Summerslam 1995
Date: August 27, 1995
Location: Pittsburgh Civic Arena, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Attendance: 18,062
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Vince McMahon

We’re in the In Your House era now and if you’ve read my reviews of the earlier ones, you know what my thoughts are on the booking that was going on in this era. If you haven’t, go read them now you lazy jerks. Dang people trying to just read what comes later and avoid all of the intellectual labor. Anyway, we’re in 1995 and the business is at a seemingly dead end.

No one really knows where to go right now and it would take Hogan’s shocking turn in about 11 months to change everything. Hall and Nash are clearly almost on their way out at this point, which is interesting as they’re both in the singles title matches tonight. Now if you want proof that the business has no idea where to go, think about it. We’re at the point now where your big matches are a rematch of what was a big deal….a year and a half ago, and Diesel vs. Mabel.

Yes, that’s your main event: Diesel vs. Mabel. Bret Hart is fighting an evil dentist, and Barry Horowitz has a match on a pay per view. Think about that for a few minutes while we dig into what is considered one of the worst PPVs ever, Summerslam 1995. Side note: Nitro debuted 8 days after this.

Standard intro talking about the two big matches. Oh and Shawn is a face now. In the back we have Dean Douglas who is critiquing the matches tonight. For those of you that don’t know, Douglas was Matt Striker done properly.

1-2-3 Kid vs. Hakushi

Apparently Kid is from Minnesota, Minneapolis which is a place that’s known for it’s cheap heat. Yeah that joke makes no sense to me either so just go with it. Kid more or less botches jumping into the ring so he must have gotten genuine Columbian cocaine today. Hakushi lost a match to Barry Horowitz earlier in the day so take that for what it’s worth. This is actually a pretty good match so far with some very nice back and forth stuff going on.

Waltman really isn’t that bad against other cruiserweights. The heel is completely dominating as we have a lot of smarks in the crowd who are cheering him. He’d turn face soon enough so that’s all well and good. Lawler insults the Kid and the Pittsburgh fans, which isn’t really that hard to do. He sends Kid to the floor with a SWEET looking back kick. Kid makes his comeback which is actually pretty good. It’s a lot of interesting looking high flying stuff that works really well for someone of his size etc.

Eventually he goes for a spinwheel kick and gets caught in a suplex/powerbomb kind of move for the pin. I really like that ending as it made sense to have Kid keep going for bigger and bigger moves before finally getting caught. That’s a nice little touch to end on.

Rating: B. This was a very solid opener I thought. It was fast paced and exciting as both guys were jumping all over the place and it just flowed really well. The fans were into it which isn’t saying much as this is a very hot crowd to say the least. Good choice for an opener.

In the back, Mabel says that he won’t tell Doc what his surprise is for later.

HHH vs. Bob Holly

Holly is still the racecar guy here while it’s still very early in HHH’s WWF career. He’s been here about 4 months at this time so this is easily his biggest match to date against his toughest opponent. Lawler says that HHH is the kind of guy that eats Kentucky Fried Quail. Is that an insult or a compliment? Anyway, there’s a natural heel thing about HHH that works so well with this blueblood character.

Just about everyone that he would face would have a culture clash with him because who doesn’t hate some rich guy that thinks he’s better than you? BREAKING NEWS! The British Bulldog is here! This is apparently shocking and terrible as he turned heel last week, attacking Diesel. How can something like this happen? A WWF wrestler that’s a pretty big star coming to a WWF event? Yes folks, anything can happen in the WWF, even a guy coming to work.

We of course go split screen to show Smith walking. Oh my goodness, get these people an Emmy blast it! Even being the rich guy vs. the redneck, this is a very boring match. There’s no drama to it at all as Holly just isn’t that good and HHH doesn’t know how good he is yet. Imagine telling Vince back then that HHH would not only be a ten time world champion but also his son in law and the heir to the throne. After about 8 minutes of pure boredom, HHH wins with a not yet perfected pedigree.

Rating: D+. This is just flat out boring. No one wanted to see it and it’s more or less a glorified squash match. Where’s the fun in that? In my eyes, there’s very little indeed. Seriously, why was this on Summerslam again? Did they not have anything better that they could have put on here? They spent half the time talking about Smith so even the announcers didn’t care.

