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Post by Lionheart on Jan 21, 2024 16:51:23 GMT
The archive is slowly being added over the next...year...
I've got to say, that is a bit freakin' absurd.
At least they aren't gone forever.
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Post by Ness on Jan 21, 2024 16:52:35 GMT
That's good for fans at least. The tape library isn't worth a damn if we can't access it and let's face it ain't nobody buying DVDs/comps anymore...
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Post by Baker on Jan 22, 2024 20:40:16 GMT
Is this where you start making the case that Beer City Bruiser was actually the better worker than AJ? Ala Mark Henry > Kurt Angle circa 2006 PWO? Don't tempt me. I already worked myself into a shoot on The Yuji Nagata Project (which I'll finally start posting today). All I'll say about BCB vs. AJ right now is BCB/Ferrara from the Top Prospect Tournament was a much, much better match than the Styles/Elgin draw I saw live. In conclusion, what's wrong with "Red Shoes"? Same principle... Blue Pants is another all time dud (of a ring name). In the immortal words of Kilgore, "it would be like calling Hulk Hogan 'Yellow Boots.” =================== Will Ferrara vs. Beer City Bruiser- ROH tv 2/7/15- Top Prospect Tournament Match I watched a lot of ROH tv during 2015. I watched too much ROH tv during 2015. At some point Emp asked "Why do you watch this show so much when you hate most of it?" He had a point. So I stopped watching for the most part after his question helped me see the light. But I kept track of my favorite matches while I was watching. And this bout right here was the front runner for over 3 months. It was still in the Top 5, if not Top 3, when I threw in the towel. (Fwiw a Lethal vs. O'Reilly time limit draw was my ROH tv MOTY) EDIT: Turns out I actually made it through the whole year, though I'm sure I missed the occasional episode here and there. Anyway, let's see if it holds up... Yeah. For the most part. Good David vs. Goliath match with some sensible big moves sprinkled in. BCB still rules. These TPT matches tended to be better than the average ROH tv match because it was all about noobs establishing themselves. So you actually get face vs. heel, big vs. little, PROPER PRO WRESTLING stuff rather than the usual go-go-go big move trading "THIS IS AWESOME" chant bait. The big moment/move they'd been building too all match didn't come off as well as it should have because BCB is JUST TOO FAT but this was still a good time. Recommended!
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Post by Emperor on Jan 22, 2024 23:14:39 GMT
In conclusion, what's wrong with "Red Shoes"? Same principle... Ya lost me. A referee who wears red shoes and is called "Red Shoes" seems like the kinda hokey wrestling gimmick you would appreciate.
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Post by Big Pete on Jan 26, 2024 3:24:27 GMT
In honour of Bake's 95-96 thread, I thought I'd revisit one of my favourite Nitro matches of that period:
WCW Television Championship Match Lord Steven Regal vs. Psicosis WCW Nitro - December 16th 1996
This was one of those matches that caught me by surprise. As TV Champion, Regal always had a decent platform to showcase his ability, but Psicosis was just a job guy who would base for Rey and Eddie. Here he actually plays the high flying role, so this match closely resembles the famous GAB 96 match with Malenko/Rey. Regal grounds Psicosis early and really attacks the arm of Psicosis. That continues through the commercial break until Psicosis catches Regal off guard with a nice arm wrench and Regal sells it like he may have dislocated his shoulder on the way down.
It's a great sell and the match picks up a gear as Psicosis hits every high flying move in his arsenal and the crowd starts to really get behind him. You can tell this isn't Psicosis' strong suit as he isn't as smooth as Rey, but he still does a pretty good job here and because he's physically than a lot of Cruiserweights his moves have more oomph than usual. It all builds until Psicosis hits his coup de gras the Guillotine Legdrop, but fails to pick up the two. At this point, Psicosis has never won a match on any of the main shows, so the crowd doesn't bite on it, but both guys sell it as a big moment.
I liked how they sold this next bit. Psicosis has to go back to the drawing board, he's trying to set something up to buy himself the win, but it just gives Regal enough time to go back to the arm and hits a nice German Suplex. Both men are down as Psicosis makes it to his feet first and hits that Liger style Koppu kick. I thought the match lost it's way during this section as the Koppu kick barely grazed Regal, Regal still sold it, only to quickly turn the pin attempt into a Regal stretch. The stretch is locked in for a good minute and while the crowd tries to rally behind Psicosis there's a dissonance there.
The finishing stretch didn't come together for me either. Regal does start to raise the intensity and works Psicosis over with some vicious palm strikes. Regal is well on top until he takes Psicosis to the top rope, only to be knocked down for a big body splash. Then the actual finish fell flat as Psicosis came charging in looking for a victory roll, only for Regal to slam him off his shoulder, quickly come in for the Regal Stretch and Psicosis immediately taps.
Still a good TV match and you can throw it onto a compilation. However it doesn't really come together as a whole and with the nWo commentary of Bischoff and Dibiase it actively drags the match down. I'll put it over more as a deep cut and something that belongs on a Regal comp.
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Post by Baker on Jan 29, 2024 19:36:48 GMT
I watched a dozen matches featuring turn of the century indie stars last week but don't feel like writing them up right now. Maybe later. For now... Mordecai vs. Hardcore Holly- Great American Bash 6/27/04A match only Ness and I could get excited about. Thought this was Mordecai's debut. Wrong! He debuted on the previous month's PPV with a win over Scotty. I had stopped watching the monthly pay per views by this point, opting instead just to watch one or two big shows a year. You could even break my fandom down into the following categories... 87-95- hardcore casual 95-03- hardcore super duper fan 04-09- softcore super fan 09-Present- largely lapsed Anyway, this match came about because of a backstage brawl on Smackdown. Nobody knows why they started fighting. They just did. Taz & Cole were amusing on commentary. Cole rattled off a list of things Mordecai said while a vexed Taz replied with "Who talks like that?!?" This was a blah nothing match that went 6-7 minutes in front of a dead crowd. Most interesting thing about it was realizing "234 pound" Hardcore Holly is the same size as "270 pound" monster Mordecai. Coolest move of the match was a sitout Spinebuster from Mordecai. Roughly 10 seconds later BOBCORE hit The Textbook. Finish was pretty cool. BOBCORE went for the Alabama. Mordecai countered by punching BOBCORE's sides and used his momentum in flipping back down to flip Holly up into the Razor's Edge position. He would then hit the Edge for the win. Verdict- under **. doomed by a dead crowd
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Post by Baker on Jan 29, 2024 23:51:31 GMT
*Last week, while still writing up The Yuji Nagata Project, I watched a bunch of APW wrestlers I followed online in the late 90s. Mostly outside of their home promotion because APW footage is sparse, and what little I can find has poor production quality even by turn of the century indie standards. My APW project would eventually snowball to include some turn of the century indie standouts from other regions. I watched 12 matches in all.
Vinnie Massaro vs. Frankie Kazarian- California Wrestling Alliance 3/2/02
Massaro was a short, chubby APW guy who was never going to make the big time. Turns out his big claims to fame are working Lucha Underground and a couple shows in Japan. He's still working today with 2022 & 23 actually being the most active years of his career according to Cagematch. Good for him. APW's message board had an all time great shill named Jermz who once rated a Massaro vs. Boyce LeGrande match 5* and it did read like the coolest thing ever with new move after new move for 2.9 counts. A much tougher grader on DVDVR (I think his name was Yakuza Rich) rated the same match a still impressive ***1/4. Sadly I could not find that match so I settled for this one. Fwiw Massaro did an "indie innovator" gimmick in the late 90s which of course meant "steal moves from Japan."
I've ragged on Chris Sabin & Roderick Strong in the past for being poster boys of the generic "good wrestler guy" 2000s indie style. That was an oversight on my par. Because bland as those two undoubtedly are, they're still veritable entertainment machines compared to Frankie Kazarian: the latest, greatest Ultimate Indie CAW. 5/10s across the board for Kaz. He's a really nice guy though! Was super friendly that time I met him at one of Steve Corino's PWF shows.
Most of these APW Guy matches come from a Youtube channel called "Indy Handshake." Their deal is they dub in modern commentary over turn of the century California indie matches. It's nice to have commentary, but the dubbing cuts out most of the crowd noise. Yet even with that you could hear some boos for Massaro and cheers for Frankie.
This is a run of the mill face vs. heel match with Kaz providing a wee bit of flash in the babyface role and Massaro being your basic cheating heel. I don't mean that in a negative sense. No need to reinvent the wheel on some sleepy California indie card. It became formula for a reason. Vinnie is a fat guy with bleach blond hair in a black singlet and those shiny pleather/trashbag pants which were all the rage at the time. He reminds me of a midcard regional heel like an Eric Embry while Kaz gives off major poor man's John Morrison vibes despite Morrison not being a thing yet. He hits an Asai Moonsault at some point, but that dastardly Massaro gets the win with his feet on the ropes.
Verdict- Solid but unspectacular "middle of Smackdown" type match. ** range.
Robert Thompson vs. Samoa Joe- APW 7/6/02
In late 2001, after landing his dream job with NOAH, longtime APW poster boy Michael Modest outcarnied longtime carny Roland Alexander by taking most of the APW regulars with him to start a new promotion- Pro Wrestling Iron. Thompson, another longtime APW vet, was the "Kawada" who stayed loyal to Rolo and APW. To reignite interest, APW brought in Bryan Danielson to be their new head trainer, and booked a NorCal vs. SoCal feud against Rick Bassman's WWF-affiliated UPW. Yep, John "Prototype" Cena himself worked APW a time or two. Joe is here repping SoCal as part of this very regional specific feud.
Joe wears a shirt to hide his fat. Thompson is another chunky fellow, albeit not as much as peak Samoa Joe or Vinnie Massaro. "The Brown Bomber" wears a generic black singlet with pleather/trashbag black pants. A far cry from the cool flame-themed singlet I've seen him wear in the past.
Joe was pretty much fully formed here. That surprised me. There was a little extra OOMPH to all his stuff that Kaz, Massaro, and Thompson just didn't have. Thompson honestly seemed overmatched. Felt like a real Star vs. Indie Guy match despite Joe not being a star yet. Only thing really missing from Joe's game was seeing the flab fly free. The facewashes were there. As was the big knee drop. He took his time in control like a real ring vet. Finish was weak though. Fellow SoCal'er Super Dragon ran out to help Joe with a chairshot only to have Thompson send Joe into the chair instead. The APW mainstay would follow that up with a nice 4 1/2* Frog Splash for the win.
Verdict- About the same as the previous match. Decent. Joe looked ready for prime time though. He would debut in ROH 3 months later.
*Next Time: Two guys you never heard of tear the house down and the Indie Ahmed Johnson doesn't.
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Post by Ness on Jan 29, 2024 23:58:04 GMT
I watched a dozen matches featuring turn of the century indie stars last week but don't feel like writing them up right now. Maybe later. For now... Mordecai vs. Hardcore Holly- Great American Bash 6/27/04A match only Ness and I could get excited about. Thought this was Mordecai's debut. Wrong! He debuted on the previous month's PPV with a win over Scotty. I had stopped watching the monthly pay per views by this point, opting instead just to watch one or two big shows a year. You could even break my fandom down into the following categories... 87-95- hardcore casual 95-03- hardcore super duper fan 04-09- softcore super fan 09-Present- largely lapsed Anyway, this match came about because of a backstage brawl on Smackdown. Nobody knows why they started fighting. They just did. Taz & Cole were amusing on commentary. Cole rattled off a list of things Mordecai said while a vexed Taz replied with "Who talks like that?!?" This was a blah nothing match that went 6-7 minutes in front of a dead crowd. Most interesting thing about it was realizing "234 pound" Hardcore Holly is the same size as "270 pound" monster Mordecai. Coolest move of the match was a sitout Spinebuster from Mordecai. Roughly 10 seconds later BOBCORE hit The Textbook. Finish was pretty cool. BOBCORE went for the Alabama. Mordecai countered by punching BOBCORE's sides and used his momentum in flipping back down to flip Holly up into the Razor's Edge position. He would then hit the Edge for the win. Verdict- under **. doomed by a dead crowd That brand split era of PPVs and call ups was just trash. PPV match against the same jobber the last failed call up had. New guys would NEVER get on PPV otherwsie but like how are you supposed to get invested in that? It's like Roderick Strong always challenging the new roh champ. Bruh we know. Definition of foregone conclusion. Maybe that was just me getting wise to the business/deep dive into the iwc. Watching dead crowd matches was always difficult.
