ECW on TNN
Date: November 5, 1999
Location: ECW Arena, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Attendance: 1,500
Commentators: Joey Styles, Joel Gertner

It’s the last show before November to Remember and I’m sure we’ll get some more matches thrown on here, or at least some more talked about. If I remember right a lot of the matches would often be added on the night of the show. I can’t believe that we’ve only got eleven months to go with this entire show. Let’s get to it.

We open with a clip of a house show tag title match with Raven/Dreamer defending against the Impact Players. There was a catfight (duh) and Rhyno ran in to take down Dreamer, revealing himself as the mystery partner of the Impact Players. Raven tried to DDT him but Credible destroyed him with a Singapore cane.

The Players hit stereo piledrivers and covered but the lights went out and Sandman made the save, setting up the six man tag. After waiting for his song to play for a few minutes he came down and caned everyone in a fairly col sequence. Dreamer and Sandman have a beer together. This is Sandman’s return from WCW.

Opening sequence.

Joey runs down the PPV card.

The Baldies are in the ring and says there are two things they don’t have: hair and patience. They want Axl and Balls to prove who the real Hardcore Chair Swinging Freaks are.

Axl Rotten/Balls Mahoney vs. The Baldies

The guys with hair clear the ring until Skull (Big Vito) gets in Balls’ face. PN News and New Jack run in and make the save for the heel and then face side respectively. Carnage ensues and this wasn’t a real match. Angel staple guns New Jack in the eye and everyone panics.

After a break, Rotten/Mahoney vs. The Baldies is made for the PPV.

We run down the PPV card again.

The Baldies say they’re the new kings of the street instead of New Jack.

Little Guido vs. Spike Dudley vs. Super Crazy

Spike has a female fan in the crowd and Guido gets in her face. Then he stomps on her glasses until Spike goes off on him to get us going. Crazy gets involved and we take a break. Back with the Acid Drop being countered into a Fujiwara Armbar by Guido. Guido gets sent to the floor by Crazy so Spike can dive onto him. This is one of those matches that’s going so fast you can’t keep track of everything in it.

Everyone goes into the crowd for more brawling with Guido taking over again. They go to the ringside area inside the barricade before Spike puts Crazy into the crowd again and hits a rana. Back in finally and Spike dives into another Fujiwara Armbar but he makes the rope. The shoulder goes into the post and Big Sal sets up a table. Spike manages to Acid Drop him through said table as this is one of the biggest messes I’ve seen in years. Spike comes back in but walks into the Tomikaze (jumping Killswitch) for a quick pin.

This is elimination though so Crazy grabs a quick German suplex on Guido for two. Standing moonsault gets the same. Crazy does the ten punches in the corner and of course the crowd counts in Spanish. Guido counters a headscissors into a facejam out of the corner to take over. A top rope legdrop gets two and Guido is ticked off. A brainbuster is countered into a DDT for two for Crazy. Triple moonsault is broken up by Sal so the third one only hits knees. Crazy’s brainbuster gets two followed by a sitout powerbomb for the pin.

Rating: C-. I’m really not a fan of these wild fast paced matches. They’re going too fast to keep up with and while they’re fun, there’s too much going on at at once and it gets distracting. The stuff in the crowd was a nightmare because you couldn’t keep track of what was going on. Once they got in the ring and started wrestling it was a lot better, but this was still too much of a mess.

Van Dam isn’t worried about Taz because Taz is just jealous. When Taz was world champion, people were talking about the TV Champion. When did anyone tell Taz that one of his four minute title defenses were the match of the year? That’s painful because it’s true.

Simon Diamond has Dick Hertz with him.

Doring is sad because Lita is gone. They’re playing the Pulp Fiction music so we’re not going to see another match tonight are we? Doring says where he’ll be staying tonight if any women want to come make him feel better.

Fonzie tells Candido to bring it to Sabu.

Simon and Dick make fun of Buffalo.

Jerry Lynn is ready for his three way dance on Sunday.

The Baldies tell New Jack it could have been worse.

Simon warns people about his Big Dick.

Corino says his team will win and they’re not worried about Sandman.

Raven doesn’t want Sandman on his team.

The Impact Players want the titles.

Raven wants to hurt Credible.

Credible says his catchphrase.

Raven would rather let his mother die than lose to Justin.

Overall Rating: D. I get what they’re going for with these promo marathons, but they don’t make for good TV. Literally the last ten minutes of 45 they have to air are nothing but people talking. That isn’t interesting and it could have easily been used for a quick match or even two quick matches. At the end of the day, just wrestle. It’ll work most of the time.

Here’s November to Remember if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2012/07/26/november-to-remember-1999-another-six-man-main-event/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

November to Remember 1999
Date: November 7, 1999
Location: Burt Flickinger Center, Buffalo, New York
Attendance: 3,000
Commentators: Cyrus, Joey Styles

Well it’s another of ECW’s Wrestlemanias here as we close out this millennium. The main event tonight is another tag match rather than a world title match or something stupid like that. This time it’s Rhino, Credible and Storm vs. Sandman, Raven and Dreamer. Oh how ready I am for this.

Awesome vs. Tanaka is happening….again. RVD vs. Taz….not a regular match but I have no desire to watch them fight since Taz is practically in WWF already. This looks like anything but a major show but with ten PPVs left in the company’s history I can’t complain much. Let’s get to it.

Joey and Cyrus open us up of course with Cyrus telling the smart marks to rejoice. Gertner interrupts him of course. And here’s Taz. Wasn’t he supposed to like, go to WWF? The fans think he sold out. Apparently Taz is looking for Joey. What the heck is going on? Apparently Joey never called Taz.

Ah ok Joey thinks Taz Pearl Harbored RVD by jumping him from behind. Taz interprets this as Joey wanting to fight him, prompting a F HIM UP JOEY chant! Oh that’s priceless. This is seriously cracking me up. Taz is full heel here. Joey being taller than Taz is funny. Taz complaining about someone laughing at him is funny given his current commentary style. Taz twists every word around and Joey just keeps digging himself deeper and deeper and it’s great stuff.

Joey FINALLY bails as the chant starts again. Gertner makes the mistake of smiling and you can tell his life is measured in seconds. Tazmission and he’s down. The fans really don’t like him, but that’s because he’s leaving I think. DAng he should have been heel and just choked people out a long time ago. He and Cyrus shake hands to prove he’s evil.

Theme song hits. Make your own John Cena references there.

Have to give them this: that song was AWESOME.

Simon Diamond and Dick Hertz are here. Yep the gay jokes abound. Dick slapping himself doesn’t help. Oh and Dick gets to slide. And here’s Jazz. She slaps him and Dick beats her up. Simon tells his giant to kill her. That’s close enough to Giant Killer for Spike to hit the ring.

Simon Diamond vs. Spike Dudley

Spike’s offense was more or less comprised of nothing but bumping and the Acid Drop. Oh and the occasional forearm. We’re on the floor already and Spike hits a chair shot off the top. Spike takes a short beating but then an Acid Drop ends it.

Rating: N/A. More of a long brawl than a match. Just a thing to kill time before we get to the, ahem, real stuff.

And the FBI hit the ring almost immediately and pound on Spike. Nova comes out to beat various people up as we hear about how much people imitate him. Nova is more commonly known as Simon Dean in case you didn’t know that. This is a match I think.

Nova vs. Little Guido

No clue when this actually started but whatever. Cyrus says Guido has one fatal flaw and them naturally lists two things. Guido more or less goes to the top with his back to Nova and stands there. He doesn’t get ready to do anything. He doesn’t look around or anything like that. He just stands there and gets low blowed. This leads to a Samoan Drop from the top.

It should be noted that 90% of Joey’s commentary here is talking about how no one comes up with more moves than Nova and how he’s the real “Innovator of Offense”, which was Kanyon’s nickname at the time. Literally as he’s saying that, Nova uses the Samoan Drop from the top, which was Kanyon’s finisher like two years before this. That’s just amusing.

Big Sal comes in and Nova beats him up pretty easily. A Tomakaze (Unprettier) ends it. Post match they beat up Nova some more but Chris Chetti comes back to make the save. Danny Doring and Roadkill come out and beat up Chetti. This is the biggest mess of a show I’ve ever seen. Roadkill does hit a GREAT splash from the top rope.

Rating: D. Short but long enough to be an actual grade, but still this was just bad. Half of the match was just the announcers complaining about Nova being copied by so many people. This was short and not very good though. And what a shock, more filler on an ECW PPV that means nothing at all.

Super Crazy vs. Tajiri vs. Jerry Lynn

None of those guys were announced. I just knew them once Joey said Extreme Three Way Dance. And I’m completely right. That’s not a good sign. Like not a good sign AT ALL. Did Jack Victory ever actually do anything? Tajiri has Corino and Victory with him here. Seriously I still can’t get over how different Corino used to look. He looks like Richards almost.

Corino runs down Crazy and Lynn, pointing out how many times he’s beaten Crazy. Yeah that’s a great thing to point out: we know you’ve seen this a bunch but just watch it again! Also, great to see Jerry this far down on the card and in a totally pointless match. Lynn and Crazy start us off and do perhaps the fastest sequence I have ever seen. I mean they were FLYING out there.

Both guys get Tarantulas. And of course we go to the crowd. Crazy…kind of hits a huge moonsault from a balcony. I emphasize the words kind of. Sweet goodness Lynn and Crazy are fast. Lynn hits the Cradle Piledriver on Crazy but for some reason Tajiri makes the save. That doesn’t make much sense. Ah ok he wants to use the Brainbuster to get the elimination himself. That makes sense in a way.

In a smart moment Tajiri reverses a tombstone but turns it into a backbreaker because Lynn has bad ribs. Smart. I love smart wrestlers. Tajiri goes for them again but he just absorbs them all and is like come here and piledrives him for the pin. He beats up Corino afterwards.

Rating: B-. Fast paced and fun, but I ask this: what does this prove? I mean seriously, it’s ANOTHER cruiserweight threeway. Good for them. What are they actually getting out of this? It makes no sense but whatever as it’s probably the best wrestling we’ll get all night.

We talk about Da Baldies who are the new Italian gang.

We see Angel using a staplegun on New Jack’s eye.

Da Baldies vs. Axl Rotten/Balls Mahoney/New Jack

Let’s get this over with. There are four Baldies: Spanish Angel, DeVito, PN News and Vito. Vito is the same Vito from WCW and WWE. You might remember him for wearing a dress. Naturally it’s a lot of punching and chairs and no New Jack yet. Ah here he is. There goes any quality the show had going for it. Seriously, why am I watching a guy slam a vacuum into a keyboard over a guy’s balls?

Rotten goes and gets a ladder for no apparent reason other than I guess he didn’t get beaten up enough already. New Jack goes to help him. This is all going on which their partner is getting the heck beaten out of him. Jack climbs up behind a banner which is covering a basketball backboard.

Yep he dives off of it. I still don’t care about him. New Jack busts Vito over the head with an SNES. Ok then. Vito’s head get his head stapled. And a guitar is cracked over New Jack’s head for the pin.

Rating: F+. Seriously, am I supposed to be impressed or to care or something? It’s the same idiotic brawling and mindless violence that it always is. Is there supposed to be a point to anything like this? Again, New Jack is the epitome of everything that was wrong with ECW.

Alfonso says Sabu is going to go do what he does best. This is a really different kind of promo. He’s fighting Candido. Apparently his best friend died. Not sure who Ticho is.

Chris Candido vs. Sabu

Yep she still looks great. They had been in WCW for awhile and no one cared so here they are again. If Sabu is suicidal, why is he still alive? We get a punching contest to start and Cyrus gets a creepy line. “These are two guys that would probably die without the wrestling business.” For those that don’t know, Candido died after breaking his leg at a TNA PPV. There was a blood clot or something like that.

