2002 Big Boss Man Runs Into Bradshaw

Big Boss Man/Mr. Perfect vs. Bradshaw/Faarooq WWF Metal 3/23/02

ER: Okay well this is the match right here. This is the kind of match that makes me want a series, and  makes me mad that most of the Boss Man/Perfect team's existence happened on house shows. Everyone came off tough, a real hardscrabble match that was cooperatively stiff in the best way. Perfect really works heavyweight here, and while he takes the most bumps of anyone they aren't athletic stooge heel bumps, they're hard back bumps off a shoulderblock or powerslam. Perfect and Boss Man cut Bradshaw off from Faarooq, which wasn't the direction I thought this was going, and I liked it. Boss Man is great on the apron, doing his "gotten to" expression to the crowd the first time he's tagged in, stalking up the apron, letting them chant Boss Man Sucks. His feeding into the chant is always so good, because he shuts them up quick by going right in and always punching a guy. Those chants never continue on into the match, he makes sure to quiet them quick, and having a big punch out with Bradshaw is a really cool way to guarantee they stop.

Boss Man and Perfect hit Bradshaw with a hard double shoulderblock, and Perfect is the one that Bradshaw throws around, but not in any kind of dominant way. I dug how Perfect got up quick after taking the fallaway slam, as it actually makes sense that a rolling bump like that wouldn't be as impactful as a suplex bump, and there's a killer tangle where Perfect kind of stops short but Bradshaw snags him and turns it into a hardway suplex. I'm not sure if it was a miscommunication, but I don't think it was, and it just made the spot look way cooler. Faarooq was the big hot tag while Perfect was getting run into the ringside steps, and I like that Faarooq couldn't fully lift Boss Man. He hit a spinebuster but it wasn't clean, but still enough to put a big man down. The most intense moment of the match came right after, when it looked like Faarooq was actually going to hit the freaking DOMINATOR on BOSS MAN! He hits a powerbomb instead - which is great - but my mind was racing at how both of these men just might injure themselves doing a move that I am still stunned was allowed to be used at all. Knowing this match exists should excite you, and it delivered on its potential.

Big Boss Man vs. Bradshaw WWF Heat 4/14/02

ER: First things first, this match is 30 seconds long. Second, it's the greatest 30 second match in wrestling history. I love 4 minute Wire songs, but I also love 45 second Wire songs. I love 2 minute Minutemen songs, but I also love 30 second Minutemen songs. I would certainly love a 5 minute bruise filled good ol boy fight, but Boss Man will also put the same effort and story progression into 30 seconds. It's got everything: Stiff work, loud crowd heat with immediate Boss Man Sucks chants, 8 great punches, a sternum breaking chest bump in the corner, and one highlight reel worthy Clothesline from Hell. It's as much heat and fight and payoff as a 3 minute match. Greatest Hits Played Faster. Boss Man has phenomenal timing, and it makes spots like Bradshaw's missed elbow look that much better. Boss Man hangs into spots like that until the last possible second, Bradshaw committing all of his weight, and before long Boss Man is throwing punches like he's trying to bust Bradshaw's eyebrow. Boss Man got incredible steam on a missed corner charge while everyone in the arena let him know how enthusiastically he siphons, and he turned around just in time to be obliterated by the Clothesline. Big Boss Man: Ultimate Tik Tok Wrestler. 

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2002 Boss Man vs. Shawn Michaels(' cousin)

Big Boss Man vs. Michael Shane WWF Metal 2/23/02

ER: Sometimes you just need to see Big Boss Man punch Michael Shane and his weird neon Scott Hall gear around the ring for 3-4 minutes. Boss Man was smart about how to construct a squash match, where Shane wasn't really getting any offense, but his very limited offense built to something within the match. Boss Man worked a similar match against Hurricane, building to one Hurricane bodyslam that got a big crowd reaction, and here he builds a reaction for Shane without actually needing to. Most of the match is Boss Man throwing great knee strikes, using a kneelift to cut off potential charges, and later using a knee to the side of the head while Shane was getting up. 

