USWA Wrestling Challenge
Date: August 11, 1989
Location: Sportatorium, Dallas, Texas
Commentator: Marc Lowrance

This is the first of I think six episodes I have of this. I don’t have them all in order and I have no idea where to find them otherwise, so I won’t be able to put up the one from August 18. Other than that though this is from the late 80s (obviously) and it’s as good as anything else while I find a copy of the Raw I was going to do. Let’s get to it.

We open with a clip from a World Class show from last week with Eric Embry facing someone from Japan in a cage. The idea here is that if Embry, a Memphis guy, wins, then the Memphis guys get to stay in WCCW but if he loses then they’re all gone. Apparently we’ll get the ending later because that’s all we see here.

This is a USWA show from Dallas which is something I’ve never seen before. I’d assume that means Embry won. Marc Lowrence, the longtime WCCW commentator, is host. Short version: Memphis (CWA) and Dallas (WCCW) merged to form the USWA to try to fight McMahon and Crockett and it lasted all of a year before they split again.

Skandor Akbar talks about how Devastation Inc is tired of not getting acknowledged. They’re coming for the Memphis guys.

Lowrance takes us back to the cage match and the fans are all behind Embry. Embry is the booker from Foley’s book that liked to book sans clothes. Eric wins with a fluke rollup.

After a break Embry and Percy Pringle (Paul Bearer) take down the WCCW banner and put up a USWA banner. I’m really not entirely sure what’s going on here but it’s as basic of the idea as I can get it. From what I can understand, that cage match was the culmination of a LONG story (as in like 6 months to a year) between Embry and Devastation Inc.

WCCW had been taken over by evil (Fritz had legitimately sold to Jerry Jarrett at this point so the Von Erichs got toned WAY down) Japanese people and Eric represented the good guys of the USWA. He won the match to bring in a new era, which was wanted/needed. This is all based off info I can find elsewhere and not from the TV show mind you.

Billy Travis, a WCCW guy, talks very nervously about how he’s glad to be here.

Eric and Percy are here to talk about the USWA. I’m not sure if USWA was the name in Memphis or not. They talk about how they’re glad the evil ones are gone and they’ll try not to let us down.

Jimmy Jack Funk/Kerry Von Erich vs. Al Perez/Taurus Bulba

Perez vs. Kerry gets us going. They fight for position early and then get in each others’ faces. Kerry grabs the arm and it’s off to Jimmy Jack. The guys on the apron almost get into it out there as (and by that I mean Marc talking to himself) talk about the cage match. Kerry throws the chair at Taurus. Akbar is at ringside too. Lowrance talks about how all of the good things from WCCW will be around in the USWA also. Bulba comes in but misses an elbow to Funk. Back to Von Erich who LOUDLY says put your foot up, which is exactly what Taurus does in the corner. Bulba runs from the Claw and takes Kerry back down.

An elbow drop keeps Kerry down as Akbar talks about how awesome Devastation Inc is. Bulba comes off the top but jumps into the Claw. He makes the rope though and it heads to the floor. The Claw goes on outside and they go towards the crowd. Bulba goes into the post and allegedly we’re at 10 minutes. More like 4 but whatever. Tornado Punch sends Bulba into the barricade but Perez hits Kerry with a chair. Everything breaks down and somehow there isn’t a DQ.

We have four minutes left in the time limit and Kerry is double teamed in the corner. Perez hooks a sleeper on Kerry and takes him down with three minutes to go. Kerry gets out and punches Perez down. Off to Funk and everything breaks down again. Somehow we’re now down to one minute as they’re not even trying to hide the clock changes. A lot of pins are broken up but Kerry gets the Claw on Perez with 15 seconds left. And never mind because it’s a draw.

Rating: C. This was a pretty high impact brawl and I’d assume it was to advance a Perez vs. Kerry feud, which is fine. Bulba was a Mongolian which is a tried and true indy heel gimmick. Not a great match or anything but the crowd was into it and it wasn’t a bad match at all. The clock thing was just laughable though.

A guy who isn’t named doesn’t like to be in Texas but likes Arkansas. He’s part of Devastation Inc though. Oh it’s Gary Young.

Tojo Yamamoto and Akbar get equal time and say they’ll be here. They’re coming for Eric and Pringle. There’s a $100,000 bounty involved somewhere.

USWA Tag Titles: Jeff Jarrett/Matt Borne vs. Cactus Jack Manson/Scott Braddock

Manson is Foley and his team has the titles. Frank Duschek is with the challengers. He was the WCCW boss and was fired by Akbar, who is here of course as well. Braddock is thrown into Akbar on the floor and it’s Jarrett vs. Jack to start. Now there’s a pairing. Jarrett works the arm to control and has Jack hiding in the corner. There was talk of a break but I don’t think we ever went to one.

Braddock comes in and walks into an armdrag of his own. Here’s Borne in pink shorts. He’s no Bret Hart in them but he has a good clothesline. Back to Jarrett and the arm work continues. Back to Borne who grabs the arm again. Now we take a break and come back to a promo of Jarrett and Borne WITH THE TAG TEAM TITLES. They say they’ll deal with anyone that wants a shot.

Back with Jarrett working on the arm of Braddock some more. Off to Manson who rams Jarrett into the buckle then clotheslines him down to block Jarrett’s flips. Off to Braddock who slams Jeff for two. Cactus throws him to the floor and hits the elbow off the apron (called The Consequences here, which is a perfect name for it). That gets two back inside as it occurs to me we’ve never been told who the champions are. It’s Jack/Braddock, but we’ve never been told that.

Jack throws him to the floor and tries another Consequences, but Jeff moves and crawls for the corner. A diving tag brings in the pink shorts wearing Maniac to pound of Manson. Everything breaks down and Borne snaps off a quick German suplex on Jack for the pin and the titles. It’s a huge pop, but man it would have sucked to watch this on TV and have the ending spoiled.

Rating: C. Pretty boring tag match for the most part but the ending was a lot better. That being said, I’d have liked it a lot better if I hadn’t seen Jarrett and Braddock with the belts halfway through the thing. These guys would trade the titles for awhile until Jack left to go to I think WCW. Not much of a match but a title change is always worth seeing.

Lowrance wraps up the show and in something you don’t often hear on a wrestling show, says have a good weekend and worship at the church of your choice. He retired from wrestling to become a minister but it’s still odd to hear. Nothing wrong with it mind you, just not something you often hear.

Overall Rating: C. This was a really bad episode to jump in on. The feuds that were featured here were some VERY hot stories back in the day and it brought Dallas back from a bad slump they had been in, although it was short lived because of backstage politics with the WCCW guys pulling out of the USWA, making that company a Memphis exclusive in about a year or so. Still, fun stuff and a cool look at an interesting time in wrestling history. I don’t have the 8/18 show but I do have 8/25 which is up next.

 

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of Complete 2001 Monday Night Raw Reviews at Amazon for just $4 at:

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling book as low as $4 at:

Rodman Down Under
Date: July 30, 2000
Location: Sydney SuperDome, Sydney, Australia
Attendance: 10,000
Commentators: Vince Mancini, Ted DiBiase

Why does Youtube have to torment me like this? This is a one off PPV from a tour of Australia that a bunch of old guys (and Dennis Rodman for no apparent reason) put together for a quick buck. The organization is called i-Generation Superstars of Wrestling for whatever reason they came up with. Let’s get to it.

The opening video shows Rodman jumping Hennig over and over, making him the heel for the main event. I’m as shocked as you are.

The production values aren’t bad at all as the show is well lit and there’s a pretty good crowd.

Ted and Vince run down the card and tell us the main event is an Australian Outback match, which likely means hardcore.

Here’s Hennig to open the show by talking. He talks about Rodman leaving the basketball court to come into the wrestling world where all Hennig has to do is show up. Hennig wants to fight Rodman RIGHT NOW but Rodman is still in street clothes. Dennis talks about how awesome he is and how he’s going to beat Hennig and can I get my money back for this nonsense? Hennig starts a Dennis Sucks chant but Rodman says they’re here to see him….and that’s it. This is already a waste of my time.

Public Enemy attacked the Road Warriors at a press conference. Good to know.

Tag Titles: Public Enemy vs. Road Warriors

Public Enemy is defending and this is a tables match for no reason whatsoever. Before anyone complains, yes I know Public Enemy does a lot of tables stuff, but there’s no story point to this being a tables match. There’s no story period but that’s to be expected. Public Enemy wants the fans to shut up during the match or Grunge will beat them all up. It’s going to be a night of cheap heat isn’t it? The Warriors’ stomachs are literally hanging over their tights in a sign of the times.

Rocco jumps Animal to start but the Warrior comes back with some lame clotheslines. Grunge comes in and is knocked to the floor seconds later as the announcers make fun of him for being out of shape. Hawk comes in to pound away and hits the flying shoulder to put Grunge down. These guys are really looking their age out there and it’s pretty sad to see. Back to Rocco who is slammed off the top and caught in a powerslam for two. Wait isn’t this a tables match?

Back to Animal vs. Grunge with Johnny clotheslining him out to the floor. Rock whips Animal into the barricade and hits him with the lethal bottle of water to the head. Public Enemy pounds him down in the corner but Rock misses a running crotch attack at the ropes. Grunge breaks up the hot tag attempt and Rocco goes up as this match is still in slow motion. Rocco jumps into a boot to the face and we finally get the hot tag to Hawk.

He takes both Enemies down with some lame neckbreakers before missing the top rope clothesline to a downed Grunge. Everything breaks down and Hawk is laid out on a table for the flip dive from Rocco….which doesn’t end the match. Rock is confused so he tries again on another table but drives himself through it instead. Animal hits a horrible shoulder to Grunge in the ring but Rock pops him with a chair. We get a table in the corner now and a spear/shoulder from Animal sends both Enemies through it for the titles.

Rating: D-. This is only above a failure because I love the LOD (Legion of Doom, meaning the Road Warriors for you young pups). It was sad to see these teams looking so old and out of shape but the rules made it even worse. They went back and forth between pins and tables with the table on the floor not counting. I’m assuming it’s because it wasn’t in the ring but the announcers nor the referee ever told us that.

Here are the I-Generettes to fill in time on an hour and forty five minute show.

Barbarian vs. Brute Force

Force is Brutus Beefcake and this is a hardcore match for no apparent reason. Brutus pulls Barbarian away from posing for a trashcan shot to start things off. Some broomstick choking has Barbarian down in the corner but a low blow stops Force’s force. Yeah I know that was bad but this show is dumbing me down and we’re not even half an hour into it. A headbutt low gets Barbarian yelled at for no reason but a trashcan to the head is fine. The announcers talk about a popcorn machine as Barbarian stomps him down in the corner. I could go for a hot snack to keep me awake too.

We head to the floor with Barbarian being rammed into the table and hit with the trashcan again. Barbarian fights from his back with trashcan lid shots but has to avoid a shot with the steps. Back in and Brutus is hit with a 2×4 and punched in the head a lot. Some choking with a chain does no good for Barbarian as Brutus comes back with an atomic drop and a low headbutt. A Stunner, a DDT and a piledriver get two each for Brutus but a single kick to the chest/ribs is good for the pin for Barbarian.

Rating: D-. This is a good example of the problem with gimmick matches: there’s no reason for this to be a hardcore match so it’s just two people hitting each other with trashcans for ten minutes. That doesn’t make for an interesting match but rather a boring waste of time until we get to a very stupid finish that made Barbarian of all people look tough instead of the hero.

More from the dancers.

Brandi Wine vs. Sweet Destiny

I’ve never heard of either chick and from what I can find they have about five career matches between the two of them. Wine has Fred Ottman (Tugboat) with him here under the name of Sugar Daddy for no apparent reason. Wouldn’t Sugar Daddy make more sense for the chick named Sweet? Instead Destiny has some boxer named Aussie Joe Martin as her second. Neither chick looks that good but Destiny is the face. She’s also the hips and stomach but I guess the dancers are all the skinny non-wrestlers the company could afford. Think a slightly chunkier Nidia.

Feeling out process to start which turns into a bad dance off. They seem to be avoiding contact due to a lack of talent. Destiny takes her down with a decent throw but is sent into the buckle very slowly. A catapult sends Destiny into the corner again as these girls are making the Bellas look like Trish and Lita. Brandi poses a lot and drags her down by the hair a few times. Bad choking ensues as this match just keeps going. A clothesline puts Destiny on the floor and Brandi rams her into the table a few times.

Wine poses a lot to further drag out the match time. How can a show have five matches and need to fill in this much on a card? A pinfall reversal sequence gets a few near falls each until Sugar Daddy trips up Destiny. Sugar Daddy and Aussie Joe (who is old and in a referee shirt for some reason) get in a fight with Joe dropping him with one right hand. Destiny gets two off a good German suplex but gets slammed off the top. Brandi goes up as well and gets superplexed down for the pin.

Rating: D. Somehow this was the match of the night so far. It wasn’t good in the slightest but they were trying and I’ve seen FAR worse female matches before. On the other hand, these girls looked lost out there at times, which makes you wonder why they got nearly fifteen minutes to work with. Nothing to see here at all, especially when you had Trish Stratus at the peak of her hotness in the WWF at this point.

Hey look: more dancing!

Australasian Title: One Man Gang vs. Tatanka

Yes seriously. Tatanka is defending and is the face, but wouldn’t you think he would be a heel for being so proud of being from another country? The Gang thanks the fans for their support but wants the women to wash their underwear before they throw them to him. Gang looks so old it’s unreal. He pounds away in the corner to start and gets two off a clothesline. Tatanka comes back with kicks and chops as this is somehow less interesting than the girls.

Gang is sent to the floor and complains about how bad he smells. He takes a walk up the aisle and after nearly a minute the fans fill the ring with trash. Back in and they trade wristlocks with Gang pounding down into the shoulder. Tatanka comes back with shots to Gang’s shoulder as well and a chop to the head for two. A nearly botched cross body gets two more for Tatanka but Gang hits one of his own for two. Tatanka works the leg for a bit as this is already going longer than it should.

Gang kicks him to the floor but gets caught in a sunset flip for two. The big man slowly drops knees as I go read Gone with the Wind to fill in the time. Off to a nerve hold until Gang drives some shoulders into Tatanka’s ribs. Gang misses a running charge in the corner but Tatanka charges into a boot in the corner. A big fat legdrop makes me wish I was watching a Yokozuna match but Tatanka avoids a second one. I’m assuming he does as the camera was on fans in NWO shirts.

Tatanka makes his comeback and a chop to the head gets two. He rams Gang’s head into the buckle but the referee is crushed off a whip. Gang is slammed off the top and chopped in the head but there’s no referee. The fat man loads up some brass knuckles and knocks out the Indian for the pin and the title after nearly TWENTY MINUTES.

Rating: F+. I’ll give Gang credit here: he was trying. He was playing to the crowd and actually moving a bit out there which is more than you can say for most of the wrestlers tonight. The match was WAY too long though and on a show already this bad there’s no reason for it to go this long. Did they only have twelve people for the show or something?

Remember those dancing girls who have done the same dance three times already? Well here’s a fourth edition.

We recap Rodman vs. Hennig with the same videos from earlier.

I-Generation World Title: Dennis Rodman vs. Curt Hennig

Hennig is defending and this is an Australian Outback match, which I think means street fight. Rodman jumps him to start and hits Hennig in the head with the belt. Curt is busted open so Rodman pounds away at the cut. We head to the floor with Hennig being rammed into the table. Curt finds a broomstick and pounds Rodman in the ribs before throwing him over the announce table. Rodman is rammed through the table and Hennig is ticked off.

Hennig pounds away on the floor before heading back inside for more stomping. This is already boring as Rodman can’t do anything but brawling so there isn’t much to see. Rodman hits him low and knocks Curt to the floor, only to have the champion come back with chops. Back in for more chopping but Rodman headbutts the referee for no apparent reason. They slug it out a bit more and Rodman throws the referee down for a DQ, making me wonder what an Australian Outback match is.

Rating: D-. Hennig looked good but there’s a reason Rodman is a basketball player: he doesn’t have much skill as a wrestler. This was yet another garbage brawl with nothing to see from Rodman. Curt could have had a good match with an actual wrestler, but that might be interesting so we can’t have that.

Rodman and Hennig keep brawling after the match but Brute Force (in a freaking zebra stripe suit) breaks it up.

Hennig is checked in the back and says it’s not over with Rodman.

A four minute highlight package and credits end the show.

Overall Rating: F. Well that was horrible but I can’t say it’s in Heroes of Wrestling territory. For one thing that show was nearly an hour longer and had some of the most embarrassing “wrestling” you’ll ever see. This was terrible stuff too but it wasn’t dragging the business down to never before seen lows. At the end of the day, this was only an hour and forty minutes with nearly twenty of that being spent on dancing or video packages. It’s terrible but it’s not the worst show of all time by a decent stretch.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of Complete 2001 Monday Night Raw Reviews from Amazon for just $5 at:

And check out my author page at Amazon with wrestling books as low as $4 at:

WWA: The Reckoning
Date: June 8, 2003 (Taped May 25, 2003)
Location: North Shore Events Centre, Auckland, New Zealand
Attendance: 3,000
Commentators: Jeremy Borash, Glenn Gilbertti

This is the final show for the company and they knew that going in. Therefore, tonight is all about unifying titles into either NWA or TNA belts, meaning you can see a lot of the results already. It’s also a much smaller card with just six matches in the entire show. That really doesn’t make me all that upset. Let’s get to it.

Some native Australians do a war dance.

We get a clip of Sting winning the world title at a house show. Jarrett is here tonight with the NWA World Title for a unification match.

Opening sequence.

Rick Steiner vs. Mark Mercedes

Mercedes is an Australian wrestler, rightly making him the heel in the match. He runs his mouth about how much better Australia is than New Zealand to really endear himself to the people. They start with a brawl on the floor with Steiner being whipped into the barricade. Naturally he doesn’t sell it and backdrops Mark in the ring before putting on a Crossface of all things. Mercedes comes back with a release German suplex for two and a forearm takes Steiner down again.

Off to a front facelock followed by a chinlock with Rick in trouble. The fans are all over Mark here and Rick comes back with a boot in the corner and some Steiner Lines. An overhead suplex puts Mercedes down but Mercedes comes back with some shots in the corner. He puts Rick on the middle rope but gets punched down, allowing the Steiner Bulldog to connect for the pin.

