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.

World Tag Team Championship
The New Age Outalws© vs. The Legion of Doom

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?

Intercontinental Championship
Stone Cold Steve Austin© vs. The Rock

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.

WWF Championship
Shawn Michaels© vs. Ken Shamrock

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.

ECW Television Championship
Taz© vs. Pitbull #2

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.

ECW World Tag Team Championship
The FBI© vs. The Gangstanantors vs. The Dudley Boyz vs. The Chair Swinging Freaks

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.

ECW World Championship
Bam Bam Bigelow© vs. Shane Douglas

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.

ECW TV Title
Taz© vs. Chris Candido

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…

ECW World Tag Team Championship
The Dudley Boys© vs. PG-13

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.

ECW World Title: Three Way Dance
Sabu© vs. Shane Douglas vs. Terry Funk

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+

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WWF Summerslam ’97

March 13, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WWF Summerslam ‘97
August 3, 1997
East Rutherford, NJ
Reviewed on July 27, 2014

Even before all the raunchy Attitude stuff, the WWF was putting on a solid product in 1997. It wasn’t the best in all cases (Gang Warz, for example) but the main event and the upper midcard titles had some good stuff in it. The roster was also bolstered from 1996, with LOD, The Headbangers, Ken Shamrock and Brian Pillman all debuting or making their returns.

Of course, the return of Bret Hart in late ’96 was a big reason for it too. Bret coming back helped a main event scene that was basically all Shawn Michaels (to be fair, Goldust, Vader and Mankind were good to great, it’s just, in Goldust’s and Mankind’s case, didn’t have that mainstream view as a main eventer yet, and in Vader’s, he wasn’t the man he was in 1993 unfortunately). Undertaker was also there, usually in the semi-main. He finally got his 2nd reign as WWF Champion in 1997, which kinda went off the rails a little in June but came back strong with the Hart Foundation angle.

The WWF was clearly in a period of transition here. We were getting some better characters up top: Stone Cold Steve Austin was coming into his own and was arguably the biggest draw in the WWF even at this time. It was pretty clear that he was gonna be the man by Wrestlemania XIV. Mankind and Hunter Hearst Helmsley were in a feud that helped give Hunter the edge he needed to be taken more seriously. Foley himself had just debuted Dude Love and was getting over with the dual (and soon, triple) personality.

The Hart Foundation were the hottest heel group not named the NWO, and this was unfortunately their peak as the WWF changes course and old school heels weren’t the way to go anymore. Still, a WWF Title Match with Undertaker and Bret Hart, with special referee Shawn Michaels was the biggest match the WWF could have at the moment that wasn’t Bret vs. Shawn.

The Card

Of course with the hot USA vs. Canada angle, we start with the National Anthem.

The opening promo here is one of my favorites. It’s a “if life were fair montage”, mentioning Bret’s turn, HBK’s injury and Undertaker’s secret (which led to Kane).

Steel Cage Match
Mankind vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley

Story here began at King of the Ring where HHH beat Mankind to win it. Mankind didn’t like the interference from Chyna and wanted a rematch, which led to a double countout (one of the best done double countouts ever, if that makes sense). Here are are. The story is the natural rich blueblood vs. deranged, er…, presumably not rich weirdo.

HHH goes for the door right away. Brilliant start.

Foley’s stump piledriver was always pretty awesome.

Chyna finds some early ways to get involved, first closing the door when Foley was going for it, and grabbing Mankind’s hair when HHH was in the Mandible. Clever.

Foley then tries to escaple, but Chyna climbs up and hits a low blow…and HHH superplexes him off the top of the cage, which looks pretty damn awesome.

It looks like HHH could have left, but he decides he wants to punish Mankind and does so by throwing him into the cage, which looks great with the old school blue cage. I’m torn on this, as it makes sense,, but it did make Mankind look a little too easily beaten.

Chyna again keeps finding ways to get involved, and she punches Foley through the cage holes here. Good heel stuff.

Really cool spot where HHH gets put in the tree of woe, but he’s hanging from the cage and not the corner.

Mankind gets backdropped into the cage, which seems pretty dangerous. Cool stuff though.

HHH’s let gets caught in the rope (intentionally), and Chyna slams the steel cage door right on ankind’s head. Cool as it looked, this hurt Foley big time and I believe he said it hurt worse than his toss off the Hell in a Cell a year later.

Chyna takes out the ref and throws a chair in the ring, but Mankind gets the advantage and slingshots HHH into Chyna, who was hanging on the outside of the cage.

Double Arm DDT on the steel chair!

Chyna actually fucks up here, as Mankind is leaving the cage and Chyna gets in to drag HHH out (the finish)…BUT there’s one more spot left!

Mankind wins in 16:13. Mankind takes off the leather mask and tears a bit of his shirt…Superfly Dive off the top of the cage! Also looked incredible. Chyna now does the correct finish and tries to drag HHH out, but Mankind gets to the floor first…and eventually turns into Dude Love! Anyway, great opener. Back and both hard hitting cage match with some innovative stuff and a great finish. Nevermind the awesome character development with Dude Love and all, and it continued to show that HHH had a bit of a mean streak. What a start!

Gov. Whitman comes out with The Headbangers and Gorilla Monsoon. Apparently she helped get wrestling back to NJ.

Tiger Ali Singh sighting. Woo?

If Pillman Loses, He Must Wear a Dress
Brian Pillman vs. Goldust

The Hart Foundation all made stipulations against themselves (except Owen, which we will get to) to put pressure on themselves to win. Pillman said he’s wear Marlena’s dress on RAW if he couldn’t beat Goldust.

Face Goldust was an interesting character. They did a similar thing with Mankind and it worked, but Goldust never gained too much traction as a face.

According to Goldust’s book, there was already some issues with Goldust and Marlena behind the scenes, and he was also a bit intimidated by Pillman as, in real life, Pillman and Terri had a history.

It’s worth noting that Pillman changed his entire ring style after his car accident. It’s pretty jarring after watching a lot of early 90s Pillman matches.

Goldust misses the throw that is supposed to crotch Pillman and Pillman falls to the floor, but it still looked good.

Pillman does a great job acting crazy and as a heel. Using Marlena as a shield, taunting her, etc.

I should point out wow on Marlena’s dress.

JR puts Pillman over by just pointing out his eyes. This is why JR is the best in the business.

Awesome throw counter of the bulldog by Pillman.

Goldust pins Brian Pillman in 7:17. Goldust goes for a sunset flip, but Pillman fights it. Pillman gets to the ropes…and Marlena smacks him in the face with his purse (JR thinks there is a brick in there). It completes the sunset flip and gets the three! Decent match, still jarring how much Pillman had to change his style.

The Legion of Doom vs. The Godwinns

Story here: LOD vs. Godwinns on Shotgun a couple months earlier, LOD broke Henry’s neck with the Doomsday Device and Godwinns wanted revenge and had been attacking LOD, biggest part being hitting them over the head with buckets. Godwinns had turned heel and were pretty disgusting overall.

All LOD early on. Vince and Lawler tell the story on how LOD breaking Henry’s neck first was on accident…but this time they said it would be intentional.

Impressive hangman’s neckbreaker submission from Phineas on Hawk. Godwinns looking to break Hawk’s neck. Surprisingly great psychology here.

Hawk’s hot tag sequence is pretty good. Then a neckbreaker on Henry!

They keep working on the neck with two big clotheslines in the corner.

LOD wins when Hawk pins Henry in 9:15. Phineas breaks up the Doomsday Device…but Hawk takes him out. LOD then hit Henry with a spike piledriver! Pin gets it done. Probably the best possible match LOD and the Godwinns could have. Good psychology and hard hitting all around.

We waste time with a Million Dollar Challenge that no one wins…but damn does Sunny look hot during the segment.

Is the Discovery Zone still a thing?

This might be Todd Pettengill’s last show, come to think of it.

One of the guys they call says he’s not watching Summerslam. Nice.

Vince sounds disgusted on commentary watching this. Like he knows this is a waste of good PPV time.

At least it wasn’t rigged. Key #3 does open the casket with money in it. This for some reason was more entertaining that I thought it would be. Which doesn’t say much but still.

European Championship: If the Bulldog loses the title, he will eat a can of dog food
The British Bulldog© vs. Ken Shamrock

The Bulldog has humiliated Shamrock after an arm-wrestling match by putting dog food all over him.

Shamrock had debuted as a ref in the Mania I Quit Match, and then got put over huge when he beat Vader at In Your House (where was that feud? That would have made money).

Match early on is dominated by Shamrock, and seems designed to get him over.

Bulldog is now kicking all kinds of ass.

They mess up a suplex on the floor, and collapse.

The British Bulldog wins by DQ in 7:29. Bulldog puts dog food on Shamrock, and Shamrock snaps! Shamrock smashes the can on the Bulldog’s head, causing the DQ. He keeps going on the Bulldog, then shoves a ref. He then locks the Bulldog in a chokehold and no one can break it up. Bulldog is out. Shamrock finally lets go and takes out every official in sight, screaming “GET OUT OF MY WAY!” Crowd was hugely into this. This of course, made Shamrock a star (even though he storyline wise nearly killed someone). Kinda weird he’d only last two more years, but at this point it looked like him and Austin were the future of the company.

Interview with HBK. Can he be impartial?!

Los Boricas vs. The DOA

Vince calls it a 10 man tag, but this is an 8 man tag.