He interacts with the crowd and encourages the Boss Man Sucks chants with his gotten-to eyes, and encourages them more when he rubs it in their face every time he knocks Shane down. He even goes for a pin and just gets up after a 1 count, not even lifting Shane. Our first peek at Shane offense looks awesome, as he hits a dropkick that sends Boss Man reeling into the bottom and middle ropes, and Boss Man springs back and just sidesteps the next dropkick. 

I love all of Boss Man's strikes, but after watching a lot of later era Boss Man my favorite might be his straight palm strike to the forehead. It's so great to see him rear back and then just palm a guy right above the bridge of the nose. Shane's big moment is good, and it gets a reaction because of the heat Boss Man was getting throughout, with Boss Man missing a hard chest first corner charge and Shane coming off the ropes with a flying forearm. Boss Man goes down, crowd cheers, Michael Shane gets a moment. Plenty of guys in Boss Man's shoes would not have given that moment, and I love how Shane gets fired up enough to do that forearm again and gets caught immediately with a Boss Man Slam. 

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Two Short Timers: 2002 Boss Man vs. Perry Saturn

Big Boss Man vs. Perry Saturn WWF Metal 2/16/02

ER: Both guys were close to being gone from the company at this point, but I was still surprised by Boss Man beating Saturn in barely 2 minutes. Both had no problems mixing things up, and I would have loved to see 5 minutes of this. It's a weird match, as much of it is spent one them reversing Irish whips and punching each other into place. It's like they went out and decided to do a quick match with no moves other than the Boss Man Slam. It is entirely punches and kicks, and it kind of rules. Boss Man showed off all his great strikes, and his 1-2 combo of hitting a hard knee to the gut to buckle a guy then following it up with a straight right to the jaw. It's quickly becoming one of my favorite combos. Boss Man threw hard body shots, a straight right to the chin, and a palm strike right between Saturn's eyes. Saturn hit his cool springboard dropkick off the middle rope, and I really loved that as he kept throwing Boss Man with Irish whips, that he actually looked like he was muscling him. So many Irish whips are a guy barely going through the physical motions, relying on the guy getting whipped to just start running as he's pat on the back. But here's Perry Saturn doing some deep knee bends to show his work, really showing that he was putting his full strength into whipping Boss Man, and it works. I loved the spot where Saturn whips Boss Man into the corner: Boss Man hits the buckles chest first, and Saturn sweeps his legs as he's staggering backward. These two clearly had the material for a longer match, so I can only assume the Metal taping ran long and they had to cut this match short. 

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Big Boss Man & the Bodyslam

Big Boss Man vs. The Hurricane WWF Metal 2/2/02

ER: When you have less than 3 minutes to work with it comes off extra impressive to me when you can build to big moments within the minuscule narrative you created. We start with Hurricane trying to just take Boss Man off his feet any way he can, not budging him with a shoulderblock and getting the back of his head elbowed after a couple of failed bodyslam attempts. Boss Man throws Hurricane around with real strength, a nice mix of Boss Man's power and Hurricane's big bumping, and Boss Man's right hand variations in the corner look real mean. Boss Man had a limited moveset at this point but was super smart about utilizing every little movement and making stories out of those movements. Here, Molly hits him with a missile dropkick behind Nick Patrick's back and slips out of the ring, but Boss Man uses his slide to the floor to chase after her, sliding out of the ring and chasing her back in, and upon sliding back in Hurricane intercepts him and uses his chase momentum to actually hit that bodyslam. The crowd erupted for that bodyslam like Hurricane had just won the match, or even a title. Hurricane tries to take it too far and hit the chokeslam, but Boss Man shrugs him off, sends him into the ropes, and puts him away with the Boss Man Slam. How many throwaway bodyslams have you seen in all your years of watching wrestling, and here's Boss Man constructing a short match to make one actually feel like a major highspot. That's the story here.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: More 2002 Big Boss Man

