Category Archives: Pro Wrestling

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews ECW November to Remember ’98

November to Remember ‘98
November 1, 1998
New Orleans, LA

There’s nothing special about ECW anymore.

I wrote that last time but it’s truer than ever at this point. Unfortunately for ECW, the WWF has mastered the extreme style and ECW just doesn’t have the talent to keep up. ECW did have enough talent to run good shows though, evident by their last PPV Heatwave ’98. It was easily the best PPV in company history. The momentum from the Taz vs. Shane Douglas feud and the budding popularity of Rob Van Dam has kept ECW afloat.

November to Remember is the Wrestlemania of ECW. Can Paul E. deliver a Wrestlemania-type show?

The Card

New Jack beats the crap out of Jack Victory in a parking lot. I never really liked New Jack outside of hid feuds with the Dudleys.

New Jack gets taken away, I guess he won’t be on the show tonight.

Another good venue choice. The Lakefront Arena looks bigger than the standard ECW arena.

Terry Funk shows up with a graduation cap on. A good surprise so far.

Funk for some reason turns heel by running down Paul E. and Tommy Dreamer. What a bad way to start. I mean what the hell?

He’s apparently angry no one invited him to the show. This sucks.

Super Nova and the Blue Meanie vs. Roadkill and Danny Doring

Doring and Roadkill don’t even get an entrance.

Terry Funk wanders back out here and he’s still bitching. Who thought this was a good idea. Honestly?

Nova and Meanie have a move called the “Super Duper Double Looper”. How about that.

For some reason Terry Funk gets on the apron and slaps Meanie, and Meanie lets him have it.

Funk legdrops himself through a table. WHAT IS GOING ON?!

The Blue Meanie and Super Nova win when Meanie pinned Doring in 10:54. Really fun finish where Nova hits a Frog Splash, Meanie hits the Meaniesault, then they hit the Blue Light Special (DDT/Inverted Powerbomb) for the win. Fun little match here that got a bit screwed up from the Funk thing. Speaking of Funk, he’s back and he takes out Meanie and Nova. Just ugh.

Paul E. comes out and gets Terry away from ringside.

Tracy Smothers vs. Tommy Rogers

Chris Chetti is with Rogers and Ulf Hermann is with Smothers. So this will probably be a tag.

Smothers looks really old for some reason.

This didn’t turn into a tag but since Ulf kept getting involved, Chetti fights him on the outside.

There’s a pin where Rogers’ shoulder is CLEARLY off the mat. What the hell is this?

Tommy Rogers pins Tracy Smothers in 7:51. Tamikaze for the win. Joey Styles makes it a point to explain that the move is the most imitated move in professional wrestling, which is a shot at the WWF’s Christian as it is the same as the Unprettier. Anyway, this was boring and really sloppy.

The Full Blooded Italians tease a break-up, but then Tommy Rogers get attacked.

Suddenly Mabel of all people with a FBI shirt comes out. Huh?

Mabel and Hermann beat the crap out of Chetti before Spike Dudley shows up. Dudley takes both out with Acid Drops, and a ref counts the pin. I guess the fans reacted to Spike.

By the way, if this is the Wrestlemania of ECW, the promotion should have just given up at this point.

Lance Storm vs. Jerry Lynn

Mikey Whipwreck and Tammy Lynn Sytch are our referees.

Part of the story here is that Sytch and Storm’s valet Tammy Lynn Bytch hate one another. Bytch is the future Dawn Marie of course.

Great wrestling sequence to start.

Sytch fast counts Storm of course.

We get a really fast paced solid match…until the gimmick gets involved…

So Bytch and Sytch go at it, to which Sytch strips Bytch. Whipwreck tries to get Bytch out and eventually hits her with a Whippersnapper (which she accidentally no sells, ha!). Then Whipwreck Whippersnaps Lynn, but Storm low blows Whipwreck and shoves him out. Sytch then makes the slowest count in the world for Storm so Lynn can kick out. What a way to screw up a good match.

Lance Storm pins Jerry Lynn in 16:48. The overbooking gets worse. Sytch nails Storm with a Whippersnapper. Whipwreck nails Sytch with a botched Whippersnapper (as Styles says it, it’s because he must have thought she low blowed him earlier). Lynn rolls up Storm, but Mikey reverses it and fast counts Lynn out so Storm can win. What a mess. It was good before all of that.

And now more Terry Funk. I love Funk, but he’s been horribly misused here. He says he’s gone forever and he’s sorry for making an ass out of himself.

ECW World Tag Team Championship
The Dudley Boys© vs. Masato Tanaka and Balls Mahoney

Axl Rotten is hurt, which is why we have Tanaka.

Masato Tanaka hits a nice plancha off of Balls’ back.

Balls heads to the top…then botches the spot by falling off. Mahoney needs to stick to just crawling and fighting.

Bubba Ray Dudley is doing planchas now. Cool I guess.

We get a huge chair showdown, to which Mahoney and Tanaka no sell some chair shots. The Dudleys telegraph the reversal as well and take Roaring Elbows into the chairs into their faces (which looks terrible). Referee Jeff Jones though fakes an injury and doesn’t count the Dudleys out. More overbooked garbage.

Tanaka survives 3D. Shame that spot is wasted here.

D-Von actually botches getting a table into the ring as he brings a wire with it. That was hilarious.

Tanaka and Mahoney win the title in 15:01 via double pin.RVD and Sabu come in and drive the Dudleys through a pair of tables. Man these finishes are a mess. Match was drawn out and bad. Another run-in finish. Just not good all around. Masato Tanaka is pretty much wasted here. They would hold the belts for like a week I believe.

For some reason we get the battle of the Triple Threat promo video a little early, as we have one more match before it. To be fair, Six Man Tag or not, the main event does feel like a big deal.

Justin Credible and Jack Victory vs. Tommy Dreamer and a Mystery Partner

And that mystery is Jake Roberts. In 1998. Yikes.

Jake didn’t even try with his attire. He looks like he’s about to go golfing or something.

We get a decent Dreamer vs. Credible match, then for some reason Credible tags in Jason. Jason isn’t a participant in this match.

Rod Price and One Man Gang run-in! What’s a match on this PPV without some kind of bullshit run in now?

Here we go with New Jack…we get John Kronus too. Usually clusterfuck commences.

Kronus hits the 450 Splash…and the ref was about to count Credible out there. The refs don’t even know what’s going on.

I wonder if Jake looked at all this and wondered what the hell happened to his career.

Mr. Wright flips in and botches the landing. Jake takes him out anyway.

Now we have Nicole Bass in there. Jake drops her with a DDT.

Tommy Dreamer and Jake Roberts win when both pin Credible in 12:26. Jake drops Credible with a DDT on the ladder for the finish. What a mess. What a damn mess. That’s all there is to say really.

God it’s Terry Funk again. He’s mad Dreamer picked Jake Roberts and not him. Awful. Dreamer turns his back on Funk and Funk lays him out. This absolutely sucks.

RVD really wasn’t that bad of a promo guy in ECW.

Taz, Sabu and Rob Van Dam vs. Shane Douglas, Bam Bam Bigelow and Chris Candido

The main part of this story is Taz’s 15 month chase of the ECW World Title held by Douglas. Douglas has been hurt for months and is somehow still the champ. As a side note, RVD, Sabu and Taz have all had their problems.

This definitely was the top three faces against the top heel faction. As I said before, if it delivers it will be a worthy main event.

The Dudleys attack RVD and Sabu on the ramp. I can’t take this anymore. At least it made sense since RVD and Sabu attacked them earlier.

For some reason, Sabu spends the entire match as the face in peril. I have a few issues with this. One, this is a waste of Sabu. We don’t wait for Sabu in the main event to get beat down by three heels in a wrestling manner. Two, Taz is the one who has the real issue with the Triple Threat and the heat should be on him.

RVD makes the tag I think (so much for the hot Taz tag), but then after some brawling Sabu’s getting beat down again. For some reason Chris Candido puts Taz through a table on the outside but we don’t see it.

There are tons of botches here too. Sabu misses a slingshot legdrop that’s supposed to hit. RVD whips Douglas into the corner and Douglas expects to be hit with something and instead RVD attacks Bigelow. There’s a weird rolling spot where Douglas turns before RVD. Tons of bad stuff.

The crowd is dead for when Taz finally gets Douglas in the ring, and then RVD steals the crowd with a flip into the crowd.

Sabu, Rob Van Dam and Taz win when Sabu pinned Douglas in 12:57. Even the finish is botched. Taz locks Douglas in the Taz-Mission, but Sabu comes off the top with the Arabian Facecrusher (and really only hits Taz). He pins Douglas for the win. What a bad main event. Nothing clicked and it was full of botches. The booking set up Taz vs. Sabu in the future, but we haven’t even done Taz vs. Douglas yet. Which by the way, the crowd seems sick of Douglas overall at this point.

That’s the flagship PPV for ECW? Yikes. The Terry Funk stuff was embarrassing. Jake Roberts looked like he didn’t really care to be there. Mabel? Storm vs. Lynn and the opener is just enough to get me away from F. Barely.

Final Grade: D

Pro Wrestling

World Championship Injuries: A History of Injures and a Vacant World Title

With the unfortunate news that Seth Rollins tore his ACL and MCL last night, we have a vacated WWE World Heavyweight Championship. It isn’t the first time that the World Champion was forced to vacate a championship due to injury, and it certainly won’t be the last. Let’s look back at some unfortunate times where the Champ went down. I’m only considering WWE and WCW World Champions for this list.

Shawn Michaels – February 13, 1997

hbkinjury

                Shawn Michaels was in his 2nd reign as WWF Champion after holding onto the title for most of 1996. Michaels had pinned Sid in his hometown of San Antonio at the Royal Rumble. There was tons of controversy surrounding Michaels’ at the time. According to HBK in his book, a doctor told him his knee was damaged beyond repair and he’d need to retire immediately. No one in the locker room, especially Bret Hart, believed Michaels and thought it was HBK’s way of getting out of doing a job, presumably to Bret. To tentative plan was for Bret to extract revenge on Shawn at Wrestlemania XIII for the previous Mania’s loss. When Michaels forfeited the title on Thursday RAW Thursday, the Fatal Four Way Match at the upcoming In Your House PPV turned into a title match. Bret would win that, but drop the title to Sid the next night. HBK would be back in the ring by June.

