RDT Reviews WCW Bash at the Beach ’98

March 20, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WCW Bash at the Beach 98
July 13, 1998
San Diego, CA
Reviewed on March 18, 2014

Background: I wrote a bit about how WCW was going downhill in 1998…but to be fair they were still doing very well at this particular point. To Eric Bischoff the Monday Night War was everything. When he started losing in April of 98 he began to hotshot big main events that would have drawn big money on PPV. Eventually it would cost him. Yes, Goldberg pinning Hollywood Hogan clean for the World Title was a huge moment. But millions upon millions of PPV revenue was flushed down the toilet for that move.

WCW though, still had some aces up their sleeves. At Wrestlemania XIV, the WWF brought in Mike Tyson and it worked out handsomely for them. WCW had its own list of celebrities, and while the later crap with Jay Leno probably hurt the business in the long run, the big tag team match of Hogan and Dennis Rodman against DDP and Karl Malone seemed like it would work. Hell, Malone was in better shape than 80% of the roster, and Rodman at least was there the year before.

This card is missing some top tier guys, but hey, sometimes that’s how you get some undercard exposure. I remember this being a fun show, so let’s see if it holds up.

The Card

Mean Gene plugs the hotline of course.

Raven’s Rules
Saturn vs. Raven

Raven’s Rules of course means no rules.

Storyline here: Saturn is the one to break away from the Flock. It came to a head when Saturn needed to beat Kanyon at the Great American Bash and despite interference from a bunch of Mortis’s, Saturn still lost. Raven was one of the Mortis’s.

Saturn owns early on. Raven always knew how to sell guardrail spots.

Saturn falls off the top rope, but perfectly recovers and hits a dropkick. Mike Tenay puts it over as well, which was nice.

Somehow Tony Schiavone calls Raven getting a table “a chair”. Bobby Heenan kills him for it and it’s great.

Saturn misses a springboard…something…but it looked pretty rehearsed.

Raven with one of my favorite spots: The Russian Legsweep into the guardrail.

Springboard twisting legdrop on a chair on Raven’s face!

One of the better ref bumps, Saturn with Air Sabu and Saturn ends up kicking Nick Patrick in the face.

Bulldog headlock on the steps! Saturn has dominated.

Saturn makes a Raven sandwich with two tables, but Kanyon comes and pulls Raven out. Saturn jumps waaayyy too late to make that believable. Kanyon nails Raven with a Flatliner on an open chair though!

Raven pins Saturn in 10:40. Saturn superkicks Raven in the face while Raven was holding a chair. Cover, but Riggs runs in to break it up. Saturn hits him with the Death Valley Driver. Raven though, uses the interference to hit the Evenflow DDT for the win. Fun brawl. Great use of the chair. Shows that WCW didn’t need cruiserweights to have a hot opener every show.

Mena Gene brings out Eddy Guerrero! He puts over Chavo’s craziness, especially in regards to his decision to wrestle Stevie Ray before he wrestles Eddy. Eddy wasn’t a great promo man yet. Unless you like run-on sentences.

Kidman vs. Juventud Guerrera

Here’s someone who got over from the Flock: Kidman. This was still the itchy heroin addict Kidman.

Small story: Who’s finisher is better? Juvi’s 450 or Kidman’s 7 Year Itch (the Shooting Star Press). Juvi also wrestled and beat the Flock’s monster Reese last month.

Apparently this is Kidman’s 1st PPV match.

Referee total ignores Lodi beating up Juvi. Kidman’s top rope dive though misses Juvi and he nails Lodi, then Juvi goes flying himself to take out Lodi and Kidman.

Awesome reverse catapult from Kidman to Juvi. I think that’s what it’s called.

Powerbomb/sunset flip off the apron from Juvi to Kidman. Nice.

Double leg underhook powerbomb from Kidman to Juvi off the top! Nice!

Juvi crotches Kidman on the top rope…then outside to inside hurricanrana for a two. Very nice!

Kidman German…but Juvi lands on his feet then hits the Juvi Driver! Only two!

Juventud Guerrera pins Kidman in 9:55. Kidman misses the 7 Year Itch…and Juvi follows with the 450 for the win. Very fun match. WCW smartly continued the Cruiserweight division with these two on top through the end of 98.

Lee Marshall and Konnan. Konnan asks if Skittles had a shirt give away. I guess that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard Konnan say.

Stevie Ray vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Story: Chavo challenges Stevie Ray even though he was already facing Eddy later.

Heenan calls Chavo Captain Cupcake. Imagine if they went with that for the MIA later on?

Chavo Guerrero Jr.’s insane 1998 run was great. Best thing he ever did.

Eddy makes his way down to watch the match, obviously rooting for Stevie Ray to pound Chavo.

Chavo dedicates the match to Eddy!

Stevie Ray makes Chavo Guerrero Jr. submit in 1:35. Chavo does some comedy spots…then submits to a handshake! He’s so tired now, I guess it’s time for him to face Eddy! Eddy is furious. Great booking here.

Hair vs. Hair
Eddy Guerrero vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Eddy has major heat. Smh WCW, smh.

Chavo with more comedy. You know who Chavo reminds me of here? Santino!

Angry Eddy Guerrero is the best Eddy Guerrero.

This is just a well wrestled match here.

Perfect tilt a whil backbreaker on Eddy from Chavo!

Eddy Guerrero pins Chavo Guerrero Jr. in 11:54. Great ending. Chavo goes for Eddy’s finisher, the Frog Splash but Eddy gets the feet up. Eddy then plants Chavo with Chavo’s move the Tornado DDT (a move he should have kept). Eddy though goes for the scissors! Eddy misses a Frog Splash and Chavo hits his Tornado DDT. Chavo then goes for the scissors! Eddy rolls up Chavo for the win. Chavo scares Eddy away though…then cuts his own hair! Chavo was so over as a nutcase here. Three good matches in a row (not counting Ray-Chavo, lol).

Tony Schiavone and Mike Tenay talk about the Chris Jericho-Dean Malenko feud. You can tell he wasn’t told about the bonus match until that moment.

BONUS MATCH
Konnan vs. Disco Inferno

Alex Wright and Disco try to get with the “lingo” of the Hispanic scene. It’s pretty funny to be honest.

Only Wolfpac appearance of the show. But we get Lex Luger and Kevin Nash at ringside, so there’s that.

Konnan made Disco Inferno submit in 2:16. Disco throws Konnan outside for Alex Wright to attack. Wright dances afterwards and Luger comes around and racks him. This distracts the ref, and Kevin Nash comes in and kills Disco with a jackknife. Tequila Sunrise (awesome submission) for the win. I mean, it was 2 minutes and Disco got no offense, but it was fun at least.

The Giant vs. Kevin Greene

NWO time. This originally was Giant and Curt Hennig vs. Greene and Goldberg, but got split when Goldberg won the title.

The Giant pinned Kevin Greene in 6:58. Not much to say here. Smartly booked with a lot of hit and run from Greene but Giant’s power being too much. Greene finally knocks Giant down…but a mistake leads to him running into the big hand and the chokeslam for the win. Certainly not horrible. Greene could have been a solid wrestler I think.

Marshall is now with Curt Hennig. Hennig says he has the secret to beat Goldberg. Inexperience!

More recap of Jericho-Malenko, and how Malenko was suspended because he attacked Jericho even though he wasn’t supposed to. This feud was the highlight of Malenko’s career, and propelled Jericho to superstardom.

WCW Cruiserweight Championship: No DQ
Chris Jericho© vs. ???

Jericho comes out with a top hat and cane. Jericho equals buyrates afterall, so he’s gonna perform. JJ Dillion shows up and offers Jericho a local opponent (not before sucking up to Jericho. Good stuff all around). Jericho takes it. Huge pop for Rey Mysterio Jr., as he is from San Diego! Brilliant!

There is a story here too! Jericho injured Rey back at Souled Out, solidifying his heel turn.

Of course Jericho works on the knee. Good psychology.

Funny spots here. Jericho runs up the beach ladder in the set (which has tons of sand around). Rey pulls Jericho off the ladder into the sand, which Schiavone has to sell as “oh, that’s a soft landing, but the sand is irritating!” Mysterio then with the top of the ladder hurricanrana on the sand!

Jericho misses a top rope knee drop and lands on the chair…and now Mysterio works on Jericho’s knee! Dropkick to a chair on the knee as well!

Rey Mysterio Jr. wins the title when he pinned Jericho in 6:00. Jericho goes for the Liontamer, but Mysterio escapes! Here comes Malenko! This distracts Jericho enough for Rey to roll him up on a Liontamer attempt for the win! Jericho runs from Malenko, but Arn Anderson helps him get Jericho. This foreshadowed the Four Horsemen return. Because of the Malenko appearance, Jericho was awarded the title back on Nitro. Okay match, other than the top of the ladder deal you can tell Mysterio didn’t want to do any flying yet with the knee injury. Still, cool moments all around and Jericho is hilarious in the pre-match stuff.

TV Championship
Booker T© vs. Bret Hart

Story: Bret got involved in the Best of 7 Series that Booker T and Chris Benoit had. Booker challenged Bret.

Looks like unmotivated Bret here sadly.

Match I think is designed to put Booker T over with the upper-level guys, but this looks like Bret going down a level unfortunately.

Good psychology here…Booker T does his Spinarooni but doesn’t pop up, Heenan points out it’s because of the knee. Nice.

Booker T wins by DQ in 8:28. Booker with a dive over the rop…and Bret catches him midway with a chair! Bret bashes Booker’s knee with a chair…then my favorite hold…the Figure Four around the ring post! What an awesome move. Stevie Ray shows up slowly and Bret leaves. It planted seeds for the Harlem Heat problems later. Okay match, kinda boring. Finish is also meh but Bret made the beat down look good. Stevie Ray says Booker doesn’t need medical help and helps him back.

Video recap of Goldberg’s world title win. It was pretty damn awesome.

WCW World Championship
Goldberg© vs. Curt Hennig

Goldberg looks pretty damn incredible with the Big Gold Belt.

Goldberg is 111-0 here.

Goldberg retains when he pins Hennig in 3:50. Goldberg kicks out of the Hennig-Plex and wins with the Spear-Jackhammer combo. Hennig did something new here going for Goldberg’s leg, but it didn’t matter. Nothing wrong with this, helped Goldberg get that first title defense out of the way.

Hollywood Hogan and Dennis Rodman vs. Karl Malone and Diamond Dallas Page

A lot of stalling early on with the Malone-Rodman start.

Rodman is a great chickenshit heel.

Malone slams Hogan!

Rodman with the armdrag on Page!

Rodman messes up something leading to a collision of the heads. Rumors were Rodman wasn’t in great condition to perform here.

Surprising that Malone plays babyface in peril.

Now Page is the babyface in peril. Long tag match with not a lot happening.

Hogan and Rodman win when Hogan pins Page in 23:47. Page nails the Diamond Cutter on Hogan. Rodman runs in, but Malone Diamond Cutters him for a huge pop. Malone tries to pin Rodman out of inexperience, and The Disciple hits a stunner on Page for the Hogan pin. I mean, it was a spectacle. I think other than the Diamond Cutter a bodyslam was the biggest high spot. It’s supposed to be a spectacle though and I do think overall it’s booked well. Malone gets some moments. Rodman gets some moments. This could have been A LOT worse.

Bash at the Beach 98…is pretty entertaining overall. Good matches to start, big names to finish. Some good moments with Mysterio and Goldberg’s first title defense. There really isn’t a bad match on the card (although some boring ones), but everything had SOME entertainment value somewhere.

These were WCW’s last great days. They never ran with Page. They didn’t even seriously run with Goldberg somehow. They didn’t run with Raven. Or Jericho. Wasted talent all over the place that did some good stuff on this PPV.

But this show itself? It’s pretty good. Three good opening matches. Good comedy with Chavo and Jericho. Big main event. Goldberg squashing a high tiered guy. All good.

Final Grade: B+

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WWF King of the Ring ’98

March 20, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WWF King of the Ring ‘98
June 28, 1998
Pittsburgh, PA
Reviewed on June 7, 2014

We are in the Attitude Era! The WWF had just taken over the Monday Night ratings War…but it was still a dogfight. The WWF was pushing new guys, and that fresh edge was helping over the same old on Nitro. Only The Undertaker was held over from the top of the card. Stone Cold, Kane, The Rock, Triple H, Ken Shamrock and Mick Foley were all guys getting their chance at the top or near the top.

The thing about the Attitude Era is that it was riveting television. Anything could happen at any time on any given Monday. As long as the card was headlined by Stone Cold in some way, it didn’t really matter what the rest looked like (as this card will show). Honestly, how many people can even name a match that wasn’t one of the three big matches on this show? (Some even forget about Shamrock vs. Rock).

Let’s watch some classic WWF Attitude!

The Card

There’s an awesome opening video hyping up the Austin vs. Kane and Taker vs. Mankind matches.

The Headbangers and TAKA Michinoku vs. Ka ent ai

I was always surprise that the Headbangers somehow got lost in the shuffle in the Attitude Era…since they seemed tailor made for it.

This was part of the long running Taka and random vs. Ka ent ai. Most notably teaming with Taka later was Bradshaw.

Ka ent ai is Togo, Funaki and Teioh. I think it’s interesting that of the six men in this match, it was Funaki who had the longest WWF/E career.

While I think Taka is a good wrestler, all of his pre-1999 WWF matches followed the SAME exact formula.

Togo and Funaki with a great facebuster-bulldog sequence.

Taka and the Headbangers win when Taka pins Funaki in 6:44. Michinoku Driver for the win. Short fun opener here. Good thing to get the crowd going.

Sable time!

She introduces Vince! This was part of the Vince re-hired Sable angle after Marc Mero beat her. Pat Patterson slaps Sable’s ass, which JR of course makes a subtle gay joke. It’s also pretty funny now that I know Patterson’s orientation.

Vince runs down Austin on the mic of course. Time waster here.

King of the Ring Semi-Final
Ken Shamrock vs. Jeff Jarrett

This easily could have been an early NWA-TNA World Title feud.

I’m a Jeff Jarrett fan, but the mid 90s Double J persona was waaaaaay dated here. He’d change gimmicks by Summerslam.

“Ain’t I Great?” Not really at this point Jeff.

Ken Shamrock advances via submission in 5:29. Shamrock hits his bad ass frankensteiner, then the Ankle Lock wins it. No surprise. Match was what it was: Jarrett putting Shamrock over.

King of the Ring Semi-Final
Dan Severn vs. The Rock

It was smart to have Shamrock winning 1st, as at least it’s somewhat believable Severn can win here.

Severn’s WWF legacy would be causing D’Lo Brown to wear a chest protector.

Severn doesn’t throw punches. Pretty much the opposite of the Attitude Era style.