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Post by Baker on Jan 30, 2024 1:58:37 GMT
Bobby Quance vs. Jardi Frantz- Big Time Wrestling 3/7/03I can already hear the "WHO?" so allow me to explain. Quance was something of a prodigy. He was trained by Danielson and it (allegedly) showed. He blew the minds of hardcore fans like the DVDVR guys. He wrestled two years. Then he joined the military and only came back for two more matches five years later before hanging the boots up for good. He wrestled exactly 100 matches in his career according to Cagematch. Could have swore I saw him live at a CZW show once, but maybe it was on tape. Idk. All I remember is him doing a Shooting Star Press. Frantz was another APW trainee who I remember starting out as Chicano Flame #2. Then he unmasked and feuded with the original Chicano Flame. Frantz honestly didn't have a lot of hype even in the very tiny corner of the internet that was into APW. Remember hearing he moved back to the East Coast at some point so maybe he ended up becoming an Ant or an Egyptian in CHIKARA. Lemme check. Nope. The move to Pennsylvania came in August/September 99 and he was already back in Cali by January 2000. Interesting to see APW guys working a BTW show. BTW was run by a guy named Woody Farmer. APW vs. BTW was a local feud with Roland and the APW faithful trashing BTW on their message board while the occasional BTW guy would show up to rebut before inevitably getting banned. It was like a small time version of the MNW. APW had the internet hype, but BTW drew much bigger crowds by bringing in washed WWF stars. They also pushed Farmer's son as the top babyface iirc. Neither guy looks like much. Both could pass for high schoolers. The short-haired Quance looks like a high school honor student while the long-haired, scrawnier Frantz looks like a high school troublemaker. But this match ruled. Seriously! This was Cruiserweight wrestling done right. Would have been right at home in a mid 90s J-Cup or a turn of the century ECWA Super 8. Would have blown the roof off on an early ROH show or an early-mid 2000s TNA ppv. Would have stolen the show on a mid-late 90s WCW pay per view. Feel like people would be raving about this if it was on WWE, AEW, or NXT today. 'Twas a real tight 10 minutes with a little bit of everything- flying, striking, submissions, etc. before Quance got the win with an armbar. At first I thought it was like same era Paul London vs. same era Paul London, but then Quance started breaking out the Danielsonesque submissions. I dunno, man. This match just had a flow to it that most 2010s and beyond "cruiserweight" matches don't. It never felt too choreographed. Maybe they could have let some stuff breathe a little more. Maybe I'm overrating it because I wasn't expecting much. Or maybe Bobby Quance deserved all the hype he got during his short career and Jardi Frantz should have been right there with him when it came to the hype train. Verdict- ***3/4 Recommended! New hidden gem unearthed? Decide for yourselves... {Spoiler}
Atomic Dog vs. Motley Cruz- Kick Ass Wrestling 11/27/99 (taped some time in 1998)
Atomic Dog started as Steve Sharp(e) on the Missouri indies and would eventually become Ali Stevens in WWF's Memphis-based developmental fed, PPW. He was hyped as "the indie Ahmed Johnson." This was meant as a compliment. He was one of those guys who was real hot for about 3 months before disappearing off the face of the earth. So not unlike Bobby Quance in that regard! He's pretty jacked and wears a singlet. Motley Cruz was a Memphis area regular who worked some USWA way back in like 1995. He also worked for that bush league outfit with internet sensation "Jumping" Jeff Farmer. He has an awful look for the late 90s. Dude looks more like a 1993 WCW Worldwide jobber with that bushy mullet. Think the ugly offspring of Dutch Mantell & Tex Slazenger. We get our second regional promotional war in a row. Kick Ass Wrestling was a Memphis take on ECW. They were "feuding" with the WWF backed PPW. KAW literally had "Ass" in their name. So you KNOW it comes from the late 90s. Think they aired late at night on some Memphis UHF station and ran shows at the local Hooters. Oh, except for that one time they held a show in a women's prison. Their wrestlers had names like Izzy High and Al K. Holic. I swear I'm not making this up! What's really incredible is this bush league outfit "merged" with PPW after Doug Gilbert's shoot on Lawler killed that promotion. The "new" Memphis promotion would be called Memphis Championship Wrestling. This new MCW promotion got the WWF developmental deal PPW used to have and I imagine Kick Ass Wrestling owner Terry Golden actually made some money out of the whole thing. But this is soooo bad. Every bit as bad as Quance/Frantz was good. ECW was Memphis, Northeast style. KAW is things bizarrely coming full circle with a Memphis promotion trying to do Memphis Northeast and failing at it in spectacular fashion. Trying to form that sentence made my head hurt and I'm not sure it came out right. Whatever. Dog's theme plays throughout the match like New Jack. Only his theme doesn't have the energy of New Jack's so it's just WEIRD. The layout of this match also sucks. For some reason the dumpy, early 90s jobber-looking heel Motley Cruz controls the big jacked guy for 90% of this awful match. He uses a lot of weapon attacks and it's very boring. This trainwreck did have two things going for it- Dog takes two killer bumps back to back- one over the guardrail into the crowd and then another one over the guardrail back to ringside. And they collaborate on some nice looking Cruz forearms in the corner. But the rest of this sucked. Including the finish which saw owner Terry Golden, who is of course the top babyface, hit Cruz with a crutch as he was looking to fly off the top for the win. Why does Atomic Dog need saving? THAT'S the guy you should be pushing! Not dumpy, jobber-looking Motley Cruz! And why is this match airing a YEAR after it was taped?!? NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE! Verdict- 1/4* for the two nice bumps and some good corner forearms. I have to be fair. But my first thought was DUD.
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Post by Kilgore on Jan 30, 2024 6:45:36 GMT
Baker, Bobby Quance vs. Jardi Frantz was good! Frantz' late 90s high flyer style vs. Quance's submission style, it's like the bridge between ECW and ROH. Marked out for Frantz doing a twisting Super Calo off the top (plus the Taka Spaceman). Maybe a tad high on the rating, but not much! Quance definitely had potential. No personality, whatsoever. But the man could wrestle.
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Post by Big Pete on Jan 30, 2024 8:07:49 GMT
Mordecai vs. Hardcore Holly- Great American Bash 6/27/04A match only Ness and I could get excited about. Thought this was Mordecai's debut. Wrong! He debuted on the previous month's PPV with a win over Scotty. I had stopped watching the monthly pay per views by this point, opting instead just to watch one or two big shows a year. You could even break my fandom down into the following categories... 87-95- hardcore casual 95-03- hardcore super duper fan 04-09- softcore super fan 09-Present- largely lapsed Anyway, this match came about because of a backstage brawl on Smackdown. Nobody knows why they started fighting. They just did. Taz & Cole were amusing on commentary. Cole rattled off a list of things Mordecai said while a vexed Taz replied with "Who talks like that?!?" This was a blah nothing match that went 6-7 minutes in front of a dead crowd. Most interesting thing about it was realizing "234 pound" Hardcore Holly is the same size as "270 pound" monster Mordecai. Coolest move of the match was a sitout Spinebuster from Mordecai. Roughly 10 seconds later BOBCORE hit The Textbook. Finish was pretty cool. BOBCORE went for the Alabama. Mordecai countered by punching BOBCORE's sides and used his momentum in flipping back down to flip Holly up into the Razor's Edge position. He would then hit the Edge for the win. Verdict- under **. doomed by a dead crowd Tag Emperor and I in as well. I saw enough of Mordecai to know he was already one of my favourite SmackDown superstars and I couldn't wait to be absolved for all my sins. Then I watched the match and was really underwhelmed, I think the WWE brass was too because it's only a few weeks later Mordecai loses to Rey and is never heard from again. The size stood out to me as well, I think time had put Mordecai's head onto the Undertaker's body. I may have also envisioned him to be more like Vigo from Ghostbusters II as well, instead it looked like he just graduated out of bible school and was going to lead a youth ministry. Maybe it was relative to the Luther Reigns-Charlie Haas match that preceded this, but Holly dominated most of the match right? I barely remember Mordecai getting any offense in and I think even Diesel would have considered him limited. I was all about the PS2 games at this point and couldn't get enough HCTP. I kid you not, Mordecai missing the cut was a deal-breaker for SVR and was the one PS2 Smackdown game I didn't buy (until the pandemic).
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Post by Baker on Feb 1, 2024 2:55:36 GMT
Michael Modest vs. Donovan Morgan- Promo CALIFA 8/3/03- Special Guest Referee Mad Mikey
Mad Mikey is APW's own Crash Holly and I know nothing of this Promo CALIFA. These two were KAOS stablemates in NOAH so both wear black & yellow trunks with KAOS written on the back. Modest was a consensus Top 3 indie worker in '99 (along with Daniels & Reckless) while I saw Morgan win the 2002 ECWA Super 8 live over Styles in a finish I bet Kettner wishes he could do over. Both guys dogged it in early ROH.
This was real disappointing and flat out bad. Two guys known for being solid pure wrestlers did a lazy walk & brawl. Modest forced in a few lame comedy spots early. The face/heel structure was all wonky. Modest started out as the heel. Then halfway through the match Morgan took the heel role. It made no sense! Last minute or so they finally got down to business by trading big moves. Then shenanigans between Morgan & Mikey led to Modest hitting Donovan with a Kryptonite Krunch for the win.
Verdict- * Skip it. Given what I know about these two egomaniacs they probably had a bad match on purpose.
Vic Grimes vs. Psicosis- XPW Retribution 11/24/01
You know it's near the turn of the century because both guys wrestle in street clothes. Grimes looks like he has definitely stabbed a man while Psicosis looks like a high school student. Bischoff unmasking Rey, Juvy & Psicosis has to be one of his more underrated dumb moves. All those guys looked waaaay better in their masks and traditional gear. Psicosis had just turned 30 but felt washed to 2001 me. Tbh I felt that way about every WCW & ECW guy who didn't get scooped up right away by WWF other than Jarrett, who was blackballed, and Corino, who went his own way. So maybe it's a me thing? Rivera on commentary was AWFUL. Sounded like he was doing a bad Cheech impression. Even slipped in a weed reference, so maybe he was? Grimes had HYPE in the late 90s. Word on the street is he had Vader's offense and bumped like Foley. Can confirm he had the GOAT dark match Crash "Erin O'Grady" Holly. One of my big fantasy booking ideas was for WWF to bring him in as Mick Foley's brother Vic. Still think he could have been a big deal in ECW had Paul E not dumped him in the dead end Baldies stable.
This was a pretty good big vs. little match. Grimes strikes me as a guy who would be AMAZING the first time you see him (all his moves are innovative finishers!) but would get old real quick. Grimes gets the win with a Bubba Cutter ‘96. All Grimes' big moves popped the crowd. Commentary put him over strong as well.
Verdict- **1/2. Good Grimes showcase.
Tony Jones vs. Boom Boom Comini- APW 12/20/97
Jones was an amateur wrestler best known for an appearance in Beyond The Mat where JR told him he needed to bulk up. This would not be a problem for the portly Comini. BBC's name cracked my cousin up. Guessing because he was a Boom Boom rather than the usual Bam Bam? Remember this one time my man just starts writing "Boom Boom Comini" in the dirt at a baseball game. And that cracked ME up. So unexpected Boom Boom Comini then became a thing.