Bret Hart – January 16, 2000

bretinjury

                At Starrcade ’99 Goldberg had kicked Bret Hart in the head, leading to a severe concussion. Bret continued to wrestle for a couple of weeks thinking it wasn’t too bad and he’d be fine. When Bret got himself checked out, the chairman of the NHL injury committee told him his career was over. Bret’s last match (at the time) was on Nitro against Kevin Nash. The WCW World Title wouldn’t gain any stability for a while. Chris Benoit would win the vacant title from Sid in a tournament, but he’d give the title up one day later and jump to the WWF.

Batista – January 13, 2006

batistainjury1

                While he battled through injuries throughout the latter half of his title reign, Batista suffered a torn triceps that forced him to vacate the World Heavyweight Championship that he held since Wrestlemania XXI. This led to a battle royal on Smackdown, where Kurt Angle would begin his last World Title reign, which would in turn lead to the Rey Mysterio World Title run. Batista would be back in mid ’06, and feuded with Mark Henry and Mr. Kennedy.

Edge – July 20, 2007

edgeinjury1

                Earlier in 2007, then-World Champion The Undertaker had a partially torn pectoral which led to the decision to have Edge win Mr. Kennedy’s Money in the Bank contract and cash in. At the time, Vince McMahon did not want Batista to hold the title. During an Edge-Kane program, Kane injured Edge with a chokeslam, leading to a torn pectoral. The decision was made to put the World Title on The Great Khali as he won a 20 Man Battle Royal on Smackdown. Khali would eventually drop the title to Batista. Batista and Undertaker would continue their war when Taker came back, and then Edge would get in the mix again.

John Cena – October 2, 2007

cenainjury

                Cena was in month thirteen of his WWE Championship reign when he tore his pectoral muscle in a match with Mr. Kennedy on the October 1st edition of RAW. The seemingly superhuman Cena’s injury was a shock to many…but he once again became superhuman when he returned quickly at the 2008 Royal Rumble. Unfortunately for Randy Orton, this cut short a feud that finally had Orton reaching that elite level of success he’d failed to achieve since his first World Title reign in 2004. While he didn’t get the clean victory of Cena, he did get a lot of help at No Mercy. The new plan had Orton be handed the title, only for HHH to beat him for it. HHH returned the favor cleanly in a Last Man Standing Match and gave Orton that big win.

Batista – June 9, 2009

batistainjury2

                Just two days after Batista beat Randy Orton for the title he was forced to forfeit the title due to a torn pectoral muscle. Orton would regain the title in a Fatal Four Way Match on RAW against Big Show, John Cena and Triple H. This would lead to Orton and Cena’s biggest rivalry in late 2009. Batista would return later in 2009 and turn on Rey Mysterio, leading to perhaps the most entertaining version of Batista we’d ever get.

Edge – April 12, 2011

edgeinjury2

                While the actual moment his injury occurred is unclear, Edge was forced to retire due to a neck injury. While he does grab his neck on the April 9th edition of Smackdown after he takes out Brodius Clay, Edge has stated that it was probably years of wear and tear on the neck and that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. Christian would take Edge’s place in a Ladder Match at Backlash against Alberto Del Rio and win his first World Title…only to drop it to Randy Orton two days later (that went over real well with the IWC).

Daniel Bryan – June 9, 2014

bryaninjury

                Looking back, it’s still incredible just how over Daniel Bryan was in the beginning of 2014. While the fans forced WWE management’s hand (in the ring AND backstage) and Bryan got his Wrestlemania moment, it seemed that management (storyline wise AND backstage) wasn’t completely behind him as champion. At Extreme Rules Bryan’s first World Title defense was against a way past his prime Kane. Didn’t matter, Bryan was so good he tore the house down. Bryan would suffer a neck injury shortly afterwards that still plagues him to this day (it forced him to vacate the Intercontinental Championship this year). What a shame. John Cena would win the title in a special Money in the Bank Ladder Match…and then Brock Lesnar destroyed him for it afterwards.

Seth Rollins – November 15, 2015

rollinsinjury

                This leads us to Rollins, who had a hell of a year as World Champion since Wrestlemania. He injured his knee in a match against Kane in Ireland, leading to a tournament at Survivor Series 2015. He was scheduled to face Roman Reigns for the title at that event.

 

 

 

 

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WWF InVasion

WWF InVasion
July 22, 2001
Cleveland, OH

When Vince McMahon bought WCW it was obvious wrestling was going to change forever. Fans hoped that it would be in a good way. Afterall, the WWF had been doing amazing business for years behind Vince’s booking and the year 2000 alone received critical acclaim in the ring (compared to ’98 and ’99, where despite the great business there was some horrible wrestling out there).

Now it’s not Vince’s fault that he couldn’t get all of the big players in WCW. Because of the outlandish deals with Ted Turner, there was no Sting, no Goldberg, etc. The biggest names the WWF received were Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page. To be honest, with the WWF hype machine behind each of them both could have been major players and the disappointment of no top WCW guys could have been at least lessened. And while the WWF completely missed with Page with the whole stalker of Undertaker’s wife angle, the WWF actually did a really good job with Booker T for the most part. Booker came in at King of the Ring 2001, dropped Stone Cold on his head through a table (which probably was a big reason he didn’t get the super push, as he legitimately hurt Austin here) and actually looked like a big deal. He was clearly the wrestling leader of this pack. The only thing that went wrong really was that match against Buff Bagwell that was pretty awful. Why they couldn’t just put Booker against someone like Chris Jericho orKurt Angle early on is a mystery to me. We really needed to have “authentic” WCW guys? The failure of the Booker-Bagwell match changed the angle big time, but it should be pointed out that Booker T was the leader of this Alliance team heading into the PPV.

When ECW entered the picture, it seemed really cool for one night until we realized these were all WWF guys sans Rob Van Dam and Tommy Dreamer. For the record, as underrated as Rhyno was at the time, it should have come as no surprise that Rob Van Dam would be crazy over. RVD in the main could have helped. Nonetheless, when Stephanie McMahon was introduced as owner of ECW…well, it should have been obvious that this angle just wasn’t going to be what we were all hoping for.

Still, InVasion posted one of the biggest buyrates in WWF history, so despite the mess of booking, WWF vs. WCW and ECW was the main draw here. So let’s see how it goes.

The Card

Lance Storm and Mike Awesome vs. Edge and Christian

One of the issues with the InVasion: some guys turning when their role was working out so well. Not sure, it looked like an Edge face turn was in the works, but we loved Edge and Christian as a heel team.

Christian nearly kills himself early on by not getting enough height jumping over the top rope onto Storm and Awesome.

One reason J.R. is amazing on commentary: he sees the botch and after explaining how important InVasion is, explains that Edge and Christian have pre-match jitters. Just really smart.

If there was ever someone who had all the physical tools but who’s mic skills held him back, it was Mike Awesome. His frog splash was just incredible.

Christian really works as a face-in-peril.

Edge and Christian win when Edge pinned Awesome in 10:10. Awesome went for an Awesome Bomb on Edge, but Christian speared him and Edge landed on top for the win. Good opener for sure. During the match, Michael Cole and J.R. really put over this match as one of the most important ever due to it being the opener for the InVasion. The effort is great. Problem is, as we’ll see later, those words were very overblown and made Cole and J.R. look stupid.

Pretty funny promo with Vince and William Regal as Vince wants Regal to be like the Americans during the Revolutionary War. Not only is it funny on the surface because Regal is British, but it’s also funny because the idea that the WWF is the underdog here is ridiculous.

Nick Patrick vs. Earl Hebner
Mick Foley is the Special Guest Referee

Vince had access to so much talent now that we needed referees to wrestle. Great.

In all those wrestling magazines, how many “dream WWF vs. WCW card” articles had Patrick vs. Hebner on there?

We get an referee brawl on the outside! Foley throws the WCW referees out.

Earl Hebner pins Nick Patrick in 2:50. Patrick argues with Foley, allowing Hebner to tackle him for the three. This was awful but at least short. What was Vince thinking here?! 2-0 WWF. Foley blasts Patrick afterward and gets Mr. Socko on him.

Tough Enough commercial! Weird that the first one was 14 years ago.

Ugh, stalker DDP was so awful.

Sara (Taker’s wife) calls Taker Mark when talking to Debra. That was pretty unexpected.

The APA vs. Sean O’Haire and Chuck Palumbo

WWF vs. WCW Tag Champs here. I do like how the APA were like the midcard leaders on-screen. O’Haire and Palumbo were only the tag champs in WCW as WCW was finally trying to use their younger talent. They definitely had potential though.

Fun fact: Faarooq is a former WCW World Champion. I thought that could have been a fun little turn during the InVasion storyline.

The APA win when Bradshaw pins Chuck Palumbo in 7:17. Clothesline From Hell takes out Palumbo after Palumbo “hit” Faarooq with a superkick. This was okay I guess. I do think the wrong team won, but then again the WWF never went with Palumbo and O’Haire. 3-0 WWF, which seems ridiculous at this point.

Billy Kidman vs. X-Pac

Kidman was the WCW Cruiserweight Champion and X-Pac was the WWF Lightheavyweight Champion.

X-Pac is booed out of the building. And you know, that’s a good example of the WWF NOT changing someone’s alignment just because they’re team WWF. Not that they could at this point anyway.

It should be pointed out that it was a really good idea for the WWF to put the WCW Cruiserweight Title on Kidman. I considered Kidman to be in the top tier of WCW Cruiserweights, and in fact he was the last guy to get to that point in 1998.

Weird dynamic here as I think the fans want to cheer for Kidman…but can’t quite bring themselves to do it because he’s a WCW guy.

Another weird dynamic: X-Pac’s trying to wrestle a riskier, high flying style but can’t quite do it (he had stopped after his neck injury in the mid 90s). It really makes for a mess of a match unfortunately.

Billy Kidman pins X-Pac in 7:12. Kidman hits the Shooting Star Press and the fans pop. And rightfully so, that move is awesome. So much for not cheering Kidman. Give X-Pac credit too, he let Kidman kickout of an X-Factor and jobbed to Kidman’s best move. Still not a good match though.