Rating: D+. This wasn’t terrible and the fans were way into it due to some cheap my country is better than yours head. Yeah it’s cheap heat, but at the end of the day it got the fans to boo the heel and cheer the face so it’s doing its job. Steiner was his usual stiff and no selling self but the match wasn’t horrible.

The lights go out and Sting is in the rafters. He talks about being in Kiwi Country and being back in black, which is apparently a battle cry for a rugby team. Jarrett’s guitar is nothing but an Australian wallaby and tonight it’s showtime.

Puppet vs. Teo vs. Meatball

Here’s something I won’t miss at all about this promotion. Puppet goes into a rant about wanting to kill all the midgets in the world so he’ll be the only one left, making him the real star. See, midgets are always the real star of a show. Meatball and Puppet team up to take out Total E Outstanding (just go with it) but Puppet turns on Meatball a few seconds in. Teo goes after both of them to start but gets punched down by Puppet.

Teo comes back with a low headbutt to Meatball in the corner but a double team takes Teo down. The 250lb Meatball turns on Puppet and hits a cartwheel into an elbow for two. Meatball accidentally sends Puppet to the floor and a Swanton Bomb from Teo is good for the pin. At least it was, ahem, short.

Johnny Swinger says he’s going to win the Cruiserweight Title and the X Title tonight.

Kazarian says he’s the future and it looks good.

Konnan vs. Devon Storm

Hardcore. Konnan jumps over him in the corner to start but gets caught by a kendo stick to the ribs for two. Gilbertti: “SHOOT HIM BETWEEN THE EYES! That’s hardcore!” They trade some shots with Konnan getting the better of it but the fans want tables. A trashcan lid to Storm’s head gets two and a rolling lariat sends him to the floor. Konnan rips up the barricade and sends Storm into it before heading to the entrance and sending Storm into the island set.

Storm comes back and kicks Konnan to the floor as the camera starts messing up. Back at ringside Devon bridges the barricade between the steps and ring before getting two off a splash in the ring. Konnan whips him onto the barricade for two and a suplex back in gets the same. A chair is wedged into the corner but Konnan is sent face first into it for two. Konnan is sandwiched between a chair and Crowbar for a northern lights suplex. Storm puts him on the bridged barricade again and hits a flip dive over the top for the pin. It’s as out of nowhere as it sounds.

Rating: D. It’s another dull match with a bunch of weapon shots that meant nothing at all. Storm didn’t do anything but hardcore in this company which is annoying as he can do some decent regular stuff too. Konnan was his usual self here but the match wasn’t anything interesting at all.

Chris Sabin says he’s retaining his title and winning the WWA Title.

Jerry Lynn says he’s retaining his title and winning the X Division Title.

WWA Cruiserweight Title/TNA X-Division Title: Kazarian vs. Jerry Lynn vs. Johnny Swinger vs. Chris Sabin

One fall to a finish here and the winner gets both titles. Thankfully there are no tags here and it’s a big brawl from the start. Everyone misses a flip dive before trying a quick rollup for two each leading to a fourway stalemate. We get three straight armdrags to send everyone across the ring until Sabin is left alone with Kaz. A big kick to the head gets two for Sabin but Kaz takes over while the other two brawl on the floor. Back to the Future (Sabin is on Kaz’s shoulder with Kaz dropping back into a cover) gets two and a hard clothesline gets the same.

Swinger finally comes back in to stomp Kaz into the corner before hooking up with Sabin for a double flapjack. Lynn comes in off the top to take both Kaz and Sabin down with a cross body and a bad looking rana puts Kaz down. Swinger puts Lynn in the figure four as the other two are out on the floor. Sabin and Kaz come off the top to break it up and both get two counts.

It’s Sabin and Lynn alone in the ring with Jerry hitting a hurricanrana and a dropkick for two. Lynn hooks a German suplex on Kaz but Sabin hits a sunset flip on Lynn at the same time for a double two count. Swinger makes the save and puts Sabin in an Indian Deathlock but Lynn puts Swinger in a dragon sleeper at the same time, only to have Kaz hook a reverse cravate on Lynn, all at the same time. Kaz finally turns it around into a double reverse DDT for two on Jerry.

Lynn loads up a dive on Swinger but walks into a superkick from Kaz, allowing Kaz to hit the big dive on Swinger instead. Lynn dives on both guys after getting a running start off an Irish whip from Sabin. Sabin hits a big dive onto all three guys to put everyone down. Sabin monkey flips Kaz into a double clothesline to take the other two down before Sabin belly to back superplexes Kaz off the top in another big crash.

We get the parade of finishers with Lynn hitting a TKO on Swinger for two. Kaz gets two on Sabin after a slingshot DDT and the Tower of Doom gets two for Jerry. Swinger hits a Boss Man Slam for two on Lynn and a spinning backbreaker gets the same for Sabin on Kaz. Sabin’s tornado DDT puts Swinger on the floor and Lynn counters a piledriver on Kaz into Sheamus’ White Noise for two. Sabin and Kaz are left alone in the ring with Chris hitting a MuscleBuster on a crotched Kaz for the pin and the titles.

Rating: C+. This was fun but it was every stereotype of a multiman cruiserweight match you could think of rolled into one. The problem with this comes down to feeling like I’ve seen it all before which doesn’t make it all that exciting. The ending was obvious of course but there’s only so much you can do about that.

Here’s Shane Douglas with something to say. We get the required ECW chant before Shane goes on a rant about Vince McMahon and how he made ECW into an awesome place. Shane rips on the national rugby team and New Zealand in general, saying New Zealand is the stepchild of Australia. The question is who made ECW great: Shane or Sabu. The fans chant for Sabu as Shane talks about suffering a career ending arm injury a few weeks ago. Shane doesn’t care about the injury and wants to fight Sabu right now.

This brings out Joe E. Legend who says we can’t do that because he knows more about Shane than any other wrestler in the world. Legend is hurt because he wanted to see Douglas beat up Sabu. He insults New Zealand as well as Borash rifles through disclaimers about how WWA doesn’t think this badly about the country. Legend lists off Douglas’ accomplishments and we get the WHAT treatment. This just keeps going as we’re waiting on Sabu to come out. Legend offers to fight Sabu for Shane and that’s all cool.

Sabu vs. Joe E. Legend

Shane jumps in on commentary to further annoy me. Legend quickly takes it to the mat into a headscissors before we get to the insane stuff. Joe wins a quick slugout and chokes in the corner but gets caught in a springboard tornado DDT for two. We head to the floor for a flip dive by Sabu before Legend stomps away back inside. They head back outside for a big springboard dive from Sabu as Shane blames Sabu for killing ECW.

We get our first table brought in but Legend runs him over with a clothesline before it could be set up. Sabu is busted open as Legend spears him into the barricade. Some right hands have no effect on Joe so he gets two off a big boot to the face back inside. We hit the chinlock until Legend kicks a chair into Sabu’s back for no cover. Sabu pelts the chair into Joe’s face and an Arabian facebuster with the chair gets two.

There’s the camel clutch on Legend but Joe gets to the ropes pretty quickly. Legend comes back with a northern lights suplex as the fans want the table. Joe is sent to the apron and knocked over the table so we can brawl on the floor a bit. That goes nowhere so Joe takes him back inside and gets two off a powerbomb. Sabu crotches him on the top and hooks a top rope rana for two. Joe avoids a top rope splash and kicks Sabu in the head for two. A chokeslam powerbomb gets two on Sabu but the fans still want the table.

Legend’s Vader Bomb only hits chair and an Arabian Press gets two. Air Sabu is caught in a fireman’s carry drop sending Sabu face first onto the chair. Sabu finally puts him on the table and the triple jump legdrop sends Legend through it to pop the crowd. Back in and the chair is pelted into Legend’s face again before going up top. After breaking up a superplex attempt, the top rope Arabian Facebuster is good for the pin.

Rating: D. This wasn’t terrible but it was LONG, running nearly 18 minutes, or a lot longer than any Sabu match should last. Legend was decent enough but he isn’t the most exciting guy in the world. All the fans wanted to see was Sabu put someone through a table so the match could have ended after that point. Not bad, but WAY too long.

Shane and Legend lay out Sabu with Shane’s cast.

Here’s WWA boss Andrew McManus to introduce Bret Hart. This is just after his stroke so Bret isn’t in the best condition. Bret talks about hearing from someone in the WWE who said his stock was at an all time low when he appeared on a WWA show. He doesn’t have stock in wrestling because he’s long since retired. Yesterday was the four year anniversary of Owen’s death and Owen would be proud of Bret for being here.

Hart talks about British Bulldog, Miss Elizabeth and Curt Hennig all passing away in the past year. After his stroke he got emails from all over the world and he thought it was because he was the world champion and not just the WWE Champion. Bret says the Hitman is a real character and what you see is what you get with him. He thanks the fans and leaves so the main event can happen. This was designed to be a feel good moment and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Jarrett says he’s going to leave with two world titles.

WWA World Title/NWA World Title: Sting vs. Jeff Jarrett

They fight over a lockup to start with Sting shoving Jarrett away. A pair of shoulder put Jarrett down and we have a standoff. Jeff comes back with right hands and struts a bit but Sting comes back with some atomic drops and a bulldog to send Jeff to the outside. They head to the floor for some brawling with Jeff being sent into the announce table over and over.

Back in and Gilbertti is freaking out over Sting destroying his work area. Sting fires down right hands at Jeff’s head but Jarrett hits him low to escape. Jarrett sends him face first into some buckles but keeps stopping to pose. Gilbertti: “Right now Sting is on queer street.” A clothesline gets a few near falls for Jarrett as Gilbertti points out that Jeff clearly isn’t going to pin him so why let Sting get a breather instead of pounding on him?

Jeff elbows Sting in the jaw but still won’t go in for the kill. Instead he puts on a sleeper but Sting elbows out, only to have his splash hit Jeff’s knees. Back up and they ram heads to set up Sting’s collapsing headbutt to the groin. Sting misses the Stinger Splash but saves himself from crashing, only to play possum on Jarrett.

Jeff gets the guitar but Sting hits it with the bat to save himself. Some bat shots to the knee sets up the Stinger Splash but the second hits the referee. There’s the Scorpion Death Drop but there’s no referee. Instead Joey Legend comes out with the guitar but Rick Steiner makes the save. Sting splashes both villains but Rick breaks up the Scorpion with a guitar shot to the head to give Jarrett the pin.

Rating: C-. It’s Jarrett vs. Sting with both guys somewhat trying. This is one of those pairings where you know they’re going to put on a passable match no matter what they do so this isn’t a surprise at all. It’s interesting to see Sting when he was still somewhat young and trying so the match wasn’t a disappointment at all.

Overall Rating: D+. It’s not worth watching but this wasn’t the worst show in the world. It’s about two hours long and two of the good matches run over twelve minutes each so there’s some redeeming value here. The promotion closed after this which was the right move. TNA was taking the place that WWA was designed to fill so there was no point to this company existing anymore. This could have been a lot worse though so at least they didn’t go out on the bottom.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my book on the History of Starrcade from Amazon for just $4 at:

For you ROH fans out there, here’s a rare post about them.As you may have heard, ROH had yet another disaster when they tried to run an internet PPV with almost no one being able to see the feed.  From now on the shows will be available as video on demand the next day.

Also the Briscoe Brothers had a real life fight after the show on Saturday with Mark being sent home and Jay being sent home after the TV tapings.  Jay happens to be the reigning ROH World Champion so this is a major problem for the company.  It’s also pretty stupid considering Jay had a title defense at the tapings and retained the belt.

Triplemania 18
Date: June 6, 2010
Location: Palacio de los Deportes, Mexico City, Mexico
Attendance: 17,500
Commentators: Konnan, Alfonso Morales, Jesus Zuniga, Arturo Rivera

 

This is the Wrestlemania of the AAA promotion, which I believe is the biggest wrestling company in Mexico. This show is their latest major show so I figured I’d take a look at it. I figured if I can watch Japanese shows and have no idea what’s going on I can do the same with Spanish ones right? I speak some Spanish so this could be a bit better. The main event is LA Park vs. La Parka for the rights to the name La Parka which is apparently a dream match. Let’s get to it.

 

Again if I mess something up I apologize. Keep in mind I have no idea what’s going on or who half of these people are. Also I don’t know any stories or anything like that either. Please bear with me on this but I’ll do what I can.

 

The opening video is about war throughout the ages, including shots of Hitler. Also we get what I think is the history of Triplemania which had a lot of Konnan in it. There’s a countdown and we go to the arena where pyro is set off.

 

Some good looking women bring down flags and what looks like a coat of arms while what sounds like the score of Rocky IV plays in the background. Actually it doesn’t sound like the score from Rocky IV. It IS the score from Rocky IV. That’s kind of awesome. One of the flags has a man’s face on it and the girls stop by a woman in the audience holding an urn. I think that face is of the founder of the company and I’m assuming that’s his widow? She’s shown on the big screen so I’d assume she’s important.

 

Mini-Estrellas Championship: Octagonito vs. Mini Abismo Negro vs. Mini Charly Manson vs. Mascarita Divina vs. Mini Psicosis vs. Mini Histeria vs. Mascarita Sagrada vs. La Parkita vs. Mini Chessman

 

This is a 9 man TLC match for the World Minis Championship. From what I understand there are often minis that are tributes to the full sized wrestlers. Notice a lot of people being named mini whatever name. Abismo Negro is the champion here. I won’t be saying mini every time so if I say Psicosis for example, I mean the mini, not the big guy. Good luck trying to keep track of who is who here but I’ll do what I can.

 

The entrances take a very long time as you would expect. Oh wait here are three at once. I think they’re called the Mini Vipers. They’re comprised of Abismo Negro, Histeria and Psicosis. Parkita comes out to Thriller which is kind of cool. It should be noted that these guys aren’t tiny. They’re just slightly above the top rope. Divina is in blue. That helps a bit.

 

Manson gets a nice reaction. Octoganito gets a better one though. I think that leaves only Sagrada. No apparently I just missed his entrance as there are 9 people in there. Here we go. The Vipers team is all in pink so they’re a unit I guess. They have a big six sided ring and they stay on a wide shot. It’s FAR bigger than American rings. Parkita vs. Chessman in the ring at the moment. Scratch that as they both dive out.

 

Divina vs. a Viper at the moment. Manson vs. another Viper now. They’re flying in and out but other than the first seconds there haven’t been more than two in there at all. From what I understand this was supposed to be a seven man match but Chessman and Parkita were added to the match at the last minute. Big chair shot to the head of Manson I think.

 

There’s a ladder in the ring which is being used a bit but no one has tried to go up yet. And just as I say that there they go. Psicosis makes an attempt at it but is met by Octoganito. The overhead camera shot is taking some getting used to. Divina, Parkita and a Viper in there at the moment. Divina has a ladder but a Viper has another one, this one shorter. The Viper gets a powerbomb to Divina as Parkita brings in a table.

 

Something draws a pop from the crowd but we don’t see it. Divina vs. a Viper at this point. The Viper is sent to the floor and Divina gets a gorgeous rana to the floor. I think that was Octagonito with the big tope con giro. There are two chairs with the small ladder laid on them. Psicosis and Manson in there with Psicosis going through the pile of stuff.

 

The referees help Manson set up the big ladder. Up he goes but a Viper kicks the ladder out and down he comes. Parkita and a Viper (I think Abismo Negro) fight on the apron with the Viper being powerslammed through a table in a cool spot. Another Viper sets up a table in the ring and kicks Octoganito in the head. Divina hits a baseball slide to take out someone that we couldn’t see.

 

The Viper puts Octoganito on the table as Divina climbs the ladder. Another guy is being carried out on a stretcher and I’d assume it was the Viper that went through the table. Octoganito gets a sunset bomb off the ladder to put the Viper through it. BIG pop for that and Octoganito is able to climb up and win the title. Sweet I had the right person!

 

Rating: C-. This is a very hard one to grade. The problem here is that it was more like a highlight reel than an actual match. There were a lot of people that I have no idea if I saw more than once or not. With only two people in the ring for the majority of the match I often forgot there were 9 in this. It’s certainly exciting, but there was little that got me into it. Also at less than ten minutes, how into it could I get?

 

Octoganito talks to the woman with the urn post match.

 

A Viper is put on a stretcher. It’s not Psicosis so I’d assume it’s Histeria. After some further research I’m right.

 

Sexy Star/Rain/Jennifer Blade vs. Cinthia Moreno/Mari/Faby Apache

 

So from what I understand, the first group of girls here are part of La Legion Extranjera, or the Foreign Legion. In short, it’s Konnan’s team and the top heel group. There isn’t a set lineup for them all the time as a lot of the time it’s just any foreign wrestler. This is the new Foreign Legion though and they have more of a concrete group of people. Whoever is pinned or submits here is the slave of the winning team for a month. Rain you might remember as Payton Banks in TNA. Faby and Mari are sisters.

 

The heels have American flags and are pretty hated. Star gets her own entrance apart from her partners. She’s women’s champion here, called the Reina de Reinas (Queen of Queens). Ok Cinthia is in black. Faby is in gold and Mari is in black and gold. Got it I think. They look like sisters so it helps. Konnan has something to say. It seems that there’s something up with the referee here and he might not be trustworthy.

 

Big brawl to start with I think Blade being triple teamed. No wait that’s Star. Cinthia and the sisters clear the ring as this has been a rout so far. More double teaming as I think Rain is double teamed by the sisters. There seems to be no tagging in this match. Star is in a mask. The heels take over now and the beating is on for Faby. Now the Foreign Legion clears the ring. This is rather back and forth stuff.

 

They beat up Mari now but there haven’t been any covers yet. Now they’re on Cinthia but a double team misses. Big double kick to the back of the head of Blade and the momentum shifts again. Ah I was right: the referee IS cheating and the non foreigners go after him. Ok now we get some regular tagging. Blade vs. Cinthia to start and a long Tumble Weed gets no count as the referee breaks up the pin attempt.

 

Implant buster by Fabi gets no cover as Star breaks it up. Star sends Fabi to the floor and Cinthia follows. Tope by Star takes out everyone in sight. Well everyone in her way on the floor on the other team. Mari drills Star and the champion is on the floor now as well. Mari beats the tar out of the referee but a broom stick from Blade to the back of Mari is enough for the pin and Mari is the slave of the Foreign Legion.