Big Boss Man vs. DDP WWF Smackdown 1/17/02

ER: This era Boss Man really the master at taking 80% (or more) of a match and still letting his opponent plausibly beat him. Boss Man and DDP doesn't have to be an 80/20 match, but I liked how Boss Man turned it into one by using two different attacks out of the ref's view. Early in the match while the ref is trying to break them up, Boss Man punches DDP in the orbital bone to take initial control; late in the match he gets backed into a corner by DDP, and when Teddy Long leans in to tell DDP to break the hold, Boss Man uppercuts him right in the balls. All of Boss Man's offense looked great, like his big spinebuster, his awesome hot shot on the turnbuckle (after punching DDP's balls), and the punch exchanges between the two were fire! Boss Man's punches were the best in 2002 WWF (and that was when they had a roster of cool punchers in all weight classes) and DDP trades back and forth really well with him. At one point DDP just punches Boss Man in the chest to stun him, and that's the kind of thing you don't see anymore unless it's part of an overcomplicated combo. Much of DDP's offense comes from strong reversals or dodges of Boss Man, like a sleeper turned into a nasty jawbreaker, and it makes a lot of sense to make those kind of openings. Boss Man doesn't lay out for the Diamondcutter, taking it more like a Stunner, but the way he took it really made it look like a lot more snap was being done to his neck. Taking the flat stomach bump looks cooler, but I liked the painful way he took this one.

Big Boss Man vs. Shawn Stasiak WWF Metal 1/19/02

ER: Right out the chute this project is getting Shawn Stasiak's name in print for the first time on Segunda Caida. If nothing else, we'll always have that at least. Boss Man is wearing the riot squad gear (would have been awesome if he came back in Big Bubba attire for this run), but there's some confusion around the face/heel dynamics. Boss Man got a good reaction coming out, possibly because the aesthetics of his gimmick play much better in the south (this was in Texas). However, Stasiak was the de facto babyface here, meaning fans were put in a position to cheer Stasiak over Boss Man, which is tough because I cannot imagine many people cheering Stasiak over anybody. They do some things that feel like they would be expressly forbidden in modern WWE, namely Boss Man getting into it with a ringside fan (that guy who wears the same gas station shirt who was profiled on Confidential). It felt like the same way a guy would get heat on a southern indy show, and it just makes me nostalgic for seeing southern wrestling played to an 8,000 strong crowd. Stasiak even gets to go out and side with gas station guy and it feels like the crowd is suddenly far more invested in this. Could you see any wrestler today ever acknowledging or trying to start something with that one fan who sits front row with his mom every show? Boss Man was still really fast, and a lot of this was built around his speed, whether he was bailing quickly out of the ring or unable to slow a charge due to his size/speed combo, and some of his fast bumps were impressive. His offense is made up almost entirely of punches, which is perfectly fine because he still has a great uppercut and overhand right. I wish this one was not so driven by Stasiak offense, as he just wasn't very good and always landed too rigid on nearly everything he did. His crossbody looked like an ironing board being thrown at Boss Man and his leaping back elbow looked like he bounced off Boss Man instead of knocking Boss Man down. This was the last of the Shawn Stasiak I will be reviewing.

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Heel Tommy Dreamer: It's a Gag!

Tommy Dreamer/Mike Awesome vs. X-Pac/Albert WWF Metal 10/27/01

ER: This was only a technical heel performance from Dreamer, because nobody was going to be booed opposite X-Pac at this point. Living through X-Pac Heat was a really weird time. I'm not sure what other situations are comparable to it. He'd been a very popular babyface for a long time, and was then a popular babyface who acted like a heel, and at a certain point people just got loudly tired of him. The Uncle Kracker theme didn't help matters. But X Factor are clearly supposed to be the faces in this match, and it's worked with them as the faces, only the crowd didn't react to it that way. In fact, Mike Awesome got the biggest cheers of the match, any time he would do damage to X-Pac. Dreamer doesn't work as an overt heel, but he has one quality in his heel work that isn't around his babyface work: he staggers and stooges amusingly into position for offense. There are a couple of instances of this here, with the best being he and Awesome missing a double clothesline on Albert. Watch how Dreamer misses versus how Awesome misses. They both whiff, and Awesome just turns around and waits for Albert to bounce back off the ropes to level them both. But Dreamer whiffs, then acts like the motion threw his whole balance off, staggering into place to fill the perfect amount of time before getting leveled by Albert. Dreamer is a real satisfying heel bumper, as he's a good bumper in general for a man his size, but it's better utilized bumping for a big babyface Albert comeback. Dreamer was good from the apron, too, loved him nailing X-Pac with a knee to slow him down for Awesome, and Awesome's top rope clothesline looks great leveling X-Pac. This was a short, tidy, but fun match, and Dreamer makes the Baldo Bomb look crushing.