The fans want tables, but I hope we don’t get them. When Sabu doesn’t do all kinds of crazy stuff with weapons etc, he’s far more bearable. And just as I say that we get a chair. Yep it’s table time. I guess it was inevitable. Surprisingly it’s just used as a platform and no one goes through it. Well so far at least. If they save it for the end or something like that, I can live with that relatively easily.

Table is in the ring. This isn’t much so far but it’s more of a slow build which is fine. Candido goes through a table as he misses Sabu. Sabu gets the camel clutch but only with one arm up as the fans chant show your chest. And that’s why the crowds get annoying. Sabu jumps into the crowd and you still can’t see the impact. Why would that be important though?

Sweet merciful goodness ECW’s camera work was awful. While the weapons have been used here, they haven’t been the focal point of the match. Sabu hooks the camel clutch for like the third time in the match. I like that as it’s constantly weakening the back. Candido goes through his second table but it just gets two. This is ok but it’s just not that interesting.

There’s something missing from it which is hard to put into words. Candido’s power bombs were always decent. Candido looks pretty sharp here but the idea that he never went to WCW is kind of amusing to me. The problem is that Candido is running out of stuff to do so he’s starting to repeat stuff.

In a STUPID looking spot, Candido is put on a table but Sunny (yes I know her name is Tammy) goes for the save. Alfonso grabs her and Candido saves her. Then, with no one on the table, he leans over it so Sabu can dive on him. Looked stupid. After an Arabian Facebuster to the back, a camel clutch ends it.

Rating: C+. Not terrible or anything here but there was just something missing from it. It worked as well as it could have I think. Sabu toned things down here to an extent and it worked far better. Candido was a guy that was always solidly in the midcard but never jumped above it. Either way though, this was ok.

Tanaka says he’ll win. This was stupid.

Awesome says he’ll win. This was just bad.

The announcers talk about the world title match and about how Tanaka has the advantage over Awesome.

We see a segment from earlier with Heyman where everyone gets fired. Ah it’s not Paul. It’s Lou E. Dangerously, more commonly known as Sign Guy Dudley. This would have been funnier had the main event introductions not have been heard in the background.

ECW World Title: Masato Tanaka vs. Mike Awesome

This is always fun. Joey tells us to keep our eye on Tanaka. It’s a bit hard to do that given how bad the camera stuff is. Tanaka hits his running chair shot which is always a nice shot. Awesome busts out a Taker Dive that looked great. Joey tries to make fun of Hogan by saying he never leaves his feet anymore. When did he do that in the first place? Cyrus busts out the word troglodytes. That’s my boy.

Awesome hits an INSANE chair shot from the top rope and it doesn’t even put Tanaka down. WOW. They just start crashing each other’s heads in with the chair and it looks great. These matches would go so far beyond ridiculous that they were awesome. Tornado DDT on the chair gets two. Awesome counters the second one though to stay alive.

Awesome hits more or less a Batista Bomb from the apron through a table to the floor. See what I’m talking about? Holy crap is very accurate here. Naturally it only gets two. Back in, Tanaka gets a superplex through the table. Nice one too. Diamond Dust, a Dragon Sleeper from the second rope flipped over into a Stunner doesn’t even get a cover. Uh, any reason why not? A HUGE Awesome Splash gets two. The kickouts here are amusing. FINALLY a superbomb from the top ends it.

Rating: B+. Again, this is a different kind of match. These are designed to be closer to a Japanese strong style and it works very well. At the end it’s nothing but finishers and big power moves and it’s pure fun. Again, you flat out can’t take this one seriously and you absolutely shouldn’t. Pure fun and they work every time.

TV Title: Taz vs. Rob Van Dam

Oh Paulie. My sweet little Paulie. If this had been about a year earlier and for the world title and not the TV Title, you could have legitimately been around another year or even two. THIS was the money match that he just totally passed on because Shane just HAD to carry the belt an extra six months while Taz killed the rest of the roster.

RVD is of course the most over guy in the company so he never won the world title. Brilliant indeed Paul. But he, we got that Justin Credible run that we all were begging for right? They build it up as a clash of the titans even though there is NO WAY Taz is winning here. This is as much of a slam dunk as you could ask for.

Taz’s accomplishment takes forever to list off. Again, why not jump Van Dam when he’s doing his intros? They flat out say Taz is going to New York after this. Seriously, what’s the point to having this? They do a long back and forth segment to start and RVD poses. We get a LOT of strikes so far. It’s kind of dull but not bad I guess. Van Dam is REALLY BAD at whispering spots to Taz. It’s kind of pathetic.

We brawl on the floor for a bit and this whole thing is just lacking. They’re just going through the motions and it’s really obvious. Taz sets a table in the corner. We get some really bad looking stuff in an attempt at the Van Daminator and RVD gets suplexed through the table. Can you feel my enthusiasm here? Van Daminator hits from the top.

Good thing Taz put the chair in front of his face like he did or that wouldn’t have worked. Taz goes for a head and arms suplex off the top and Van Dam just falls off the top. Nothing more than that: he just fell. I guess everybody screws up now and then, but the match sucking isn’t helping. Five Star ends it with no drama anywhere in sight.

Rating: D. Seriously, this was boring. It should have headlined the biggest show ever for the company and have gotten RVD the world title but instead it’s another defense for RVD in a match with zero heat on it because no one believed Taz would win. The match was just bad too with blown spots and contrived looking stuff all over the place. Not the worst match ever, but completely underwhelming on all levels. The bad grade is more for the disappointment than anything else.

With NO transition, it’s main event time.

Rhyno/Justin Credible/Lance Storm vs. Sandman/Tommy Dreamer/Raven

Literally, we see RVD celebrating and then Rhyno’s music is playing. At least we get to look at Dawn Marie. Francine comes out in a bikini. Ok then. Raven and Dreamer are tag champions at this point. Sandman’s entrance effectively kills five minutes of the show. Why is this a big match? Not important. Why are they fighting? Not important. Why are these people teaming together? Not important.

Actually, I don’t think any of these feuds/matches have been explained. Not important I guess. So with like 5 minutes, the heels don’t bother jumping Raven and Dreamer at all. Brilliant there guys. It’s a good sign when you can walk around for the length of Enter Sandman. We’re already past the prayer. Tommy has a case around hits elbow. Wasn’t he supposed to retire?

We kill more time by doing entrances. Seriously nearly fifteen minutes have passed since the end of the previous match. Hey it’s a bell and we’re going to get a match! Sandman vs. Rhyno start us off since Justin makes a fast tag when he sees who is starting for the faces. And we stall. Raven won’t tag Dreamer. The showdown here is Sandman vs. Credible but we don’t get it yet due to Credible running.

Credible had allegedly run Sandman out of ECW to WCW where he sucked for the most part. We actually have something close to a wrestling match for a little bit. You can tell this is the super show. Storm vs. Sandman is a weird pairing to say the least. I’m not sure if Rhyno had the Gore or not yet. Raven punches Dreamer to get the hot tag.

Apparently he does have the Gore as he uses a bad one on Raven. Yep it’s a big brawl. They lasted all of 7 minutes without one. That has to be a record for a main event here. DDT to Credible gets two. Raven and Dreamer working together is weird and just as I say that Raven drop toe holds him into a chair. NOW THAT’S MORE LIKE IT! The Gore hits Storm and Sandman has a cane.

The girls go at it for a bit. Dawn isn’t wearing underwear. Nice. Raven possibly accidentally canes Sandman and Credible hits the Tombstone for the pin. Raven didn’t make the save though. That’s how it ends? Also Joey is SHOCKED that Raven would be a heel. Uh why? That’s the end of the show mind you. Well that and the 4 minutes of highlights. Show ended after two and a half hours for all intents and purposes.

Rating: F+. This is the main event of the biggest show of the year and it doesn’t even break ten minutes? This felt like a total filler match and nothing more. Does this actually change anything? Raven is a bad guy. Is this supposed to be like surprising or something? Seriously, why was this on last? With RVD and Taz at least it would have felt huge. This feels like just another match. I have no idea what Heyman was thinking back then, but it couldn’t have been coherent.

OverallRating: D. Again, how in the world is this supposed to be the main show of the year? It felt like it was missing about thirty minutes. The opening half hour is a massive mess and Taz being ticked off, the two more hardcore matches are forgettable at their best with Sabu and Candido being ok at best, the title matches had nothing of note at all, and the main event was entirely lackluster.

Tell me: what is different after this show? Nothing at all has changed. Tanaka would take the title from Awesome around Christmas on television only to drop it back six days later. This show is just totally lacking any kind of special feeling to it and it would for any kind of PPV, not just a mega show like this. Take a pass here, but it’s not terrible I guess.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

ECW on TNN
Date: October 29, 2006
Location: Mid-Hudson Civic Center, Poughkeepsie, New York
Attendance: 2,500
Commentators: Joey Styles, Joel Gertner

It’s another show before November to Remember and most of the card hasn’t been fleshed out at all. To be fair though they’re still getting the hang of this national TV thing and most of their audience (in theory) was watching Hardcore TV which is where a lot of the show was likely being hyped. I’m not sure what to expect from this show as I can’t find a card for it so this should be surprising at least. Let’s get to it.

After the theme song, Joel and Joey do their usual intro.

Taz vs. Sabu

That’s quite the opener. These two are the only grand slam winners in company history, if you count the FTW Title as a championship. They slug it out to start with Sabu taking a small advantage. We head to the floor and both guys get whipped into the barricade. Sabu sets up a table between the ring and the barricade and we take a break. Back with Sabu hitting a DDT on Taz on the ramp.

They fight on the ramp with Taz taking over with more right hands. Back inside the ring and Sabu dropkicks the knee out. The slingshot side kick gets two and both guys are down. There’s the camel clutch but Taz escapes pretty easily. Another kick is countered into a release German Tazplex to change the momentum. Taz goes up but gets caught in a rana off the top for two.

Fonzie helps to bring in a table and the fans are a lot more excited now. Now we get a chair too but the Triple Jump Moonsault is broken up. Sabu kicks the legs out from Taz when he’s about to swing a chair. A powerbomb is countered into an Alabama Slam through the table by Taz but Sabu grabs the rope. Taz goes up and misses a Swanton (Yes, Taz just tried that) so Sabu pelts him with a chair and drives him through a table. That gets a delayed two for Sabu and here’s another table. In a pretty simple ending, Sabu puts him on the table and hits an Arabian Facebuster off the top to drive Taz through the table for the pin.

Rating: C-. Not a terrible match here and I liked it better than their Barely Legal match. This is one of those matches where the history was there (not that ECW would ever give that history to you) so the fans were automatically going to care about it. The ending was a little lackluster, but Taz was on his way out so it made sense for him to go out on his back.

Post match the Impact Players come out but get chased off by Van Dam. Sabu and Van Dam get in a fight and Rob is punched into the Tazmission. It’s Taz vs. Van Dam at the PPV.

We get a clip from Hardcore TV with Lou E. Dangerously bringing back Mikey Whipwreck who got destroyed by Mike Awesome.

Lance Storm vs. Tommy Dreamer

Storm jumps Dreamer as he gets into the ring and Dreamer is in trouble. Dreamer comes back with an atomic low blow and knocks Storm to the floor. They head into the crowd for some shots with a chilled beverage. Back to ringside and Dreamer’s bad back gets suplexed onto the floor. It doesn’t really seem to matter as Dreamer backdrops him into the crowd again. He goes to the back and pulls out a ladder. Sure why not.

A middle rope elbow misses Storm completely and hits the ladder which had to freaking HURT. They head back in and Storm is in complete control. And scratch that as Dreamer whips him into the ladder and hits the Dreamer Driver for two. The girls get in and break it up with a catfight, allowing Raven to run in and DDT Dreamer so Storm can get the pin.

Rating: D. This can barely be classified as a wrestling match. It was a fight and a pretty sloppy one at that. Dreamer was incredibly popular in ECW, but he was never a ring general or even a sergeant. This didn’t work for the most part as Storm because a brawl isn’t his style at all. I didn’t like this one at all.