Anyway, this match isn't very good. BBC stands in the middle of the ring irish whipping Jones and hits him with back elbows or whatever when he comes back. This goes on for about 5 minutes. Once "The Mad Mosher" slips in some half-hearted moshing. Jones ultimately catches the bigger man with a flash belly to belly suplex for the win. Crowd chanted "Boom Boom's Getting Tired" despite (or perhaps because of?) Boom Boom's lack of movement. BBC would sadly pass away a year or two ago.
Verdict- * if I'm being generous
Frank Dalton vs. Matt Hyson- California Championship Wrestling 6/19/94
Hyson is Spike Dudley. Commentary says this is his debut. Cagematch doesn't have either guy debuting until March 1995. Frank Dalton would later wrestle in APW as Frank Murdoch. Pretty sure Cornette's future wife is his valet here. He has the big boned physique of a "Timekeeper" Mike George and an outline of the state of Idaho on his trunks. Sadly we do not get to his see his "Idaho Faceplant" finisher. I never did find out what that actually was irl. It was Moxley's bulldog DDT in my head canon tho.
This was pretty good! They did big/little, face/heel stuff. Both guys took one big bump to the floor. Only drawback was the anticlimactic finish. Murdoch capitalized on a Hyson rookie mistake by hitting two back suplexes and a vertical before winning with a Torture Rack of all things.
Verdict- **1/2. A psychologically sound match.
Crash vs. Prince Nana- Metal 1/12/02
Crash has lost his last name. Should have had a match with BOBCORE over the rights to the Holly name! Here he's taking on my ECWA parking lot pal, and the best manager of the 2000s, Prince Nana. Fun Fact: I saw the leader of the Embassy have an awesome steel cage match with Cheetah Master(!) the very day this match aired. Who knew Jakked/Metal was still around in 2002? Not this guy. I had stopped watching it for the most part like 2 years earlier. The perils of getting a life...
Sadly this was just your basic throwaway C Show match. Wrestling comedy is a funny thing. I don't mean that literally. I mean sometimes it works for me. Other times it doesn't. Crash is in the Blue Pants & Red Shoes COMEDY FAIL camp. Sorry, guys. Crash comedy just doesn't do it for me. He does these goofy walks and is afraid of heights so he keeps climbing up the ropes only to climb back down. Real bottom of the barrel stuff. They had one good exchange I forget the details of and Crash ultimately wins with the Trish Stratus Bulldog.
Verdict- Another *ish or less match. Skip it.
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Post by Lionheart on Feb 1, 2024 5:24:52 GMT
Lionheart Vs. Gedo (International Junior Heavyweight Championship Inaugural Tournament Final) - WAR Battle Angel March 26th, 1995
Gedo, in his prime, is completely unrecognizable. You would never even consider he's the same man as today after watching a full match were it not for his name. Meanwhile, Red Shoes is completely recognizable in that he is the spitting image of Shota Umino. It is a bizarre feeling as my mind repeatedly thinks Shota is refereeing the match. The bell rings as Gedo backs Jericho into the ropes and swiftly delivers an unexpected bitch slap to get things going. And it looks incredibly stiff. Like one from Shibata. Jericho returns the favor shortly after with a sudden slap of his own just as he gets Gedo to the ropes.
Now is a good time to mention that Gedo is wearing an outfit that makes him best described as a kung-fu genie. The getup is like something from Dragonball, but actually a crop-top to show off his impressive belly.
Gedo is large in this match. That photo doesn't really do it justice. His healthy body size makes me feel sad of his more sickly appearance these days.
But despite being a large man, he sure can move! They quickly transition into a classic opening head-scissors takedown double missed dropkick combination. But it's fast and a bit extended. And had one moment where it appeared Jericho was going to die because, despite his agility, Gedo sure cannot jump very high and was barely able to clear Jericho's head as he ran underneath him.
And that sums up a lot of this match. Gedo absolutely pushes himself to the limit to do moves you would not think possible for a man like him, but barely pulling them off by the skin of his teeth. I shit you not, he pulls off some shit in this match that I've only ever seen from Ospreay with the crazy aerial counters of twisting his body in unique ways and defying physics, but it's even more impressive for Gedo to be doing it and the near-misses of every move only adds to the excitement.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Shortly after the classic opening sequence, Gedo gets a body slam out of nowhere and with a speed the likes of which you rarely see in a match these days - ascends to the top rope, which is in itself a pop moment because of how big he appears, and nails Jericho with a diving headbutt. I expected this to be a one-off shock moment, but top rope moves are shown to be his bread and butter as the match plays out. He ends up hitting four or five of them within a short time period.
Jericho gets overshadowed in the opening, but ends up being no slouch himself as he pulls off some incredibly impressive maneuvers. And executes them perfectly. None of the sloppy near-misses of Gedo. He is an absolute professional. This match is a battle of style. Brawn versus bulk. Jericho delivers the first of many German suplexes to come in this match, which seem impossible each time given the size differential but Gedo is barely lifted over the head and sent down in a ring-shattering smash. Gedo rolls out of the ring and Jericho runs to the ropes in his signature rope jump motion, but jumps instantly to the top rope rather than the middle one to jump crashing into Gedo outside of the ring. I didn't know Jericho could jump to the top rope like that!
Not to be outdone on the flashy top-rope game, Jericho ascends once Gedo is back in the ring to deliver a weird spinning elbow drop move I've never seen before that is pretty fucking cool.
Gedo rolls out again and Jericho goes in for a plancha. It's the same pose and jumping motion as everyone does in modern New Japan. I expect Gedo to catch him and fall over, probably leaving Jericho standing, like almost always happens with these boring ass planchas. Jericho comes careening down for it and NOPE, instead of catching him, Gedo delivers a fucking flying karate kick to the motherfucking face in midair.
This shit looks too dangerous to even be allowed today. I guess wrestling was just better back then.
I think everyone gets the point that this match is awesome as fuck by now, so I'll stop the play-by-play. The match eventually ends shortly after Gedo botches a top-rope spot and falls straight down when he didn't mean to because gravity in combination with his weight was too powerful to stop no matter how much will was involved.
But it still looked cool as fuck because the bumps were hard as fuck and they already convinced me they are the best wrestlers of all time anyway and can botch anything they want.
So that was definitely something. Gedo was the fat Will Ospreay of the 90's. Very unexpected information to gain.
Lionheart makes a point to shake Gedo's hand after the match, which sets in motion the beginning of their alliance as they shortly after go on to become WAR's inaugural Jr. Tag Team Champions. I am very excited to watch those matches.
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Post by Baker on Feb 2, 2024 0:50:07 GMT
Maxx Justice (c) vs. Boyce LeGrande- Break The Barrier 5/15/99- APW Championship Match
Break The Barrier is one of those interesting historical curiosities. It was an indie super show at the ECW Arena put together by an internet personality named Al Isaacs of Scoops.com(?) that featured something like 15 indie promotions from all across the country coming together for the good of rasslin'. It really was a revolutionary concept to the handful of people who cared about US indie wrestling in 1999. You have to understand the lovey dovey "Yay! Indie wrestling! Let's all work together!" kumbaya stuff that permeated the 2010s wasn't a thing yet in 1999. Promotions were constantly at odds with each another. Promotions were far more likely to sabotage one another than work together. General consensus held that fly ins were not economically viable. So something like this was a godsend for people like me. Fwiw the critics weren't exactly wrong about the fly ins considering Isaacs lost his shirt on this show.
But to this day I regret not going. Especially considering my man Tom Brandi came out of BTB as the biggest heel/star on the entire indie scene. ECW had run The Arena the previous Saturday- May 8th. I went to that show with my cousin instead of BTB. It was my 2nd live ECW show and his 1st. Guessing we chose that one over Break The Barrier after much debate. Or maybe missing BTB was work/transportation related? My brother and I were still sharing "the shaggin' wagon" and I would have been too much of a purist to call out of my grueling 3:30-7:30 four hour work shift had I been scheduled.
Maxx Justice was the dominant heel champ when I started following APW online. He was (exaggeratedly) billed at 6'5 297 lbs. and kinda looked like Ludvig Borga wearing Mountie pants. Maybe he was a fellow Foreign Fanatics fanatic? It would be an exaggeration to say Maxx Justice was my APW Guy what with Christopher Daniels right there but....he kinda was? Vic Grimes was already gone by the time I started following APW and Daniels was not technically an APW homegrown talent. Plus "The Fallen Angel" missed a lot of APW shows due to being in high demand all over the world. So I did gravitate towards Justice. There's even a storyline reason for his uber generic name. He started out as the admittedly equally generic "Mike Diamond." Had a few WWF tryout matches. Failed to get hired. So he decided to follow the trends in order to become hip, and therefore more hirable. Enter "Hardcore & High Flying" Maxx Justice. The double x really is the cherry on top.
Boyce was a slender, high flying babyface best known for his "Westside Playaz" tag team with Robert Thompson. They were eventually gonna get a huge push to the tag titles in my aborted indie fan fic project.
Promo time. Classic pro wrestling in the sense that you can tell who's the face and who's the heel just by looking at these guys. Justice has that textbook heel scowl while Boyce is smiling and slapping hands with the interviewer whilst wearing a sweet Oakland A's jersey. Shane Dynasty mention! Whoa! Nice! Dynasty was Justice's manager in APW. He slid into my DMs after finding out I was from Maryland. Claimed to be from Gaithersburg himself. Nowadays I think "Shane Dynasty from Gaithersburg" might have been a real inside baseball reference to Shane McMahon? He was a nice guy tho. Easily the nicest of the APW message board crew. Roland was shady and Modest a jerk. But I also can't help thinking he was sent by Rolo to recruit me for their school. Even dumb late 90s me knew never to trust Roland Alexander. Anyway, Dynasty couldn't make the cross country flight so Justice is being managed by some jabrone named Paulie D. For some reason this match doesn't show up in a lot of the BTB results. Weird. I'm also surprised Rolo sent these two over rather than his Golden Boy, Mikey Modest.
Match is actually pretty good. They do big vs. little, face vs. heel stuff. Boyce hits a few nice dives. Justice hits a bunch of power moves. He has a quasi-Vic Grimes thing going on where most of his moves are finishers. APW trainees sure did love that inverted powerbomb/face eraser. Not that I'm complaining! The actual finish rules. Justice hits this killer top rope chokeslam that should have been stolen by a hundred guys. Popped the crowd, too.
Verdict- **1/2. Biggest complaint is at only 6-7 minutes it was on the short side.
"Superkick" Chris Cole vs. "Gigolo" Steve Rizzono- APW 1/4/97
Both these guys were long gone by the time I started following the promotion in September/October 98. Their nicknames tell you everything you need to know about these characters. Rizzono has two valets, Gina & Brenda. He looks like somebody attached 97-98 Bradshaw's head & face to 2000 Steve Corino's body. Meanwhile Cole is a tiny man with a buzzcut. Think a smaller Crash Holly.
The bigger Rizzono takes 90% of this. He works Cole over with basic stuff. Cole sells well. But then he botches the most important spot of the match. He's supposed to flip out of a back suplex, land on his feet, and hit a Superkick to turn the tide. Only he stumbles on the landing. The Superkick kinda sucked too. Then he hits a weak Flying Elbow and a weak Superfly Splash for the 1-2-3. Post-match sees Rizzono's valets have a catfight. There's that ECW influence. I feel like the 3 minute match was just a backdrop to set up the catfight.
Verdict- *1/4. Actually psychologically sound but Cole's execution was lacking. He shouldn't be doing offense. Great jobber potential though!