3-1 WWF! The Alliance is on board!

DDP quote: “Debra is sweet but she’s no Sara.” Yeah, like we don’t know DDP is married to Kimberly. Come on now.

Torrie Wilson and Stacy Keibler feel disappointed for the fans that they’ll have to settle for seeing Trish and Lita in their panties. I mean, it’s win-win either way, but I do agree Torrie and Stacy are hotter.

William Regal vs. Raven

Before watching this I could predict that this would be a huge clash of styles.

And that’s exactly what we get. Face Regal wasn’t really working either.

The timing for everything is just off. A clothesline from Raven is timed incorrectly. A bulldog from Raven, same thing. It’s not actively bad, but it is noticeable. Crowd is completely quiet as well.

Raven pins Regal in 6:34. Tazz runs in and hits a T-Bone Suplex to Regal…and Raven hits a sloppy Evenflow DDT for the win. 3-2 WCW.

Big Show, Billy Gunn and Albert vs. Sean Stasiak, Kanyon and Hugh Morrus

I know the WWF was quite low on Big Show at this point, but Show on the WCW team would have made a lot of sense and helped the star power issue.

Nice Meat chants for Stasiak.

Morrus, Stasiak and Kanyon win when Morrus pins Gunn in 4:23. Match can be described this way: WWF guys destroy WCW guys, WCW gets a cheap win. What a joke. Also, the Big Show destroys the WCW guys after the match too. Real waste of Kanyon here too. But we’re tied!

Oh, sorry, WCW/ECW is up 4-3 now. Apparently Chavo Guerrero Jr’s victory over Scotty 2 Hotty counts. Way to ignore than when the WWF was up 3-0.

Tazz vs. Tajiri

Tazz is ECW, Tajiri is WWF. Isn’t it crazy how just two years prior this was an ECW PPV World Title Match?

By the way, I would have put Tajiri in X-Pac’s spot here.

Tajiri pins Tazz in 5:44. Tajiri gets the Green Mist and kicks Tazz in the face for the win. Fun little match here where Tajiri took a lot of Tazz’s offense. Too bad it wasn’t longer. 4-4.

RVD takes Matt Hardy out with a chair right in Jeff Hardy’s face. Pretty awesome segment.

Hardcore Holly berates a WCW fan at WWF New York. Also a funny segment.

WWF Hardcore Championship
Jeff Hardy© vs. Rob Van Dam

Really…the first match on this card that really makes of sense. RVD vs. Jeff Hardy in a battle of the daredevils.

I wish after RVD just took Matt Hardy out that Jeff ran down to take out RVD.

HUGE RVD chants.

A really creative start, including Jeff legdropping RVD in a way where RVD ends up crunched like an accordion.

With all the hotdogging he’s doing, I can’t help but think RVD would have made for an awesome WWF heel. Of course, he’d be cheered, but who cares!

Seeing RVD in the WWF for the “first” time was crazy. All these crazy moves that worked in ECW…worked in the WWF too! For example…a moonsault off the barricade in the crowd. This was true for Tajiri as well, but it really got RVD over big time.

Spinning heel kick off the apron onto a hanging Jeff Hardy on the barricade. Years later people would complain it was the same old shit with RVD, but in 2001 on a global stage: holy shit.

Jeff Hardy with a sunset flip powerbomb from the ring onto the floor! RVD just gets slammed on the floor. Sick spot.

In one of my favorite spots ever, Jeff beats RVD down with a chair, leading RVD to beg from his knees for Jeff to stop. In a split second, RVD hops to his feet and hits the Van Daminator and sends off flying off the stage. Just wow.

RVD takes a DDT and a German Suplex and sells it the only way RVD can. Great stuff here.

RVD pins Jeff Hardy to win the title in 12:24. Jeff misses the Swanton…and RVD hits the Five Star Frog Splash for the win. A really fun spotfest that seemed revolutionary at the time. Great match. The first (and ultimately, only) match on this supercard that really felt it belonged.

5-4 WCW/ECW!

Bra and Panties Match
Trish Stratus and Lita vs. Torrie Wilson and Stacy Keibler

In the funniest moment of the entire event Mick Foley comes out to referee. That was pretty good.

There’s a pretty good story surrounding this: Torrie and Stacy tried to seduce the Hardyz.

Lita and Trish win in 5:03. There’s actually some decent fighting in this, although clearly that’s not the purpose. Fun of course. Oh and we’re tied!

The Inaugural Brawl
Team Alliance (Booker T, Diamond Dallas Page, Rhyno and the Dudley Boyz) vs. Team WWF (Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Kane, Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho)

One of the big selling points of this match was that the old Stone Cold was coming to InVasion. After being a cowardly heel for four months, Austin’s return to being a bad ass was nothing short of amazing. Just listen to that crowd reaction on RAW. It’s crazy. Honestly, if you told me that really sold the show instead of the actual InVasion I actually might agree.

Obviously Austin’s pop is amazing, but Angle gets a big one too. One positive of the InVasion: Kurt Angle getting to that next level.

I can’t help but think that this InVasion could have worked with DDP as the top heel. He’s getting great reactions and he’s a huge name of course.

The match is about 20 minutes of back and forth and while it isn’t bad it is pretty boring overall. Crowd is really into it though.

The match takes a strange turn to get to the finish. Kurt Angle is your Team WWF member in peril, but oddly he’d never make the hot tag as Undertaker just runs in to attack Page. A huge ten man brawl breaks out from that.

Stone Cold hurt his knee! Oh no! Also, everyone else gets taken out somehow. Angle suddenly begins to kick serious ass and the crowd is electric for him.

Team Alliance wins when Booker T pinned Kurt Angle in 29:30. Angle has Booker T locked in the Ankle Lock and tapping, but Stone Cold comes in and hits Angle with a Stunner and turns on the WWF. Booker gets the pin, but it’s Austin who celebrates with Shane, Stephanie and Heyman. Man what a stupid decision that turned out to be for the storyline and Austin’s career (although it helped make Kurt Angle). Match was good I suppose, but it seemed a bit boring at times and the finish sucked.

The angle really could have worked if they went with Booker vs. Rock and Page vs. Austin, but Page apparently pissed too many people off, including Undertaker and it never worked out for him. Booker did go on to fight Rock but after getting beat twice he dropped to the midcard. As for Austin, this was his last chance to regain that babyface level only he and Hogan (and I guess Rock) ever reached, only it was thrown away with this re-turn. When Austin turns face again in December the crowd reaction for him isn’t the same as it once was.

As for this show, I feel like only one match really delivered and that was RVD vs. Jeff Hardy. Yes the opener was good and the Bra and Panties Match was fun, but everything else really left you disappointed. What a shame.

Final Grade: C

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WWE Hell In a Cell 2009

WWE Hell in a Cell 2009
October 4, 2009
Newark, NJ

In 2009 WWE decided to brand their PPVs after match titles. As a result, No Way Out became Elimination Chamber, No Mercy became Hell in a Cell and Armageddon became TLC. Unfortunately, and especially in the Hell in a Cell case, this forced WWE to use these match types at these respective events. Instead of organically having a feud that led to a Hell in a Cell match, fans would expect a feud that began in August or September to have a Hell in a Cell match in October. Also, this ruled out having Hell in a Cell matches at any other point in time, taking away a potentially exciting twist for feuds that take place during any other part of the year. (This led to tons of excitement when HHH-Taker at Mania XXVIII became a Cell match, since it was absolutely unexpected).

The other issue with this was that WWE had become PG. Now, WWE had become PG about 15 months earlier and Edge and Undertaker had a great Hell in a Cell match anyway, so all hope wasn’t lost. The idea of three HIAC matches on one show had fans salivating at the possibilities of what could happen.

The Card

World Heavyweight Championship: Hell in a Cell
CM Punk© vs. The Undertaker

We had another Montreal Screwjob at Breaking Point, where Teddy Long turned heel and called for the bell when Punk had Taker in the Anaconda Vise. Taker captured Teddy and this forced Teddy to make Punk vs Taker at Hell in a Cell (first point to make about the PPV title…of course we knew this was happening already because the next PPV was Hell in a Cell). So here we are.

This is a surprising opener for sure. Being there live this was the match I was most looking forward to. I was really getting into Punk’s character here…and the Undertaker is the Undertaker.

Match starts fun enough with Taker throwing Punk into the cage.

Taker shoves Punk off the ring apron into the cage. Again, really fun start.

Suicide dive from Punk into Taker and the cage!

Legit shocked at a Punk chair shot to the head to Undertaker. When were headshots banned? I forgot.

The Undertaker pins CM Punk to win the title in 10:24. We get a really fun back and forth for five minutes…then Taker finishes Punk. Man, this was a really fun match that just gets cut off. Give this 6-7 more minutes and you potentially have a classic. Despite the good match, it’s still pretty disappointing in the name of Hell in a Cell. At least at the time it was.

Intercontinental Championship
John Morrison © vs. Dolph Ziggler

At the time Morrison seemingly looked like the future while Ziggler was just a midcard guy. Funny how that’d change over the next two years.

Ziggler starts with some solid mat wrestling, which is something he should do more of honestly.

Match has mostly been Ziggler, but it’s turning into a fun back and forth.

John Morrison retains by pin in 15:41. Starship Pain for the win. Really good match here, but I have to question this going five minutes longer than the opening World Title match. Match did tell a good story in regards to Ziggler getting close but not close enough. I don’t remember what the led to though.

Mysterio and Batista interview. Does a great job with Mysterio referencing his past with Chris Jericho and even hints a little bit about Batista’s future heel turn.

Diva’s Championship
Mickie James © vs. Alicia Fox

Michael Cole mentions…with no hint of irony…that many are shocked Fox is the #1 contender this early in her career. I love Alicia now, but she was awful back then.

This is pretty solid to start, although sometime you can tell Fox’s timing is off (like when she takes the neckbreaker).

Mickie James retains by pin in 5:20. Mickie hits a Tornado DDT that Alicia doesn’t take correctly, and while it looks devastating you have to fear for Alicia there. Anyway, this didn’t seem bad at all, but it was pretty boring and the crowd was dead for it.