The Impact Players beat down Raven as well until Dreamer makes the save.

We recap the whole Dreamer/Raven vs. Impact Players feud.

Raven yells at Dreamer, saying that Tommy is a leech and a degenerate. For some reason Dreamer stands there and lets Raven beat him up before Tommy DDTs him and yells a lot.

Nova says he’s dedicating every match he wrestles to Chris Chetti, his injured partner.

Nova/David Cash vs. The Baldies

No match as Doring/Roadkill jump Nova while the Baldies beat up Cash. Balls Mahoney and Axl Rotten make the save for no apparent reason. They argue over hitting Lita with a chair but Jazz comes out and does it for them.

We get a bit of a dance party to Big Balls until Joey glares at Gertner. Joey previews next week’s show and talks about someone jumping from WCW next week.

Raven talks about all the misery he’s going to put Dreamer through and all the misery the Impact Players are going to go through as well. No matter what Justin does, he’ll never be as big as Raven.

Overall Rating: C-. These shows are reaching the point where we have coherent stories on them, which is a major upgrade. The main story is clearly Dreamer/Raven vs. the Impact Players, which would be most of the main event at November to Remember. The wrestling here was pretty bad but they were setting up the PPV which is something they needed to do. Also this show went by quickly so I can’t complain as much.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

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

AWA Super Sunday 1983
Date: April 24, 1983
Location: St. Paul Civic Center, St. Paul, Minnesota
Attendance: 20,000
Commentator: Ron Trongard

This is another AWA stadium show which have mostly been bad so far. This is before the first Starrcade so this is certainly one of the biggest shows ever at the time. There’s a double main event of course, one of which being the required Gagne tag match. The other though is a world title match with Hogan challenging Bockwinkel. I’m sure I’ll have something to say about that. Let’s get to it.

Gene Okerlund is the ring announcer.

Brad Rheingans vs. Rocky Stone

Brad is an Olympian and is now a trainer I think. Stone hooks a headlock but but Brad slams his way out of it with relative ease. He hooks an armbar and then an armdrag into an armbar. The mat looks like it’s a bunch of gym mats shoved together. Stone comes back with a devastating headlock and then a knee to the ribs. After a kneedrop it’s off to a chinlcok. We’re told it’s five minutes in but by my watch it’s about four. Stone gets him tied up in the ropes on the apron and fires off some elbows to the head. Out of nowhere Brad comes back, hits a backdrop, a dropkick and a gutwrench suplex for the pin.

Rating: D+. Not a bad opener but the crowd popped pretty well for the ending. Rheingans was a big American hero character as he was an Olympian, so the crowd was always going to explode when he came out of nowhere for a win like this. I have a felling I can completely ignore the times they give us tonight too, because they said it was 5:31, with the pin coming about two minutes after they said five minutes gone by.

Rheingans says nothing of note.

Steve Regal vs. Buck Zumhofe

Buck is a rock n roll enthusiast and Regal is Mr. Electricity. Zumhofe has a Light Heavyweight Title next month which Trongard talks about for awhile. Buck takes him into the corner to frustrate Regal a bit. He gets sent into the corner and is even more frustrated now. I keep forgetting this is 1983 as the production values are about the same as they would be in an NWA show from 1987.

Regal comes back with some forearms and takes him to the mat with an armbar. Expect to read the word armbar a lot in this show. Regal fires away with knees and hooks a chinlock. This has been a pretty fast paced match so far. Buck blocks being rammed into the buckle but charges into a boot. And never mind as Buck slams him and hits a running Vader Bomb for the pin out of nowhere.

Rating: C-. Better match here but I still wasn’t wild on it. These fast paced endings aren’t the best things here either because there’s no way to build up the crowd, but the rest of it wasn’t half bad. Zumhofe was a guy that I never quite liked but he was a fairly big deal around this era I guess.

Buck says he’ll get his title soon.

Jerry Lawler vs. John Tolos

Tolos is a guy named the Golden Greek who died a few years back. This is right after the David Letterman show with Kaufman so Lawler is a national sensation at this point. Tolos jumps him immediately and Jerry is in trouble early on. He hits a jumping shot to the arm and hooks a wristlock on Lawler. Lawler comes back with a punch and hooks a headlock. It’s so weird hearing Jerry called a young man.

Lawler cranks on the head and the fans are getting into his stuff. He cranks on the head twenty seven times with the fans counting along. A big right hand puts Tolos down and hooks the chinlock. A jawbreaker gets him out of that and they collide to put both guys down. Tolos gets up and throws him over the top for….not a DQ for some reason.

Back in Tolos gets some two counts and there goes the strap. He takes Tolos down and hits rapid fire punches to the face followed by the middle rope fist drop for two. Lawler misses a charge and both guys go down. Tolos misses a middle rope knee drop and the piledriver ends this. Lawler can’t do much but he can hit a piledriver with the best of them.

Rating: D+. Not much here but Lawler was a much bigger deal at this point on a national stage due to the Letterman/Kaufman thing. Having him come out here and piledrive a midcard level guy was the right move. The problem with this show is becoming clear though as there aren’t any real stories to the matches. To be fair though, that’s normal for wrestling back in this era.

Women’s Tag Titles: Joyce Grable/Wendi Richater vs. Judy Martin/Velvet McIntyre

Grable and Richter are the champions. These are the same tag titles that were in the WWF and are officially the NWA Women’s Tag Titles. Vince bought the rights and brought them to the WWF in the late 80s. They were pretty much a mess but it doesn’t really make much of a difference. Velvet and Richter start things off. Trongard says that Richter was one of the original Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. The cheerleaders began in 1961, when Richter was a year away from being born, so I think Trongard is a bit off.

I think Richter and Grable are heels here. Velvet knocks her to the floor and slams her down back in the ring. Grable comes in and backs away in the corner immediately. Velvet grabs the arm and brings Martin in instead. Grable takes some wild swings but Martin ducks them with ease. Back to Richter who gets slammed down. Grable and Richter are in nearly identical outfits other than the boots so at a distance it’s hard to tell them apart.

Martin works on the arm for awhile and then brings in Velvet for, you guessed it, more arm work. We get a quick tag off to Grable who immediately grabs Velvet’s arm. I get the idea of psychology but could you mix it up a little bit? Grable whips Velvet around by the hair and finally mixes things up a bit with a front facelock. Back to Richter who works on the neck a bit.

Velvet gets in a single punch and tags Martin back in. The heels finally get Grable into the corner for some double teaming. We even get a Tree of Woe out of it. Richter works on a bow and arrow submission as we hit the ten minute mark. Velvet keeps trying to run in to help but it just gets Grable in more trouble. Finally Grable escapes and makes the tag so Velvet can clean house.

Everything breaks down and the champs get rammed together. Martin and Richter are in now and all four miss splashes, drawing a BUNCH of booing. Off to Velvet who is immediately put into an over the shoulder back breaker. Richter lets her go for some reason and brings Grable back in. The champs do the Faces of Fear backdrop into a powerbomb for the pin out of almost nowhere on Velvet.

Rating: D+. It wasn’t the worst match I’ve ever seen but it went on too long. The problem with women’s wrestling back in this era was that not only did most of the women look alike, but they almost all wrestled alike because most of them were trained by Moolah or one of her students. This match having more time helped it a lot too.

The champs say nothing of note post match.

Wahoo McDaniel vs. Dizzy Ed Boulder

Boulder is more famous as Brutus Beefcake and has long blonde hair here. He looks to be roided out of his mind also. Feeling out process to start and Wahoo chops him down hard. Jerry Lawler jumps in on commentary. Test of strength goes to Wahoo and he grabs a top wristlock. Down to the mat and Wahoo drops knees onto the arm. Boulder takes him down and drops some knees onto Wahoo. To be fair that’s a large target so it’s hard to miss.

Lawler talks about winning his match and being glad it didn’t end in a DQ. Boulder slams him down and drops another knee and then ANOTHER. He must have dropped about seven so far. Now to mix it up he chokes with the knee as well. Wahoo gets whipped into the corner and Boulder goes after the knee a bit. The announcers talk about the main event as Wahoo comes back with chops and a right hand to the ribs. Wahoo rams him into the corner a few times and goes on the warpath. A big chop sets up a big elbow for the pin.

Rating: D-. This was really boring. Wahoo was a guy who got over for his character and toughness, but his in ring work never quite worked all that well. Either way, this wasn’t very interesting at all but at least it was short. Also having Lawler on commentary makes a wrestling match feel right for some reason.

Jesse Ventura/Blackjack Lanza/Ken Patera vs. High Fliers/Rick Martel

The High Fliers are Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell and they’re the tag champions. The heels (Ventura’s team) has Heenan managing them. Martel vs. Patera gets us going. Patera tries to draw him into the corner but Martel is BRILLIANT (Gene Okerlund said so) and wants to keep it in the middle. This is power vs. speed and Martel snaps off some armdrags. Martel takes him down and works on, say it with me, the arm.

Off to Brunzell for some fresh arm work and an atomic drop. Back to the arm and it’s off to Ventura, who is called Mr. V. here. Brunzell grabs the arm and it’s off to Gagne who comes off the middle rope onto the arm again. Ventura easily picks him up and carries Gagne to the corner and brings in Lanza. The size difference here is huge but it doesn’t last long as Martel comes in and is a house of fire.

Martel drags Lanza into the corner but does it so slowly that Ventura falls into the ring from reaching so much. Patera comes back in as does Brunzell and the power man pulls the Flier into the corner. Off to Ventura for a bearhug. Things break down and Gagne comes in to beat up everyone. Martel comes in to help and the Heenan Family is in trouble. Gagne puts a sleeper on Patera but Ventrua makes the save.

It settles down with Lanza and Gagne and Lanza drives his knuckles into the side of Gagne’s head ala Sgt. Slaughter in 1991. Ventura comes in and hits a backbreaker for two. Gagne gets the tag to Martel but the referee doesn’t see it. I’ve always loved that sequence for some reason. Off to Patera for the bearhug again and Gagne is in big trouble. Gagne escapes with a kind of Thesz Press and sends Lanza into the corner and makes another hot tag to Martel.

Rick misses a dropkick and it’s back to Patera for a suplex for two as Brunzell makes the save. Lanza interferes to break up a potential hot tag and comes in legally, only to get kicked in the face so we can get the actual hot tag to Brunzell. He hits his signature dropkick and puts on a Figure Four, called an Indian Deathlock. Everything breaks down and Heenan gets up on the apron, only to get knocked back down again.

Things settle down again and it’s Brunzell backdropping Patera to set up another Deathlock attempt. Patera breaks it up and everything breaks down again. Somewhere in there Patera pins Brunzell as it’s possible that there was a foreign object sent in there by Heenan when he was on the apron.

Rating: B-. This isn’t something that everyone is going to like but I was getting into it by the end. They had every face in there getting beaten down at different times as well as a lot of hot tags. The fans were staying in this too and it was by far and away the best match of the night so far. The High Fliers were exactly what their name said and it worked pretty well for the most part. Good match here.

Replay shows that Heenan did slip something to Patera during the brawl. The good guys clear the ring in a big brawl post match. Heenan takes his usual beating. The losers claim cheating post match.

We get a lot of replays as well.

This is the match I’ve been looking forward to.

AWA World Title: Nick Bockwinkel vs. Hulk Hogan

Hogan is fresh off Rocky III and comes out to Eye of the Tiger. The arena, in a word, ERUPTS. I mean the place comes alive like I haven’t seen an AWA crowd ever do. Hogan is all fired up and immediately charges at Bockwinkel and points at the belt. He’s wearing a shirt that says WE WANT THE BELT and the fans are going nuts when he points at it. Find a copy of this as it’s one of the best Hogan entrances I’ve ever seen.

