Jim Duggan's Best WWF Match

 

Jim Duggan vs. Shawn Michaels WWF Raw 5/10/93

ER: I think, from other wrestling writers, when reading a lead such as "Jim Duggan's Best WWF Match" you might think it was some kind of trick. Then you read the review and it's just talking about the 1992 or 1988 or 2009 Royal Rumble and Duggan is barely mentioned and you realize you have indeed been duped by Sensational Pro Wrestling Headlines That Are Technically Correct. I'm not here to trick you. You know that by now. I'm not interested in tricks. I'm just here to talk plainly about Jim Duggan's Best WWF Match, and regardless of your interpretation of that statement I think you will be satisfied. This is both a) Duggan's Best WWF Match, b) The Hardest Duggan Worked in a WWF Match, and c) The Best Duggan Ever Looked in a WWF Match. Whatever definition of "Best" you came into this with, I think I will have your bases covered. 

Admittedly I am higher on Duggan than most, recognizing the strengths and weaknesses that he brought to the last 30 years of his career. But even as a supporter of his strengths (and someone who was even a fan of his 2006-2008 WWF comeback) I can admit that often the best WWF/WCW Duggan matches were due to his opponent. That doesn't mean that Duggan brought nothing to these matches, but I would say the vast amount of "From WWF On" Duggan matches that I enjoy are due to an opponent working around Duggan as an opponent. Duggan is often more of an obstacle to work around than a guy to work with. This was even more true by the time he was in WCW. Regal vs. Duggan, Craig Pittman vs. Duggan, even Roadblock vs. Duggan, these are match-ups that were entertaining due to fun wrestlers working around a large obstruction. Jim Duggan was not someone who was interested in having Great Matches, and I love how durable and popular he remained by working a safe style. He was clearly a smart man, working as a stupid man. 

So I have no idea what got into him for this one match. I can't think of another WWF match he had anywhere close to this match, the longest recorded singles match of his entire WWF tenure. We're not really buying the accuracy of the supposed 20-25 minute house Savage matches, anyway. Until I see video evidence I think it's far more likely that whomever reported those numbers was actually watching a 15 minute match that felt like a 25 minute match. This match was an actual long TV singles match that goes through two commercial breaks, not some house show fantasy. It's a lumberjack where all the lumberjacks - Bam Bam Bigelow, Mr. Hughes, Typhoon, Terry Taylor, you know the real big guys - save Yokozuna were actually wearing flannel shirts. It's absurd, and their appearance made me assume before the match started that the lumberjacks would be heavily involved in cartoon fashion. And yet, the lumberjacks were hardly a factor, except for Yokozuna's very important involvement in the finish. 

Oh, well then surely Shawn Michaels was the one covering for Duggan! This was a long singles match that was clearly made palatable by the great Shawn Michaels slipping on banana peels! Nope, that's not it either. Michaels bumps like a normal man, still taking great bumps, but not as one bumping in service to himself as he often does. Did he take one of the highest backdrops a man could possibly take? Getting vaulted up higher into the air as Duggan shoves his already-high-in-the-air-knees up and over even higher, resulting in one of the highest non-Rick Rude backdrops in company history? Yes. Michaels was great in this match. But I think Hacksaw was even greater. 

Duggan takes an actual furious attack to Michaels and keeps the attack going nearly the entire match. It is the most energetic I have seen Duggan in a WWF ring and it's a sight. His strikes have purpose, he drops elbows with weight, he does a vertical suplex! This man doesn't just do a vertical suplex, he does a delayed vertical suplex! Think about it. Explore the Hacksaw corners of your brain, and try to recall if you've seen Jim Duggan do a vertical suplex, let alone hang onto one for awhile. This was a match for a title, and Duggan was fighting like a man who really really wanted to win that title. Michaels had shown up for the match in street clothes on crutches, trying to duck the challenge, and here's Duggan ripping clothes off Michaels back. This proves the theory that, If Jim Duggan Is Ripping Another Man's Clothes Off During A Match, You Are Watching A Great Duggan Match. He looks incredible. His Johnny Ramone shag was his best ever haircut, and his large American flag singlet-covered belly hangs down like a pregnant dog's. When he misses his Old Glory kneedrop, he misses it like a man who doesn't care about his knees. 

Michaels is a guy who wears cowboy boots whenever he gets the chance, but this match is the match where he finally takes one of those boots off to do the best thing you can do with a cowboy boot in wrestling: hit a guy with a big belly directly in the head with the heel of that boot. But Jim Duggan has a similar-but-different asset to black wrestlers and islanders: His head is not so hard as to be impervious to headbutts, but it is a head that is so empty that the heel of a cowboy boot cannot began to damage it. The same goes for Michaels desperately trying to lock in a sleeperhold and chinlock: You are only expending your own average trying to cut off blood flow to the man who already has limited brain activity. This was the last big Duggan match. Duggan went on to have a US title reign the next year and a TV title reign during the Russo era of WCW, and neither of those actual title wins felt like anywhere close to as big a deal as this title challenge. The US title reign felt like something written into Hogan's contract, the TV title  run was written as "who would be the funniest guy to put a literal garbage title on"; this match was the last time Duggan felt like he was actually fighting for something. 1993 WWF is the easiest year to re-book in hindsight. This match, ending when Duggan is thrown to the floor and flattened by Yokozuna, leading to Mr. Perfect going after Michaels for the DQ, clearly set up programs that never got satisfyingly paid off. Duggan should have challenged Yokozuna for the World title on PPV, Perfect should have challenged Michaels for the IC title at King of the Ring, Crush should have slammed Yokozuna on the Intrepid after Duggan softened him up, etc. The Luger turn ruined everything that the first half of the year had been building to...

but somewhere in all that mess we got an actual great Jim Duggan WWF match.    

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Dirtbag Era Barry Windham Concludes; Dirtbag Era Vader Commencing?

Barry Windham vs. Vader WWF Raw 5/11/98

ER: You wanna talk dirtbags, kid, then you're going to want to talk about this match. Barry Windham and Vader were each ensconced in their own individual dirtbag eras, riding out contracts neither seemingly wanted to be underneath any longer. Windham doesn't so much look like a dirtbag as he looks like a man who is permanently sleeping one off, forced to come into work on his day off after a night spent as a man who didn't have to work the next day. Vader still has that unmistakeable Vader charisma - you watch him burst out on that entrance stage and throw in an unnecessary-but-Absolutely Necessary twirl as he's hyping up fans in several sections of the arena with V hands and tell me this man isn't the greatest big man ever - but he is also wearing Vader gear that is tantamount to those old Halloween costumes that had a picture of the character you were supposed to be on the pajama shirt that came with the plastic mask. Obviously I am C-3P0, you can tell by my shirt that has C3P0 on it and also says "C3P0". Vader is not so much in dirtbag mode as he is in Pajama Jams Vader mode, wearing the sleeveless t-shirt version of his own Vader Time singlet. Vader is a man wearing his own character's pajamas. Barry Windham was just woken up from a 7 hour nap minutes before this match. Vader has just finished brushing his teeth before bedtime, and for two guys visibly mailing it in they sure do have a cool match. 

Vader and Windham had several years of overlap in WCW and WWF, more than enough time to give us a Vader/Windham singles match, but somehow this match is it. The only one! We got several instances of them teaming in 1993 WCW, but can you imagine a 10 minutes singles match between them in 1993? My god. This 2 minute singles match in 1998 is not that 10 minute match in 1993 that I made up and got upset about, but I like this era of clock punching big men in their own Spirit Store costumes. Windham looks like a man who wouldn't be able to keep food down but moves as fast as his 1988 self. He weathers Vader's attacks and ducks fast under a super low Vader clothesline swing, throws his diving lariat with real impact and I love that despite a physique that looks like he hasn't lifted a weight since Clinton's re-election, Windham actually holds Vader up and drops him with a back suplex. Windham also absorbs a ton of Vader's weight in really painful ways, pulling Vader butt first onto his chest with a misguided sunset flip and apparently not learning his lesson in any way and trying it again later, this one Full Ass and punctuated with a Vader eye roll. Vader is either tired of This Shit, or recognizes how foolish Barry was to try that exact same thing a second time. Vader flattens him with a standing splash and drags him over for the Vader Bomb, which Windham sells perfectly. Barry rolls to his side clutching his guts as Vader lands, the way a man would reel when a 400 pound man just laid out from 5 feet up, like the world's heaviest mattress just got thrown onto him from the window of a three story walk up. 

