where they'd just walk there opponents into position as if they were placing mannequins. Okay, just stand riiiiiight there. Don't move.

9. Scott Hall vs. Disorderly Conduct

Well Hall comes out - to the surprise of everybody - just looking multiple sheets to the wind, and then gives a super rambling drunk promo on Kevin Nash, saying he's giving Nash the night off because he can beat these two "JAY-brones" by himself. He also throws his toothpick at the camera, misses, shrugs it off, then pulls out another toothpick from behind his ear and nails the camera. Well okay that's fucking awesome. Match actually starts out fun with Hall being cocky and then D.O. taking over with double teams. Hall fighting back is cool as he was throwing some nice rights, but D.O. cheating to transition was better with them always throwing Hall into the ropes so the one on the apron could sneak attack. At one point Hall just kinda wants to go home though so D.O. stop doing offense so Hall can hit a couple Outsiders Edge.

Read more!

My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Saturday Night 1/16/99

26 hours away from Souled Out from Charleston, West Virginia!!!

1. Barry Horowitz vs. Wrath

I forgot Wrath had the awesome "Running With the Devil" intro to his music. And I have no recollection of Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Wrath from Souled Out. Wrath looks like the most juiced out of his gourd Burt Reynolds from "White Lightning" here, like he's all hopped up on Joker's toxin from Arkham Asylum. This is more competitive than you may have guessed, and Horowitz gets to hit a cool leaping back elbow from the 2nd rope. Wrath alternates between selling Barry's offense and then completely ignoring it. Barry's kicks to the stomach looked way better than Wrath's.

Nitro Girls calendar ad! Who was regarded as the hottest Nitro Girl anyway? I assume not the one with the super gelled dyed blonde curls? Was Spice the hottest? What was the name of the redhead (I assume Fire or Fyre or Figher?)? Maybe Chai? Who was the least hot Nitro Girl? Whisper? Can we get a consensus 1-10 ranking?

2. David Sierra vs. Chad Fortune

Crowd goes absolutely bonkers for Fortune and I assume it's because he's a gigantic Aryan guy in pleather flame pants against an ethnic guy. In fairness to those ethnically-insensitive fans, David Sierra really does look like a background character from "Quest For Fire" here, and HOLY SHIT Fortune does an awesome delayed fist drop and I suddenly want a "Best of Chad Fortune" VHS. Fortune's pants and giant link necklace look horrible. I don't think he's that good. Here's a selection from the "Monster Truck" section of his Wikipedia page. You may have misread that, and to be clear, Chad Fortune has a "Monster Truck" section on his Wikipedia page:

"Based on his professional wrestling background, he decided to dye his hair black and later his look to match the character of Superman."

Clearly Chad Fortune is the Daniel Day Lewis of monster truck driving. Dude doesn't even talk to crew members unless they call him Clark.

3. Mike Tolbert vs. Meng

Tolbert attacks Meng with leg kicks but Meng has the ability to no sell gassed/tanned/oiled/ponytailed jobber offense and immediately locks on the Tongan Death Grip. This was like 20 seconds.

4. Jeff Warner vs. Disco Inferno

Now I think Wikipedia is lying to me. Here's an excerpt from Jeff Warner's Wikipedia:

"He formed a tag team with Art Barr (who was using a "Beetlejuice" gimmick) called "The Juice Patrol" with Warner going by the name "Big Juice"."

 Oh, come on! No way does a jacked 6' 4" white guy go by "Big Juice"! How hilarious would that make Warner?! Also, there is a whole subsection of his Wikipedia page titled "Max Muscle" and all it says is:

"Contrary to popular belief and information often posted on the internet, Jeff Warner DID NOT portray the WCW character Max Muscle/Maxx."

That seems like a weird thing to drum up controversy over. Did some kid ask him one time at c-level WrestleCon "Hey, are you Maxx Muscle or is his table over there?" and Warner was like "Well just so people aren't confused we better clear the air." So just in case you jerks were curious, Jeff Warner WAS NOT the guitar tech during Creed's "Take Me Higher 2002" tour. He WAS the guy who did a few lines of coke off a Staind jewel case with the DJ from Crazy Town that one time, though.