World Tag Team Championship
Chris Jericho and Big Show© vs. Batista and Rey Mysterio

It should be noted that Chris Jericho pretty much saved rescued the tag division in the latter half of 2009. He also helped a floundering Big Show, who despite being in a World Title match at Mania and a feud with Cena, had been regulated to fighting Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne before Jericho’s 1st partner, Edge got injured.

With these four top guys contending for the tag belts, it really feels like the Tag belts matter.

Big Show is just killing Rey and it’s awesome. Brutal slap that sends Mysterio to the floor!

Jericho and Show’s beatdown of Mysterio is fantastic. What a good match so far.

Tornado DDT from Rey to Big Show! Wow!

Great sequence where Big Show gets 619ed, then Jericho gets dumped on him. Show catches him, but Batista takes them both down.

Big Show and Jericho retain when Show pinned Rey in 13:41. Rey goes for a springboard, but Show punches him right in the face as he comes down to win it. KO Punch was just getting established here, but it was working for sure. Awesome match. Jericho, Show, Batista and Rey just have awesome chemistry together. It was the perfect finish too, Big Show pinning Rey doesn’t hurt Rey and further established Big Show.

WWE Championship: Hell in a Cell
John Cena© vs. Randy Orton

Orton beat Cena at Summerslam, but Cena got Orton in an “I Quit” match at Breaking Point. Rubber Match time.

Shocked this isn’t the main event. I think that’s a problem too. Either Punk-Taker or Cena-Orton should be main eventing this.

Cena and Orton also went to the top of the Cell on RAW. It was good build for sure.

Here’s the problem with this match. There’s nothing here that’s done to really use Hell in a Cell. It’s just a regular match inside the Cell. I mean what’s the point?

Randy Orton pins John Cena to win the title in 21:24. Orton traps Cena in the ropes and chokes him out…and then finishes with the Punt to regain the title. I liked the finish and Orton’s mannerisms were spot on. He really became an awesome heel in 2008-2009. I still am quite disappointed in the match though.

R-Truth vs. Drew McIntyre

McIntyre is new, and there’s a respect problem between the two. R-Truth has a pretty good promo before the match.

McIntyre still had generic rock music here too. That didn’t help him at all.

No be honest, no one cares. Boring chant breaks out. McIntyre would never make it as a high level guy either…although he definitely had the potential for sure.

Drew McIntyre pins R-Truth in 4:38. Future Shock DDT. If this was designed for the crowd to take a break after Orton-Cena, it succeeded.

Orton tells Dibiase and Rhodes that once you enter Hell in a Cell, you don’t just walk out. I’d take him more seriously if he actually used the Cell in the match.

United States Championship
Kofi Kingston© vs. Jack Swagger vs. The Miz

Miz hilariously runs down Newark. What the heck happened to him? He was so good on the mic.

Miz and Swagger double team Kofi for most of it, but Miz betrays him.

Crowd is dead for this too.

We get some fun three-way spots at least. Kofi’s putting a show on out there.

Kofi Kingston retains when he pinned Miz in 7:53. Swagger hits Miz with the Swagger Bomb, but Kofi knocks him out with Trouble in Paradise. I enjoyed this for the most part, but again, crowd really wasn’t into it and seemed burned out.

Hell in a Cell: Legacy vs. DX

For all that’s said about HHH and HBK holding people down and whatnot, they made Legacy look like stars throughout this feud.

Great booking decision here: Legacy attacks DX during their entrance.

Great brawl to start outside of the ring. Legacy take out Triple H, then slam the cage door on Michaels’ knee. Again, brilliant booking in this one.

In more brilliant booking, Legacy traps HBK in the Cell and lock HHH out!

Legacy proceeds to beat the living crap out of Shawn in the Cell with HHH trying to find ways to get in.

A Million Dollar Dream and a Figure Four around the ringpost at the same time is a pretty awesome double submission. HHH makes his way back in.

DX now trap Dibiase outside of the Cell. Poor Cody.

DX win when HBK pins Rhodes in 18:02. Cody gets a Sweet Chin Sledgehammer, and it’s over. Fantastic booking. I remember being disappointed when I first saw this, but I really don’t know why. This was fun and different, and actually used the HIAC in a unique way. Also, Legacy controlled most of the match, and even in losing looked like future stars. Of course, only Cody would take advantage of that.

Hell in a Cell is an interesting show that promises one thing, but you get something totally different. Sure Taker vs. Punk and Orton vs. Cena were good, but given expectations both fell short. The main event at least did something totally different. The second half of the card also falls off a cliff, as the US Title match and McIntyre-Truth just kills the crowd. IC Title match was fun and Tag Title match stole the show.

Sadly, CM Punk would get pushed down the card for some reason after this (well, after Survivor Series), but everything else storyline wise would progress nicely.

It’s a fine show, but I just can’t get past the expectations of what three Hell in a Cell matches were supposed to be. This was the beginning of WWE watering down its ultimate feud ender.

Final Grade: B-

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WCW Fall Brawl ’95

WCW Fall Brawl ‘95
September 17, 1995
Asheville, NC

The War is on! WCW Nitro had launched two weeks prior to this show and had surprised everyone by being competitive in the ratings with WWF Raw. WCW hit the WWF right where it hurt when they stole Lex Luger away and he made a surprise appearance on the first Nitro. The WWF, with taped shows already in the can, couldn’t do anything to stop WCW early on. WCW also had the first PPV since the Monday Night Wars started, and here it is. The main event here is a bit questionable…we have the four big faces (Sting, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage and Lex Luger) against a heel group without remotely the star power to match the face team (The Dungeon of Doom) so you know who’s winning here. Should WCW just went for the kill right away with Luger and Sting vs. Hogan and Savage? We’ll never know.

Still, a good PPV here and the WWF would really be in trouble. Could WCW pull it off?

The Card

#1 Contender for the United States Championship
Flyin’ Brian vs. Johnny B. Badd

Badd looks exactly like he would a year later as “Wildman” Marc Mero when he was the IC Champ, red outfit and all.

Hilarious first moment. Badd tries to throw a Frisbee into the crowd, but accidentally hits the ringpost and it goes nowhere, getting a noticeable groan from the crowd.

Michael Buffer is announcing the opener. How confusing.

Pretty slow start here. Most notable moment in the first five minutes was a double dropkick.

Beautiful bridge trap by Pillman for a two count.

About eight minutes in Pillman starts to bring out the heel stuff. I expect this to pick up now.

Great variation of the surfboard from Badd. So far this is the best Mero match I’ve ever seen.

Buffer says five minutes remaining…so we know where this is going.

Thing really pick up at this point though. Badd starts to fly with a plancha onto the floor!

Pillman takes out Badd with an awesome dropkick as Badd comes off the top! Only two for that.

The big moves are coming! Powerbomb from Badd gets two, Tombstone from Pillman also gets two!

Badd counters the Tornado DDT from the top!
Ugh. Badd goes into a hold, which doesn’t make sense at this point. There’s only two minutes left!

We get to the time limit, but the referee declares that there has to be a winner considering they need a #1 contender…so overtime!

Great elevation on a top rope sunset flip from Badd. I woulda bought that as a 1995 finish for sure.

Top rope hurricanrana…but Pillman still kicks out.

Pillman hits the Tornado DDT this time…but Badd survives! Great idea for OT not to last a mere 2 minutes or something.

Badd throws Pillman off the top rope onto the guardrail! Ouch!

Pillman hits a suicide dive through the ropes and gets a lot of distance. Announcers claim Pillman didn’t really hit it, which is a shame because it looked awesome.

Johnny B. Badd pins Flyin’ Brian in 29:17. Double crossbody, and despite Pillman landing on top they make it seem like Badd got the best of it and he makes the cover for the win. Pretty disappointing finish considering everything else. I thought this was a great 20 minute match masquerading as a 30 minute match, but that doesn’t change that it was very good overall. Interestingly, both Badd and Pillman would be gone from WCW within six months. Easily the best Badd match I’ve ever seen.

Ric Flair on the mic and he really knows how to sell something special. He talks about the broken families he and Arn Anderson had went through and you can’t help but feel the damaged friendship between them.

Sgt. Craig Pittman vs. Cobra

I have no idea what this feud is about. Looks like a military vs. military thing or something.

Some random soldier comes down to distract Cobra as Pittman comes from the ceiling. Pittman chokes him out with his ammo belt.

Craig Pittman makes Cobra submit in 1:22. Code Red armbreaker for the win. At least this was short. Why was this on the PPV anyway? What was the point?

We get a video of Mr. Wonderful angrily doubting himself in the back. Some psychic tries to talk to him and get him back on track. Uh…Orndorff retired shortly after this. I don’t blame him, this was awful.

WCW Television Championship
The Renegade© vs. Diamond Dallas Page

The Renegade is an Ultimate Warrior ripoff.

Pretty funny how far DDP would come in the next 18 months. He looks ridiculous here.

DDP runs into the ring post by himself then takes a bump over the guardrail. That was strange for sure.

This was a time that Page and Kimberly weren’t getting along because Page treated her like crap. Page does manage to get all the heat here with no help at all from the Renegade.

Renegade’s comeback was pretty decent actually.

Diamond Dallas Page wins the title by pin in 8:07. Maxx Muscle holds Renegade’s foot, and DDP hits a pretty bad Diamond Cutter for the win. Nothing really to say here, although this could have been a lot worse.

WCW World Tag Team Championship
Bunkhouse Buck and Dick Slater© vs. Harlem Heat

The real point of this feud is that there’s some strange relationship deal with Sherri and Col. Robert Parker, which sounds awful just typing it.

Bobby Heenan reciting a poem is the highlight so far. Otherwise, we’ve just had a few minutes of punching and kicking so far.

The crowd is dead quiet here.

Terrible atomic drop from Slater.

Booker gets trapped in there and we get one of the most boring heat segments I’ve ever seen in a major tag team match. Were Slater and Buck just going through the motions here?

In the 2nd ring Sherri starts crawling toward Parker and they start making out…

Harlem Heat win the title when Booker pins Buck in 16:49. The Nasty Boys come out and take out Buck with a boot shot to the heat for Harlem Heat’s win. Parker would move onto co-manage Harlem Heat with Sherri…but they’d lose the belts to The American Males the next night. Anyway, this was awful. Seventeen minutes of just about nothing.

Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson

Flair and Double A had been as close as brothers, but things began to go wrong thanks to Vader. The story pushes that Flair hasn’t been the same for a year since he lost the World title to Hogan. Anderson wanted to see Flair be the best again. Flair blamed Anderson for not helping him at crucial spots.

I love Double A’s demeanor throughout the opening sequence. Just straight out seriousness with the occasional mocking of Flair.

Smart booking decision to have Anderson dominate the early going. If there was anyone who thought Anderson wasn’t on Flair’s level, this would be showing them otherwise.

Commentators do a great job explaining why Anderson’s armbars hurt so much. That’s something that’s just missed in today’s wrestling.

Flair takes total control. Once again, the commentary is great, and now its question about whether or not Double A can hang with Flair. You really want Anderson to pull this one out.

Anderson blocks the Figure Four by holding Flair’s leg when he tried to come down with it. Can’t say I’ve seen that one before.

Crowd erupts when Anderson reverses the Figure Four. Hell, crowd goes nuts for each false finish here.

Arn Anderson pins Ric Flair in 22:37. Brian Pillman climbs onto the apron when Flair has Anderson down and kicks Flair in the head. Double A drops Flair with a DDT and gets the upset. Crowd ultimately was mixed on the finish (I think they were into the match…but this is still Flair country…nevermind that it wasn’t clean). All of this would lead to the reunion of the Horsemen, although I don’t remember how it played out.

War Games
Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Lex Luger and Sting vs. Kamala, The Shark, The Zodiac and Meng

If the Hulkamaniacs win, Hogan gets five minutes with The Taskmaster.

This was a cartoonish feud that didn’t really jive with the rest of what WCW was doing at this point. Kevin Sullivan’s pre-match promo/video is just laughable.

A side story to this is the debut of The Giant, who was being promoted as Andre’s son.

This has to be one of the most unbalanced multi-man tag team matches in wrestling history. There’s literally no way the Dungeon of Doom can win no matter how much the “can the good guys trust one another” story is shoved down our throats.

The Hulkamaniacs are in camouflage and have an American flag. Uh…is Kevin Sullivan not from the US or something?

Dungeon of Goom. Really Hogan?

Beefcake looks ridiculous, even for him, as the Zodiac.

We start off with Sting and the Shark.

Entertaining start, with Sting diving over both top ropes and taking out the Shark.

No idea if this was planned, but the Shark tries the same over both top ropes dive that Sting did earlier, but gets caught up on the ropes. I like John Tenta, but he shouldn’t be trying anything like that for sure.

Not a bad opening period. Of course the heels win the coin toss and here comes the Zodiac.

Things have slowed down since the Zodiac got in. Randy Savage comes in to save Sting from an uninspiring two on one beat down.

Kamala is next and this has just turned into a sloppy brawl.

Luger comes and evens the odds are again. Only decent part so far has been Sting-Shark and even that wasn’t that great.

Luger and Savage accidentally hit another and go at it…at least something interesting happens. Here comes Meng.

Luger sells a kick from Meng that doesn’t even remotely hit.

Hogan comes in and throws powder in everyone’s eyes. And he’s the top good guy!

Zodiac oversells some Hogan punches. That was embarrassing.

The Hulkamaniacs win when Hogan makes Zodiac submit in 18:47.

We get a terrible Camel Clutch (called a reverse chinlock) for the win. It’s not like Sting and Luger have finishers that are submission holds afterall. Hogan didn’t take one move, it was all offense and that was it for the Dungeon of Doom. Absolutely horrible all around here with a shit finish. Second worst War Games in the history of the match (’98 is worse for sure).

Hogan then beats up Sullivan for a while, before the Giant comes in and chokes Hogan and injures his neck. Even in getting beat down, Hogan doesn’t take a bump. What an embarrassment.

Two really good matches but a whole lot of garbage inbetween. WCW needed to move past this Dungeon of Doom thing, but really wouldn’t until mid-96 when Scott Hall showed up.

A least the Nitros have been good so far.

Final Grade: C

Pro Wrestling

RAW vs. NITRO Week 2 (9/11/95)

Week 2

Posted Image

Nitro: 9/11/95
Miami, FL

We’ve got a big name World Title match tonight, Hulk Hogan vs. Lex Luger!

I think it’s awesome that Bischoff put Luger in a Nitro main event immediately. Luger was all over WWF TV just two weeks prior.

This is the go home PPV for Fall Brawl ’95.

Mongo looks ridiculous with glasses.

Bischoff says that Vader has gown AWOL. I think Vader was just fired. Anyway, he’s out of the War Games match.

Sabu vs. Alex Wright

We’re not in ECW are we anymore Sabu?

Sabu takes Wright over the top with a frankensteiner.

Sabu uses a chair as a springboard…but Wright moves and Sabu leg lariats the railing!

Awesome backflip off the top from Wright…which transitions into a German Suplex.

Sabu gets the three on Alex Wright after a top rope victory roll…but Sabu continues the attack and drives Wright through a table!

Alex Wright wins by DQ in 3:58. Ref reverses the decision. Pretty fun 4 minute match with nice spots. Good showing off of Sabu and Wright.

Here comes Ric Flair!

Flair compares himself to Joe Montana and Arn Anderson to Lawrence Taylor. Uh…

Lex Luger comes out to tell Flair “he’s too much” and leaves. Ok?

What an odd segment that was. I mean the interview was fine…but the Luger cameo was what?

Sting vs. VK Wallstreet

Wallstreet is an absolute Million Dollar Man ripoff here.

Bischoff says that “Shawn Michaels beat the big guy with a superkick!” I’m sure Vince McMahon had a heart attack right there. HBK vs. Sid was the main event on RAW…which was taped on August 28th, 1995.

Bischoff says of Wallstreet: “It’s all about power, it’s all about money, and that’s why he’s in WCW”. You think Hogan said that about his contract negotiation?

A very heavy anti-WWF segment here. Bischoff points out Luger was wrestling for the WWF nine days ago but left because he wanted competition. Ouch.

Sting pins Wallstreet in 4:13. Crossbody off the top for the win. Too short for my tastes, but it was fine and the crowd was into it.

Bischoff makes sure that we watch Saturday Night for the debut of Disco Inferno!

Scott Norton vs. Randy Savage

Norton was treated as a big deal early on. No one remembers his debut on the first Nitro…and by this time next year he’d be wrestling Ice Train.

Savage is selling like a million bucks for Norton at least.

Randy Savage pins Scott Norton in 5:39. The Dungeon of Doom hit the ring, and Norton and The Shark bump heads and Shark falls on Norton’s legs. This let’s Savage drop the big elbow for the win. Pretty weird finish. Dungeon of Doom attack Savage as a precursor to War Games. Weird to build up Norton to have him lose right away though.

WCW World Championship: Hulk Hogan© vs. Lex Luger

Hogan does put Luger over like a million bucks here. Well, right until he survives the Torture Rack.

We get the Hulk Up as well. Crowd kinda died during it.

Hulk Hogan wins by DQ in 5:28. Dungeon of Doom ruins this one too. Hogan of course legdropped Luger…so much for putting him over.

Sting and Savage run in, but the DOD don’t attack Luger! Now Hogan doesn’t trust him. This would set up the untruthworthy Luger deal. Sting defends him. How didn’t this lead to the Megapowers vs. Sting and Luger?

Luger will be Vader’s replacement this Sunday! Well, at least that’s what Sting wants. Savage is against him. Hogan, the deciding vote, says yes. Savage is brilliant here.

A solid outing for Nitro again, but I thought some things missed this time around. I liked Sabu vs. Wright…but the reverse decision blows. I don’t think anyone thought Wallstreet was beating Sting…and the announcers decided to use that time to talk about the WWF anyway. Flair’s interview was there. Scott Norton was put over in losing, but he wasn’t really the right guy to draw anyway. Hogan vs. Luger…booked as a dream match and all, went a mere 5 minutes. I feel like they could have cut Sting vs. Wallstreet here. It may have been the best quality match involving a big name, but also the least important.

That being said…we still got a show full of nonstop action, and Hogan put on his working boots for Luger for 4 minutes and 45 seconds. Savage did too. It’s also a good sign that the Nitro rating barely moved…even though it was up against RAW this week.

For the record I am all for Bischoff giving away the RAW results.

TV Rating: 2.4 (-0.1)
Grade: B+

Posted Image

RAW: 9/11/95
Canton, Ohio

Now that Vince saw what the competition was offering it was time to outshine them and own Monday Nights.

Oh wait…the show is taped.

Yes, taped back in August. Next week’s show is as well. Fun fact that Lex Luger was in a the dark match for this show.

The WWF is coming off a pretty awful Summerslam (a one match care if there ever was one, although The Kid vs. Hakushi was fine too). Now they’ve lost one of their main players, how will Vince respond? Despite a pretty good talent roster, somehow this meant more pushing for Mabel. No idea why.

The main event here is a match that was originally scheduled for Summerslam: HBK vs. Sid for the IC Title. Watching Nitro first though…Bischoff told us how that would turn out.

We have The Bulldog vs. Razor too. Two pretty big matches!

No idea why the WWF went to this terrible intro in 1995…especially when the classic RAW theme outright owned.

Razor Ramon vs. The British Bulldog

The Bulldog just turned heel on Diesel. Ramon just lost the IC title Ladder Match…and also had problems with Dean Douglas.

The Bulldog cutting his hair short was a great look for him.

This has been a solid back and forth contest so far. Good heat for Davey Boy.

Accidental ref bump…leads to Douglas attacking Ramon after Ramon had hit the Razor’s Edge.

Kid makes the save…and takes an awesome bump off the apron!

British Bulldog wins by DQ in 7:10. Kid comes off the top, but misses the Bulldog and hits Razor. Shouldn’t Razor win by DQ? Anyway, pretty good opening segment.

Vince interviews Kid and Razor, and it turns into an argument with Kid and Ramon when Vince says Kid cost Razor the match. Kid says last week (during tennis?) Razor cost him the match. He challenges Razor to a match for next week! He makes sure to point out he beat Razor the first time. Ramon accepts.