 

Rating: D+. This was kind of a mess but I think a lot of that can be blamed on me not really having any idea what was going on. If nothing else the girls look good and there’s a storyline of the evil referee going on in there. Decent match though and the celebration by the Foreign Legion is rather amusing as they’re nearly orgasmic over having Mari as their slave.

 

Rain says the thirty days start now. Mari says she’ll do the thirty days but she’s kicking their heads in right now. She and her partners get Blade down but some short fat guy runs in and the distraction stops that and Blade gets away. He yells at the referee who yells back. It seems that the guy that ran in is saying the loss wasn’t fair due to the referee cheating. The referee says it counts and Konnan comes in and grabs Mari, throwing her to the Foreign Legion girls, saying down with Mexico or something like that.

 

Tag Titles: Los Maniacos vs. Beer Money vs. Atsushi Aoki/Go Shiozaki vs. Nicho/Joe Lider

 

This is under elimination rules and Shiozako/Aoki are champions coming in. Los Maniacos are Silver Cain (Silver King from WCW who has lost his mask and Ultimo Gladiator). An interesting point here is that the champions are introduced by the wrong name with one guy not getting an announcement at all. Also from what I’ve read, only Konnan knew either their names or Beer Money’s names. Cain basically is something like Mr. America where everyone knows it’s Silver King but officially it’s a different guy as his name is different if that makes sense.

 

The wrong music plays for the champions as it’s Beer Money’s song instead. Ok here is Beer Money to the right music. They’re part of the Foreign Legion tonight. See how the group works now? In the back the final team is coming to the ring but some guy in a suit says Konnan is out there and not to go after them. That would be Nicho/Lider who are La Hermandad 187 (the 187 Brotherhood). Nicho is more famous as Psicosis without the mask. The Japanese guys and Lider almost get into it before the match.

 

No tagging here again it seems. This is going to take some getting used to. Roode and someone are on the floor. Also cut out the wide shots. I can’t see anyone specifically for the most part. Four in the ring and four on the floor at the moment. I think Beer Money is on the floor. It’s the Japanese guys and Los Maniacos in there at the moment. Nicho who is apparently a millionaire is down.

 

Only the champions (Japanese guys remember) are staying in the ring and on their feet the whole time. One hits a frog splash to I think Lider for two. Beer Money vs. Japanese guys at the moment. I know I’m saying Japanese guys a lot but it’s the best description I can give you in a short amount of time. Hermanadad gets in Konnan’s face with chairs but the champions jump them to save K-Dawg.

 

Beer Money works on Nicho with a wheelbarrow/Codebreaker combination. They set for the BEER MONEY thing but Hermanadad gets a pair of rollups for two each. Nicho vs. Aoki at the moment with the champion winning. Storm is ripping Cain’s mask and almost has it off. Nicho vs. Aoki in the ring at the moment and Aoki is sent to the floor. Tope con Giro by Nicho takes down Aoki.

 

La Hermanadad beats on Aoki now until Shiozaki comes in. A middle rope Backstabber out of nowhere to Shiozaki puts him out and the champions are gone! Konnan FREAKS as we’re down to three teams. Storm has a chair now and sets it up in the corner. Beer Money beats on the Hermanadad as we haven’t seen much from the masked dudes. Beer Money screws up and Roode head winds up in Storm’s crotch.

 

Los Manacos get into it again and go after 187 which is what I’m going to say instead of La Hermanadad. 187 is down but get up to hit stereo Downward Spirals to Beer Money. Storm takes what we would call a Mooregasm and then add….something which gets two on Storm. It was some double team move but it was hard to see what it was. Konnan distracts 187 again and a chair to the head of Lider by Storm ends them and we’re down to Los Manacos vs. Beer Money for the titles.

 

Tower of Doom spot doesn’t really work at all but it looked ok and got two for Roode. Nicho goes after Konnan with a chair but can’t hit him. The fans are completely behind Manacos. Cain misses a moonsault and the slingshot DDT kills Gladiator as it’s all Beer Money with the spinebuster to Cain. Heel miscommunication occurs though and it’s Gladiator vs. Storm.

 

There are two referees in the ring for some reason. Spear takes down Storm for two. Roode and Cain have gone off to find a Bingo game or something. Storm hits a powerslam for two. Superkick by Storm misses and Cain hits a Death Valley Driver for the pin and the titles. HUGE pop for that as they’re faces and Mexicans hold the titles again.

 

Rating: B-. This was a more fun match than the rest of them. While it was still hard to follow it was less difficult than the other matches. This lack of tagging thing is something I’m having issues getting used to. Either way, there was more of a flow here and I had a better idea of what was going on which is certainly a good thing.

 

Post match two guys come out and stare down the new champions. These guys are from a promotion called IWRG which is a rival company feuding with AAA. This had never been mentioned on a AAA broadcast until now. This challenge takes WAY too long as the invaders talk forever.

 

AAA now has a videogame. Good to know. Why is the commercial in English? They couldn’t put Spanish text on there?

 

A bunch of guys in matching t-shirts that aren’t wrestlers come out and say they can do a lot of for this country. I think this is some charity thing.

 

We talk about the upcoming hair vs. hair match. It’s a six man match and each team is representing a referee. The referee of the losing team gets their hair shaved. Also, this is a cage match which from what I can find wasn’t announced at all prior to the show. The talking for this match takes way too long. Some people start a chant saying KONNAN OUT.

 

Alex Kozlov/Chessman/Hernandez vs. Heavy Metal/Octagon/Pimpinela Escarlata

 

Kozlov is a Soviet character that looks a bit homosexual. Yes it’s that Hernandez. Kozlov’s team is Team Hijo de Tirantes and the other is Team Pierro. I think you can only win by escape and it has to be all three team members. Team Hijo is of the Foreign Legion also. Escarlata is a transvestite. Ok then.

 

In the gimmick that will never die, Kozlov wants to sing the Russian National Anthem. He’s interrupted by Escarlata who puts what appears to be a g-string on his face. That starts the brawl and remember it’s all three out to win. Hernandez is a monster in this. The Foreign Legion dominates to start with a triple team on Escarlata. Now it’s Heavy Metal’s turn to get beaten down.

 

Konnan talks about the main event which is apparently a huge match. The evil referee cracks Escarlata in the head with a chair through the cage. The non-foreign guys have had zero offence. We talk about how awesome the Foreign Legion is for a bit which is true as they’re dominating here to put it mildly. Octagon wakes up all of a sudden, goes OFF on Chessman and dodges a diving Hernandez before Octagon climbs the cage, escaping easily. Gee what a nice guy. “My team is getting destroyed. I’m out people!”

 

Escarlata and Kozlov go up at the same time so Escarlata kisses him to slow him down. Escarlata gets rammed into the cage and Kozlov is out, making it 2-2. Now Escarlata is kissing Hernandez which lets the gender confused one climb the cage. After kissing the evil referee he escapes to make it Hernandez/Chessman vs. Heavy Metal.

 

Hernandez gets the Border Toss into the cage to Heavy Metal which isn’t a big move in Mexico I guess. With Chessman beating down Heavy Metal, Hernandez starts to bail. Then he channels his inner Jimmy Snuka and FLATTENS Metal with a splash. Hernandez escapes easily but the good (I think) referee stops Chessman, knocking him back to the mat.

 

The problem is that Heavy Metal is still completely dead. Chessman goes up for the escape but instead tries a moonsault. With the key word there being tries as Heavy Metal rolls out of the way and Chessman is down too. Escarlata plays cheerleader outside and the race is on. The evil referee smacks Chessman with a chair and Chessman escapes for the win and the head shaving of the good referee.

 

Rating: B. Pretty easily the best match of the night so far. There was a clear story going on in there with the Foreign Legion being far more talented but they got overconfident and the AAA guys were able to fight them off for a bit. The two huge spots helped it also with them bringing the crowd to its feet. I liked this and thought it worked rather well. Not sure why the cage stipulation was just thrown on but it probable made the match better.

 

Post match the good referee’s hair is shaved to evil laughter in a kind of disturbing moment. They keep telling him to raise his head so he smacks the evil referee and cracks him with the chair he had to sit in.

 

The announcers argue while we take down the cage.

 

Cibernetico/Abyss vs. El Zorro/Vampiro

 

Cibernetico is one of the top faces in the company (or was at this point). Abyss and Vampiro I think you know. El Zorro is a heel and part of the Foreign Legion and after this show would win the world title. This is a hardcore match. Despite being a foreigner Abyss isn’t part of the Foreign Legion for some reason.

 

Cibernetico’s entrance is in a word, epic. I think he’s supposed to be a cyborg or something. He’s clearly one of the most popular people in the company. This is that odd kind of hardcore where you have to tag in and out. Yeah I know just go with it. Cibernetico and Zorro start us off.

 

Cibernetico tights say Main Man. At least there isn’t a target saying “goes here” underneath it. The partners just come in for no apparent reason with Abyss going off on Vampiro. This is during Abyss-A-Mania but it doesn’t seem to be that bad at this point. Zorro has a kendo stick as the announcers argue some more. Zorro beats on Cibernetico with a chair in the ring while the other guys are out on the floor.

 

Vampiro sets up a table but can’t get a moonsault through it. Abyss can’t get his powerbomb through it either so it all evens out. Cibernetico hits the floor and now it’s turning into a regular hardcore match. Vampiro and Konnan point at each other for some reason but the wasted time lets Abyss get his hands on Vampiro. Abyss is thrown at the table which collapses but doesn’t break.

 

Konnan gets in Vampiro’s face again for no apparent reason. Everyone but Abyss is in the ring now and it’s a 2-1 beatdown. I’m not sure what the deal is with two referees. Maybe Gorilla Monsoon is secretly commissioner here or something. Cibernetico dumps Vampiro (to be with Abyss I guess) but has a kendo stick tossed into his leg.

 

Abyss is back in now but can’t get a double chokeslam. He settles for a double clothesline instead and down goes the Foreign Legion. Abyss……moves……very……very……slowly. The Foreign Legion hits the ring, in the form of Christopher Daniels, Kozlov, Chessman, Nosawa (Japanese guy) and Hernandez. Cibernetico is like screw that and beats them up on his own.

 

Zorro takes him down and hammers away with the kendo stick. Cue Abyss who hits Shock Treatment and Zorro is more or less dead. Hernandez misses a chair shot and hits Vampiro by mistake. Konnan grabs Vampiro and throws powder in his face. A chokeslam from Cibernetico ends this.

 

Rating: C+. Not bad here. They got rid of the tagging after about a second and things got a lot better. Decent little match here and the Foreign Legion losing is a good thing for a change tonight. Cibernetico is a guy that it’s easy to get behind so I can see why he’s one of the most popular there. Decent match all around but a bit rushed.

 

The Foreign Legion beats down the winners post match. Konnan and Vampiro stare each other down but La Hermanadad 187 runs in for the save and the beatdown is on with Foreign Legion being left laying.

 

Konnan rants about that for awhile.

 

Cruiserweight Title: Jack Evans vs. Nosawa vs. Extreme Tiger vs. Christopher Daniels

 

Elimination again and Tiger has the title. Evans is the epitome of a guy that likes flippys. Also in this company they have what sounds like a whistle instead of a bell. That takes a lot of getting used to. Tiger and Daniels hit the floor almost immediately as Evans flips a lot to attack Nosawa. Konnan lists off a lot of cruiserweights that are awesome while Nosawa takes over.

 

Tiger vs. Nosawa now in the ring as they don’t have to tag again. AAA really doesn’t like to have to do that do they? Tiger gets a seated senton to the balls of Nosawa. Now that’s just not nice at all. Daniels vs. Tiger now with Daniels in control. Tiger has a mask if I didn’t mention that. Daniels is sent to the floor so it’s down to Nosawa vs. Tiger now. And yes I know it’s Extreme Tiger but I’m not writing both words every time.

 

Daniels pulls the rope down and Evans hits the floor. Big clothesline and Evans does a 360 on the floor. Daniels beats down Tiger in the ring and is joined by Nosawa for a double flapjack. Nosawa and Daniels are Foreign Legion teammates so they’re working together here. Daniels sets Tiger for a Death Valley Driver while Nosawa adds a superkick to the head for a nice double team move.

 

Evans comes in and it’s more or less an unofficial tag match now. Tiger and Evans get Daniels down and double team Nosawa. A double cover after a rather contrived spot gets no pin for either good guy. Someone is bleeding as there’s blood on Daniels’ face. Evans kicks Daniels to the floor and does a huge flip onto him. Tiger throws Nosawa to the floor and hits a 450 out to the floor! You don’t see that often at all. Naturally that only gets two back in the ring. A springboard double stomp to Nosawa is enough to eliminate him through and we’re down to three.

 

This referee counts SLOW. The two good guys beat on Daniels for awhile and they have a chop off. I think it’s Daniels that is bleeding actually. It looked like blood on him earlier but not his own. Daniels tries to leave but Tiger is like get back here baldie. Rollup by Evans gets two on Tiger. Elevated double arm DDT by Tiger gets two on Evans. This referee stops for a long time after two.

 

Some guy comes out in an Extreme Tiger mask and pulls it off to reveal….another mask. The distraction allows Daniels to be able to get a rollup to make it Evans vs. Daniels for the title. Oh great: a Christopher Daniels match. Can’t you hear the excitement in my voice over this turn of events? Four straight backbreakers without dropping Evans by Daniels. Now off to a half crab as just Daniels being in there is putting me to sleep.

 

Spin out powerbomb gets two for Daniels. He’s been on offense the entire time since Tiger was eliminated. Evans is sent to the apron and hits a springboard double knee strike for no cover. Big running knee strike gets no cover again. Instead he tries a 630 but eats knees to the back. Best Moonsault Ever gets two. Daniels tries a belly to back off the top but gets knocked backwards to the mat. A big corkscrew splash gives Evans the title. The referee looks around for help and stops at two as I guess he was crooked also.

 

Rating: B-. Fun match but at 25 minutes or so it’s a bit long. This whole show is over 4 hours so it’s a bit much to sit through when you’re not familiar with a lot of these guys. Still though, this was rather good for the most part. The long period before the first pin and then another crooked referee was too much though which is what’s holding it back. That and the time.

 

Dr. Wagner says he’ll win and be #1.

 

AAA World Heavyweight Title: Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. Electroshock

 

Electroshock is defending champion here. This has apparently been a well built match and is supposed to be a war. Keep that in mind. Electroshock has no mask. Got it. That belt is huge. Fans are completely behind Wagner. They shake hands and here we go. LONG stall to start as we wait for them to actually do something. Two minutes without anything until they finally lock up.

 

Oh wait false alarm as we’re waiting again. And now, another lockup. Electroshock is muscled and Wagner is kind of stocky but well built. Rather technical stuff so far to start and we have a standoff. Test of strength results in Electroshock completely outmaneuvering Wagner and getting him down in a leg lock. The fans aren’t exactly pleased here.

 

And it’s another standoff. This is more like a badly written ballet/dance routine than a match. Back to that stupid test of strength for like the third time so far. And now Electroshock hits the floor out of boredom. Back and it’s another wristlock. There has been a total of one strike, a kick to the back, in this whole match and we’re about 8 minutes into it.

 

Short arm scissors gets neither guy anywhere. They trade some WEAK chops as I’m bored out of my mind here. Where are Gorilla and Jesse to make subtle jokes when I need them? Konnan seems to be praising this match as we’re in leg lock #8475 so far. A lot of hip tosses and arm drags set up a kick to the head by Wagner in the biggest move of the match. We get a replay of it in slow motion and it shows the kick must have missed by four inches. Nice job guys.

 

Wagner is sent to the floor so Electroshock hits a big dive to FINALLY get something going here. Fans are still cheering for Wagner. These guys are really bad about covering up that their strikes aren’t hitting. Electroshock grabs a Fujiwara Armbar and Wagner is in trouble. And then he just lets it go because I guess he wanted to go find an enchilada. Superplex by Electroshock gets two.

 

Can someone do something interesting? The match hasn’t been good from an entertainment standpoint, it’s decent from a technical standpoint, and it’s killed the crowd in general. WAY too much time without them doing anything in particular. The fans cheer for Wagner. Wagner sits there. Rana gets two for Wagner. Abdominal stretch by the champion which is the setup for his finisher but he cheats with the ropes and the hold is broken.

 

It’s 4:45am so excuse me if I nod off for a bit. Hey look: MORE STANDING AROUND! Victory Roll by the Doctor results in about 8 rolls in slow motion and Electroshock gets two out of it. The Dr. hits a front flip off the apron and both guys are down. Maybe they’re taking a nap while they’re out there. I wouldn’t blame them if they did.

 

Electroshock gets his hold which is a kneeling abdominal stretch with a leg lock. Yep that goes nowhere as Wagner reverses into a rollup for two. Wagner’s finisher, a Michinoku Driver, gets two. Medium boot by Electroshock gets him nowhere as Wagner hits an enziguri followed by the second Wagner Driver for the pin and the title. Dude….seriously? That’s the ending? Oh well at least it’s main event time.

 

Rating: D-. Oh my. Oh my indeed. This may have been the least interesting main event I have seen in a very long time. It runs 22 minutes and they were in first gear for about 20 minutes of that. There is, I kid you not, probably seven combined minutes of just standing around doing nothing. This match was very boring and sucked the decent life out of this show. Absolutely terrible and the fans booing in parts was something I’d have done too. Totally boring for the most part and the ending came out of nowhere.

 

Mesias, a former champion hands Wagner the belt and hugs him. Wagner and Electroshock shake hands too.

 

Between replays and the celebration we kill off almost ten minutes.

 

La Parka says he is the real La Parka and will prove it tonight.

 

LA Park vs. La Parka

 

Now this is an interesting one. LA Park is the original La Parka and the one from WCW. He was a major star in AAA but left 14 years ago to go to WCW. The thing was the original owner of AAA, and the guy whose ashes are in that urn, kept the rights to the gimmick and gave them to the guy known as La Parka. LA Park is the new name that the original La Parka used to continue the gimmick without continuing the gimmick. He returned in a shocking moment and said he wanted his name back. This match is for the official rights to the name and gimmick. In short, this is a big match that no one thought would happen.