One Year Immunity Battle Royal WWF Survivor Series 11/18/01

ER: Rock solid battle royal regardless of how stupid the stipulation and the Invasion was. Bradshaw was a real beast, potatoing anyone close to him from WCW or ECW (as I typed that sentence it didn't really sound that surprising) and we got a lot of big spills on eliminations. All you really want from a battle royal is some surprisingly stiff shots, a couple of guys taking death wish elimination bumps, and no lying around. This ticked those boxes, was worked quick (only flaw might have been this needing a couple more minutes to space out eliminations), and had a nice extended run once they got to the final 4 (and I loved that the final 4 was Bradshaw, Billy Gunn, Test, and Lance Storm of all people). It started with a perfect moment: Shawn Stasiak being the first to charge into action, getting backdropped to elimination as the match started. The eliminations were strong, like Bradshaw hitting big lariats to send guys out, Tazz eliminating Crash and Tommy Dreamer while Dreamer was powerbombing Crash, Bradshaw throwing out Kidman with a fallaway slam, just a bunch of guys smacking the ground hard. We also get the great battle royal joy of noticing guys who were in between gear, like Stevie Richards wearing black slacks and a black t-shirt, post Right To Censor/pre-Anything Else. Test wins this thing, but what he sadly doesn't know is that the winner of this specific battle royal gets a) immunity from being fired for one year, but also b) a death sentence within the decade. They did not tell that to Test before the battle royal, he found out after. Also, Crash's death was not related to the battle royal, only Test's was.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE HEEL TOMMY DREAMER

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Heel Tommy Dreamer: It's a Joke!

Tommy Dreamer vs. Hardcore Holly WWF Metal 9/15/01

ER: This was a bunch of stiff violence packed into about 3 minutes, and seeing a match like this makes it clear that Bob Holly is the guy that should have been sent to ECW instead of Aldo Montoya. If Holly came into ECW in 1997 with the same attitude he was carrying to 2001 late night syndicated WWF TV matches, he would have been huge. Bob Holly in 1997 ECW would have been like Jon Moxley on AEW TV now. Dreamer is the heel AND larger, but Holly somehow comes off meaner and stronger while also connecting with the crowd as a babyface. Dreamer goes for a cheapshot and gets his ass handed to him for it, with Holly swinging his full arms as hard as he could to smack Dreamer across the back and face. Dreamer even takes a vertical suplex on the floor after just trying to get away from Holly. Holly is this amusing combination of ugly strikes that clearly land hard, and he works a quick aggressive pace different than the quick paced matches now. Holly fills voids with kicks and punches and maximizes time. Dreamer gets a couple bits of nice offense (a heavy backbreaker and a Russian legsweep he really yanked Holly into), but this was mostly just beating Dreamer's ass. Dreamer misses that Naniwa elbow and Holly commences with hard bodyslams, clotheslines, and a gorgeous dropkick under the chin (gorgeous and pinpoint even in comparison to Holly's typical dropkick). The finish is a super smart way to work into the Alabama Slam, with Dreamer getting a small opening and trying to hit a piledriver, only for Holly to effortlessly stand up and plant him dead center. I wasn't expecting Holly to be such a tsunami in this, as it came off like the kind of match you see someone lose on their way to being out of the company. 

Tommy Dreamer/Chuck Palumbo vs. Taka Michinoku/Funaki WWF Metal 9/29/01

ER: This was the kind of match that made Metal my favorite weekly show around this era. It's incredibly fun, and worked with far more originality that I'd expect a similar tag to be worked in 2021. Taka and Funaki evade Palumbo with their speed, then start working over Dreamer's arm, even hitting a nice tandem vertical suplex on him. Dreamer and Palumbo are good at plausibly selling for their much smaller opponents, never making it seem ridiculous that Kaientai are keeping them on the ropes. Dreamer is nice and vindictive when they gain control, as he starts punishing Funaki for working over his arm by working over Funaki's arm! I haven't really seem something like that, where one guy takes arm wringers and axe handles to the shoulder, then when he gets his chance starts doing the same thing. "You remember this? How do YOU like it?" Dreamer hits a bodyslam with Funaki's arm pinned behind his back, throws him into the ringpost, not planning on working the arm over for the finish, just punishing Funaki for insolence. 