Weird poem from Todd Pettengill. Anyway, Yokozuna and Owen vs. Mabel and Mo next week I guess?

The Smokin’ Gunns vs. Rad Radford and The Brooklyn Brawler

No idea who’s winning this one.

Smokin’ Gunns win when Bart Gunn pins The Brawler in 2:46. It was an action packed 3 minutes at least. Did the Gunns ever name that sidewalk slam flying legdrop combo?

Goldust promo. No idea what he’s talking about…but who cares. It owns. References The Undertaker here, interestingly enough. The Goldust character is brilliant.

I like that they use the helicopter stock footage that would appear in The Rock’s 2003 heel titantron.

D.D.S. Isaac Yank’em vs. Scott Taylor

Two Attitude wrestlers here!

Awful chokeslam there. Funny what a long way that move has come for the future Kane.

Yank’em pins Taylor in 2:14. He wins with the DDS…which yes…is a DDT. How many people switched to Savage vs. Norton here?

In Your House hype. All the matches set already it looks like. It doesn’t look too bad!

WWF Intercontinental Championship
Shawn Michaels© vs. Sycho Sid

No one knows how to get a solid match out of Sid like Shawn does.

Shawn makes Sid look amazing here.

Awesome nip up from Sid, which led to a chokeslam.

Shawn Michaels pins Sid in 7:21. Three superkicks…one of them a real superkick, gets Shawn the win. Shawn bumps everywhere for Sid, and it leads to a very good match…even if it’s a bit short.

In retrospect, it’s odd that Vince allowed Shawn to do a striptease in the middle of the ring.

One last backstage interview with Diesel and HBK before we call it a night.

The show had a very good beginning and end, but it’s hard to care about any of that stuff in the middle. Thanks to Nitro, RAW squash matches would begin to be phased out. Unless you thought people were sticking around for The Brooklyn Brawler and Scott Taylor.

That along hurts the show enough. The 5 minute In Your House commercial is bothersome too. Nothing is built up (on RAW at least) yet a whole card is set already? Should I be watching Superstars instead?

Again…the opener and main were good.

TV Rating: 2.5
Grade: B

Weekly Review

Watching Nitro made me feel like WCW had so much talent they had to get in on the show. Watching RAW made me wonder why the WWF didn’t use all their top guys. Now that Nitro set that standard, RAW would have to catch up.

Even though Shawn vs. Sid was the better match in terms quality, Hogan vs. Luger was a huge deal with the WCW World Title on the line and everything. Nitro had an action packed show from top to bottom. RAW had a good start and good ending with stuff no one cared about in the middle.

Plus, Bischoff told you what would happen anyway…

Great start for Nitro ratings wise. First week of competition and they lose by merely 0.1. Not bad at all.

TV Ratings Score: 1-0 RAW

Grade Score: 1-0 Nitro

Pro Wrestling

RAW vs. NITRO Week 1 (9/4/95)

Reviewed 9/3/14

September 1995 Background

The latest…and biggest shot has been fired.

The WWF had been the major player in wrestling for a solid decade at this point. The NWA and WCW were always a distant second place until about 1994. Before then it was the WWF’s big gimmicky promotions against the top tier wrestling of WCW (note, each would have a little of the opposite in them). In 1994 though the tides had changed in a big way. The WWF had moved to becoming a more athletic wrestling show led by Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. WCW signed Hulk Hogan to an insane deal and suddenly looked gimmicky all around (and a lot like the old WWF). WCW would continue to sign away big talent from the WWF through 1994 and 1995, with men such as Hogan, Randy Savage and others all jumping ship.

And for some reason, Vince gave up on the athletic type and went back to the superman big man. 1995 this didn’t work. ”Big Daddy Cool” Diesel turned out to be the worst drawing WWF Champion of all time (not all his fault to be fair). WCW also kept the pressure on, running 10 PPV events in 1995 and forcing Vince to run an “In Your House” event each month. Reviews on the IYH events ranged from mixed to poor. 1995 was just a bad year for the WWF. Bad booking, competition on the way, and stars leaving to WCW.

WCW meanwhile hit some big peaks in 1994 when Hogan showed up. Hogan’s popularity did plateau rather quickly though. But with bigger star power overall (Flair, Sting, Savage, Hogan vs. Michaels, Bret, Diesel) Ted Turner famously asked Eric Bischoff “Hey Eric, what would it take to compete with WWF?” Bischoff joking said Monday Night primetime. And Turner gave it to him. The Monday Night War had begun.

For September, we would see that WCW smartly began on a date that the WWF would be pre-empted. WCW would hit upon some big moments right away and immediately change how each show would be booked.

Note, the show that has the best review the week prior will go first in the post, as insignificant as that actually is.

Week 1

Posted Image

Nitro: 9/4/95
Minneapolis, MN

It should be pointed out that Nitro debuted at a time where RAW was pre-empted for two weeks. Pretty smart right off the bat.

Nitro intro video is pretty cool even today. Theme is great too.

Very odd that Nitro is coming live from the Mall of America.

Nitro already puts something on that was pretty unique and cool, which is the opening match.

Steve McMichael calls Bobby Heenan “Bobby the Stain” for the whole show. Ugh.

Jushin “Thunder” Liger vs. Flyin’ Brian

Cool cartwheel kick to start. Bischoff on commentary is really pumping Nitro up as something never seen before in big league wrestling.

Pretty bad timing as Jushin Liger climbs up to the top rope and Pillman just stands there and takes the moonsault.

Wooo, surfboard!

Decent high flying stuff from Liger, including a somersault off the apron. Maybe it hasn’t aged great, but it was pretty cool stuff for its time, even if the 1-2-3 Kid was doing just as good stuff.

Pillman gets a perfect dropkick on Liger coming from the top.

Top rope hurricanrana from Liger!

Tornado DDT from Pillman! Maybe it’s just a bunch of spots, but it’s a fun match.

Brian Pillman pins Jushin Liger. Pillman gets a victory roll from the win. A fun little 6 minute match that wouldn’t be great if it was on PPV, but just fine for a TV show. Bischoff went right ahead in trying to get a good start for Nitro with something unique and he succeeded.

Sting promo. He’s gonna lock Flair in the Scorpion!

Hulk Hogan is promoting PASTAMANIA in the Mall of America! He hypes up the WCW Title match later in the show. PASTAMANIA is gonna run wild on Big Bubba brother!

WCW United States Championship
Sting© vs. Ric Flair

I’d almost be upset this wasn’t main eventing, but it makes sense as Hogan is Hogan.

One of the most historic moments in the entire war happens in the first show as Lex Luger walks down the aisle. Luger had just appeared at WWF Summerslam eight nights prior. No one in the WWF locker room knew it was happening. Want to complain about WWF no-competes these days, it was moments like this that caused them. This was absolutely brilliant from Bischoff.

Of course, Sting and Flair give him a look, since that’s who had history with Luger when he left in 1992. Another great thing about this moment is the less is more approach. All Luger did was just walk down the aisle. That was it. Big Luger chants too.

We get some typical Sting-Flair stuff, which is always great. Of course, it’s the shortened version, but that’s okay.

WCW’s star power was pretty much on display here. While the WWF did have big matches on RAW before this, you never really saw two top guys go at it (say, Bret vs. Shawn on RAW). Here, WCW could afford to do Sting vs. Flair since the roster was deep.

Arn Anderson is down here. This was a time that Anderson and Flair were not getting along.

I like how a great wrestler like Ric Flair had a finish that always seemed to get broken.

Sting retains by DQ. Arn Anderson just walks into the ring and breaks up the Figure Four. He proceeds to beat the crap out of Ric Flair. Good match, and it furthered the story for Anderson and Flair. Anderson got a huge reaction.

Scott “Flash” Norton confronts Bischoff, but is cut off by Randy Savage. Fans pop huge for this, I didn’t even remember this Norton moment to be fair. Savage wants to go right now, but it doesn’t happen. Still, really cool and another moment that showed anything could happen.

We get a Sabu hype video! Interesting Sabu didn’t get over in WCW. Probably cause he bought Mr. JL and Alex Wright every week. Still cool though.

We get some WCW Saturday Night hype. Then some Fall Brawl hype!

Michael Wallstreet debut promo. “I’m sure the IRS is going to be watching me real close.” Brilliant!

WCW World Championship
Hulk Hogan© vs. Big Bubba Rogers

Hogan vs. Bossman in 1995! It works though.

Hogan had actually been champion for some 13 months at this point.

We do get the announcement of Savage vs. Norton next week on Nitro! I’m actually excited for that one even though Norton would become a midcard guy.

Hogan looks better here than he did in WWF 1993, if that matters.

Oddly Hogan and the ref exchange words after Hogan gets his hair pulled by the ref. Interesting.

I always wondered how Hogan got away with heel moves like the double elbow foot eye rake deal.

The crowd is actually pretty dead for the Hulk Up.

Hulk Hogan retains by pin. But the pop huge for the pin. By the numbers Hogan match, but the Bossman sold for Hogan like a million bucks. Good main event considering who’s involved.
The Dungeon of Doom run in and attack Hogan…and Lex Luger runs in to fight them off! Hogan and Luger come back to back and nearly come to blows.

Luger challenges Hogan for a WCW World Title match, deriding the WWF in the process. He says some questionably true statements (“I’VE BEATEN WHO YOU’VE BEATEN”) and Hogan gives him credit…then offers him the title shot for next week’s Nitro! Sure, some words went wrong there (“I’ll shake your stinky palm” from Hogan and “you don’t have to wait till next week”, also from Hogan), but the whole segment was really effective.

This show was very good, and EXACTLY what WCW needed to kick off the Monday Night War. Vince probably watched this show and shit his pants, especially when Luger showed up. Now Vince had to go up against Hogan vs. Luger for the WCW Title next week. Serves Vince right for wasting Luger after he didn’t get over as the top guy in 93-94.

Not the best show, but a very good one that showcased a lot of great stuff for WCW. Historically, it’s one of the most important dates in pro wrestling history, and it laid the groundwork for RAWs you even see today, as this would be the end of squash matches against nobodies on Monday Night. Of course…that matters.