This all spawned from when Faarooq fired Savio Vega and Crush from the Nation of Domination. Crush and Vega formed their own factions. The Gang Warz!

I actually never got why DOA and the Boricas hated one another, other than the implied racial tension. Wouldn’t Crush and Vega want revenge on the Nation?

This match has mid 90s WWF legends the Underfaker, the Jacob and Eli Blu and Kwang. No idea why I think that’s relevant, but I do.

Skull already blew the correct selling of a top rope bulldog.

I like how Vince can’t tell the difference between Chainz and Crush, but Skull and 8-Ball (near identical twins) no problem.

Savio Vega with a cool spin kick that sends him over the top rope, landing on his feet. I always thought Vega was a little underrated.

Here comes the new Nation through the crowd. The Nation did help the careers of The Godfather, D’Lo Brown and later The Rock, but it killed Ahmed Johnson off.

The Boricas win when Miguel Perez pins Chainz in 9:08. Chainz gets thrown to the outside, where he takes a shot at Ahmed Johnson. Ahmed hits a bad looking Pearl River Plunge and Chainz gets tossed in by Vega. Perez hits an elbow for the win. NOD and DOA go at it. I mean, not all matches can be good on a show, right? It could have been a lot worse, and at least the characters are developed here, for what its worth.

Intercontinental Championship: If Austin doesn’t win the title, he’ll kiss Owen’s ass
Owen Hart© vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin

Owen got a pin on Austin in the 10 man tag at the Canadian Stampede. Of course, he reminded everyone of that fact. Austin made the challenge and the stipulation.

Notably (or not), Austin gets interviewed by a rookie Michael Cole, who gets shoved away, and verbally chewed out.

Owen attacks Austin during his corner taunts. More heels needed to do that.

Owen works on the knee right away!

Action packed start. Austin’s got the advantage now and begins to kick Owen’s ass.

Austin is mega over here.

This is the last technical wrestling match Austin would really wrestle barring some 2000 stuff with Benoit and Angle. There are two reasons for this. One: the WWF style changes with the Attitude Era. The second reason comes up later in this match sadly.

Owen now works on the hand, and moves bodypart to bodypart.

Austin with the old school stun gun, and powerbombs Owen out of a hurricanrana!

Now Owen goes for the neck with a neck breaker.

Austin tries to use a sharpshooter, but Owen gets out.

Owen keeps wearing Austin down. This has been a great match, with Austin’s comebacks coming at awesome times.

The moment that changed everything: Owen tombstones Austin in a sitting position…and paralyzes him.

Stone Cold Steve Austin wins the title in 16:16 by pin. After the tombstone, Owen plays to the crowd to buy Austin time, and somehow, Austin, with a legitimate broken neck here, gets a weak rollup and the pin. Austin was legit angry that Owen kicked out right after three as well. The match was great other than the tombstone at the end, obviously. This changed everything as well. Austin’s style moved to a brawler when he came back. He also needed more surgery in 1999 (the who ran over Steve Austin angle) that stemmed from the piledriver, and was a huge factor that caused him to retire in 2003.

This got Austin over even more though, as when he actually got to his feet with a legit broke neck it fueled the toughest SOB in the world environment. The piledriver just looks scary. Austin’s head is a good eight inches under Owen’s ass. Of course, with Austin in the main event, there was 0% chance Owen would ever become a main eventer in the WWF. Austin even said in his book that he didn’t want to work with Owen, and past Survivor Series ’97, he didn’t really have to.

WWF Championship: Shawn Michaels is the guest referee. If Shawn favors Bret, he can never wrestle in the USA again. If Bret doesn’t win the title, he can never wrestle in the USA again.
The Undertaker© vs. Bret Hart

Huge heat for Bret.

Bret calls for the Canadian National Anthem. More huge heat.

Huge cheers for referee HBK, although that would change soon…

Undertaker’s character in the ring has gotten more realistic at this point. He wasn’t sitting up from everything anymore, but still showed that he could take immense punishment, while we’ll see later.

Bret actually hits Taker with the title belt before the bell. Common theme with the Harts tonight.

Taker quickly gets into indestructible mode and beats the hell out of Bret.

Nice backbreaker submission by Undertaker. It’s Taker who’s actually working on a body part early, the spine.

Bret gets a chance and begins his going for the knee strategy that was obvious before this match began.

Figure Four from the Hitman!

Here comes Paul Bearer! He and Taker were not on the same page here…

Taker gets out…then goes right outside and takes out Paul Bearer, which allows Bret to take out the knee again. Bearer does a great sell job on the punch.

Bret with one of my favorite moves, the Figure Four around the post! This causes a Bret-Shawn argument.

Here come Owen and Pillman now.

Tremendous psychology here. Bret Hart and Taker are building a great match.

Taker uses the damaged leg to stagger over the top rope…and surprises Owen and Pillman by taking then out.

HBK gets Pillman and Owen out of here, and Taker chokeslams Bret and pins Bret, RIP pin and all, but HBK doesn’t see it! Taker grabs HBK here, the first seed planted. Bret then almost steals a win before Taker knocks him down again. Taker confronts Shawn one more time.

Bret now goes for the spine, we should be getting into Five Moves of Doom territory.

Backbreaker! Two count, but Taker gets out with authority.

Vertical Suplex, then Bret with some sign language for the crowd before dropping the forearm. Taker sits up after a kick out.

Russian Legsweep. It’s almost time…

Sharpshoot….no, Taker grabs the throat!

Taker makes his comeback…but Bret fights it off.

Taker hits the flying clothesline!

Taker chokeslams Bret from the apron to the inside of the ring! Fans react there, as JR points out no one has kicked out of two of Taker’s chokeslams.

Bret with the logical counter to Taker’s rope walk…kicking the top turnbuckle.

Sick top rope superplex!

Sharpshooter! Crowd is stunned, but they light up when Taker tries to fight out…no one gets out of this one…

EXCEPT The Undertaker! First break of the sharpshooter ever.

Taker gets a clothesline and suddenly he’s calling for the end!

Tombstone?! No, Bret gets out and pulls Taker toward the post…and locks in a Sharpshooter around the ringpost! It doesn’t look great though. Taker escapes and Bret lands on Shawn, incapacitating him at the moment.

Bret gets a chair and wallops Taker. Bret doesn’t toss the chair out far enough (intentionally).

Taker actually kicks out of the chairshot, which leads to a huge pop!

Shawn sees the chair and grabs it, then confronts Bret about it. Bret denies it. Shawn keeps pressing and Bret denies it again…then spits in HBK’s face!

Bret Hart wins the WWF Title in 28:19 by pin. Bret denies the chair usage…then spits in Shawn’s face! Shawn goes for a chair shot…and Bret moves and Shawn LEVELS Undertaker! It’s a hell of a chairshot. Bret gets the pin and Shawn is forced to count it, and Bret wins title #5. Amazingly built match with a super hot finish here. Bret’s reaction right after the pin is perfect too. An almost I told you so like taunt. Great match, and Bret Hart’s last great moment in the WWF, at least for 12 years.

Anyway, everything pretty much hit for Summerslam 1997. The only low points quality wise were the Million Dollar Challenge and the 8 Man tag. Even LOD vs. The Godwinns was solid. The WWF needed a strong show as WCW was still ahead in the ratings, and a strong show they got that allowed them to hang on until Steve Austin put them over the top. Of course, Steve Austin barely survived this show.

Historically, you have the creation of the great Undertaker vs. HBK rivalry. A piece of the Montreal set-up. Austin somehow looking more badass than he already was, although it was an unfortunate way to get there. Even the development of Ken Shamrock was shown here, as he would be a solid upper midcarder for the next two years. Mankind and HHH also furthered their storyline, with Mankind breaking into Dude Love for the next few weeks before Cactus Jack would show up.

A great show all around with a lot of historical significance.

Final Grade: A

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews In Your House XVI: The Canadian Stampede

March 13, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WWF In Your House: Canadian Stampede
July 6, 1997
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Reviewed on September 19, 2014

WCW was still winning…but suddenly, the WWF had something hot on their hands.

Say what you want about Bret Hart, his 1997 heel run is one of the great heel runs in pro wrestling. This heel run made Stone Cold Steve Austin and established him as THE face of pro wrestling.

At this point Vince was still in trouble financially (practically because of Bret’s deal), but in reality he just had to hang on. Austin was on his way. The WWF in 1997 was an exciting show once again.

Now in Canada, Austin would have a chance to further his legacy. He might have been a face…but in Canada because of the Harts he was still the biggest heel in the world. And…he would.

Careful WCW, the WWF is coming.

The Card

One of my favorite intro promos here. A black and white montage…explaining that the world is black and white. One of the fantastic things about Bret’s heel turn was that he felt he hadn’t changed…he felt the fans changed. He actually wasn’t wrong.

Mankind vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley

Story: HHH won the King of the Ring over Mankind last month (Pedigree on the table for the first time). Chyna interfered immensely. Mankind wanted a rematch.

Pretty hot start, including the elbow off the apron.

One of the brilliant aspects of this feud was that before it, Mankind was higher up the card than HHH. Yet Foley and HHH told a great story that brought HHH up.

Mandible Claw! Chyna though breaks it up.

Awesome spot here: Mankind looks to whip HHH into the steps…but HHH reverses and Chyna slams Mankind into the steps! It’s interesting that so many wrestlers didn’t want to sell for Chyna, and Mankind had no problem getting his ass kicked by her. (SeeJohnson, Ahmed).