The Kaientai comeback was really good, and Dreamer's timing really made it click. Funaki hit a really awesome reverse DDT, swinging into the position after Dreamer got him in a fireman's carry. It was a super slick reversal, someone needs to steal that. Taka is a great house of fire, nailing Palumbo with uppercuts, and I loved his cool running knee into the corner on Palumbo, flipping over the apron and nailing Dreamer with a springboard spinning heel kick. Dreamer gets knocked to the floor while Funaki holds Palumbo in a camel clutch while Taka slaps him, hits a baseball slide on Dreamer (as he's trying to get back into the ring from the floor), then runs back and dropkicks Palumbo in the face. Funaki goes for a pescado on Dreamer, who dodges and sends Funaki crashing to the floor, only to get kicked off the apron by Taka when he again tries to get into the ring. Dreamer takes a great bump onto the apron to the floor, but Taka kicking Dreamer distracts him just enough for Palumbo to lay him out with his excellent superkick. Palumbo angrily sells his nose and face during the whole pin, still smarting from Taka's dropkick. This match was a super smooth, super smart way of getting from A to B to C, and a style totally absent from WWE TV today.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE HEEL TOMMY DREAMER

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Heel Tommy Dreamer: Obviously, Somebody Took Offense To It

Tommy Dreamer vs. Scotty 2 Hotty WWF Metal 9/1/01

ER: Tommy Dreamer might have been trying to hit Kurt Angle with his car, or, he was merely pulling into a parking space. This is the technical beginning of Heel Tommy Dreamer, although no turn was yet official. He would have been the default heel here as the crowd was not going to be booing Scotty 2 Hotty, but he does a great turn at the end of the match anyway. Dreamer is good at missing offense to set up Scotty's, and he gets crotched TWICE. There is nothing Tommy Dreamer loves more than being dropped balls first onto a guardrail or rope or turnbuckle, and here he gets swollen balls from the ringside barricade AND top turnbuckle! Dreamer is aggressive and keeps missing until he hits, rolling to the floor off a superkick and then taking a hard bump to the floor after getting crotched on the barricade. But he's got great right hands that he throws from a far back wind up, elevating his punches by landing them from a reared back slot. I liked 2001 Dreamer's moveset a lot: nice neckbreaker, a great Sky High that gets set up like a spinebuster, great missed elbow bump off a Naniwa elbow. 

The best part of the match is the official Dreamer heel turn, because it's so logical and makes so much sense, and is just so easy. Dreamer gets crotched on the top buckle, staggers down to his feet, and as Scotty runs the ropes to set up the bulldog that sets up the Worm...Dreamer merely ducks. Dreamer ducks, then just spikes Scotty with a DDT. The fans absolutely hate it. The crowd noise that started with buzzed excitement as they saw Scotty setting up the Worm, that transitions to hate-filled boos as Dreamer dodges the Worm and then mocks them for loving the Worm, is sublime. Dreamer does a fantastic impression of how stupid Scotty looks when he's about to do the Worm, does the shittiest/perfect one legged hops, and while doing those hops Scotty gets up and plants him with the Bulldog. Even better, is that when Scotty does hit the Worm, he immediately finishes off Dreamer with a springboard DDT that I don't remember him regularly using. I appreciate when guys try to put unique twists on played out spots, and this was a great version of that. 