The Rock advances via pin in 4:25. D’Lo with the Lo-Down…new chest protector and all! Rock gets the pin. Match sucked. Severn was about 15 years too late as a top bad guy. He might have been a real life bad ass, but he was an awful sports entertainer. Rock cuts a solid promo and was well on his way to being a top guy.

If Al Snow wins, he gets a meeting with Vince McMahon
Al Snow and Head vs. Too Much

Head is a mannequin head, in case anyone doesn’t know.

Al Snow had just returned with the Head gimmick after developing it in ECW.

If you were to tell me Too Much would be WWF World Tag Team Champions as a kid watching in 1998, and that they’d win the titles two years later, I’d laugh my ass off.

There is a story here. Al Snow was trying to get a job, and somehow that led to stealing Jerry Lawler’s crown. Apparently Lawler can get Snow a meeting with Vince.

Snow: “Boys, get ready, you’re about to get a little head like you’ve never gotten it before”. WWE Attitude folks!

Lawler is revealed as ref!

Al Snow alternates beating up Scott Taylor and talking to Head. Good stuff.

Of course Lawler blatantly cheats.

Al Snow with a ridiculous long running clothesline on the outside…then Scott Taylor “hits” a springboard chop? Ugly.

JR can’t even take the match seriously.

Tag to the Head! JR even justifies Lawler not counting a Snow pinfall because Head was legal.

Too Much wins when Brian Christopher pins Head in 8:26. Oh man. Snow hits the Snowplow on Taylor, but Christopher attaches a bottle of Head and Shoulders to Head and pins it for the win. Ok the match was awful as you’d expect, but let me say something about this. This match is a great example of why WWF ’98 worked and WCW 2000 didn’t. This match furthered Al Snow’s character. As silly as this all was, storywise this actually made sense. Now, that’s not saying this should have been on PPV, because this is a RAW match if I ever saw one, but there is something positive to gain from it.

Owen Hart vs. X-Pac

Rematch of the ’94 KOTR here.

Sad storyline decent for Owen here. We went from shoving HBK through a table, to jobbing to HHH a lot, to fighting X-Pac. Clearly Owen wasn’t getting the main event push.

What a 12 months before this for Owen. He was feuding with Austin at one point.

I didn’t watch a lot of Syxx in WCW, but this I believe is the debut of the mat wrestling X-Pac. This was because of his broken neck he suffered at the end of his WCW run.

Owen’s gimmick was that of a guy who was done being taken advantaged of and was done being a nice guy. This just didn’t work for Owen. He was a lot better as the whiny heel.

Terrible Bronco Buster there. I wonder if Own purposely didn’t want X-Pac’s nuts in his face.

Owen with a terrible fall off the top, clearly messed that up.

X-Pac pins Owen Hart in 8:30. Mark Henry comes out and splashes X-Pac…to which Vader (talk about someone who’s really fallen from 12 months prior) attacks him. Owen locks X-Pac in the sharpshooter, but Chyna takes him out with a DDT (and busts Owen’s nose, wonder if that was a botch). X-Pac wins it there. Okay match, surprising small screw-ups near the end with the Bronco Buster and Owen’s top rope fall.

Paul Bearer comes out. He cuts an awesome promo about how proud he will be of his son Kane when he wins the World Title, and how Kane always wanted to be The Undertaker when he was young.

WWF World Tag Team Champions
The New Age Outlaws © vs. The New Midnight Express

Dirty little secret: the WWF Tag Team division absolutely blew in the early Attitude Era. Outside of the Outlaws, the division as made up of the Express, the underused Headbangers, the Godwinns/Southern Justice, the DOA and a washed-up LOD. That’s why the following makes up the list of non Outlaw champs: Kane and Mankind, Taker and Kane and Bossman and Shamrock. The division wouldn’t really pick up to mid-99, then of course in 2000.

One interesting storyline here: The Smokin’ Gunns are on opposite sides.

This was Bob Holly’s first repackaging. Could have been worse I guess.

Pretty awesome landing on the feet from Bart on a Billy hip toss.

Road Dogg is your Outlaw in peril.

Cornette gets involved with the NWA Tag Title, but Billy survives a pin attempt.

Cornette famously ranted about this. Cornette threatened to hit Billy with the title belt again, but Billy cornered him. Chyna was on the wrong side of the ring and was supposed to low blow Cornette…and she takes forever doing it, leaving Billy Gunn standing there.

New Age Outalws retain when Gunn pinned Holly in 9:34. A double stun gun gets the pin (what an awful finish). Not a bad match, but I mean, there’s a huge difference in statue for the Outlaws and the New Express, even at this stage. Match was solid.

King of the Ring Finals
The Rock vs. Ken Shamrock

HHH, last year’s winner, comes out for commentary.

There is a story here. Shamrock had chased Rock’s IC title for the first half of the year, but kept coming up short.

Rock-HHH get into a shoving match on the outside, as they were feuding. Good touch there.

The commentary is pretty distracting with HHH making dick jokes every 20 seconds.

Shamrock clearly leaps into a powerslam, but impressive enough I guess…

Nice reversal of the Floatover DDT into a Northern Lights suplex from Shamrock!

Ken Shamrock becomes King of the Ring via submission in 14:09. Rock argues with the ref and gets rolled into the Ankle Lock for the win. Very good match, probably the best of the Rock’s career at that point. Of course, hindsight being 20/20…I’m sure Vince wishes Rock won this tournament now. By the way, HHH’s commentary was horrible and annoying. I get that was the character, but it was just unnecessary.

Hell in a Cell
The Undertaker vs. Mankind

Story here: Where do I begin? Probably the first real Attitude feud that really began in 1996. Undertaker vs. Mankind was an amazing feud and that only added to the intrigue here. For recent storyline, Mankind cost Taker a title shot against Austin.

On the real life advice of Terry Funk, the match begins on top of the cage.

Mankind’s climb to the top of the cage does have some comedic value. Foley himself mentions how he wasn’t even sure if he’d make it to the top, and he lost feeling in his hand to get up there.

You can see Taker limp down to the ring when he goes down the rampway…he had a broken foot here (and still climbs the cell better than Foley).

Taker’s gimmick was getting a lot darker at this point. He had also shown some signs of the 2000 American Bad Ass as well.

Three minutes in…and Taker throws Foley off the cell through the table! It’s still one of the damnest spots I’d ever seen, especially since it was so sudden. There was absolutely no build-up. One second Foley was punching Taker. The next he’s flying off the cell.

Kayfabe is broken everywhere by Funk and Vince.

The crowd reaction is pretty nuts too. He literally hear people screaming in horror as Foley flies off.

Undertaker looks pretty damn bad ass standing on top of the cell.

Foley gets up and comes back…also one of the damnest things ever in wrestling.

30 seconds later Taker chokeslams Foley and the ceiling caves in…and Foley slams hard, and I mean hard on the canvas. I still cringe when I see that. Somehow the match continues. Taker chokeslams Funk, buying Foley time.

The match somehow continues. Foley causes Taker to crotch the top rope when Taker tries Old School, which in reality was Taker trying to buy Foley more time.

Ha, Taker clearly blades on camera after missing a dive and crashing headfirst into the cage.

Piledriver on a chair by Foley! Somehow Mankind might win this thing!

Thumbtack time! Unfortunately Foley’s the one who goes back first into them after a Mandible Claw attempt.

Undertaker pins Mankind in 17:00. Foley gets sent into the tacks again with a chokeslam! Tombstone wins it for Undertaker. Ok, there are two trains of thoughts with this match generally: it’s one of the greatest matches in WWE history, or it’s the most overrated match in WWE history. I’m in one of the greatest ever camp (2nd best HIAC match behind the original). This is because the brutality of the match matched the rivalry. If Undertaker had done this to HHH or something, I’d be like wtf? But Mankind and Undertaker had already done everything to one another over the past two years. Even though it wasn’t completely intentional, it made sense that something like this had to happen. This match is also one of the most influential matches in WWE history. Every huge table bump in the future really started here. And Of course, this was the major league thumbtack debut. This match also helped solidify Mankind as a main event player (although, Mr. Socko was needed to finish that process). It also was the match that made Undertaker’s heel turn a lot more effective, as a real mean streak was established. Lastly, anytime fans talk about a match for years and years after it takes place, then the match didn’t suck. Not all matches have to be artistically perfect. Amazing match. Probably in my top 10 all time.

WWF World Championship: First Blood. If Kane Does Not Win the Title He Will Set Himself On Fire
Stone Cold Steve Austin© vs. Kane

I wish the whole Kane setting himself on fire deal wasn’t a part of this…as it made it clear Kane was winning (then again…after the Cell match it wouldn’t shock me to see Kane light himself on fire).

Austin had a bad staph infection here, if you are wondering about the white elbow brace.

The cage actually comes down when Kane is dominating, and raises when Austin is winning. Not sure why that was done.

I don’t know if it’s because of Austin’s injury, but this brawl really isn’t that good.

Ref bump in a First Blood match? Sure why not.

Mankind comes down to the ring with a chair. I hate this for the record.

Stunner on Foley!

Stunner on Kane!

Here comes the Undertaker!

Kane wins the WWF Title by blood draw in 15:58. Taker aims for Mankind…but nails Austin with the chair on accident? Maybe? Austin blades on camera, and is busted wide open! Taker revives the ref (good way to do shades of grey here). Austin cleans house, but the ref finally sees the blood and awards the title to the KOed Kane. I do hate this finish, but I get why it happened this way. Match was not good though. It seemed like Austin was in slow motion here, and with his injuries he probably was. I also hate Mankind coming out here. Kinda demeans the Cell match a little…real as it was. As for Kane…well, he’d have a long title reign. 24 hours is more than most can say.

Really tough show to grade. It’s known today for one match and one match only. To be fair, that match owns. Too bad the main event was all over the place. Shamrock-Rock was pretty forgotten (because in hindsight, the wrong man won) and the rest of the card, while by no means bad (except for that Too Much-Snow thing), I wouldn’t call it good. Or memorable. The New Midnight Express? Headbangers teaming with Taka?

But when your PPV has one of the most talked about matches in wrestling history, the other stuff doesn’t really matter THAT much, right?
Final Grade: B+

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WCW Slamboree ’98

March 20, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WWF Slamboree ‘98
May 17, 1998
Worcester, MA
Reviewed on August 27, 2014

The WWF was coming back!

Eric Bischoff had probably thought he won the war 7 months prior when he signed Bret Hart, the then-WWF Champion, in late 1997. Somehow though, led by Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mr. McMahon, the WWF came storming back and a month prior had taken the TV ratings lead. Bischoff panicked. While WCW did hotshot some big main events on Nitro already, now it was really go time. The WCW title changed hands on the Nitro after Spring Stampede, which was the week after the WWF re-took the lead. In the months after this Goldberg would win the WCW Title on Nitro, the ultimate hotshot move.

Bischoff seemed to be ignorant toward who was drawing for the WWF. It probably hurt him that Austin and Mick Foley were main eventing, two guys Bischoff had let go from WCW over the last few years. It led to Bischoff stating that Vince’s character was the reason for the ratings…and actually challenged him to show up at Slamboree (with loads of legal issues obviously). It will go down as one of the most bush league things WCW had ever done.

It was WCW’s own damn fault for being in this spot. The terrible booking ruined Sting’s run after over a year of build-up. Then Randy Savage caught fire and somehow he got ruined too. Bret was already directionless…although to be honest it looked like he didn’t give a damn at this point (which’s he’s admitted no less).

WCW wasn’t quite in 2nd place yet, but the companies were neck and neck. The WWF was on the rise. WCW was falling. With proper booking WCW could perhaps make a move to squash the WWF…but it would be hard.

Notably, Slamboree is run in a “WWF town”, Worcester, MA (where Foley would win World Title #1 in December). I think that explains the two main events.

The Card

Cool intro music!

The main WCW storyline was that the NWO was splintering, and no one seemed to know who’s side was on who’s. The biggest thing is that Giant (he dropped the “the” for some reason) joined the NWO before this PPV. Yet still him and WCW-bred Sting are facingThe Outsiders for the Tag Titles.

And we get some Bischoff stuff about the challenge to Vince. Vince of course never brought up this on RAW, which was the smart thing to do.

WCW Television Championship
Fit Finley © vs. Chris Benoit

Story here: Booker T has been bringing life to both his singles career and the TV title ranks with his reigns…but somehow Finley took the title from him. Benoit beat Booker to get this match.

Crowd gets into it early on a Benoit chop.

Odd mistake on a bridge sequence. The start of the match has taken the crowd out of it. I think that chop was letting on this was gonna be a hard hitting contest and then we got some technical holds, which the fans weren’t expecting.

I probably haven’t seen enough Finley from the late 90s, because from the looks of this he pretty much sucks. (He was solid in the mid 2000s).

Benoit nails Finley with a chair right in front of the ref. I guess no DQ?

Benoit goes for a suicide dive but Finley puts up the chair, leading to Benoit going in head first. A cool spot for its time, but admittedly I now cringe anything Benoit takes a chair shot to the head in any way. Nevermind this was done tons better at Royal Rumble 2001.

Benoit is pretty over here. Finley just wasn’t the guy to get heat on him.

Here comes Booker T! Benoit turns his attention too.

Finley nails Benoit in the back of the head (and it looked like he actually kicked him) with a baseball slide.

Finley retains by pin in 14:52. Tombstone Piledriver! Finley wins it and the crowd hates it. Finley would lose the title to Booker I believe shortly thereafter, leading to the critically acclaimed Best of 7 series between Booker and Benoit. Finley kinda disappears with random appearaces until 2006. Surprisingly bad match. I would have never guessed it but it just didn’t click between these two.

Jericho with Lee Marshall. Jericho was the evolutionary Zack Ryder for the record.

Lex Luger vs. Brian Adams

A pretty surprisingly departure from workrate leading to the big names for this show. Lex though kept dropping down the card ever since Road Wild 1997 where he lost the WCW title to Hogan. He was still pretty over at this point though.

Pretty slow offense from Luger on the outside. It’s like he couldn’t even be bothered to actually follow through on moves.

Yikes. Brian Adams almost fucks up a piledriver. Looked horrible. He didn’t even kick his legs out the whole way.

Lex Luger wins by submission in 5:05. Torture Rack for the win. Pretty uninspiring offense everywhere. Very bad match. Unless you like random kicking and punching everywhere with no rhyme or reason. Luger was over though, fans popped for the Rack.

Saturn speaks. Originally the Flock was supposed to wrestle Goldberg in a gauntlet match to see if the Flock would stay together or disband. But this was the lead up to Saturn’s turn on the Flock, as he says he wants Goldberg one on one, and if the Flock doesn’t like it too bad.