Some guy in the crowd has a laquered sign that says "Disco Inferno....THE MAN". Front row.

5. Chris Adams vs. Chip Minton

Adams comes out in a GI and this is fucking ONNNNN. This was during the Adams/Minton feud where they were feuding over who gets to use the nickname "World Class". Adams does all sorts of cool shoot-type stuff here, including rad single legs, stomping on Minton's calves, and throws some brutal elbow shots. Then he plants him with a vertical powerbomb and just levels Minton with a great superkick. To really show Minton who's boss he finishes the match with some weird Volk Han submission, using his legs to choke him out while also hyperextending Minton's arm. Looked real weird and nasty.

6. Scotty Riggs vs. Scott Putski

Well, this wasn't one that excited me out of the gates. Riggs is a pretty decent foil for Putski (who goes to a chinlock 40 seconds in) and Putski throws a decent elbow drop. Most of the match is Riggs working over Putski's knee with some pretty nasty knee work (high half crab, punching him right in the knee, bending and twisting his knee over the bottom rope). Putski does an admirable job of selling the knee on his comebacks and you start to BUY the INJURY! And then Riggs hits the 5 Arm for the win. This would have actually been good if Putski's comeback offense was better.

7. Bobby Eaton/Kenny Kaos vs. Bobby Duncum Jr./Mike Enos

These are two weirdo tag teams and on paper this looks like a bank full of money. I know the Kaos/Eaton team formed because Kaos needed a partner with Rage injured, so went to tag team legend Eaton to help him out and condescendingly asks him for help ("it's not like you've had much success doing anything else, Bobby") but I have no memory of a Duncum/Enos team. This match is kinda disappointing as it only goes a few minutes with all guys showing off by seeing who has the best powerslam (Enos) and who throws the best elbow drop (Eaton). You get some nice Eaton punches, and then the match ends awkwardly with a sloppy Duncum leg drop that saw Kaos kick out at 2, but the ref counted 3 anyway and then people kinda stood around awkwardly while we cut to Mean Gene. Oooookay.

[edit]

Read more!

My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Saturday Night 2/13/99

Saturday Night 2/13/99

1. Bobby Blaze vs. Jerry Flynn

This was pretty awesome right here. Both guys threw big suplexes and big chops and this was a pretty great strike-based sprint. Flynn matches are always dependent on how much of a beating his opponents are willing to take, and Blaze is a pudgy guy who will take some kicks, throw some neat suplexes, and that all happens here. Flynn looked like a beast here and I especially loved his spinning kick in the corner. Blaze was a man and took is right on the chin. Loved how Flynn had a habit of just finishing guys with a tight armbar after throwing a suplex.

2. Johnny Swinger vs. Vincent

a 30 second Vince squash!? Swinger couldn't have felt great about himself after taking a 30 second loss to Vincent. That being said, Vincent has been a WCW B-Sides MVP contender on rewatch. I have no clue where he got good, but his late 90s WCW stuff has been killer. Here he uses a really cool single arm DDT into an Americana to get the quick tap.

3. Dave Burkhead vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

I may be the biggest Dave Burkhead fan online . I'm pretty sure he was never involved in any classics, and he didn't have a great look, but he did a lot of small things better than most guys. Here he really made me appreciate taking a drop toe hold as he seems genuinely surprised by it and just does a hard face plant. At first I thought Burkhead was just a lumpy jobber, but now that I've had the privilege of seeing more Burkhead matches than most human beings, I can officially be called a Dave Burkhead fan. Dude was rock solid and always threw cool stuff into his jobber matches. He's like the Barry Houston of the late 90s. I showed this match to my incredulous friends who thought I was lying to them about how awesome Burkhead was, and they were all way down with Burkhead by the end of the match. Dude knew how to put over offense (he took a German suplex and tornado DDT right on the dome).