Loving Mankind’s selling of the knee. Even the small grasp of the knee after piledriving HHH matters so much.

Chyna is playing the role of equalizer perfectly.

Double Countout in 13:14. HHH and Mankind brawl on the outside and are counted out. They keep going at it though, fighting in the penalty box. HHH shows great aggression here. Anyway, great opener. Normally I’d hate the double countout, but it made sense in this context. HHH owes Foley pretty much everything in his in ring career.

We get a Hart Foundation interview…until Stone Cold looks to fight he Foundation 1 on 5. Bret points out that he wants 5 on 5, not 5 on 1.

The Great Sasuke vs. Taka Michinoku

The WWF Light Heavyweight Division had pretty much been a joke before this point. I guess Brian Christopher vs. Steve Rogers or whomever wasn’t getting it done.

JR says that Taka is making his American PPV debut…in singles competition. It’s like he remembered Barely Legal midway through the sentence and added the single thing.

Mankind and HHH are going at it again! Brilliant!

Anyway, here we go. Lawler explains this Japanese style using Inoki vs. Muhammad Ali as an example.

Nice kick from Sasuke! Crowd isn’t into it yet. Slow build so far.

Knockout spin kick from Sasuke! Crowd reacted to that!

Nice slap by Taka and Sasuke does a great sell.

Taka with some nice dropkick spots. Shame no one would care about them later.

Sasuke with a karate kick off the top to the outside!

More crazy kicks from Sasuke! Taka is getting killed.

Taka goes airbourne, springboard plancha! Another move people stopped caring about over time sadly.

Taka perfectly lands on his feet out of a German. Hurricanrana gets two.

Awesome backspring elbow from Sasauke…and a perfect Asai Moonsault to follow up!

Michinoku Driver gets a huge reaction…and Sasuke kicks out! JR talks about it being his finisher…which should tell you who they were gonna build the division around.

The Great Sasuke pins Taka Michinoku in 10:00. Thunder Fire Bomb then Tiger Suplex for the win. What a match! This may be the greatest match in the history of the entire division…which sadly tells you how much they screwed that up (Malenko vs. Scottyis the other contender). Incredible though. Lawler screaming everywhere is also awesome.

HHH and Mankind are STILL going at it outside! Shovels, garbage cans! Everything! Great stuff.

We are told Ahmed Johnson was injured and can’t wrestle The Undertaker for the WWF Title. Bullet dodged there…because Vader is taking his place for what should be a good match (although their Rumble 97 match was a mess).

Paul Bearer interview. Wonders how Taker can live with himself for killing his family. Of course, this all led to Kane.

WWF World Championship
The Undertaker© vs. Vader

Undertaker in 1997 looked like a freaking bad ass World Champion.

Paul Bearer hides behind the apron. What a great heel.

Taker just levels Vader with a clothesline. Somehow this is already better than the Rumble.

I wonder when Taker added that Stinger Splash to his arsenal.

This was a couple months after the Vader Kuwait thing. I wonder if Vader knew he was only going downhill from this point forward in the WWF (unless you think him getting his ass handed to him by Shamrock in May was good for him)…and looked to make the best out of this opportunity.

Vader hot some height on that 2nd rope body tackle.

You know what’s weird? Bearer and Vader here remind me of Heyman and Lesnar in 2014.

Low blow from Vader! Ref letting it go…

Vader Bomb time? No, Taker sits up and low blows Vader! Good symmetry with the letting it go from the ref! Then Taker Chokeslams Vader off the second rope! Wow! I woulda bought that as a finish.

Taker had to be in top form physically here. He’s throwing the 450 pound Vader around like he’s Taka.

The Undertaker retains by pin in 12:39. Vader kicks out of another chokeslam…but Taker puts him away for good with a Tombstone! We are THREE for THREE with great matches here. Vader’s last great match (in the USA at least) ever. I mean, imagine if this was Ahmed?

The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart, Owen Hart, The British Bulldog, Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart and Brian Pillman) vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin, Ken Shamrock, Goldust and L.O.D.

We get interviews from team Austin side. Austin doesn’t say a work though. I also don’t think Hawk knew where the camera was.

We get the Canadian National Anthem from Farmer’s Daughter. Weird group name.

Stu and Helen Hart get huge ovations.

Huge boos for Austin. Amazingly though, he’d actually get cheered beating Owen at Survivor Series four months later.

Brian Pillman gets the biggest pop of his career. Pops get bigger and bigger with each guy. You can barely hear Owen’s music. Unless you listen closely…it’s difficult to hear when Bret’s theme begins. I argue this is the biggest pop in wrestling history, although I know it has competition.

We get an awesome face off between both teams…and then Hart and Austin go at it!

Hart beats the hell out of Austin and the crowd is has come unglued!

Austin takes over…and HUGE boos.

They randomly bust out the Survivor Series 96 finish!

Neidhart mocking Shamrock was great.

This is one of the all time great crowds.

Huge Austin sucks chants…he’s not even in the ring…

We get our first out of control brawl when Goldust gets trapped in the tree of woe.

Owen with a perfect missile dropkick and a nip up! Animal stuns the crowd by powerbombing Owen though.

Anvil breaks up a pin and it’s a melee everywhere!

Austin slams Owen’s knee across the ring post, then beats it with a chair! Bruce Hart attacks Austin from the crowd, but Austin takes him out.

Owen gets carried to the back as crowd gets on Austin again.

Stunner to Pillman!

Bret grabs Austin though and slams Austin’s knee into the ringpost! Then he hits Austin’s knee with a fire extinguisher! Of course…he follows it with a Figure Four around the ringpost! Now Austin is being helped to the back.

Some old school Hart Foundation!

Brian Pillman was absolutely brilliant in this thing…just being a pesky jerk.

Another brawl!

Shamrock gets the FIVE MOVES OF DOOM!

JR with an awesome Dusty impression here.

PILLMAN AGAIN!

Austin’s back! Austin’s back!

We get Bret vs. Austin again! This time Austin stomps a mudhole in Bret though!

Sick DDT on Austin by Bret!

FIVE MOVES OF DOOM! He didn’t finish against Shamrock.

Bret gets the Sharpshooter…but Animal saves Austin to huge boos.

Austin locks Bret in the Sharpshooter…but here comes OWEN!

Austin clotheslines Owen out, and Austin goes after him.

The Hart Foundation win when Owen pinned Austin in 24:31. Bruce Hart throws his drink at Austin, and Austin goes after Stu! The Harts get involved and it’s chaotic everywhere (and Bruce begins to kick ass and gets a Bruce chant, which apparently pissed Vince off). Austin gets rolled back in by Bret…and Owen rolls him up, 1…2…3! HUGE pop. Security breaks up the fight and the Harts remain tall in the ring….Bret’s music plays and everything, they wave the flags, etc. etc…

Until Austin comes back with a chair! Austin comes in by himself and everyone beats him up! “THAT RATTLESNAKE IS NOT AFRAID OF ANYTHING!”

Austin gets handcuffed…but makes sure to give the Canadian crowd the middle finger on hos way out. As Austin would say, “you might have tied my hands behind my back…but you didn’t shut up the fingers!”

Anyway, with all due respect to all the War Games matches I’ve seen, this is the best ten man tag team match ever. Ever. 24 minutes of nonstop action. Incredible.

An incredible PPV. Four great matches out of four. Bret Hart’s last great moment in the WWF as a babyface. Further established Austin as a not caring rebel. Helped establish HHH as well. Random awesome light heavyweight match. There’s just so much greatness on this show. There’s not ONE bad moment.

It’s a shame it all went downhill for Bret after this. Maybe it wouldn’t have been as good as the Attitude Era…but Bret Hart showed he could be a draw and a top guy. It would have probably always been in 2nd place…but the WWF would have survived surely.

Anyway, this whole show was incredible.

Final Grade: A+

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews ECW Barely Legal

March 13, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

ECW Barely Legal
April 13, 1997
Philadelphia, PA
Reviewed on March 11, 2014

Background: This was it. ECW for years had tried their damnest to get on Pay-Per-View. Companies thought they were too violent. Companies thought they were real. ECW actually got on the PPV schedule for 1997, but the Lesbian Kiss angle, SandmanCrucifixion and most importantly, the Mass Transit incident got them kicked off. ECW found a way back on though. Amazingly if not sadly, things wouldn’t be that great for ECW much longer. Their talent rosters had already been raided (mostly by WCW) and the more notable they got, the more that would happen. Nonetheless, this is a big moment for ECW, so let’s dive into it.

The Card

Joey Styles runs down the card…but The Dudley Boyz show up.

Dudleyz cut a promo. They weren’t ridiculously offensive yet, but still riot inducing heels.

We get the ECW Opening Video. Weird order of things.

Joel Gertner with his limericks!

ECW World Tag Team Championship
The Dudley Boyz© vs. The Eliminators (John Kronus and Perry Saturn)

Sign Guy Dudley “attacks” the Eliminators…and gets hit with Total Elimination!

This is more of a Texas Tornado match early on.

Springboard backflip from Saturn into a double dropkick. Nice.

Saturn would be in WCW in September of 97.

Double Feliner (that’s all I know it as, damn Cat) from the Eliminators!

Double twisting top rope splashes. This is all Eliminators.

Kronus catapults Saturn in a backflip/moonsault from the ring to both Dudleyz on the outside.

Space Flying Kronus Drop!