They introduce every major AWA executive for some reason and no one cares. In something I’ve never seen before, they do the big match intros and play Hulk’s music (Eye of the Tiger) again. The fans are still chanting Hogan and we’re underway. This is another match in a long running series of DQ’s and screwjobs and all that jazz. Bockwinkel stalls a lot like he’s an old car. Hogan pulls him into a shoulder block and the crowd pops again. We’ve been stalling for almost two minutes now.

Hulk shoves him out of a lockup but gets caught in a headlock. That gets him nowhere and Hulk runs him over again and Nick hides in the corner. A third shoulder block puts Bockwinkel on the floor and we’re at five minutes already. Bockwinkel finally gets in some offense by firing off some knees to the stomach. That gets him nowhere as Hogan fires off even harder knees and more of them as well.

Bockwinkel gets slammed down and rammed into the corner. We’re almost seven minutes in and this is total dominance so far. Nick finally gets in a shot to the ribs and a right hand to take over. Hogan will have none of that and easily kicks him out of the ring. Nick runs back in and throws on a front facelock. After maybe a minute of the champion in control, Hulk backdrops him down and we’re back to even.

Nick channels his inner JYD (was he a big name yet? I don’t think so) and rams some headbutts into Hogan’s ribs from all fours. Bockwinkel charges into a boot in the corner and Hogan takes over again. There’s the windup punch for two. Big clothesline sets up an elbow drop for two. The fans are really coming alive for these nearfalls. Shoulderbreaker gets two. Bockwinkel fires off some punches to slow Hulk down.

The punches stop working because Hogan Hulks Up and fires back at Bockwinkel who can’t stay on his feet. Powerslam gets a close two. The legdrop misses and both guys are down. Nick hammers on Hulk in the corner but Hogan kicks him back down. A pair of elbows gets a very slow two. Hogan misses a corner charge and gets caught in the sleeper, which is one of Bockwinkel’s finishers.

Hogan finally flips Nick down but the referee, who looks to be about 75, goes down too. The fans know what’s coming. Bockwinkel gets put in the sleeper again but Hulk rams him into the corner, crushing the referee again. A third sleeper goes on but Hulk dumps him over the top to the floor. Back in Hogan slams him down and drops the leg for the pin and the title.

Before the rating, a second referee comes out, says Hogan threw him over the top, and it’s a DQ win for Bockwinkel, causing trash to be thrown into the ring like the night the NWO formed. Hogan beats up Heenan and Bockwinkel post match to a huge roar from the crowd. Hogan says this is the people’s belt and that he’s the real champion.

Rating: B. The match was good as we had Hogan taking everything Bockwinkel had and continuing to come back. He broke the sleeper three times through raw power and had the people eating out of the palm of his hand for almost twenty minutes. It was the perfect kind of match to FINALLY change the title.

But that’s not what they did. What you have to remember is that this had been going on for a LONG time. I know of at least one other match where they did this, and I’d bet on this being the finish for a ton of house show matches between these two. This show would be the equivalent of a PPV for the AWA, but it was the same finish. That right there is one of the big factors that led to the downfall of the company (Note that I DID NOT say it was the final blow, because it wasn’t. The company was around for about 8 more years).

The problem was that Gagne didn’t want to change and wanted it to be about the old school style. Depending on what version of the story Hogan is telling, Verne wanted to give Hulk the belt (which I’ll believe) but he would have had to either A, give up his NJPW commitments which were very lucrative for him, B, marry a Gagne, or C, take lower than 50% of his merchandise sale demands. Let’s look at each of these separately.

If it’s the NJPW stuff, I can understand that. Hogan made a deal to be in Japan and he wanted to hold up to it. That’s fine. As for marrying a Gagne, that’s something I’ve NEVER agreed with. There’s this mentality at times of keeping it in the family, but in a case like this it makes no sense. Sign him to an exclusive deal or whatever, but let the marriage stuff go.

Finally, we get to what allegedly made Hogan leave: his merchandise stuff. Hogan allegedly demanded 50% of his merchandise sales to stay and Verne said no, so Hulk went back to Vince. In short, if this is true, Verne Gagne is an idiot. Yes, that’s a huge number, but LISTEN TO THE FREAKING PEOPLE. The place EXPLODED when Hogan came out and that kind of reaction wasn’t touched for the rest of the night. The people wanted to see something new (Bockwinkel and Gagne traded the title for two days shy of FOURTEEN YEARS) and that was Hogan.

The common expression you hear is that the money is in the chase. The problem here is that the chase had been done for the better part of a year at this point and there was no reason to keep doing it. The fans stopped caring and therefore buying tickets because they stopped believing the title was going to change. If you don’t believe the money is in Hogan as the champion, I’d point you to the WWF from January 23, 1984 to February 5, 1988.

At the end of the day, it was a bad business decision by Gagne. The stuff he had done did indeed work in the past and had gotten him this far. The problem was that Hogan was unlike anything he had ever had to work with before. Any money they lost in the merchandise would have easily been made up by additional revenue from house shows or the additional merchandise they sold because of Hogan. The company was certainly not dead after Hogan left but it was nowhere near what it could have been and it became a shell of itself in the years to come.

Jerry Blackwell/Sheik Adnan Al-Kassie vs. Verne Gagne/Mad Dog Vachon

Gagne and Vachon are an old tag team that are coming back together to fight the Sheiks in a feud that never seemed to end. They come out to Celebrate Good Times of all songs. The Sheiks stand on the apron before the bell and are counted for some reason. How can you get counted out before the match starts? Verne and Blackwell start things off with Gagne beating up both Sheiks. The 400lb Blackwell gets backdropped for two.

To his credit, Gagne is getting one of the loudest reactions of the night. Off to Vachon for another good reaction. We hear from the referee in the Hogan match who says he has broken ribs. Apparently it’s all owner Stanley Blackburn’s decision to keep the title off Hogan. The referee is glad Hogan almost won but it was a fair decision. Vachon rips at Blackwell’s face and Gagne cheats a bit.

Off to Al-Kassie who hides in the corner from a growling Mad Dog. Vachon is finally knocked to the floor but Gagne saves him from a bell shot. The Sheik brings in a chair to hit Vachon but after it connects, Gagne gets it away and blasts everyone with it. Vachon is busted open now. Blackwell powerslams him down for two as Gagne makes the save. Off to an abdominal stretch from Sheik but Gagne makes another save.

Vachon staggers into the wrong corner and Blackwell drills him. They slug it out and there’s the hot tag to Verne. Blackwell almost immediately powerslams him down for two. A splash misses as does a second one. There’s a sleeper and Jerry is in trouble. Everything breaks down and Vachon rams the loaded cast of the Sheik into the head of Blackwell. They take the cast off Sheik’s arm and Vachon hits Blackwell with a chair. A middle rope shot to Sheik’s bad arm gets the pin for Gagne.

Rating: D+. Not much here but it was the best thing they could to to send the fans home happy. Gagne was certainly still pretty awesome considering he was closer to sixty than fifty, but it was probably better that it was a rare occurrence to see him in the ring. This was a long feud that really wasn’t explained here, but that’s a difference from today that you can’t criticize them for.

Verne and Vachon celebrate to end the show.

Overall Rating: C. This was pretty boring for the first half but the last three matches helped a lot. The world title match is quite good as is the six man tag. The main event tag is just ok but it sent the crowd home happy which was the right idea. The white elephant in the arena though is Hogan not getting the title again and he would be gone by the end of the year, launching the WWF to the top of the industry.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

This seems like an appropriate topic with Wrestlemania being about two weeks away. This is something that is very important and can really make or break a company if not done right. Yet for some reason over the years, it’s very rarely been done right. On Rise and Fall of ECW, Heyman talked about Terry Funk wanting to get the next generation ready so that there was a business to pass on to them. That’s what we’re getting at today so let’s get to it.

Now first and foremost, there’s a BIG difference between giving someone a rub and passing the torch to someone else. Back in the 80s, Hogan tagged with a bunch of guys that were known names but didn’t become anything important until they were his best friend for a few months of house show tag matches. Then they’d be Hogan’s partner for awhile and they’d be bigger stars than ever before. That’s giving someone a rub.

Passing the torch means that you make someone the new big name in the company. We’ll get to examples of that later on, but the main idea is that someone is either leaving, is dropping down the card after being on top for a long while, or that the other person is going to be taking their place. To use the example from earlier, Hogan wasn’t going anywhere and wasn’t moving down the card. He was still top dog but the others were up higher than they were before. That’s an important difference.

On second thought, this was going to just be about passing the torch but I might as well cover rubs in here too. We’ll get to passing the torch first.

Let’s go back to the past as I’m known to do. The better example is probably King Jackie Fargo passing the torch to King Jerry Lawler but we’ll go with something actually in the last thirty years with Harley Race and Ric Flair. Now let’s take a good look at what put this together and why it was a true passing of the torch. There were a lot of factors that came together to make it work.

First of all, Flair was already a big name. He was a two time NWA World Champion and was well established as a top guy. This is important to passing the torch because if you want someone like Race to go out, this is how you do it: to a guy that has proven he can do something already. Otherwise you might need to go to someone else which makes the moment weaker.

Second, this was built up. It had a long and personal angle to it which resulted in real emotion. Race had put a $25,000 bounty on Flair’s head and it was cashed in, resulting in Flair being put out of action for months. He took care of the attackers and then came after Race to take the championship and get his revenge. It was an angle that people wanted to see get paid off which makes the match that much more interesting.

Third, the match was great. It’s a classic old school cage match with Race working him over and Flair making the comeback for the pin and the big moment. It was also in the main event of the first Starrcade, which at the time was the biggest card ever put together. Look at Cena vs. Rock this year: they’re having this match in the main event of Wrestlemania after a year of these two arguing and bickering. In short: take your time and make the match feel important.

Most importantly though, RACE LEFT. After this happened, Race was gone from the NWA spotlight. There was a three day title change in New Zealand but other than that, Race went back to the smaller territories and eventually on to the WWF. Now, that’s not to say that Race couldn’t have come back in a smaller role. If Race had come back in say a year or even six months it would have been fine, as long as he didn’t challenge for the title or feud with Flair. That’s one of the main things: Race didn’t try to come back against Flair. He had been defeated and was done.

There really aren’t that many of these moments to talk about in history, and since most of them have been done well there isn’t really a point to going through them one by one because they would all mostly say the same thing. The other few of note are the Fargo/Lawler one that I mentioned earlier, Austin vs. Michaels in 1998, HHH vs. Batista in 2005, and really those are all of the major ones.

Now let’s get to the problems that can come up when these rules are broken. This can also be called The Hogan Section.

Hogan has had a few chances to pass the torch onto someone else and both times he’s broken one of the aforementioned rules and caused the next person to not be able to do as well on top. We’ll start in 1990 at Wrestlemania 6. You could argue the first time was at #4 with Savage but the end result of that was ALWAYS Hogan vs. Savage for the title the next year so I can’t fault Hogan for that as it was part of a major angle instead of Hogan not going away. Anyone on to #6.

I don’t think anyone would argue that the main event of that show was designed to be a moment where Warrior became the top guy. However in short, Hogan didn’t leave. He stuck around in 1990 and feuded with Earthquake, taking all of the spotlight (as well as the top and most obvious feud for Warrior) from the new champion. The right thing would have been for Hogan to take AT LEAST a few months off and made a movie or whatever.

Instead he stuck around and therefore made Warrior look like a second rate guy, which made the main event of Wrestlemania completely pointless. Warrior was a failure as the top guy but there was never a real chance for him to be the top guy. Everyone thought that Hogan was still top dog and him simply not having the title wasn’t going to prove that wrong. Considering Warrior barely beat him, it didn’t really prove that Warrior was the top guy. Instead of passing the torch, Hogan basically gave Warrior the title for about 7 months and then got it back later. Good for him, bad for Warrior.