Tommy Dreamer vs. Tajiri WWF Heat 9/9/01

ER: A cool 4 minute match with a surprising, earned Tajiri win. This was an unexplored ECW TV bout, but we have a ton of fancam singles matches. This is their only WWF match, and it was a tight version of their ECW house show feud. Dreamer controls and bullies Tajiri around, and I have no real memory of any hierarchies during the short Invasion window so I have no clue where either of these guys ranked in comparison to each other. Tajiri was with Torrie Wilson, Dreamer had new pants with a barbed wire design down the leg. Who's to say. Dreamer works a cool bearhug where he lowers Tajiri's shoulders to the mat for a pinfall, Tajiri tries to pull a can opener, then get a guillotine, then just opts to bite Dreamer's nose to escape. As Dreamer is stumbling around holding his nose, screaming like a man who chose the worst possible time to tell a distasteful joke about Tongans, Tajiri flattens him with the most perfect crescent kick. Tajiri gets spiked nicely on a DDT, and the crowd got into Tajiri snapping and just hauling off on Dreamer with a flurry of punches and kicks. Dreamer jaws with leather pants Torrie Wilson and gets kicked in his hamstring for it, dropping his head enough to eat a buzzsaw right. They were 4-4 in their ECW singles matches, so Tajiri goes up in the corporate rubber match. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE HEEL TOMMY DREAMER

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Hotstuff Hernandez in WWF

Hotstuff Hernandez has always felt like one of the notable guys over the past couple decades to have never worked WWE, but he's also not a guy who gets talked about much as someone who could have been in WWE. He feels like a guy they would have wanted at some point, and a guy who could have been a pretty big name in certain WWE eras. He's worked nearly everywhere else in his 20+ year run, has been a visible TV presence, but has never worked for WWE. However, he worked two matches for WWF, in the year before they became WWE. How many guys work a couple matches early in their career, and then go on to make good paydays everywhere else for 20 years? It's an interesting case. Here are those two matches:


Shawn Hernandez vs. Crash WWF Jakked 11/11/2000

ER: Little did they know that they had the spitting image of future shaved head Kurt Angle right here, in a match where they talked several times about Kurt Angle, yet never made the connection. And part of that was our cursed announce team of Michael Hayes and Jonathan Coachman mentioned the name Shawn Hernandez early, but not again once the match was rolling. What Michael Hayes *does* do, is make several non-jokes about women he would like to have sex with. You now, the kind of non-jokes where suddenly any kind of verb is flipped around and made to sound dirty. "So, Molly Holly got a big win this week." "Ohhhhhh, I'll let Molly Holly get a big win over me heh heh." "Well we're still running those XFL cheerleader tryouts..." "Ohhhhh, I'd like to tryout for those XFL cheerleaders heh heh." It's great stuff and obviously they are great jokes that you cannot NOT tell. And Hernandez gets a lot of play here, most notably throwing a great high arc powerslam early. Crash makes up the size difference by hitting nice and hard, nice punches to Hernandez's eye, flies into him with a couple of nice short elbows (one of which slumps Hernandez back into the corner), knocks him down with a big bolo lariat, then hits a good enough missile dropkick. Now Crash probably needed a better, flashier comeback, as Hernandez was more in control the first couple minutes, and with the size difference Crash should have gone for some more explosives. But the bulldog finish plays with this crowd, and the match itself is good enough.

Shawn Hernandez vs. Haku WWF Jakked 4/7/01

ER: This was cool, as Hernandez gets to be a hulking Kurt Angle, bigger than Haku, and Haku is enough of a man that he basically lets Hernandez run this thing. Haku can let some hulk in a singlet look strong, because he's Haku and he knows he can always just rip his eyeball out at any point. The whole match is remarkably simple and effective, with few moves and none really needed. Haku is in his early 40s here and gets to show how spry he still was, working some face rope running/dropdown/leapfrog sequences with Hernandez in a way that Haku really wasn't doing with anyone else at the time, and the match peaked with something as easy as Hernandez chopping the hell out of Haku. Seriously, it's so great. These guys have gotten by this whole time by just running into each other and being two guys butting heads, and we finally get Hernandez whipping Haku into the turnbuckles...and then he just starts beating him down. Hernandez throws heavy clubbing forearm shots to Haku's chest, then starts throwing big hard chops. And not super fast Kobashi chops, he's laying them in Ric Flair style, and Haku just yells louder every time another one lands. Hernandez is standing and chopping Haku as hard as possible, and the fans are getting into it, and Hernandez keeps chopping, and the fans are into this big man slugfest. Hernandez tosses Haku into the opposite buckles, Haku angrily headbutts the buckle, Hernandez gives chase...and Haku catches him dead to rights in the Tongan Death Grip. I had no clue these two ever crossed paths, had no memory of this match (even though Metal/Jakked was my favorite show during this era), but this was what you would want from 3 minutes of two hosses.

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