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Post by Lionheart on Feb 2, 2024 22:36:56 GMT
Lionheart makes a point to shake Gedo's hand after the match, which sets in motion the beginning of their alliance as they shortly after go on to become WAR's inaugural Jr. Tag Team Champions. I am very excited to watch those matches. Or not because they don't exist to be found anywhere. Well, that freakin' sucks.
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Post by Baker on Feb 4, 2024 3:16:48 GMT
Both matches I'm covering today cross the line from merely "disappointing" to "downright bad." So I'm just gonna slip in a storytime chronicling my early history with indie wrestling...
Prior to late 95 I did not know indie wrestling existed. Prior to late 95 I did not know ANY wrestling existed beyond what was shown on my tv. That's one reason I'm so obsessed with 95-96! The wrestling world suddenly became so much bigger than I had ever imagined. It was like the equivalent of going through life thinking Maryland was the only place on Earth only to discover there was an entire world out there. Oh, and for a little while I thought "indies" referred to an apparently thriving wrestling scene in the West Indies because that was the only context I had for the word. Certain names would always be showing up in the Apter Mags so I quickly deduced they were the 'stars' of the indies and the ones to keep an eye on. One of these names was Steve Corino. The Rankings, PWI Almanac, and PWI 500 were godsends. This was how we got a whole lot of wrestlers for our beloved basement wrestling figure leagues.
By Aug/Sept 96 I had discovered a local wrestling radio show that I would listen to on Saturday nights for a year+. Through that show I discovered we had a local indie of our own in MEWF. The radio show would often have MEWF talent on and give tickets away. They ran shows fairly close. Just a few miles away. But I sadly had no way of going to those shows. And maybe the worst part was these shows featured Steve Corino.
The next great leap forward was discovering a free wrestling hotline through the radio show sometime in Fall '97. This guy, like the Apter Mags & radio show, would mostly cover mainstream wrestling, but he too would slip in some indie stuff. This is where I learned of the big Maryland indie split when most of the MEWF talent broke off into the rogue MCW promotion.
And finally came the ultimate leap forward- getting on the internet in February 1998. That changed the game. But going back a ways...
I got my lone Apter Mag subscription either for Christmas 97 or for my birthday in February 98. This honestly came a year or two too late. The internet largely rendered the Apter Mags obsolete. I say "largely" only because the PWI 500 was still Must Read and because there was this one article putting the ECWA Super 8 over huge. For some reason that article HIT. Really put the ECWA Super 8 on my radar. Things snowballed after that...
-Summer 1998 I finally got my license. -9/19/98 I saw Taka have the GOAT Shotgun match with a hitherto unknown named Christopher Daniels. -Days after that I started following APW online due to Cornette namedropping the promotion as the home of Christopher Daniels. 10/11/98 I went to my first indie show- MCW where my man Tom Brandi stole the show with heeling and mic work. 12/6/98 I went to my 2nd indie/MCW show where Christian York became my latest hero for being a cool dude & Sabuing himself on the barricade.
By this point I'm a full fledged indieholic. Kept close tabs on the scene throughout '99. Went to a bunch of MCW shows before going to ECW shows largely rendered MCW obsolete. The local fed just couldn't compare to the HYPE 90 miles up the road in Philly. 2000 I lost interest in the indies a little bit due to having more of a life. And I missed out on the 99, 00, 01 ECWA Super 8s for reasons I forget despite wanting to go to all of them.
Christopher Daniels vs. Steve Bradley- ECWA 10/21/00
Daniels was THE guy on the indie scene in my book. He had the coolest moves, oozed star power/charisma, and is the reason I finally did make it to an ECWA show in November 2001. That would ultimately kick off my second, and even bigger, indie phase. To the wider world it was debatable whether Daniels, Modest, or Reckless Youth was THE guy. But it was definitely one of those three from at least late 98-early 01. And Daniels outlasted those other two jabrones anyway. You could even argue Daniels was THE guy on the scene through most of 2003.
Bradley was a hyped WWF developmental prospect who was supposed to be their more polished version of RVD. Angle, Crash, and others have put him over huge. Memphis PPW reviewers back in the day put him over huge. But I don't see it. I've seen enough Steve Bradley by now to realize he does nothing for me. Sad, but true. He isn't even that RVDish! He has good size for an indie guy, and looks a little like Van Dam, but that's about it. He's really more of a cross between RVD, Steve Corino, and Colt Cabana in appearance.
These guys met in the 1999 Super 8 finals with Bradley going over. Daniels would win the 2000 version. Bradley wasn't in that one. So now they're fighting for Super 8 supremacy.
Daniels is uncharacteristically working babyface. To be fair, nobody booed him anyway. How could ya?! Just never got into this one. It was like they were just going through the motions. A week later I remember little. I think Daniels hit Angel's Wings at some point? Finish comes when Scoot Andrews (who lost the 2000 Super 8 final to Daniels) attacks "The Fallen Angel." Then Reckless Youth runs out for the save setting up a Daniels & Reckless vs. Bradley & Scoot tag match that I'm in no hurry to track down. And that too is a shame because 00-01 me would have been all over that match.
Verdict- * or less. Real disappointing. Skip it.
Matt Hardy vs. Christian York- ECWA 2/27/99- Super 8 Tournament Match
Matt had been under WWF contract for a few months, but still relegated to Shotgun duty, and a few months away from his first push. Put it this way. He's still wearing the inspirational pastel pants. Local hero Christian York would briefly be signed to WCW, WWF, and ECW all within the next year or two. Felt like the poor guy was having a big MCW farewell match every other month lol. These two worked together in Matt's OMEGA promotion so you'd think this would be pretty good...
You'd be wrong. This was bad, real bad. It had the MEHness of the previous match +York botching a few things in what had to be the most high profile match of his career. Plus the crowd sucked due to the DVDVR guys making a nuisance of themselves by heckling York and ruining the overall good vibe you usually got from those typically great ECWA crowds. And to think these assholes had the audacity to rag on Hat Guy for "making the show about himself." smh. Those nerds aren't fit to wear Hat Guy's hat. York had a bad rep with the DeathValleyDriver guys and I'm sure it all goes back to this admittedly bad match. Anyway, Matt wins with a top rope Asai Moonsault. Young Matt had some hops.
Verdict- Even worse than Daniels/Bradley.
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Post by Baker on Feb 5, 2024 0:34:14 GMT
Kenta Kobashi vs. Bison Smith- NOAH 12/7/02Bison Smith is another APW guy. He played college football at Colorado. Roland hyped him as second coming of Steve Williams. He started out as "Big Buffalo" Mark Smith. I guess that wasn't generic enough so he then worked as Super Destroyer 2000 before finally settling on the Bison Smith name. He worked NOAH for a few years and then worked ROH right around the time it stopped being cool before passing away in 2011 while still only in his late 30s. He has a hideous haircut here. The best way to describe it is as a distant relative of the mohawk family. Smith is a big boy who looks like the main bad guy's top goon in an 80s or 90s movie. Like you can easily see him and Tadao Yasuda flanking Mr. Big as Big discusses his nefarious plans on the phone with some other villain. Kenta Kobashi needs no introduction. Back in 2007 there was a Matt Hardy vs. Joey Mercury MITB Qualifier on Smackdown that I thought was "perfect." And I got to wondering whether a meaningless-in-the-grand-scheme of things 10 minute match can be 5*. I still don't know the answer to that question. Star ratings are stupid anyway. But the reason I bring it up is because this match is just about perfect. At first I was like "real good match! ***1/2!" But then I kept thinking about it and bumping that rating up more and more until I talked myself into 5*. Then I made a nitpicky deduction. Anyway... This is like a longer, better version of the great Raven vs. Kaz Hayashi Worldwide match. It's just a few big moves and selling but they get so much out of it. Bison scores with an early shoulder block. Then he hits a flying shoulder block from apron to floor. Then he hits Kobashi with a Claw Slam outta nowhere onto a rock solid ringside table that does not break. That got a legit "Oh my god" out of me. Fwiw the Claw Slam was the go to move of my friend Bryan's "Hell's Guardian" character in the old Smackdown video games. We're only a few minutes in and Kobashi is in serious trouble. Bison works him over for a while. Bison's Claw (Slam) is over huge now and Kobashi sells the threat of the Claw awesomely. He fights for dear life just to block it. About 8-9 years ago I watched Windham/Dusty at GAB 88 with my brother. He thought it was boring but I loved it. And that match is all about Claw psychology. Seriously. It's like 10 minutes of working the Claw. This is also like that match, but with cooler moves. Kobashi doesn't hit much, having been wrecked by Bison early, but what he does hit rules- a finisher-level chop or two, a big clothesline, a Dragon Suplex. Oh, and one of his lone offensive flurries comes after dodging a top rope version of the very flying shoulder block Bison hit earlier. Psychology! Bison hits a Styles Clash for two at some point. And Kobashi finally finishes the pesky Bison off with the mother of all Brainbusters. This one got a verbal "Oh shit" out of me. Most brainbusters suck. Koko, Murdoch, and Aries are the only guys who made it look good. This one time Kid Kash dropped Juvy right on his head. You could clearly see it during the slow motion replay. But in fast motion it still looked like crap. Well, this Kobashi Brainbuster was finisher level even in regular speed. And it actually was the finish! Good for them. Verdict- ****+. At a breezy 8:47 this is now one of my favorite matches under 10 minutes. Roland once compared Bison Smith to Dr. Death. Well, I'm here to tell you this is better than the Doc/Kobashi Backdrop Driver match. Which is actually a pretty dumb match if you stop to think about it for 5 seconds. {Spoiler} Cheetah Master & Lance Diamond vs. Ace Darling & Devon Storm- ECWA 3/22/97Yesterday I mentioned certain names showing up over and over in the Apter Mags and quickly realizing those guys were the 'stars' of the indie scene. Well, these are 4 of those names. Storm was the biggest star of the 4 at the time. He was the Christopher Daniels of his day in that he always seemed to be this close to signing with one of the Big 3. He worked a bunch of WCW shows in 96-97. I first saw him on Nitro vs. Konnan in February 96 where I had him pegged as WCW's answer to Shawn Michaels. Then he worked ECW from mid-late 96. 97 saw him work a bunch of WWF shows. But he wouldn't stick with any of them until late 99 when he finally landed that elusive full time gig. Turned out to be with WCW where he would become Crowbar. Darling was Storm's regular tag team partner on the indies. They wrestled as The Extremists. He too worked a few WWF & WCW shows, though not as frequently as Storm, and he never did make it big. He has pretty good size, but a look that was already dated by '97. Picture a less jacked early 90s Scott Steiner. Diamond ended up becoming Simon Diamond in 1999 ECW. He'd stick with them til the bitter end and later work TNA regularly. And then you have Cheetah Master. He was to Delaware what Jerry Lawler was to Memphis, Kerry Von Erich was to Texas, and Hulk Hogan was to 1980s America, albeit on a much smaller scale. You guys have no idea. The ECWA faithful LOVED this guy. From a per capita standpoint he's one of the most over wrestlers I have ever seen live. Not quite to 1999 RVD at the ECW Arena levels, but basically on par with, or even exceeding, anyone else I can think of. Sadly "The Only Cheetah That Flies" never got much of a look from the Big 3. His biggest claim to fame is allegedly appearing in a segment with Stephanie McMahon where he was implied to be gay. I say "allegedly" only because I never saw/didn't recognize Cheetah in this segment. It was brought to my attention by two DVDVR hipsters I made the mistake of giving a ride to the 2002 ECWA Super 8. Anyway, these probably are the 4 biggest stars in ECWA. Cheetah & Lance are arch-rivals joining forces over their mutual hatred of The Extremists. I think Storm & Darling did something bad to Lance at the inaugural Super 8 one month earlier that turned him into a de facto babyface. This would be like HHH & Rock joining forces to battle, I dunno, Rated RKO, but if the timeline matched up better. I for one do NOT trust that shady Lance Diamond. Sadly Cheetah's ridiculously over the top entrance is cut out. But it usually went something like this- Cheetah runs around the building slapping hands with every single fan in attendance while Welcome To The Jungle plays.....twice. The crowd heat never dissipates. You had to be there. This footage comes from ECWA's short-lived tv show. Commentary is weirdly dubbed over previous commentary which drowns out a lot of the crowd heat. But this is a solid, old school, good guys vs. bad guys tag match. The Extremists look rather ridiculous wearing Rockers inspired gear in 1997. They even have the mullets to match! They're the New New Rockers. Even if Storm actually looks more like a deflated Kona Crush than Shawn Michaels. Oh, and they have some morbidly obese manager who wears a Hawaiian shirt and a 'vacation' hat I forget the proper name of. Ahh, 90s indie wrestling. Fat Manager does nothing of note. I'm not even sure he can move. Dude makes Paul Bearer look slim. Lance kinda resembles a goateed Barry Horowitz and is clearly having a blast working face. There's a cool "bumbling heel spot" where Diamond catapults Darling into a flip dive onto Storm. Nice! Not to be outdone, Cheetah hits his AWESOME Undertaker dive. Seriously one of the best dives of its day. He also had a nifty counter of a chairshot. It's a shame he never made it. On the other hand he seemed to thrive as a big fish in a small pond. Cheetah in big time wrestling just would have been a pauper Shawn Michaels. Extremists work him over for a while until he finally makes the hot tag to Diamond. Diamond does NOT turn on him as I predicted. Dig the (non?) swerve. Crowd explodes. Diamond has the match won with a Northern Lights but tags out to give Cheetah the glory. Cheetah hits his patented Superfly Splash for the win. Aha! Post-match sees Diamond challenge Cheetah to a match for some title, or bragging rights, or something. Basically under the principle of "I did you a favor, now you have to do me a favor." That's fair! Diamond still acting pretty face-like by wrestling standards. Verdict- Solid old school formula tag match that went roughly 12 minutes. In that **-**1/2 range. Didn't reinvent the wheel, but it's hard to mess up this sort of thing.