Jumping to WCW, we have the moment that was a big bullet to WCW in the Monday Night Wars. Sting FINALLY stopped Hogan and won the (nearly) year and a half long title reign and it should have been the end of an era in WCW. This is probably the biggest botch of one of these things ever. First of all, the match sucked for reasons that you can read elsewhere. Second, Sting didn’t get to even hold the physical title for two months, so how much do you think the fans cared by that point? Third, Sting officially won the title in February and Hogan had it back by mid-April. Sting is defeated, Hogan is champion AGAIN, and the fans are screwed over.

The third example of Hogan doing this would be in 1998 with Goldberg. Now to be fair this was probably much more about WCW than Hogan, but depending on what you believe about Hogan having creative control in the back, that could be a matter of debate. Also to Hogan’s credit, he lost the match clean (mostly) and never got his win back against Goldberg, which is a big help. However that being said, he got the title back in just a few months. There was WAY more to it than that, but at the end of the day, the problem was that Hogan had the title back about half a year later, Goldberg was defeated, and the fans were screwed over AGAIN. Sound familiar?

There are probably other example that I’m overlooking, but I think by now you more than get the idea. The WWF in 1990/1991 was in real business trouble and was even on the verge of going under for awhile. The WCW instances are times where the company took big hits because either they wouldn’t let people have the title or they wouldn’t let anyone get thrown out of the main event. The moral: bad things happen when you don’t change things when you need to.

Now onto the other topic that I wasn’t going to talk about here but it fits as well: rubs. As we’ve established, a rub is where someone is going to be sticking around but is going to bring someone else up the card by giving them some of their star power and making them look like a bigger deal. We’ll begin in the 80s, as I am known to do.

The perfect example of this is usually Flair and Sting from March 27, 1988 and there’s a good reason for that. Sting wasn’t a big time name like he is today. He was a guy that had been brought over from a regional company and was looking for his first big break in the national scene. The company knew he had talent but they needed a way to let the masses know that.

Enter Ric Flair, who in the words of Jim Cornette, made a career out of making other people look way better than they ever could have done on their own. So at the first Clash of the Champions, Sting fought Flair for the NWA Title and had him in the Scorpion when the bell rang and the time was up. Flair made Sting look AWESOME that night and Sting became a huge star because of it. Flair kept the title and would for a good while, but Sting was a major player all of a sudden. I think you get the idea.

There are dozens of other examples from history that I could go into, such as the tag teams that Hogan had which I mentioned earlier and Bret vs. Austin in 96/97, but you more than get the point by now. On the other hand, there are examples of times where bigger names lose matches, but the win doesn’t do a thing for the smaller name guy. Let’s take a look at a quick example.

I hate to do this again, but the best example is Hulk Hogan. In the year 2000, Hogan lost to Billy Kidman. What’s forgotten about this is that Hogan DOMINATED Kidman and Kidman won after Bischoff hit Hogan with a chair. The win didn’t do anything for Kidman because it didn’t look like he had a chance to beat Hogan in a fair fight. The same thing is true of instances like jobbers pinning big names, such as Brooklyn Brawler pinning HHH in the year 2000. Rock had a bit of a hand in that loss, but HHH still gets made fun of for it on occasion. Again, I think you get the idea.

So anyway, in short there are good ways and bad ways of passing the torch, and hopefully Rock does it with Cena at Wrestlemania. Rock is a guy who a victory over would still mean a lot and I just hope they don’t screw it up somehow. Rubs and passing the torch are very important things in wrestling, and if you don’t do them right they can turn out very badly indeed.

This is going to be shorter than most of the entries in this series I think. I’m watching Backlash 2004 and it has a Jericho vs. Christian/Trish Stratus match on it. This was part of the storyline the three had which turned Jericho face as he was in love with Trish but Trish turned on him for Christian, setting up a kind of a revenge feud. This is a good example of a well made storyline and I wanted to break it down to give you all an idea of how a good storyline is built.

Now to begin with, we’ll start with how this story got going. As you may or may not remember, Christian and Jericho started hitting on Lita and Trish Stratus respectively. This went on for a few weeks and was almost instantly intriguing. Now why was this intriguing? In short, because it was something different. By that I don’t mean something we had never seen before, but because it was something out of nature by Jericho and Christian. There’s an expression in journalism that says “Dog bites man, not news. Man bites dog, news.” In other words, we pay attention to stuff that is different.

Jericho and Christian had been jerks for months but now all of a sudden they were being nice. It got people’s attention and you started wondering if it was because of feelings for the girls or because of some other reasons they had. The idea is that it made us want to keep watching because we had interesting people in these stories. That’s a very necessary key. People like Jericho and Christian could read a phone book and somehow make it interesting. Throw in a couple of hot women and it’s hard not to be interested.

Then we got the next step of the story, as Trish said that she was starting to fall for Jericho. For a few weeks there was a relationship developing while Lita kind of faded away. The twist came soon after this, as Trish overheard Jericho and Christian talking about how this was all because of a bet between the two of them over who could get their respective lady in bed first. This makes sense as it’s something evil that the two of them would do.

However, something very important is that we weren’t told of it right up front. We had to wait awhile, which is something that makes a reveal all the better. We saw Jericho and Christian doing things and only after awhile did we find out that there was an ulterior motive to it. That’s how you do a twist: not all at once before filling in the pieces later. You can do it that way, but it can cause more holes in a story. When you build up to it, the writers have had a better chance to fill in plot holes along the way.

Now once Trish was upset, Jericho revealed that he wasn’t lying and actually did care for Trish. Trish of course didn’t believe him, but Jericho kept at it. Through good storytelling, it became clear that Jericho really did have feelings for Trish and that he was sorry for his actions. Now THIS is where things get important: people can identify with that. Almost everyone has had their heart broken at some point and knows what it’s like to want someone that you can’t have for one reason or another. It builds sympathy for Jericho who is trying to change and is telling the truth after all his lies but it’s not working.

Finally Trish seemed to come around but Christian wasn’t happy. On Raw he hit Jericho in the head with a chair, saying that it was tough love. Trish was blamed for breaking up their friendship and changing Jericho, with Christian wanting the old Chris back. It’s a natural story progression with the actions of each person connecting with other people and more actions spawning off that. That is what you call a story.

This leads us to Wrestlemania and a match between Chris Jericho and Christian. There was one very important thing about this match above all other things: it was good. You can have the best story in the world, the best promos in the world, the best build in the world and all that, but if your match sucks it brings things WAY down. See Dusty vs. Flair in 1985 if you want more details on that.

So anyway, the match at Wrestlemania was good and after Trish accidentally cost Jericho the match, Trish turned on Jericho after showing feelings for him in the previous weeks. This was a possibly nonsensical twist, but at the end of the day it extended the storyline and gave us another reason to side with Jericho. The idea here was that while Jericho wanted Trish, at the end of the day she wasn’t someone worth wanting because she was actually evil.

We now had another reason to side with Jericho, because how many of you have had a crush on someone but they were a jerk and treated you like dirt? My guess would be more than one of you. Now how many people would love to have seen that person get what they had coming to them? This is a key part, as if you can’t related to a story, it’s hard to get into it. So anyway, they had their rematch at Backlash, which was a handicap match involving Trish as well. Jericho won to even up the score, so we had a blowoff match inside a cage (note that the gimmicks built up over time: non-gimmick, handicap, cage).

Now the problem was that Christian got hurt in the cage and was out for months. They had a ladder match at Unforgiven for the vacant Intercontinental title which could have come earlier, but it was a good cap of to the feud, even though it was late. So at the end of everything, it was Jericho that came out with revenge as well as a championship, giving him something to be happy with.

Let’s take a quick look at a few other reasons why this story worked.

Most importantly: IT HAD TIME TO BUILD. This wasn’t a feud that was settled in about five weeks. It had several months to get things set up and for the characters in it to develop. That’s one of the big problems in a lot of modern wrestling angles: everything moves so fast that there isn’t time for something to develop. This story started in late 2003 and wrapped up in May. It had some twists and turns in it, but for the most part they mad sense and followed a coherent path.

Second, it had a good conclusion. Jericho winning wasn’t required, but it was definitive and there was no doubt as to who won. In other words, we didn’t feel like we wasted our time with the story. It had romance, intrigue, twists and a conclusion, all tied together with good wrestling matches. Those are all parts of a good storyline. That leads me to the final part of this.

The feud was ENTERTAINING. Like I said, Christian and Jericho could do almost anything and it would be entertaining. Trish was great in the evil chick role and looked great in the part too. There was nothing in this angle that wasn’t at least passable, which helped even more. The matches worked well too, meaning that in total there was nothing wrong with this storyline.

All of the parts worked and had the right people in the roles, which is what makes a great story.

Monday Night Raw
Date: July 23, 2012
Location: Scottrade Center, St. Louis, Missouri
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole

It’s the 1000th weekly episode of a show that airs year round which makes it the longest running show with as many catches as they can think of, as long as you don’t count shows like WCW Saturday Night or Memphis Wrestling’s Saturday morning show which ran for about 30 years airing new shows. There’s A LOT to get through tonight as we have a wedding, Lesnar, Rock, DX and other legends appearing live, and Cena vs. Punk for the world title. Let’s get to it.

We open with one of those always awesome WWE montages of past Raw moments. I’ll set the over/under of moments from 1994/1995 at about 2.

There’s a new logo for Raw tonight and for apparently one night only, there’s a different song, called Tonight is the Night.

We start the false advertising right away, with Vince opening things. The video wall is different too, with HUGE walls on the side of the Tron now. Vince thanks us for 1000 shows and brings out DX complete with a hybrid of the old and new entrances. Shawn and HHH come out to do the entrance but Shawn is having issues because he’s old and out of breath before the crotch chop.

They talk about having their DX merchandise on and asks each other if they’re wearing underwear. After assuring that they are, Shawn still thinks something is missing. HHH thinks there used to be more of them, drawing a BIG pop. Complete with military invasion vehicle, here are the Outlaws and X-Pac. They do their usual lines (complete with Road Dogg censoring himself on Billy’s nickname in a very nice bit) and HHH points out that he’s the only one left with a full head of hair.

Billy and Shawn aren’t sure who should say the final line. Billy: “He never really gave me that much but I was good at this.” Shawn says the same so HHH pulls Billy aside and says that Shawn might lose his smile and go pose for Playgirl again. Shawn: “I NEEDED THE MONEY!” They agree to do it at the same time….and here’s Damien Sandow. That’s the perfect choice too. He says this is what WWE has disintegrated to and how low society has gone: people like DX are now revered. Shawn says he’s going straight to church and asking for forgiveness….AGAIN!

Sandow understands that DX could destroy him but if they do so, he won’t be a victim. He’ll be a martyr. HHH calls for a DX huddle but Sandow tries to listen in. Sandow: “That’s very rude.” HHH: “We’re rude guys.” HHH goes to talk but it’s Sweet Chin Music and Pedigree for Sandow. Billy and Shawn get to do their line and that’s it. GREAT opening segment and absolutely hilarious.

Here’s JR with a goatee. Cole is fine with him now.

Rey Mysterio/Sin Cara/Sheamus vs. Chris Jericho/Dolph Ziggler/Alberto Del Rio

The difference in pops for Cara and Sheamus is staggering. We’re joined in progress with Cara in trouble from Ziggler before it’s off to Jericho for a chinlock. Cara gets a rollup for two but Jericho knocks him right back down. We get the posing cover for two and a BIG reaction before it’s off to Del Rio. The heel team works on Cara’s back with Del Rio hooking a chinlock with a knee in the back. Cara hits a tornado DDT and it’s hot tag to Sheamus. He cleans house on Jericho, hitting a running kneelift.