 

Both come out to Thriller and look almost identical. I’ll try to remember who is who here. Out first is La Parka with the boss of the company, Joaquin. Ok this should be easier: Park has the skulls on his shoulders. That’s easier. Park also has the son of the president with him, Dorian, as the president and his papa are in a power struggle. The fans are behind the heel Park here which is interesting.

 

There’s a chair in the ring which is the signature weapon of both guys. Park dominates to start and grabs the chair for a big shot maybe a minute in. Another chair shot as this Parka (Park for the original, Parka for the new if that helps at all) guy is kind of getting his head kicked in. To the floor now as Park is yelling at Konnan and cuts a quick promo before the third chair shot. Is it the Rock in disguise?

 

Joaquin, the president, gets in his face until Parka saves him. By saves I mean he stands up so Park can get beaten up even more. Park rips at the mask and you can see Parka’s forehead. They’re in the crowd now as this has already had more action than the world title match and we’re not even five minutes into this. Park goes to the back and gets a table. I guess there aren’t table making leprechauns under the ring in Mexico.

 

Parka has not had a single bit of offense that I’ve seen. There’s a fire extinguisher at Parka who is just trying to cover up at this point. Table and chair in the ring now. The fans are totally behind the original Park here and it’s kind of funny since he’s the heel through and through. The table is set up in the corner but Park settles for just beating on Parka a bit more instead.

 

Dorian whispers something to Parka and his dad shoves him away. The referee gets involved and Parka charges to try to tackle Park through the table. Park steps to the side and Parka goes sailing through it. Belt comes off and it’s whipping time. This has literally been one sided the entire ten minutes so far. Park rams Parka’s head into the pieces of the table and the chair.

 

Park busts a piece of the table over Parka’s head to a big reaction. Here comes table #2. Park sets it up in the ring and puts the chair on top of it and goes up. OH MAN IT’S OFFENSE FROM PARKA!!!!!! He gets a few punches in and suplexes/slams Park through the table and onto the chair. The crowd is awake now. Parka is bleeding from the head it seems which makes sense.

 

BIG chair shot from Parka and momentum has completely shifted. Parka rips at Park’s mask as Joaquin is like do it! Parka’s mask is covering maybe half of his face at this point. Into the crowd again goes Park while Parka’s mask looks rather weird. Oh man Parka is busted BAD. Park’s mask is barely staying on too. Back in the ring now and Parka has the belt now so he lays in some HARD shots.

 

A slam gets a pop. Between two guys of relatively average size when do you hear that? Parka goes up but gets crotched by Park. The fans aren’t sure who to cheer for here. Park jumps into the boot of Parka and the new guy has control again. Park goes to the floor again and it’s a too short suicide dive by Parka. The mask is hanging on like a Post-It at this point.

 

Parka celebrates but Park sneaks up on him and hooks in a choke that looks like he’s trying for a Backstabber but keeps Parka on the mat on his knees and pulls back on his chin. Looks great if you didn’t get that. Park starts going for the knees and adds a Backstabber for two. This is that slow counting referee again. Parka fights back and gets what was supposed to be a Codebreaker from the middle rope for two.

 

Big boot by Park gets a close two. Semi-botched DDT by Parka gets two and a ton of booing. They counter each other a bit until something resembling the Eye of the Hurricane gets two for Park. Both guys are gassed bad here. Park charges in the corner but rams the post instead. Park’s mask is more or less gone here. Leg lock by Parka right in front of Dorian.

 

There’s the rope but the referee has to break up the hold. Not often that you see that from a hold put on by a face. Park gets a rollup for two. Park for no apparent reason dives at the referee who was on the floor for no apparent reason. So there’s no referee and Park is more or less dead. Dorian has the chair and Parka gets a clothesline to put Park down again.

 

Parka sets for a tombstone which is illegal in Mexico but Joaquin stops him. An enziguri from Park puts Parka down again. Joaquin has the chair now but Park winds up managing to hit the Tombstone on the chair and Parka is out cold. Another chair in the hands of Park as Joaquin comes in.

 

Dorian says no don’t hit him but Park shoves Dorian down and clocks Joaquin with the chair instead. Dorian gets up and turns face, blasting Park with the chair a bunch of times to avenge his father. Then with both skeleton dudes down, Los Perros Del Mal, a group of invading wrestlers from a promotion of the same name, put Park on top of Parka for the pin to win the name.

 

Rating: B+. This was a WAR. They beat the tar out of each other and it’s only the ending and the exhaustion that is holding this back. It wasn’t a great match from a workrate standpoint or anything but there was a great story out there and the fans were into it. This was supposed to go on next to last with Wagner vs. Electroshock going here instead but this worked far better. Great match and a great way to end the show.

 

Los Perros Del Mal celebrate with a bunch more of them hitting the ring. Parka is taken out on a stretcher and the leader/owner of Los Perros Del Mal say they’re taking over AAA. A bunch of AAA guys and security come out while the fans chant for Los Perros. The leader of Los Perros (Perro Aguayo, Jr.) says wrestling needs a change and that change is Los Perros.

 

Also whether you like it or not, Park is the original and forever the real La Parka. Park says Los Perros will own AAA and Dorian doesn’t know what to do. Park runs down AAA, Dorian and Konnan. Take a guess who would be in a heel superstable in less than a month. If you guessed all three of them, WELL DONE YOU LUNKHEAD!

 

The woman with the urn says the original owner (Antonio Pena. The woman with the urn is apparently his sister and Joaquin is his the woman’s (Marisol) husband. Dorian is Antonio’s nephew/Joaquin’s son) is watching and all that jazz and that AAA will beat Los Perros Del Mal and what not to end the show.

 

In a little followup, later that night the Mexican Boxing and Athletic Commission said that the result of the main event was thrown out due to the interference. The next day AAA had a press conference where Dorian officially turned face (technico) again and said that Park was the official La Parka and that the loser of the main event would have to change his name. This was later dropped.

 

Two weeks after this, the Foreign Legion and Los Perros would merge. There would be a mini group added called La Milicia and then about two months later Los Maniacos, the tag champions, joined and the superstable was called La Sociedad. That feud has gone on since with Mesias fighting Perro Aquayo Jr. and Cibernetico making his own stable to fight Los Perros. Los Perros have a ton of titles now including the world title held by El Zorro. Granted this could be out of date very soon but that’s what Wikipedia is for.

 

Overall Rating: B. I liked this. I liked it quite a bit actually. This is the kind of show I could see myself watching on a regular basis. Now to be fair this is the Wrestlemania of this company but it felt like one of those. There’s a lot I didn’t get because this is my first time watching, but at the end of the day I’d like to see more of this which is exactly the point. Fun stuff, some bad stuff, but overall I liked this and would watch more of it if I had the chance. Good show overall with some bad spots (world title match for example).
Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of Starrcade from Amazon for just $4 at:

 

Smoky Mountain Wrestling TV
Date: May 21, 1994
Location: Knoxville Civic Coliseum, Knoxville, Tennessee
Commentator: Les Thatcher

Ah Smoky Mountain Wrestling. I’ve been looking forward to this. Now as any of you that regularly follow me or talk to me about wrestling know, I’m a Jim Cornette disciple. I love his mind for wrestling and he’s old school in his way of going about wrestling. Well what better place than Cornette’s company? SMW was Cornette’s attempt to restart the territory system which didn’t really work but it did survive for about four years and had some big time stars (including I believe the first big American job of Chris Jericho). I’ve been looking forward to this so let’s get to it.

I think this might be a special called Global Warning but I’m not sure. That might be the theme from WWE 24/7 where this is from.

Thatcher tells us that a lot of this is from the Volunteer Slam from the day before.

Thrillseekers vs. Well Dunn

Well Dunn was a team made up of people with those last names. The Thrillseekers are Lance Storm and Chris Jericho and this is joined in progress. Jericho is in there with I think Well and he hits a Lionsault Press for two. An enziguri clears the ring and we’re clipped to a tag to Storm. The Thrillseekers clear the ring again and we’re clipped to Jericho in a chinlock but he’s fighting out of it.

They ram into each other and double tags bring in Well and Storm. Storm hits a nice spinning cross body for two. Well Dunn takes over but Jericho distracts Dunn and Storm hits a springboard cross body for the pin. This was more of a highlight package so I can’t really give it a fair rating.

Well Dunn rants about the Thrillseekers and say they need to follow the rules. They swear they’re the better team and they’ll find a way to beat them.

The Thrillseekers say they don’t cheat so a match where they can’t cheat is fine with them. Neither of them is good on the mic yet but they’re trying. Storm might be a step ahead of Jericho here if you can believe that. They get the point across though and that’s all that matters. They’re basically rookies here so giving them practice is the best thing you can do.

Cornette and his protege Bruiser Bedlam (bald guy who is crazy. He never did anything outside of territorial places) rant against Bob Armstrong and Tracy Smothers. Armstrong is Commissioner and Cornette wants him to resign. Jim also rants against hillbillies and implies that Smothers’ mother was a rather loose woman. This brings Smothers out and Bedlam sends him flying with a brass knuckles shot. Smothers is busted open and a bunch of guys come in for the save.

Armstrong brought in someone to fight Bedlam and here’s part of the match, also from last night’s Volunteer Slam.

Bruiser Bedlam vs. Randy Savage

Yeah this works. Joined in progress again with Savage in trouble. We’re told this is the opening part of the match so that’s not so bad. Off to a long nerve hold which Armstrong cheers Savage out of. Bedlam misses a headbutt and here comes Savage. They go to the floor and Cornette is in the ring. Savage takes over and slams Bedlam down. He knocks Cornette down and hits the elbow, but there’s no referee. Dory Funk comes out and gets beaten up by Armstrong. Cornette throws powder in his eyes and Savage drops Jim. Dory shoves Savage off the top and a knuckles shot gives Beldam the pin.

Rating: C-. This was far more of a brawl than a match. I’d assume the full thing ran about ten minutes which isn’t bad. Savage was still with the WWF at the time and this was part of a talent exchange they had going on. Not much of a match and Bedlam never did anything, but that’s how you get guys over in a territory: have them beat guys that everyone knows.

Cornette, Funk and Bedlam brag about the win. Dory wants to be commissioner.

Armstrong and Smothers say they’ll do whatever they can to get another shot at Cornette and his boys. Armstrong says if he can find someone else to be commissioner, he’ll jump into the ring immediately.

We talk about the tag title scene between the Rock N Roll Express challenging Chris Candido/Brian Lee. This leads us to a clip of Morton vs. Candido which is all clipped. The point of this is Candido is trying to piledrive Morton. Lee and Tammy Fytch (Sunny) run in as Sunny has uncuffed Lee which was a prematch stipulation. They set for a spike piledriver but Gibson runs in for the save.

Armstrong makes an unsanctioned piledriver match for the titles. That means you win by piledriving someone, not pinning them.

Sunny says this is ridiculous.

We recap the SMW Title picture with a video. Jake Roberts debuted and said he wanted the title from Dirty White Boy. He called White Boy handicapped and said he was a 4/10. Roberts isn’t going to hit a mentally handicapped person or a blind man (White Boy is in an eye patch) but Roberts gets a title match anyway.

We get a clip of the title match and a masked man runs in to steal the patch. Two guys run in for the save and White Boy is messed up because of the exposure to light. White Boy comes back with a bunch of rights and Roberts is knocked to the floor. Roberts gets his picture taken so he steals the camera and uses the flash to blind White Boy. The DDT gives him the title.

SMW Heavyweight Title: Jake Roberts vs. Dirty White Boy

This is the main event from Volunteer Slam. Joined in progress again as Roberts goes after the eye. Jake toys with him now as he lays on the mat and kind of stares at White Boy. They go to the floor and White Boy rams the arm into the post a few times. We’re told this is 15 minutes in. They go back in but Roberts tosses him out again. That doesn’t work as White Boy grabs the arm.

Roberts pulls the referee into a shot and Mark Curtis is down. Jake takes the tape off his wrist and ties him to the ropes. Jake’s bag is brought in and I think a fan runs in so Jake clotheslines him. Dirty White Girl tries to make the save but Jake shoves her down and eventually DDTs her. The match has been stopped pretty much. He goes to put the snake on her but the locker room makes the save. Not enough to rate but the match looked like a typical match from a territory with no ending. Think Memphis.

White Girl is taken out in an ambulance.

Jake says he got caught up in the heat of a battle. This turns into a discussion of Cain and Abel. He’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done because he has to do everything for himself. He’ll come for the girl too.

Overall Rating: C. Unfortunately this is the only episode I have of this show. This really isn’t the best representation of SMW because it’s more or less a clip show from last night’s big show. This is very much an old school territory as it’s about the house shows and building to them rather than those building to TV/PPV today. This was still pretty good and you can certainly see the old school storytelling in there. I liked it, but the clipping gets annoying fast. Worth checking out if you can find a show though.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my book on the History of the WWE Championship from Amazon for just $5 at:

WWA: The Retribution
Date: February 9, 2003 (Taped December 6, 2002)
Location: Scottish Exhibition and Conference Center, Glasgow, Scotland
Attendance: 3,000
Commentators: Jeremy Borash, Disco Inferno

Amazingly enough this company has made it through a year plus and are touring Europe as of this show. The main event is Luger vs. Sting for the vacant WWA World Title. Scott Steiner had won the title, only to sign with WWE. This resulted in the legendarily terrible Steiner vs. HHH matches, so the main event here has to be better. Like literally it’s not possible for a match to be worse. Let’s get to it.

We open with Australian guy named Andrew (from the other shows. I think he’s the owner) getting a phone call, saying that someone will be here. Mike Sanders is in his office and apparently he’ll be commissioner tonight.

Since we’re in Scotland, some bagpipe players come out of a castle set.

Borash brings out Disco Inferno to a lot of booing. I don’t know why or how he stayed in wrestling so long, but dang if he didn’t keep a job forever.

Kazarian vs. Shark Boy

TNA is around at this point but it’s still in its very early days, so there’s a chance these guys have both been there. It’s a smart move to have guys like these open the show as they should be able to fire up the crowd. Kaz looks almost identical to how he does ten years later, just with longer hair here. The lighting has a blue tint to it here and it sounds like the audio is coming through like normal commentaries do instead of through the arena speakers.

Disco gets the comedy going fast by suggesting that Shark Boy was conceived on the set of Jaws and may be the son of Richard Dreyfuss. Kaz is the heel here and gets caught by an early hiptoss and some chops in the corner. Sharky sends him to the floor and gets caught by a plancha. Kaz is pulled back in but sends Shark Boy into the middle buckle to take over. An atomic drop puts Kaz down and Sharky bites him on the trunks for good measure. The referee gets one too and the fans are way into Shark Boy.

Kaz comes back with a quick leg lariat to take over before getting two off a snap belly to belly suplex. We hit a quick chinlock but Sharky fights up, only to be backdropped out to the floor. Back in and a leg sweep takes Shark Boy down for two but Kaz misses a guillotine legdrop to give us a breather. Shark Boy comes back with right hands and a one knee Codebreaker for two.

Kaz has his head pounded in the corner and there’s a bite by Sharky for good measure. A top rope rana brings Kaz down for two but a SWEET bicycle kick takes Shark Boy down again. Kaz, still “The Future” at this point, hits Back to the Future (a bridging electric chair drop) for two, only to have Shark Boy take him to the corner for the Dead Sea Drop (dragon sleeper flipped over into a Stunner, more commonly known as Diamond Dust) and the pin.

Rating: C. This was fine and the perfect kind of match to open a show like this. You take two fast paced guys and let them go out there for six minutes of high spots. It’s nothing great but it didn’t need to be. These are two young guys getting a shot and they did a good enough job with it so it’s a good start here.

Time for the traditional commissioner promo after the opening match, this time from Mike Sanders. He immediately calls Disco a jackass before playing to the crowd a bit. Some music randomly plays in what seems to be a technical issue. Sanders seems to be a face here despite being a heel for most of his career. He runs down the rest of the card before being interrupted by Joe E. Legend. For those of you unfamiliar, Legend is a journeyman who once lost clean to the Brooklyn Brawler on a WWF weekend show in 2001. Let that sink in for a bit.

Anyway Legend runs down the crowd with some very lame insults before talking about being the best this business has to offer. Legend talks about being the best this business has to offer and lists off some names he’s beaten such as Buff Bagwell, Luger, Sabu and Sting. I’d love to see any of those matches. He does get in a good line of “heroes come and go but legends live forever.” They trade gay jokes until Sanders flips him off. A match is made between the two of them for later tonight.

Konnan vs. Nate Webb

Some of you might know Webb from CZW. His nickname is Spyder and he looks like Vampiro. Perry Saturn jumps him as he comes in for no apparent reason before hitting a quick powerbomb, a Death Valley Driver and the Rings of Saturn. Webb is dead so the bell rings and Konnan pins him in three seconds.

Konnan jumps in on commentary and talks about how tiring that was. That’s not funny.

One of the midgets comes in to see Midajah and asks her to be his valet tonight. Puppet, the hardcore midget, comes in and says she’s his valet. Sanders comes in and makes Willy Wonka jokes. Midajah is made a referee for later. Eh her dress is low cut enough to make up for this.

Johnny Swinger/Buff Bagwell vs. Norman Smiley/Malice

Smiley comes out alone and gets jumped by the heels. Malice is more famous as The Wall from the dying days of WCW and was the initial monster heel of TNA. He and Smiley clear the ring and it’s already time to stall. Bagwell and Malice get things going as Disco is talking about Steve Austin for some reason. Buff pounds away a bit but walks into a spinebuster and backbreaker for no cover. Off to Swinger to pound on Malice, only to be thrown down as well.

Smiley comes in for some technical stuff, but it’s time to dance! A sunset flip out of the corner gets two for Norman as Johnny is in early trouble. Bagwell trips Norman up though, allowing Swinger to hit a jawbreaker to take over. Smiley gets elbowed down and it’s off to Buff to work on the back. Off to Swinger again to pound away on Smiley in the corner as this match is already slowing down. Buff comes back in to ram Smiley into the corner as Disco talks about Buff and Mike Sanders playing squash.

Swinger gets two off a neckbreaker as we’re just waiting on the hot tag to Malice. Smiley finally gets in a forearm to Buff’s face and it’s off to Malice. The big guy cleans house and throws Bagwell to the outside. Smiley slams Swinger down and we get the Big Wiggle, which involves Swinger being spanked. A low blow sends Norman reeling and the Buff Blockbuster pins Smiley.

