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.