Irish Curse is kind of botched but the second attempt connects for two. Everything breaks down and Rey knocks Del Rio to the floor, hitting a seated senton off the apron. Sheamus and Jericho are the only two left in the ring and White Noise is countered into a failed Walls of Jericho. Codebreaker is countered but the Brogue Kick misses. Ziggler drills Jericho (intentionally) to break up the springboard dropkick and the Brogue Kick finishes Jericho at 4:26 shown.

Rating: C+. Other than the main event, expect a lot of these matches to be short and sweet tonight, which is the right move on a show like this. Cara getting to rub elbows with guys like Mysterio and Sheamus is a great thing for him and it should do him a lot of good. This was fast paced and fun, which is the right idea.

TOUT IT OUT!

Charlie Sheen is the social media ambassador and is on Skype with us here. Sheen thinks he’d fit in with DX. That’s a perfect fit actually. He doesn’t sound like he has any idea what’s going on but he doesn’t seem bored out of his mind and that’s all I can ask for.

We recap the wedding buildup from last week.

AJ is getting ready in the back with Layla and she asks if AJ is ready. AJ says yes she is and yes she’s mentally stable. Everyone is a bit off out here and she opens the door to prove it. Jim Duggan is talking to someone and R-Truth and Roddy Piper holding a jump rope for Little Jimmy. Then, in perhaps the funniest thing I’ve ever seen on Raw, MAE YOUNG AND A FULL GROWN HAND ARE HERE!

Someone delivers Sonic to Jerry Lawler. That’s kind of awesome.

Brodus Clay vs. Jack Swagger

Brodus brings out DUDE FREAKING LOVE. Brodus is in a USA themed singlet tonight. Swagger misses a charge, gets suplexed, and the splash ends this in 19 seconds.

It’s time to dance, complete with a tye dyed Socko to Swagger.

HHH is in the back with Trish Stratus who I don’t think people recognize. She demonstrates Yoga to him and shows HHH how to bend over when DX comes in. They don’t know what to think but Road Dogg says they’ll wait in the rear. Pac stays around and hits on Trish but it goes nowhere.

Daniel Bryan is talking to what appear to be orderlies.

We open the second hour with the wedding. Jerry is the master of ceremonies for some reason. The reverend is SLICK! Lawler was just introducing Slick apparently. Slick looks BAD. Here’s Bryan first, to his theme music of course and in a white tux. AJ comes out as normal, minus the skipping. Slick goes into Jive Soul Bro mode and says that marriage shouldn’t be entered into lightly but AJ tells him to get to it. We get the speak now moment and half the arena starts booing. Slick: “Wooooooow. I never heard that before.”

The fans chant no but Bryan has a speech ready for AJ. Once they’re married, he’ll have everything he’s ever wanted. The ring goes on AJ’s hand and he says he does. AJ says yes before she’s asked a question. Slick is about to say they’re married but AJ says wait. She wasn’t saying yes to Daniel, but rather to someone else. Someone else proposed to her earlier tonight: VINCE MCMAHON???

Oh wait he’s just interrupting things. Scratch that as apparently he did propose to her, but it’s a business proposal: AJ is the new GM. Now that’s something I didn’t see coming. AJ hands Bryan the flowers and skips off to her music. Vince only said GM of Raw so I don’t think she’s in charge of Smackdown too. Bryan freaks out and breaks a lot of stuff.

Post break and Bryan is still freaking out, shouting NO at everyone. Cue Punk for likely a hearty laugh. He laughs about Bryan getting left at the altar and says that AJ is going to be GM. Punk: “You can continue to throw a tantrum. I’m going to continue to be WWE Champion.” Bryan says Punk isn’t even the best in the ring tonight and says that Bryan is the best of all time.

Cue The Rock for a rebuttal. After a lengthy intro, Rock says Bryan doesn’t get to say who the best of all time is. The fans get to say that, and guess who they chant for. Rock does the FINALLY bit but Bryan cuts him off because he can say anything else. He doesn’t know who Rock thinks he is but Rock cuts him off as well. Rock says he won his first WWE Championship here, but he’s not here to talk to Frodo right now.

Instead he wants to talk to Punk, because at the Royal Rumble, he’s got the world title shot. That gets almost no reaction for some reason. Punk says that’ll be him because he’ll defeat Cena tonight. Tonight he’ll end Cena and he’ll beat Rock at the Rumble. Bryan says no because it’s supposed to be about him and it’s supposed to be the best night of his life.

Bryan, with his eyes bugging out, says that he’ll fight Rock at the Rumble. He says he’ll be the face of the WWE. Rock says we’re not looking at the face of the WWE. We’re looking at a homeless lumberjack mated with an Oompa Loompa. “Oompa Loompa dumpity ding, you look like a troll from Lord of the Rings.” Rock Bottom to Bryan and that’s that.

Here’s Bret Hart to be ring announcer for the next match. He says he won his first IC Title by beating Mr. Perfect and he’s introducing the Intercontinental Title match tonight.

Intercontinental Title: Christian vs. The Miz

Bret’s boredom of introducing Miz is great. Christian immediately sends him to the floor and hits a dive to the outside but he may have hurt his knee. We take a break and come back with Miz holding a weak leg lock on Christian. During the break the champ (Christian) had his knees sent into the steps to further the injury. A top rope cross body gets two for Christian and he goes up again, hitting the jumping back elbow for no cover. Unprettier is broken up and the sunset flip out of the corner gets two.

Miz kicks him in the face for a near fall of his own and things slow down again. Christian comes back with a tornado DDT for two but his leg is still messed up. Spear is blocked and Miz gets a short DDT for a very close two. The corner clothesline misses for Miz but the Killswitch is countered again. Finale and Killswitch are countered again. Christian escapes a belly to back but hurts his leg again, allowing the Skull Crushing Finale to give Miz the title at 7:46.

Rating: C+. That’s a nice surprise for tonight as they needed to do something to give us a little history here. Also Miz gets to win something for the first time since losing the world title over a year ago. It’s even better than it was clean, which is rare to see. Good stuff here and a nice surprise.

Charlie Sheen says he’s a fan of Rock and is looking forward to the Rumble. As for Bryan, he has Anger Management issues.

Regis Philbin talks about all of the wrestling guests he’s had on his show. He looks good for 80.

Here’s HHH to talk to Lesnar. After a recap HHH calls Lesnar out but gets Heyman again. Lesnar is here tonight and Heyman has power of attorney for him. The match at Summerslam isn’t happening. HHH says he’s tired of this so he’ll go find Lesnar himself. Heyman says HHH is already facing multiple lawsuits and that might not be best for business. HHH says Lesnar is a coward so Heyman makes fun of HHH’s kids. HHH yells and Heyman backs off. Paul keeps talking about the kids and here’s Stephanie, looking great in a black dress but showing off that famous Stephanie acting ability.

She yells at Heyman for his failures and says the lawsuits are a way for him to make himself feel better. Heyman gets cut off and Steph says her dad has more guts than Lesnar. She calls Heyman a parasite and gives him an awful slap. Heyman bails but gets back in almost immediately. The match with Lesnar is on now. Heyman runs his mouth some more so Stephanie takes him down. Cue Lesnar who is actually here for once. Well he’s here but his arms seem to be missing. Lesnar takes HHH into the corner and fires in shoulders but HHH comes back. HHH clotheslines Brock to the floor and takes his hair down so you know he’s serious.

Tout it out!

After talking about WWE 13, we get a video on Vince vs. Austin, which needs to be on a show like this.

Here are Santino and Hornswoggle with WWE toys, which apparently are like old school WRESTLING BUDDIES. These talk though.

Howard Finkel is guest ring announcer for the next match. Now all is right with the world.

Heath Slater calls out any legend to a No DQ anything goes match.

Heath Slater vs. Lita

WOW. Lita still looks great too. Slater laughs this off but then accepts her challenge. The bell rings but Lita says she hired herself some protection. Cue the APA and Slater PANICS. Slater immediately runs but backs into every legend he’s fought in the last few weeks. They chase him back into the ring and the Twist of Fate sets up the Clothesline which sets up the Litasault (looked perfect) for the pin at 1:54.

Take a guess what Ron Simmons says post match.

SEAN FREAKING MOONEY is in the back with Daniel Bryan. Bryan didn’t like being called an Oompa Loompa by Sheen earlier and says he’d slap Sheen if he were here.

We talk to some guy that is the 100,000,000^th social media follower. Good for him.

Fozzie Bear hosts a video on great catchphrases on Raw over the years. There’s a great bit in here where they go with Austin and Vickie saying WHAT and EXCUSE ME over and over again.

Ryder is in the back with Cena and Mean Gene. Ryder thinks Gene was behind GTV and Gene says he wasn’t working here at the time. Cena is lost when Rock comes up. Ryder and Gene leave and it’s time for the staredown. Rock wishes Cena luck and Cena says see you at the Rumble. Rock says he’s looking forward to it.

Kane vs. Jinder Mahal

Mahal comes out with Hunico, Camacho, Reks, McIntyre and Hawkins. They say they’ve gotten no opportunity over the years and they’re tired of it. They surround Kane….and a gong strikes. There go the lights and here he is. His coat has spikes on the arm now. There’s no hat for some reason though. The six guys have bailed and it’s just the brothers in the ring now. Taker has a buzz cut mowhawk now. The six guys run into the ring because they’re pretty stupid. Hawkins and Hunico get stereo chokeslams and stereo tombstones.

BE A STAR! Just for clarification: We go to an anti-bullying rally preaching non-violence right after six guys were about to jump one and the solution to the one’s problem was that his big brother came out and helped him fight.

Charlie Sheen says he’ll shake Bryan so hard that the fake beard will fall off and you’ll see the word losing under the baby cheeks. Sheen challenges Bryan to a fight when he’s in LA. No mention of Summerslam is made because then it might happen. Scratch that as it’s mentioned once Sheen is gone.

We get a clip from the end of the show last week where Cena challenged Punk and says he’s cashing in tonight.

Raw World Title: John Cena vs. CM Punk

Punk is defending in case you’re reading this years later. We take a break before the bell, and it’s already 10:56. We don’t get big match intros as the bell rings immediately when they come back. There’s a quick hand slap and we’re ready to go. Punk gets taken down quickly but comes back with an abdominal stretch. Cena hiptosses out of it and it’s a stalemate. Cena fires off some right hands and takes Punk down with a headlock. Lawler says Cena is like Superman.

Punk comes back and they slug it out with Punk taking over via a kick to the face and a clothesline. The running knee in the corner hits and Punk does You Can’t See Me. Bulldog is countered into the ProtoBomb and there’s the Shuffle. Punk pops up and hits the high kick but the GTS is escaped. There goes the referee as the AA hits but there’s no one to count.

Cue Big Show who spears Cena down and he loads up the right hand. Down goes Cena and Punk isn’t sure what to do. The champ rolls the referee back in and covers Cena but it only gets two. He loads up the GTS but Cena rolls through into the STF. Big Show runs in again and hits Cena for the DQ at 11:15, making Cena the first person to cash in and not win the title.

Rating: C+. The match was ok but it’s a far cry from their previous ones. That being said it wasn’t bad or anything as these two feel like a major match whenever they get in the ring. The interference was obvious but there’s nothing wrong with that. Given the amount of time they had to work with, this was fine.

Punk turns his back and lets Cena get beaten down until Rock comes down for the save. He beats up Show and loads up the Elbow….but Punk takes Rock’s head off with a clothesline. Hokey smoke I think we just had a heel turn. There’s a GTS to Rock and the champ stands tall to end the show.

Overall Rating: A. The ending bumps this up a good bit. This was certainly an entertaining and very fun show, but it wasn’t a masterpiece. The ending was great as Punk’s demons of being overshaddowed time after time finally got the better of him and he embraces his inner evil side. That’s great storytelling and gives them a ton of possibilities down the line. Also by having him attack Rock, there’s a much better chance of him being hated down the line. Great stuff here and a great show.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Monday Night Raw
Date: November 2, 1998
Location: Compaq Center, Houston, Texas
Attendance: 12,590
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Well it’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these hasn’t it? We’re still building towards the Deadly Game tournament at Survivor Series which is another step in the feud between Vince and Austin. We have Shane as the top good guy now against Vince as Vince is still evil of course because his name is Vince McMahon. I barely remember most of what’s been going on here so let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of Vince vs. Shane.