4. Scotty Riggs vs. Kaz Hayashi

Man Kaz Hayashi is fucking awesome. I remember digging him in 1999, but this guy is looking top 20 in the world from everything I've re-watched so far. Everything he does looks gorgeous and it's so accurate. He does that gorgeous tumbling moonsault from the top rope into the ring, and also over the top to the floor and it looks super graceful. Guys also give Kaz tons of offense in his matches even though he almost always ends up losing. Kaz takes like 70% of this match and it's awesome. Finish was Kaz leaning way into the 5-arm and holy shit Kaz Hayashi was like top 5 in WCW at this point.

5. Lodi vs. Kidman

I...truthfully didn't have much opinion on Lodi before watching this match. I don't remember seeing him wrestle much before the whole Lenny/Lodi thing, and even then I don't remember if he was good, bad, horrendous, awesome, whatever, who knows. But he seemed pretty damn good here. He took a monster bump into the guardrail and threw a really great knee lift (which is a move that a lot of guys do terribly). There was a GREAT spot where Lodi was trying to load one of his gloves in the corner, dropped it, and when he bent down to pick it up Kidman ran up and caught him in his springboard bulldog move. It was one of the greatest examples I've ever seen of "guy occupying himself while other guy sets up convoluted offense". How many times do people just bend at the waist waiting to take a move (looking at YOU Booker T axe kick), and Lodi of all people makes taking a move look entirely logical and makes Kidman look WAY better in the process. Finlay is the best at logically getting into position for opponents' signature offense, but now I'm genuinely looking forward to more Lodi!

6. The Cat vs. Booker T

Booker has aged horribly on this rewatch. I remember really liking him and now I'm starting to think the time I actually really liked Booker was like 3 months at the very beginning of 1998. I remember loving the Martel and Saturn matches from Superbrawl and some of the Benoit series, and now I'm realizing that might be it as far as WCW Booker. Harlem Heat has been dreadful. It's all sorts of sloppy kicks and posing. Cat looks pretty clueless here as well. It's not as bad as it could have been and has some pretty inspired moments (Cat got leveled on a nice short arm lariat) but then it ends in a DQ and it's like Whhhhhhhhhy!?

7. Horace vs. Chris Benoit

So as well as being the biggest Dave Burkhead fan, I'm pretty sure I may be the biggest Horace fan as well. I really dig Horace and this was a pretty good late 90s WCW dream match for me. Horace has some nice stuff in this including a great yakuza kick, a big tope (to one of the guardrail sides of the ring, not even into the entrance ramp side!!), takes all of Benoit's suplexes really well for such a large guy (reacts great to the snap suplex as well, shaking his finger at Benoit afterwards). Matches ends with Vincent running in to break things up, and then Mongo runs out and get this - doesn't look very good.

8. Juventud Guerrera vs. Rey Misterio Jr.

Classic late 90s cruiser action, and you really have to be a hardened asshole to hate on this kinda stuff. A lot of nerds nowadays will complain about "he should have sold _____ longer" and blah blah blah but whatever, this was two of the all time great cruiserweights doing tons of cool moves and reversals at a blindingly fast pace and it ruled. Cool flips and a rad Juvi springboard spinning heel kick and rad reversals and pre-shitty Rey tattoos and pre-weird Juvi stories about selling birdseed and gym bag-shitting and whatever. My girlfriend and I loved every second of this and it really brought me back to the days where I wouldn't give a shit about heavyweights and bought all my wrestling tapes based on all the rad cruiser matches on it. 90 stars.

9. Brian Adams/Vince vs. Dean Malenko/Chris Benoit

This was supposed to be Brian Adams vs. Dean Malenko, which sounds kinda shitty on paper. But it was changed pre-match to the tag you see above, which to me sounds completely AWESOME on paper and explains the earlier, shorter Vince match. Seriously, late 90s WCW Vincent is a revelation, just the perfect syndicated TV worker. Really knew how to cater his style to whatever guy he was working and he really may be the great lost late 90s superworker. His work against Malenko here was great, flying into his silly leaping flipping calf kick and once he goes on offense really begins the story of the match (working over Dean's back and building to the Benoit hot tag). He has all sorts of cool forearms and clubbing blows and an amazing elbow drop to Dean's back, with Adams then working it over with a nice tilt-a-whirl slam and just stretches Dean over his knee. Yeah it all gets no sold by the end of the match but the work by nWo was strong and you can't expect much more from a 6 minute Saturday Night tag that ends in a run-in. Personally, I thought Adams and Vince smoked the vanilla midgets in this match.