Totally forgot that Saturn once had one of the best top rope elbow drops in the business.

Double jump springboard moonsault from Saturn. Really a shame he tore his ACL a couple months from this.

Kronus with a nice 450 splash!

The Eliminators win the title when Kronus pinned Buh Buh Ray Dudley in 6:11. They double kick Buh Buh, then hit Total Elimination for the win. Match was 95% Eliminators. It works because ECW was trying to be different, and this was. How many total six minute ass kickings did you see on the WWF and WCW at the time? Also, great idea to start the show with a title change, makes the show feel important right out of the gate. As for the wrestling, it is a bit sloppy, but some of the spots you just didn’t see on a national stage in the US at the time. Perfectly good way to start the show. I’d even bet this match is how Saturn got signed away to WCW.

Joel Gertner states that in his scoring system, the Dudleyz win 86-83 and they are still the champs. He also gets Total Elimination…which led to the broken neck cast for his career (he even uses it at One Night Stand!)

Sandman hype video. He was the #2 guy behind Raven over the past year.

Lance Storm vs. Rob Van Dam

This match has some historical significance. Chris Candido, fresh off being Skip, got injured and was supposed to face Storm. RVD replaced him. RVD was legitimately upset over this as he felt he was overlooked. Smartly, Paul Heyman took advantage of this, first convincing RVD to stay, then running with the Mr. Monday Night gimmick and how everyone wants RVD. Of course, RVD is the biggest star to ever come out of ECW.

Surprisingly, neither of these guys would get a WWF or WCW deal until 2000 (Storm).

Some okay chain wrestling early.

RVD always had a great leaping somersault plancha.

Storm jumps to the top rope cleanly and hits a back elbow.

Storm goes SPLAT.

RVD with a moonsault off the railing!

RVD has the arrogance thing going on.

Sell-out chants for RVD. You know, Paul Heyman knew how to do the REALITY thing.

Frog Splash from RVD. Kick out from Storm. It wasn’t his finisher yet.

Storm with a nice last second splash off a cartwheel.

Storm gets the floatover Crab, but it wasn’t clean.

Storm with the weakest chair shot of all time…but when a very nice powerbomb on a chair. How confusing.

Storm tries to hit a top rope guillotine legdrop on RVD and an open chair, but it doesn’t quite work.

RVD botches one of my favorite moves. He crotches Storm on the top rope (not a corner) then goes for the springboard flying back kick…but he falls and only hits an elbow.

Rob Van Dam pins Lance Storm in 10:10. WEAK chair shots. But…RVD punishes Storm with a Van Daminator (the coolest move in the industry in my opinion at the time). Match was designed to get all of RVD and Storm’s spots in to show them off on a national stage. But, the match was pretty damn sloppy and some stuff was just botched. You don’t hear this match as one of those where RVD stole the show. Nonetheless, RVD does a “No Respect” promo which launched Mr. Monday Night.

Gran Hamada, The Great Sasuke and Masato Yakushiji vs. Taka Michinoku, Terry Boy and Dick Togo

When Jim Ross said Sasuke vs. Taka was each of those two’s first North American PPV match at Canadian Stampede…he missed this.

Michinoku Pro are honorary members of the BWO.

Streamers! Must be a Japanese thing according to Styles.

Sasuke would have some more ECW matches, most notably putting over Justin Credible.

Taka would be WWF Lightheavyweight Champ by December.

Dick Togo is like a great power cruiserweight.

The crispness of these moves is awesome.

Hamada with a lightning fast armbar. Nice.

AMAZING sequences of moves between Terry and Sasuke. I can’t even explain it, but it had about 10 reversals and some cartwheels. Wow.

Ouch, they stand Sasuke on his head and Taka dropkicks him right in the gut.

Michinoku Pro with an awesome group taunt and they included Sasuke!

Terry Boy is named that as a tribute to Terry Funk. He busts out the Spinning Toe Hold.

Wow Terry Boy props up Masato with a weak slingshot…so Togo can clothesline him down and Taka can come off the top with a flying knee drop!

Michinoku Pro gets a triple powerbomb on Masato, but they botch it on Sasuke. The only mistake this whole match.

Bad Sasuke hurricanrana counter as well.

Sasuke with a Asai Moonsault and he lands in the crowd!

Hamada with a really nice leaping swinging DDT.

Sasuke, Hamada and Yakushiji win when Sasuke pinned Taka in 16:55. Sasuke hits a Tiger Suplex on Taka for the win. Very good match, although I recall this being heralded as one of the best matches of the year (it wouldn’t even crack my top 3 matches on PPV that year). But nonetheless very fun and very good.

Big Stevie Cool backstage skit. BWO! He didn’t think he was a man being Raven’s flunky. He was in WCW in three months as well.

ECW TV Championship
Shane Douglas© vs. Pitbull #2

Story here: Douglas broke the neck of Pitbull #1. Revenge for Pitbull #2, maybe. Francine was also the former manager of the Pitbulls.

Francine is pretty damn hot.

Pitbull #1 is in the front row.

Douglas interview, talks about breaking Pitbull #1’s neck. Also about the masked stalker he has.

By the way, the Triple H Game gimmick was done first by Douglas. Although Douglas never evolved.

Headlock start really killed the crowd. Bad start.

It’s early, but this match is missing on all accounts right now. Very boring.

Blown spot where Douglas does a twisting crossbody and the Pitbull catches him…but then has to drop him.

Pitbull does a weak Fall Away slam for Douglas to go over the top rope and though a table, but even that looks weak.

Pit Bull #1 gets involved, and crowd didn’t even pop for it. This is not a good match.

Pitbull #2 throws a steel guardrail in the ring.

They botch crotching Pitbull #2 on the guardrail. Jeez.

Even the brass knuckles spot is boring and unexciting.

Shane Douglas retains by pin at 20:43. Overhead belly to belly out of nowhere for the win. Match was awful. While Douglas seemed off, Pitbull #2 had to put in the laziest performance of any wrestler I can remember, Vampiro included. Horrible punches. He wouldn’t even kick out right at the end. No surprise that he was gone in a few months and never caught on with WWF or WCW. Terrible match that went 12-13 minutes too long. Paul Heyman apparently apologized for it as well.

Here comes the masked man! He’ll take off the mask if he gets the girl!

Everyone seems to know it’s Ruck Rude, including Joey Styles.

Shocker…it’s not Rude…as Rude comes out from being disguised as one of Douglas’ bodyguards! It was Brian Lee who’s turned on Douglas. No idea why this all happened, but it was better than the 20 minute snorefest we just got. Crowd agrees. By the way, both Lee and Rude were in the WWF in 4 months. I feel bad for ECW sometimes.

Raven interview! He kinda gives away the fact that Terry Funk is going to win the three way to face him later. You know, since he’s cutting a promo on him.

Taz promo. Last hype job for the grudge match of the century!

Sabu vs. Taz

This match had been built up since 1995 I believe, when Sabu left Taz while they were World Tag Champs. It turned into a lot of moments where both men were close to coming to blows, but never would. Each claimed to be scared of the other. To be honest, the build was absolutely fantastic.

Taz is the heel and Sabu is the face.

This just has a big match feel.

Taz with the early Taz-Mission attempt…although Sabu escapes and Styles calls it as a huge deal.

Focus is mostly on Taz outwrestling Sabu, which I don’t really think is the way to go to be honest.

I always thought Sabu’s springboard leg lariat was a real creative move.

Sabu with the plancha into the crowd! Landing was a bit off…but it incites a serious ECW chant nonetheless.

Nice submission holds from Taz (Bow and Arrow), but this isn’t what the crowd wants.

Some nice chair spots.

Sabu misses Taz on an chair springboard dive, then Taz overhead belly to belly suplexes him over the top (which makes Douglas’ finish look awful anyway). Unfortunately, while I’m sure it hurt, it didn’t look great.

Sabu goes for a swinging DDT though a table off the apron, but Taz counters and sends Sabu through the table. Bill Alfonso, who is Taz’s manager here, starts begging Sabu to get up. Styles calls it mocking, but this makes sense in a few minutes.

Sky high legdrop from Sabu! Very nice.

Taz wins when Sabu passes out in 17:49. Sabu escapes a Taz-Mission with a suplex…but Taz suplexes Sabu in return on his head. Sabu though then busts out his own T-Bone Tazplex! Sabu locks in the Taz-Mission on Taz! Taz counters and drops Sabu on his head twice with two suplexes…then the Taz-Mission ends it. Watching Alfonso here is also quite telling as he looks disappointed, too bad it isn’t referenced. Sabu and Taz shake and hug to boos…but here comes Rob Van Dam! They double team Taz! Sabu botches driving Taz through the table, then dangerously does it a 2nd time (where we easily could have broken his neck). Sabu chokes out Taz with his own hold. Alfonso then reveals a Sabu shirt! How often does the manager end up siding with the loser of the team (he bet money on Sabu to win)! Anyway, this began the awesome RVD-Sabu team. RVD says he “loves to work Mondays”. Awesome.

Let’s talk about this match for a bit. It’s a good match, but this is the problem. This was supposed to be the greatest grudge match in history. Taz said it best in the ECW Rise and Fall documentary that there was no way the match was going to live up to expectations and unfortunately he was correct. I do think they should have done a different type of match though. Maybe because it wasn’t late enough yet or something, but there hasn’t been a whole lot of violence on this show. This match (and Douglas-Pitbull #2) needed hardcore matches, not wrestling matches.

Here comes Tommy Dreamer for some commentary for the main events. I wonder why he didn’t wrestle on this show.

#1 Contender to the ECW World Championship
The Sandman vs. Terry Funk vs. Big Stevie Cool

BWO!
BWO!

Here comes the Sandman. Dubbed entrance, but I do like Megadeth’s Trust anyway. This may be a while.

Sandman starts the match off by drinking and spitting the beer in Stevie’s face.

Tommy says he won’t interfere in this match or the one with Raven for Funk. Again, just giving it away are we?

The crowd is hot for this, which is good, because this has been some sloppy wrestling so far.

Four neckbreakers on Stevie Cool. Sandman just throws a ladder in the ring and nails Funk, what a throw.

Funk with a moonsault off the top of the ladder (nutcase) which totally misses Stevie…except for a boot. Still, crazy old man with a crazy spot.

Sandman takes the ladder and comes off the top and smashes Richards. You don’t even see that in Ladder matches today!

Funk with the spinning ladder! Styles with the accurate assessment: Funk’s nuts.

Catapult move seem to get botched somehow, as the ladder doesn’t come up.

Crowd clearly wants Stevie to win this thing by the way. Stevie Kick gets 2 on the Sandman…crowd chants bullshit.

Some crazy Sandman over the top rope dive to catapult the ladder into Stevie’s face. Ouch.

Sandman with a PERFECT toss of a trash can into the ring…as it lands with a crash on Terry Funk’s head!

Another ladder catapult! The ladder goes flying and almost ends up in the crowd. Sandman must be drunk.

Double powerbomb eliminates Stevie. Fans are not happy. I never realized Stevie was so over here.

Sandman finds barbed wire in the streamers that were thrown earlier! Funk though, gets it and whips the hell out of the Sandman with it. Ouch.

Terry Funk wins when he pins Sandman in 19:07. Sandman legdrop from the top only gets two. Richards on the apron, but Sandman (who wrapped himself in barbed wire) body splashes him off. Funk gets control by getting the can on Sandman’s head. Stevie Kick, then a Funk Moonsault for the pin. Very sloppy…but I guess it could still be classified as a fun brawl. Raven’s out right away, as there is only ten minutes of show time left.

ECW World Championship
Raven© vs. Terry Funk

This is booked smartly early, as Raven beats the crap out of Funk. Funk just wrestled a 20 minute violent brawl. So it makes sense.

Funk is bleeding everywhere. There’s a doctor in the ring, but Funk continues on.

Commentary from Dreamer is awesome, as he’s near tears as he promised he wouldn’t help his mentor.

Doctor’s in there again. The Funker fights on.

Raven drives Funk through a table with a flying dive over the top rope. That looked very cool!

Raven takes out the doc!

Reggie Bennett is out here. No Idea who she is, but she attacks Funk (Raven’s Nest did own).

Raven gets on the mic. He says he’s going to end Funk’s career right here.

Big Dick Dudley attacks Dreamer with a hard trash can shot! Dreamer turns the tide though and chokeslams (kinda) Dudley off the stage through a stack of tables! OH MY GOD from Styles!

Dreamer’s coming for Raven!

Dreamer throws a trash can at Raven…who catches it and throws it back at Dreamer. It gets Dreamer good…and he awesomely no-sells!

Terry Funk wins the ECW Title when he pinned Raven in 7:20. Dreamer DDT. 1…2…no…? Fans thought it was over. THE BELL EVEN RANG….but Raven kicked out. Small package…and that gets the three! Big pop for the title win. Match wasn’t even a match really, in fact the small package was the only move Funk got in. But it was a fun mess of interference and Raven kicking Funk’s ass…with a great moment at the end.

This is a tough one to grade. If I grade it purely on its quality of matches, it is a disappointing show overall, somewhere in the C+ range. One great match quality wise, a couple of good ones (even if one of those didn’t live up to the hype) and some crazy brawling.

If you grade it on the historical aspect, this PPV launched RVD’s career. It launched Taz’s top run as a face. It put ECW on PPV, and it lasted four more years in a very competitive era for wrestling. It had great moments. This was an ECW fan’s dream.

Sometimes you have to go with history. It’s almost a B+ and would be if not for the disappointing hype around Taz vs. Sabu (still a good match)….and the disaster that was Douglas vs. Pitbull #2.

Final Grade: B

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WCW Starrcade ’96

March 12, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WCW Starrcade ‘96
December 29, 1996
Nashville, TN

Background: The Wrestlemania of WCW: Starrcade.

WCW was absolutely rolling. The nWo angle was perhaps the hottest thing in wrestling ever. WCW was kicking the WWF’s ass in pretty much every way. And WCW looked to continue that trend with Starrcade, putting in the main event slot a huge main event of WCW World Champion Hollywood Hogan vs. Roddy Piper. The WCW style was always awesome in-ring action at the top of the show, star power later. And it worked for a while.

You really see all the pieces come together for this one. Temporary international stars such as Jushin Lyger. The international WCW Cruiserweights such as Ultimo Dragon and Rey Mysterio Jr. The workhorses from ECW in Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit. Midcard WWF guys like Jeff Jarrett. And of course, the top guys. The Hogan, Nash, Hall, Luger, Giant tier. Amazingly WCW was missing a lot of guys for this one too (No Steiners, no Harlem Heat, no Jericho).

So let’s see how the granddaddy of them all came together in 1996.

The Card

A lot of the hype for the main event (“the match of the decade”) is that Hogan never beat Piper (why did no one care here about that build-up but everyone shit on when the Warrior used that logic 2 years later). They must be just counting pinfalls, since Hogan beat Piper by DQ at the Wrestling Classic.

J-Crown Championship vs. Cruiserweight Championship
Ultimo Dragon (J-Crown) vs. Dean Malenko (Cruiser)

Japan vs. America I

The J-Crown is like 8 belts. Ultimo Dragon looked bad ass with them.

Great hold for hold wrestling early on….makes sense since these two were both top 10 in the world as technical wrestlers at this point.

Crowd solidly behind Malenko. Dragon was still a heel here.

Funny announcer quarrel about a half-crab. I love it when Dusty and The Brian get on Schiavone.

Nice STF/Crossface. It’s practically the opposite of John Cena’s STF in terms of how bad ass it looks.

Dragon with the backflip fakeout to Suicide Dive. I love that spot. Shame no one understood it in Dragon’s WWE 2003 run. I blame the 619.
Really enjoying this one. Match is slowly building the pace.

Admittedly a little too much with the leg grapevine here. Kinda killed the crowd.

Great series of reversals lead to a Malenko powerslam! Crowd popped for that.

Tombstone from Malenko! Nice false finish!

Ultimo Dragon pinned Dean Malenko to unify the titles in 18:30. Match gets really hot with big moves and reversals. A great sequence ends with Dragon hitting a trap Dragon suplex for the win. Gave this 18 minutes and other than the slow part in the middle, this was really good. Great way to start Starrcade. Also it is worth noting that Malenko was really over.

WCW Women’s Championship
Akira Hokuto vs. Madusa

Hokuto is wearing a gas mask?

Vacant title. Is this a tournament final? I have no idea. I don’t even remember a WCW Women’s Title.

Lee Marshall is brought in as an expert on Women’s wrestling. Sure…

USA vs. Japan II

Hokuto busts out a Scorpion Deathlock. Odd finish steal there.

Horrific floatover DDT from Madusa.

Weird Tornado DDT from Madusa where Madusa landed on her feet first. No idea if that was intentional.

Botched counter to a powerbomb…if it even was supposed to be countered. This match sucks.

Akira Hokuto wins the title by pin in 7:06. Sonny Oono attacks Madusa with the American Flag…then Hokuto hits a sloppy brainbuster for the win. A lot of blown spots. Bad match. The title wouldn’t last either. And the Brian points out Japan 2, USA 0. Tough way to start with two heels winning.

Piper with an insane promo. Sky Low Low and Jurassic Park made this promo. He goes on about Icons. Then we get into instruments. This is nuts. Roseanne Barr makes the promo too.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Jushin Liger

Japan vs. USA III.

This is a dream match I believe.

Handshake. Liger really isn’t a heel like Dragon and Hokuto.

This is a weird match that Liger just dominates.

Jushin Liger pins Rey Mysterio in 14:16. Liger Bomb kills Mysterio’s comeback. Apparently this is a Japanese style, but it kinda killed the crowd. Rey basically got squashed. Dragon vs. Malenko was a lot better. This was okay I suppose, I mean it was wrestled well at least.

No DQ
Jeff Jarrett vs. Chris Benoit

This spawned from Jarrett kinda being in the Horsemen but not really.

I think Jarrett is supposed to be the face and Benoit the heel…but it surely isn’t working out that way crowd wise.

Not really a lot happening. A lot of punching and kicking. I wonder if Benoit isn’t doing tech stuff because it’s a no DQ match.

Schiavone makes it a point that Benoit doesn’t get DQed for throwing Jarrett over the top rope. That stupid rule was still in place?

Arn Anderson walked by Benoit. Does that mean he’s pro Jarrett in the Horsemen?

Big pop for Double A though.

Dungeon of Doom out here. No idea what’s going on.

Jeff Jarrett pinned Chris Benoit in 13:48. Anderson DDTs Jarrett…and Kevin Sullivan smashes a wooden chair over Benoit’s head! When Double A tosses Jarrett back into the ring, Jarrett’s hand ends up on Benoit for the pin. I actually that finish is a little creative, but the booking and people involved was all over the place. Match was pretty lame as well. Nothing happened. Strange.

Mongo is out here to talk Horsemen or something. The Horsemen are unstable. Flair’s not even around anyway. Debra talks too. I don’t care.

We get some insight into Sting, who just turned crow. No idea who’s side he’s actually on at this point.

The Faces of Fear? Seriously?

Nick Patrick is the referee. I’m sure that note will have no effect on this match whatsoever.

So who do we cheer for here? The Outsiders?

Meng and Hall with a solid start. Good physicality.

Nash seems motivated here. Weird match to be motivated for though.

Now we’re getting some slow Nick Patrick stuff.

Weird legal man stuff. Meng was on the apron despite being the legal man. I’m sure that’s been broken tons of times.

Syxx is out here. Takes Jimmy Hart’s megaphone then leaves chasing Hart.

The Outsiders win when Nash pins Barbarian in 11:52. Jackknife for the win. Match made no booking sense. Outsiders were the faces for some reason…but had a crooked referee in their pocket. WCW announcers were rooting for the Faces of Fear. I would say wrestling wise this was a lot better than it had any right to be. Probably because it had a lot of Scott Hall, who was still trying at that point.

Dibiase and Hogan promo. Just running down Piper here. Hogan doesn’t understand time zones though. Hogan mentions that the belt stays with the nWo. That’s important here.

WCW US Championship Title Tournament Final
Diamond Dallas Page vs. Eddy Guerrero

Some story here…the nWo had been interfering and helping DDP win matches to get him to join. Nothing to do with Guerrero.

It’s a bit weird to see DDP has a cocky heel and Guerrero as an underdog face in WCW.

It’s also weird to see Eddy Guerrero dominating DDP in a WCW match. They were at two totally different levels 12 months later.

Pretty solid back and forth match here.

I do think DDP and Eddy’s styles don’t really click though. I assume solid back and forth is the best you’d get here.

nWo is out here. Hall though hits Page with the Outsider’s Edge!

Eddie Guerrero wins the title and pins DDP in 15:20. Eddie hits the Frog Splash after the Outsider’s Edge for the win. nWo beats up Eddy too, although he put up a good fight. Guerrero wrote in his book that he hated this finish as it looked like the nWo beat Page and not Guerrero…and he was 100% right about it. Match was fine.

The Giant vs. Lex Luger

Giant is nWo here…which I didn’t think made too much sense. Luger is now the face of WCW as Sting is off brooding and Piper is really Piper and not WCW.

Really long lock-up to start, then punches and kicks everywhere.

Luger brought his selling ability with him tonight. Which against the Giant, he should.

I think it’s crazy how the Giant used to just throw dropkicks like it was nothing.

Funniest ref bump I ever saw with Giant powering out of a pin and Luger landing on the ref.

Nick Patrick interferes and kicks Luger’s leg when he had the rack! He’s nWo!

Sting is here. But who’s side is he on?

Syxx ruins another rack attempt.

Sting drops a bat in the ring and tells both Luger and the Giant something, presumably that there is a bat in the ring.

Lex Luger pins the Giant in 13:23. Luger gains control of the bat and beats the crap out of the Giant. Pin afterwards. Huge pop. This was WCW’s first win over the nWo…which storyline wise is fine…but it’s interesting of all people the Giant was the first nWo member to lose. Match could have been A LOT worse. Pretty solid considering who was involved. Giant looks angered as the announcer’s say the nWo left Giant high and dry.

Hollywood Hogan vs. Roddy Piper

Story matters here, because it’s a huge problem with the match. Piper showed up when Hogan beat Savage at Halloween Havoc. This led to the Eric Bischoff in the nWo reveal. In the match build, remember that Roddy Piper got to choose the terms of the match. Because he for some reason chose a NON-TITLE match. And WCW is hiding that by the way. Hogna mentioned the title earlier. The crowd thinks this is for the title.

Crowd is really hot for this. As they should be.

Hogan sells a lot for Piper. Match is very punchy-kicky of course. Not much else these two can do at this point.

Really punch-kick-punch-kick. I mean, I guess this match wasn’t done for workrate reasons.

Piper comeback…and the Giant is here!

Ref clearly sees the Giant there, come on.

Random fan in the ring!

Piper somehow kicks Hogan while up for the chokeslam, then knocks Giant over the top.

Roddy Piper beats Hollywood Hogan via sleeper in 15:27. Crowd erupts. And Piper doesn’t win the title. Because it’s non-title. Bizarre. Match sucked as well. Post match has Hogan and Giant arguing, and Hogan blames Giant for dropping the ball. Hogan the celebrates with the title. Um..he lost the match?

Pretty disappointing Starrcade all things considered. It gets some extra credit for DDP and Sting developments, but loses a little for the non-title main event and general horribleness of the main event. Dragon vs. Malenko was great and Eddy vs. Page was solid, but everything ranged from disappointing to meh. Benoit vs. Jarrett and Faces of Fear vs. Outsiders were just flat out confusing.

I’d say Dragon vs. Malenko alone had it in C+ territory, but the overbooked nWo stuff hurts the second half of the show. nWo interfered in the last three matches…is one clean finish too much to ask? I mean, this is supposed to be the big show of the year, right?

Final Grade: C

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WCW Fall Brawl ’96

March 12, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WCW Fall Brawl ‘96
September 15, 1996
Winston-Salem, NC
Reviewed on September 7, 2014

WCW is getting its ass kicked.

Not by Vince. Oh no, at this point WCW had left Vince and the WWF in the dust ratings wise. They were about 10 weeks into their eventual 84 week streak.

It’s because they were getting their ass kicked by the NWO.

For two months the NWO had been destroying WCW in one of, if not the best, angle in North American pro wrestling at that point. Hollywood Hogan, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall were the most destructive group in wrestling and had beaten up WCW at pretty much every turn. Ted Dibiase joined them shortly afterwards, and then The Giant followed.

On paper the Giant joining was brilliant. It showed that any top guy would join the NWO, and it helped plant the seed that Sting could join. The Giant had no previous ties to the WWF, unlike Hall, Nash, Hogan and Dibiase. Of course, the Giant in the NWO didn’t quite work out and they used him to be that “first loss” at Starrcade, and then he left and re-joined WCW. If they kept the NWO as a group that only allowed top members and no one would want to leave it would have been great, but Giant leaving showed that it wasn’t the end-all be-all to join.

Still, the major angle, is Sting joining the NWO? Him doing so could kill WCW dead! He attacked Luger afterall! (Not really).

The only way to decide this war? WAR GAMES!

The Card

We get a pretty awesome overview if the dominance of the NWO over the past few weeks.

Bobby Heenan points out that War Games was created for the Four Horsemen and is confident the NWO will be wrestling their last match tonight. It’s pretty awesome that WCW felt this was the big comeuppance for the NWO. I’ll explain why later.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

You know, for all that WCW didn’t create new stars bs, what do you call DDP?

It’s hard to see Chavo go toe to toe with DDP, knowing where both would go in a couple years.

Pretty good start. It’s weird that Chavo was a better worker when he started than he was later.

Weird timing spot which was impressive as Chavo actually delayed standing on the top rope (not corner). Still technically a botch again.

DDP tosses Chavo from one ring to the other. I love spots like that.

Semi-botched sidewalk slam. Ah well, it was good enough.

Incredible spinning gutwrench powerbomb from Page. Wow. (Ok, the landing was a bit off but still looked great.)

Diamond Dallas Page wins by pin in 13:07. Page goes for the Diamond Cutter, but Chavo reverses into a backslide. Page blocks the backslide by stomping on Chavo’s foot, and gets the Cutter for the win. Big reaction too. Pretty awesome opener and a great start to the show.

WCW SPECIAL REPORT. Goes over the NWO angle at this point. Which is pretty incredible at this point.

Submission Match
Scott Norton vs. Ice Train

Watching the first Nitro, it’s interesting what a big deal Norton was…and where he is at this point.

The story here I think is the Fire and Ice team breaking up.

Ice Train is managed by Teddy Long! Holla Holla!

Not a bad start though. Standing frog splash from Train was nice.

This seems more like an “I Quit” Match as the ref has a microphone.

Ice Train makes Scott Norton submit in 7:08. Scott Norton has Train trapped in an armbar, but Teddy Long tried to interfere. Norton takes care of him but gets trapped in a Full Nelson and he taps out (so much for the microphone?). Not horrible or anything, there was solid power stuff in here.

They call it the Mexican Heavyweight Title, but my research (read: wiki) says the AAA title.

No one knows who Juvi is at this point. Konnan is known as he joined the Dungeon of Doom. He was also the US Champ for a while. He is in his gangsta look he would have for basically the rest of his career.

Yellow is not a good color for Juvi.

Pretty sweet release German suplex where Juvi flips over.

Konnan sends Juvi flying!

Konnan just stands that as Juvi does this triple jump spin kick (two leapds on the 2nd ring, then one from the 1st). Weird that Konna just stood there.

Great aerial stuff early on.

Nice powerbomb on the floor!

Mike Tenay says Juvi gives up 50 pounds of weight. Konnan is not 215, and Juvi was listed as 165.

Pretty badly botched headscissor-like move from one ring to the other.

Juvi makes up for it with more crazy flying.

Backdrop over the top rope and Juvi ends up hanging on the other rope! Nice!