Rating: D+. I’ve seen worse but this was only happening to fill in about twelve minutes of the PPV time. It’s clear that they don’t have much going on with stories at this point, meaning we’re likely to get a lot of matches between people with nothing in common and no reason to fight. The match wasn’t bad but it didn’t do anything of note.

NWA World Champion Jeff Jarrett is here to get back at Nathan Jones for something not important enough to talk about.

Puppet vs. Teo

Midajah is guest referee and is there so she can wear tiny shorts and knee high boots. Teo starts with some punches in the corner but gets caught in a bulldog for two. The smaller one (Teo) stomps away in the corner and seems to have the fans actually caring for him. Puppet comes back with a release TKO for no cover. He finally puts a boot on Teo’s chest for a VERY slow two from Midajah. Teo hits a middle rope missile dropkick for no cover before going up top and hitting a Swanton for the pin.

Rating: D-. The shorts looked good and that’s about it. I mean the ones on Midajah, not the short guys in the ring. I don’t care for these kind of matches as they’re not interesting or funny and I really don’t get the appeal of them. Puppet would annoy fans in TNA for weeks as well, resulting in him pulling a gun on someone.

Post match Saturn runs in and beats both guys down before saying he had an open contract for tonight. He hits on Midajah and kisses her before dragging her to the back.

Joe E. Legend vs. Mike Sanders

Joey pounds away in the corner to start but Sanders comes back with right hands of his own. Mike is sent to the apron and comes back in with a slingshot headscissors before whipping Legend to the floor. With nothing happening on the outside we go back in for Legend to stomp Mike down in the corner. An armdrag gets three straight near falls for Legend and it’s off to a cravate. Mike clotheslines him down but Legend nips up and takes Mike’s head off with a clothesline of his own.

A high kick to Sanders’ head gets another two count so he whips Sanders hard into the corner. Legend gets another two count off a sitout powerbomb but Mike puts him down with a release German suplex. Mike makes a basic comeback with a backdrop and a kick to the chest, followed by a knee drop for two. Legend hits a kind of clothesline to set up a good looking guillotine legdrop for two. Mike comes back again with a neckbreaker for two, only to get caught in a driving knee to the back of the head (think like a Fameasser) for two more. Joey misses a moonsault and gets superkicked down for the pin.

Rating: D. There was nothing here but a bunch of spots. At the end of the day there was no story or reason for this match to happen other than Joey (has anyone ever seen him wrestle before?) insulting the Scottish people. Sanders was WAY out of his element as a face here, making the match yet another filler piece.

Post match Sanders hypes up the no rules three way dance with Simon Diamond, Sabu and Saturn.

Lex Luger, in Philadelphia 76ers gear for some reason, says that he and Sting have been friends for years (aside from Luger hiring a bunch of madmen to try to take him out back in the early 90s) but tonight they’re both going to have fun fighting for a title.

NWA World Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Nathan Jones

Jarrett is defending in case you’re very new at this. Jones is a 7ft monster but absolutely terrible in the ring. Apparently these two have traded wins recently. The referee here looks to be about 857 years old. Nathan shoves him down to start but gets punched in the corner. Jones charges into a pair of boots in the corner but grabs Jeff for a chokeslam. The champ kicks him in the leg to stop the choke, only to be caught in a spinning side slam.

A Cactus Clothesline puts both guys on the floor and Jarrett is in trouble. Jones picks up a chair which is promptly taken away from him and we go back inside. Jeff kicks the knee out again and hits the running crotch attack in 619 position. Off to a sleeper by the champ who is apparently bleeding from the eye. After that gets broken up, Jeff bails to the floor and wedges a chair between the top and middle ropes.

Jones hits a Samoan drop to free the chair and get a near fall at the same time. Back up and Nathan goes for the chokeslam, only to have Jeff throw the referee into the grip instead. For some reason Nathan doesn’t just, you know, LET GO, he throws the referee into the corner, allowing Jarrett to bash Jones with the guitar to retain.

Rating: D. It’s very clear that Jones has nothing to offer at all other than a good look. He would join the WWE soon after this and be one of the biggest busts in recorded history, being taken out of Wrestlemania due to the company thinking there was no way he could be put on live television. Nothing to see here other than a token title defense.

Sabu vs. Simon Diamond vs. Perry Saturn

This is a hardcore match because Sabu can’t wrestle anything else. Saturn is freshly released from WWE and has been out for awhile with a knee injury. Disco does the intros here for no apparent reason. Before the match, Simon complains about having to be in a hardcore match despite being a top level athlete. Saturn still has the kidnapped Midajah with him here. She’s also in a different outfit than she was earlier.

The fans immediately chant for ECW, obviously getting what the promoters were shooting for. Diamond gets double teamed to start so he bails to the floor. Saturn throws Sabu down but Sabu trips him up, leading to a slugout. Diamond comes back in when they both go down for near falls on both guys. Saturn hiptosses Sabu to the floor but gets rolled up by Simon, as this three way battle of the S’s continues.

Sabu comes back in for a triple headlock spot (usually a sleeper in ECW but I guess WWE bought that concept in the acquisition) before Diamond is sent to the floor. A spear by Saturn puts Sabu down, only for Sabu to come back with a springboard leg lariat for two. Diamond and Saturn go to the floor while Sabu sets up a chair in the ring. A BIG dive takes out everyone and we all lay down on the floor for a bit. Diamond and Saturn seem to hook up, but Sabu pelts the chair at Saturn’s head as he comes back in.

Time for Simon vs. Sabu for a bit but Saturn comes back in and rams the chair into Sabu’s throat. Midajah is still at ringside despite her captor being occupied in the ring. Saturn suplexes both guys down but doesn’t seem interested in going for a pin. Diamond is back in now to clothesline Saturn down and put Sabu in a shoulder hold on the mat. Saturn is busted open badly around his eye. With Sabu down, Simon puts on an armbar at the same time that Saturn puts on a leg lock. Simon lets go first to stop Saturn before loading up a table on the floor.

Diamond tries to suplex Sabu over the top and through the table but it’s Saturn making the save with a chair shot to the ribs. Simon falls to the floor so Saturn can pose for a bit. He poses too long though and Simon comes back in with a suplex to take Saturn down. Sabu hits Saturn with the chair and hits the Arabian Facebuster on Simon. Saturn is laid out on the table outside as Simon is ranaed off the top by Sabu. Perry comes back in with a top rope elbow drop on Simon for no cover.

Now it’s Sabu taking over with running leg lariats to both guys but Saturn breaks up the Triple Jump Moonsault. There are the Rings of Saturn on Sabu but Simon makes the save. An electric chair puts Saturn down but a clothesline puts Simon on the floor. Saturn suplexes Diamond through the table before loading up another one. Diamond is laid out on the table where Sabu dives through it and him.

Cue the freaking midgets again to beat up Saturn with kendo sticks, drawing in Midajah. She defends Saturn for absolutely no apparent reason, allowing Saturn to get two on Sabu after a Death Valley Driver. All the guys are down so the midgets strip Midajah. Saturn covers her up and walks out as Simon hits a reverse DDT for two on Sabu. The chair is pelted at a diving Diamond and it’s a Triple Jump Moonsault to Simon’s legs for the pin, FINALLY ending this.

Rating: D. WHO DECIDED TO GIVE THIS SEVENTEEN FREAKING MINUTES????? Sabu is the kind of guy who should never be given more than about eight minutes, so these knuckleheads decided to DOUBLE that? The match was the biggest collection of mostly missing spots that you’ll see this side of ECW, but it had tables in it so it’s awesome right?

Sting says he knows Luger but tonight it’s about the title. He talks about building character over the last 18 months, which has made him stronger but driven Luger nuts.

WWA World Title: Sting vs. Lex Luger

This is both guy’s debut with the promotion, so naturally they’re in a world title match. Luger picks up the ball bat but hands it to Sting as the fight begins. Sting knocks him to the floor and Luger stalls early on. Back in and Sting takes him right back to the floor with a clothesline. Since that much wrestling is too much for Luger, he grabs a mic and says if that’s how Sting wants to play, so be it.

Now Sting gets a mic and says that we’re in Scotland. This is in the middle of the match remember. He talks some trash about Luger and the fans chant something at him. Luger takes it to the floor again and Sting misses the Splash against the barricade. Back in and Sting kicks him in the leg but a top rope splash hits knees. Some weak kicks to the ribs have Sting in more trouble before they collide, allowing Sting to do his falling headbutt to the crotch spot. Sting takes over with his usual clotheslines and faceplant but the referee is caught by the Stinger Splash. Jarrett, two guitars to Sting, Luger wins the title.

Rating: F. This was a seven minute match and they cut two promos in the middle of it. Luger wrestled enough to fill a 90 second match and walks out with the world title as a result. This was to set up Sting vs. Jarrett, as Sting won the title a week later at a house show. Anyway, TERRIBLE match here and an embarrassment for both guys.

The announcers wrap things up (for five minutes) to end the show.

Overall Rating: F. When a six minute match between Shark Boy and Kazarian that is ok at best if you REALLY stretch it is the match of the night, you’ve got a major problem. This show absolutely sucked and was the longest two hours I can remember sitting through in a long time.There are no stories anywhere in sight and it’s clearly just a bunch of guys having matches because it’s a cheap payday.  Absolutely terrible stuff and thank goodness there’s only one show left.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my book on the History of the WWE Championship from Amazon for just $5 at:

David Von Erich Memorial Parade of Champions
Date: May 6, 1984
Location: Texas Stadium, Irving, Texas
Attendance: 32,123
Commentator: Marc Lawrence

So back in 1984, David Von Erich was allegedly the next in line to become NWA World Champion. Then he died. He had gone on a tour of Japan and complained of a stomach ache and he never woke up that night. According to the official results it was a heart attack but a lot of wrestlers say it was a drug overdose and Bruiser Brody allegedly flushed the drugs down a toilet. Anyway, this is a big memorial show for him and his brother Kerry has a world title shot against Flair. Gee, I wonder what’s going to happen. Let’s get to it.

I think this is a hacked up home video version, so things are going to be all over the place and probably clipped a lot.

Also I’ve gotten two different attendance totals and this is the smaller one, but the look of the show would imply it’s more correct than the one I saw that said over 50,000.

Chick Donovan vs. Butch Reed

Reed is a total monster here. Donovan is a surfer character and is built as well. They exchange shoves and Donovan takes him down. It’s so strange to think that this is almost a year before Wrestlemania as things look like they could be from the late 90s. I think we’re clipped a bit as Donovan grabs the leg but I’m not sure. They fight over a top wristlock and Reed takes over. Donovan gets thrown to the floor and the camera jumps around a lot. I think it’s more odd camera work than clipping. Donovan looks to Hulk Up on the floor and comes back in but gets his head kicked off. A gorilla press drop and a shoulder block end this.

Rating: D+. Not much here but I’m really impressed by the production values here. Maybe it’s that I’m so used to everything from the 80s being dark until the very end, but this is a really bright and good looking show. Reed would go on to the NWA and then the WWF later in the 80s and then become half of Doom. Donovan became an announcer I think.

Great Kabuki vs. Kamala

Kabuki is a guy that was far more famous in territories and Japan than in America. His biggest contribution: he introduced Asian Mist to pro wrestling. Kamala I’m sure you’re all familiar with. This is Gart Hart vs. Skandor Akbar in the managing aspect, who are both guys you should know as they’re awesome. Hart (not related to Stu) towers over Kabuki. Kabuki does a nunchuck demonstration before the match.

They stall forever before the match and Kabuki spits Mist. Now they stall even more. We’re at about a minute so far with no contact. Kamala finally gets things going by chopping away. Kabuki kicks a lot as is his custom. The fans have no idea who to cheer for it seems. A test of strength doesn’t happen as Kamala grabs a bearhug instead.

Now it’s a choke which Kamala shifts to a pectoral hold. In other words, he’s grabbing the chest. The managers are about to fight again. Kabuki fights up…and then Kamala pulls him right back down again. A superkick puts Kamala down and Kabuki chokes some too. END THIS ALREADY!!! They chop each other a lot and Kabuki kicks him down as the managers start fighting. They both come in and it’s a double DQ.

Rating: F. I need a drink after sitting through that match. This was HORRIBLE and the ending sucked really hard. Neither guy moved faster than a turtle with a broken leg’s pace and the ending made it even worse. Just a horrible match and I have no idea who thought this was going to be a good idea.

Junkyard Dog vs. Missing Link

Dog was a HUGE star at this point. Missing Link is a crazy man. Link charges straight at him so Dog punches him a lot. A chair is brought in so Dog whacks him over the head with it and that’s all well and good I guess. Akbar is Link’s manager too. Link tries ramming Dog’s head into the buckle and that just fails. Now Link rams his own head into the buckle. They both get on all fours and ram heads which goes to Dog as well. Akbar tries to cheat and it allows Link to hit a middle rope headbutt for the pin? Akbar had the foot for the pin but another referee comes out and says what happened so Dog wins by DQ.

Rating: D-. It’s only really not a failure because Link had a cool look and I liked the insane character he had. The Dog was WAY over and it worked very well to have him here. Not a good match at all though as their styles completely clashed and the ending was even worse with neither guy looking good at all. It was pretty much a squash until the end.

American Tag Titles: Super Destroyers vs. Rock N Roll Soul

The Destroyers are guys in masks and are the champions. Rock N Roll Soul are King Parsons and Buck Zumhofe. This is the top tag title in the company. Akbar manages the champions here AGAIN. The fans are way behind the champions here. Buck and we’ll say #1 start with a crisscross. Off to Parsons and #2 and Parsons works on the arm. A dropkick puts the Destroyer down and Parsons does the JYD all fours headbutt.

Off to the other Destroyer who can’t hurt Parson’s head, just like JYD. Couldn’t they at least have another match in between there so it’s not so obvious? Off to Buck who climbs the ropes with a headlock takeover. Sunset flip gets two. We hit the five minute mark as Buck still has that headlock on. The heels make a blind tag and the other comes in with a dropkick for two.

A kneedrop gets two for I think #1. Those are their names: Super Destroyer #1 and Super Destroyer #2. They would eventually be revealed to be Bill and Scott Irwin. Parsons gets the tag and everything breaks down. Soul gets stereo sunset flips for two. Parsons gets double teamed but he hits his flying hip attack (Goldust used to use it) for the pin and the titles.

Rating: D+. This is before 1986 so the tag team formula wasn’t established yet at all. This was pretty much just so they could say something major happened here…which is pretty pointless given the main event but whatever. This was more of a regional thing than a match for the masses if that makes sense.

Six Man Tag Titles: Freebirds vs. Von Erichs

Kevin, Mike and Fritz here. The Birds are the champions and the titles are represented by a big trophy instead of belts. Mike is one of the saddest stories you’ll ever hear: He wasn’t a good wrestler in the first place and then he was injured. The injury resulted in toxic shock syndrome, which resulted in brain damage. His dad, Fritz, made him get back in the ring anyway. He committed suicide later in the 80s.

This is anything goes. Fritz is in a dress shirt and jeans. Everything breaks down quickly and chairs are thrown in. The referee says anything goes but you have to tag. Ok then. Kevin is bleeding from the big brawl. Ok so it’s officially Buddy Roberts vs. Kevin to start. Kevin beats him down and it’s a brawl in less than 10 seconds with everyone coming in. Off to Mike who goes straight for the leg.

Mike is a very small man. Hayes comes in and stomps away as the fans HATE him. A middle rope splash misses and here’s old man Fritz. Everything breaks down again and Fritz whips Hayes’ back with a belt. Kevin vs. the monster known as Terry Gordy. Gordy starts his boxing and the fans are erupting more and more every second now. If the Von Erichs win, Kerry gets Fritz’s title since Fritz is retired. I’m glad they cleared that up.

Kevin tries the Iron Claw but Gordy fights it off at the five minute mark. Hayes comes in and the fans are louder in this match than they’ve been in the whole show so far. Hayes takes off his boot to get in some shots and it’s off to Roberts. In one of the oddest moves you’ll ever seen, Roberts thrusts his hips forward so his belt buckle hits Kevin in the head. Fritz comes in and everything breaks down. Claw to Hayes and to Roberts at the same time. Hayes is busted bad. Various people are rammed into each other until Kevin comes off the top with a cross body to pin Roberts for the title.

Rating: C. This was the first decent match of the entire show. Granted a lot of that was probably due to the crowd finally being interested. This was without a doubt the feud that defines the promotion so you knew they were going to have something going on here. Not a bad match, but the rematch in July won Match of the Year from Meltzer, so check that out instead since it had Kerry so Fritz didn’t look so out of place.

Killer Khan comes in post match for the big beatdown. Kerry runs out for the save.

NWA World Title: Ric Flair vs. Kerry Von Erich

You can tell this is a long time ago as Flair is from Minneapolis still. Kerry comes out to some country song that started after the beginning of Tom Sawyer played. His robe says In Memory of David and has a yellow rose, which was David’s nickname. If Flair gets disqualified, Kerry is champion. Kerry overpowers him to start and they hit the mat at a standoff.

They go back to the mat and no one can get control again. Kerry takes over and hits a dropkick to put Flair into the corner. They fight over a top wristlock and Kerry takes over again. This is a long feeling out process to start. Kerry gets a press slam and Flair begs off, heading to the floor. Flair gets in some shots but Kerry is like not in Texas dude. Sunset flip gets two.

Kerry hooks a sleeper but Flair suplexes out of it to take over. The champ uses his regular stuff to control, including the knee drop. Kerry snaps off a dropkick which Flair doesn’t even go down from. Flair gets caught in an abdominal stretch but escapes quickly. Shoulder puts Kerry down but he grabs the Iron Claw. After escaping, Flair goes up top but is slammed down. Kerry escapes a pair of Figure Fours and grabs a backslide for the pin and the title.

Rating: D+. That’s it? I mean really, that’s it? This wasn’t even 12 minutes long. It came off more like a modern TV main event than anything else. Flair never had Kerry in anything resembling trouble, although Kerry never dominated either. To be fair though, you couldn’t have made this more obvious if you had painted a big sign saying “come see Kerry win the title”. His match with David had been built up already so this was thrown together at the last minute. The lack of hatred hurt it, but there’s only so much they could do here.