Read more!

My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Saturday Night 7/31/99

Only an hour for this week's episode, which is lame, but this episode took place almost exactly 12 YEARS AGO!

What were YOU doing 12 years ago!? I was mere months away from starting college, and I'm pretty sure this weekend 12 years ago I was actually at my future college doing a Summer Orientation weekend, staying in the dorms and having to attend lectures and gay skits put on by the drama club about shit like temperance and bullying and how it's cool to make friends and be different, and how it's insensitive and hurtful to say that things are gay. All 500 or so Orientation attendees were in Sonoma State University's big Pearson Theatre, and all the lights went out and it was pitch black...and then "Total Eclipse of the Heart" started playing REALLY loudly. One lone spotlight shone on the stage. A member of the SSU dance club was in a black leotard, and she did an interpretive dance to "Total Eclipse of the Heart", just flinging herself around the stage while the spotlight struggled to keep up.

That was the longest 6 minutes of my life.

It was the most uncomfortable and awkward I had ever been. I would rather watch my dad cry for 6 minutes, with our foreheads touching.

It was just me and 499 other future college students sitting in the dark, getting a little bit tired of listening to the sound of our tears. And I still ended up going to this school.

Disorderly Conduct vs. Jerry Flynn/Hugh Morrus

This was a real nice 4 minutes. This was right after the First Family had injured Finlay (when none of us expected Finlay to ever wrestle ever again, let alone return 6 years later to take back his title of best wrestler in the world), so I expected Regal and Taylor to be out for blood and do a violent run-in, possibly allowing DC to get a sneaky win. But it didn't happen. I think I've determined that Tough Tom is the better DC member...but every match I always forget which one is Tough Tom. They're always changing their hair slightly or changing facial hair. Though the guy that threw a great punch in this match had "Tuff" on his pants. DC get a nice long control section against Flynn and cut off the ring, which is more than I was expecting. Barbarian cheats from the floor (while holding the hardcore junkyard trophy!) though and Morrus splats one of them with the No Laughing Matter. And then Flynn locks on the worst looking armbar ever for the win.

Mike Enos vs. Van Hammer

This was alllll Enos for the first 2 minutes and he worked nice and stiff against Hammer (including just leveling VH with a shoulderblock), but then VH just cuts to his finishing run out of nowhere and looks bored doing it. Enos tried to make Hammer's offense look good, but VH didn't really care if it did or not.

Al Green vs. Curt Hennig

This was not great, and Hennig just looked sluggish and off in it. Green took a nice bump off a hotshot, and this just wasn't much. Hennig stumbled twice just trying to do the Perfect Plex. Crowd was into all the Rednecks, though, who were all grinning at ringside.

Kendall Windham/Bobby Duncum Jr. vs. Rey Misterio Jr./B.A.

Main event tag was an awesome 6 minutes. Kendall is the fucking greatest. His left hand seriously might be my favorite thing in recent wrestling that I've watched. Duncum has also aged really well in rewatch (his wrestling ability, not his "being alive" skills). He bumps really big and moves around with good purpose in the ring. Kendall and Duncum really bump around nicely for Rey, taking his offense in a way that does not look ridiculous (the way 6'6" dudes flying around for a 5'3" dude should look ridiculous). Eventually Barry and Hennig come in and beat Rey/B.A. down (Barry with the cowbell shot!) and then Swoll, Chase Tatum, and 4x4 (in his spaghetti strap camo tank top!!! I swear 4x4 is one of the most physically absurd guys I have ever seen. He's like 5'10" but 400 lbs., all in the arms and chest, and he always wears that damn tank top that looks like a tube top) chug down to the ring and the Rednecks bail. Awesome while it lasted. Kendall was seriously so damn good in '99, really carried himself like a total smug badass. Kendall, I know you'll never be the boy you always wanted to be, but you'll always be the boy who wanted me the way that I am.

Read more!