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Post by Baker on Feb 6, 2024 0:00:08 GMT
Reckless Youth vs. Mike Quackenbush- Steel City Wrestling ?/?/1998
These were two more big names on the late 90s indie scene. Both were East Coasters who showed up a lot in the Apter Mags. Quack even wrote a column for them under his shoot name covering the Japanese & Mexican scenes. Neither guy looks like much. Both are under 6 foot and well under 200 pounds. Youth wrestles in the ECW/Raven uniform of black shirt and jean shorts while Quack's attire is arguably even more bush league.
These two were often lumped together around the turn of the century as east coast indie workrate gods. Yet their careers would go in drastically different directions by the early 2000s. Youth actually signed a WWF developmental deal. Spent most of 2000 in Memphis. Allegedly asked for his release when they wanted to make him a manager. Bad career move. Know who else started in WWF as managers? Roddy Piper & LA Knight! Although the best Youth could have admittedly hoped for as an early 2000s WWF wrestler would be a Spike Dudley/Crash Holly role. Within a few months of returning to the indies he'd be surpassed by the next generation of indie darlings who went on to carry early ROH. Youth did have run of his own there in 2003, but it proved to be short-lived and uneventful. For all intents and purposes he was done with even medium time wrestling after that. He did start CHIKARA with his buddy Quack, but didn't stick with it. Quack did, and would become a bonafide indie icon as the brains behind that operation until some sort of scandal hurt his reputation over 20+ years into his career.
Couldn't find a date for this one beyond the vague "1998." Steel City Wrestling was a pretty popular Pittsburgh area promotion. This is from their (presumably public access) tv show. I'm a commentary guy. Almost always prefer commentary to no commentary. This is a rare exception. You've got detestable shock jock Mark Madden doing morning zoo shtick paired with some Mike Tenay influenced nerd robotically rattling off fancy move names. Really makes one appreciate the Vince McMahon "what a maneuver" school of commentary. Ideally you'd want to find a balance between the two. Weird thing is our wrestling nerd, Mr. Plum Mariko, had never heard Jim Cornette's old "Divorce Court" line before. Tenay Jr. popped, but seemed perplexed upon hearing it, as if Madden were some sort of genius who came up with it on the spot. Anyway, winner gets a shot a Cruiserweight(?) Champ Christian York.
This match wouldn't look out of place in 2024. They do a lot of cool stuff. They're light years ahead of yesterday's ECWA quartet in terms of doing cool stuff. But you know what? Yesterday's tag was the better match. Why? Because it clicked with the crowd. This did not. It was a 2000s ROH match in front of a casual late 90s crowd. Early on they do fancy submissions because that's how New Japan juniors started their matches. Quack locks in some Mr. Salty style submission that even Tenay Jr. didn't know the name of. Then Reckless locks in a Stretch Plum as Tenay Jr. excitedly recites the entire history of that move. I'm here thinking "this might go over the heads of a 1998 crowd" and sure enough some 5 seconds later I am proven right as the dreaded "BORING" chant rears its ugly head. Reckless soon hits a Road Dogg shaky legs knee drop as either a troll or a concession. I'm not sure which. But I liked it either way. However Youth didn't stick with the sports entertainment stuff. They went right back to having a tone deaf actionfest. Lots of cool stuff was hit! Dives, Moonsaults, Frankensteiners, Frog Splashes, Submissions, and even a sick Snow Plow from Reckless. But it just wasn't connecting with the crowd. Finish actually got me though. Youth locked in the Stretch Plum again. Bell rings. I assumed Quack submitted. Swerve! The 10 limit time limit had expired, making this a DRAW.
Verdict- We'll settle on **1/2 for yesterday's tag, making this one **1/4, with the caveat being 97-98 me would have greatly preferred this state of the art cruiserweight match to yesterday's more basic ECWA tag.
Stevie Richards vs. Tom Brandi vs. Jimmy Cicero (c)- Break The Barrier 5/15/99- APWF Championship Match- 3 Way Dance
We return to THE indie super show of the 90s. Even I never heard of/don't remember the APWF. It was apparently another Pennsylvania indie.
Brandi comes out to the Chicago Bulls entrance theme. YES! Brandi has the mic. He cuts an awesome heel promo that gets nuclear heat from the ECW Arena faithful. Picture Bubba Ray cutting a Cactus Jack style "anti-hardcore" promo and you have a pretty good idea how this went. Brandi really was a better Shane Douglas than Douglas. Then Stevie enters to...RVD's theme for some reason? Weird. Huge pop though! Stevie was stuck in limbo. Halfway through 1997 he was a can't miss future superstar. Then injuries and politics happened and the poor guy suddenly seemed to be going nowhere fast. I've told the story before of seeing him at a local MCW show in late '98 and just getting a bad feeling. Like "there's a man who is this close to committing suicide" type of bad vibes. But his fortunes would soon turn around as he landed a spot in the big time within a few months of this show. He'd stay there for close to a decade. Good for him. Then *sigh* "Wiseguy" Jimmy Cicero enters. He was another guy who worked all over the east coast, including as a regular in my local indie, MCW, where he teamed with Julio Sanchez as "The Bald and the Beautiful." Cicero was super average. A real replacement level wrestler. Not as terrible as some, but you knew he was never going to be anything more than a decent weekend warrior. Picture a poor man's Stone Cold. Or to paraphrase something I heard more than once from the MCW fans "a retarded Steve Austin." These three guys have history. Cicero once did the job for Brandi on Shotgun. Stevie briefly had a WWF Magazine column where one of his running gags was referring to Brandi as something like "the most miserable man in wrestling." And I'm pretty sure Cicero & Brandi were also in the same stable in MCW.
So this surprisingly ruled. Brandi & Cicero were heels who worked together on white meat babyface extraordinaire Stevie Richards in his long awaited return to the ECW Arena. Picture the best possible HHH & Road Dogg vs. Rock ten minute tv main event and you have a pretty good idea of how this went. Early on the baddies de-pants Stevie! That's right. They just strip the poor guy of his iconic jean shorts. Stevie wrestles the next 10 minutes in his underwear. So I can understand if you'd want to tap out. Stevie does get some revenge by whipping the bad guys with the very jorts they stripped him of! This is smartly worked. And not just because of the rarely seen jorts psychology! The heels use their 2 on 1 advantage. Brandi is a master at getting heat. A true ring general. Throws great chops, too. At some point there is a cool 3 way back suplex. Stevie sells and sells and sells some more until Brandi & Cicero argue over who is going to pin Stevie. This indecision leads to Stevie finally landing some offense in a double low blow that honestly didn't look great. But he capitalizes with a flash Batista Bomb to eliminate Cicero. This group of dummy commentators didn't know the rules. They thought it was first fall wins. Turns out it's elimination rules.
Stevie and Brandi then proceed to have a small time version of Rock vs. HHH. Knew I made the right decision when I booked these two in a main event feud as the top face & top heel in my aborted late 90s indie fanfic project. Stevie hits the Batista Bomb he just eliminated Cicero with. 1-2-NO! Brandi kicks out at 2.9. Because he's better than Cicero! See, it all makes sense. Brandi hits a Pearl River Plunge. 1-2-NO! 2.9. Great nearfalls! Brandi's "Sincerely Yours" Full Nelson slam is teased, but not hit. Then Stevie ultimately scores with a Stevie Kick for the big feel good babyface victory.
Verdict- *** or more. Have to admit I wasn't expecting much despite being a big fan of 2/3 of these guys. But this ended up being a really good pure heel(s) vs. babyface match. Even the inclusion of Cicero didn't bring it down much. He was perfectly fine as Brandi's goonish henchman.
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Post by Baker on Feb 6, 2024 2:33:09 GMT
Haas Brothers (c) vs. Briscoe Brothers- ECWA Battle At The Bob 11/25/00
The early Super 8s get all the hype, but this was actually the biggest show in ECWA history. They drew nearly 1500 fans to the University of Delaware's Bob Carpenter Center. That's a huge crowd for a turn of the century indie. For comparison sake, WWF held a couple tv tapings in the very same building just a few short years earlier, including a great late 1995 taping that I really wish I had gone to.
The Haas Brothers were already working WWF developmental so they're acting like arrogant big league superstars. They're actually pretty good on the mic! They get big time heel heat. Not sure I ever saw Charlie Haas show this much charisma. They already had the look, somewhat resembling Kurt Angle, and in ring chops, also somewhat resembling Kurt Angle. Apparently they had the personality as well. Shame about Russ.
Briscoes look sooo young here. They really do look like kids. Because they are! Jay is 16 and Mark only 15. They're skinny, have crew cuts, and wear bland red singlets. Crowd loves them though. They resemble this guy Tim who my brother went to school with. Tim coincidentally texted me last weekend. First time I heard from him in a year or two. Anyway...
The first 75-80% of this 10 minute match was another solid face vs. heel encounter that was shaping up to be ***. What really put it over the top for me was the great crowd. They loved the Briscoes and hated the "Haasholes" (great chant btw). Well, all except for a half dozen dudes on the camera side who were rooting for the Brothers Haas. Even the best crowds are bound to have a smattering of heel fans. I should know. I was frequently one of them. Haasholes got extended heat segments on both Briscoes after Jay & Mark got to shine early. Briscoes really were prodigies just in terms of bumping and selling. To say nothing for the cool high flying offense they hit once they finally got an opening.
But this match sadly fell apart down the stretch. First a Haas takes a phantom bump from the top because a Briscoe forgot to push him. And it just gets worse from there. Guys are waiting too long to hit stuff leading to awkward standing around. Somebody is out of position on a pin break up leading the ref just stopping his count. Then WWF's Kevin Kelly wanders out. He was a big heel in ECWA. The terrible ref leaves the rings to jaw with him. Then some other guy I don't recognize sneaks into the ring. He feigns hitting a Haas with a chairshot only to swerve us by clocking a Briscoe. I'm sure this was a big deal if you followed the promotion. Felt like a heel turn. But I don't even know who this guy was. The half dozen Haas fans popped big for it though. A Haas covers for the win. They keep the titles on their last night in the territory. Oh no!