The locker room empties for the celebration. Flair says he’ll be back and Kerry says bring it. He would lose the title back to Flair in less than three weeks in Japan, and that’s ok I think as Kerry was never meant to be champion in the first place. Flair would hold it over two years after that.

Oddly enough, that’s not the last match.

Precious/Jimmy Garvin vs. Sunshine/Chris Adams

Basic feud here with Precious having Sunshine as an assistant until she treated her horribly once too often Sunshine snapped. This is the payoff for it. The guys start us off and Adams slams him down. Garvin can’t do much with him due to a lack of talent. After a brief chinlock we get a double clothesline to put both guys down. Superkick puts Garvin down and the girls come in.

They aren’t wrestlers so this is horrendous. Back to the guys and Adams takes over on a tired Garvin. Garvin hits what we would call Snake Eyes to take over. Adams is busted open but he manages to reverse a piledriver. The girls come in again and everything breaks down. Adams comes back in with a sunset flip for the pin as the girls fight to the floor.

Rating: F. Terrible all around, but to be fair the girls weren’t wrestlers. That being said, Garvin is but he couldn’t do anything of note. Adams wasn’t very famous as a wrestler but he brought the superkick into modern wrestling and trained Steve Austin, so he had to be worth something right?

Garvin and Precious run away to end the show.

Overall Rating: D. This was one of the worst shows I can remember in a long time. You had terrible matches other than about two and the rest was just missing. I get that it’s a different era, but would a clean fall have killed you in the first 30 minutes? Also the time is weird as only one match out of seven broke 10 minutes. The whole show is only a little over 70 minutes (granted that’s not counting entrances) so it came off as totally rushed. Not worth seeing, not even for the title change.

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of the WWE Championship from Amazon for just $5 at:

Wrestlerock 1986
Date: April 20, 1986
Location: Metrodome, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Attendance: 23,000
Commentator: Ron Trongard

I hate you. I hate you all. This is another request because SOME IDIOT had to put the Wrestlerock Rumble video up on WrestleZone. This is the show that it was advertising. It’s another of the AWA’s stadium supershows which usually wound up sucking but why would that stop them from keeping them up? There are three cage matches to close the show so you know it’s going to be….different. Let’s get to it.

No real intro here, as is the custom on these big shows.

Brad Rheingans vs. Boris Zhukov

Boris is the same character from WWF and Brad is a former Olympian power lifter. This is going to be a power match and probably not a very good one. They exchange tests of strength to start with neither guy being able to get much of an advantage. Ok scratch that as Brad does pretty easily. Before I forget again: WHERE ARE THE PEOPLE??? There are allegedly over 20,000 people there but my goodness they did a bad job of putting them on the camera side. There might be more empty seats visible that full ones.

This is your standard power match: Brad shoves him around, Boris runs, Brad shoves him around some more, Boris runs some more. Zhukov heads to the floor and comes back to get in a knee and RUSSIA POWER takes over. That more or less concludes the interesting part of the match because Boris Zhukov is a very boring wrestler. He’s slow, he’s bald, he’s Russian. That sums up about half the heels in America at this point. Naturally since this is a big show’s opening match, Brad makes his comeback and hits his fisherman’s suplex for the pretty easy pin.

Rating: D+. The American winning over the EVIL Soviet is always a surefire way to get a crowd going and this did so for the most part. Not a good match by any means, but for about five minutes long and an opening match, what exactly were you looking for? For a power guy though, a fisherman’s suplex is a strange pick for a finisher.

Little Tokyo/Lord Littlebrook vs. Little Mr. T./Cowboy Lang

Great. Midgets. Tokyo and Lang start us off and it’s time for a headlock. Off to Littlebrooke and it’s time for an armbar. They go to a wide shot and oh my goodness that’s a stupid idea. Back to Tokyo as Lang is getting beaten down even more. Here’s a chinlock for rest hold #3 in less than 150 seconds. Lang escapes and it’s off to Little Mr. T. This is a few weeks after WM 2 and I’m sure Mr. T. being on that show is just a coincidence right?

T. does something and Trongard says look at that. Naturally that’s as we go wide to which you can only see shapes in the ring instead of what they’re doing. There goes the referee because this is a midget match. Things calm down and we have Littlebrook vs. T. There’s ANOTHER chinlock as this is going way too long. The midgets argue and this is going nowhere.

Tokyo accidentally hits Littlebrook as people are going off to get food and drinks. Lang is in and we get a crisscross. Back to T. vs. Littlebrook for another headlock. It’s clear they have no idea what to do here to fill in time because MIDGET MATCHES SHOULDN’T GO TEN MINUTES. There’s an airplane spin for both heels and the rowboat spot. Oh and the referee pile on. Lang hooks a rollup on Littlebrook for the pin, thank goodness.

Rating: F. A midget tag team match ran ten minutes and had at least 5 rest holds. What kind of a grade did you expect me to give this? Not a good match at all and the usual midget spots that you’ve seen a dozen times, none of which have made people laugh in years. Moving on.

There are a lot of “local celebrities” introduced here, usually between each match. I’m not going to bother listing them because I don’t know who they are, most likely you don’t know who they are, and I don’t really care. For instance, this one is a local horse owner. See what I mean? Almost all of them get to be guest ring announcers. That’s the show’s gimmick.

Colonel DeBeers vs. Wahoo McDaniel

We have a white supremacist vs. an American Indian. This can’t end well. DeBeers actually TWIRLS HIS MUSTACHE. We have a real villain here people. The Colonel works on the arm, then Wahoo works on the arm. Now DeBeers works on the arm. I think out of boredom, Wahoo chops at him to break it up. Colonel comes back with a knee to the head and some kicks. Coming back in they slug it out with McDaniel on the apron. Back in Wahoo goes on the warpath and throws him to the floor. Back in again and Wahoo throws him over the top for the FREAKING LAME DQ.

Rating: F+. It was somehow better than the midget match. Think about that for a minute. This was five minutes of two old guys hitting each other after some arm work and then a stupid DQ ending to it. This was horrible and the show is off to a very bad start. When a basic American vs. Soviet match is by far the best match of the night after three of them, things aren’t starting well at all.

They brawl on the floor post match in a far better sequence than they had in the match.

Go buy stuff from the souvenir stand! You can get cassettes of the WrestleRock Rumble! For those unfamiliar, that’s a wrestling version of the Super Bowl Shuffle with wrestlers “rapping” lyrics. It’s horrible.

Doug Somers and Buddy Rose are going to beat those pests the Midnight Rockers and then get the tag titles.

Doug Somers/Buddy Rose vs. Midnight Rockers

This is on Shawn Michaels: My Journey. Somers/Rose have Sherri Martel with them. Rose does his traditional thing of “it’s 217lbs, not 271lbs.” Rose and Jannetty start us off with Rose doing push-ups. Wait, still not ready for the match as Rose does a front flip and wants Jannetty to do the same. Marty tags Shawn who moonsaults in and tells Rose to do that. Rose goes up….and comes back down. Naturally they’re wasting time on a match like this which is probably going to be the best match of the show. Rose tries it AGAIN and crotches himself.

Somers and Shawn FINALLY lock up to keep us from dying of boredom. Shawn controls with an armdrag and dropkicks Somers down and it’s off to Rose. Rose tries to speed things up and I think Shawn is all cool with that, as he armdrags him down with ease. Off to Marty who jumps in and hammers down onto the arm. Rose goes for the eyes and brings in Somers who is armdragged right back down. Marty avoids a charge and Doug’s arm goes into the post.

Back to Shawn and both of them grab an arm on Somers. Back to Rose vs. Shawn and Buddy cartwheels (impressive given that gut) to avoid a monkey flip. Marty comes in and does exactly what Buddy did. We’re five minutes into this somehow. Time for Shawn again and the arm work continues. He hooks an arm stretch but Buddy gets up onto his feet to escape the pressure. Marty smacks him in the head and Rose is down again. Not a good night for them so far.

Shawn flies around even more and it’s back to Marty to drop a knee on the arm. Knee lift gets two for Shawn. FINALLY Michaels gets caught in a slingshot into the corner and Somers belts him in the face to take over. Jumping back elbow gets two for Rose. Off to Somers who whips Shawn into the corner hard.

Shawn comes back with a suplex to put both guys down. There’s the hot tag to Marty who cleans house and gets his own two off his own jumping back elbow. Powerslam gets three but the foot was on the rope. Everything breaks down and the Rockers are in control. Marty goes up for something but Somers crotches him which lets Rose pin him. Sherri pushed his foot off the ropes too.

Rating: C+. Not a bad match at all here, despite the goofy stuff to start. The arm work probably went on too long but the match itself wasn’t half bad. The ending could have used a bit more but for a big house show and the fourth match on the card, this wasn’t that bad. Sherri screwing over Shawn is kind of interesting given their future.

Somers and Rose say they’re innocent.

More “celebrities”, this one being the AD for the University of Minnesota.

Buck Zumhofe says nothing of note. Granted that might be because of the REALLY BIG FREAKING BOOM BOX he’s carrying.

Buck Zumhofe vs. Tiger Mask

This should be….different. I think it’s Misawa at this point but I’m not sure. Trongard has never seen him before so his usual horrible commentary is going to be even worse here. They go to the mat quickly with Buck grabbing an armbar. That hold is used WAY too much in this company. They exchange control of the arm and we get a standoff. Zumhofe is your classic guy who wasn’t big enough to be a heavyweight but didn’t have the speed to be a typical cruiserweight. Tiger Mask on the other hand is a master at it.

They go back to grappling and it ends in a spinning toehold by Buck as he works on the leg. This goes on for awhile, because Heaven forbid they have fast guys go to the air. That might get people interested in the show. Off to a Boston Crab which works on the back after Zumhofe spent all the time working on the knee. Eh close enough I guess. That doesn’t last long and Tiger dropkicks him down for two.

Back to the arm (oh boy!) for Tiger as he controls with an armbar after a decent wrestling sequence. A cross body and suplex get four combined which is somehow less than three in wrestling. Zumhofe goes after the mask but can’t get it off because he’s Buck Zumhofe and going after Tiger Mask’s mask. Buck goes into control by ramming Tiger’s face into the mat twice. Well you can’t say he’s overdoing it. Abdominal stretch now to really crank this up. They go to the floor and Tiger hits a nice plancha to take Buck out. Back in Mask slams him down and hits something like a Swanton Bomb for the pin.

Rating: C-. It’s not bad but at the same time Zumhofe was really boring. This would be Tiger Mask toned WAY down which isn’t using his talents as well as they could and/or should be used. Pretty dull match but it could have been FAR worse. Again, somehow this is the second best match of the night thus far and that can’t be a good thing.

The Governor of Minnesota declares it Verne Gagne Day. Not AWA Day or anything, but Verne Gagne Day.

Barry Windham and Rotunda (acknowledged as former WWF Tag Champions) say they’re ready for the Fabulous Ones.

Fabulous Ones vs. Barry Windham/Mike Rotunda

The Fabulous Ones are Steve (Skinner) Keirn and Sweet Stan Lane. The guest announcer here is another radio guy which is the case with the vast majority of them. Windham vs. Lane starts things off. The crowd has filled in a lot and it looks much better. Feeling out process to start as Barry grabs a headlock. This is back when Windham was awesome and in shape so he’s fun to watch.

Off to Rotunda and the arm work (I’m as shocked as you are) begins. Lane tries to escape a hammerlock but gets kneed in the arm instead. Back to Barry who cranks on the arm some more. Off to Keirn who is armdragged right back down. Back to Mike who works a top wristlock. Barry comes in quickly for a chinlock. Keirn tries a leapfrog but gets punched in the face for his efforts. You can’t say Barry is over complicating things.

Windham/Rotunda hit a double dropkick and Keirn is in trouble. Mike misses a corner charge and the heels take over. Things break down quickly but Rotunda can’t make a tag. After a long beating by Lane it’s back to Keirn. Lane comes in for a neckbreaker but misses an elbow. There’s the tag to Barry after a short heat segment. Powerslam gets two on Stan.

The Ones cheat again and Barry gets caught in a chinlock. We’re ten minutes into this and it hasn’t really kicked into high gear yet, which is a shame given what you have to work with here. Barry grabs a small package on Lane for two. Off to Rotunda who speeds things up and gets two on Lane. There’s an airplane spin for two. Lane backdrops him and sets for a piledriver but Barry comes off the top with an elbow to the back of the head, giving Rotunda the pin.

Rating: C. Not a great match or anything here but it was ok I guess. They never cranked this up as high as they could and that really hurt it. Also the lack of any reason for these teams or wrestlers in any match for that matter to want to fight each other is really bringing things down. If they don’t care, why should I care?

The Attorney General of Minnesota is here. Even for a local politician, why would I care about that?

Bulldog Bob Brown vs. Giant Baba

Baba is a guy I’m sure you’ve heard of and Brown is a Central States mainstay who just isn’t that good but was popular in his territory. For some reason he’s billed as a former champion (with 18 total reigns) but based on what I can find, he was champion at this point. Brown hooks a headlock to start, which is really awkward because Brown is about 6’0 tall and Baba is about Kane’s height.

Baba works on the arm but Brown rakes the eye to get out of it. Brown goes for the leg which fails completely. Baba takes him to the mat with a headscissors and works on the arm. The fans don’t care at all here. Brown hammers on him but Baba comes back with some chops. This is REALLY slow paced as they’re stopping every few seconds. A big boot puts Brown on the mat and a chop sets up a Russian legsweep which looked awful. Another big boot gets the pin.

Rating: F. This was HORRIBLE. It was slow, it was awkward, Baba wrestles nothing like a giant, and the fans had no idea who these guys were. That was the big issue with this match: it’s a Japanese guy vs. a Central States guy in front of an AWA crowd. Why would the people care at all about this match? They didn’t, and I can’t blame them at all. The match sucked too.

The GM of a TV station is introduced. Not an on air personality mind you, but the boss that NO ONE EVER SEES.

Harley Race wants an AWA Title shot.

Harley Race vs. Rick Martel

This is billed as former champion vs. former champion, which sounds SO exciting doesn’t it? Race grabs a headlock to start as is his custom but Martel whips him in and it’s time for an armbar. This is so common in this company I can’t believe it. That doesn’t last long as Race whips him in and RACE LEAPFROGS MARTEL. And I thought I had seen everything. Martel doesn’t know what to do so naturally, it’s an armdrag into an armbar.

Race takes him down again as neither guy can get a real advantage here. Headbutt sets up a chinlock which isn’t something the people seem all that interested in seeing at this point. Yep there are the boring chants. Martel gets up and there’s armbar #3 five minutes into the match. Race’s counter this time? Slam his head into Martel’s. Well you can’t say he’s not using his head. I’ll give you a minute to roll your eyes at how lame that joke was.

Powerslam gets two for Race but Martel escapes a suplex and throws on a sleeper. Does this guy know ANYTHING besides rest holds? Race rams him into the buckle and hits a neckbreaker to put Rick down. Harley goes up (not as bizarre as you would expect) but gets slammed off. Well his last major feud was with Flair so that probably has something to do with it. They slug it out a bit which should result in pain bruises and agony for Martel but instead he grabs a headlock. Martel hits a backbreaker and slingshot splash for two, which Trongard says Martel debuted five years ago in 1983. Check the date on the show.

Anyway after that warping of time and space, Race headbutts and piledrives him for two. Elbow drop gets two and it’s off to the chinlock. Race sends him into the corner and Martel tries a cross body out of the corner, but Race just casually steps to the side, ala Samoa Joe. After a brief slugout, Martel whips Race into the corner and out to the floor, but it’s not a DQ due to whatever alteration they want to make this time.

Suplex gets two for Rick back in. Shoulderbreaker and neckbreaker get two for Race. They collide and Race is knocked to the floor. He always was great at taking that backwards fall. Back in another piledriver is countered into a gutwrench suplex for two by Martel. Now Rick goes after the knee for some reason. After some knees to the leg it’s off to a leg hold but Race uses his head (as always) to escape. Race pounds on him in the corner but has his suplex countered. A splash by Martel eats knees and they go to the floor off a slam attempt. They brawl even more and it’s a double countout, two minutes before the time limit.

Rating: C+. Pretty decent match here but again the problem is that there’s no story to this. That being said, they were getting close to overcoming that with some solid back and forth stuff. At the end of the day, it’s Harley Race going 18 minutes so the match by default has to be pretty good. Martel was a WAY bigger deal in the AWA than in the WWF.

Women’s Battle Royal

There are ten girls in this and only three mean anything: Sherri Martel, Luna Vachon (didn’t mean anything yet) and Candi Divine, who was awful but was popular in the AWA. She’s also Women’s Champion here. I have no idea who most of these women are. They’re blondes in spandex. Someone is thrown out and I can’t hear Capetta, nor do I particularly care to know.

Trongard and Capetta keep calling Luna Leona by mistake. Or by lack of intelligence, I’m not sure which. Two more go out but they’re not important enough to announce. Somehow we got down to six. Luna (NOT LEONA) is gone. I think a Greek chick powerbombs Divine but it’s not important enough to talk about. The Greek chick is out and we’re down to Martel, Debbie Combs, Candi Divine and some chick that Trongard doesn’t bother naming. Divine misses a charge and we’re down to three. Her name is Joyce Grable. Ok then. Martel is knocked under the ropes, Combs throws out Grable and Martel sneaks in to steal the win.

Rating: F. I didn’t know half of the names in this. That should tell you everything you need to know.

Sherri gets fifty grand and Rose/Somers want the tag titles.

Ten minute intermission, because this show needs to be LONGER.

We’re only halfway through the card. See what I’m putting up with?

AWA America’s Title: Sgt. Slaughter vs. Kamala

Slaughter is champion and is WAY over. He’s pretty much the most popular guy in the company, which is why he never got the world title. I mean, Heaven forbid the fans decide who the top guy is. That’s one thing that needs to be remembered about the AWA: yes Vince took a lot of their talent, but it was Gagne that screwed up a lot of stuff. If he had just given the title to Hogan like the people were SCREAMING for, Hogan wouldn’t have left.

Oh yeah the match. As usual with Kamala matches, he uses REALLY boring offense like you would see from any fat guy, including but not limited to chops, something resembling punches, shots to the throat, and a stomach claw. Slaughter makes his comeback, Kamala hits him some more, Slaughter Cannon, Kim Chee runs in for the DQ. Short and nothing of note at all.