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The Unheralded Two Minute Long 1998 WWF Chain Match

Savio Vega/Jose Estrada vs. 8-Ball/Skull WWF Raw 4/13/98

ER: WWF was not a Chain Match fed. I don't think they even ran any chain matches during the Hardcore Title era, and before this two minute long match that was much more Great Segment than Actual Match, they hadn't run any chain matches since Hercules or Ivan Koloff had been there. But in 1998 they had Puerto Ricans and Nazi Bikers and it's actually shocking that this is the only chain match the promotion had during that run. But again, this is not so much a match, as it is a great way to have nine guys fighting onscreen at one time. Savio is fighting Skull, Estrada is fighting 8-Ball, Savio swings his chain past Skull's ear into the ring steps, and from there they all have chain-wrapped fists as they brawl to the void as more and more people get involved in a bigger and bigger fight. 

WWF has had putrid, at times unwatchable camera work for the last 20 years, a product filmed and directed by people who don't know how to film or direct pro wrestling. Watch any game from any major sport in 1998, and you will be blown away by how many advancements have been made in filming each of them. All of them have made net positive gains in the way they are presented and shot. Pro wrestling is somehow the only athletic event where every part of the presentation has devolved. This is a segment that shows how well they were able to film and direct a lot of moving parts while always showing every part of the chaos that was happening. While two cool Puerto Ricans punch two Nazis in the face, DX comes out and at once begin to beat Chainz' ass. I am not sure where Jesus Castillo or Miguel Perez were on this night, but Chainz is the only man to accompany his boys, and he is quickly swarmed by DX. 

The cameras perfectly frame the assault on Chainz in the foreground while chains fly in the ring in the background. Billy Gunn and Chainz throw punches at each other's crowns until Chainz takes a chair to the back, and then the chain fight in the back fades out as we close in on Chainz taking just an unnecessarily brutal beating. X-Pac gives him an unprotected chair shot to the head, he takes an even harder shot to the back, HHH gives him a Pedigree on the chair, and the man gets dragged to the entrance ramp to take a spike piledriver on another fucking chair. The Chainz Stretcher Job. DOA and Los Boricuas are all throwing close quarter punches at each other's heads while the chains whip around everywhere, oblivious to the Chainz massacre. 

With Chainz left for dead the assailants spill into the ring and the filming of the action shifts, as DX now joins Savio and Estrada as true heroes unmercifully stomping the Nazis while Chainz is framed perfectly in the background, slowly dragging himself up the ramp like he's futilely crawling away from Leatherface. X-Pac is stomping and choking the hell out of Skull while literally screaming in his face, Estrada is dropping Hitman elbows on 8-Ball, Billy Gunn wraps his fist in a chain and does a fucking chain wrapped fistdrop and it's one of many things that make Billy Gunn perhaps the highest Stock Rising guy of 1998. When the Nazis are lying in their own filth, Chyna finally gets involved and uppercuts Both Boricuas in the Balls. 

This whole segment was one of the only times DX actually came off like full heel total assholes who weren't trying to be cool. There was no preening to the crowd, nothing was done to come off likable, every part of their time on screen was spent fighting. They were dominant but in a real Taking Liberties Because They're Bad People kind of way. They started by jumping one guy 4 on 1 and giving him a ringside beating that stood out as noticeably stiffer than any prior DX angles, then went 6 on 2 to beat up that guy's friends (technically Nazis so that is them being good guys), then went 5 on 2 to take out the two guys who had just helped them out. Real assholes with no redeeming qualities, filmed by a production crew who knew how to highlight everything that made them assholes. 

Not 10 minutes later Mark Henry, The Rock, D-Lo, and Kama have a crazy pull apart with Faarooq, Steve Blackman, Ken Shamrock, and various security guys like Sgt. Slaughter and Tony Garea. This has to be the only Mark Henry/Sgt. Slaughter interaction we've ever seen. 

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Michinoku Pro Jerry Lawler

Jerry Lawler vs. Taka Michinoku WWF Raw 12/15/97 - GREAT

ER: Since Lawler was an absolute nobody in Japan, we missed out on a ton of potential Lawler in Japan. If Thailand had any kind of wrestling scene I'm sure we'd have a bounty of Thai Lawler matches. When I think of cool matches Lawler could have had with Japanese wrestlers, my mind automatically thinks of heavyweight opponents or ass kicking juniors like Fuchi or Otani. But thinking about Lawler versus the 90s Michinoku Pro roster is something different entirely, and this very cool almost anachronistic 5 minute match shows us what that might have looked like. Lawler bullying his way through the M-Pro roster is the stuff of dreams, taking a cocky and dominant stance as he punches out Masato Yakushiji or gets flustered by Gran Hamada. Think about Lawler vs. Dick Togo! Think about Lawler vs. Super Delfin! Think about Lawler vs. Gran Naniwa!! 

There just aren't many matches where Lawler has to take juniors offense of any kind, and it's a special thing when you can find a Jerry Lawler match - a man with no shortage of taped matches - that gives you something completely different. One thing this does, is remind you how cool it looks when Lawler bullies someone. He lifts and throws Taka to break a headlock like he was Nikita Koloff throwing Tully. When Taka backs him into the corner and throws a knife edge chop, Lawler gives him a 555 Come-On-Now look after a knife edge chop and holds the ropes on an Irish whip, then grins as he shows Taka how to throw a proper knife edge. Since Lawler has at least 8 different elite level punches, it's easy to forget how strong his chops are. He hardly ever uses them. You probably could have guessed that you would get Lawler doing fake karate against Literally Any Asian Opponent (even though that feels like more of a Brian Christopher thing as I type it out) and of course he works a karate exchange as good as any Tracy Smothers routine. He rakes Taka's eyes and does not entirely ridiculous karate poses before hitting a Great Kabuki-like sidekick to the stomach (something he never does), but gets instantly surprised by Taka getting up throwing leg kicks and a spinning heel kick.

Lawler is in his late 40s and is tasked with basing for Taka's springboard plancha, which still looks like one of the most spectacular pieces of pro wrestling flying. I thought Roddy Piper and Ric Flair were still great wrestlers in 1997, but could you imagine either of them catching another man flying at them on a leaping run from the top rope to beyond the ringside mats? I can't. Well, Lawler leans into the whole thing while also making it one of the greatest catches of all time by screaming in terror when he knows he won't be able to avoid it. When Lawler comes back with a running dropkick, Taka hits one of his own - thrown similarly to Lawler's - and when they both hit the ropes and throw them at each other...well, let me tell you just how much I love a mirror dropkick spot in this match, directly after the running plancha no less.  

There's one weird moment where Lawler doesn't really roll out of the way of a moonsault but acts like absorbing it with his back instead of his ribcage is something that would hurt Taka more than it would hurt him. That really doesn't seem like a Lawler thing to do. He's a master at selling offense that hits or misses in a way it's not supposed to, but the only way I could see this spot working is if Lawler visibly sold that it didn't hurt due to Taka's smaller size. I don't think that's a great idea if the idea is to get over your opponent as effective, but I could see that drawing real heat in Japan. Lawler as a guy who just doesn't sell flyer offense but could get flustered by Mochizuki or Hoshikawa. But this is Bully Lawler, so he shows off how easy it is to toss this little guy with a vertical suplex, and for once it's not Lawler, but his opponent, who is being thrown with a backdrop. 

I can't stop thinking about Lawler twisting Gran Naniwa's head with a cravat, introducing the fistdrop to Sasuke's boys. Here he measures up a beauty of a fistdrop into Taka's throat that Taka's sells by holding his head like he's in an Excedrin commercial. He sells the piledriver the exact same way, but it's an appropriate way to sell a piledriver. The finish is far too abrupt and doesn't pay off anything done in the match, as a missed kissed fistdrop off the middle rope leads directly to the Michinoku Driver. Great timing from Brian Cristopher running down to the ring in time to pull Taka off before the 3 count though. Lawler needed to be kept strong for his Kaientai DX run, so this makes sense. Find me another match where Lawler takes a Michinoku Driver. Lie to me and tell me Lawler worked Super Boy. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LAWLER

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The Sherri Martel x Luna Vachon Fight

Sherri Martel x Luna Vachon WWF Raw 4/12/93

ER: During the first few months of Raw, Vince and Macho Man would frequently try to get Raw's slogan to actually stick. Raw! Uncut, Uncooked, Uncensored! doesn't sound bad in print advertising, but I don't think it was going to work when Vince and Macho Man would take turns saying each word like they were recording their first answering machine message. Importantly, even if the slogan had worked, there was nothing whatsoever about Raw that was Uncut or Uncensored. You have seldom seen wrestling more Cut or Censored. I suppose they chose not to cut the Brutus Beefcake comeback interview where he talks in depth about his depression following the parasail accident, and someone in the Manhattan Center yells at him to kill himself. That probably should have been cut, but was painfully Uncut. 

It took a Rob Bartlett interview segment with Luna Vachon to finally give viewers something that did feel Raw! Uncut and Uncensored. If there was blood I could have called it Uncooked. But even without blood, this was a wild, out of nowhere violent segment. To my knowledge this was the first segment given to Bartlett, right at the end of his short-but-too-long WWF commentary career. By the end of the segment, it was clearly his greatest contribution to wrestling. It starts as a simple interview with Luna Vachon that was mostly Luna growling through a non-sensical Ultimate Warrior Promo for Girls with Bartlett nothing much more than a guy holding the mic. As Luna calls out Sensational Sherri and continues talking about the impact of her presence in the ring on time and space and the universe at large, Sherri storms out and things get real. Sherri is dressed like a character on White Lotus: white suit jacket, black bra underneath in lieu of an actual top, billowing slacks, and it's topped off with a great head curly Jim Croce hair. Luna continues on her bullshit and Sherri rolls her eyes, laughs and throws a side kick right into Luna's tit. 

From there we get one of the wilder, unscripted-feeling, violent brawls from any era of Raw. This is a real brawl, the kind that would have stood out on the grimiest IWA Mid-South show. Sherri starts throwing stiff right hands, Rob Bartlett makes the mistake of staying in the middle of it too long and gets his vest and shirt ripped off while his body gets thrown aside, Luna swings her heavy studded belt straight at Sherri's face multiple times, Sherri throws a full extension vertical suplex on the floor, and brother, clothes are being torn off at unsustainable levels. Bartlett accidentally gets in the way and gets chased off and he shows that he can do a funny comedy run. I wouldn't have thought he could do a good comedy run and it showed he could at least do comedy. Meanwhile Sherri is absolutely falling out of her top, tits spilling out next to kids' heads, and that's before the brawl goes over the guardrail into the front row. Look at the vivid elation and nirvana on the faces of mulleted children and Poughkeepsie hockey dads as Sherri punches her way past them with a handful of Luna's spectacular Michael Jackson Bad Tour '97 Backup Dancer hair and you know they're seeing something they've never seen before. Sgt. Slaughter hauls Luna off over his shoulder, legs kicking, and it seems like everything is settled business. 

Instead, we come back from commercial break and for some reason Sherri is wearing only her black bra and black satin lingerie shorts, covering her bosom with Macho Man's tastefully black and white spangled cowboy hat, and frankly looks fucking incredible. Within moments of her yelling about Luna over the house mic, Luna comes back down to ringside, apparently left totally untended-to backstage during the break. This woman had to be carried away by a man not 5 minutes earlier. You gotta have someone keep an eye on her for at least the next few minutes. But Luna immediately comes back down the aisle doing this funny theatrical Lon Chaney creep to start shit up all over again. She chokes out Sherri and this woman is out here fighting in her underwear that is barely containing her, and still throws a RINGS level knee to the stomach. Luna gets hit with that shoot knee and sells it like Flea getting hit with a bowling ball in Lebowski. It's incredible. Sherri shouts into the mic again and they frame her made-up face in the overhead lights in a glowing shot. She looks straight out of a Russ Meyer movie, or the Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman poster. She walks out of the arena in her bra, literally shoving past Papa Shango doing his dumb voodoo shit in the aisle. 

Rob Bartlett later came back to do commentary covered in scratches and scrapes and bruises, torn undershirt hanging half off, a hilarious far off dazed look in his eyes. Macho Man and Vince dunk on him the rest of the show and make mean girl comments about his physique. Bringing out a man covered in cuts just to do commentary for the debut and last match of Friar Ferguson. They had Friar Ferguson going on after a brawl that would have fired up a sold out Mid-South Coliseum in 1985. If Ronda Rousey and Charlotte came out and had this brawl on Raw, it would be talked about as a universally great moment in pro wrestling. Here, it was barely capitalized on in any way. Luna had attacked Sherri multiple times at WrestleMania, and this was Sherri's earned revenge, and all it lead to was a month of house show matches later that summer. Maybe it's for the best. A straight match wouldn't have come close to matching the rawness of this fight.

Is so strange that it even happened. There was next to no female presence on WWF TV in 1993. There were Raw ring card girls, Sherri, Helen Hart, and a couple interviews with Jim Duggan's wife after he got flattened by Yokozuna. You did not see women on Raw in 1993. But it took two women to go out and have the most memorable, most raw, uncut, and uncensored segment of the first few months of the longest running pro wrestling show in all time and space and the universe at large. And then it's gone. 

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Loosely Formed 1998 WWF: Mark Henry's First Great Performance

Mark Henry vs. Owen Hart WWF Raw 3/2

I thought this was a really great Mark Henry performance. The first great Mark Henry performance. A great performance from a man who literally all of us missed on for four years. You can see here how great he was at taking all of Owen's offense AS a superheavyweight (important), selling everything appropriately and to the degree it needed to be sold. 

Henry's bump through the ropes to the floor on a spinning heel kick looked was so well done, and it's the way he leans into Owen's baseball slide dropkick and bumps back flat on the floor. Later he takes a similar bump off a nice Owen missile dropkick, taking it all with his chest and flying straight back. 

Criticizing Owen's ring work is one of my least favorite things, but man Owen had some bad looking offense here. Brother, it's just flat out stupid to do shoulderblocks to the stomach of a man like Mark Henry. Look at how ridiculous Owen looks trying to hold Henry in the corner while jamming his shoulder into his stomach! Why is he doing them? One of my least favorite parts of Owen's in-ring is the way he auto pilots his way through matches, and has these moments where he only knows how to do one thing one specific way, regardless of who his opponent is. He knows how to move a match from A to B to C, but he doesn't change his A to B to C to account for differences in opponent. So while it might make sense for him to throw shoulderblocks in the corner at Jeff Jarrett, it looks absurd against Henry. Henry is the one who should be throwing shoulderblocks, and when he does exactly that later in the match, it only makes Owen's look sillier. When he's kicking away at Henry's leg? Perfect. But come on, it looks ridiculous to put a man that size in the sharpshooter (even if I liked how Owen bumped when he got kicked off his sharpshooter attempts). 

If you compare their selling over the course of the match, it is not a favorable comparison for Owen. Henry builds to his bumps and knows how to sell the size difference, meanwhile Owen is the one taking a strong backbreaker and elbowdrop only to jump up to his feet like nothing at all happened to him when Henry misses his next elbow. Owen is working the match in segments, while Henry is working it as a complete match. When a segment is done, Owen basically claps his hands and moves on to the next section, ignoring everything that just happened. Henry is just out here working a full match. 

I loved the way Henry threw himself into his misses. The leaping elbowdrop miss was the best, but his missed charge into the turnbuckles looked great, better than Owen's. I love the Bret chest first bump as it always looked like it shifted his whole skeleton and usually lead to his opponent taking over for long control. Owen never uses it meaningfully, and seems to just do it because his brother did it. Henry's version actually makes sense within the match. Also, Henry's missed seated splash on Owen's sunset flip attempt (and the subsequent ass cheek sell) was sweet sweet icing. 

BUT maybe the coolest thing Henry did in the match, was the way he RAN toward Owen after whipping him into the corner, before throwing him with a belly to belly. The best wrestlers in wrestling history would have just let Owen recoil and stumble out towards them before hitting their move, but running to meet him right after the recoil and then waiting a beat before throwing him, now that's brilliant. 

I think it's safe to say that this is the first match where Mark Henry looked Actually Good. I don't think this level of performance keeps up through 1998, but this is like finding the good Tamon Honda performances from the 90s that nobody actually talked about in the 90s. 

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Loosely Formed 1998 WWF: Rock n Rolls! Aguila! Pirata Morgan!

Rock n Roll Express vs. The Head Bangers WWF Raw 2/23

This is continued proof of Rock n Roll Express busting ass during this too brief WWF stint. The first half of this was made up of Rock n Roll misdirection spots where they kept accidentally hitting each other while getting more and more frustrated about it. Morton and Gibson's timing looked excellent and some of the spots were complicated enough that I'm not sure there's another team on the roster that could have done them. Actually the other team that could have done them would have been Jarrett/Windham, so that's just more testament that the made-to-fail NWA stable actually ruled for two months. 