Verdict- A mostly good match that went off the rails down the stretch in a way not seen since the Norton/Doc match I reviewed a few months back. Still felt like an embryonic match in a great, long lasting feud though. You figure they'd eventually work out the kinks with more experience. Sadly it was not to be due to these teams taking different paths and two of the participants tragically dying young.
*This marks the end of an indie binge that probably went on a few posts too long. Next up will be a pretty famous PPV match from the lesser of the Big Two.
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Post by Baker on Feb 7, 2024 0:11:07 GMT
Chris Jericho vs. Juventud Guerrera- WCW SuperBrawl VIII 2/22/98- Cruiserweight Championship vs. Mask Match Mentioned this match twice in passing over the past week or so. Once in the "Babyfaces Quitting" thread and then in the Grimes/Psicosis review where I criticized Bischoff for unmasking his top Luchadores. Those two casual mentions reminded me of something Kilgore wrote a few years back. I posted an old list of my 50 favorite WCW matches of the 90s that I made some time in the late 2000s. For a variety of reasons, the last 10-15 matches on that list were mostly oddball choices. The one big exception was Jericho/Juvy around #42. I criticized my own choice for being too boringly mainstream. Then Kilgore chimes in with something like "No way! You were right the first time. Jericho/Juvy ruled. Jericho was a great heel in that one." Truth is, contrary to popular belief, I don't remember every detail of every match I ever watched. 2007ish me was obviously high on Jericho/Juvy. But 2020 me had forgotten why. Let's see who's right. 2007 me & Kilgore, or 2020 me... Juvy is out first to his very good theme which reminds one of Biff Hickerson's "Mexican Marching Music" theme from the dying days of our USWA action figure league. Jericho enters to a knockoff of one of those boring radio hits from the 90s. He has goofy facial hair and is real animated on his way down the aisle. Here's a guy who is really feeling it... Welp, 2020 me was wrong. 2007 me and Kilgore were right. This was a very good match that was only switching the order of a few things away from greatness. We start out gloriously with Jericho refusing to remove his belt. He wrestles with the Cruiserweight Championship around his waist until Juvy kicks it, leading to gut pain. That sets the tone for the match. This is the Jericho Show. He heels it up like a champ. Takes his time like a ring general. Here's a guy who is at the peak of his powers. Juvy was honestly a broomstick in this one, but at least he was a broomstick with a lot of cool stuff. He flew. Jericho caught. Another great moment came when Jericho played possum on the floor trying to take a cheap countout loss. You don't see that every day. While he did slip in some high flying, he mostly played the powerhouse on offense. Which made sense! Since he had a considerable size advantage on "The Juice." Two things prevent me from going all the way with the star rating. First we get a GREAT nearfall with Juvy hitting a Michinoku Driver followed by a 450. Jericho gets his hand on the bottom rope at 2.9. Ref counts 3 anyway. Bell even rings. But then the ref realizes his mistake and waves it off. Then they trade big moves and nearfalls for a few minutes before Jericho counters a Frankensteiner into a SICK Walls for the submission win. Feel like AJ Styles must have been influenced by this finish even if he does claim not to have watched wrestling until he started training. Then Jericho remains a glorious jerk during poor Juvy's unmasking ceremony. Where was I? Oh, the flaws... Well, the big move/nearfall trading should have taken place BEFORE that one great false finish, not after. That controversial 2.9 count really was the climax of the match. The stuff that followed before the finish was just noise. And why was Jericho suddenly fine after taking back to back finisher-level moves anyway? They should have only gone 30-60 seconds after that great false finish before going into the very good real finish. Also, the San Francisco crowd never really got into this despite Jericho's best efforts. Sometimes you can't blame the performers. Sometimes a bad crowd is just a bad crowd. But this would have been even better in front of a more receptive crowd. Verdict- Recommended! Jericho's stellar heel performance is enough to overcome a few nitpicky flaws. A large part of me wishes more classic Cruiserweight matches were like this. Finally looked up that old WCW match list and I had this at #41. Juvy/Blitzkrieg from Spring Stampede was #18. Nowadays I think Jericho/Juvy is the much better match.
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Post by Ness on Feb 7, 2024 0:15:09 GMT
Is there a System to watching these random matches? It's like one minute MID NINTEES INDY SCRUBS and then NOAH? Are random matches coming in your head?
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Post by Baker on Feb 7, 2024 0:24:36 GMT
Is there a System to watching these random matches? It's like one minute MID NINTEES INDY SCRUBS and then NOAH? Are random matches coming in your head? Systems are for losers. Embrace the chaos. Seriously though. It's basically whatever pops into my head. Sometimes I'll feel like watching a particular wrestler, promotion, or era. Other times something posted on PW will inspire me to watch something. Today I've already watched two early 80s matches from different Texas territories and a GLOW match from a few years later. Make it make sense! Over the past two months or so it's been binges of.... 95-97 WWF. Evergreen.
Early-Mid 2000s OVW Japan from the 80s to Today Mid 90s-early 2000s indies (and Cheetah Master is not a scrub!) *Plus a smattering of mid 90s WCW and one offs like Jericho/Juvy, a Beer City Bruiser match, and some unexpected BOBCORE. Random af.
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Post by Kilgore on Feb 7, 2024 2:14:54 GMT
Chris Jericho vs. Juventud Guerrera- WCW SuperBrawl VIII 2/22/98- Cruiserweight Championship vs. Mask Match ... Verdict- Recommended! Jericho's stellar heel performance is enough to overcome a few nitpicky flaws. A large part of me wishes more classic Cruiserweight matches were like this. Finally looked up that old WCW match list and I had this at #41. Juvy/Blitzkrieg from Spring Stampede was #18. Nowadays I think Jericho/Juvy is the much better match. I write some variation of the same thing every time Jericho's WCW run gets mentioned, but it's absolutely insane how he went from change-the-channel boring as a babyface to one of the best heels in all of wrestling in the span of a month. Chris Jericho in December of 1997, not on the Starrcade card, and no one complained about this. Good. What a disappointment Chris Jericho has been. Chris Jericho at Souled Out in January, inexplicably one of the most entertaining heels in wrestling, seemingly overnight. Chris Jericho at SuperBrawl in February, one of the greatest heels ever, a god. Jericho at SuperBrawl is just a masterclass of being a heel. It's like he studied a greatest hits of wrestling heeldom and unleashed it all on poor Juvy Juice in a maximalist effort of being an asshole.
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Post by Ness on Feb 7, 2024 2:23:26 GMT
Who is suddenly wanting to watch the match. Kilgore with some Emperor level writing there.
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Post by Baker on Feb 7, 2024 3:14:02 GMT
Who is suddenly wanting to watch the match. Kilgore with some Emperor level writing there. You know you want to. While I'm here... Bob Sweetan vs. Adrian Adonis- Southwest Championship Wrestling 1982 or 1983Southwest was Joe Blanchard's Texas-based promotion. Its biggest claim to fame nowadays is being the first wrestling program on the USA Network. WWF would replace it. The rest is history. Adonis hadn't blown up in the belly yet. He looks more like Mike Rotunda than "Adorable" Adrian. He cuts a pre-match promo alongside Tully Blanchard. Adonis is Tully's bounty hunter paid to piledrive Sweetan. Adonis is real soft-spoken for a supposed "New York street tough." Sweetan was a real life jerk who looks like a big boned cross between late career Ken Patera and "King" Harley Race. He even has a crummy Race-style tattoo on his arm. He's the top babyface because this is a promotion going nowhere. This is mostly Sweetan working a headlock. It's a tight headlock. And Adonis doesn't lay around too much. But it's still not the most exciting thing in the world. There are some weak bumps off weak shoulder blocks, a botched catapult into the turnbuckles, and some surprisingly mediocre punches considering the era, territory, and body types involved. But Adonis hits a sweet big boy flying headscissors, gets crotched on the top rope, and there's a very "modern" counter where a frantic Sweetan snap mares to escape Adonis' attempted "Good Night Irene" sleeperhold finisher. But then the (non)finish sucked a big one. Sweetan goes for a piledriver as the show goes off the air because they're out of time. This was from the Manchester, NH feed meaning it almost certainly came from a John McAdam tape. Oh, and LOU THESZ provided commentary alongside Other Steve Sax. Verdict- Under ** Kevin Von Erich (c) vs. King Kong Bundy- World Class Championship Wrestling 1982?- American Title Match King Kong Bundy, the pride of Nome, Alaska(!), came into the territory as a friend of the Von Erichs before turning on them. Y'know what? I'm starting to think the Von Erichs were jerks on par with Hogan & Sting given all the people who turned on them. Kevin isn't as jacked as Kerry. but he is real, real lean. Dude must have like 5% body fat. Another match built around babyface headlocks. KKB once counters into a headscissors. That was pretty cool. Don't often see mat wrestling from big Bundy. But Kevin always dropkicks his way out of trouble whenever Bundy assumes control. They do a good job of selling the threat of Kevin's Claw. Weird to see big Bundy in fear, but I'll buy it because CLAW. We get our second crap finish a row. Kevin goes up top. Bundy pulls the ref in front of him when Kevin flies of the top. A few seconds later Bundy goes for the Avalanche. Ref pulls Kevin out of harm's way and awards him the match by DQ. Well, I never... Verdict- Under ** Godiva vs. Tiffany Mellon- GLOW late 80s?
This must be the season premiere because our footage begins with a clip of the GLOW girls throwing promoter David McLane out of the ring. This marked the end of McLane's GLOW run. Back in the locker room a mustachioed ref with a thick accent introduces a guy named Johnny C to the roster. C announces himself as the new commissioner. The resident Russian gets into it with the ref. Then gossip queen Tiffany Mellon spills the beans on the latest dirt. There's "jokes" (and I mean that in the loosest sense of the words) and a laugh track and this is just the epitome of Wrestlecrap. So bad. So. Very. Bad. Mellon is a wealthy gossip girl billed from "Park Avenue, New York" but I think she's supposed to be the face? It's GLOW! So how do I not know who's the face and who's the heel within 2 seconds? GLOW was built on simplicity! But they messed this one up. I blame getting rid of McLane. Godiva is the reason I felt like watching a GLOW match because I vaguely remember her not completely sucking the last time I did a GLOW binge. She's a British exhibitionist as you'd expect given the name. She also RIDES A HORSE TO THE RING! Heck yes. OK, that must be how she got over with me last time. Because wrestlers who ride horses to the ring are automatically cool. Lawler. Jarrett. Now Godiva. This video is hilariously titled (first encounter) as if Godiva/Mellon was the Flair/Steamboat of GLOW. Maybe it was? Let's find out... Nope. Match sucks even by G LOW standards. They spent most of it trading splashes. Sometimes they hit. Sometimes they miss. Doesn't it really matter because they treat hits and misses the same. Godiva does hit one cool thing- "The Buckingham Bounce" which is like a bronco buster to a standing opponent. Somebody needs to steal that. Also jibes with my vague memory of Godiva having athleticism. Oh, this commentator was also awful, but in an amusing way. It's like he had a list of one liners he had to get in regardless of whether or not it pertained to what was happening in the ring. God help me, I actually chuckled at one or two of them. Godiva gets the win with one of the worst crossbody blocks you will ever see. Verdict- DUD. But a dud with horses is admittedly better than a horseless dud.
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Post by Baker on Feb 8, 2024 2:21:00 GMT
Miguel Perez vs. Pitbull #2- IWA Puerto Rico 2002
For a long time Carlos Colon's WWC dominated Puerto Rican wrestling. Then a guy named Victor Quinones broke away to challenge them by founding the IWA. Quinones had ties to WWF and various Japanese promotions who would help him out. I remember reading the WWC vs. IWA war was red hot at some point. It was said to be a small time island version of the Monday Night War. Business was booming as well. I assume it was around this time.
Miguel Perez had forgettable runs in WCW and as a member of Los Boricuas in WWF. As far as I know he also became the first person to hit a Space Flying Tiger Drop on US soil during a rare SMW appearance. But far more memorable than any of that stuff is his being up there with Albert & George "The Animal" Steele when it comes to hairiest wrestlers ever. For Miguel Perez is that rare breed of man who looks like he's wearing a sweater when shirtless.
Pitbull #2 is unfortunately in Year 5 of irrelevance. He was really good in 1996 ECW! Unfortunately he would pass away in September 2003. He looks different than you remember. No singlet. No goatee. He's getting lazy with the head shaving as little nubs are growing in. Looks to have a receding hairline. He's also let himself go a little as he has a classic roid gut going on. He looks like some modern wrestler I can't quite place. QT Marshall, maybe?
Los Boricuas explode! As Savio Vega jaws with Perez in Spanish. Then Savio brings out PB2. I think Savio is the leader of a heel faction feuding with Perez and PB2 is one of Vega's goons.
Perez hides the one thing that makes him unique, his hairy torso, by wrestling in street clothes. He wears a shirt & pants one might wear to a restaurant. Not even your typical black wrestling t-shirt. PB2 controls most of the way. Highlight being an overhead belly to belly. Then he slaps on a bearhug. Perez fights his way out of it. Then Savio runs in with a kendo stick. Perez ends up getting the stick away from Savio. He hits PB2 with some weak shots. Then he swings for the fences on Savio. Huge pop for this. But Vega ducks. Perez eventually succumbs to the numbers game. Then a bunch of faces including Glamor Boy Shane run out for the save to a huge pop. Lousy match, but the hot PR crowd lived up to its reputation. Worth noting this was an oddly configured venue. There was a ton of room between the wrestlers and the crowd down the aisle and around the ring. I assume they kept the crowd far, far away for safety reasons?
Verdict- Skip it unless you're a novelty seeking weirdo who simply must watch some late career Pitbull #2
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Post by Baker on Feb 10, 2024 3:07:59 GMT
Though mine eye may wander, always will I come back home to my true love in the end...
Honkytonk Man w/ Jimmy Hart vs. Hillbilly Jim- Superstars 5/7/88
This match did not go the way I "remembered" and it's looking like the match I did "remember" only existed in my head. Shades of Regal/Lancaster! Oh well. Honky took two bumps and Jim trapped him in a bearhug before getting rolled up for 3 after missing a corner charge. Nothing match that went 2 minutes. Highlight was Vince treating Honky with disdain on commentary. 80s Vince usually wasn't this savage on air. Really put Honk over as a next level heel. Vince also announced Hogan would be taking on Boris Zhukov the following week. That would have been a big deal in 1988 as Hogan typically only worked one Saturday morning tv match a year, usually in May as it was "sweeps month."
The Genius vs. Koko B. Ware- Prime Time Wrestling 3/5/90
Genius recites a poem. Koko has blonde hair and the side of his head painted to make him resemble his parrot Frankie. Amazing. This was a great Genius performance. He milked everything, from taking off his robe, to entering the ring in three completely different ways, like a true ring general. He pranced. Koko channeled Hogan from a few months earlier by mocking said prancing. Finish came when Perfect pearl harbored Koko with a rabbit punch on the floor leading to Genius scoring a cheap 1-2-3. Fun sports entertainment carried by a typically great Genius showing. Commentary was provided by the unusual duo of Lord Alfred Hayes & Tony Schiavone.
Ted Dibiase w/ Virgil vs. Don Muraco w/ Superstar Billy Graham- Saturday Night's Main Event 4/30/88
Wrestlemania IV rematch. Muraco is looking huge. Has to be the only guy of the era whose push decreased as he got more jacked. Dibiase brought his working boots with good offense, big bumping, and providing most of the movement "The Rock" was content to plant himself in the middle of the ring firing off a lot of irish whips. Finish was a good idea, but didn't come off well. Muraco almost pinned earlier Dibiase with a powerslam. Teddy Wrestling got his foot on the bottom rope just before the 3 count. A few minutes later Dibiase hits Muraco with a simple bodyslam. Muraco almost immediately gets his foot on the rope. But this time the ref missed it. Commenter said Virgil was supposed to move Muraco's foot, and I can actually buy that, but who knows for sure? Pretty basic match overall.
Dino Bravo w/ Jimmy Hart & Canadian Earthquake vs. Tito Santana- Wrestling Challenge 2/3/90
Schiavone is back. This time he's paired with Gorilla who at one point calls Tito "the excellence of execution." He used that line a lot. Quake is so new he still has "Canadian" in his name and a Maple Leaf patch on his singlet. I am a Dino Bravo apologist in that I don't think he's anywhere near the worst of all time. In this batch alone I think Hillbilly Jim was much worse than Canada's Strongest Man. Anyway, Dino does stuff, including his top tier atomic drop and a nice elbow drop. Tito fires back with great punches. He goes for the kill with the flying forearm. Dino dodges. Santana had so much mustard behind the forearm that he tumbled all the way out to the floor. Quake hits him with a weak bodyslam but follows it up with the Earthquake Splash for the kill. All the while Dino was distracting the ref. Countout is inevitable after that. Bravo wins another skippable encounter. Though Tito did look good during his brief offensive flurry.
Paul Orndorff w/ Oliver Humperdink vs. Hercules w/ Bobby Heenan- WWF TV Fall 1987
Info is sparse on this one. Commentary was provided by the oddball trio of Bruce Prichard, Lanny Poffo & Mike McGuirk. Orndorff had just left the Heenan Family. This was about 6 minutes of pretty basic back and forth until Orndorff got the crowd hyped by calling for the Piledriver. After hitting it, his Heenan Family "replacement" Rick Rude jumps him from behind to give Orndorff the DQ win. Rude got good heat. Orndorff eventually makes his own save and runs the baddies off with Humperdink's...Scepter? Wand? I like how Herc sold the piledriver. A lesser wrestler would have got up and helped Rude administer the beatdown. But Herc knows Piledriver=Death. Interesting to note Orndorff skinned the cat here. Don't recall seeing him to do that before.
*Also watched a pair of Heenan Family vs. Jobbers 8 Man Tags from '87. First one from June had Race/Herc/KKB/Orndorff. Other one in September had Rude in place of Orndorff. Pretty sure I reviewed these before. I'm just a sucker for big heel stable get togethers. First one was Orndorff's return from being out a few months with the injury that withered his arm. He scored the pin with a Piledriver and got a big reaction just by calling for it. Second one had Bundy score the win with a big elbow drop. Always a treat to see the boys together. All 5 members got to hit a few things in both matches.
The Rock vs. Jeff Hardy- Raw 4/7/03
Rock did win me back for the first time since Summer 2000 during his "Hollywood Rock" stint, but I still feel like a low voter on Hollywood Rock just because everybody else seems to love it whereas I honestly barely remember it beyond it being an improvement over "same old shit" Rock. Jeff still got cheers, but smarks had turned on him and in general believed he had stopped caring. For once the smarks were right because he would soon be gone. Apparently he was in an on screen relationship with Trish? There's another thing I don't remember. Rock had just started feuding with Goldberg in something I do vaguely recall.
I've seen a lot of top notch ring generalship over the past week- Tom Brandi, Jericho, Genius, and now Rock. He was really feeling it here. A man in total control of the situation. A true master of his domain. Jawing with the fans, taunting, trash talking Jeff. A stellar performance from "The Great One." The same cannot be said of Jeff. He was real sloppy. Botched a few things. Looked bad in a physically shot/possibly sick sort of way. Weirdly hit a Swanton that was more Sandman than Jeff Hardy. Rock kicked out. Can't help thinking he was supposed to move. Jeff also hit a real bush league People's Elbow as a taunt. Rock got tired of playing around with this seemingly washed jabrone so he hit a Rock Bottom for the win.
Great Rock performance. Poor Jeff one. Not a great match, or even a good one, but may still be worth watching just to see Rock at the top of his game. The ringside fans were reacting big to Rock. Some booed. Others cheered. But just about everybody on camera could be seen reacting in some manner. Was also fun to hear Rock Guy Lawler and Austin-loving JR bickering like an old married couple over the recent Rock/Austin Wrestlemania encounter.
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Post by Baker on Feb 11, 2024 1:46:58 GMT
Bad News Brown vs. Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart- Madison Square Garden House Show 6/25/88Wrestling Spotlight was WWF's C Show for non-cable havers during the late 80s-early 90s. It was a lot of recaps with the occasional first run match. Sort of like the Action Zone of its day. Late 80s it aired Saturday nights on DC Channel 20 which wasn't always watchable. Early 90s it aired Fridays at 6 p.m. on DC Channel 50 which also wasn't always watchable. I didn't watch every week, but here are some memorable Spotlight moments... -My first episode was the night Orioles one year wonder Larry Sheets hit a homerun over the roof at the White Sox old Comiskey Park -The episode recapping the BRUTAL Bass/Beefcake spur attack and featuring the "Jezebel" promo on The Brother Love Show -"The Queen" swerving us by backing Warlord over her own countryman Davey Boy Smith due to Warlord's use of the Full Nelson which invented by an Englishman named Sir Norton Nelson. Early 90s me assumed it was the real queen. To be fair, why wouldn't The Queen watch the Sport of Kings? -A Mountie/Tatanka match that made me late for my soccer game because I just HAD to watch. And finally... -A Bad News vs. Anvil match. I assume it was this one from MSG. Bad News had been feuding with the Harts ever since he double crossed Bret to win the WM 4 battle royal. That dastardly deed nudged the Harts in a babyface direction. They'd complete the face turn a few months later by leaving Jimmy Hart. "The Mouth of the South" would counter by picking up the Rougeaux to replace those ingrates. BNB mic work. He gets major heat, calls the fans "beer-bellied sharecroppers" (still a great insult), and has trash thrown at him. I was a BNB hater. He was a heel who attacked other heels! Couple that with the bald head, plain black trunks, and facial hair, and it's clear he was the original Stone Cold Steve Austin. Anvil jumps him from behind because he knows you have to fight fire with fire. This is heavily clipped. Anvil actually has a nice little flurry on offense consisting of two big boy dropkicks and shoulder blocking BNB out of the ring. Anvil follows. They brawl on the floor. A double countout is teased. Back in the ring BNB catches Anvil with the dreaded Ghetto Blaster. This sends Anvil back out to the floor and now we do get the countout. BNB is your winner. Verdict- What was shown was actually pretty good, but it was only 2-3 minutes of a 16 minute match. Smart move as these two going 16 sounds brutal Undertaker w/ Paul Bearer vs. IRS w/ Ted Dibiase- Royal Rumble 1/22/95 Was thinking about returning to an aborted project from a month or two ago that somewhat pertains to the recent discussion in the "Rebooking Wrestlemania Main Events" thread when I got to thinking about these two in this era. It makes sense in context! This feud came about by IRS dickishly demanding a certain deceased John Doe (who may have been Undertaker in the storyline?) pay his death tax. IRS really was a next level heel. I was SHOCKED when my mom told me death taxes & gift taxes were real things. Until questioning her I just assumed they were typical pro wrestling b.s. Not gonna lie. It made me a little nervous. " Are they gonna get me for not paying taxes on gifts I received? Did grandmom pay her death tax?? How can a dead person pay taxes anyway??? How do people allow this nonsense to happen in the first place?!?" Meanwhile, you've got my man Matt The IRS Fan out there being the Cartman to Irwin's Rob Reiner as he cheers on the tax man throwing his weight around bullying those peasants. Not gonna lie. Matt's enthusiasm was infectious. So even though IRS was the biggest jerk in wrestling from roughly February 93-January 95, I kinda liked him This was a pretty rare case of me being the influencee rather than the influencer. Match is predictably slow and boring. IRS stalled without jawing or taunting. Just a real boring stall. He did drop some nice elbows though. Taker looked off. Multiple times his "big" boot barely made it above the low proboscis. A pair of Druids interfere a few times. Taker sits up a few times and ultimately wins it with the Chokeslam. Not even the Tombstone! Sheesh. Talk about dogging it. Highlight was IRS & Dibiase getting into a heated mid-match argument which ended up going nowhere in the long run. Teddy Wrestling is a lousy manager btw. Post-match threatens to get interesting. The jobber druids attack again. Taker easily dispatches them. But then KING KONG BUNDY waddles out. He attacks Taker. IRS steals the urn from Bearer. So far, so good. But Bundy is sooo washed. His beatdown sucked. He somehow botched a splash! This idiot was actually excited to see Taker/KKB at WM 11. Look, it was a Clash of the Titans! Verdict- *. Boring. Ultimate Warrior/Texas Tornado/Hawk/Animal vs. Mr. Perfect/Ax/Smash/Crush w/ Heenan & Fuji- Survivor Series 11/22/90 Babyfaces get a pre-match promo. Animal shouts out the Little Warriors, Little Tornadoes, and.....Little Doomers? Perfect's team is called....the Perfect Team. Warrior's team is called the Ultimate Warriors which works on two levels since Ultimate's partners were also known as the Modern Day Warrior and the Road Warriors. Perfect's entire team comes out at once to his theme while the babyfaces get individual entrances. Unfair! Commentary is provided by Gorilla & Piper. Piper sucked on commentary. So did Randy Savage while I'm at it. Hard to go wrong with a classic SurvSer match and these guys didn't. Perfect was predictably the star of the match. He threw some great punches and bumped big, albeit comically at times, but he even made up for that by bumping big to salvage a botch. Look, I just <3 Perfect, k? Warrior & Ax stink it up early with some awful wrestling before UW eliminates the oldest member of Demolition with his patented diving shoulderblock-splash combo. Crush is sporting quite the mullet and broke out a big boy top rope knee drop I was NOT expecting to see. Heels work over Hawk for a while. Hawk comes back with some nice offense on a Demolition member. Demolition/LOD brawl gets out of control causing the ref to DQ both teams. We're down to Warrior & Tornado vs. poor Perfect. Perfect makes a good showing for himself however by eliminating KVE after ramming his head into a turnbuckle pad Perfect had already exposed and following that up with a Perfectplex for the pin. Now we're down to Perfect/Warrior... Warrior wants to end it quickly. He charges Perfect with an outta control flying shoulder block. NO! Perfect dodges!! Warrior's head hits the exposed turnbuckle!!! Perfectplex!!!! 1990 me is no doubt just BURSTING with excitement. 1-2-NO! Warrior kicks out. 1990 me cries. Unfortunately the match peaked there. Warrior didn't immediately Hulk Up. But Perfect had already hit his biggest move. So we get a few minutes of Mr. P working UW over with rather basic stuff before the inevitable Hulk Warrior Up. Warrior has awful punches and this time Warrior does connect with the diving shoulderblock. Follow up splash finishes it. Oh well. At least Mr. P looked strong in defeat. WWF Champ Warrior was over, but the loudest chant of the match was actually "Weasel" to heckle Heenan. V erdict- Fun, but flawed. **-**1/2 range
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Post by Baker on Feb 13, 2024 0:04:30 GMT
Randy Savage (c) w/ Elizabeth vs. One Man Gang w/ Slick- Saturday Night's Main Event 4/30/88- WWF Championship Match
This WM 4 rematch is Savage's first televised defense. Randy was a ball of energy here. I watched a Memphis match against Rude some time ago where I compared Savage's wild man energy to Sabu. This time he reminded me more of WWE Rey Misterio using a hit and run strategy against a bigger opponent. Gang isn't the most dynamic of wrestlers, but was fine playing the big nasty bastard, and didn't screw anything up. Savage went for the kill early by hitting a Steamboatesque top rope crossbody I don't remember him using. Finishing stretch commenced when Savage dodged a big splash from the 2nd rope that surely would have given Gang the title had it connected. Not long after that Savage dodged a Slick cane shot. It hit Gang instead. Savage landed a big air flying elbow halfway across the ring on an oddly positioned Gang for the win.
Verdict- Solid David vs. Goliath encounter carried by Savage
British Bulldogs vs. New Dream Team w/ Johnny V- Wrestling Challenge 11/8/87
The Bulldogs wrestled the original Dream Team approximately 1000 times. But I didn't want to watch that. I wanted to watch the New Dream Team w/ Bravo in place of Beefcake. Not many interesting looking New Dream Team matches. They weren't together long. Didn't have many marquee matches. Dino's has poofy hair here. Closer to Flair or even Buddy Rose than what you're used to. But Valentine looked even more off. Almost everything he did looked like an unintentional comedy spot. Was he goofing around? On drugs? Hadn't got warmed up yet as this match was nowhere near 20 minutes? Not sure, but he sucked. With Valentine out on the floor, Davey hit Bravo with his patented powerslam and then pressed Dynamite looking to throw him on top of Dino for the win when that worthless Johnny V interfered to give Bulldogs the cheap DQ victory. The New Dream Team would go their separate ways soon after this. Valentine didn't like teaming with Bravo to the point where he preferred Beefcake as a partner.
Verdict- Lousy tv match with a shockingly bad Valentine performance
The Mountie w/ Jimmy Hart vs. Bret Hart - Prime Time Wrestling 6/17/91
Here we have not just one of the all time great Canadian wrestlers, but one of the all time greats, period. Bret Hart is also there. What? Which one of these guys was Hogan willing to lay down for, brother? Who beat who for the IC Title? I rest my case.
Mountie still has his very good, very underrated "Uncharted Waters" theme. Or what Lord Alfred Hayes described as "landscaping music evoking images of wide open spaces in the Great White North." I love Lord Alfred. Mountie is undefeated at this point. As he should be. He is, however, less animated than usual during his walk down the aisle. May have Bossman on the brain as their feud has already started according to Mooney & Lord Alfred.
This started slow. Lawler was a slow starter in kayfabe, but I've come to realize Bret is a slow starter in more of a shoot sense. Tends to take a while for his matches to get going. He clowns the Mountie a few times and this is ok because there are few better clowns in wrestling history than "The Mountie" Jacques Rougeau. Mountie has a predictably great sell of an inverted atomic drop, holding the low proboscis, writhing in pain. Really the way everyone should sell the move. Bret is firmly in control as they go to commercial, yet Mountie is in control when they return. Mountie is more animated now that's on offense. Bret comes back after intercepting a flying Mountie with a gut punch. Crowd is into it now. Bret starts firing off his moves of doom. Scores a few two counts. Then Jimmy Hart slips Mountie the shock stick. But Bret kicks it to safety before any damage can be done. They brawl. The bell rings. Time limit draw. Only 8-9 minutes shown, but they did wrestle through a commercial break.
Verdict- Solid bout that was getting better as it went along up until the abrupt finish.
*So I'm obviously on a late 80s-early 90s WWF kick. Already have 6 more matches from this glorious era on the docket.
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Post by Baker on Feb 13, 2024 3:04:29 GMT
Dusty Rhodes vs. Big Boss Man w/ Slick- Saturday Night's Main Event 11/25/89
NWA Dusty grew on me a long time ago but I still can't with WWF Dusty. Maybe it's the polka dots? He looks like such a goofball. Acts like one, too. Kiddie me had no idea he was such a big deal. Wasn't until 95-96 I discovered what a big star he had been. Dusty gave Bossman his first big break with the "Big Bubba" gimmick and was said to be real sore when Bossman ditched NWA for WWF. Grudge-holding Dusty stole Bossman's nightstick to set up this feud in an angle I don't remember. Makes sense I wouldn't remember it given Dusty had go away heat with kiddie me.
Dusty wants Slick sent to the back despite "The Doctor of Style" doing nothing illegal (yet). Slick actually produces a manager's license! Nice. Some mediocre brawling leads to Bossman working over Dusty's arm, of all things. Even slaps on a weird armbar. BBM wants Slick to give him the nightstick so he can pound on a weakened Dusty. However, "The Slickster" is distracted by a fan in the front row who would become Sapphire. Dusty takes advantage of a distracted Bossman by scoring with a sloppy rollup for the 1-2-3. Post-match sees Bossman angry with Slick while Dusty invites Sapphire into the ring for some dancing.
Verdict- Sucked. Only interesting as a historical curiosity given the introduction of Sapphire. I do think these two have a good big boy brawl in them, but this wasn't it.
Brainbusters w/ Bobby Heenan vs. Strike Force- Wrestlemania V 4/2/89
This was my favorite match at Wrestlemania V and honestly one of my favorite matches growing up. I once made a completely unscientific post chronicling the history of my favorite matches where I had this at #17 as of 7/8/95. Brainbusters are still relatively new to the big time while Strike Force just started teaming again after Martel was out for a while with injury.
First half is an actionfest, 80s style, with bodies flying all over the place. Not everything came off flawlessly, but one can appreciate the effort. Strike Force hit a double dropkick and locked on simultaneous figure fours. Martel brawled his way out of the Brainbusters corner in a subversion of the norm and did some good mat wrestling with Arn that ended with him cleverly trapping the 'Buster in his Boston Crab finisher. Arn reached the safety of the ropes. Things go south for Strike Force when Tito accidentally hits Martel with his Flying Forearm finisher. 'Busters work Tito over for a while until Tito slams Arn off the top. Arn does not take it half as good as Flair. Hot tag...denied! Martel refuses to tag back in! He walks out, leaving his partner high and dry. Tito fights valiantly, but the numbers game proves to be too much. 'Busters block a monkey flip. Arn hits his patented Spinebuster. Then the 'Busters hit a sick 10/10 spiked piledriver for the win. That should have hospitalized Tito in kayfabe. But they did it right in front of the ref and isn't that supposed to be an illegal move?
Verdict- Solid match bolstered by a memorable angle. Martel turning on Tito was like my own personal version of Shawn turning on Marty (Rockers split barely registered with me at the time. Wasn't until years later that it magically became THE BIGGEST ANGLE EVAR~!). To be fair I should have specified "WWF only" since Windham turning on Luger actually trumps both.
Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat vs. "The Natural" Butch Reed w/ Slick- Wrestling Challenge 5/16/87
Steamboat is IC Champ but the title is not on the line. There's an old urban legend that Reed was supposed to win the title a month later only to no show the very night he was slated to win which caused WWF to pivot to Honkytonk Man instead.
Reed jumped Steamboat as "The Dragon" was still wearing his jacket. Steamboat sold well. Eventually made a comeback. Slick got up on the apron. Finish saw Reed catch a Steamboat crossbody block only to have the momentum send him flipping over the top rope while still holding Ricky a la Flair/Steamboat...or Morrison/Bourne for you youngsters. Steamboat slides in at 9 to win by countout. There were two bad botches and this was disappointing overall.
Verdict- Disappointing. Skippable. This was a stacked episode of Challenge tho. Also had Islanders/Bees which played into the Islanders heel turn, Koko/big burly bearded guy which I once did a whole "In Search Of..." post on, and a rather infamous BJ Haynes/Iron Mike Sharpe match ============= *I could make a strong case for the heat machine being the real MVP of this binge. Last 10 years or so I've leaned in the direction of "heat machine is actually a good thing." This binge confirms it. Only thing worse than a dead crowd is a crowd reacting the wrong way. The heat machine cancels out both while training fans at home to react the right way in the process. Bring back the heat machine!
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