Hall and Hennig say they’ll keep the titles.

Tag Titles: Scott Hall/Curt Hennig vs. Long Riders

The Long Riders are a biker team who ride in on their motorcycles. Hall gets an award for being popular pre match. The champions won the titles in Albuquerque apparently, which is nowhere near the AWA territory, so I’m going to bet that match didn’t happen. Also the regular AWA ring announcer, Larry Nelson, is now sitting in on commentary with Trongard. The Long Riders are Scott “Hog” Irwin and Wild Bill Irwin.

Hall starts with Scott (for this match, Scott will only be used for Scott Irwin. Scott Hall will only be called Hall) as we hear about the Long Riders being made to wear wrestling gear. Apparently their biker gear has been used for EVIL and has therefore been banned. Nothing goes on here so the partners both tag off. Hennig hits a HUGE dropkick on the future Goon and we head to the floor for a chase scene. Back to Hall as the champions have been in total control the whole time so far.

Bill manages to take Hall to the mat for about two full seconds but the more famous one grabs an armbar to take over. Off to Hennig and the beating continues. Dropkick gets two as we’re five minutes in. Curt and Bill slug it out and Hennig superkicks him down for two. Bill misses a charge and an elbow drop so Hennig grabs a headlock. They get up and do a weird sequence where they’re both on their stomachs and Curt crawls at him as Bill backpedals to the floor.

Test of strength now and Hennig kind of suplexes him over for two. The Riders take over on Curt with some double teaming. They draw in Hall for some lame double teaming as we’re at ten minutes into this. More double teaming which is mainly just assisted choking. Curt avoids an elbow drop and it’s off to Hall. House is cleaned and noggins are knocked but it’s back to Hennig. Everything breaks down and Curt is sent to the floor. It doesn’t really matter though as Hall goes to the floor with Scott, allowing a missile dropkick from Hennig to retain the titles.

Rating: C-. Not bad here as there was a formula and an idea here, but the execution wasn’t that great. The Riders were a pretty weak team but it could have been far worse. Hennig was a huge deal in the AWA and would hold the world title for over a year starting in May of 87. Decent match but nothing all that great. It’s a big upgrade on the majority of the show though.

Scott hits Hennig with a boot post match. The champions complain about that for awhile.

Larry Zbyszko vs. Scott LeDoux

LeDoux was a legit boxer before becoming a referee and wrestler in the AWA. This is under “European” rules, which means they wear gloves and we have ten two minute rounds. Larry Hennig, Curt’s papa, is the referee for no apparent reason. It’s really closer to boxing than wrestling but it’s the AWA so I doubt they knew what it was supposed to be. They tease hitting each other for a bit until LeDoux grabs a full nelson. Larry escapes and Scott (what is with that name being so popular in this company?) unloads on him with punches, sending Larry to the floor.

This is actually closer to MMA (kind of almost sort of) than boxing or wrestling but whatever. Larry chills with his ninja (don’t ask) for a bit as we’re probably about halfway through the first round. LeDoux gets into a boxing stance so Larry bails to the apron. I’m shocked too. Larry picks the leg and goes to the mat which is smart. Round 1 ends with Larry in control.

Off to round 2 and Larry gets on one knee. He gets up and hits a spinning kick to the ribs. Larry climbs on his back which doesn’t work at all as LeDoux pounds on the ribs with elbows. Armdrag by Larry into an armbar but LeDoux punches him in the face. Larry pounds him in the corner and slams him for no cover. Zbyszko pounds on him to end the round.

Round 3 begins with Scott’s eye swelling shut. Larry takes him to the mat and hooks a front chancery. For the first time we’re told you win by pin or knockout. Decisions are still a gray area. Larry POUNDS HIM with punches and a kick to the ribs. Back to the mat and Larry is totally dominating him.

Round 4 starts with Larry missing a kick and LeDoux gets in a flurry to take over. For no apparent reason he grabs Larry and rams him into the corner. There’s a slam and Larry is reeling. The fans aren’t that thrilled but you can’t please everyone. They’re both getting gassed here but LeDoux clocks Larry to end the round but the bell saves him.

Larry starts round 5 bleeding and gets knocked to the floor….where he rams LeDoux into the post for the DQ 5 seconds into the round.

Rating: C-. I liked it but it wasn’t great. As usual with this show, I have no idea why they were fighting because the announcers are too busy telling us that the AWA is a national company to give us a simple story. The match was entertaining though which is really all you can ask for in something like this. Good stuff and thankfully they kept it fast paced. If this was just boxing, it would have been a disaster.

Post match LeDoux wants to kill Larry and the fans are into this for once. The Ninja jumps Scott and Larry (the referee, who did NOTHING in this match) makes the save.

LeDoux wants a rematch.

AWA World Title: Stan Hansen vs. Nick Bockwinkel

Hansen is the champion and evil here. He runs over Nelson for no apparent reason. Hansen normally works for Baba in Japan but is here as champion to give the AWA a boost. They immediately go to the floor with Hansen pounding away. Nelson immediately turns into a super Bockwinkel fan as Nick makes a brief comeback. Hansen kicks him in the face and hooks a chinlock. This is looking wild so far.

Elbow drop gets two for the champion. Bockwinkel takes over on the arm and now Stan is in trouble. Nick tries to fight back with some right hands but they get him nowhere. A sunset flip gets two as the cameraman drops the camera. Off to an armbar as Trongard tells us how great the AWA is. I haven’t mentioned it that often but he says it more often than Cole plugs Twitter. They slug it out, naturally won by Stan, and it’s time for another chinlock.

Trongard spends the entire hold on a speech about how second best isn’t acceptable in the AWA and how they have the best. YOU JUST SAID THAT TEN SECONDS AGO!!! Nick tries to come back and grabs a sleeper, one of his finishers. Hansen gets to a rope though and they fall to the floor. They slug it out a bit out there but then go back inside to punch each other (HARD) some more.

Hansen outsmarts Nick (hard to do) by suckering him into a stun gun for two. Nick blocks a suplex into one of his own for two. It gets two so Nelson says almost only counts in drive-in movies. I think I get what he means there and I don’t think I want to know if I’m right. The referee gets bumped so Bockwinkel’s slam only gets no cover. Crossbody gets the same. Piledriver gets two…and then Hansen backdrops him over the top for the LAME DQ.

Rating: B-. Why am I not surprised? This match was starting to get good and then never mind, because we need to have a screwy finish. As usual, the idea here is simple: give them something to fight over in the form of the title and have two talented guys in there and you’ll get a good match. Bockwinkel would get the title later on when Hansen said screw this nonsense and went to Japan full time.

They brawl post match until Bockwinkel chases him off with a chair. Nick says he used to cheat to keep the title but it’s not fair here.

There’s another intermission to set up the cage.

Now the last three matches are in a cage, but for some reason on the tape they’re out of order. This is in the order that they air on the tape.

Nord the Barbarian/King Kong Brody vs. Jimmy Snuka/Greg Gagne

A few notes here: Snuka is a mystery partner subbing for Jerry Blackwell (that’s for the better, trust me), this match originally went on second of the three cage matches, King Kong Brody is Bruiser Brody because of some legit complaint from Dick the Bruiser, and if Snuka/Gagne win, Verne gets 10 minutes in the cage with Sheik Adnan-Al Kaissie. This is announced as the main event, even though there could be more stuff after it. Oh and Nord the Barbarian is just called Barbarian and is more famous as the Berzerker.

Snuka gets zero fanfare at all. Gagne looks like a 1996 version of Chavo Guerrero. They have to tag here so the match is automatically dropped a few notches. Gagne starts with Brody. Greg gets in a few punches but Brody kicks him in the face, making Gagne look like he got shot. Off to Barbarian who gets punched back into his own corner. Off to Snuka for a death defying chinlock.

The match slows way down as Brody comes in and knocks Snuka down. Then they stand around. Then they stand around some more. Snuka does his leapfrogs but Brody knocks him right back down. Off to Gagne and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it makes the match way better. If nothing else he sells everything like death which is usually a cool thing to see.

Greg gets rammed into the cage to bust him open. Good piledriver by Brody gets two. Nelson turns into an annoying fanboy again but Gagne’s comeback is shortlived. He manages to send Nord into the cage and there’s the hot tag (with a pop) to Snuka. Off to Brody who is busted open. He yells a lot as Snuka hammers away on him.

Snuka gets in Superfly position but hits a headbutt instead. Nord interferes and Snuka is in trouble again. Everything breaks down and the heels get rammed into each other. Double dropkick puts Nord down and a double suplex does the same to Brody. Snuka rams into Gagne by mistake, but Snuka gets up and dropkicks Nord who trips over Gagne and gets pinned.

Rating: D. Oh boy did they screw this up. First of all, WHERE IS THE SUPERFLY SPLASH??? You bring in Jimmy Snuka and he doesn’t even hit the move he’s legendary for in the kind of match he’s legendary for hitting it in? Second, there was way too much heel control here. The idea is supposed to be faces control to start, Gagne opens, tag to Snuka for more dominance, back to Gagne, Gagne gets beaten down, hot tag, finish.

Instead it was faces control, heels control, faces comeback, faces screw up, faces steal a win. The problem is that it doesn’t allow the fans to build up momentum. This match had the pieces of a decent match, but they were all in the wrong order which is what made it hard to stay invested in. Also the lack of a splash hurt it a lot.

Verne Gagne vs. Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie

This has a backstory actually. The Sheik and his men broke Verne’s ribs….two years ago. They go in and Sheik automatically tries to run. Gagne slams him and Sheik’s belt is taken off. Not that it matters because the referee throws it away. Verne rams him into the cage and Sheik is busted BAD. For someone that is in a revenge match, Verne is standing around a lot. Backdrop sets up a sleeper but the Sheik breaks it up quickly. Sheik takes over but his slam is countered into a small package for the pin.

Rating: D-. Uh……WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT??? This was like 4 minutes long which is fine, but A SMALL PACKAGE IN A MATCH BASED ON REVENGE??? This should have been Verne destroying him but instead it was like two cage shots, some punches and a small package. I don’t get this at all and it was boring on top of that. Terribly stupid match.

Gagne retires again post match.

Road Warriors vs. Freebirds

Thank goodness this is the last match. This actually took place before the other tag two cage matches, but Verne had to go on last on the real card. The tape version makes him seem more humble at least. This is Hayes/Garvin. Hawk and Hayes get things going. Hayes immediately hits a piledriver which is of course no sold. Let the pain begin. Hayes goes into the cage a few times and he’s busted quickly.

Gorilla press to Hayes and Hawk drops a right hand. Garvin runs away from a tag so Hayes tries to climb out. Hawk goes up top as well and Michael is knocked to the floor. Garvin finally gets the tag and he’s tentative at best. Why no Animal yet? Oh there he is, for a TEN REP gorilla press. Now Hayes runs from the tag.

And never mind as he comes in a few seconds alter. Hayes gets in a few shots but Hawk runs him over quickly. He bites the cut on Hayes’ head because Hawk is a little nuts. Garvin comes in to pound on him and it’s back to Hayes for a figure four. Hawk easily breaks it and it’s back to Garvin, whose offense is shrugged off. Not hot tag to Animal and everything breaks down. Hayes pulls out some brass knuckles but he hits Garvin by mistake so Animal gets the easy pin.

Rating: D. According to the announcer that gives the Warriors revenge for something, but again it’s not important enough to tell us about. This was about as dominant of a match as you can see without it being a squash. The Birds never had a chance but they were against the Road Warriors so that shouldn’t be a shock. The Warriors left the AWA after this match.

That ends the show, but because I have no regard for my own sanity, I’ll thrown in a look at the music video namesake of this show: the WrestleRock Rumble. The idea is a music video of the roster “rapping”, because that fits in so well with the them of WrestleROCK. It’s supposed to be in the vein of the SuperBowl Shuffle from the Chicago Bears. This is going to be painful so let’s get it over with.

We open with Hall and Hennig getting out of a pool wearing Speedos. This isn’t going to be pretty is it? They want the Long Riders and “rhyme” about it, then the girls shove them into the pool. An interviewer raps and some Playboy chick says nothing of note. I’m better at rapping than the Rockers I believe. The Sheik sounds as stereotypical as possible. Blackwell, a fat country boy, is shown crushing a board.

Greg Gagne sounds like he smoked five packs a day. We see the same Hennig/Hall segment that started this nightmare. Amazingly enough, Zbyszko’s and Bockwinkel’s are the least bad. They’re not good, but they could have been a lot worse. LeDoux looks like he wants to die. Verne reads his rap, which is kind of funny. And that’s it. It’s terribly corny but it could have been MUCH worse. Again though, why call it a rap when the show has the word ROCK in the name? On top of that, country singer Waylon Jennings had a mini concert after the show. Even the AWA had no idea what they were doing here.

Overall Rating: D-. I won’t call it a failure, because there are some parts of a watchable show in here. The problem is they needed A LOT of stuff fixed here. First of all, cut this down from the over FOUR HOUR run time this already had down to about two hours and forty five minutes. Shave out the midget match and two to three more and it’s a far less uninteresting show.

Second, give us some reasons to watch these matches. This was a recurring problem in the AWA: there were no stories to back up these matches. The only one mentioned was Verne having broken ribs from a few years ago, which is a stretch but it’s better than nothing. There’s no reason to watch this show as the AWA was flying off a cliff at this point, but the matches for the most part aren’t horrible. They’re very boring, but they’re not horrible. Overall it’s not the worst show I’ve ever seen and there are definitely much worse ones, but there’s no appeal here at all.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of the WWE Championship from Amazon for just $5 at:

Super J Cup 1994
Date: April 16, 1994
Location: Sumo Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Attendance: 11,500

This is another requested show from a long time ago. This is one of those shows that you hear a lot about but most people haven’t seen. It’s a Junior Heavyweight tournament held in New Japan Pro Wrestling and featuring some big names, including Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero before most people had ever heard of either of them. This was named show of the year by Meltzer, but 1994 wasn’t the best year for wrestling so it should be interesting to see what’s going on here. Let’s get to it.

After the opening video, we get all of the competitors introduced to us. Here are the brackets. Wild Pegasus and Great Sasuke have byes to the second round and will face the winners of the first and last matches respectively.

Wild Pegasus

Black Tiger

Taka Michinoku

Gedo

Dean Malenko

Shinjiro Otani

Super Delfin

Ricky Fuji

Negro Casas

Hayabusa

Jushin Thunder Liger

Masayoshi Motegi

El Samurai

Great Sasuke

Super J Cup First Round: Dean Malenko vs. Gedo

Gedo is more famous as half of a tag team with Jado. After a handshake they charge at each other and Dean dropkicks him to the floor. Back in and Gedo grabs the arm but Dean rolls out of it. This is very fast paced as you would expect it to be. Dean takes it to the mat and hooks a leg lock but Gedo counters into a kind of cross armbreaker. They trade arm control for awhile until Dean headscissors him into a standoff.

Gedo takes him down and puts Dean in a leg lock of his own, but Dean counters into the same arm hold that Gedo countered into earlier. Nice. It turns into an amateur mat battle with Dean working on the arm while Gedo tries to sit out. Gedo gets up and comes back with offense that looks like an American stereotype of Japanese wrestling. Dean takes him down into a chinlock which is quickly broken.

Malenko will have none of this being on defense thing so he goes all aggressive and rams Gedo into the corner and busts out a Jackhammer of all things (remember that this is in 1994) for two. Gedo takes him to the mat for a very modified STF. Dean makes the rope so they slug it out and collide. Gedo counters a tombstone into one of his own but misses the swan dive. Malenko rams him into the corner again and hits a top rope cross body for two, but Gedo catches him with a powerslam to advance. Dean’s shoulder looked to be up but it counted anyway.

Rating: B-. Good opener here and the crowd was getting into it. Since this is a Jr. Heavyweight tournament there’s going to be a lot of fast paced matches which makes things more interesting. Dean was still young here and full of fire, making this a solid performance from him. I haven’t seen much from Gedo but he doesn’t seem to be anything of note.

Super J Cup First Round: Super Delfin vs. Shinjiro Otani

Delfin has a title which I think is the UWF Super Welterweight Title. Otani rushes him to start and immediately takes Delfin down by the leg. He hooks a modified heel hook/ankle lock but Delfin grabs a rope. Ohtani stays on the leg but shifts to a headlock. Delfin pops up and hits a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker as his knee is suddenly fine. Ohtani is like cool man and spin kicks Delfin’s head off, sending him to the floor.

Back in and Ohtani cannonballs down on the leg Flair style and hooks a half crab. Delfin escapes and finally sells the knee, only to get taken down into a scissors lock. That gets broken via rope as well and a Saito Suplex puts Ohtani down for two, as does a splash. Ohtani dropkicks him to the floor and hits a huge dive, buckling Delfin’s knee in the process. A springboard knee to the head gets two for Ohtani and it’s off to what can best be called a cross kneebreaker. Delfin makes the rope again and they head into the corner for a tornado DDT from Delfin. Delfin ties him up in a complex looking pinning combination for the win.

Rating: C+. The knee stuff drove me crazy here as Ohtani dismantled that knee but Delfin didn’t seem interested in selling it in any way at all. That’s one of the biggest annoyances I have in wrestling, as it’s disrespectful to the guy doing the work as well as looking ridiculous. Fun match for the Ohtani stuff, but he’s a guy I’ve always liked.

Super J Cup First Round: Taka Michinoku vs. Black Tiger

Taka looks very young here and is of course more famous for his WWF run. Black Tiger is Eddie Guerrero under a mask and WAY before he was famous in the US. The winner of this gets Wild Pegasus, more famous as Chris Benoit. Eddie is heel here and takes Taka down fast, hitting the slingshot hilo and a BIG powerbomb for two. Neckbreaker gets two for Eddie and it’s off to an abdominal stretch.

Eddie chops him down and puts on a Sharpshooter, which the announcers call a Scorpion. That’s quickly broken and they collide as this is almost too fast to call. Taka tries a clothesline but it only staggers Eddie, but Eddie’s takes Taka’s head off. Taka headscissors Eddie to the floor and moonsaults off the top back into the ring (Taka is alone in the ring and wasn’t going after Eddie) to pop the crowd.