Ricky did a great version of the spot where he's running over Gibson and Mosh's dropdowns before colliding with Gibson, Gibson accidentally punches Morton off the apron, Ricky snapmares Thrasher into the ring and whips him across the ring which bumps Gibson off the apron, just expertly set up and executed misdirections from Ricky and Robert. 

Cornette expertly hooked Mosh's leg while looking away and Gibson hit the damn cleanest kneedrop right to the side of Mosh's head, then kneels down with one onto Mosh's forehead, then another onto his shoulder. 

Gibson sure took a lot of great bumps to the floor during this run, and he takes big one to set up the finish. What's the other late 90s Gibson I need to seek out? 

Pirata Morgan vs. Aguila WWF Shotgun 2/28

I had no memory of Pirata Morgan doing a two match WWF stint in 1998. Morgan/Brian Christopher vs. Taka/Aguila from the 2/16/98 Raw is insanely fun and an incredible visual representation of Pirata. He IS Pirata Morgan in that match, and it's great to see. He is not as great here, as this match is more about letting Aguila show off his surprisingly deep (especially for 1998) flying moveset. Pirata was here to be a base, and he's great at being a base. I wish he could have also beat the shit out of Aguila in between being a base. 

Pure unfiltered Aguila was some insane stuff. The height he got here on flapjack bump and a truly insane moonsault press to the floor were wild, just incredible hang time, and his springboard armdrag to send Morgan to the floor was some Juvy level shit. And brother, if you're talking hang time, he took a backdrop bump so high that, were there some kind of database that were actually tracking this, would almost surely rank towards the top of the All Time Most Hang Time on a Backdrop list. I wish I had been keeping a list like that, with to the hundredth of a second stop watch times next to all of them. 

Pirata's premier piece of offense is actually amazing, a tilt a whirl sitout powerbomb that is so damn cool, like something I've never seen. We have so many complicated fast moving big crash landing spots now and I don't think I've seen anyone break out a kick ass sitout powerbomb like this:

Pirata, in this match, also does maybe the laziest waistlock takedown I've ever seen, moving to a rear waistlock by just walking around Aguila, then lifting him waist high and just dropping him. They're not all going to be sitout powerbombs. 

Pirata takes a big bump off the top off an armdrag and puffs his chest out to take a missile dropkick, and the victory roll huracanrana roll up looked like something that would win a match. 

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One 1993 Squash Match Arguing Jerry Lawler as Best in WWF

Jerry Lawler vs. Mark Thomas WWF Raw 6/14/93 - FUN

ER: What an excellent example of a squash match. Jerry Lawler is truly one of the masters of the squash match, able to leave occasional openings for even the lowest opponent. Here he comes out sporting the Hitman pink and black, one night after completely fucking up Bret's King of the Ring coronation. Lawler at this point was usually getting the loudest heat of any show he wrestled on, and there are plenty of years in Lawler's career you could say the same about. He was an old time southern heat machine that hasn't quite been seen in WWF ever since his 90s run. But outside of his bringing Memphis style to WWF, it was during an era where several guys were vicious squash match workers. Razor Ramon, Yokozuna, Steiners, Doink, Nasty Boys, and more were part of one of the great era for squash matches, and Lawler worked squashes different than any of them. 

His execution in squashes was always impeccable, leaves no room for criticism with his ring work, and he rubs that fact into the faces of the Manhattan Center crowd. He looks like a guy who should win fights because he is smart. Here he throws great hooking right hands, takes out Thomas's knees with a backdrop, and mixes in uncommon Lawler offense like a leaping kneedrop right onto Thomas's head. The openings are fun, like Lawler punching mat on a missed fistdrop, but he never stays out of control very long. Still, I like seeing squash matches that aren't 100% for the star (unless it's a freight train like Hansen or Vader) even if the star doesn't ever come close to losing (or even bumping). Lawler's DDT and piledriver are faultless, the best looking versions of those moves. On the DDT, he holds Thomas's neck all the way through and leaps back into a senton landing rather than rolling through it. The piledriver has perfect form, perfect spike, and he makes sure he hits that fistdrop for the finish. He could have easily got the pin with the piledriver, but you can't reward a guy for making you miss your big fistdrop. Hitting the clear finish and then adding a cherry is something only the best have the confidence to do. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE JERRY LAWLER

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Loosely Formed 1998 WWF: Rock n Roll Express! Brian Christopher! Head Bangers!

Rock n Roll Express vs. The Head Bangers WWF Raw 2/16/98

As half-hearted as this "angle" actually was, it was really cool that WWF brought in Tommy Young to ref some of the NWA title matches

Robert Gibson worked much harder during this run than was probably necessary. Just watch how fast he bumps for armdrags and how quickly he feeds offense!

Ricky does a back rake to Mosh, and then does a second one underneath Mosh's shirt

The punch exchange between Ricky and Mosh was far better than I would have guessed it would be. Mosh tightened those rights up when working Ricky the God

Thrasher has a nice powerslam on Ricky

Ricky takes a humongous flapjack, coming one minor rotation away from looking like a Beverly Brothers victim

The Stage Dive was timed incredibly well here and rarely looked this good

Right after Mosh hits the powerbomb portion of the Stage Dive, he throws Gibson over the top to the floor. Gibson really flies, taking that bump like it was 1986, and hilariously that lets the Rock n Rolls win by DQ since getting thrown over the top draws a DQ under NWA rules. This could have/should have continued as a very fun lower card angle, if Cornette was allowed to constantly change rules to gain advantage, under the guise of "Classic NWA Rules". Sorry clowns, you can use tasers if your NWA license is up to date!

Brian Christopher vs. Tony Williams WWF Shotgun 2/21/98

Tony Williams is Memphis worker Kid Wikkid, making his only WWF appearance

Christopher has really great short right hands that he throws exactly like his dad, and I have no idea when exactly he stopped throwing punches like that

also like his dad, Christopher takes a nice backdrop bump

Kid Wikkid has a cool somewhat uncontrolled pescado

Great spot where Christopher ducks a low running crossbody and Wikkid flies right over him and under the ropes to the floor

You know what? Sure Brian, I think you should do a sunset flip powerbomb to the floor and then throw a missile dropkick to the back of this guy's head

Did Brian Christopher have the best bulldog on the roster? Almost certainly. Dustin had mostly stopped using it at this point. Matt Hardy had a good one but Christopher's was better because, as a heel, he could also use the bulldog as a transition for his opponent shoving him off into the turnbuckles

The finish is a real weird one, as Wikkid does a rana takeover and must have smashed the back of his head into the mat (even though it didn't look like a terrible landing) because he comes up with some of the rubberiest legs I've ever seen, completely unable to stand without leaning his weight onto Christopher. He somehow manages to fake his way to an Irish whip but he's a man drowning out there with nothing to lean on. I think he was supposed to get one more piece of offense off that whip, but the man literally couldn't stand on his own, so Christopher called an audible and spiked him with a gross DDT and then dropped a guillotine legdrop to an unmoving Kid

I pointed out Kid's obviously rubberized legs during the finishing sequence, but there were several smaller moments in the match where he looked wobbly. The pescado, the way he moved before tossing Christopher up with a backdrop. 

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Dirtbag Barry Windham Dispatches Milksop Michinoku

Barry Windham vs. Taka Michinoku WWF Raw 2/23/98

ER: What a great Barry Windham look. Taka is already waiting in the ring, Windham comes down the ramp flanked by his boys, points at Taka the way a man points when he knows he has somebody's number, while perfectly swathed in his vest, chaps and bandana. He goes on to wrestle the entire match wearing the vest and chaps, and it's a look I love on him. I do not like that they did this match, and I did not like how they worked this match, even though it was probably the best Windham showcase of the last several month's of his final WWF run. This was the first time - since introducing the Light Heavyweight Title - that they went out of their way to show that the best light heavyweight would get absolutely run the fuck over by anyone on the roster who weighed 50 lb. more than them. The whole match was presented as a real travesty, that poor defenseless, tiny, weak, overmatched, frail  Taka Michinoku was tricked into signing a contract to a match he had zero chance of winning, probably because he is stupid and doesn't understand the language of contracts. And, since the poor little light heavyweight champ has zero chance of winning, he just works the match like he is scared and tentative and the entire thing is Windham showing off all of his awesome offense. I don't think people on the roster were even acting this scared of Kane, but here's Taka knowing he has absolutely zero chance of defeating Barry Windham.