TV Rating: 2.5
Grade: A+

Weekly Review

RAW was pre-empted by the US Open and in fact had already taped all of their shows for the next two weeks. Nitro being live each week would put some serious pressure on the WWF to step up their game. The last RAW on August 21st, 1995 had MOM vs. two jobbers, the 1-2-3 Kid vs. The Brooklyn Brawler, The Undertaker vs. Tatanka, Jean-Pierre LaFitte vs. Scott Taylor (a nobody at this point) and Diesel and the British Bulldog vs. MOM. This show had Sting vs. Flair, Pillman vs. Liger and Hogan vs. the former Big Bossman. I mean…which show is the minor leagues again?

Nitro’s rating was also quite impressive. RAW had done (I am missing a source though) mid 2s to low 3s, so for Nitro to put up a rating in that range right off the bat was impressive.

The score remains tied at 0-0 here as there was no heads up battle…but next week will be a bigger story.

TV Ratings Score: 0-0

Grade Score: 0-0

Pro Wrestling

Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker: Five Reasons Why Each Should Win

Despite the fact that their Wrestlemania XXX match did not live up to the hype (well, the match itself didn’t, but the finish absolutely did), tonight’s Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker match at Summerslam has given the event a supercard feel. With Jon Stewart hosting (sure beats The Miz from a couple years ago), Stephen Amell in a match and our big name main event, Summerslam feels closer to Wrestlemania than it does to the rest of the WWE Network Special Schedule. Unlike Wrestlemania XXX, were it seemed to be a foregone conclusion that Undertaker was beating Brock (which of course led to the shock value of the finish), this year’s encounter can go either way. Here now are five reasons on why each competitor  should win tonight.

Five Reasons Brock Lesnar Should Win at Summerslam

  1. Brock Lesnar as a main attraction requires him to be an invincible monster.

Interestingly, by the time Taker and Lesnar locked up at Mania XXX, Brock Lesnar has lost most of his appeal as a major attraction. He will still very over, but it wasn’t the same as two years prior when he first showed up and confronted John Cena. He had suffered a couple of losses (to Cena and Triple H) and no one gave him a chance against the legendary Streak. When Lesnar ended the streak…a brilliant booking decision…it put him back in that special attraction slot. WWE smartly booked him to be an unstoppable monster from that point forward. He destroyed Cena. Cena seemingly almost got him back, but Lesnar still left with the title. He beat both Cena and Seth Rollins. He looked like a monster even as Roman Reigns fought him to a draw, and lost his title without being pinned. He destroyed Champ Rollins before Taker returned. All of this gets added to the numerous segments where Lesnar wrecked everyone and everything (like the RAW after Mania). Losing to the Undertaker undoes most of this, and there is still a lot of money left in the Brock Lesnar is a monster story.

  1. Brock Lesnar needs the win more than Undertaker.

With Wrestlemania XXXII on the horizon and WWE looking to break all kinds of attendance records, Brock Lesnar needs to be at the peak of his drawing power. There’s no Streak to conquer in the future to re-establish Lesnar as a special attraction. We can’t be wasting losses on the Undertaker.

  1. A loss means Lesnar vs. Undertaker III.

A route that WWE should not take is Lesnar-Taker III at Wrestlemania XXXII. But if Lesnar loses here, we probably need a rubber match between the two, and to be honest that’s not the best match possible for Mania. Really, the only Taker match out there that needs to happen is against Sting. Let Lesnar move on. It might be time to throw all the money in the world at The Rock for Lesnar vs. Rock…unless Vince thinks he is getting Stone Cold or HBK.

  1. Brock Lesnar just signed a new WWE contract.

As a result, there is no reason for WWE to not get the maximum out of Lesnar’s drawing power. If WWE resigned Lesnar just to lose to Undertaker and whomever, it’ll be a colossal waste. Someone beating Brock Lesnar will give a huge rub (one that almost went to Roman Reigns). WWE would be smart to maximize that.

  1. It’s not believable that Brock Lesnar would lose to Undertaker.

It would be one thing if this was in his prime Undertaker, but this is old man Undertaker and UFC ass kicker Brock Lesnar. After what happened at Wrestlemania XXX, would anyone buy the Undertaker still pulling the John Wayne and taking down the big bad guy at this point?

Five Reasons The Undertaker Should Win at Summerslam

  1. Undertaker needs momentum for his retirement match at Wrestlemania XXXII.

Like Lesnar, we don’t want to lose the specialness of Undertaker’s draw and character. A lot of that was taken away at Wrestlemania XXX when he lost the Streak. A lot of people didn’t care about Taker beating Bray Wyatt. If he loses again, will anyone really care about him come Wrestlemania XXXII?

  1. Undertaker has never beaten Brock Lesnar in a 1 vs. 1 PPV Match.

Undertaker currently sports a 0-3-1 record against Lesnar in PPV Matches (losses at No Mercy ’02, No Mercy ’03 and Mania XXX. The lone draw was at Unforgiven ’02). To complete his legacy, a win over Lesnar may be necessary.

  1. Undertaker’s Last Non-Wrestlemania PPV win was five and a half years ago.

The last time Undertaker won a PPV match that wasn’t a Wrestlemania? Royal Rumble 2010 against Rey Mysterio. How crazy is that? It’s also been nearly five years since he’s even wrestled on a non-Mania PPV. Wouldn’t it be disappointing for him to lose in his first Summerslam match since 2008?

  1. Undertaker needs to avenge his Wrestlemania XXX loss.

We all remember the aftermath of Taker vs. Lesnar at Mania XXX. Shocked fans. A concussed Undertaker slowly walking to the back. Like Cena when he came back on RAW after Lesnar destroyed him at Summerslam last year (and some kids felt that their hero was still alive), Undertaker’s fans need to see that the Deadman isn’t done. The fans need that closure.

  1. The Undertaker might not be as done as we think.

Raise your hand if you had the Undertaker wrestling at Summerslam this year. Who’s to say we aren’t getting a Survivor Series or Royal Rumble match this year leading up to the retirement match at Wrestlemania XXXII? Hell, who says he’s retiring at Wrestlemania XXXII? He’s “only” 50. Everyone saw how badly he was beat up at Wrestlemania XXX and assumed he was done. Well, when you get concussed, that’s how things go. He looked better at Wrestlemania XXXI against Wyatt. How do we know he doesn’t have five years left of this?

In the end, as much as I love the Undertaker…the smart business decision is to let Brock go over. He’s the big draw. People are going to watch Taker vs. Sting at Wrestlemania XXXII (or Cena, I guess) no matter what happens at Summerslam. Don’t screw up Lesnar again WWE.

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews Summerslam ’99

WWF Summerslam ‘99
August 22, 1999
Minneapolis, MN

There’s an argument to be made that right here, at this point, we were at the highest level the WWF would ever be. RAW Ratings were out of orbit. PPV buys were huge. The WWF was beating down WCW Nitro so badly Eric Bischoff was weeks away from losing his job. Vince McMahon was only a couple of months away from the WWF going public. Some argued that Stone Cold Steve Austin was a level above what Hulk Hogan was in the 80s. Other WWF stars began to transcend wrestling. The Rock was climbing fast toward megastar status. Mick Foley wrote a New York Times Best Seller. To say the WWF was riding high here was an understatement.

But there were some cracks in the armor as well. Stone Cold’s body had slowly begun to betray him. The Undertaker’s knees were going out on him. Foley’s body was pretty much at the point of done.

Would Summerslam ’99 be a continuation of the dominance the WWF had shown over the last year and a half…or would the wheels begin to fall off here?

The Card

We go over a year and a half of The McMahons screwing Stone Cold to explain why Jesse Ventura is our referee tonight.

Ventura and Triple H go face to face right away in the back. Ventura lays down the law, and HHH says he’ll break every rule.

We get some Y2J after that with ”Harold” Finkel. Jericho was hilarious in his early WWF days.

Intercontinental Championship and European Championship
D’Lo Brown (Both Champs) vs. Jeff Jarrett

Jarrett comes out with Debra and wow at Debra. Jarrett gets awesome heat when he sends Debra to the back…and then D’Lo brings her back out!

I don’t want to spoil it here, but there’s some really smart booking going on. JR on commentary brings up that Jarrett doesn’t want to win by countout when D’Lo was on the outside…just as Debra was looking to help D’Lo up.

The crowd is super hot for D’Lo. Huge reaction on the running powerbomb.

Jeff Jarrett pins D’Lo Brown to win both titles in 7:28. Debra and Jarrett distract the ref…allowing Mark Henry to run in and betray D’Lo with a guitar shot. Jarrett gets the win…and it turns out Debra, Jarrett and Henry were all on the same page! Jarrett would hand the European title to Henry. Fun opener with a good story and a great crowd! Strange how both men wouldn’t have much of a WWF career left. Jarrett would bolt for WCW in two months…D’Lo sadly accidentally paralyzed Droz, and was never the same.

Michael Cole interviews a wooden Edge and Christian. Of course, both would end up being great on the mic.

Tag Team Turmoil

The winner of this would become the #1 Contender to the Tag Team Title.

Edge and Christian begin against The New Brood…Matt and Jeff Hardy.

Something the Attitude Era did was create stars. Matt and Jeff were outright jobbers until 1999.

Fun start, although the match so far is a bit slow considering the four men in the ring.

Screw the start. Edge spears Jeff Hardy by jumping off the barricade just as Jeff was jumping off the other side. What? Matt comes off the top to the outside with a moonsault for good measure.

Christian pins Matt to eliminate the Hardys…and Mideon and Viscera are next. Can’t we just have the Hardys again?

We last saw Viscera at Summerslam when he was Mabel and in the WWF Title match. Crazy how much changed in four years.

I always thought Vis’s spin kick was awesome.

Viscera accidentally avalanches Mideon, then Edge and Christian double dropkick Vis out. Spear to Mideon, and Edge gets the pin. Prince Albert and Droz are next.

Not much here…Edge gets the Downward Spiral for the win. Acolytes, the favorites, are next.

The Hollys come out early, and Bradshaw takes out Christian with the Clothesline From Hell and we get a heel vs. heel finale. What a disappointing finish. I like both teams, but running it with one face team (E and C) means they needed to get to the end.