Bad moonsault. Konnan seems to take exception and powerbombs Juvi. Pretty sick.

Damn rolling Germans from Konnan. I actually thought Benoit invented that.

Odd rest spot where Juvi just walks arounf and Konnan talks to Jimmy Hart.

Pointless backflip from Juvi? Leads to him getting dropkicked by Konnan.

I know I trash Konnan a lot, but this is the best Konnan match I’ve ever seen and it’s in spite of Juvi, not because of him.

450 is even slightly off, and doesn’t finish anyway.

Konnan busts out a Muscle Buster…but that doesn’t finish. Juvi might have missed some spots, but he’s taking moves like a champ.

Konnan pinned Juvi in 13:45. Splash Mountain Bomb! Nicely done and it’s over. Very good match only hampered by Juvi missing some spots and some weird spots in general (like Juvi’s backflip). Everything else owns though. Best Konnan match I’ve ever seen.

Chris Jericho vs. Chris Benoit

Jericho’s awful 1st theme!

Jericho had just debuted. The story here is simple: two guys just looking to have a great match.

Benoit is super over here.

Tony says he expected Mongo instead of Benoit here. Thank goodness it’s Benoit.

Benoit puts Jericho in the Lion Tamer! I wonder if Jericho was using it at this point.

Jericho looks great early on against Benoit.

Jericho with a crazy springboard back elbow to the outside from Jericho!

I believe this is the match where booker Kevin Sullivan said he wanted Benoit to have 90% of this match. Then Benoit and Jericho just did it 50-50 anyway.

Nice back jumpkick from Jericho.

Backsuplex to the outside with a twist! Some crazy ideas here.

Pretty perfect Swan Dive from Benoit. I like it better than his Diving Headbutt (the difference is how they land, although surely they’ve been called differently each time).

Jericho Tombstones Benoit!

Chris Benoit pins Chris Jericho in 14:36. Back Superplex for the win! Great match! Jericho looked like a star here and surely WCW will capitalize on someone who looked like the next Shawn Michaels here! (lol…at the push part). Great match though. A great back and forth contest.

WCW Cruiserweight Championship
Rey Mysterio Jr.(c) vs. Super Calo

I was once told that Super Calo was named that way as shorthand for supercalifr-whatever. Bobby Heenan then makes that joke immediately.

Super Calo is like a power cruiserweight, if that makes sense. I liked that roll through on the slam.

Mike Tenay says Super Calo is named after a Mexican rap group. Thank goodness.

Nice missile dropkick off the top to the outside by Calo!

Ridiculous somersault senton from the inside out from Calo!

Really surprising that Super Calo has been on the offensive basically the whole match.

Funny botch where Super Calo doesn’t go over the top rope…but Rey tries his damnest to get him over. The ref helps!

Rey Mysterio with the greatest hurricanrana off the apron I’ve ever seen in my life. I can’t explain it. It was nuts.

Rey Mysterio Jr. retains by pin in 15:47. Double springboard hurricanrana finish for the win! Another great match…but it had ONE flaw, which was NO one was buying Calo winning this thing. As a result, it felt pretty long. Oddly Calo had 80% of the offense too. Still great though.

I expect the match quality to drop quite a bit here…

How great was Sherri Martel? She could play so many roles.

Kinda surprised the Nasties never had a random ECW run.

CLUBBERIN! How can someone be the master of CLUBBERIN?

Match is pretty boring. Only excitement so far was Sags chasing Sherri.

That might have been the worst looking roll up by Sags ever.

Nice piledriver from Sags!

Harlem Heat retain when Booker T pins Knobbs in 15:31. Sherri whacks Knobbs with a cane and that’s that. WAY too long. Match was pretty horrid and only big spots were involving Sherri. Fans reacted though, so there is that.

We get a Savage interview! One of the best of all time for sure.

The Giant vs. Randy Savage

Giant joined the NWO, Savage is still a defender of WCW here.

Giant still has the creepy music he had before…then it turns into the NWO theme.

Giant had the potential to beat Nash’s sidewalk slam…but opted for a weak backbreaker sadly.

Boston Crab from the Giant just seems like an odd visual.

Savage slams the Giant! That would lose its luster years later as everyone slammed him.

The Giant pins Randy Savage in 7:47. Savage drops the big elbow, but Hogan is out here! He goads Savage to the entrance and the Outsiders beat Savage up with a chair. Giant distracts Nick Patrick, and then gets the win when the NWO rolls him back into the ring. Pretty bad all around. It was just 7 minutes of the Giant beating up Savage and a terrible finish.

War Games
WCW vs. NWO

The story here is simple: the NWO is here to take over WCW. This is another battle in the war…but it’s a big one as War Games is one of WCW’s primer match types.

Also, Mike Tenay asks Ric Flair which Horseman has replaced Sting in the match, but Flair doesn’t answer the question. All three of them, Luger, Anderson and Flair, are acting like Sting joined the NWO on Nitro. Sting then shows up and says it wasn’t him. Luger doesn’t believe him. This is all fantastic.

Rules are simple. There was a pre-match coin toss (usually always won by the heels, as it was here). Two men start, one from each team. The team that won the coin toss gets to bring man #2 first, then so on and do forth. When all 8 men are in, you can only win by knockout or submission (or as Michael Buffer says it, surrender or submission…)

We start with Scott Hall for the NWO and Double A for WCW.

Crowd is super hot for this. I think a lot of people thought WCW was winning this.

The announcer’s hype up the coin toss deal with a minute left. Sadly…they find out the NWO has won. Kevin Nash is next.

Outsiders beat the crap out of Double A for the next couple minutes.

Lex Luger shows up early to even the odds. I wonder how that’s legal? Anyway Luger regains control for WCW.

Here comes Hogan! NWO has the advantage once again.

Crowd goes bonkers when Double A and Luger beat up Hogan, but the Outsiders end that.

Huge “We want Flair” chants…so here he comes! HUGE reaction.

Hogan vs. Flair faceoff! When Flair gets a punch in the crowd roars!

Brass knucks for Flair! Flair has taken over!

WCW is owning…but then Sting shows up for the NWO…and everyone is dismayed. Some boos there. Some people definitely bought it.

We get some “We Want Sting” chants. And there are some who definitely knew the real deal here.

The NWO wastes away Flair, Luger and Anderson…but here comes the REAL Sting!

Sting destroys EVERYONE! Stinger Splashes everywhere!

“Is that good enough for you? Is that proof enough?” Genius. Sting walks out on WCW, and WCW doesn’t last long.

NWO wins when NWO Sting and Hogan make Luger submit in 18:15. A Scorpion Deathlock and a Front Headlock get it done. While not the best War Games from a match quality perspective (not a drop of blood!), it told a tremendous story and set the wheels in motion for the red hot Sting story arc for the next 15 months. This showed that only Sting could deal with the NWO, no one else. Brilliant. This is the main reason why WCW made bucket loads of money the next two years.

NWO and WCW go at it a big, and Savage tries to help, but the Giant takes him out. The PPV ends with another big NWO beat down. They even spray paint Miss Elizabeth when she comes out to help Savage…which is a nice touch. We get a Hogan promo too to hype up the Hogan-Savage Halloween Havoc match.

Overall, a great show! The only thing that was bad was the tag title match and Giant vs. Savage. Everything else ranged from decent (the submission match) to pretty good to great. Great matches, good wrestling, and a really well done storyline with WCW not trusting Sting. Historically, it was a huge moment that helped carry WCW through 1997 as the #1 promotion in the US over the WWF.

This PPV tore the hearts out of WCW fans. The Four Horsemen and WCW lost War Games? Sting left us? What will we do?

Just brilliant.

Final Grade: A

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WCW Great American Bash ’96

March 12, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WCW Great American Bash ‘96
June 16, 1996
Baltimore, MD
Reviewed on May 11, 2014

WCW was coming on strong now. WCW had more than held its own since launching Nitro opposite of RAW every Monday Night. Eric Bischoff used every tactic he could to get the upper hand on the WWF…and it worked. Reveal RAW taping results? Did it. He even put the show on at five minutes before the hour…just to get the lead-in advantage. But the biggest change happened when Scott Hall showed up on Nitro in late May. Hall was one of the WWF’s top guys from 1993 through 1995. Kevin Nash showed up a few weeks later…and in 1995 he was THE top WWF guy. Let history show that the Nitro right before this show, the June 10th edition, would be the last victory in the Monday Night ratings war for the WWF until April 13th, 1998.

WCW had more than Hall and Nash though. It had the best matches. It had some of the biggest stars in wrestling (Hogan, Savage, Flair etc.). It had fresh main eventers (The Giant). Overall it was just a more compelling company at that point. Vince had several lawsuits going on against WCW, even some involving Hall and Nash, but it didn’t matter (although it would matter for a segment on this show).

The 1996 edition of the Great American Bash was the first PPV that was a part of 83 weeks of dominance from WCW.

The Card

There’s a lot going on with this show. Bobby Heenan has a team going up against a Randy Savage team tonight. I actually forgot about this.

The Steiner Bros.(c) vs. Fire and Ice

Fire and Ice is Scott Norton and Ice Train. Norton would gain some fame for his run in the nWo and Japan. Ice Train…actually I have no idea what he did after feuding with Norton.

An okay power match so far. It seems like Ice Train is WAY out of his league here though.

Yikes Scott Steiner drops Scott Norton on his head with a suplex. That was almost a broken neck.