AT LEAST all of Windham's offense looked great. He throws his right hand from his hip, tosses Taka way up into the air with a gutwrench suplex, is always doing eye rakes and back elbows, and even throws a Bruiser Brody style high one-armed bodyslam (don't remember anyone else ever doing a bodyslam like that in WWF). Taka hits two total moonsaults as the entirety of his offense: one quebrada and one moonsault press off the top, but he hits them in a way where he barely grazes Windham...yet it seems like that's how he intended to throw them?  He connects with each of them the exact same way, with his right arm connecting with Windham's left arm. Barry is there to catch them, but Taka appears to do them to intentionally graze him. I can't explain why. Windham's superplex looks awesome and the diving lariat is about to be the sure finish before the lights go black and Kane comes out. Lights out means the ref has to legally cease all counting, even if he's already counted 2 and his hand is coming down for 3. Lights go out, everyone inside the ring ropes has to freeze. Refs don't work in the dark, thems the rules. Don't like it? Take it up with the union. 

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Loosely Formed Thoughts on Two 1998 Quebecers Matches

The Quebecers vs. Miguel Perez/Jose Estrada WWF Shotgun 2/7/98

Boricuas get their full 4 mic entrance rap, which rules because they did the entire entrance rap later on the same damn show when Savio/Jesus had a match

This match positions the Boricuas as the babyfaces in Indiana, which just shows the sheer hateability of Jacques Rougeau

I love how Jacques did a face up dropdown so that when Pierre bashed Perez from the apron, Jacques could go straight to the kip up brag

Jacques yells "What do you think of Puerto Rico now!?" after beating down Miguel, and I'm not positive you could fill the Market Square Arena with Puerto Ricans if you got every single Puerto Rican in Indiana to show up. 

Pierre gets backdropped to the floor onto Estrada and Estrada stays down a long time holding his leg. I'm fairly certain that Estrada's gimmick in WWF was "Guy Who Gets Hurt Catching Dives"

The Quebecers' tandem hotshot is undefeated under terms of "looks cool"

Estrada throws two very nice punches in the corner and that is most of his offense in this match

Quebecers vs. Legion of Doom WWF Raw 2/16/98

There is one fantastic sequence where Hawk hits a leaping fistdrop on Jacques, and Jacques does a kip up and dropkicks him. After the dropkick, Jacques goes to his back to show off for the crowd with another kip up. After showing off with one kip up, he goes down for another and kips up directly into a Hawk clothesline

Animal has amusingly been working as an undersized babyface in early 98. He plays Ricky and he's good at it, though he doesn't do an inside cradle nearfall in this match like he has done in other matches from this era

Animal, babyface underdog, works a fast dropdown/leapfrog exchange with Pierre and after showing off all that agility he brings things back home with a big powerslam. Animal showing off his agility and then complementing it with power is a very cool Animal

Pierre really makes sure to collide on his shoulderblocks and lariats in this, and his cannonball off the apron looks like it makes full heavy boy contact

New Age Outlaws get Hawk inside of a dumpster verrrry easily. Too easily. They just kind of pick him up and plop him in, like he fell victim to a big juicy steaming Thanksgiving turkey that was underneath a propped up cardboard box

When Animal chases off the Outlaws, he swings a chair at the dumpster and comes a literal split second away from braining Hawk with that chairshot, as he bursts out of the dumpster right after an Animal HR swing

Quebecers remain a very weird team to have on the roster in early '98. They were brought in with no warning, no build, no purpose, and given the least flattering attire of their careers. And yet they still own. 

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My God Did I Love Bret Hart vs. Fatu

Bret Hart vs. Fatu WWF Raw 3/1/93

ER: This might sound hyperbolic, but this was one of the most well-executed matches of 1993. It felt like a 1993 All Japan match worked with 1993 WWF offense within a 1993 WWF match layout, and I loved it. It was Fatu's first ever WWF singles match and Bret hadn't had a televised title defense in over three months. Keeping those things in mind, they went out there and made sure every time they made contact, it looked realistic. Their shoulderblocks and slams all hit, every bump looked like they had to wait a couple seconds for their nerves to stop tingling, and Bret kept taking increasingly damaging bumps into the turnbuckles. Hart was an excellent babyface champion here, at times at a real disadvantage, and his harder and harder bumps made the struggle feel more real. Bret whips back on headbutts and goes neck first into thrust kicks, gets thrown to the floor and jumped by Samu. An odd, never explained cut on his nose gets opened up and gives us the sick ass visual of a bloody nose babyface taking on three savages. He also took a fantastic piledriver and a hard slam on the floor, which was arguably an easier landing than in the dead center of an unmoving ring. 

Samu and Afa both played important roles and the payoff sequence for their comeuppance was so worth it. Their involvement kept increasing, with Samu and Fatu pulling off some double switches, even though their face, hair, and body differences left the referee's "they all look alike" racism as the only plausible explanation for the double switch's success. Bret hit an awesome superplex, and the finishing stretch car crash was aided with camera angles that actually felt expertly planned in advance. You usually don't see heel interference comeuppance pulled off this well, but that goes back to thinking this match had a lot of expert examples of timing and execution. Samu and Fatu collide after Samu breaks up a pin, Bret hits a running dropkick to knock Afa off the apron and Afa takes a fucking BACK BUMP off the apron in the foreground, while Samu gets his fucking neck hanged between the top and middle ropes, struggling and twitching in the background. Afa took the bump in the foreground, Samu dangled in the background, and Bret/Fatu were framed in the middle. It was a real professional shot from a company who no longer has any idea how to film wrestling, and an incredibly well orchestrated moving parts finish. Being a Bret truther only gets easier and easier to defend every year removed from his career. 

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The Continuing Saga of Dirtbag Era Barry Windham

 Barry Windham/Jeff Jarrett vs. Legion of Doom WWF Raw 1/26/98

ER: The was a little scruffy, but I thought a lot of this was real good. I love this era of uncertain Windham looks, vacillating among different levels of dirtbag. Cowboy, biker, lazy pool guy, man who offers to wash office building windows and also smells, etc. This week he's still got the Blackjack hair, but now has a freshly shaved smooth fat face. He looks like a guy who wears a clip-on tie and makes fake IDs and licenses. Most notable about this was what I thought was a strong Hawk performance. I really liked his selling while getting repeatedly cut off from Animal, and I thought the pace pushing in his sequences with Jarrett were the best parts of the match. Windham works this like Buddy Rose and gets better the longer the match goes and Animal works a nice hot tag, but Jarrett and Hawk elevated this. There was a killer little sequence where Hawk stops Jarrett's sunset flip and punches him right in the forehead, and Jarrett instinctively trips him by the ankle and drags him down to keep control. 

This was the first of only *three times* that Windham and Jarrett teamed, and it's too bad. They had real chemistry and would have been a real upgrade to the tag division over the summer, and I loved the Aztec ring gear for Jarrett. I liked their ring control and simple things like a Windham vertical suplex followed up by a Jarrett elbowdrop. Both Road Warriors had some big long arm lariats and Animal's high rotation powerslam looked great, and I liked Hawk's role in this even before he hit his leaping fistdrop. The finish is messy but in kind of cool ways, with Hawk leaping recklessly off the top rope with a clothesline while he should have clearly seen that his target, Jarrett, was *not* facing him. Because of that, Hawk basically hooked Jarrett's neck and crashed himself, while Windham gave a weird but kind of cool short piledriver to Animal. The finish had Windham at his asshole heel best, blasting Animal with the tennis racket and then bat flipping it way out of the ring, back to Cornette. I need a GIF of Barry tossing that racket. 

Barry Windham/Jeff Jarrett vs. Bradshaw/Flash Funk WWF Raw 2/2/98

ER: If Windham was a low key document forging dirtbag last week, this was more of him as a guy talking too much shit at a birthday kickball game. He had a smooth smug look on his face and kept obnoxiously flashing peace signs, a cheap shot artist even though he was the biggest guy on the field. Not coy about it, just smiling and getting away with it, with two improbably 40 year old Rock n Rolls laughing and helping him cheat. The match was better on paper than it was in execution, but only because Flash gets taken out of the match early, and his exchanges with Jarrett showed uncharacteristic hesitation. Most of the Windham talk from this era was about how out of shape he was, but this match shows that this man can flat out work regardless of what his body looked like. I guess that's always been something said about him, though. His crowd work during his brief WWF NWA heel run showed that he could still connect to the crowd as a heel, he was just doing it in a way that WWF didn't like looking at. He taunts the crowd from the apron the entire time he was not officially in this match, and only enters the match after the Rock n Rolls distract Bradshaw, allowing Barry to sneak around the ringpost with a western lariat. 