The Acolytes win when Faarooq pinned Hardcore Holly in 17:27. The Hollys argue and that leads to the spinebuster. This was fun with Edge and Christian…but after that who really cared?

I’m pretty sure the whole Al Snow think jumped the shark when he started talking to other things other than Head.

Road Dogg here…but it’s Y2J time!

Jericho was crazy over. The crowd goes nuts for the countdown.

Jericho wrote in Undisputed that this was his first great segment…and he’s 100% right. Jericho’s absolutely awesome here.

This would lead to Jericho’s WWF debut match at Smackdown…which was a bit of a let down (as was Jericho up to Survivor Series).

Hardcore Championship
Big Bossman© vs. Al Snow

One of the most creative starts to a match…Al Snow jumps up on the set and dives onto Bossman as soon as he goes through the curtain. Nice!

Road Dogg does an on the scene commentary that’s more annoying than not to be honest.

Bossman just grabs a random guy’s crutch to hit Al Snow. That’s a great heel move.

Match goes all the way across the street into a bar. Have to say, this is pretty fun. Maybe I just haven’t seen one of these in a while.

Al Snow pins Bossman to win the title in 7:25. Bossman takes a shot a Road Dogg and Road Dogg responds with a nightstick shot to Bossman to let Snow win the title. For some reason The Blue Meanie and Stevie Richards attack Snow. Hell if I remember why.

Women’s Championship
Ivory© vs. Tori

I think Tori’s pretty bad as a wrestler, so I don’t have high hopes here.

Eat your heart out Cesaro…Ivory with a big swing!

Ivory retains by pin in 4:11. Some weird finish with a flying sitting drop. Ivory tries to disrobe Tori, but Luna makes the save.

Lion’s Den Match
Ken Shamrock vs. Steve Blackman

While I didn’t realize it then, Shamrock being this far down the card should have been a sign that he wasn’t long for the WWF (this was actually his last PPV match).

The Lion’s Den is a UFC style octagon.

I don’t really like the idea of this match. A No DQ match would have been fine.

Ken Shamrock wins by KO in 9:05. A few Kendo Stick shots take Blackman out and the ref counts him out. I didn’t really like this at all. I don’t even remember what else Blackman did until “Head Cheese” in early 2000. If Shamrock was leaving, he should have put Blackman over.

”Love Her or Leave Her”
Shane McMahon vs. Test

Is Test wins, Shane stays out of Test and Stephanie McMahon’s relationship. If Shane wins, Test and Steph break up. No option for “Steph marries HHH instead though”.

Test opens by taking Shane down with tons of aggression. Where was that during the rest of Test’s career?

The Mean Street Posse get their own couch in the crowd! This matters because Test tosses Shane into all three of them which was a pretty funny spot.

Did Shane just bust out a Sky Twist Press? Holy hell!

I believe this was the debut of the flying Shane elbow off the top through the Announcer’s Desk…and it’s pretty awesome. A perfect hit.

Patterson and Brisco come out and own the Posse. Brisco with an awesome street sign shot!

Test pins Shane McMahon in 12:14. I would have bet money after this one that Test was set for multiple World Titles in his future. Somehow…this was the peak of Test. He only went downhill from here. In retrospect, Shane’s “richest backyard wrestler” shtick probably carried this. Nonetheless, this match was really good. In a lame twist, Shane would ignore this stipulation on Smackdown.

World Tag Team Championship
Kane and X-Pac© vs. Big Show and Undertaker

I never really got into the whole Taker controlling Big Show deal when Show chokeslammed Taker through the ring once, but whatever.

I did enjoy the Kane-X-Pac tag team though, if just for Kane’s character development. It gave him something past being Undertaker’s brother…even though it didn’t completely work and ultimately weakened Kane’s character. At least they took a chance and tried.

Lawler with a great line: “I’ll never forgive that idiot X-Pac for taking this monster and making him a human being.” Not a bad point there.

Kane debuts the “road” jersey here, which is a look he should have went with for the rest of his career honestly.

I think it was obvious at the time that Taker and Show were winning…and I think having the Acolytes win earlier was supposed to give fans the idea Kane and Pac were winning.

One of the bigger surprises of the match is Kane playing face in peril. Match is surprisingly working since we have Big Show, Kane and 1999 Undertaker in here.

Undertaker just turned X-Pac into a wishbone. Ouch.

Undertaker and Big Show win the title in 12:00. Big Show actually gets the chokeslam, but Show does a one foot on the chest cover and Taker is livid when Pac kicks out. Taker shows him how it’s done with a Tombstone. So much better than it had any right to be. Multiple stories worked out here concurrently. X-Pac forced a tag late to try to prove he could hang with the three monsters. Undertaker continues to “teach” the Big Show. Well done all around.

Kiss My Ass Match
The Rock vs. Billy Gunn

Billy Gunn brings a”full-sized” lady for the Rock to kiss on the ass when he loses.

Rock is megaover, of course.

The first half of this is pretty dull. Some fighting down the ramp but nothing really inspiring going on.

It does pick up back in the ring, especially with a nice neckbreaker counter from Gunn.

Pretty good set-up for the Fameasser…but the match goes downhill after that.

Gunn brings in the woman, but Rock counters and Gunn’s face goes in her ass. Great.

The Rock pins Gunn in 10:11. Rock Bottom, People’s Elbow. That goodness that’s over. Match was getting kinda good too. Gunn would be back in the midcard with the Outlaws in a few weeks (and was a good guy for some reason again right after this).

WWF Championship – Jesse Ventura is the Special Referee
Stone Cold Steve Austin© vs. Triple H vs. Mankind

There was a pretty convoluted story to even get to this point that had Chyna as the #1 Contender. Less said the better. I don’t even know storyline wise why Mankind was added either, although backstage there were two possible reasons (I’ll get into that later). According to the video, Mankind won it from Chyna. Works I guess. HHH and Mankind then did the pinning one another at the same time deal (which a variation was used for Summerslam 2000 as well) to get our triple threat.

In case anyone was wondering, Stone Cold was still the most over man in wrestling by far. His pop is nuts.

THe early Austin-Mankind partnership is a nice flashback to their tag title run two years prior.

The story begins…HHH whacks Austin in the knee with a chair.

Mick Foley, nutcase that he is, decides to bust out his somersault crack smash off the apron…and he misses. Jeez Mick.

Ventura refuses to count for HHH after HHH uses a chair. Ventura’s a great ref here. As a bonus, Ventura tosses a middling Shane McMahon, and adds the quote “that was for your old man you bastard!”

Mankind wins the title when he pinned Austin in 16:24. HHH gets the Pedigree, but Mankind knocks him away and hits a Double Arm DDT on Austin for the shocking win! HHH proceeds to destroy Austin’s leg with a steel chair. For all intents and purposes, the HHH Era began right here…and the Stone Cold Era as we knew it was over.

Match was really fun all in all. Mankind’s title win is the result of either one or both of these scenarios: Austin didn’t want to job to HHH and/or Ventura wanted to raise the hand of a face at the end. I believe it’s the latter, especially since Austin goes down to HHH at No Mercy ’99 (and No Way Out 2001). HHH would beat Mankind for the title the very next night.

A really up and down PPV, but I definitely enjoyed the ups. I liked the opener. I liked most of the tag turmoil. Jericho was fun. The Hardcore Title match was fun. Test vs. Shane was very good as was the main event. I didn’t care for Shamrock-Blackman or Rock-Gunn though.

Historically, somehow this PPV is forgotten. It’s crazy because again, this is basically where the HHH Era begins and the Austin Era ends. Sure, Austin would still be in the main event until Survivor Series, and his 2000 comeback was entertaining, but Summerslam 1999 was the end of Stone Cold as THE MAN. From each point forward you could either argue The Rock (who’s late surge stole him many Most Popular Wrestler of the Year Awards) or HHH as the man.

Overall, this was still enjoyable.

Final Grade: B

Pro Wrestling

Remembering The Hot Rod and The Dream

In the span of seven weeks, two of the all-time great professional wrestlers had passed away. On June 11th, “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes passed at the age of 69, then on July 31st we lost “Rowdy” Roddy Piper at age 61. Both Rhodes and Piper were uniquely great. Piper would serve as an early prototype for “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, while Dusty’s style hasn’t been duplicated since (because he was that great at it). Both men showed that it wasn’t just what took place in the ring that mattered, but how you sold the story to the audience on the microphone. I remember more segments and interviews than matches for both, and that’s perfectly okay (each had their share of great matches anyway).

We have two legends here who care about the business. Dusty of course, helped write NXT and helped make that brand as great as it is. Piper would show up from time to time to help put over some of the current storylines. My favorite Piper interview in fact took place in 2010, where he put over the WWE World Championship match at Survivor Series 2010 between Randy Orton and Wade Barrett (where John Cena was the referee). Piper made you feel the moment.

I’m just going to post some pics or videos of my favorite Dusty and Piper moments. Two legends gone way too soon. But right now I imagine Dusty’s still doing the booking, perhaps putting together a triple threat with Warrior, Savage and Piper up in heaven. Maybe he’s putting himself in the ring as well. Just be sure that Dusty and Piper will sell the match up there on the mic like they always did, and always will.

These are in no particular order.

Dusty beats Flair in their famous 1986 Cage Match for the NWA World Title.

Every great good guy needs a great bad guy: Piper enters MSG at the first Wrestlemania.

An iconic quote from Piper in They Live…

“Hard Times”

Piper subs in for Bret Hart…and wins the IC Title.

Piper makes Bret Hart into a superstar.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2gs2s7

Polka dots might have been to embarrass him…but of course, Dusty got over anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_d0bYWK5SA

My first taste of Piper as a kid, and he sure looked bad ass.

Dusty has the hardcore ECW crowd eating from the palm of his hand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI7pBvA8g7Q

Piper faces off with Stone Cold.

The Dream has one more fight in him.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2wum6l_great-american-bash-2007-randy-orton-vs-dusty-rhodes_sport

My favorite Piper promo…”don’t spit in my face”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yiNtjBQFSE

Dusty helps his sons become two of the biggest faces in the company.

Defiant to the end, Piper stands up to Brock Lesnar.

https://youtu.be/1Bm9gayoLvk?t=93

Thank you Roddy Piper. Thank you Dusty Rhodes.