Back in and Taka moonsaults moonsaults over Eddie so he can suplex him down. Eddie goes to the floor and Taka hits a HUGE dive to take both guys out. Back in again and Michinoku hits a German for two as well as a rana for the same. Another rana attempt is countered into another BIG powerbomb for two. Eddie hits a top rope splash (not the amphibian kind) for two. Taka powerbombs Guerrero down for two and hits a moonsault for the same. Another moonsault hits knees so Eddie hits his brainbuster for two. Eddie is all ticked off now so he KILLS Taka with a tornado DDT for the pin.

Rating: B. This was a very fun and fast paced match. Even though it was just a spotfest, sometimes there’s nothing wrong with that at all and it worked very well here. Eddie was on fire at this point and he would go to AAA soon where he would become a breakout star before heading to ECW and then WCW. Speaking of WCW, the music he left to sounded a lot like what would become the Nitro theme but it was too close to tell.

Super J Cup First Round: El Samurai vs. Masayoshi Motegi

Winner of this gets the Great Sasuke. Motegi has some title with him here as well which I think is the W*ING Junior Heavyweight Title. Motegi dropkicks Samurai down before the bell and knocks him to the floor for a suicide dive. With Samurai on the floor, Motegi loads up a dive but slips coming off the ropes for a laugh from the crowd. Back in and Samurai takes him to the mat and starts going amateur.

A fairly sloppy headscissors gets two for Samurai as does a side slam. Samurai hooks a Boston Crab which is countered into a pinfall reversal sequence for two for each guy. They stay on the mat for a bit until Motegi fights up, only to get tombstoned down immediately for two. Back up again and Samurai hits a kind of reverse suplex for two. Motegi hits a running elbow but gets sent to the floor quickly, with Samurai hitting a suicide dive of his own.

Back in and a missile dropkick gets two for Samurai but Motegi takes him right down again with a modified powerbomb. Samurai gets put in a rolling surfboard followed by a dragon sleeper which doesn’t last long. Motegi tries what I think was supposed to be a headscissors but it landed more like a spinning cross body. That gets two and it’s time for Motegi to roll some Germans. Those get two and they trade German attempts. Samurai finally hits one for two, followed by a powerbomb to get the pin on Motegi and advance.

Rating: D+. This was by far the worst match of the night so far as there were a ton of botches. Samurai started with the mat stuff and then went with the flying offense and the latter didn’t work that well at all. The match was full of botches which really brought things down here. I’ve only heard of Samurai and I wasn’t all that impressed here.

Motegi cuts a promo post match but I have no idea what he’s saying.

Super J Cup First Round: Ricky Fuji vs. Negro Casas

Casas, a Mexican, dropkicks Fuji, a Japanese guy wearing a jacket that says Canada for some reason, down to start. They hit the mat with Fuji grabbing a quick headscissors, before being put in an STF to give Casas control. Casas throws on a headscissors of his own but Fuji comes back with a headlock. Back to their feet and Casas hits some kicks, only to be taken right back down by Fuji.

A quick dragon sleeper by Fuji is broken and a backsplash gets two for Casas. Fuji gets sent outside and taken down by a dive from Casas as things slow down. Back in and Fuji hits a top rope ax handle for two. Casas escapes a suplex and La Majistral gets two, as does a Saito Suplex. The middle rope backsplash from the middle rope misses for Casas and Fuji hits a Tiger Bomb to advance.

Rating: D+. Second pretty bad match in a row here. These two didn’t click at all for the most part and I’m not sure whose fault that was. Fuji is a guy I’ve heard of but I’d like to know what the deal with that Canada jacket was. This wasn’t the worst match I’ve ever seen, but there wasn’t much good to it at all.

Super J Cup First Round: Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Hayabusa

Liger is basically divine at this point. Hayabusa immediately kicks him in the head and sends him to the floor, followed by a big dive. Back in and Hayabusa hits a missile dropkick to put Liger down. After a quick chinlock from Hayabusa, he hits a slam and legdrop for two. Off to a leg lock on Liger but Hayabusa’s knee drop misses. Liger slaps on a figure four but Hayabusa grabs the rope.

Liger hits his palm strike to the face followed by a powerbomb for two. He stays on the knee of Hayabusa before killing him with a clothesline for two. Back to the knee but Hayabusa somehow hits an enziguri from his back to escape. Liger sends him into the corner and immediately follows in with a Rolling Liger Kick. Superplex gets two on Hayabusa.

Hayabusa coems back with a running dropkick for two as he’s getting fired up now. Another running kick to the face puts Liger down for two. A senton and top rope spinwheel kick get two as does a moonsault. Hayabusa tries a spinning rana off the top but only gets half of it, resulting in a two count.

Liger gets slammed down and Hayabusa COMPLETELY misses a Shooting Star (Liger’s signature move), with only his legs hitting Liger after Hayabusa had stopped moving at all. Thankfully Liger doesn’t sell it and hits the Liger Bomb for two. Liger loads up a superplex but gets knocked off. Hayabusa jumps into a powerbomb and a fisherman’s buster gets the pin to complete the second round with Liger advancing.

Rating: C-. Hayabusa was fun to watch but DANG did he miss some spots. He would eventually snap his neck like a twig and be forced to retire in 2001. Liger on the other hand is probably the most famous Japanese wrestler in America other than maybe Great Muta, so I think we know who the more successful one was. This would have been way better if Hayabusa didn’t botch stuff so badly.

We recap the first round, so here are the updated brackets:

Wild Pegasus

Black Tiger

Gedo

Super Delfin

Ricky Fuji

Jushin Thunder Liger

El Samurai

The Great Sasuke

Super J Cup Quarter-Finals: Super Delfin vs. Gedo

Delfin grabs the leg to start and tries a half crab but Gedo reverses into one of his own. That doesn’t work that well so Gedo chops him down and shouts a lot. Delfin pops up and chops Gedo down before shouting just like Gedo. Delfin speeds things up but Gedo dropkicks him down. Gedo dropkicks Delfin right back down, only to be sent to the floor for his efforts.

Back in and Delfin pounds away in the corner but gets atomic dropped out. Gedo hooks a quick chinlock but gets rammed into the buckle to break the hold. They chop it out and Delfin knocks him to the floor where he takes Gedo out with a big dive off the top. Back in and a victory roll gets a bad looking two for Delfin. By bad I mean the referee stopped counting because Gedo didn’t kick out in time.

Gedo knocks him down and a moonsault gets two. A crucifix gets two for Delfin and the referee did it AGAIN. Delfin hits a German for two followed by a top rope elbow for two. Tornado DDT looks to finish for Delfin, but Gedo rolls him up for the pin. This time the referee counted three even though Delfin’s shoulder looked to be up.

Rating: D+. This wasn’t working for me either. Again it wasn’t that bad, but it just wasn’t that good. The refereeing was horrible here as the guy was missing almost everything the entire time, or at least the second half of the match. Nothing much to see here but we have something up next that might be a bit better.

Super J Cup Quarter-Finals: Wild Pegasus vs. Black Tiger

In other words, Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero. Benoit takes him to the mat by the leg and cranks on it a bit but Eddie takes him down almost immediately as well. They fight over the leg and Eddie takes over before hitting a slingshot hilo for two. He hooks a kind of triangle choke on Benoit for a bit but Chris gets up again. Benoit grabs a reverse suplex and both guys are down again.

Benoit tries to suplex him to the floor but Eddie blocks it. That’s fine by Benoit who snaps off a German and follows it up by a knee to the ribs. Eddie gets draped over the top rope in a move Benoit often used. Bridging German gets two for Benoit and the fans seem pleased. A big powerbomb (popular move tonight) gets two for Chris as does a snap suplex. Benoit hooks on the same kind of choke that Eddie had on earlier to slow things down.

Back up and Benoit tries another knee to the ribs but Eddie hooks a rollup for two. A clothesline and German get two each for Guerrero and it’s camel clutch time. Eddie goes up (these holds don’t last nearly as long as they do in America) but misses a missile dropkick. Benoit grabs a test of strength grip and Eddie is in trouble.

Actually scratch that as Eddie runs the ropes while holding Benoit’s hand, slips, catches himself, and then hits a rana for two. Top rope rana gets two for Eddie as the fans are getting into this. Brainbuster looks to set up a tornado DDT from Eddie but Benoit shoves him off. Benoit loads up something on the top but Eddie shoves him off. Eddie dives at Benoit but gets caught in a powerslam/arm drag to the mat for the pin for Benoit.

Rating: B. Eddie vs. Benoit is a good match. Gee who would have seen that coming? This wasn’t a classic or anything and I remember two distinctly better matches that they’ve had in the past, but still you can’t go wrong with this pairing. Eddie was looking great here but Benoit was on fire and wasn’t going to lose here no matter what Guerrero threw at him.

Super J Cup Quarter-Finals: The Great Sasuke vs. El Samurai

This should be good. Sasuke is a legendary junior heavyweight and can fly with the best of them. After about 30 seconds of circling each other they lock up. Sasuke takes him to the mat and works over the leg but can’t get a half crab. Samurai hooks a hammerlock but gets caught in a leg lock on the mat. Samurai counters that into an attempted cross armbreaker but Sasuke is blocking most of it. Sasuke grabs the leg right back again but Samurai escapes into a standoff.

Now Samurai grabs Sasuke’s leg in a reversal of roles. Samurai takes him to the mat and ties up the legs before adding a butterfly lock on top of it. That looked awesome. Sasuke heads to the floor and is hurting all over. Back into the ring and Samurai hooks a stump puller. Sasuke grabs a rope and heads to the floor again to cool things off. Back in and Samurai takes him right back down in a headscissors with an armbar which appears to be a signature move for him.

Sasuke breaks that and sends Samurai to the floor. In a cool looking visual, all of the photographers run to Samurai so they can see Sasuke hit a cartwheel into a moonsault to the floor. Back in and Sasuke kicks Samurai’s head off for two. Samurai will have none of that though and puts Sasuke on the floor, followed by a huge flip dive to take out the Great one. Back in Samurai hits a German for two. The crowd is losing it more and more on each of these moves.

A flying headbutt gets two for Samurai and he’s getting frustrated. Sasuke snaps off a rana for two and goes up, but Samurai stops him. Samurai can’t slam him down though and gets caught in a sunset flip off the top for two. Back in the ring and Sasuke misses a spinwheel kick. Samurai powerbombs Sasuke down but it only gets two. Sasuke is getting fired up now and he rolls through a rana from Samurai for the pin.

Rating: B+. This was a very solid match all around with at least two distinct parts. They had the back and forth submission stuff to start and then they busted out the big spots and near falls, all of which were getting better and better each time. I can see why Sasuke is considered so great. Good stuff here and Samurai looked WAY better here than he did in the first match.

Sasuke says something that I can’t understand.

Super J Cup Quarter-Finals: Jushin Liger vs. Ricky Fuji

They fight for control to start and Fuji grabs a wristlock. Liger hits a monkey flip to escape and it’s a standoff. A test of strength goes badly for Fuji and it’s another standoff. Liger gets sent to the floor where Fuji hits a pescado and powerbomb to take over. Liger comes back with a kick to the chest and another to the head to take over. They head back to the floor and Liger drops a double stomp to the chest/stomach. FREAKING OW MAN!

Back inside and a rolling Liger Kick followed by a slam gets two. A release German puts Fuji down and Liger tries a superplex, only to have Fuji kind of fall on him for a cross body. Liger gets sent to the floor and Fuji hits a baseball slide. Back in and a release German gets two on Liger. Fuji goes up but gets shoved down and Liger hits a top rope rana for the pin to make the final four.

Rating: C-. Not bad here but Fuji was kind of a mess. At the end of the day though, it’s Jushin Thunder Liger in 1994 and it’s going to take someone awesome to beat him. Not a horrible match or anything here but Liger was in need of some better competition out there. That would come in the next match.

Remaining participants:

Wild Pegasus

Gedo

Jushin Liger

Great Sasuke

Fuji says something.

Super J Cup Semi-Finals: Gedo vs. Wild Pegasus

Neither guy can connect with anything flashy to start so they slap it out a bit. Benoit hits a neckbreaker for two followed by a middle rope legdrop for the same. Gedo hits a shoulder block and slaps on a double arm trap submission hold. Something like a piledriver gets two for Gedo and it’s chinlock time. That’s followed by another chinlock to mix things up. They get up and chop it out and you know Benoit is winning that.

Gedo dropkicks him to the floor and mostly misses a moonsault press to the outside. Powerslam and northern lights get two for Gedo but a falling headbutt (literally, he fell) misses Benoit. They both try Germans but Benoit settles for a bad powerbomb for two. A better version sets up a good falling headbutt from Benoit for the pin to send him to the finals.

Rating: C+. Not bad here but dang some of Gedo’s stuff wasn’t clicking at all. Benoit was never in any real trouble, which brought things down a bit. Still though, the match was pretty fast paced and entertaining which is the right idea. Gedo was just a stop on the road for Benoit and the match was too short to mean anything. Decent though.

Gedo talks.

Super J Cup Semi-Finals: The Great Sasuke vs. Jushin Thunder Liger

This is going to be awesome by definition. They fight for control to start and Sasuke gets him down by the leg. Liger rolls out and it’s a standoff. Jushin throws on a reverse surfboard but Sasuke grabs the arm to escape. He can’t get the armbreaker so they trade submissions for awhile until Liger hooks a kind of surfboard followed by the full on version. I still love that move. Liger cranks that up even more by keeping their legs up and hooking a dragon sleeper on top of it. FREAKING OW MAN!

Liger puts on a camel clutch and cranks on that sucker. The rolling Liger Kick hits and Sasuke is in big trouble. Liger kills him with a tombstone and throws on a crossface chickenwing to further punish Sasuke. Sasuke kind of falls out of that so Liger CRANKS on the arm with whatever evil ideas he can come up with. Yeah Liger is heel here. There’s the cross armbreaker to Sasuke whose arm looks like jelly. This is total dominance so far.

Liger suplexes him down again and Sasuke is barely moving. Jushin goes up but Sasuke dropkicks him out of the air, sending him out to the floor. Sasuke hits a SWEET Asai Moonsault to take Liger out. Liger gets sent into the post from the apron so Sasuke hits a GREAT Swanton Dive to a standing Liger to take him down again. Back in and Sasuke drops some knees, followed by a spinwheel kick for two.

Sasuke hits a piledriver to put Liger down for two and a big old powerbomb gets the same. Now it’s Liger that can barely move. Sasuke tombstones him down but the Swanton Bomb misses. Liger hits the running palm strike for two and he’s getting frustrated. LigerBomb gets two as does a top rope rana, but Liger poses too much and gets rolled up for two. A release German gets two for Liger as does his fisherman’s buster finisher.

Liger suplexes him over the top and out to the floor and hits a BIG dive. Back in and Liger is spent from trying so hard. Sasuke gets up to the apron behind Liger and tries a Hail Mary springboard….but he slips and falls flat on his face. Instead Sasuke hits a standing rana out of nowhere for the pin and a spot in the finals.

Rating: A. If that finish had hit, this would be a masterpiece. These guys were WORKING out there with Sasuke taking one of the worst beatings I’ve seen in years. Sasuke is a total freak with these high spots, flying all over the place and taking out everyone in sight. The botches hurt him a lot but this was awesome all the way through. Great stuff.

Super J Cup Finals: Wild Pegasus vs. Great Sasuke

They fight over arm control to start again and Sasuke spins and flips his way out of everything. The fans cheer for Sasuke which they’ve done all night so far. Benoit chops away in the corner but what might have been a Boston Crab is countered. Sasuke kicks him to the floor and Benoit takes a breather. Back in and Benoit takes him down with a triangle choke but Sasuke counters into a modified surfboard. Benoit pops up to a standoff and things reset.

Things speed up and Sasuke starts flying around, but Benoit takes his head off with a clothesline. The Canadian hits a German on the Japanese for two. Sasuke comes back with a spinwheel kick and a legdrop for two. They fight for arm control on the mat as all of the tournament participants are watching at ringside. Sasuke gets up and tries to jump around some more but Benoit runs him over with another clothesline.

Benoit drapes him over the top rope and hits a springboard elbow of all things to put Sasuke on the floor. Back in and Benoit can’t hit his dragon suplex. Ok scratch that as it gets two. Swan Dive gets two for Benoit as does a big powerbomb. Sasuke is amazing at selling this stuff too. Benoit channels his inner Hart and slaps on a Sharpshooter (remember this is 1994 and Bret is WWF Champion so it’s a big move at this time).

The hold gets released for no apparent reason so Benoit hits a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker for two. Benoit misses a dropkick and gets clotheslined down. He’ll have none of that though and snaps off a great German suplex for two. Dragon suplex is countered into a rollup for two and Sasuke kicks him to the floor. In a SWEET move, Sasuke cartwheels towards the ropes and hits a spinning backflip over the top to the floor to take Benoit out.

They head back inside and Sasuke hits a German of his own for two. A fisherman’s suplex gets two for Sasuke as well but his missile dropkick misses. Sasuke goes to the apron but he suplexes Benoit over the top in a near 360 to the floor. Benoit slides back in but then right back out for some reason. Sasuke is annoyed by Benoit not making a commitment so he hits a missile dropkick to the floor. Back in and Sasuke is limping. Gee I wonder why. Top rope moonsault gets two on Benoit and a BIG reaction from the crowd. Sasuke goes up again but Benoit stops him and hits a gutwrench suplex off the top for the pin and the championship.

Rating: A+. This got five stars from Meltzer and I can’t say I can argue. They beat the TAR out of each other and there weren’t any major mistakes or botches at all in this. Benoit would go on to bigger and better things, but DANG Sasuke looked great. He kept flying higher and higher but Benoit was finally able to take him down and a wrestling move beat him. Great story to a great match.

A big ceremony ends the show. Benoit won a championship in this which may or may not be the WWF Junior Heavyweight Championship. Liger, Sasuke and Gedo get trophies too.

Overall Rating: A. 1994 wasn’t the best year for the big companies so I have no argument against this being show of the year. It runs just under three hours and after about the first hour, the worst match is good. The first hour has nothing bad at all in it and the rest is pure gold. The last two matches are EXCELLENT and are both well seeing. This was a great surprise and it’s available in full on YouTube. Definitely check this one out if you like Cruiserweight wrestling as it’s great stuff.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of the WWE Championship from Amazon at: