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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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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WWF Raw 6/15/98: A Great Episode of Wrestling TV

Vader vs. The Rock

ER: Even though they were in the same fed for two years, Rock and Vader aren't two guys I think about matching up too often. It's a cool match, and it did happen a couple times, but my brain thinks of them as from two different eras. And I think this is our only Vader match vs. "The Rock" as opposed to Rocky Maivia which is a whole other thing. There were a bunch of Vader/Rock matches from 10/98, and my reaction to that was "Wait Vader was still in WWF in October of 1998?" Babyface Vader just crushing the Rock is really damn fun, and Rock is game to get rocked. Vader hits some nice avalanches (loved his short arm lefty clothesline as Rock staggers out from the corner), a bear attack, a big splash off the middle buckle and also a great standing splash. Vader takes a big bump to the floor off a Rock clothesline and while down there takes a standing splash from Mark Henry. Mark Henry had nearly the exact same form on his standing splash as Vader did, which is cool. The match simply ends with a Rock Bottom after the Mark Henry interference, but this was a cool bit of megastars who barely missed each other colliding. 

 

Darren Drozdov vs. Jeff Jarrett

ER: This match was not much, nor was it meant to be much. It runs about 2 minutes, focuses a lot of attention on Marc Mero/Jacqueline at ringside, and mostly appears to be killing time until Mero punching Jarrett in the balls. I am still curious whether Droz actually got good before his injury, because he does not look ready for Raw so far. Some of the spot set ups are unintentionally humorous, like Droz doing a big boot so that Jarrett can catch it and sweep a leg, and a lot of the problem is that Droz doesn't move around the ring who understands wrestling. I'm curious if he found a steady moveset that fit him or got more comfortable in there, because right now he feels like an undercooked Power Plant guy, only without the cool danger of a Power Plant guy. 

Chainz vs. Val Venis

ER: Now this I thought was really good. Val Venis was really good in 1998, and I think his offense would have made him a really good regular All Japan gaijin if he had made a different career decision. He did a couple of All Japan tours the year before and I really would have loved to see him settle in with that 98/99 AJPW roster. Chainz could have done well in Japan too, and his cool offense really made this in a hard scrabble match, a nice 1998 TV gem between two guys nobody remembers having a 5 minute TV match. They both kick each other in the face with big boots and mafia kicks, Venis took a high backdrop, Chainz took a hard bump on a snap suplex, and all of the strikes looked great. Venis had a few different strikes he threw from a couple angles, a big looping low starting arm slot uppercut (which is honestly one of the best  strikes in 1998 WWF) and a full body knife edge chop. Chainz throws some strong turnbuckle mount punches and throws a great overhand right up at Venis while Venis was on the top rope. This had the stronger pacing of a same era WCW TV match, and even though they weren't getting a lot of reaction for what they were doing, it didn't stop them from hitting each other. Venis buries his knee on his kitchen sinks, and Chainz has these awesome fast drop running elbow drops, tons of action crammed into its run time. This is the kind of gem you'd hope to see on WCW Worldwide or WWF Velocity. 

Dustin Runnels vs. Marc Mero

ER: Dustin gets the sad "already waiting in the ring" entrance, but the Texas crowd still reacts louder for him than many other people on the show. The match was much more angle than match, and there's a certain awkwardness that comes with a 4 minute match that's playing into more than one angle. Not only is it very obvious that Sable is going to show up, but Jeff Jarrett and Southern Justice are also at ringside the entire match, so you have two pros not working a match with any throughlines, just filling time. And two pros filling time is kind of cool, because none of it is going to flow anyway, the two guys know that the cameras are going to constantly be cutting to people at ringside, so you might as well break out some neat stuff in a vacuum. Dustin flies full speed into armdrags and throws a couple of his own, and I just love how Dustin takes arm drags. Mero even hits a powerbomb at one point! No real set up for it, just decided to powerbomb Dustin in the middle of all this. The distraction finish is a real fun lemons into lemonade situation, as Sable comes down to distract Mero, but instead of Dustin getting just a simple schoolboy on Mero he runs into the frame with an awesome bulldog. Dustin has one of wrestling's greatest ever bulldogs, and beating a distracted man with something cool like that will always be more interesting that the distraction -> rollup finish they went to a ton in this era. 

X-Pac vs. HHH

ER: I remember my friend being so excited for this match, a big Waltman fan who had been wondering every week since he returned to WWF and was just WAITING for him to actually wrestle. The crowd seemed both excited for the match (and not knowing what would happen in a singles match between two members of DX) and also like they had no idea how to react. They seem to root for X-Pac, but he also had the flashier highspots, but mostly had no idea how to react. X-Pac looked great in his in-ring return, and I'm not sure he has hit as many of his kicks this squarely under the chin in any match. HHH was good at doing his fast back bumps for X-Pac's kicks. Yes I know that these are the exact same fast back bumps that HHH takes for every single strike, but Pac's kicks earned those bumps. His leaping spin kick is really great and he was throwing all of them with real accuracy. Almost all of HHH's offense is based off Irish whips, the kind of thing you can't unsee, but X-Pac is one of the few wrestlers who can take an insanely violent Irish whip bump off a turnbuckle. Pac flies into the buckles so hard a couple of times that I have no clue how they weren't skeleton shifting. Both guys took big bumps to the floor (both seem to be in competition to see who takes a faster bump to the floor, and we ALL win), but this was a real X-Pac showcase, and you could see HHH actually wanting X-Pac to be showcased, and that is the unique thing about HHH working matches against his friends. 

Mark Henry/Owen Hart vs. Dan Severn/Ken Shamrock

ER: This kicked so much ass. Every pairing brings something really original and it had a really quick violent pace for its 5 minute runtime. Shamrock/Owen was a hot opening, with both going really fast. Owens hits a fast spinning heel kick and Shamrock just cannonballs himself into Owen at full speed. There's this awesome competitive vibe to the Henry/Shamrock section, as Shamrock drops a charging Henry with a drop toehold, and it looked messy which made it look better, like Henry was getting dropped by a spike strip. Henry took it like a man not quite expecting to go down from a drop toehold, which is of course going to make it look better. Henry was much better much earlier than we gave him credit for. Even us Henry stalwarts didn't really start beating the drum unit 02/03. What change did many of us go through collectively in 2003 when we realized how we had completely ignored Honda and Henry up until then? After Henry got taken down, he scrambled to his feet faster than Shamrock, which looked really cool, and I love Henry's full rotation powerslam. 

Severn/Henry is an awesome encounter I didn't know we ever got, and Severn hits a big belly to belly that really looks like he deadlifts Henry, and also has the gall to try to hit a German suplex (Henry throws a back elbow right to the temple to shut that idea down). Severn/Henry is just a cool match up that we should have got again, but they were moving Henry into a Vader feud, and instead Severn fought mostly against Owen for the rest of his WWF run. But we got a minute of Severn and Henry and it was what you would want. Owen and Severn were very good together, with Owen especially good at moving around the kind of non-moving Severn. Severn wound up in some wrong places some of the time and kind of stood still (this was a feature of Severn that I enjoy, I don't view it as a bug), but the two of them had a killer mat scramble and Owen looked like he could have taken him. Severn also must have still been imagining he was giving Mark Henry a German, because he LAUNCHED Owen over quickly with a German so fast that it surprised JR. This ended in a big huge schmozz with DX and The Nation and Vader all running down to fight, great way to protect everyone while still having a cool match. 

PAS: This was Owen Hart and three mega athletic guys who clearly didn't fully grasp pro-wrestling. Hart kept it together, while the other guys did a bunch of cool looking things which were 10% off from the way wrestlers work things. Shamrock was so jacked up everytime he is in the ring, and hits this crazy spinning bodypress. Loved the Severn vs. Henry stuff, including Severn hitting a couple of big suplexes on Mark. Green Henry ruled, he always looked like he was going rip someones arm off. I would have loved to see what he could have done in a shootstyle fed.

Tag Team Royal Rumble

ER: This was weird but kind of good in that good 90s battle royal way. But this was a tag team royal rumble, which was clunky to start but got to the right place. They must have been running short on time, as they had teams enter every 30 seconds. 30 seconds is close enough between that you wonder if things would have just been more satisfying had everyone started in the ring like a traditional battle royal. By the time all the teams were in only a few minutes had gone by and only the New Midnight Express had been eliminated. So with the quick entrances they may as well have just started with everyone in the ring, as they basically got to that point anyway. But once the rules silliness and quick entrances were out of the way, it was easy to just settle in and enjoy the wonderful little battle royal details that we got: 