Here’s Shane in the arena to a big pop. He says that the day after Survivor Series, Austin gets his title shot on Raw. Apparently Shane is in charge tonight. Here’s Austin and we cut to the back to see Vince arriving. He comes to the arena before Austin can say anything and says that he’s not going to retire. As the crowd tells Vince what they think he is, he says that Austin, Shane and the fans would love it if he left.

Well the only way he’s stepping down though is the day he dies. That’s very true I’d assume. When he dies, he doesn’t want anyone coming to his funeral because he wants to get straight to where he’s going forever. That’s where he’s been lately because of what Shane has been putting him through. Therefore, Shane is fired from his executive spot and now he’s a referee. If he’s bad at that, he’ll be on the ring crew where he started his career. As for Austin, he’s in the tournament at Survivor Series. In the opening round, he’ll be facing Big Bossman, Vince’s goon.

There’s a cage over the ring.

During the break, Vince yelled at JR and Lawler. Also, someone will be paying hard time tonight in that very cage.

D-Generation X vs. The Brood

This would be the Outlaws and X-Pac. This is being written the day after Raw 1000 so they’re pretty fresh in my mind. The Brood is Edge, Christian and the leader Gangrel. They may have picked the wrong guy to be in charge. Pac and Edge get us going and you know how fast that’s going to go. Pac kicks Edge’s head off for two but Edge comes back with a spinebuster.

Off to Christian who is in a long sleeve shirt for some reason which is really loose on him. It’s a pretty odd look but he hits a gutbuster to take over. Hot tag brings in Road Dogg for some shaking punches and it’s back to Edge. He DDTs Road Dogg and everything breaks down. The lights go out and it’s Kane time. He clears the ring and we’ll say it’s thrown out too soon to rate. There was nothing to see here.

During the previous break, Vince yelled at Cole. Today these roles would be completely reversed.

Hawk vs. Droz

Thankfully they’re just calling him Droz now. Last night these two got in a fight and cost the LOD a match to some team called The Hardy Boys. Hawk is drunk again. Droz jumps Hawk but Animal comes in and pulls him off. No match but Animal yells at Hawk a lot. Animal and Droz leave together.

Vince yelled at Cornette during the match. I’m sure there’s a shoot video about this somewhere.

Al Snow and Mankind have an argument…..I think. Mankind makes reference to a show called Real Secrets of Pro Wrestling Revealed, which was a documentary which was supposed to be a big deal but didn’t reveal anything most people didn’t already know.

Oddities vs. Mankind/Al Snow

Golga/Kurrgan here. ZZ Top is here. Mankind and Kurrgan start and we get a dance off until Snow jumps Kurrgan from behind. Off to Snow who has a bit less success. Snow fires off some kicks to the legs and Kurrgan goes down before Mankind comes back in. Golga comes in with a splash in the corner and an elbow drop for two. A side slam from Kurrgan gets the same as we’re told Vince is yelling at the Fink.

Mankind grabs a double arm DDT on Kurrgan and reaches for Socko, but he’s not there. Snow hits Kurrgan in the head with Head as Mankind leaves in panic. Snow walks into a bad Bossman Slam from Kurrgan. Snow makes both Oddities miss a few times but Kurrgan chokeslams him and the Earthquake gets the pin.

Rating: D+. This was a comedy match at times and a major upset at the end. Well maybe not major but still an upset. Kurrgan is a total guilty pleasure for me and when he’s in there with my all time favorite, what else am I going to say here other than it wasn’t all bad. This was nothing great but I had to like it a bit given who was in there.

Most of the roster was watching the show and someone is with them. Vince comes up and throws the guy out because he doesn’t have a backstage pass. His response: “I’m Shaquille O’Neal. I don’t need a backstage pass.” Vince leaves.

Post break Mankind is looking for Socko and thinks Vince can help him find it.

Steven Regal vs. Goldust

It’s the REAL MAN’S MAN! This is the result of an open challenge from Regal, who wants to fight a real man. Regal works on the arm but gets taken down with a shoulder block. Back to the arm for Regal but gets caught in a bad hiptoss. Regal comes back with some shots to the head and sends Goldust to the floor. Here comes Terri with a cigar. Back in and Regal pounds away in his usual clunky style. Goldie comes back with an uppercut and bulldog for two. Goldust loads up Shattered Dreams but here’s Kane for the throwing out of the match.

Rating: D+. The song alone keeps this from failing but the match didn’t work for the most part at all. By that I mean there wasn’t anything here and the focus was on Terri for all of ten seconds. Basically they were there for five minutes until Kane came out. Can I just listen to Regal’s song some more?

Kane goes for a chokeslam on Terri but suits come out. Tony Garea gets the chokeslam instead.

Here are the brackets for the tournament at Survivor Series:

Kane and Undertaker have byes to the second round.

Kane

Undertaker

The Rock

HHH

Goldust

Ken Shamrock

Mankind

???

Jeff Jarrett

Al Snow

X-Pac

Steven Regal

Steve Austin

Big Bossman

Mankind goes to Vince and Vince says Mankind can have something if Mankind doesn’t interfere in the next match. The gift: the WWF Hardcore Title.

Intercontinental Title: Ken Shamrock vs. The Rock

Vince talked to Shamrock during the break but we didn’t hear what he said. BIG pop for Rock here. Before the bell, Vince comes out and says if Rock doesn’t win the title, he’s not the #1 contender, nor is he in the tournament at Survivor Series. Rock takes over fast and sends Shamrock into the corner before hitting an elbow to the chest while Shamrock is on the apron. Rock punches some more but gets elbowed down as the champ takes over.

They head to the floor and the Brahma Bull is in trouble. Shamrock stomps away and Rock goes into the steps as well as the announce table. Back in and Shamrock is relishing the fans hating him like they do. Rock comes back with a clothesline but he gets taken down by a hurricanrana and the belly to belly. Ankle lock goes on but Rock makes a rope, taking the smile off Vince’s face.

A double clothesline puts both guys down and Rock gets a very delayed two. Rock fires off right hands and ducks a high kick, followed by a swinging neckbreaker for two. The champ comes back with a powerslam for two but Rock gets a DDT for two of his own. Down goes the referee so Shamrock gets a chair. He swings at Rock’s head but hits the rope, sending the chair into his own head. People’s Elbow connects but there’s still no referee. Shamrock gets up and cracks Rock in the head with the chair for the DQ.

Rating: C+. These two always had some good chemistry together and this worked pretty well too. Rock would be thrown out of the tournament for this but since it’s the Attitude Era, I’ll put his time at being out of it at about 45 minutes. Good little match here and the ending makes sense given the story going on.

Vince tells Rock he’s out of the tournament.

Rock is mad.

Val Venis vs. Jeff Jarrett

Val has recently dumped his pregnant chick of the week Terri, saying it’s her problem and not his. This is a rematch from last night apparently. Feeling out process to start and Val hooks a quick abdominal stretch and a backslide for two. A spinebuster puts Jarrett down and Val does his running knees to the ribs. Val loads up the Money Shot but here’s the Blue Blazer for the DQ. Too short to rate but this was nothing again.

Some cops arrive and Vince wants Rock arrested.

D’Lo Brown/Mark Henry vs. Headbangers

The Bangers are dressed up like the Outlaws. Brown and Mosh start and apparently the winners get a title match at the PPV. Off to Henry and Thrasher and Thrasher has hurt his knee. Mosh cheats a bit but Thrasher can barely walk. Mosh comes in legally now as does D’Lo. Brown charges into a boot but he lures Thrasher in to prevent a Headbangers tag. Mosh charges into a bearhug from Henry and what we would call the World’s Strongest Slam. Big splash crushes Mosh but it’s back to Brown. A middle rope elbow misses for Brown and everything breaks down. The Bangers take over….and here’s Kane to end it.

Rating: D+. This was nothing of note other than a way to bring out Kane for the third time tonight. You know, I think we get it at this point. Anyway, there would be a triple threat tag title match at the PPV where the Outlaws would retain. Also, points to Thrasher here for gutting it out through an injury.

Kane breaks some people.

Rock is arrested.

Post break, Rock is still being arrested and Vince and company gloats.

Here’s Owen Hart dressed as himself in street clothes. He apologizes for injuring Severn a little over a month ago and states that he’s retired. Tonight though he’s here to hear from Severn in person. Here’s Severn in a neckbrace who says everyone knows Owen is the Blue Blazer, but Severn is here to tell Owen that he’s nothing but scum. Severn sounds like Goldust when he talks. Owen jumps him but Steve Blackman makes the save.

Severn is loaded into an ambulance and Blackman jumps Owen. The Blue Blazer comes in to beat down Blackman in a double team. JR has no idea what’s going on.

The cage is lowered.

Here are Vince and company. Vince wants to send everyone in the audience into the cage to serve hard time but instead he’ll just be wheeled down to ringside for now. To Patterson: “Straighten me out!” Patterson: “It’s not that easy. You’re heavy you know!” Boss Man is told to check the cage’s security with the Stooges. They all get inside and Vince says all he wanted was a cup of coffee. He tells the Boss Man to go and the Stooges and Slaughter get destroyed. Boss Man vs. Slaughter would have been a BIG feud in late 90/early 91. Vince tells Boss Man to rip off their clothes for some reason.

Austin finally comes out for the save to attack Boss Man and save the Stooges. Patterson, ever the nice guy, hits Austin in the knee with the nightstick and the beatdown begins. Shane comes out for another save but Vince tells Boss Man to let Shane go. Shane flips Vince off and here comes Taker. He goes into the cage and brawls with Austin with the Rattlesnake being too weak to fight back. Cue Kane for about the fifth run-in for this segment. Kane does his fire thing and the middle of the cage walls are on fire and it’s a three way fight to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. There are two problems with this show. First of all, the matches went nowhere. There were seven matches on this show and ONE didn’t have a run-in or a DQ finish, and that match had one of the four people in it walking out. Second, nothing really happened here. Rock was thrown out of the tournament and we were told that Austin’s first victim will be Big Bossman. There’s nothing here for the most part and while the show went by fast, it wasn’t anything good or memorable at all. Bigger things were coming though.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

TNA Weekly PPV #3
Date: July 3, 2002
Location: Nashville Municipal Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee
Commentators: Don West, Mike Tenay, Ed Ferrara

We’re into the home city of the company for the next few years now and we’re going to get our first title defense too. We’re also getting tag champions tonight in the form of a one night tournament. Also if that’s not enough tag team wrestling for you, we’ve got the official main event: Scott Hall/Brian Christopher vs. Jeff Jarrett/K-Krush. Let’s get to it.

As the announcers talk, the NWA President, a big fat balding guy, comes up and says some people are coming to TNA. He has a trophy which is to welcome TNA to the NWA. He’s been in Japan and next week, a guy named Omori is getting a world title match.

NWA World Tag Team Title Tournament First Round: James Storm/Chris Harris vs. The Johnsons

Oh geez it’s the Johnsons. They’re named Dick and Rod and we’ll say Rod starts with Harris. Harris speeds things up and hits some armdrags followed by a Thesz Press to take over. Off to Storm who hits a headscissors to put Rod down. The Johnsons start cheating and hit a double powerbomb on Storm to take over.

A suplex puts Storm down and a double shoulder block gets two. We’ll say Dick jumps into a boot and Storm superkicks him down. There’s the hot tag to Harris who cleans house. He spears Rod down but his cross body gets caught. Storm dropkicks Harris’ back so that he falls on Rod for the pin to advance.