Admittedly a great spot where Norton locks in an armbar. When Rick Steiner tries to break it, Norton no sells a bunch of kicks to the face. It was pretty bad ass.

The Steiners win when Scott pins Norton in 10:29. Flying Bulldog…then a horrible Frankensteiner for the win. Not a good start when the first finish is botched. Match…was okay. A good point was that it was non stop action, not one rest hold. The bad point is several botched moves.

Some hype for the Falls Count Anywhere match between Kevin Sullivan and Chris Benoit. Not really digging the promo though. Somehow Sullivan is making it NOT about Benoit, but more about Ric Flair and Arn Anderson.

Seriously? This is the best we can do in WCW 1996 for WCW’s 2nd biggest singles title?

El Gato is Pat Tatanka.

Konnan is wearing the stupidest mask.

There’s some good Konnan offence to start. I don’t say that often.

Konnan retains in 6:03 by pin. Ugly sunset flip to the outside to El Gato. Konnan then got a jackknife pin in the ring for the win. It had a good start…then sucked the rest of the way. Not really a good start to this show.

Sting mocks Steven Regal…and it’s pretty funny to be fair.

Lord of the Ring Match
Diamond Dallas Page vs. Marcus Bagwell

This is for Page’s Battlebowl ring…I think?

It’s jarring to see Page as the chicken-shit heel and Bagwell as the good guy.

Page hilariously misses? a kick and sells it like a mullion dollars…even if it wasn’t a million dollar move.

DDP pins Bagwell in 9:39. Diamond Cutter for the win. Okay back and forth match…but three okay matches isn’t the way to start a PPV.

Jimmy Hart is questioned about his allegiance to The Giant or Lex Luger. He’s with the Giant here. Giant’s early promos were pretty funny. He does look badass as World Champion here though.

Rey Jr’s debut here.

I like that Rey began with the technical wrestling…and not Malenko.

Really good sequence to start with a double nip up.

Nice over the head sunset flip from Rey.

Malenko expertly works on the arm. He does a hold I never seen that I can’t explain, pulling the arm then kicking it away.

Malenko traps Rey’s arm in the guardrail then kicks the guardrail. Ouch!

Malenko counters the hurricarana by flipping Rey back to his feet then leveling him with a clothesline! Nice!

Malenko with my favorite hold, the surfboard! Then he turns it into a pin! Only two though.

Malenko is dominating this match…but it’s a great way to put over Rey’s resilience.

Perfect springboard somersault to the outside from Rey!

Dean Malenko retains by pin 17:50. Mysterio is on a roll hitting a lot of high flying spots…but a hurricanrana turns into a stiff powerbomb! Malenko uses the ropes as well for the pin. Great match that has kicked this PPV into high gear. Malenko looked great and Rey looked great. This match is also the match that kicked the Cruiserweight division into high gear. There were talks of ending the division before this.

Lex Luger interview. He’s already a tag and TV champ. Will he add the World Title tonight?!

Big Bubba vs. John Tenta

Enzugiri from Big Bubba!

Awkward fall from Tenta that had Bubba land on him.

John Tenta pins Bubba in 5:24. Big slam to win. Basically the opposite speed wise of the match before. Match was slow…and not good. Tenta can barely move here.

We get an interview with Steve McMichael and Kevin Greene. I always thought it was weird Greene became this part time wrestler, but he wasn’t horrible.

Falls Count Everywhere
Kevin Sullivan vs. Chris Benoit

A blood feud spawning from the Dungeon of Doom vs. the Horsemen.

They don’t even get into the ring, as Benoit attacks in the aisleway and they end up going through the crowd.

In the men’s bathroom now! HE PUT HIS HEAD IN THE COMMODE!

Now out of the bathroom, Sullivan knocks Benoit down the steps in the crowd. Really entertaining brawl.

Benoit and Sullivan both try spots on the table…but it doesn’t break either time. Clearly a non-gimmicked table.

Chris Benoit pins Kevin Sullivan in 9:58. Benoit hits a superplex off the top using the table to stand. Pin gets three. Arn Anderson comes down to stop Benoit from beating down Sullivan…but then attacks Sullivan, showing allegiance to the Four Horsemen. That gets a huge reaction. Really good brawl here, even if some of the bathroom stuff was kinda funny. Even though this match wasn’t the first WCW Falls Count Anywhere match, it has a lot of influence on the later WWF Hardcore division. Still, at the time some people called this one of the greatest matches they’d ever seen…but I wouldn’t go that far. Just a really good brawl with some originality.

Reunited Horsemen interview. But there are only three of them!

Bobby Heenan managing the Horsemen kinda owns.

Sting vs. Lord Steven Regal

Story here: Regal thought the WCW Championship committee overlooked him and he wanted to make a statement.

Here’s someone who got lost in the shuffle when the nWo showed up: Steven Regal.

Regal was such a good unique heel even then. He just had a style no one else used.

Regal had some awesome heel taunts as well.

Match has had a great story, with Regal working on the arm and using cheap tactics anytime Sting makes a comeback.

Sting makes Steven Regal submit in 16:30. Sting superman comeback…but it had a nice small varation. Regal actually counters the Stinger Splash by getting his knees up…but falls to the Scorpion anyway. Pretty good match here, it definitely made Regal look like he was at a comparable level to Sting. Too bad Regal wasn’t pushed much later in the year.

Legends of the Gridiron vs. Legends of the World of Wrestling
Ric Flair and Arn Anderson vs. Steve McMichael and Kevin Greene

This was an extension of the Flair vs. Randy Savage feud. Savage was suspended for something and couldn’t wrestle…but was in Greene and McMichael’s corner here.

This might be Debra McMichael’s debut.

Sorry to spoil the ending, but there is some great commentary here. Tony talks about a story that Mongo signed with the Packers of the Bears for money. I like forshadowing.

There’s some funny stuff with Flair and Greene in here. Flair tricks Greene into the three point stance before stepping on his hand. Greene later tosses Flair out and does the Flair strut.

It’s kinda jarring to see Steve McMichael put a Figure Four on Ric Flair.

All the women at ringside chase each other to the back. This also will be significant soon.

Watching this re-enforces the idea to me that Kevin Greene would have been a decent full time wrestler.

Some expert heeling from Anderson and Flair…but Savage attacks Anderson. Benoit comes out to attack Savage.

Debra is back out here with a briefcase!

Ric Flair and Arn Anderson win when Flair pins Greene in 20:51. Debra shows Mongo that the briefcase is full of money and a Horsemen shirt! Of course Mongo accepts, and smashes the briefcase over Greene’s head and Flair gets the pin. Very well done, and there’s your 4th Horseman! Match wasn’t good, but it had entertaining moments and Greene isn’t even a wrestler, so it’s all good. But the finish was what mattered, and it was good.

Ok this next segment is one of the most revolutionary segments in professional wrestling history. Eric Bischoff comes out and talks about the interruptions that’s taken place on Nitro, that being Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. Nash and Hall come out. Nash and Hall made a challenge for a three on three. Bischoff says it will be at Bash at the Beach. Bischoff asks them both if they work for the WWF, which they both say no. That ended some lawsuits right there. Bischoff refuses to tell Hall and Nash who team WCW is, that it will be revealed on Nitro. Hall gets pissed and nails Bischoff. Nash then powerbombs Bischoff through a portion of the stage. This was HUGE at the time. Nothing had been seen on national wrestling TV like it. WCW as we knew it would never be the same, as the nWo era had been in full gear now.

Seeing the Giant with the WCW World title makes me think about what a waste it was when the nWo just buried him.

Match starts with Luger running into a big boot of the Giant. I don’t know why, but I thought that owned.

Sting chases Jimmy Hart away…so it’s a real 1 on 1 now!

The Giant retains by pin in 9:58. Luger goes for the Rack, and has him up…but collapses (and Giant lands on his head…that could have been a lot worse). Chokeslam for the win. Um…I mean it’s obvious this match was boring and sucked right? I mean that’s the ceiling for Giant vs. Luger (I liked their Starrcade match better to be fair). Right man went over though, Giant was the man at the time.

This show constantly gets brought up as one of the greatest PPVs ever and in that first hour I wasn’t sure why. Then Malenko vs. Mysterio practically created the Cruiserweight division. Then Benoit and Sullivan had their great match. Then Sting and Regal had a good match. Flair and Arn did entertaining stuff. Nash and Hall changed the business. A lot of damn good stuff happened here.

The positives definitely outweigh the negatives…but this still isn’t nearly the greatest PPV ever. It’s very good, but there was too much crap to really get there (Big Bubba vs. John Tenta? Page vs. Bagwell?). I don’t think Sullivan vs. Benoit is the five star classic people said it was (still, it was very good). Maybe if the main event was better, it would be close to the elite, but Giant vs. Luger was pretty bad.

I would normally say this is in the B, B+ range…but the historical value of this show is quite high. The Hall and Nash stuff alone just blew everyone away at the time. And that Rey Mysterio guy kinda became a big deal.

Final Grade: A-

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

RDT Reviews ECW November to Remember ’97

RDT Reviews ECW Hardcore Heaven ’97

RDT Reviews WWF Summerslam ’97

RDT Reviews In Your House XVI: The Canadian Stampede

RDT Reviews ECW Barely Legal

RDT Reviews WCW Starrcade ’96

RDT Reviews WCW Fall Brawl ’96

RDT Reviews WCW Great American Bash ’96

And Games….And All Fun Stuff!