This was obviously a hugely emotional battle royal, as a few of these teams never teamed again. Faarooq and Steve Blackman (a team that had several matches as a team! And disappointingly they did not team long enough for Russo to brand them Two BlackMen) never teamed again, unable to get past their battle royal loss. Same thing with the team of Bradshaw and Taka Michinoku (who clearly would have already been slotted into the team name of Bradshaw and Rickshaw by Russo), and this might have been our final appearance of the only mildly cool era of the Oddities, when they still had carnival music and were both heels, Kurrgan still in his black tights and Golga in his filthy brown gear. We got some bizarre interactions, with none weirder than Terry Funk getting into it with Kurrgan. Funk throws some truly terrible looking strikes that also probably felt stiff as hell, but it's the exact kind of thing you want from a battle royal, because who else ever realized that there was any kind of Terry Funk/Kurrgan interaction? The eliminations come quick and several guys take hard spills. Taka gets press slammed to the floor, Brian Christopher gets eliminated, then kicks a just-eliminated Mosh on his way to the back, Bradshaw throws a couple of stiff full arms strikes to Kurrgan, and unexpectedly the battle royal comes down to Kane/Mankind and....Funk/Scorpio. Kane makes a Scorpio spin kick look terrible, Funk hits a full swing chairshot on Kane, then takes one from Mankind right to the face, and by the end this had more than enough moments of small joy to make this a recommendable battle royal. 

The show ends with a bunch of great chaos that I remember from watching in high school. Once Paul Bearer came out and the Cell lowered, I thought "Doesn't Bearer hit a big blade job here?" And he does! Kane and Mankind are out to take on Austin and Taker in a Hell in a Cell, with the Texas crowd clearly waiting around all night JUST to see Austin run out and attack people. Austin gets into it with Kane and Mankind, Bearer is inside the ring/Cell, Taker rips his way up from underneath the ring to surprise Bearer, and the beating Bearer takes is really well done. The blade job looks great, Taker looks like he really kicks him several times in the ribs and scrapes his face across the Cell, Kane climbs to the top of the Cell to try to get in and help Bearer, great chaos. All I could think of was how cool it would be to be there live watching, seeing Kane scale the Cell, seeing Bearer bleed out, love it. 

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New Footage Friday: Waltman's Sampler

Lightning Kid/Jerry Lynn vs. Masa Saito/Brad Rheingans PWA 11/9/92

MD: What a weird match to exist. I don't have a great sense of Waltman's 1992, where he was done with Global early in the year and not into WWF until 93. There was one tryout match with Bob Cook in WCW and some shots in Japan. I could go back through old WONs but it doesn't seem worth it. If there were more PWA tags with Lynn, I'd be curious to see them. This was set up with Saito and Rheingans as monsters and Lynn and Kid as specialists, with the announcers really hammering the underdog status. Brad played de facto heel (and Saito more thorough heel) and it's such a great role for him. I've seen him on 90s undercards from Japan doing the same and he was very good at it. It almost makes you wish they paired him with Patera and Blackwell in early 80s AWA, but that was never going to happen.

PAS: Kid and Lynn were working as underdog blowjob babyfaces against a team of barrel chested murderers, and everyone played their role well. Rheingans hit a couple of big suplexes and a nasty powerbomb and Saito chucked Waltman with a Saito suplex. There was some nice moments of babyface fire, Waltman getting hyped up and throwing all of his karate at Saito was cool, and Saito sold it an appropriate amount. These makeshift teams worked well together and against each other and I would have been interested in a longer arena version of this TV tag.

ER: This felt like a syndicated WCW match in the very best way, with two teams that nobody realized had crossed paths all behaving the exact ways you'd expect them to behave. Rheingans and Saito are like stockier Steiners, and I loved the ways they tossed Kid and Lynn while also loving the believable ways Lynn and Kid fought their way into it. Saito is arguably the most brick house wrestler to ever walk, and I love how Kid goes off on him with cool kicks and Saito leans into every one of them looking like Thing deflecting bullets off his rock hide. Every time Kid or Lynn would hit the mat because of Saito, it looked and sounded like their skeletons were being rearranged. Saito hits a snap suplex on Lynn that should be a finisher, his dragon screw on Kid sent him most of the way across the ring, and his stiff arm lariats look savage. I love his Saito suplex on Kid, looking like one of those rollercoasters that keeps lifting you up higher and higher until the bottom drops out and you freefall. Kid's kick variations looked great, especially impressed at how damaging he made every dropkick look. Being vaulted into a dropkick is a tough spot to pull off, and not only did he do it several times here, but he used them to smartly set up Rheingans finally catching him and hitting a killer powerbomb. I really loved this, and would have loved a more fleshed out version of this pairing.