When Windham tags in, he hits two excellent punches, long uppercuts that started from behind his right lovehandle, and continued to mock the crowd any chance he got. It surely wasn't a good sign for the NWA angle that Bradshaw still managed to win this match despite having no partner and going against 5 people, but it was worth it for the post-match beatdown. Cornette blasted Bradshaw with the racket and Bradshaw completely ignored it, before being jumped by Ricky and Robert. I loved the visual of the Rock n Rolls holding Bradshaw by the arms while Jarrett ties up his legs, Windham hitting standing splashes on Bradshaw's bad leg. I wish we would have gotten a Blackjacks Explode PPV match instead of just a 3 minute Raw match two months later. The whole feud could have been so much more. 

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Every Single Vader vs. Dustin Match (...that they had in WWF)

Two classic dance partners, who never got the chance to approach the greatness of their WCW work while in WWF. They had matches, including one on PPV, but they were never treated like a big deal. Let's take a look at all of them:

Vader vs. Goldust WWF Raw 5/5/97

ER: This match is mostly worked as a backdrop to the upcoming Vader/Ken Shamrock No Holds Barred match, with Shamrock getting his own entrance after Vader/before Goldust, on commentary the whole match, and Vader semi-frequently taunting Shamrock from the ring. But the straight Vader/Goldust moments were, ahem, gold. Vader bullies him around with a collar and elbow, backs him in the corner, gets in his face...and then we get some great fired up babyface Goldust, and as you know there really aren't many better. He tackles Vader with a spear and starts wailing on him with punches - good ones too - big bombs from the mount and then hard quick ones in the corner. This was going to be a Vader showcase, so he plops down right on Goldust's collarbones to block a sunset flip, and he obviously pastes Goldust with a ton of meaty fists, open hand shots that lay Goldust out flat, and a kick right to the temple. But Goldust gets an awesome mini comeback when Vader hits him with an avalanche...except Goldust catches him, hitches him up over his shoulder, and powerslams the big man out of the corner. Loved that spot so much. A snatch slam and Vader Bomb finishes things a little too easily, but all the match we got was really good.

 

Vader vs. Goldust WWF Raw 11/17/97

ER: This was not an actual match, as Goldust was just getting into his Leigh Bowery period, so he comes out wearing a short gold satin robe, gold slippers, black tights, and his face done up in really well done checkerboard paint with red edges. He claims he is injured, but takes a hammer out of his sling and pops Vader with it. I guess they were just setting up a singles match for two months later?

Vader vs. Goldust WWF Royal Rumble 1/18/98

ER: This is by far their longest -  and best - WWF match. They got 8 minutes to do their thing, and even when these two are not at their career best they can make great use of 8 minutes. Goldust wore one of his greatest freak outfits, a garish lime green and purple striped tights/singlet bodysuit, matching lime wig and face paint with dyed electric blue hair under the wig, bright yellow boots, Cesar Romero Joker colored gloves, and naturally, a thong. It's an incredible ensemble. I don't care what people say about Vader in his last WWF stretch, I thought he still had it. He was slower and didn't always have the same level of energy and aggression, but damn was he still fun. I love this man. Vader rattled Dustin's cage this whole match, throwing all sorts of hard punches, clotheslines, avalanche attacks, and big splashes. He missed a butt splash by inches when he quickly dropped to his seat, keeping Dustin moving and active, and it made it more satisfying when he sat that ass down on Goldust's chest down the finishing stretch. Dustin fired back with his own punches and diving lariats, and both took hard bumps into the ring steps. Who cares if they were older and fatter than their 1994 selves, because here's Goldust taking high backdrops and bumping high onto his shoulders for a back suplex and lariat. Vader stopped Goldust cold a couple times with punches, his running splash looked awesome, and Goldust hit him with a righteous nut shot during a Vader Bomb attempt. 

The finish is downright legendary, when Luna leaps on Vader's back to prevent a Vader Bomb, and Vader climbs up and delivers it anyway. Haters called Vader "lazy" on the blessed beautiful 1998 internet, but Vader does This One Little Trick that shows that this mastodon was the furthest thing in wrestling from lazy. You wanna know the guys who are lazy inside a wrestling ring? Watch the ones who don't go right to the middle rope when climbing to the top rope. If you take three steps to get to the top turnbuckle, you're not trying hard enough. It's 100% effective, proven correct every time. Going straight to the middle rope or vaulting straight to the top are only done by people fighting against the in-flight drag of their own gigantic pendulous balls, and you shouldn't respect any wrestler who doesn't respect themselves enough to get out of the Three Steps Club. Vader, with a bucking and kicking woman wrapped around his neck, climbs straight to the middle buckle, bounces three times, then flew into arguably his greatest ever Vader Bomb. Luna went nearly vertical on descent, barely avoiding being turned scorpion on the incredible impact, instead flying off like the fat kid hit the Blob at summer camp. Vader had been working with a receptive crowd before this finish, but they really recognized the severity of the stunt they were witnessing as it was happening. This, was a finish. 

Vader vs. Goldust WWF Raw 1/26/98

ER: This was a condensed, 3 minute version with the kinds of things that make them such great opponents, ending with a Kane run-in that meant the match never had to actually build to anything substantial. Goldust and Luna come out to Vader's theme, dressed as their own garish takes on Vader, each with Vader Mask face paint. Vader comes out to Vader's theme and the crowd loves him on sight, so he takes extra time doing shoulder shrugs and crab dancing on the entrance stage. We've all seen Vader on Boy Meets World, but they really missed the boat by not getting Vader drawn on Futurama. His movement could have easily been used to make him the largest toughest fighter on Decapod 10, in an episode where Dr. Zoidberg must return home to participate in a ritualistic battle against him. I'll settle for him mauling Goldust. Vader pummels him, hits a couple big avalanches, Dustin takes a really high backdrop, and there's a lot of movement and energy. Vader really leaps into a vertical suplex he's delivering and at one point lands a real wallop of a near-standing lariat, just a huge amount of impact from an almost flat-footed stance. Goldust didn't do a ton with his control but I liked his diving lariat and willingness to take both a hard Vader Powerbomb AND get crushed with a Vader Bomb, even though the match was ending with a Kane run-in. I get showing Vader clearly on his way to victory, but poor Dustin not getting that last 15 seconds shaved. I don't remember if I actually liked either of the Vader/Kane PPV matches but damn do I like Vader's outward facing Tombstone in the post-match.

Vader vs. Dustin Runnels WWF Raw Saturday Night 9/12/98

ER: This was a cool, short Vader/Dustin match - two guys who always have good matches together - played to a crowd that was dead silent all night. They did at least a couple of these taped-in-advance Raws per year, for shows that were going to be preempted by dog shows or tennis, and the crowd was always burnt out and the presentations always felt more like a collection of dark matches than an actual episode of Raw. This match also had to deal with Val Venis walking through the crowd carrying an "I Have Come" sign, which was making fun of Dustin's born again angle, which was supposedly just leading to a return of the Goldust gimmick. Also, I'm not positive whether Venis' sign was implying that he has ejaculated many times, or if he just has buckets of cum sitting around his place that he's trying to get rid of, the way someone might put a Firewood 4 Sale sign in their yard. Both are potentially true. 

This match was not treated like a big deal. The biggest crime may have been the cameras repeatedly cutting away from Vader's dancing. Vader really could have been a top dancing babyface wrestler. It would have been ridiculous, but seeing him dance during his entrances always brings me genuine glee. He does all these awesome shoulder shrugs and head movements, and he really runs out of the entrance curtain, acting more like Mojo Rawley than Vader. That's wonderful, because he still hits like Vader. The match is compact but high quality, while dealing with the match-long distraction of Venis advertising his hoarded containers of semen. Vader smacks Dustin around with big bear paws and then eye pokes him, backs him into the corner and tees off some more. Dustin is big enough to go toe to toe with Vader, and we get an awesome moment of Dustin running out of the corner and leveling him with a clothesline. A second clothesline sends Vader over the top to the floor, spilling out quickly and spectacularly. I love the way these two hit each other. Vader even gets tossed into the ring steps and almost takes out a completely unassuming camera guy. The finish is lame as Dustin gets back into the ring to...pray or something. But Vader mauls him with basically a low diving shoulder tackle to the back, more shots, and another lariat, then a Vader Bomb to finish.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Dan Severn in WWF

Here's some Sunday Severn for all the beasts: 

Dan Severn vs. Savio Vega WWF Raw 5/4/98

ER: This was like a short, to the point, Dan Severn Bloodsport match, cruelly not even giving us 2 minutes. Severn had split with Cornette the week before, so this was a showcase for the newly on his own force Severn. It's a lot of cool standing grappling, and it looked good because it looks like Severn was trying as hard as he could to take Vega down with double legs while Vega fought his hardest to neutralize them. There were two big belly to belly suplexes from Severn, and Savio was going to be taking those suplexes the easy way or the hard way. Savio looks unhappy that he's out there just to get plowed under, so he hops right to his feet after the second suplex and starts hammering Severn with clubbing forearms. It was pretty clear that Vega wasn't going to be getting much here, some nice corner chops and a hiptoss, before Severn started muscling back. As he's trying to hold Vega down, Severn starts doing these kind of cool uppercut shoulder shrugs from one knee, into Vega's gut, then powers him over with an extremely cool shoot jackhammer before tapping him out. They were trying to get over a new submission for Severn, where he has an arm barred while shoving the opposite way on Vega's jaw. It's same sub he put on Cornette the week prior, and it's a great looking submission. More finishers should just be someone's big hand palming a guy's jaw.

Dan Severn vs. Owen Hart WWF Raw 5/25/98

ER: This was the first time Owen used his new theme music that all my friends in high school made fun of. "Well ENOUGH is ENOUGH and it's time for a CHANGE!" felt like the soundbite you would only use to make fun of someone. He could not have come off whinier and it made us laugh every time. We could never pinpoint if he was supposed to be coming off as a whiny heel or a tough loner who was coming off whiny. One thing is clear: it's tough to try to break out of the pack and be your own man, and also be immediately put into a singles match with Dan "The Beast" Severn. Severn is going to shove you and throw you around the ring against your will, and that's what happens here. Severn keeps taking Owen down with double legs and fireman's carries, slapping him around from the mount. It's tough to look like a guy standing bravely on your own when a huge mustachioed man is smothering you. Severn gets a cool half grapevine rolling cradle that Owen breaks by punching Severn in the eye, and it's probably smart strategy to work Severn as if you're escaping a shark attack. Owen hits a nice gutwrench suplex and punts Severn in the balls when the ref wasn't looking, but weirdly decided to go for a double leg takedown to mount Dan Severn. Severn easily sweeps and promptly resumes smacking Owen around. Severn hits a nice waterwheel takedown into a Fujiwara armbar, and the Nation has to run into save Owen from further humiliation. Severn really gobbles guys up in the ring and they probably should have found someone else to put Owen up against, but I really liked the pairing a lot. Guys that force Owen to grapple and wrestle bring out a cool and underutilized side of him, one I wish we got more often. 

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The Great 16 Man WWF Raw Battle Royal of 2/15/93

16 Man Battle Royal WWF Raw 2/15/93

ER: I've watched this battle royal a couple of times now and I think it's grown into a really fantastic one. I was initially disappointed, as it's the last appearance we have of Berzerker (and his only appearance in a match on Raw), and I'll always be at least a little bit butt-chapped over not getting Berzerker all over these early episodes of Raw. Once I was able to emotionally move past that fact, I was able to enjoy this battle royal for the very real joys within. This is a very active battle royal with some pairings that we never got to see in actual singles matches, a cool mix of a few top guys (Razor, Michaels, Tatanka) and undercarders, painful elimination bumps, and hard work. Razor, Michaels, and Tito gave standout performances, with Tito lasting as a surprise final four, Razor actively punching his way through the entire match, and Michaels punching and bumping and stooging across all of it. Every time I saw Razor in the background he was in a punch out with someone new, either decking Kim Chee right across the jaw, getting lifted into a choke by Typhoon, then turning around and throwing his long right hands to punch anyone close. Michaels throws great jabs throughout (teeing off on Tatanka in the corner) and bumps bigger the longer it goes, capping everything off with a ton of showmanship leading up to his elimination. 

Berzerker is really important to a battle royal, as he's constant motion and never gets stuck just trying to lift someone's leg over a rope. This man has no loyalties (though he does assist heels when approaching a babyface and heel locked in combat) and is endlessly entertaining as he constantly stomps across the ring looking for someone to clobber. Even though he was eliminated sadly early by Kamala, Berzerker was involved in a couple of great bits: Tito leapt off the middle turnbuckle to punch Berzerker in the face (Berzerker held in place), and Berzerker sold it by backpedaling all the way across the ring while punching at the sky; when Owen Hart jumps onto Berzerker's back with a sleeper, Berzerker calmly walks to the nearest set of ropes and dumps Owen right over his head to the floor. I was also wildly entertained by Steve Lombardi's appearance as Kim Chee. The Kim Chee persona plays better to Lombardi's strengths than Brooklyn Brawler does. In this role Kim Chee was mostly just trying to avoid Kamala, and his whole time in the match was spent running away from him, directly into someone else's attack. It all culminated in Kamala chasing Kim Chee through the crowd and into the balcony of the Manhattan Center, which was an awesome visual, spotlight following them as they crawl over chairs and run through the loge seating. 

Bob Backlund was his usual extremely annoying battle royal self, constantly spider monkeying himself on the ropes with his butt sticking out, always a hard man to eliminate. Koko got tossed high over the ropes by Michaels, Damian DeMento got wrecked by Typhoon (also a guy with a fun battle royal performance, digging his fingers into peoples' mouth and eyes while they were holding onto ropes), Berzerker took an expectedly big bump to elimination, Typhoon was a big crashing wave hitting the apron and ring steps on his way to the floor, and the Shawn Michaels elimination was spectacular. The match came down to a final four of Razor, Tatanka, Michaels, and Tito. Razor rolls out of the ring after Tito nails him with the flying forearm, leaving Tatanka and Tito to run wild on Michaels. Michaels gets run back and forth across the ring, post to post, taking those "leap to middle buckle and corkscrew senton the mat" bumps to greater effect with each one. I kept expecting him to comeback and at least dupe Tito into getting thrown out, but I loved how it was just two good babyfaces knocking an asshole heel senseless until they threw him far over the top rope to eliminate him. 

There was a great pre-match angle where they said the 16 Man Battle Royal got changed to a 15 Man Battle Royal because all 15 wrestlers refused to participate in a battle royal with Giant Gonzalez. It was a smart move to protect Gonzalez (and everyone else), but a stupid move in that it did not give us any Berzerker/Gonzalez interaction, or Kamala/Gonzalez; because of that decision we never got to see Iron Mike Sharpe make a dumb face as he backed away from Giant Gonzalez, and we should have been upset. But I liked how they did use Gonzalez, having him come out to ambush and eliminate both Tatanka and Tito, giving Razor the win by sheer luck of him being outside the ring when the fur suit carnage happened.  Tito splatted hard to the mat, a great battle royal effort ended with an unforgiving back bump. Gonzalez looks massive, Razor's mullet de-greased and fluffed out behind him as he celebrates his win, hopping in place repeatedly while his thumbs point squarely to his chest. 

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Got the Feeling Gulak Can't Move Without Sliding

Drew Gulak/Brian Kendrick/Tony Nese vs. Cedric Alexander/Rich Swann/TJ Perkins WWE Raw 10/17/16 - FUN

ER: Fun stuff, a real Gulak/Kendrick showcase. Cedric looked good too, but he had Kendrick and Gulak flopping and flying around for him soooo. Kendrick is a real fun ringleader of goons in this, with Nese as his musclehead goon and Gulak as his snake pit goon, letting them do the dirty work while he makes blind tags to capitalize, and every time he's in just sees him getting bumped in big ways. Gulak's fast sequences with Cedric were good, and I loved him eating that slingshot kick from TJ on the floor. Kendrick was an awesome focused Teddy Hart here, bumping early to the floor and selling a knee, cutting the ring off on Cedric only to take a big backdrop, and vulturing that Nese 450 with his choke. The match was put on in the ultimate dead zone, after a 1 minute tag match but before the big Goldberg appearance, and they somehow manage to get some good crowd reactions. Crowd popped for Swann's nice headscissors and reacted to some characters they really haven't been given tons of reasons to react to. That feels like a win.

Drew Gulak vs. John Morrison WWE Main Event 9/30/21 - FUN

ER: Here's a cool match that's never happened before and I don't think I've ever thought about before. Morrison always gets put into matches with fliers, and not nearly enough against technicians who shut down fliers. Morrison is by definition a heavyweight, but Gulak hits harder, so it's a heavyweight using cruiserweight movements to evade the heavyweight work of a cruiser. I love it. Gulak works snug wrist and armlocks while Morrison cartwheels out of the tight arm work, rolling into pins using leverage without even using his arms. Now, some of Morrison's kicks and headstands and spinning come off too slow and awkward to sustainably work in this match, but I thought Gulak did a great job staying in proper position for all of it. Morrison's slow break dancing offense doesn't always reveal where it is going to wind up, so catching it naturally while looking like you're biting at feints isn't easy, but Gulak spent years training with small fliers with grand ideas and hitchy execution of those ideas so the man has an uncanny knack of being in the right place. 

Gulak is just as great at catching the big stuff, and Morrison's big stuff is more interesting than his array of headstand kicks that barely touch his opponent. Morrison  nails a high speed tornillo tope that annihilates Gulak, and that's the kind of Morrison I love. Morrison should lean into taking freaky Low Ki bumps that most people don't have the body control to pull off, like when Gulak knocks him off the top rope and he rolls and bounces off the ropes to the mat in cool ways, or the way he willingly gets bodyslammed crazily into the ropes. Gulak capitalizing on Morrison's slow rolling is the best, turning a cradle into a nice armbar. This had the bones of a match that should have been better, and part of that is because sometimes Morrison's parkour is on, sometimes the set-up is lacking. You let he and Gulak work this match a couple more times, we'd get a great one. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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On Brand Segunda Caida: More Dirtbag Era Barry Windham

Barry Windham vs. Owen Hart WWF Raw 3/9/98

ER: This match shouldn't have been as underwhelming as it was, the only Owen/Windham singles match that ever happened. There were several Hart Foundation/Blackjacks tags in 1997 but this was the singles match. And I don't know how else to describe it, other than as a hard worked match from two men who worked like they were on muscle relaxers. Is it possible to lazily work hard? You watch this match and ask that question. Barry Windham takes so many bumps during this match and they didn't stop for a single hold, 5 minutes of exchanges that kept the same pace front to back. At the same time, they both had this thousand yard stare and it's like they were doing moves to each other without making eye contact, making it feel like a hyper-realistic THQ/AKI demo. Windham looked tired and sluggish, but his timing was right on point and he was active the entire time. He threw suplexes and a nice DDT, had a great looking dropdown into his diving lariat, got up for back suplexes and backdrops and bumps to the floor. But he also throws his punches at half speed and just walks into offense multiple times. You watch Barry Windham slowly walk directly towards an Owen Hart dropkick and then tell me these two aren't actually a simulation. This was during the three month stretch where Owen got his nuts bashed in every week by Chyna, and that gives Barry Windham the count out victory, his last ever WWF win. We were this close to a Dirtbag European Champion. He could have worn black and white striped shirts and change his name to Beret Windham.

Barry Windham vs. Eric Sbraccia NWA New England 9/20/98

ER: Here's a fun glimpse at Barry Windham - same age as my present age - wrestling an indy show in between his WWF and WCW stints. Erich Sbraccia was a Good 90s Indy Wrestler, coming out with goons like Tony Rumble and Knuckles Nelson, all of them looking exactly how all Late 90s East Coast Indy Wrestlers were supposed to look. And man I wish this match went longer. It's only 7 minutes, a real shame, as they clearly had material to work longer. The crowd was hot and reacting to Barry like it was 1993. Sbraccia throws some armdrags to surprise Windham, then slams him (looks like Barry came in expecting an armdrag so Sbraccia had to muscle him into a slam, which looked impressive). And of course then Barry comes back with the same and it's great seeing Windham throwing fast armdrags. I said Sbraccia was good, and he did a lot of basic things I like out of my guys: There's a fast rope run exchange where he really swings low and for the fences on a missed lariat, and he takes a really great backdrop bump; later he eats a couple nice punches from Windham and takes a wonderful pratfall bump onto the apron, his boot getting hung up on the top rope. Windham was really hustling too, taking a fast bump to the gym floor and landing with a thud, and really whipping off the ropes with his diving lariat. The finish is all mumbo jumbo run in from Knuckles, and it was annoying in that way you can tell a match is going home a minute before they arrive home. This delivered as a 7 minute match, but it really could have been a great match with 14 minutes. Both guys seemed game, but this was just about the end of Indy Windham. Indham.

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Mini Complete and Accurate: Dan Severn in WWF

Dan Severn vs. Flash Funk WWF Raw 4/6/98 

ER: Kind of a robotic debut, but an effective short dead eyes killer showcase. Even though an actual match between these two would have been much better, I like when they put two tough guys in there together. Funk had size for an extremely agile guy, so with Severn's throwing strength and Funk's height you get a couple cool high Severn takedowns. Severn's takedowns all looked great, but his open hand slap ground and pound didn't really read as well to the crowd. The intensity was there, with Severn pouncing on Funk through the ropes and both almost tumbling to the floor. Given even a couple more minutes this could have been a stiff style clash for the ages, and Funk even hits his great spinkick right to Severn's chin. But this was not going to be Severn debuting in a competitive match, and he hits a mammoth belly to belly on Funk before tapping him with a Fujiwara. This was the lost weird dream match that some indy should have booked in the 2010s. I have a feeling that every single Severn WWF match is going to feel like something special that wasn't given a chance to be special.

Dan Severn vs. Mosh WWF Raw 4/20/98 

ER: This was really cool, as it was basically worked like a Bloodsport match. Severn shot in with a fireman's carry takedown and double legs and kept Mosh down with his weight, but Mosh was no pushover on the mat. I've never thought of Headbanger Mosh as someone with amateur wrestling tendencies in the ring, so it was cool to watch him not go limp on takedowns and throws. He was taken down with a reverse waistlock and kept fighting to his right and actually almost pulled off a go behind on Severn! It really looked like Severn wasn't expecting it and they both kind of awkwardly tumbled into the ropes. Severn threw him with a couple of cool rolling gutwrench suplexes, and Mosh kept trying to slow the momentum of them, only making them look cooler and fought for. Mosh even got a big arcing takedown while Severn was distracted, and Severn nearly took a huge head drop off it, like he was Misawa taking a big German. I really dug the two grappling on their feet, ending with Severn throwing what looked like a shoot bodyslam, then doing a similar lift into a powerslam before trapping the arm. The only actual strike that was thrown was a kneelift from Severn. Well, there was a really terrible punch thrown on the floor, when Thrasher took out Cornette with a punch that landed somewhere around Cornette's elbow. You give Severn and Mosh two more minutes, and you come out with something better than the majority of the shootstyle indy matches from this current craze. 

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Vince McMahon

Vince McMahon/Steve Austin vs. The Rock/D-Lo Brown WWF Raw 5/11/98

ER: This was only the second time Vince put himself in a match on Raw, here as Austin's surprise partner. That means Vince was going to stay on the apron the entire time while Austin fought the Nation by himself for nearly 10 minutes. There was no chance Vince was going to do any exchanges with the Rock or D-Lo, although it would have been hilarious in retrospect if D-Lo Brown was the guy tasked with working Vince through exchanges in maybe his first ever match. Peak babyface Austin can do a match like this in his sleep and make it look good, and the crowd stays into every single movement he does the entire match. Vince is limited to a real wrestling strength of his: smirking on the apron like a guy who has it all figured out, every time Austin starts getting outgunned. 

Vince comes in to distract the ref and prevent an Austin tag, wearing his stupid bodybuilding pants while directing Patterson and Brisco. They're smart and don't have any long extended heat segment on Austin, so he always feels like a guy flying back into frame once you think the fight has been broken up. He cuts D-Lo off with an unexpected Thesz press, throws Rock to the floor, conks Patterson and Brisco's heads together, hits Rock with a mean clothesline on the metal ramp (with Rock bumping it on his shoulders like a lunatic), and Austin fighting against the odds was always a very entertaining role for him to shine within. The match ending bedlam was great, with Austin hitting D-Lo with a stunner, Vince coming into the ring and finally getting physically involved by pasting Austin with a stiff arm lariat. Patterson and Brisco try to hold Austin for McMahon but he fights them off (Brisco takes this great flipping bump after Austin punches him away), and suddenly Dustin Rhodes of all people comes out to fight the Nation with DX coming in close behind as we fade out. I remember watching this show with my friends in high school and all of us lost it during the main. All we wanted was Austin kicking ass and handing out stunners. 

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