Rating: D+. Nothing special here but you could see the talent in the team that would become known as AMW. At the end of the day here though, they were a one note joke written by a five year old. There’s only so much credibility you can give to a match like this one. The ending was good though and that dropkick was pretty awesome looking.

Post match the Johnsons’ manager Mortimer Plumtree yells at them and gets a chokeslam for his efforts.

Here’s Scott Hall who says Hey Yo but here’s Jarrett for a rebuttal. Jarrett says no one wants to hear Hall talk so get out. They’re about to brawl but the fat guy President says go away. Jarrett says he’ll wait for the main event. As he backs away, K-Krush sneaks in and beats down Hall. Scratch the beats down line and replace it with “gets caught in a fallaway slam and is clotheslined to the floor”.

Harris and Storm have been attacked and there’s blood everywhere.

Anthony Ingram vs. Monty Brown

After Brown says he wants Shamrock, the squashing commences. After a powerslam the Alpha Bomb (starts in a slam position but Brown swings him into the air and powerbombs him down) gets the pin. Brown has what sounds like Abyss’ old music.

Goldilocks can’t find the NWA President. Two blonde guys haven’t either. A midget named Puppet says he’ll do the interview instead. He wants a fight against a Hollywood famous short person. Next.

NWA World Tag Team Title Tournament First Round: Rainbow Express vs. Apolo/Buff Bagwell

Before the match, Buff and Apolo say nothing of note. Bruce and Bagwell get us going with Buff controlling early. He slams Bruce down and hits a Vader Bomb for two. Here’s Alicia for some reason as it’s off to Lenny. Alicia (Ryan Shamrock) goes over to Ed Ferrara and gives him money. Apolo hits something on Bruce for two. No idea what it was as we were looking at Alicia, which to be fair is a better idea.

Apolo chops away at Lenny and hits an elbow to the face to take him down. Bruce gets involved and Lenny hits a running DDT for two to take over. Bruce gets tagged in via a kiss to the hand and they do the World’s Greatest Tag Team jump over the back onto the other guy’s back spot. Lenny drops an elbow for two but walks into a full nelson slam to put both guys down. Hot tag brings in Bagwell and his offense looks pretty awful. Buff and Lenny collide and roll to the floor as Apolo superkicks Bruce down. TKO looks to finish but Lenny makes the save. A Blockbuster puts Bruce down but Lenny superkicks Buff for the pin.

Rating: D. Nothing to see here again. The Express are supposed to be interesting because they’re gay or whatever, but it’s not working at all. Bagwell keeps getting blamed for posing and showboating too much here which I guess is the story, but who in the world would be interested in Buff Bagwell in 2002? Nothing to see here.

Buff talks to himself so Ferrara gets a mic. Bagwell says he’s Marcus, not Buff and he wants to go home. Ok then.

Here’s Shamrock for a chat. He doesn’t care about Monty Brown because Brown has only had one match and now he wants a title shot. Correct me if I’m wrong but hasn’t Shamrock only had one match at this point? Tonight he’s got Malice and then a Japanese guys next week. After that, maybe it’s time for Monty Brown. We cut to Mitchell in the crowd who says that Shamrock will have his hands full with Malice tonight and Shamrock will never make it to Omori and Monty. The lights go out and when they come up, Shamrock is down and Malice is standing over Shamrock.

Jerry Lynn comes up to Bill Behrens and asks if he can get in the tournament in Harris/Storm’s place if he can find a partner. Behrens sends him away because he doesn’t have time right now.

Puppet vs. Todd Stone

Little people time. Puppet yells about midgets before the match. This is a hardcore match apparently. Puppet hits him with a kendo stick as he gets in, followed by a trashcan shot to the head. Stone gets the trashcan put over his head and Puppet pounds on it with the stick. A horrible TKO into the can gets the pin for Puppet. This match exists and that’s as kind as I can be to it.

Puppet hits the referee with the stick post match. Borash gets a shot too. Even Don West gets hit.

Shamrock is being looked at.

We recap Francine and the lingerie battle royal last week.

Miss TNA: Taylor Vaughn vs. Francine

Vaughn is defending. Francine whips her with a belt like she did to Ferrara last week. Vaughn gets the belt and chokes away. This is thrown out in less than a minute.

Ferrara holds Francine’s hand up as she won but she puts his hand on her breast. That gets him a beating with the belt.

Here’s Hermie Sadler, a NASCAR driver, with his pit crew. K-Krush comes out and says no one around here like NASCAR. Sadler gets in his face and the two of them are having a match next week. West says 500 million people like NASCAR. I’d like to see some stats behind that.

NWA World Title: Ken Shamrock vs. Malice

Malice is more famous as The Wall in WCW. I probably should have mentioned that earlier. Shamrock is all banged up but he comes in anyway, only to get beaten down almost immediately. Shamrock gets knocked down to the floor and Malice stomps him against the railing. Back in and Shamrock gets draped over the top rope and Malice hammers away. Ken grabs the arm into a quick armbar but Malice powers him right back down.

Malice sends him to the floor and puts on a dragon sleeper which is quickly broken. As they’re coming back in Shamrock grabs a bad ankle lock but Malice makes the rope. A pair of release belly to back suplexes put Shamrock down but a regular suplex is blocked. Shamrock snaps off a suplex of his own and the belly to belly out of nowhere retains the title.

Rating: D. Malice looked good here but the ending sucked. It basically cut the legs out from under Malice because all of that offense he put in couldn’t slow the champ down and then a pair of suplexes are enough for a pin? I didn’t like this for the most part and it didn’t do anyone any favors at all. This would be the end of Malice’s time around the title.

X-Division Title: David Young vs. AJ Styles

AJ is listed as being from Atlanta here instead of Gainesville. Young jumps the champ from behind but AJ speeds things up and dropkicks Young down. A rana puts Young on the floor and AJ kind of botches a flip dive, with his legs hitting the apron on the way down. Back in the ring that gets two but a second springboard attempt is countered, sending AJ’s throat into the top rope.

Young follows up with an Asai Moonsault which gets two back in the ring. The spinebuster is blocked as is a German suplex by Styles flips. Bobcat is on her phone now as the match isn’t interesting enough to her. Young sends AJ back first into the corner for two. A crucifix gets two for Styles but Young takes out his knee and hits an enziguri for two. After a quick chinlock a powerslam gets two for David.

A brainbuster only gets two but Styles’ kickouts are getting weaker and weaker. Back to the chinlock but Styles fights out of it again and superkicks Young down for two. The moonsault into the reverse DDT gets another two count. AJ tries to speed things up again but walks into a spinebuster for two. That looked great too. Young puts him on the top rope for a top rope rana, but AJ blocks it in mid air and hits the Styles Clash off the middle rope to retain.

Rating: B. I was really digging this one as AJ in 2002 was incredible. Young wasn’t much but he had a good spinebuster and could do some other stuff decently. This was basically an AJ showcase match and that’s what it should be. The X-Division was a way to show off fast paced matches and they did that well here. Very good match.

Post match Bobcat gets in the ring to dance but gets shoved by AJ. That’s pretty heelish.

Goldie is with the Rainbow Express, who doesn’t like her hair. Joel Gertner hits on her and says the Express gets the titles because they don’t have anyone to fight. Gertner rhymes a lot and kisses her.

NWA World Tag Team Titles: Rainbow Express vs. ???/???

The NWA rules that they must have another match, so the opponents are AJ Styles/Jerry Lynn. The Express jumps them as they come in and the unnamed team is in trouble early. Lynn sends them to the floor and hits a slingshot dive followed by a corkscrew dive from Styles. Jerry and Lenny officially start and it’s time for gyrations. Lynn sends him into the corner and Bruce comes in illegally for some homosexual themed spots.

Lenny takes over and it’s off to Bruce via a kiss to the hand, freaking West out. Lynn is sent to the apron and he hits a legdrop to the back of a charging Bruce’s head to take over. Off to AJ who hits a spinwheel kick for two as West praises him nonstop. Back to Lynn who gets two off a bulldog. Back to Lenny who avoids a dropkick and puts on the Liontamer (screw the Tiger Tamer) while shouting to ASK HIM. AJ breaks it up with a clothesline and Bruce comes in sans tag.

Lenny comes back in quickly and a long delayed vertical suplex gets a sexual cover for two. West’s anti-gay shouting is kind of funny. Lynn comes back with a sunset flip out of the corner for two on Bruce and Bruce does the same for the same result. Bruce hooks a chinlock and then a headscissors to keep Lynn on the mat. Lynn escapes a powerbomb but Bruce escapes the Cradle Piledriver, only for Bruce to escape into a rollup for two.

Lynn DDTs Bruce down and both guys are dazed. Hot tag brings in AJ to face Lenny and things speed up. Everything breaks down and Lenny hits a Skull Crushing Finale on Styles for two. Cradle Piledriver takes Lenny down followed by Bruce and Jerry going to the floor. Spiral Tap to Lenny gives Lynn and Styles the titles.

Rating: C+. This was pretty good although it culminates one of the worst “tournaments” I’ve ever seen. The story works well as AJ beat Lynn last week and now they’re partners with AJ still holding the X Title. That would be the big feud for the next few weeks, although I’m not sure why, as AJ beat Lynn twice in a row last week. Yeah Lynn won once, but that still puts AJ up 2-1. The match was pretty good though.

The NWA President has been tied up in the back and has FU painted on his stomach. You know Cena had debuted about a week before this. I think I smell a conspiracy.

We recap Christopher vs. Krush last week which set up the tag match this week.

Scott Hall/Brian Christopher vs. K-Krush/Jeff Jarrett

It’s a brawl to start and all four head into the crowd. Hall and Jarrett head into the dancer’s cage as Christopher and Krush get in the ring. Hall knocks Jarrett onto the announce table as the Hip Hop Drop misses for Christopher. Scott comes into the ring and chokeslams Krush but Jeff is back in quickly. There haven’t been any tags at all yet. We finally get started with Hall vs. Jarrett and the good guys (Hall/Christopher) take over quickly.

Hall clotheslines Jarrett into the corner and it’s off to Brian who dances a bit too much and crotches himself in the corner. Off to Hall who is sent into Christopher while Christopher is on the apron before Hall collides with Jarrett. Jeff brings in Krush with a top rope dropkick but no cover. They badly mess up the spinning forearm as Krush lands on Hall’s back and Hall waits a few seconds before he falls. That looked pretty bad.

Back to Jeff for a cross body off the top but Hall rolls through for two. Jarrett hooks a sleeper and Hall reverses into a quick one of his own. Jarrett suplexes him down but can’t follow up. Christopher leaves the corner for some reason to yell at the referee, meaning Hall has no one to tag. Krush comes in with an ax kick and it’s off to a chinlock which is positioned so that Hall can stand up and hit an electric chair drop.

That gets followed up by a clothesline and it’s hot tag time, but Christopher won’t tag. Hall cleans house on his own including a punch to Christopher. Hall pulls Brian into the ring and beats him up too followed by an Outsider’s Edge to Krush. The referee went down in there somewhere. Brian breaks up an Edge on Jarrett and the Stroke pins Hall.

Rating: C-. This was the standard main event tag team match and it was nothing of note at all. At the end of the day, Grandmaster Sexay/Scott Hall vs. Jeff Jarrett/R-Truth isn’t a match that grabs me. There wasn’t much of a reason for this match to happen and it certainly wasn’t a big fight that we were dying to see. It wasn’t bad though and it sets up the main event feud for awhile.

Jarrett says he’s beaten Hall for years and he’s done it again here. Hall gets hit in the head with a trophy. Jarrett says he won’t get screwed again. The stretcher Hall is on is turned over to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. This was better than last week’s show overall as they cut out some of the nonsense but the main event was nowhere near the level of the one from last week. These earlier shows for the company were very dull at times and this was no exception, but you can see things starting to shape up a bit better. With only three shows done so far, that’s a good sign.

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