1-2-3 Kid vs. Diesel WWF 1/15/94

ER: This was worked how I expected, how I wanted, and most importantly how the fans in the building wanted. The whole match was Kid getting launched and tossed from high angles, big biel throws, gutbusting kneelifts, big sideslam, just picking Kid up by the neck and dropping him. Kid did not get a night off working Diesel, he was going to be taking some bumps, and he even took a doozy to the floor when Diesel pushed him away with a boot when Kid was going for his other leg. Kid bumps hard backwards into the ropes, flops around in them, then lands stomach first on the floor (luckily Diesel was cool enough to press slam him back into the ring). The moments where Kid took over were great, as there was no such thing as a wasted second. Kid attacked with speed, and legsweeps, and a ton of spinkicks. When Diesel would go down Kid would pounce immediately, attacking the leg by driving his knee into it. Kid worked like a guy who knew he was about to get caught, so he was just doing as much as he could until he got clobbered again. Growing up we would have a taco night every couple weeks, easy dinner, mom would make the taco meat on the stove and then we'd add our own fixings. Pretty normal family thing. One time I walked into the kitchen to see our cat Inky furiously eating as much taco meat off the stove as it could. She clearly knew she was going to get caught, but she just wanted to eat as much of that spicy taco meat as she could before getting caught. 1-2-3 Kid was just eating all that taco meat, before getting unceremoniously dumped over the top buckle with Snake Eyes. Inky did not have to take any kind of finisher.

MD: Diesel was a week away from his big Royal Rumble push and for Kid, this was during his week of getting to hold the tag titles with Jannetty. Quite the moment in time for these two. There was a lot to like here. Diesel was pretty giving, but not too giving, letting his legs get beat up but never in any real danger. Waltman bumped huge for him as you'd expect. They had some smart spots, like Kid losing the advantage because Diesel repositioned himself away from a top rope move; when Kid tried to follow up with a figure four instead, he got booted out of the ring; also, the big comeback spot of Diesel going for a second side slam off the ropes and Kid turning it into a headscissors take over. The crowd really appreciated it when Kid was on top here and got heavily behind him. Everyone loves an underdog but these two worked the match in a way that kept them engaged. Nice, short encounter that played to each's strength.

PAS: This was fun stuff, Waltman was such a crazy bumper for this era of WWF, and that bump he takes to the floor off of Nash's leg push was some Jerry Estrada level insanity. I thought Diesel was really good in this match too. He bumped and sold well for Waltman's moments of offense and when it came time to hurt him, he hurt him.


X-Pac vs. Bryan Danielson NWA 11/23/07

PAS: This was a real fun tournament match, which had a little more bite then a normal tourney match. I liked how it started almost genial with Waltman and Danielson exchanging armdrags and taunts, but then Danielson got pissed off and really beat the crap out Waltman, and then ended up brawling into the crowd. Finish run was a bit weak, I would have liked to see Waltman break out something a little bigger then an X-Factor, still this was good stuff and they matched up surprisingly well.

MD: This felt like a really good TV match to me, with Waltman really happy to be in there. The moment that will stick with you is when Danielson got the best of Waltman and did the crotch chop, because it's so out of character and because it cracked up Waltman (whether he knew it was coming or not). I think there are certain endemic issues about late 00s Waltman, whereas he's too trapped by the Syxx/X-Pac stuff and some of those moves and mannerisms. They tease and then pay off a bronco buster which really didn't fit the match or the character he was portraying but was sort of inescapable for anyone in the crowd who was more casual given how big a star X-Pac had been. One aspect of "TV matches," as a classification, is simplicity of a finishing stretch. Here, given the scope and the setting, they could have gone around once or twice more.

ER: I had never seen this pairing before (apparently they were on opposite sides of a big FIP elimination match, but seeing this distilled in a singles match is way more satisfying) and I loved how they matched up. I'm with Matt in that I wish Waltman didn't feel so locked into specific X-Pac mannerisms and moveset, though at the same time it lead to a couple of genuinely funny moments: X-Pac breaking an early test of strength to motion for Danielson to suck it, with Danielson doing something similar later in the match gave us the announcer - calling it like an actual sport - to say "and now a suck it from Danielson!" Also, when Waltman was bumping his crotch into Danielson's forehead, Danielson staggered back into the corner selling them like actual strikes, and I appreciate that. I did like the build up to the bronco buster, as it lead to moments of Waltman flying crotch first into the turnbuckles and lead to our finish of him getting boosted up onto the top buckle, but I liked Danielson beating him around the ring even more. X-Pac getting crotched on the guardrail and then clotheslined off looked real painful, as did Danielson's big bump that got them out of the floor to begin with. I love how many wrestlers were inspired by 1-2-3 Kid because they finally saw a smaller wrestler making it on a big stage, only to find out later how much larger Waltman was than they realized. Seeing how much Waltman towers over Danielson is a real sign of one thing wrestling has at least taken a step forward on in the past 15 years.

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