Cruiserweight Battle Royal
Super Calo vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr., vs. Ciclope vs. Damien 666 vs. El Dandy vs. El Grio vs. Juventud Guerrera vs. Marty Jannetty vs. Billy Kidman vs. Evan Karagias vs. Lenny Lane vs. Psychosis vs. Silver King vs. Johnny Swinger vs. Villiano IV

Story here: Chris Jericho had become one of the best performers on either show. He was booked brilliantly too. He injured Rey Jr. at Souled Out, unmasked Juvi and forced Dean Malenko into a sabbatical after beating him and talking trash about his family. Jericho had been collecting trophies of the people he’d beat and humiliate, such as Juvi’s mask.

Chris Jericho announces all the participants (hilariously burying them all). Best one might be “if Silver King wrestles 12 more matches he gets upgraded to Gold King” and “representing Villiano 1 through 62, Villiano IV!”

Odds are this comes down to Kidman vs. Guerrera. Chavo would be a dark horse. Everyone else was just there. I mean Marty Jannetty?

Chavo should have never stopped using the Tornado DDT. Brilliant move.

Psycohsis’s bump into the ropes was always awesome.

Down to Chavo, Kidman, Ciclope, Psychosis and Juvi.

Kidman gets rid of Chavo.

Psychosis terrible telegrapshs his elimination. Juvi dumps Kidman.

Ciclope wins at 8:27. One of the greatest WCW swerves of all time. Juvi and Ciclope shake, and Juvi eliminates himself. Ciclope unmasks…and it’s DEAN MALENKO. Crowd pops HUGE!

WCW Cruiserweight Championship
Chris Jericho © vs. Dean Malenko

Malenko kicks Jericho’s ass early on.

Jericho actually gets the upperhand with a nice slingshot.

Jericho yells that “this is a conspiracy!”

Jericho was such a tremendous heel. As soon as he gets the advantage the fear is gone and he’s an arrogant jerk again. Put over Jericho huge too.

Jericho slaps Malenko. Total arrogance.

Malenko nails Jericho off the top rope with a gutbuster, but messes it up and injures his knee a bit.

Dean Malenko makes Chris Jericho submit in 7:02 and wins the title. WE GOIN TO TEXAS! Crowd pops HUGE when Jericho taps out. The match actually wasn’t all that great, but the whole angle was so well done that really, who gives a shit. Awesome moments all around. This was the angle that showed that Chris Jericho could be a top star. And, the aftermath was done correctly, as with all due respect to Malenko, the star to be made here was Jericho. He’d get the belt back on a technicality (Malenko wasn’t an official participant in the match!), leading to ANOTHER great moment at Bash at the Beach 1998. Too bad WCW didn’t like money.

Vinnie Mac cam! Was there really any surprise they got sued?

Bowery Death Match
Diamond Dallas Page vs. Raven

Story here: I actually don’t completely remember. I know Page and Raven had problems from the Flock vs. Benoit series in late 1997 and it led to this. There was a triple jeopardy match between the three at Uncensored. It was odd as the Raven feud seemed to be between Page being near the top of the card. I mean, he’d be wrestling Hogan and Rodman in two months.

This is a cage with a roof, but with Last Man Standing rules. There are weapons in the corner. It’s basically the TNA Clockwork Orange House of Fun Match.

Raven also came out with a Riot Squad for protection from “fans”. I believe this was an extension of when Goldberg beat him for the US title, as the fans threw Raven back into the squared circle.

A VCR is in the ring!

Raven takes an awesome into the cage bump by way of noose.

Page tries to hang Raven of the cage top. Jeez.

VCR TO THE HEAD OF RAVEN!

In all seriousness somehow this match sucks too. Just weapon hit, 10 count, weapon hit, 10 count etc. Schiavone also says that there are a lot of RPMs behind a cookie sheet shot. Safe to say Tony didn’t watch NASCAR.

Ref takes a hit to the back of the head with a trash can!

The Flock are here and they fight through Raven’s Riot Squad? Okay?

For some reason Van Hammer was waiting under the ring to attack the Flock.

Riot Squad in the ring! They attack Page…and they are Kidman and Horace! No one really cares.

Page takes out Horace with a Diamond Cutter, and takes out Kidman with a cool Cutter where Kidman was hanging from the top of the cage.

Page survives an Evenflow.

Diamond Cutter by Raven! He might beat Page with his own move and that’s a really believable finish.

DDP wins in 14:35. DDP survives again. Raven goes for a chair shot, but Page ducks and hits the Daimond Cutter. Page JUST gets up in time. It was done well where fans weren’t sure if it was a draw or not, so well done there. I understand the cage’s purpose, but the cage turned this into a boring uninspiring hardcore match. And some weird Riot Squard booking where Van Hammer got involved. I mean the hell? Should have been a lot better than it was.

A Riot Squad member handcuffs the Flock to the cage and then beats up Raven. And it’s Mortis! Mortis unmasks, which is a first. He is angry because Raven didn’t let him into the Flock. He copies the Tommy Dreamer chairshot from ECW and Raven sells it beautifully. Fans don’t know what to make of all of this. Apparently he has always been one of the “fans” that’s attacked Raven. This led to a weird match with a billion Mortis’s at the Great American Bash though.

Vinnie Mac cam!

We get some storyline about Giant and Sting. It’s pretty non-sensical, which I will get to.

Eddy Guerrero vs. The Ultimo Dragon

I believe if Dragon wins this match, Chavo Guerrero Jr. is freed from Eddy Guerrero.

Where was the Dragon in that Cruiserweight Battle Royal?

Shame Eddy Guerrero wasn’t all there personally at this point. He’s another who would have been the best heel in the business at this point. Of course Guerrero would redeem himself years later.

Pretty cool test of strength sequence from both.

Schiavone actually brings up a good reason why Eddy and Ultimo weren’t in the Battle Royal earlier. That they both were involved in this family issue and it mattered so much to both that they wanted to be 100%. I’m fine with that.

The crowd is dead for this. The Ultimo Dragon sadly was just a guy at this point. The thing is the heat is with Chavo in this storyline.

The fans come alive as a fat white guy takes his shirt off in the crowd.

Pretty cool inverted airplane backbreaker from Ultimo there.

Pretty cool reversal from Eddie. Dragon had him in the Dragon Sleeper, but Eddy flipped over and locked The Dragon his own move.

Eddy Guerrero pins the Ultimo Dragon in 11:09. Eddy holds the ropes on the Dragon Sleeper, and Chavo kicks his hand off. Dragon though accidentally spin kicks Chavo off the apron. Eddy nails Dragon with a suplex and the Frog Splash for the win. Chavo then beats the crap out of the Ultimo Dragon because he lost. It’s great character development for Chavo, as this was the moment that he snapped and he got over. Match was pretty disappointing considering who was involved. But it was decent enough.

Vince McMahon locker room! I mean seriously. Why not throw up one for Stone Cold while you are at it.

WCW US Championship
Goldberg© vs. Saturn

Saturn lost to Goldberg last month, and is out to prove himself…WITHOUT the Flock.

Saturn with a nice dropkick off the apron and Goldberg crashes into the guardrail. Maybe Saturn will become the one in 87-1!

Springboard dropkick off a chair by Saturn. And we get a weird taunt from Saturn. Weird because he was supposed to be turning face.

Goldberg retains in 7:01. Saturn goes for another springboard but Goldberg spears him in midair! Jackhammer ends it. Pretty entertaining Goldberg squash! Not bad at all! I wonder if this was Goldberg’s best match at this point.

Pretty awesome Raven Great American Bash promo.

Eric Bischoff vs. Vince McMahon

I covered the storyline for this in the background info. It’s a waste of time, but eventually Bischoff has Vince counted out because Vince obviously didn’t show up. I hope the lawsuit was worth it. I wonder if Michael Buffer was ever embarrassed doing this stuff for WCW.

Bret Hart vs. Randy Savage

Story here: Savage finally left the NWO for good. This happened because he beat Sting for the WCW Title at Spring Stampede, but Hollywood Hogan won it from him the next day with surprising help from Bret. There’s a lot of who’s side is who on and stuff, but this is the precursor to the Black and White vs. Wolfpac stuff.

Roddy Piper is the referee. I don’t really know why to be honest.

Savage actually still has NWO music. So he didn’t really leave. He just would transition to the Wolfpac.

Buffer actually announces Savage is wearing Red and Black of the Wolfpac. So I don’t know where the transition happens, but the Outsiders are in the main event.

Bret trying to smash Savage with the steel steps seemed so un-Bret Hart like.

We get some fighting in the crowd action.

Overall you can just see the passion gone from Bret Hart. He’s just going through the motions here.

Also, Bret Hart doesn’t fit as a heel here. The only time being a heel worked for him was the Pro-Canada deal. That only worked because he really believed a lot of the things he was saying.

Sharpshooter…but here comes Miss Elizabeth!

Savage reverses the Sharpshooter into his own…which seems odd.

Liz gets in and shoves Piper.

For some reason Bret nails Piper in the back of the head with brass knuckles. Ok?

Hollywood Hogan is here! He trips up Savage and slams his leg in the ringpost.

Bret Hart makes Savage submit in 16:38. Sharpshooter wins it. I guess Bret is part of NWO Hollywood now? The motivations don’t make a lot of sense for anyone to be fair. Bret wanted a title shot in all this. Match was decent. It was clear Bret didn’t care and Savage was past his prime as a worker here. Also, on Nitro Piper reversed this decision, for whatever that’s worth.

WCW World Tag Team Championship
The Outsiders © vs. Sting and Giant

Story here: Giant joined the NWO on Nitro and offered a shirt to Sting. No idea why this match is still happening…but it is. You’d think Sting would back out.

I THINK based on watching that Nash and Hall are Wolfpac at this point. Nash and Hall come out in Red and Black, so tells you how much I knew about the story.

Scott Hall seems to stumble on his way out. They come down with Dusty Rhodes and it looks like they are holding Hall up, which is embarrassing. He seems fine once he hits the ring though.

Hall with a “yeah, we missed you too”. Seems like a WWF reference to me.

Survey time!

Hey at least Sting is in the main event!

I can’t think of why Sting would still team with Giant now that he’s NWO. Whatever.

Scott Hall makes fun of Giant. Pretty smart booking that will be unveiled later.

Kevin Nash gets a huge pop when tagged in.

Fans are behind the Wolfpac in general. “Let’s go Wolfpac” chants.

Sting terrible takes a big boot. I was once told by a friend of mine that it was okay that Hogan beat Sting at Starrcade because Sting was suddenly a shell of his former self. I don’t know if I believe that, but I don’t remember a lot of great Sting 1998 matches.

Wolfpac now use heel tactics on Sting (abdominal stretch, partner grabs the arm). How confusing.

Wrestling in 1998 would be a lot less embarrassing if everyone didn’t point to their dick every 2 minutes.

Giant goes for a top rope splash…but misses.

Giant and Sting win the title when Giant pins Nash in 14:46. Nash goes to jackknife Giant, but Hall nails Nash with the title belt! Hall turns! Sting is shocked as well, although I mean, I have no idea what outcome here would have made Sting happy. Giant wants Sting to join the NWO as the PPV comes to a close. Match was pretty decent and well booked too. Hall and Giant never go at it which is smart booking here. Sure, everyone’s motivations were all screwed up (for the last time, why would Sting want to be in this match?) but at least we had a direction here. It led to Sting joining the Wolfpac.

Weird PPV as the usual awesome undercard actually wasn’t awesome at all. It wasn’t even good. But I have to give some credit to Slamboree 1998. Chavo Guerrero Jr., Mortis/Kanyon, Saturn, and especially Chris Jericho show some promise with storylines here. Chris Jericho steals the show and gives Slamboree a boost by himself with the Malenko-Jericho angle going off as well as it did. The main events were decent, which is better than the usual WCW bad. We could have done without the Bischoff-Vince thing for sure.

Too much silliness and not enough good stuff to get it into B range. But not all bad either.

Just listen to that pop for Dean Malenko!

Final Grade: C+

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews ECW Wrestlepalooza ’98

March 20, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

Wrestlepalooza ‘98
May 3, 1998
Marietta, GA
Reviewed on January 15, 2015

Bi-monthly PPVs for ECW?!

Yes (well almost, they’d get 4 this year). Whether or not ECW was making money at this point there was no doubt it was leaving its mark on pro wrestling. And now they’ve established the one PPV every two months schedule. Things honestly were looking up for ECW at this point, but they faced a big problem.

ECW wasn’t that special anymore.

WWF Attitude was in full swing. At one time ECW was the edgy underground best kept secret in wrestling. Now, the WWF is doing the same thing with bigger stars and higher production values. Of course, at first this would probably only mean good things for ECW. The wrestling business booming only meant good thing for all wrestling promotions in the United States. And ECW did prosper a little bit because of it. But once the WWF and WCW really raided their stars, they were dead in the water.

Still, May 1998 was an exciting time for ECW. Wrestling was booming. ECW itself had been on PPV for 11 months now. They have some marketable and recognizable stars. Let’s see if the 5th ECW PPV can improve upon the last few, and if Paul E. can make a real run at the big two.

The Card

The Full Blooded Italians (Little Guido and Tracey Smothers) vs. The BWO (Super Nova and The Blue Meanie)

Meanie and Nova are said to weigh over a combined 600 pounds. Just how big IS Meanie?

“WHERE’S MY PIZZA! WHERE’S MY PIZZA!”

One thing I first saw in ECW were unique combo moves. For example, Nova bulldogs Nova and legdrops Smothers at the same time.

Tommy Rich stops the match and challenges the BWO to a dance contest. Smothers gets booed. Meanie is cheered. The referee even does some dancing…and Smothers attacks Meanie from behind. Fun, and good heat from Smothers there.

For some reason THE REFEREE slams Smothers and Guido, and even tries to pin Guido with Meanie making the two count. Fun I guess, but what the hell sense did that make?

Some obvious spot calling with Nova backdropping Guido over the top rope.

Screwed up double corner running attack there. No idea who that was on though.

Another timing misstep, as Nova almost attacks Guido too early.

The BWO wins when Nova pins Guido in 9:27. Nova hits the Novacane (One Shot And You Feel Nothing!) for the win. Novacane is a Flatliner. A fun opener, although it died down after all the silly spots earlier on. Still, it did its job and got the crowd going…as if the ECW needed to get going.

Mikey Whipwreck vs. Justin Credible

This feud had been going on since November to Remember, where I wondered why Mikey of all people was ending Credible’s undefeated streak. Mikey would actually beat Credible again, but Credible would injure Mikey in return. I think this is intended to be the blowoff.

Whipwreck’s in there like a house of fire!

Pretty awesome guardrail bump from Mikey there. He was going for a Russian Legsweep off the apron.

Awesome story from Joey Styles here: Steve Austin (current WWF Champ) came to ECW years ago and got pinned by Whipwreck (true). They say Austin learned the Stunner from Whipwreck! Of course Joey mentions Credible’s finisher is a corkscrew Tombstone…obviously referencing The Undertaker.

Jason puts Mikey on a table and Credible climbs the railing to jump, but Mikey fights out. He then throws a chair at Credible but misses mostly…and actually HITS a fan. Where’s the lawsuit there? Suplex off the railing through the table was a nice spot though. Even if the set up looked terrible.

Credible with the HBK corner flip.

Credible and Whipwreck mess up a sequence that leads to a Whippersnapper, but we get a 2nd one anyway.

Whippersnapper to Chasity off the top!

Justin Credible pins Mikey Whipwreck in 9:54. Poorly done That’s Incredible on a chair ends it. Really had a lot of screwed up spots toward the end. I don’t think it was horrible, but this wasn’t good either. Not sure this was the type of win to further get Credible over, but at least he won this time.

Axl Rotten promo. He’s not as bad as you’d think.

ECW World Tag Team Championship
Lance Storm and Chris Candido© vs. The Chair Swingin’ Freaks (Balls Mahoney and Axl Rotten)

The story here is that Candido and Storm do not like one another. I do remember this led to the RVD and Sabu tag title run which had a well booked setup. I’ll write about it after the match.

Anyway, at Living Dangerously he had that crazy Dream Partner tag match where Storm picked Sunny. So this is an extension of that.

Some funny things from Candido: he comes out with Storm but then goes back and demands his own entrance. Then he demands the team be announced with his name first. Good stuff.

Candido: “I’m a fighting champion…and Lance is here too!”

Rotten and Candido with some chain wrestling. Styles says Rotten is the most underrated wrestler in ECW and that he’s not a chair swinging freak. This match is going to suck is we get 10 minutes of Axl Rotten wrestling, I’m just saying…

Can’t lie…this Mahoney and Rotten wrestling match isn’t that bad! Nice swinging senton from Axl as well.

Candido with a handing vertical suplex to Axl…and crowd responds with a “You Took Steroids” chant. Sure it wasn’t the Bodydonna regimen?

Sunny randomly runs in for some reason. Storm saves her from Mahoney, furthering the tension between the champs.

Candido and Storm retain the title in 12:04. Storm hits Mahoney with a springboard dropkick, but only gets two as Candido hits him a chair. Candido then pins Mahoney himself for the win. Ending seemed out of nowhere and got no reaction. While I enjoyed the match at the outset, it got really boring really fast. No one wants to see Mahoney and Rotten not brawl afterall. Not good at all here.

Storm and Candido brawl down the aisle. This would lead to another Dream Partner tag match, where Candido would pick Sabu and Storm would pick RVD as they were also not getting along (we will see why later). Throughout that match, RVD and Sabu got on the same page and Storm and Candido were pissed about it, thus working together and challenging Sabu and RVD with the belts on the line. Oddly enough Storm missed that show (not sure if it’s kayfabe or not actually), and it was Shane Douglas and Candido defending against RVD and Sabu. RVD and Sabu won the belts there. This led to the Triple Threat vs. Taz, RVD and Sabu match all the way in November.

Anyway, three subpar matches so far. Not a good start here.

Legends segment here. Junkyard Dog makes one of his last appearances before his death. We also get Dirty Dick Slater, The Masked Superstar and Bob Armstrong. Interesting that ECW fans had such an appreciative respect for legends. It’s a very old school NWA like thing.

We get ECW World Champ Shane Douglas next. The elbow injury was legit of course, as it would cost him time over the summer as he held the title over a year before dropping it to Taz in January.

Douglas runs down the WWF, of course, and takes shots at HBK. He specifically refers to the IC title incident where HBK handed Douglas the belt after his Marine attack. He then runs down Flair of course. Not surprisingly, HBK and Flair don’t care for Douglas.

Here comes Taz! Of course, back in July Taz had won the TV title from Douglas in 3 minutes. Now Taz wants Douglas’ World Title.

Taz wants Douglas to hand the title to him. They go at it, and Taz makes Douglas tap immediately. Good thing he didn’t put the belt on the line immediately. Douglas’ protector, Bam Bam Bigelow attacks Taz. Taz gets carried out by security and busts a car window in the process. Like Heyman can afford that…

I will say this is a TV angle and waste of time on the PPV. Why are we doing this?

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. New Jack

What a random idea for a match. I have no clue if there was a story here or what.

There’s a Godzilla action figure balls shot in this match. That should probably say it all.

New Jack comes off a balcony with a guitar, but barely hits Bigelow and it looked terrible. Like this whole match.

Bam Bam Bigelow pins New Jack in 8:43. Bigelow gets up first from the balcony jump and carries New Jack back to the ring. Terrible Greetings From Asbury Park (didn’t remotely hit) and it’s over. Horrible all around. A weak brawl leads to the weak guitar balcony spot, then another minute to carry New Jack back to the ring. Who thought any of that was a good idea?

The Dudley Boyz vs. The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer

Story here: 3D broke Sandman’s neck. Revenge time.

Sandman interrupts Gertner. That’s kind of a shame.

The first spot of the match is botched, as Sandman and Dreamer try to double clothesline Big Dick Dudley over the top and fail horribly.

Sandman with a crazy guillotine legdrop on two chairs on the Dudleyz heads on the railing.

Sandman takes a bump on the railing inside the ring, and sells the neck injury. And the match slows to a crawl as he gets a stretcher ride.

We have a pretty terrible double team of Dreamer going on. This match just died after the Sandman stretcher job.

Dudleyz with a con-chair-to…but they obviously don’t hit Dreamer’s head! Man this is bad. Fans let them know it too.

Spike Dudley is here! For some reason the ref counts a pin by Spike on the Dudleyz. Whatever.

Pretty awesome Tree of Woe spot by Spike, dropkicking a chair in D-Von’s face after running off Dreamer AND Bubba.

The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer win via double pin in 11:19. Sandman comes back and beats the crap out of all the Dudleyz. Double DDT for the win. I liked the ending, but the match was the shits. That’s two awful matches in a row. This story would lead to the breaking of the neck of Beulah.

ECW Television Championship
Rob Van Dam© vs. Sabu

Originally this was TV Champ Bigelow vs. Sabu, but RVD upset Bam Bam in the “warm-up” match to win the title. RVD and Sabu were having their issues before, so now they have to fight in a TV title match it’s only gotten worse.

Side story: Bill Alfonso has referee Jeff Jones in his pocket. Alfonso manages both though.

RVD and Sabu start with an awesome wrestling sequence where each one avoids the other’s chain initiation (like Sabu avoiding the RVD monkey flip).

RVD is on the mic here. He says that he and Sabu really have a plan. RVD shoves Jeff Jones into the corner and calls for Air Sabu, but Sabu turns on RVD and kicks RVD in the face. The hell was that?

RVD messes up the surfboard as Sabu falls all the way over.

Sabu tries to drive RVD through a table, but RVD moves out of the way. Sabu still tries to launch himself at RVD anyway and uses the table as a springboard. Match is picking up a bit.

Great chair throw from Sabu that knocks RVD from the top rope to the floor.

There’s some good booking here where Alfonso refuses to help RVD and Sabu with their spots. He points out he’s gonna be a winner anyway you look at it. That’s a good point actually.

RVD with the springboard back kick that sends Sabu to the floor. He follows up with a beautiful somersault over the top rope.

Nice moonsault from Sabu where he springs off the top with his legs.

Joey says “These two are friends?!” Well, the storyline says apparently not.

Sabu goes for his crazy springboard DDT through a table, but he doesn’t get it good and the table doesn’t break.

This has turned into a spot-rest-spot match.

At least the spots are pretty cool. Springboard hurricanrana from the railing to the floor by Sabu!

Weak Van Daminator there. Sabu kicks out fortunately.

Sabu survives the not quite yet five star frog splash.

Sabu brings a table into the ring, and by not fault of his own one of the legs break. It hurts the momentum of a pretty good second half of the match there.

Bad leaping side kick and Sabu “lands” on the table. Match is falling apart here.

The frog splash through Sabu and the table WAS awesome though!

Pretty awesome springboard knee to the face from Sabu. That almost got three.

Rob Van Dam retains via time limit draw in 30:00. RVD and Sabu go for pins off moonsaults before the bell rings out of nowhere. There was a lot of ugly stuff in this…but some of the spots were pretty awesome and innovative (At least for the United States). I feel like one fan could call this a great four star match…another would say this was complete shit. I’m somewhere in the middle. I did really enjoy the 2nd half of the match. Even if the draw is bullshit, it did further the storyline that Bill Alfonso was trying to make peace here. This match DID help make RVD though, although the powers of Paul Heyman had something to do with that, as I’ll explain at the end. I’m not sure if this match is going to save this PPV from an F though.

We are reminded by Shane Douglas about his injuries. To be fair, the broken arm was legit and he would get surgery shortly. I don’t know about the others though.

We basically get a career montage of Douglas for some reason. I think if we bought the PPV we would know who he is. These are ways to kill time to be honest.

We get a decent serious Al Snow promo.16 years has led him to this moment! He says he’s winning because Head told him so!

ECW World Championship
Shane Douglas © vs. Al Snow

Story: Al Snow was Lance Storm’s second dream partner at Living Dangerously, and he beat Douglas there. So he got this match here. Douglas has told us about his injuries many times. I get he’s trying to prove ECW guys are the toughest…but it doesn’t quite work for the heel. I mean if Snow wins…he just beat a crippled champion, right?

The foamheads all over the arena is kinda crazy. This whole run extended Al’s career by about five years.

Shane Douglas sets up a bunch of chairs in the middle of the ring, but it only leads to Al Snow awkwardly falling on them. Weird.

Powerbomb on two of the chairs works though.

Al Snow gets a nice Asai Moonsault onto Bigelow and Candido, who had tried to interfere.

Shane Douglas retains when he pins Al Snow in 11:19. Al Snow botches a top rope sunset flip, and Douglas does the Bret Hart-Leo Burke finish (Summerslam ’92, Mania X) gets the pin on Al Snow. The entire locker room had come to ringside for some reason, and lift Snow and Douglas on their shoulders like this was the five star classic to end all five star classics. This match is decent at best. It’s hardly main event caliber. And worst yet, the story involved painted Douglas as some courageous babyface (again…although he actually was at November to Remember). Snow of course was headed to the WWF, and promptly feuded with Too Much. I’m that made ECW look great.

Anyway, yikes. That’s really all that can be said. This PPV is pretty bad. There’s only one match that really could flirt in the good territory, and that’s RVD vs. Sabu. Everything else ranges from decent to awful. This clearly below previous ECW PPV standards.

Well there is some fun at least in the beginning. Also, watching this show I do understand the direction the characters are going in, and there are several good storylines that are pushed here. RVD-Sabu, Candido-Storm, Taz-Douglas all moved forward in their feuds.

Sabu-RVD had half a very good match, so there is that. Honestly for its time it probably was considered great, finish and all.

I think that’s enough to get past the F. At least I know what’s going on, where it’s going, and the logic of most things. The right people went over. All that stuff does matter.

By the way, I watched ECW Hardcore TV at the time, and listening to Paul E. I would have thought RVD-Sabu and Douglas-Snow were the best two matches in wrestling history. That man really was a genius.

ECW needs to step up its game if it wants to compete even remotely with the WWF and WCW.

Final Grade: D

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews Wrestlemania XIV

March 20, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WWE Wrestlemania XIV
March 29, 1998
Boston, MA
Reviewed on April 10, 2014

Background: The WWF was coming back!

After getting their ass handed to them in the Monday Night Wars, the WWF finally switched gears to an edgier product in late 1997. The results were almost immediate. Stone Cold Steve Austin was the hottest thing in either company. De-Generation X had made the NWO look old and dated. The media had gotten behind the WWF, especially with Mike Tyson slated to be at Wrestlemania. Tyson had bit Evander Holyfield’s ear off only seven months before.

This was a huge make or break show. If it was good…the WWF was probably in great shape in the future (which is how it worked out). If it sucked? WCW might have been able to hold on and end the WWF. It wasn’t likely it would suck though, as this was a well-built show with some good matches set up. The right guys were in the main event. New guys were ready to make an impact. It would be hard for the WWF to screw this up.

It’s worth noting that WWF Champion Shawn Michaels injured his back at the Royal Rumble. There was talk back and forth about whether he’d show up to even defend the title…but I think he always would have. I don’t believe The Undertaker taped fist story or any of that. I actually believe the account Shawn wrote in his book. He was a pain in the ass, threatened not to show up a lot, got his own dressing room, took No Way Out off and got pissed afterwards. I buy that.

Anyway, this is the PPV that set up the WWF taking back the ratings lead two weeks later.

The Card

15 Team Battle Royal: Winner gets a WWF World Tag Team Championship Match

We don’t see all the entrances…but we have a Los Boricuas team, Chainz and Bradshaw, two Nation teams, the Truth Commission, Flash Funk and Steve Blackman, the new Midnight Express, the Godwinns, the DOA, the Rock’N’Roll Express, Headbangers, Too Much and the Quebecers. Oh, and the Legion of Doom has returned! LOD 2000 is with Sunny! Gee, I wonder who wins this one.

To be fair, Sunny leading the return of the LOD would have been a great moment…if the LOD didn’t become a joke and Sunny didn’t fall apart. Ah well.

Fans are also very into LOD. So there is that as well.

Sunny and Cornette argue on the outside. There is practically no way this doesn’t come down to the New Midnight Express and LOD 2000.

Kurrgan and Barry Windham make appearances. Way too much going on.

Always thought it was weird that the Quebecers were so wasted in their 2nd WWF run.

Midnight Express, Godwinns, DOA and LOD left. Sounds about right.

DOA is thanks to the Godwinns. DOA come back in and take out the Godwinns. There is a feud I’m happy we never saw.

Godwinns attack LOD. They did feud in 1997, so it makes sense.

LOD 2000 wins in 8:19. They double clothesline the New Midnight Express out to win. This would set up one last New Age Outlaws vs. LOD match at Unforgiven, but LOD never regained the popularity they had in the late 80s/early 90s. Battle royal was just a way to get everyone on the card. Unless you thought Flash Funk and Steve Blackman or Chainz and Bradshaw were long time tag teams. Didn’t help that the winner was obvious from the beginning.

WWF Light Heavyweight Championship
Taka Michinoku© vs. Aguila

Aguila is the future Essa Rios.

This was the WWF trying to carve in their own high flying division, but it would never even remotely get close to the WCW Cruiserweight division…and WWF fans never really cared anyway.

Aguila gets the jobber introduction…which should tell you who’s going to win this one.

Really nice top rope moonsault to the outside from Aguila.

Aguila looks really good here to be fair. Nice spots. Springboard armdrag.

Aguila with an over the top corkscrew tope con hilo!

Taka Michinoku retains by pin in 5:47. Aguila comes up the top but Taka dropkicks him on the way down. Michinoku Driver gets the pin. Fun little match. Aguila was interesting as all of his high spots got a good reaction, but his stomps and chops looked really fake and uninspired. Also, the dirty secret of Taka Michinoku here: In this WWF run, if you saw one Taka match you’ve seen them all. While this is a fun little match, it isn’t even close to the level WCW was doing. WWF lost its chance when The Great Sasuke didn’t stick around.

The Rock with Gennifer Flowers. Hilarious interview. Amazing the difference between Rocky Maivia in 1997 and The Rock in 1998. Absolutely amazing.

WWF European Championship
Triple H© vs. Owen Hart

Story: This is an extension of the HBK-Bret Hart feud. HHH and Owen ended up feuding. Somehow Owen never beat HHH in this feud. Also, to keep Chyna from interfering, Sgt. Slaughter will be handcuffed to her. There was also an Owen Hart ankle injury in all this.

Owen starts by double leg tripping HHH. Owen was wrestling a really aggressive style here to be the Blackhart. Too bad it didn’t go anywhere.

Match is revolving around the ankle injury…which makes sense and is good psychology!

Sharpshooter got a huge reaction.

Triple H retains by pin in 11:27. Chyna helps HHH get to the ropes in the Sharpshooter…then tosses powder in Sgt. Slaughter’s eyes. Low blow to Owen then Pedigree. Good match here. Didn’t bury Owen as it looked like Owen had it won if it weren’t for Chyna. With that being said, this was the right decision as Owen Hart had no shot at being a main eventer in the WWF anymore (despite what people say about the Game gimmick after Owen died). Austin never wanted to work with him again, so that was that. They were clearly going with HHH.

Mixed Tag Match
TAFKA Goldust and Luna vs. Marc Mero and Sable

Story here: Fucking weird. Mero is jealous of Sable. Somehow Mero decided to use Goldust as his valet. Somehow Luna got involved cause Sable is the pretty girl everyone loves. Mero got angry at Goldust protecting Sable once. We still aren’t sure if Sable can rely on Mero. It’s a lot weird than this, but this is the basic story.

Sable kicks Goldust in the face, to the surprise of everyone.

The Goldust-Mero sequence is actually pretty solid. Fans don’t care though, they just want Sable.

Sable beats the crap out of Luna…and it looks damn good to be fair.

Nice TKO counter to the DDT from Goldust.

Mero busts out the Merosault…which is a 180 jump on the top into the moonsault. He hadn’t busted that out since the Wildman days.

Sable and Marc Mero win when Sable pinned Luna in 9:05 Sable hits a powerbomb and a TKO on Luna for the win. This match was really good…and I don’t remember it being good! I would have never guessed. Of course, I assume Sable here was why they brought in the Women’s title a few months later…since it seemed like Sable could wrestle.

We have Jeff Jarrett bringing Gennifer Flowers to the ring. Jarrett was in the IC title match only three years ago at Mania, interestingly enough. She says Jarrett great. No one cares.

WWF Intercontinental Championship
The Rock© vs. Ken Shamrock

Story: They actually went at it at the Rumble, but Rock got himself DQed. This match has the stip that if Rock Is DQed, he still loses the title. The Nation is out here, sans Faarooq. This was during that power struggle.

Shamrock just murderalizes Rock here.

Rock does get a People’s Elbow in…before it was called that.

Rock with a cringeworthy steel chair shot to Shamrock!

Rock taps out! Shamrock wins!

The Rock retains by reverse decision in 4:49. Shamrock snaps again! He keeps going for the Ankle Lock then takes out some referees. Faarooq turns on Rock here by not helping him. Rock gets carried away on a stretcher…and the ref reverses the decision. Shamrock attacks Rock again (Rock was hilariously holding up the title despite being carried away, funny stuff). While the finish is whatever (since surely this happens in other matches) it was pretty well done, and somehow Rock got more over despite getting killed.

WWF World Tag Team Championship: Dumpster Match
The New Age Outlaws© vs. Chainsaw Charlie and Cactus Jack

Story: This all began with the famous dumpster ride. They were on opposite sides of the No Way Out 8 Man tag as well.

This works like a Casket Match…just with a dumpster.

Foley actually tries his upside down Crack Smash off the apron but misses Road Dogg and hits the dumpster…and lands on his head. Jeez.

Russian Legsweep into the Dumpster. Foley is taking an ass kicking.

Billy Gunn and Cactus go flying through the dumpster lid from a ladder. Jeez.

Terry Funk takes a POWERBOMB into the dumpster.

Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie win the title in 10:00. They fight backstage, and eventually they get the Outlaws on a forklift and deposit them in a different dumpster (which would cause the title to be held up the next night). Not really a good match…it was pretty disjointed with the random Foley or Funk bump. Ending was strange too. A precursor to the Hardcore Title division for sure. While I said it wasn’t good, it wasn’t bad either.

Pete Rose comes out and cuts a heel promo on Boston, which is awesome. Finkel calls him a surefire future Hall of Famer…which is true for WWE! Kane’s feud with Rose begins here with a Tombstone!

The Undertaker vs. Kane

Story: Very similar to Bret vs. Owen in 1994, except with more death stuff and Paul Bearer. That being said, this was a well built story that led to this feud. Taker accidentally (or, as we were told later, purposely) killed his family, but Kane survived. Kane wants revenge. Paul Bearer was with Kane for the last 20 years. Taker refused to fight him. Kane locked him in a casket and burned it. And here we are. Kane also had beaten up everyone and was undefeated at this point. For the record, it’s funny that Taker refused to fight Kane…then fought him probably 500 times over the next 13 years…if not more.

Taker had that awesome “O Carmin Fortuna” entrance. First time he did this. Probably still the best one unless you take the Mania XX version.

This is the first time the Undertaker as the underdog story actually worked. Unless you took Giant Gonzales seriously. Watching Kane no-sell Taker punches is a bit odd, and was very odd at the time.

I think at the time the whole idea of Kane was that he was better than the Undertaker at everything (kayfabe wise). Bigger, stronger, more agility, etc. And actually, I would have bet at the time they thought Taker would last 4-5 more years and then Kane would be the new Undertaker. Never worked out that way.

Undertaker somehow climbs to Kane’s shoulders in one move…but then gets dropped head first. A weird sequence for both.

This is a really well booked match. Big time chokeslam by Kane. Kane has dominated this match.

Really long chinlock here. Kinda hurting what was a really good match so far.

Undertaker knocks Kane to the floor…but when he goes for the tope Kane slams him through the announcer’s table! What a spot!

Taker just kicks out of a Kane Tombstone! Barely!

Shocker as Kane kicks out of Taker’s Tombstone (a first, although Hogan got up from one once)!

Second Tombstone! Kane just kicks out again! Fans are stunned.

The Undertaker pinned Kane in 16:58. Third Tombstone…and Kane still kicks out, but does so a moment too late. What a well booked match. Even though Taker won, it still looks like Kane was the dominant brother. It took three tombstones at a time where one was automatic death. A very solid big man match…although that headlock was annoying. If you wanna know why I hate the Survivor Series 98 match between these two, just watch this match and see the difference. Kane also destroys Taker post-match. Kane lost the battle, but won the war.

WWF World Championship
Shawn Michaels© vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin

Story: Austin won the Rumble and HBK was the champ. Mike Tyson was brought in to be the special enforcer and him and Austin had a famous altercation…and Tyson eventually joined HBK’s De-Generation X! The buildup was fantastic. You can tell Tyson was having a lot of fun (I bet Tyson would have been an awesome professional wrestler) with the whole thing. DX was the hottest thing in all of wrestling not named Stone Cold, and that includes the NWO.

Backstage story: HBK’s back was screwed up from the Casket Match in January. Of course, there were questions if he’d even make it to Mania and do the job for Stone Cold. Austin stated he was worried about that in his book…HBK said he was adamant about putting Austin over in his. And since HBK ended up doing it, hard not to side with his story.

Austin gets one of the biggest pops in history during his entrance. He was fucking over, that’s for sure.

HBK says “this is for you Earl” on camera, as referee Earl Hebner was in the hospital. Pretty classy for HBK there.

Even though it happened for HHH’s entrance, the live DX entrance is one of my favorites.

Something that is cool about this match: Neither Austin nor Michaels had someone who could match them attitude wise. Austin had finished with Owen Hart and a not main event ready Rock. HBK finished with Bret, Undertaker and Shamrock. It really added to this match. For every suck-it from Michaels there’s a middle finger from Austin.

Michaels still takes some bad ass bumps for someone with back problems.

A lot of outside brawling once HHH is ejected. Another thing about this match is HBK wasn’t the high flying HBK here…but instead a brawler. This is more 2002 Shawn than 1996 Shawn.

Austin busts out the old Stun Gun.

You can see Michaels tending to the back pretty much the whole match. It starts as just a hand on the back.

Michaels gets no lift whatsoever on his flying forearm. You can tell his back is fucked.

Stone Cold Steve Austin wins the title by pin in 20:01. HBK goes for Sweet Chin, but Austin ducks. Stunner is countered, then Austin hits the classic SCM block, spin around, Stunner sequence for the win. Mike Tyson makes the (fast) count. Whatever, great finish. Match itself wasn’t much to say in terms of spots…but it was still a bad ass back and forth match. Hard hitting, good brawling, good action. Tyson’s turn to Austin’s side is funny too. This of course gave Austin the title and launched the most successful WWF era ever.

The WWF needed a great Wrestlemania and it delivered. The only match that could be considered bad had a good moment at least (Tag Battle royal), and everything else ranged from decent o pretty fucking good. Taker vs. Kane elicits different opinions from a lot of people, but it was the perfect match to continue to get Kane over despite losing. In terms of action, this was a B+/A- PPV.

But then there is the historical aspect. So much of the midcard here was the future of the foundation of the WWF coming into their own. Hunter Hearst Helmsley was pretty much dead, here is Triple H. Rocky Maivia was firmly The Rock. Kane went from storyline to legit WWF Championship material. Cactus Jack took some sick bumps and became Austin’s first challenger. And of course, the Austin era began here.

And you’ve gotta give Shawn Michaels credit for the main event.

Final Grade: A

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews ECW Living Dangerously ’98

March 20, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

ECW Living Dangerously ‘98
March 1, 1998
Asbury Park, NJ
Reviewed on August 28, 2014

“ECW!”

So, are we too late?

No one doubts that ECW revolutionized the business, but four PPVs in ECW was slowly growing but not nearly at the level of the big two. Unfortunately for ECW, that show on USA called RAW began to look quite similar. As most who experienced ECW would tell you, ECW peaked in 1995. It’s not to say that it wasn’t a solid show in in 1997 and 1998, but nothing was really something that blew you away anymore. Sure Sabu was nuts and Taz was a bad ass…but I mean Stone Cold was a bigger bad ass and Mick Foley just as insane.

Still, as wrestling was in the rise, it could only be a good thing for ECW (hindsight note: probably not true). Sure the show didn’t stick out as much…but it still was different overall.

The Card

ECW always would start like an Attitude RAW or Smackdown, with someone coming to the arena. In this case, it’s our pissed off TV Champ, Taz!

I believe this is the debut of the old school WCW ramp being in ECW.

The FBI vs. Jerry Lynn and Chris Chetti

The FBI’s Network dubbed music is pretty something. It’s originally the N-Trance remix of “Stayin’ Alive”.

This is when Chris Chetti was being pushed as the first Graduate of the House of Hardcore. He was pretty bland but had a solid heel turn in 1999 (he always had an awesome finish, the double springboard moonsault). Jerry Lynn was still a lower card guy here, he wouldn’t get made by RVD until a year later.

Guido with some good chicken-shit dancing there. It looked ridiculous.

Guido actually gives Chetti the Italian “FU” taunt while in an armbar. Good stuff early on.

Jerry Lynn goes airborne to the floor! Chetti follows up with a springboard double clothesline. Real fun stuff so far.

I never get why the whole distract the ref so the manager can attack thing happened in ECW. It’s no DQ in ECW!

Tracy Smothers clearly calls out a spot for Tommy Rich to get on the apron. I mean, Guido was the star of the team anyway.

Tracy Smothers kinda killed this match. Offense was pretty boring.

Jerry Lynn in to save it!

Well, maybe not, the FBI and Lynn botch some flapjack to I think what was supposed to be a double DDT.

Jerry Lynn and Chris Chetti win in 8:19 when Lynn pinned Smothers. Clusterfuck, then Rich runs in and accidentally nails Smothers with the flag. Lynn gets the pin after taking out Rich. Smothers shoves Rich afterwards. I forgot the payoff here, but it seems like the wrong team one unless the FBI was breaking up here. Still, a decent match overall with a fun beginning.

We see videos of W*ING Kanmura and Masato Tanaka, as they are to go at it. It makes the next deal confusing…even though Joey Styles asks if anyone has seen Kanmura.

Masato Tanaka vs. Doug Furnas

Lance Wright comes out with Doug Furnas…STILL pushing the WWF vs. ECW angle that should have ended for good at November to Remember with RVD vs. Dreamer. Also, Doug Furnas? Seriously? That’s who the WWF is bringing in?

Furnas was always a solid hand, even if he was one of the most boring wrestlers ever. I liked his long term partner Phil Lafon though.

Tanaka comes out with a FMW flag. ECW and FMW were kinda working together at this point.

Good powerslam from Furnas!

They work a really boring figure four spot.

Tornado DDT off the top is botched. Not sure what happened but Tanaka didn’t land right for it.

Tanaka runs into Furnas and falls. Horrible botches here. Furnas tries to save it by dropping Tanaka on his head a couple of times.

Furnas goes for some pins and Wright tells him not go for some pins to punish Tanaka.

They screw up again! Tanaka off the ropes and both men come to a standstill!

Masato Tanaka pinned Doug Furnas in 5:46. Tanaka finishes with a weak Roaring Elbow and the crowd seems surprised that’s the finish. Wright gets angry that Furnas lost and berates him because he was “nearly a WWF Legend” as Wright namedrops every WWF suit out there. Furnas doesn’t seem to care and he lays out Wright. Furnas puts an ECW shirt on and tells Wright to tell Vince to kiss his ass. Yeah like Doug Furnas has leverage there. Anyway, match was horrible. I didn’t know Masato Tanaka has a side to him that’s pretty terrible. Or Furnas. Not sure who’s fault it was.

Joey Styles tells us that Sandman vs. Sabu was taped earlier but PPV censors refuse to air it. Jason and Nicole Bass make Joey Styles play a tape of Tommy Dreamer showing up. Ok? Jason says Beulah left Dreamer.

Rob Van Dam vs. 2 Cold Scorpio

Scorpio was on the WWF payroll here, in-between his Flash Funk and JOB Squad days. Not sure if this was the return or if he came back to hype this at all.

RVD wears an awesome Louie Spicolli tribute shirt.

In a lot of ways RVD took Scorpio’s position on the card as dominating TV Champ. So in ECW history this is like a weird type of dream match. Joey is trying to hype it that way.

Mat wrestling is pretty slow to start. I think the problem isn’t the match, but that the fans were pretty bored from the last match.

I think there was a botch by RVD, but Scorpio made it look cool with a knee to the face. By the way, how did Vince screw up Scorpio the way he did? Guy had natural charisma.

Bridging sequence seems slow…only it ends in a really cool way with Scorpio flipping to his feet.

Match picks up on the outside. RVD misses a stage moonsault but lands on his feet.

Match isn’t really jelling and we get a “This match sucks” chant. Not sure why it’s all technical wrestling because that’s the wrong way to go with these two by far.

Scorpio Bomb! Time for this to pick up!

Nice moonsault from Scorpio!

Four Star Frog Splash! Hey, it wasn’t his finish yet.

Somersault legdrop! Nice moves, but this is just spot after spot now.

Split Legged Moonsault is the rich man’s version of Starship Pain.

Pretty crappy looking Van Daminator on the stage. I’m so disappointed in this match.

Scorpio with a piledriver on the stage/ramp whatever. Some randomly good stuff in this horribly disjointed match. Scorpio does a reverse Tombstone on the stage next.

In one of the stranger ref bumps, ref holds RVD back and Scorpio dropkicks him, leading to RVD landing on top of Scorpio. Top rope splash then misses…but hits the ref.

Wow! RVD mocks Scorpio then does a PERFECT 450 Splash…only Scorpio moves. What a shame! Would have been a great finish.

Scorpio barely makes his 450…but it’s Sabu!

Arabian Skullcrusher to Scorpio! Scorpio kicks out. Here comes The Sandman! He’s chasing Sabu!

I see where Kofi Kingston stole the Thunder in Paradise From.

Rob Van Dam pins Scorpio in 27:10. RVD rolls Scorpio up in a tight package off a hiptoss for the win. How underwhelming! Crazy as I’ve seen this match before and liked it, and it was known as the beginning of RVD’s “great worker” run. But uh…the match pretty much sucked. I’ll give it some credit though as there were some cool spots, like RVD’s 450 and awesome Split Legged Moonsault. There was a nice spin kick off the top in there as well. It was a long 27 minutes.

Scorpio attacks RVD after a handshake after RVD was being an arrogant jerk. Sabu comes back in to attack Scorpio. They are about to table Scorpio but Sandman makes the save. We get the worse looking “Frankensander” in the history of the business, and Sabu’s feet break the end of the table. That gets an “ECW!” chant. Yikes. Fans give Scorpio a nice ovation at the end though. Scorpio and Sandman share some beers.

We get a promo vid about Lance Storm and Chris Candido…and their issues which has a World Tag Team Title run in there…but also a Triple Threat storyline.

Hardcore Chair Swingin’ Freaks vs. The Dudley Boyz vs. Spike Dudley and New Jack

Joel Gertner time!

Gertner is awesome. Here’s a gimmick you’ll never see on WWE TV.

I really wonder where he came up with these limericks.

Yeah I’m sure D-Von is 169 pounds. The ECW Super Cruiserweight Champion of the World! (His words, not mine!)

Balls Mahoney looks like a homeless Bam Bam Bigelow with hair.

Why are we getting armdrags by Axl Rotten. Joey Styles calls him the most underrated wrestler in ECW. Really now?

Spike and New Jack are no where to be seen. It’s 3 on 2 with the Dudleyz and Big Dick Dudley against Rotten and Mahoney. HERE COMES NEW JACK!

By the way, here is someone who might be the most underrated worker in ECW. New Jack. Seriously. Guy is one of the best garbage wrestlers ever and always had the crowd in the palm of his hand.

I have no idea but I’ve always been entertained by New Jack killing the Dudleyz. You know he did this for like 2 years straight and people loved it. Wait till we get to Heatwave 99!

Spike Dudley has shown up!

One of the craziest moments in ECW history here. The Dudleyz lie on tables and New Jack and Spike jump off a balcony that had to be at least 15 feet high! While of course things have topped that now, there was NOTHING like that on a wrestling PPV at that point. Even now it just looks deadly. I remember reading about it in Pro Wrestling Illustrated and it just seemed like the damnest thing.

We get a terrible Tornado DDT by Spike. Better than Tanaka’s earlier though.

New Jack and Spike Dudley win in 13:25. Spike and Jack double guitar shot the Dudleyz, then Spike drops Bubba with the Acid Drop. 187 Chair Splash later wins it. If you don’t like garbage wrestling this isn’t for you, but like the four way at N2R, this was just fun garbage with a ridiculous balcony dive. I enjoyed it. What can I say.

So many hype videos. This one of Justin Credible…getting beat up by Mikey Whipwreck? Really showcasing Credible injuring him, but it started odd. We then see the mean streak in Justin Credible leading up to the feud with Dreamer.

We got a porn star! Jenna Jameson in the house. We get her first interview with Justin Credible!

Credible tells her off because he says he has Beulah! That’s actually great build of a confident character right there.

Justin Credible vs. Tommy Dreamer

Now Jenna wants to interview Tommy Dreamer. Dreamer just outright kisses her. Sure Beulah loved that…

Actually storyline wise she probably wanted a piece of that.

Dreamer looks ready tonight. Great Tree of Woe chair dropkick.

Drop toe hold into a chair…but it was the back part of the seat. Never saw it done that way. Looked like it hurt.

Here comes Beulah! She fakes being with Credible then low blows Credible and spikes Jason with a DDT!

Nicole Bass ragdolls Beulah…AND WE GET A WARDROBE MALFUNCTION FROM BASS. FOR FUCKS SAKE.

Mikey Whipwreck is in. Whippersnapper to Bass.

Tommy Dreamer pins Justin Credible in 8:58. Dreamer finishes Credible with a Dreamer DDT. I actually enjoyed this one. It was nothing great, but it was putting Credible over by showing he could hang with Dreamer. Told a solid story. Then again Nicole Bass’s shirt dropping almost killed me right then and there.

We get history of how Bam Bam Bigelow went from losing the ECW World Title to Shane Douglas to turning on Taz and joining the Triple Threat.

ECW World Television Championship
Taz© vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

Story here: Bam Bam looked to Taz to get revenge on Douglas…only to turn on him.

Sidenote: Bigelow’s hometown is Asbury Park, NJ. And the fans love him.

Taz just armdrags Bigelow over his head. Great display of power. Doing a good job of not making Taz the underdog, something that killed him in the WWF.

Taz LEVELS Bigelow with a clothesline. Didn’t expect that.

Taz suplexes Bigelow on his head into the crowd and a row of chairs! Pretty sick.

Bigelow kind of misses his big moonsault, but gets an arm and it seemed just passable. Joey Styles kinda saves it on commentary by being honest about it.

Taz drops Bigelow face first through a table, which was an odd spot to say the least.

We get a choke him out chant. So much for the Bigelow getting cheers deal. Weird.

Now Bam Bam chants. So confusing.

Match has slowed to a crawl with some weak brawling on the outside.

Taz gets them back into it by taking shots and demanding Bigelow bring it…when Bigelow falls down on a kick attempt.

Crazy ECW moment #2! Taz locks in the Tazmission! Bigelow taps but the ref didn’t see it…then Bigelow drops back…and they go flying through the ring!

Bam Bam Bigelow wins the TV title in 13:37 by pin. Bigelow pulls Taz from the hole and pins him for the title win! Admittedly a genius finish! Taz was on such a hot streak that he couldn’t lose and they let him lose in way where he would lose no credibility whatsoever! The fans absolutely popped when they saw the ring break as well. Match slowed a bit at the end, but it was pretty solid and SHOULD have main evented this show.

Paul E. yells at Joey Styles to buy him time, then demands he play the Sandman-Sabu Cane match that was taped earlier that censors said not to air on PPV! Styles argues, then calls for it.

Dueling Canes Match
Sabu vs. The Sandman

I covered this feud mostly for the November to Remember review. They were still going at it at this point.
One of the weirdest openings to a match, Sabu attacks Sandman…only somehow Sabu is so well disguised…that’s it’s actually Rob Van Dam? Then the real Sabu attacks Sandman. Somehow that was well done. Especially since Sabu and RVD look nothing alike other than body build.

Nice guardrail corner table splash from Sabu on Sandman.

Triple Jump Moonsault on the ramp! Nice, even if Sandman was trying to roll away.

Creative ref bump. Ref standing behind a propped table and Sabu hit it, nailing the ref.

RVD comes flying in and takes out Sandman as he was propping Sabu on a table, leading to the table breaking. RVD is still in Sabu costume. It’s so good that if I were just watching and not paying attention I’d think it was the real Sabu.

The Sabus take Sandman out with a double legdrop through the table on the ramp!

Sabu pins The Sandman in 9:21. Sabu rolls Sandman in for the pin. I liked this match! So much better than that crap at N2R ’97. The RVD as Sabu thing was pretty creative. The spots hit and seemed to be in a rhythm. And when Sabu and Sandman’s stuff hit, its good stuff. There are two issues with this though. One: why did the censors not want this aired? It wasn’t that crazy and the New Jack stuff was FAR worse. Two: after the opening minute there wasn’t a cane to be seen in a dueling canes match. Still, liked the match. Pretty good overall with a solid finish too.

Styles complains about not following the format and that we were supposed to have Al Snow vs. John Kronus. Oh no!

Dream Partner Tag Team Match
Chris Candido and ? vs. Lance Storm and ?

Funny note, the corner of the ring with the hole has caution tape around it. Sounds perfect for a five star classic! The hole is still clearly there.

Francine looks incredible. Absolutely incredible.

Shane Douglas is Candido’s partner of course.

There are tons of styrofoam heads in the crowd if anyone is wondering who Storm’s partner is going to be.

There’s a funny convo in the ring with Douglas and the ref…where it seems like Douglas is disgusted that there’s a hole in the ring. I don’t blame him!

Lance Storm’s partner is…Sunny!

Yeah, this is a horrid idea. Styles thinks its genius because Candido and Douglas won’t hit Sunny. So I guess Storm is okay with the handicap match then?

Sunny turns on Storm about 2 minutes in by hitting him with a cookie sheet. You know if you wonder why Lance Storm never got over as a top face it was probably because of this stupidity. Sunny hilariously falls into the hole at one point.

Lance Storm yells that he’s gonna give Candido head. Here comes Al Snow!

The rave party thing does look cool.

We have heads being thrown into the ring and the camera spinning around. I’m gonna be sick.

Al Snow throws Douglas into the hole.

Al Snow and Lance Storm win in 4:49 when Snow pinned Douglas. Snowplow for the win. Crowd pops huge for that horrific main event. The Al Snow stuff is cool though, so I will give them that. Not sure why this couldn’t be the semi-main though, as Bam Bam winning the TV title would have left the crowd happy. But I mean that was a farce of a match for a main event.

Strange show. Gotta give credit for ECW giving it everything it’s got though. It was definitely a big effort from everyone. And there was good stuff here! Credible vs. Dreamer was decent sans Nicole Bass. Bigelow vs. Taz had a great holy shit moment and a good story too. New Jack and Spike Dudley also provided a holy shit moment. Even Sabu vs. Sandman was fun. Hell if the opening matches were better and RVD vs. Scorpio wasn’t so disappointing and long (20% of the show!), this could have gotten the best grade for any ECW PPV so far. But it was so that’s that.

But then there’s the main event. How do you close the show on a match like that? I mean it was really a glorified angle, no? The whole thing was ludicrous. Lance Storm picking Sunny as a fake to just pick Al Snow even makes no sense. It’s a surprise partner. Just pick Al Snow! It didn’t help that Joey Styles was making him out to be a nobody though hyping up the match with Kronus though.

Good effort ECW, but too much disappointment, no really great matches and a shit main event doesn’t let me boost it into that B range.

Final Grade: C+

Basketball, Football

Two Examples of Unlucky #13 in Sports

March 13, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

Friday the 13^th, for whatever reason, is considered an unlucky day (Wikipedia says something about Jesus and the Middle Ages). Specifically, the number 13 is considered unlucky, with skyscrapers often omitting a 13^th floor for example. In sports, the number 13 doesn’t seemingly have any real significance with luck. For example Kurt Warner won a Superbowl for the Rams wearing #13. But still, there are some examples, and I am going to cherry pick two of them.

Dan Marino is in the discussion of greatest Quarterback of all-time. He’s somewhere from #4 through #7 on my list. Before the NFL got all pass happy and before Brett Favre played for what seemed to be forever, Marino set virtually all the major passing records. When he retired Marino was 1^st in passing yards (3^rd now), 1^st in TDs (now 1st), had the single season passing record for yards and TDs and countless other records. What he didn’t have, was a Superbowl ring.

Marino couldn't get by Montana...and never got there again — Marino couldn’t get by Montana…and never got there again

Marino got close early on with a Superbowl appearance in his 2^nd season (the same year he set the single season yards and TD records), but lost to Joe Montana’s 49ers. The next season Marino and the Dolphins were upset by the New England Patriots in the AFC Title game. At that point Marino would never get farther, going back to one AFC title game in 1992 and losing to the Bills. In 1993 the bad luck really took hold, as the Dolphins were the AFC favorites but fell when Marino tore his Achilles Tendon. Marino was still quite good afterwards, but the Dolphins never got past the Divisional Round again (yes, as of 2015 this is still true).

The Dolphins never surrounded Marino with any elite talent, especially a top rusher to ease the pressure on him (like John Elway getting Terrell Davis). How can the most prolific QB of the pre-Manning-Brady era make only 1 Superbowl and 3 AFC Title games in 17 years? This

The other example of a cursed #13 in sports is two time NBA MVP Steve Nash. Nash had some early back troubles that limited his effectiveness, but came on strong for the Mavericks and transformed into a MVP candidate when the hand checking and defense rules changed for the 2004-2005 season. Nash would average over 11 assists a game in five different seasons and over ten in two others. He got to the Conference Finals three times, losing each time to a team led by a top 15 player of all time (Tim Duncan’s Spurs, Kobe Bryant’s Lakers and Dirk Nowitzki’s Mavericks). Despite being perhaps the top offensive player in the league for several seasons and producing the best possible basketball out of Shawn Marion, Joe Johnson, Amar’e Stoudemire, Leandro Barbosa and countless others, Steve Nash never played a NBA Finals game.

Nash will most likely go down as the player who played the most games without playing in a NBA finals game. In his post #13 days, Nash looked to engineer a Lakers offense with Bryant and Dwight Howard. That unfortunately fell apart and one of the reasons is Nash’s body fell apart. Nash is expected to retire this off-season without ever having that chance to play in the finals. Did #13 curse him too?

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WWF In Your House XIX: De-Generation X

March 13, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WWF: In Your House De-Generation X
December 7, 1997
Springfield, MA
Reviewed on March 15, 2014

Background: Where to start? This was the first PPV after the infamous Montreal Screwjob. The WWF was looking toward the Stone Cold Steve Austin era, but now had this lull between Survivor Series and the Royal Rumble. Reportedly, Bret vs. Shawn was supposed to be the top feud to get us to Mania for Austin vs. Bret, but here we are.

The WWF had just turned to the Attitude phase of their marketing. You can’t really blame them for their lack of success though…WCW was promoting the Match of the Century: Hollywood Hogan vs. Sting which everyone watched. All eyes for the short term were on Bret Hart as well, so WCW really had all the momentum (and with a great Starrcade could have really put the pressure on the WWF). As the WWF was in the lame duck status, they decided to try to get some money out of Ken Shamrock and threw him in the main event with Shawn. The WWF had two really big time things here: DX was in fact revolutionary, and Austin was on the rise.

The Card

WWF Lightheavyweight Championship Tournament Final
Taka Michinoku vs. Brian Christopher

You knew the WWF blew the Lightheavyweight title when Brian Christopher was in the final of the inaugural tournament.

Match starts off with a LOT of stalling.

Taka’s springboard plancha was always a thing of beauty.

Taka is doing all he can to steal the show. Nice Asai moonsault using the corner.

Most of the commentary is about Christopher being (or not being) Jerry Lawler’s son.

Taka Michinoku wins the title when he pins Christopher in 12:00. Christopher misses the Tennessee Jam and Taka gets the Driver for the win. Way too much stalling from Christopher for this to have any flow. At least Taka gets a good pop when he wins the title.

The Disciples of Apocalypse (Chainz, Skull and 8-Ball) vs. Los Boricuas (Miguel Perez Jr, Jesus Castillo Jr, Jose Estrada Jr.)

The sooner this is over the better.

Does anyone care about this feud anymore? This spawned from when Crush and Savio Vega were members of the Nation of Domination, but were fired. They created their own gang and have been feuding with each other ever since. The Truth Commissionalso got involved at some point. The Gang Warz these are, and they suck.

Miguel Perez gets the Albert shave your back chants.

Miguel Perez with a standing moonsault. More excitement that I expected.

Skull or 8-Ball (can’t be assed to figure out who is who) can’t even take an Irish Whip correctly.

Los Boricuas win when Estrada pinned Chainz in 7:58. Perez was faking a knee injury! Somersault legdrop on Chainz! Perez puts Estrada on Chainz for the win. Ridiculously boring.

Toughman Match
Butterbean vs. Marc Mero

Story: Mero thinks Butterbean is a nobody. Mero’s also been treating Sable like crap, which Butterbean doesn’t like.

The only person to get over from this whole thing was Sable, and well, that’s how it should be.

Four round boxing match here. This is a WRESTLING PPV you know.

A whole lot of nothing happens in round 1.

Mero takes a cheap shot in between rounds.

Mero with some heel tactics in round 2. A knee to the back and a choke with tape.

Boring chants are faint, but there.

Mero nails Butterbean with a dropkick after the bell.

Mero gets his ass kicked in round 3 but is saved by the bell. Butterbean then tosses ice cold water on Mero at the end.

Butterbean wins by DQ in 10:20. Mero gets nailed again early in round 4, and Mero lowbridges Butterbean for the DQ. This sucked and the finish sucked. What a waste of PPV time. No one cared.

Oh god…here comes The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust and Luna. This shit is just disturbing. He reads Green Eggs and Ham.

JR wins the segment by apologizing to Dr. Seuss.

You know there’s not a Mick Foley or Kane match on the card for this shit.

Luna then shoves Goldust down and then pulls him by his chain. It’s over thank god.

LOD promo. Hawk compares the Outlaws to a booger. At least there was intensity there.

Let me say this, the LOD may have not really worked here…but they way they put over the Outlaws was fantastic. They received instant legitimacy from this feud.

Very strange start with LOD trying to fight NAO and the Outalws just running to the back to stretch.

Funny spot where Road Dogg crawls to a corner where Billy Gunn isn’t.

It ends up happening again, but at least Dogg crawled to the correct corner (Gunn was knocked out from Hawk earlier).

Ice bucket shot to the head! This match kinda sucks.

Road Dogg busts out the worm? The hell?

Hawk sells the knee to the gut with a spin. Well at least he sold it.

The New Age Outlaws win by DQ in 10:32. Doomsday Device set up…but Henry Godwinn comes down and smacks Animal with a bucket. Hawk goes nuts with the bucket and gets DQed. Match and finish sucked. I guess putting over the Outlaws again was too much to ask.

Promo video putting over Sgt. Slaughter. Look, Slaughter looked washed up against Hogan at Mania VII. This was a bad idea at this point.

Boot Camp Match
Triple H vs. Sgt. Slaughter

Slaughter has the Kurt Angle music…although I assume it was considered The Patriot’s music at the time.

This match starts with all Slaughter. What?

Slaughter goes for the cover on the outside but ref says it has to be in the ring. What was the point of that?

HHH finally takes control. Slaughter takes his over the top rope corner bump which shocks the hell out of me to be fair.

HHH tries to grab the ring bell, and the timekeeper holds on for dear life. HHH smacks him with it. How randomly awesome was that?

Slaughter does the Ric Flair slammed off the top spot.

Powder to Chyna!

HHH pins Slaughter in 17:36. Chyna saves HHH from the Cobra Clutch. Pedigree on the chair for the win. Horrible match. Slaughter shouldn’t be in the ring. What was the point of making HHH barely beat Slaughter and for Slaughter to look like the better wrestler? Absolutely horrible on all accounts.

Jeff Jarrett interview! He calls Michael Cole “Mark”.

The Undertaker vs. Jeff Jarrett

This was a quick push Jarrett got as he just returned from WCW. His gimmick was to shoot on things. It would lead to the midcard and the NWA North American Champion gimmick. I’m a Jarrett fan, but this sucked.

This is a pretty random match for Undertaker.

Jeff Jarrett wins by DQ in 2:52. Here’s Kane! Jarrett tells Kane to attacks Taker, so Kane chokeslams him for the DQ. Funny as he got Taker DQed the same way at Deadly Games. Kane wants to fight Taker. Taker doesn’t want to fight him…yet. Nothing match that felt longer than three minutes, but I guess the postmatch is what mattered.

Jeff Jarrett with the postmatch attack! This Jarrett push did not last. Jarrett gets chokeslammed for his troubles.

Michael Cole is in the crowd with [Mark Henry! Henry will return from an injury soon! Woo?

There are a lot of similarities between early Randy Orton and early Rock.

This was the classic feud with the 3:16 beeper. This was the first real attitude Austin feud.

Rock is out with the entire Nation.

Austin drives the truck into the arena!

D’Lo gets backdropped on the truck. Stunner on the truck!

Austin whips Kama into the truck!

People’s Elbow didn’t have a name yet!

Austin accidentally stuns the ref! Nice spot that worked into the story on RAW!

Steve Austin retains when he pinned Rock in 5:31. Stunner gets the win. You can see the first ref calling for the DQ. Fun little match, although too short. The ref bump would led to Austin forfeiting the title to Rock on RAW. This became the standard Stone Cold main event style, so historically, this match is a huge deal.

We get a recap of HBK vs. Shamrock. Then a bland Shamrock promo.

Great kick from Shamrock that HBK sold like a million bucks.

Overall HBK is just making Shamrock look like a million bucks.

Despite the great selling from HBK this match isn’t clicking. A lot of slow Shamrock stuff with HBK ducking and moving.

DX getting involved. Slam by Chyna!

HBK with a splash from the apron. That’s new.

Shamrock near the end gets caught in the top rope in a weird way and it hits his eye it seems. Strange.

Ken Shamrock wins by DQ in 18:27. Shamrock makes a comeback and hits the belly to belly. Ankle Lock but HHH and Chyna cause the DQ in record time. Match didn’t click at all and I assume how this went ended any chance of a Shamrock main event run (I always assumed it would have been Austin vs. Shamrock at some point in 98). Finish blew as well. You know that was the fourth DQ finish of the PPV. Not good.

As HBK celebrates on the apron Owen Hart shows up out of nowhere and shoves HBK off and through the announcer’s table (although the camera misses it). It’s a cool moment though and it’s a shame they don’t run with HBK vs. Owen (this would have worked at No Way Out, as both had a history with Stone Cold). Rumor has it that HBK didn’t want to work with Owen (ugh) and we know Austin didn’t (a lot more understandable). So, Owen’s main event push was DOA.

Anyway, this PPV is awful. No really good matches. A lot of crap. A boxing match. Whatever the fuck that was with Goldust. Bad finishes. Boring main event. Very close to F status. But this show has a big redeeming quality that helps it tremendously.

This was THE SHOW where Stone Cold vaunted to the main event. He was still really an upper midcarder at this point. This also showed The Rock could have a fun match and be that upper midcard guy for a while. HHH was also shown off here, even if the match blew, as another guy at that Rock level. Kane too continued his path of destruction. At least storylines showed progression here. This PPV also showed that some guys just weren’t going to make it on top. Shamrock and Jarrett, I’m looking at you two.
And again, the Owen thing was pretty cool, just a shame it went nowhere.

Final Grade: C-

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews ECW November to Remember ’97

March 13, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

ECW November to Remember ‘97
November 30, 1997
Monaca, PA

Shane Douglas was the man Paul Heyman was putting his top heel money on. Douglas was…an okay choice. They could have been a lot worse (I assume he really wanted to use Raven). Douglas had some time in the WWF and WCW, so him as the top heel was a legitimate draw for ECW’s level at that point.

Top face? You got me. Taz wasn’t ready quite yet, but he was clearly the one they would go with. Terry Funk was a nice nostalgia run. Sabu will always be an attraction (and I think was heel at this point anyway). Rob Van Dam was still coming along (and was still heel here too). The short term answer? Bam Bam Bigelow was still a name in wrestling, only two and a half years removed from main eventing Wrestlemania. I’ll hand it to Paul Heyman, big name wise, these two seem to be the right guys for the main event.

As for the rest of the card, there is a mix of making new stars (RVD, Taz), just putting current ones wherever (Sandman, Dreamer, Sabu) or a lot of what the hell is going on (we’ll get there).

But hey, wrestling was getting hot, to be fair ECW was pretty hot at this time as well. This is ECW’s 3rd PPV, let’s see how it goes.

The Card

Largest crowd in ECW history. My research says 4,600 fans. I think that’s not bad?

Chris Candido vs. Tommy Rogers

I’ll admit, I don’t even know who Tommy Rogers is.

He’s Bobby Eaton’s old partner. I did know that, weird I didn’t make that connections.

I was thinking this match was boring…then we got a “boring” chant.

Tommy Rogers looks like he’s running at 80% speed.

Rogers suplexing Candido to the floor looked cool.

Seriously match is boring. It’s not even bad, it’s just a bunch of spots.

Lance Storm is out here and he attacks Tommy Rogers.

Now Jerry Lynn is here. And we have a tag match?

Ref makes it a tag match. Sure why not. The singles match sucked.

Hey, at least it got more exciting when Lynn and Storm got added.

Rogers does the nicest Unprettier I’ve ever seen.

Chris Candido and Lance Storm win when Candido pins Rogers in 16:42. Northern Lights Suplex wins it. Match picked up when it became a tag for sure. Storm and Candido would continue the Triple Threat storyline and even win the Tag Belts in the future.

We get images of Mikey Whipwreck beating Steve Austin and Justin Credible beating the Great Sasuke. Take that WWF!

Justin Credible vs. Mikey Whipwreck

Mikey Whipwreck: the only ECW Triple Crown Winner in ECW history. In all honesty, a stat like that is what was wrong with ECW (I also thought Sabu had done this).

My best memory of Credible’s manager Jason is Jazz crushing his balls at Heatwave ’99 (we’ll get there).

Credible was doing his X-Pac (or Syxx at this time) impression at this point. I think Credible was a little underrated at this point.

Sunset flip powerbomb was nice.

Mikey Whipwreck pins Justin Credible in 7:15. Whippersnapper for the win! Jason gets involved, but Whipwreck counters and actually uses Jason to get in position for the Whippersnapper. I will say that the result makes no sense whatsoever though. Credible was supposed to be pushed as a top ECW guy, no? I mean Whipwreck sure as hell wasn’t.

Joey Styles says that in the locker room Al Snow is getting Head. A lot funnier in 1997, and if I was 15, I guess. Snow makes the segment work though, and it’s pretty cutting edge to be fair, which Snow saying things like “get this guy over, and get this guy over” and doing the “J-O-B”.

Joey Styles is hilarious sometimes.

Sandman-Sabu promo…nope. Weird technical difficulties I guess.

Pitbulls turned heel at some point. The Pitbulls were two guys who just couldn’t do anything but brawl, and on PPV there just couldn’t be that much of ECW style brawling.

Paul E. Dangerously is in the commentary booth…and they take shots at RAW.

Pitbull #2 has Pitbull #1 and Mr. Wright at ringside.

Pitbull #2 totally misses a spinning heel kick that Taz sells.

Well, that was quick.

Taz makes Pitbull #2 submit in 1:29. A few suplexes, then the Tazmission ends it. Makes sense. Taz looked like a killer in his run up to the ECW World Title.

Taz calls out Brakkus, who is at ringside. Good thing that was never on PPV.

Taz makes fun of a security guard, who gets in Taz’s face. Taz bitchslaps him then chokes him out. Weird. Paul E was worried about lawsuits and calls for something else. Somehow he did this stuff better than Russo.

We get highlights of Bam Bam throwing Spike Dudley into the crowd. One of the things that made me an ECW fan for the record. I wrote about this in an earlier review.

Now we get highlights of Bigelow winning the World Title from Shane Douglas in New York a few weeks ago.

We get some racist remarks from Tommy Rich to D-Von Dudley.

Joel Gertner is pretty incredible.

The Chair Swinging Freaks just come in and hit everyone with chairs. New Jack and Kronus have yet to show up.

Here comes New Jack! Only took 4 minutes.

Just how many times did New Jack do the run in and weapons thing? Jeez.

The Gangstanators is the result of Perry Saturn going to WCW…and Mustafa doing…something.

I don’t know what the hell is going on…although it looks like Jack and Kronus got killed here.

Big Dick Dudley misses a big moonsault…but he chokeslams Kronus anyway.

Kronus 450s Big Dick and tries to pin him, but he’s not in the match. I’m shocked the ref has still kept track.

Bubba Ray Dudley over the top rope plancha was not something I expected to see. Wow.

Tommy Rich takes a guitar to the head from an off the top rope New Jack!

Bubba eliminates Kronus with a Bubba Cutter. Fans aren’t happy.

Bubba Ray throws Little Guido into the top turnbuckle in a pretty sick way. Wow. That was better than Nash and Mysterio.

What the fuck? They did the powder in the eyes and Bubba 3Ds D-Von by accident spot. I thought that was just something stupid TNA came up with in that Fish Market Match. Dudleys are gone.

Evil referee! Evil referee! What else will this match have?

The FBI retain when Guido pins Mahoney in 14:32. Judge Jeff Jones kicks Mahoney low, and Guido rolls up Mahoney. Fast count and its over! Wow. I feel like I just watched 4 matches in one or something. I can’t remember a overbooked clusterfuck quite like that…but…I admit I was quite entertained and enjoyed it. It was fun, even if it was all over the place.

Rob Van Dam vs. Tommy Dreamer

RVD was still pro-WWF here. Amazing how he did this as a heel gimmick and still became the most popular wrestler in ECW history.

This is a flag match. How about that.

Bill Alfonso is the Vice President of Senior Affairs for the WWF or something. At least that was the gimmick.

1997 was a huge year for RVD. He looked a bit sloppy at Barely Legal. Here, he’s nearly the Whole Fuckin’ Show.

Not sure if he was the first, but the way RVD would jump on guardrails and do kicks and stuff (this one, Alfonso held a chair near Dreamer’s face and RVD double jumped on the guardrail and superkicked it) was just breathtaking at the time.

Nice DDT counter from RVD.

RVD does a split on the top rope as a tauntlike counter…but Dreamer sees it and kicks RVD in the middle, and then DDTs him off the top! Only 2!

Dreamer with the most obvious Van Daminator counter…he hits RVD with the chair.

Jeff Jones again! Horrible Dreamer Van Dreaminator there.

We get a referee match in the middle of this, but Beulah low blows Jones and the two refs DDT Jones. Fonzie takes out the refs, Beulah takes out Fonize.

RVD’s famous selling of Dreamer’s piledriver by popping up 4 feet (seriously) in the air.

Doug Furnas and Phil Lafon are out here! Then Stevie Richards comes back! Short WCW stint there.

Five Star Frog Splash on the garbage can!

No Contest in 14:32. Not sure how 14:32 was the original time, as we don’t get a real finish. Dreamer is out from the Furnas, Lafon, Richards, RVD beatdown. We have no more refs. This was a pretty good match actually, but the finish hurt it a lot, really because we didn’t have one.

We got Dreamer on a table and Sabu is out here. They wrap Dreamer in the WWF flag..but Sabu comes off the top and punches Beulah in the face! Wow I didn’t see that coming! Here comes the Sandman!

Tables and Ladders Match
The Sandman vs. Sabu

I like how Sandman just takes his time here with his normal entrance despite the fact that Dreamer was in trouble.

Sabu dives into Sandman’s kidney through the ropes. That seemed dangerous.

Sandman throws a ladder at Sabu’s head that could easily have hit a fan. Looked great though.

Sandman pretty much legdrops himself through a table on the floor but kinda gets Sabu. Really sloppy match, but it looks sick when the spots actually hit.

The match is literally spot after spot. It’s like a rehearsal.

Sabu and Sandman fall over on one spot, which leads to Sandman comically rolling over the ladder.

Fans aren’t buying it.

If I were to guess by that somersault senton through the table, I’d say Sandman is drunk.

We get a screwed up fireball by Sabu.

Sabu pinned The Sandman in 20:55. Atomic Arabian Facebuster with a Ladder for the win. Pretty horrible, but not the worst match of all time. They didn’t even try. It was literally set up spot, do spot, maybe hit spot. At least some of the spots look cool, like the javelin ladder. And we got some violence. Crowd seemed to hate it though. Or not care.

Taz is here for commentary! Actually he just challenges Bigelow to a match at Living Dangerously…4 months from now.

Random personal thing: I always disliked Bigelow’s grey color scheme, I just thought the orange and red flames were better.

We are near Douglas’ hometown, so he gets the cheers. Bigelow though was kinda a bad ass face, so it works anyway. He doesn’t care.

This is all Bigelow. While Bigelow’s offense looks good, Douglas as the hometown face in peril, considering his character at the time, just doesn’t work.

Douglas tries an over the top rope hurricanrana and gets powerbombed through a table. That was real believable.

The Triple Threat run down, even though they are banned, and Bigelow tosses Douglas over the top rope and wipes them out. Bigelow is putting on a typical Bigelow performance here, and that’s not a bad thing.

Shane Douglas wins the ECW Title in 25:02. Douglas gets a belly to belly through a half table propped up by a chair (the hell?) and gets the three. Douglas just doesn’t cut it as hometown face in peril and the match suffers greatly. This is the kind of match Bam Bam and Bret Hart would have owned with four years prior. Crowd popped huge. I’ll call it decent.

Second ECW PPV in a row where Douglas wins the World Title. He would hold it through 1999 because of injuries, allowing ECW to become the Taz and RVD show.

Nothing on this show barring Sabu and Sandman is horrible. I’d even go as far to say I liked the show. But we aren’t getting into B territory with the crap finishes to the tag title and Dreamer-RVD match. Nevermind Sabu vs. Sandman’s blatant spotfest.

Historically, well, Taz and RVD looked great, no?

Final Grade: C+

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews ECW Hardcore Heaven ’97

March 13, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

ECW Hardcore Heaven ‘97
August 17, 1997
Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Reviewed on April 1, 2014

Background: I coved a lot of this in the Barely Legal review, so I’ll go from there.

Now that ECW has gained some national recognition, spirits in the ECW seemed high…for a little while. Unfortunately because of that high profile WCW would continue to pillage stars (ok, WCW was fighting a wrestling war too). ECW had put the finish of the two year long Raven vs. Tommy Dreamer feud on one of their big non PPV shows, as Raven bolted to WCW. But the ending angle for that match is what leads us to a very important part of ECW’s 1997.

Remember back in February of 97, there was the ECW invasion of RAW. Well, this time it was the WWF’s turn. Jerry Lawler invaded the ECW arena on the night Dreamer beat Raven. This tied in with Rob Van Dam’s Barely Legal angle…about how he was worth more money elsewhere. RVD even wrestled on an edition of RAW. So, RVD, Sabu and Lawler beat the crap out ECW. Jim Cornette showed up one night too. And while I think the angle itself is pretty awesome…you have to admit that Jerry Lawler wasn’t exactlyShawn Michaels in terms of statue. Nonetheless, it was an interesting angle (and, I should point out, I am surprised that ECW fans forgave RVD for this angle the next year).

Some storyline notes: Taz choked out Shane Douglas to win the TV title…and Sabu actually won the ECW Title from Terry Funk a week before this event in a crazy barbed wire match (one of the sickest matches I’ve ever seen. I believe Sabu only won the title because in the way Funk and Sabu got tangled and Sabu was on top of Funk. Not sure if true though).

The Card

Arena looks really small here.

Big heat for Jerry Lawler’s name.

Here comes Rick Rude! How, ECW-like?

Heavy You Sold Out chants….people must have known already he was returning to the WWF in a few weeks after this.

Joey Styles actually says that Rude sold out to a boytoy from another organization. So there you have it.

Rude intros Chris Candido. Tod Gordon tells Rude he has to leave or Candido forfeits the upcoming TV title match. I’m guessing this was Rude’s last appearance.

You know, the ECW TV title belt always looked better than the ECW World title belt.

Cool start with Candido pushing and spitting at Taz, and Taz no selling all of it. Taz eventually counters a leapfrog and drops Candido on his head.

Nice powerbomb from Candido!

Candido is getting a lot of offense, a lot more than I expected.

Damn Freestyle Bow and Arrow from Taz. You don’t see that everyday.

Taz retains the title when he choked out Candido in 10:52. Tazmission gets the win. Pretty solid opener. Not sure if the Triple Threat existed yet, but if it did it does make sense for Taz to start with Candido here on the loooong path to Douglas.

We get some Insane Clown Posse? Ok?

RVD beats them up! Nice!

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Spike Dudley

The match on ECW Hardcore TV they had right before this is the match that got me into ECW. Spike upset Bigelow and the way Joey Styles calls it is amazing (“Spike can tell his grandkids he got a 2 count on Bam Bam Bigelow!”) Spike being bodypressed into the crowd was another thing.

Always liked the grey color on Bam Bam. Felt more badass.

Bam Bam is in the Triple Threat…which answers my earlier question.

Bam Bam is just murdering poor Spike here.

Bam Bam just tosses Spike from the ring into the crowd!

Ridiculous inverted Greetings From Asbury Park.

Bam Bam Bigelow pinned Spike Dudley in 5:05. Moonsault for the win. Hand it to Paul Heyman to book a squash match I cared about. All because of one upset. Poor Spike.

Apparently, RVD and Sabu took out The Sandman too.

Rob Van Dam vs. Al Snow

This will be contested under Monday Night Rules!

Snow is still in the Rocker gear. This was still pre-head.

Snow looks annoyed with Bill Alfonso’s whistleblowing.

Amazing how Snow looks so much better than when he was jobbing to Flash Funk.

Always liked RVD’s railing moonsault.

RVD’s Five Star Frog Splash wasn’t his finisher yet!

Rob Van Dam pins Al Snow in 13:43. Van Daminator for the win. Good match. Showed both that RVD was really getting there as a performer, and Al Snow showed that he wasn’t just some joke wrestler.

The Sandman has taken over the ambulance he was in! But he’s lost!

Jerry Lawler promo!

We’ve got Dudleys in the ring. And adult actress Jenna Jameson. But more importantly, Dudleys!

Apparently this was supposed to be Tag Champs the Gangstas vs. The Dudleys, but Gangstas were taken out. Dudleys new champs? Leading us to…

This is basically heel vs. heel. Since PG-13 is from the Jerry Lawler based USWA.

JC Ice runs out and kisses Jameson. She reacts like he’s the most disgusting thing ever in her mouth. That’s pretty bad JC.

Dudley arguing! Leads to an awesome heel spot as Big Dick Dudley attacks the distracted PG-13.

Jameson gets a bounce chant…and she obliges. This match sucks by the way.

The Dudley Boys retain when Bubba pins Wolfie D in 10:58. 3D for the win. Confusing match as PG-13 acted as faces? Also, very hard to take PG-13 seriously as a threat here. Points for Jenna Jameson involvement though! In all seriousness, not a good match. JC Ice says Bubba’s mother is a ho. Storyline wise…that’s true, no?

Still following the Sandman here. Weird.

Jerry Lawler in the house!

Another promo…and an In Your House: Ground Zero plug!

Tommy Dreamer vs. Jerry Lawler

Lawler always took one of the best over the top rope bumps in the business.

Fighting in the crowd! I’m surprised fans don’t kill Lawler.

Lawler’s a solid brawler. I wonder why the WWF didn’t use him more as a midcard heel in the Attitude era. Lawler could still go.

Lawler with some great heel stuff. He wipes his ass with Dreamer’s ECW shirt.

Dreamer is EXTREMING UP!

Lawler DDT’s the ref!

Lights go out…RICK RUDE is back! Smashes Dreamer with a garbage can!

Dreamer gets control…lights out again!

Jake The Snake Roberts! Drops Dreamer with a vicious DDT!

Jake shortarm clotheslines Lawler. Good history there with their 96 feud.

ANOTHER LIGHTS OUT.

It’s Sunny! Hairspray to the eyes of Dreamer!

Tommy Dreamer pins Jerry Lawler in 18:57. DDT! Pretty solid brawl to be fair, but tons of overbooking. Rude, Jake and Sunny? A little too much. But this isn’t bad or anything.

Styles hypes the famous Sabu-Douglas-Funk match in 1994.

More Sandman stuff. He’s near the arena!

Sandman canes some people outside the arena. I don’t even know what to make of this.

Three Way Dance is an elimination match.

Strange start with Funk standing on the outside and Douglas and Sabu going at it. Soon though, Douglas and Sabu double team Funk.

Loved Douglas’ selling of a German Suplex there.

Sabu’s Asai Moonsault seemed twisted…which was great.

Some really weak chairshots in this one.

Double sleeper!

Sabu hits both men with the triple jump moonsault. Double kicksout. Not gonna lie, this match is pretty damn boring.

Weak chairshots all around.

Tod Gordon just saved Terry Funk from a table. OK?

Sabu drives Gordon and Alfonso through a table. I’m confused on what’s going on now.

We have a ladder in the ring now. Ladders for everyone!

Sandman’s here! He attacks Sabu!

Douglas and Funk double pin Sabu. That means we will have a new ECW Champion!

Funk is bashing his own head with a garbage can now. Weird.

I just can’t take Douglas’ Belly to Belly as a serious finisher.

Dory Funk Jr.? Seriously?

Some weird table bump. This match has fallen apart.

Funk kicks out of another Belly to Belly. Then he kicks out of a 3rd one!

Shane Douglas pins Terry Funk to win the title in 26:37. Douglas hits another belly to belly for the win. Bad finish. Sorry but the belly to belly is a horrid finisher. I don’t know what the fuck was going on at the end. Dory Funk Jr. was in the ring. And the Sandman. Whatever. Douglas tried, I’ll give him that, and I actually like him as a World Champ at this point. Still, anti-climactic finish.

Douglas now whips Funk with a belt. Dudleys out here now to keep being up on Funk. Gertner wants Douglas to join the Dudleys! Now Candido and Bigelow are out here. Triple-Threat vs. Dudleys brawl!

ECW locker room is out here. Once again no idea what is going on.

Chair Swingin Freaks out here now attacking the Dudleys. Why are we doing this?

Oh man, the debut of the Gangstanators, New Jack and Kronus! This happened because Mustafa was awful and left, and Saturn went to WCW.

Actually, Saturn on one leg is here? How about that. I am confused. So this show ends with a Dudley beat down?

What a weird ending.

Not sure what to say about this show. Started off fun enough but tailed off with the PG-13 vs. Dudleys match. But Candido vs. Taz was fine. I enjoyed Spike vs. Bigelow for what it was (an ass kicking). Snow vs. RVD was solid. PG-13 vs. Dudleys was meh. Dreamer vs. Lawler was fun until the 8 billion run-ins…although that wasn’t really bad either. The main event was a mess with a poor finish. Douglas winning was fine. What the hell was the New Jack ending? Why didn’t this happen earlier in the show? Did Heyman know that fans would shit on the Douglas finish?

Historically, this show seems irrelevant. Taz was hardly featured. RVD didn’t do that much. Douglas is Douglas.

But there is some good stuff in it, so there is that.

Final Grade: C+

RDT World of Sport

Monthly Archives: March 2015

RDT Reviews WCW Bash at the Beach ’98

RDT Reviews WWF King of the Ring ’98

RDT Reviews WCW Slamboree ’98

RDT Reviews ECW Wrestlepalooza ’98

RDT Reviews Wrestlemania XIV

RDT Reviews ECW Living Dangerously ’98

Two Examples of Unlucky #13 in Sports

RDT Reviews WWF In Your House XIX: De-Generation X

RDT Reviews ECW November to Remember ’97

RDT Reviews ECW Hardcore Heaven ’97

And Games….And All Fun Stuff!