We see a video talking about the WWF vs. Pittsburgh firefighters in a tug of war for some charity thing. Bam Bam, Mabel, Henry Godwin and Savio? Something just doesn’t fit in there. It’s for charity so I can’t make any jokes about it really.

Smoking Guns vs. Blu Brothers

Blu Brothers were later known as DOA, Creative Control, Harris Brothers and I think the Bruise Brothers. They’re twins so this works really well s it’s easy to get heel heat by just switching. The Cowboys are just flat out boring. They’re ok in the ring but DANG they’re bland.

This is pretty much a tag version of the previous match as no one is interested and it feels like a weak house show match. It’s about 5 minutes long and is just a heel domination leading to the hot tag and the faces hitting the Sidewinder to end it. That’s all there is to it and no one could care less at all.

Rating: D. This was even worse than HHH’s match as it just doesn’t fit on Summerslam at all. It’s a bland match that feels like it belongs at a house show on its best day. Why would someone want to pay for something like this?

Barry Horowitz vs. Skip

This is actually kind of a cool story. Horowitz for those of you that don’t know is one of the biggest jobbers of all time, ranking up there with the Brooklyn Brawler. He hadn’t won a match in years yet somehow kept a job. Anyway, one night he pinned Skip when he wasn’t paying attention. A week later he somehow gets credit for another win after going to a time limit draw. For some reason, that warrants a match here at Summerslam.

Can someone explain to me why this is happening and not maybe a tag title match? It’s the second biggest show of the year, Raw has long since been established as the A show, and In Your House has debuted. Do we really need to give these guys, a relative newcomer and a jobber time on Summerslam, but not the world tag team titles? Sunny is Skip’s manager and I’m convinced she’s an alien. No human could be that hot.

Anyway, they start hot as Barry is wearing suspenders to go with his tights. They’re gone in about 8 seconds so what was the point of them? This is actually a pretty good match with some nice technical stuff. Sunny is sent to the back, causing 75% of male viewers to change the channel. For some reason she doesn’t leave which is a good thing. Candido is impressing me actually. His offense is very crisp and sharp with no botches or anything like that.

He passed away at only 33 and he was already an established veteran so he would certainly still be active today. Skip hits his diving headbutt finisher but pulls him up at the last second which even Lawler says is a bad idea. As he’s doing this, for no apparent reason, Hakushi comes out and distracts Skip. This allows Horowitz to roll him up for the small package while Skip’s hand is very close to Barry’s package.

Rating: B. This was a very good match. The story was fine and the in ring work was very good. There’s no noticeable botches or anything like that and you get an excellent feel good moment. However, I have to ask again: is this more important than a tag title match? Even a squash tag match would be fine, but there’s no need to have these two get 10 minutes plus at Summerslam.

Dean Douglas says that Horowitz didn’t deserve to win.

Todd says that Barry should have won and shows a short clip from the ladder match. Shawn comes in and says he’ll win no matter what.

Women’s Title: Bertha Faye vs. Alundra Blayze

Now THIS is one of the weirdest characters of all time. Weighing in at 230 pounds, Faye was just an ugly fat woman that Harvey Whippleman was in love with. She wore a skirt that showed her underwear and was fat. That’s about it. What was the point or thought behind this character? We’ve been trying to figure that out ever sense. Her song was called Sweet Loving Arms if that tells you anything. They did everything they could to make Blayze a big deal and it just never worked once.

This is a pretty short match which is likely good. Blayze of course knows some martial arts because every diva is skilled with them right? How many women use a kick as a major point of their offense?

Anyway, Alundra (how odd of a name is that anyway?) hits a bunch of kicks and big moves but she can’t beat the big fat chick, leading to the worst sitout powerbomb of all time and as the champion gets her shoulder up at 2, the three comes down and we have a new champion. She and Harvey celebrate in the aisle after the match.

Rating: D+. Oy vey this was bad. Neither was incredibly skilled in this match, which wasn’t fair as both could actually wrestle pretty well. Faye was a comedy character and Blayze would get the belt back in about two months or so. This was a waste of time though and wasn’t entertaining at all.

Recap of Taker vs. Kama, which was a pretty bad feud. Kama, aka the Godfather, stole his urn at Mania and made it into a necklace. He then beat up the creatures of the night, causing this to become a casket match. They did this at an In Your House show as a dark match which wasn’t that good. This has more time and is on a bigger stage, so maybe this is better.

Paul Bearer and Taker say Kama is in trouble.

Casket Match: Kama vs. Undertaker

Kama still works for DiBiase at this point. Hmm Taker in a violent gimmick match in Pittsburgh. Same thing happened later on in the Mankind Cell match. Kama of course isn’t afraid, as no heel has been in forever. Well at least in the beginning this is far better. What this should be is more or less Kozlov vs. Taker, and that’s what we’re getting. Kama is hammering him with big power strikes and Taker is absorbing them.

Kama is showing fear of the coffin so we’re getting inside his head too. This is light years ahead of what we had last month at In Your House. Taker goes to the floor and DiBiase kicks at him, leading to Bearer taking his jacket off to fight Ted. That is something I’d pay to see. Ted having been retired for awhile and likely out of shape vs. Paul Bearer. Oh my goodness that would be funny.

Kama suplexes him onto the closed casket. I can’t imagine a back injury in a casket match with Taker can you? The Rest In Peace chant really is awesome here. This is kind of standard Taker stuff, which means that it’s going just fine. Taker gets beaten down, then makes his comeback.

They both go inside the big wooden box at the same time and Kama crawls out, giving us the dragging him back under visual that Shawn made famous at the 98 Rumble. Eventually it’s tombstone and the dark box for Kama to give Taker the win.

Rating: B-. I was liking this. Kama is the perfect kind of heel to feed to Taker. He’s big and strong with good fighting skills, which makes it easy for Taker to fight him off and look good doing it. This was a long feud for Taker but no one really put much thought into it. All it really was supposed to do was keep him busy until he could move onto something big, which he did as he started feuding with Mable for a few months before moving on to Diesel soon after that.

We hit the recap button on Bret vs. Isaac Yankem, who is just an agent of Lawler to try to fight Bret. Some of the lines by Todd here are great. “Lawler did what he does best: got somebody else to fight his battles for him.” “He went out and got someone else to fight for him. He got a dentist.”

“Yankem was a demented tooth fairy.” You know, for all that Bret and Kane have done for the WWF, this might be their best stuff. Think about it: Kane is a crazed dentist which sounds like a bad horror movie. Wow, See No Evil 2 here we come! Anyway, Bret is the guy that has to fight a crazed dentist. How over the top can you get?

Bret Hart vs. Isaac Yankem

Isaac is from Decatur, Illinois. That just sounds funny to me for some reason. Hart says he’s tired of Lawler, and asks if a chiropractor is next. That made me laugh. No sweet leather jacket for Hart which sucks. This is another good matchup for Hart as he’s against a big guy that he can take down after getting beaten up. That’s a nice thing to get going which always works well. Taker is apparently on the Superstar line. That’s just a funny thing to imagine.

Crowd is WAY into Bret here. This is a pretty good back and forth match for the early part as they hammer on each other with Bret slowly breaking Isaac down but Kane hitting a power move to stop Bret dead in his tracks. Eventually the big guy takes over and works Bret into the ground pretty well. Bret has a sweet counter for this neck pull move that’s hard to describe. Basically Bret back flips out of it. It’s really cool looking.

The referee grabs Isaac by the hair and pulls him away which is just not smart. It makes the wrestler look bad because a referee is manhandling them and it’s just not professional. You can hear that Vince is seriously ticked off over it. Yep he’s fired. Anyway, this is mainly over the kiss my foot match that Lawler and Hart had where Lawler had to kiss not only Bret’s foot but his own.

He says it was like kissing a hog with halitosis, which is horrible. Also, Lawler sells sea shells by the seashore for six cents on Saturdays. They’re on the floor for awhile which is just more time for Hart to get beaten up as Isaac looks good. Kane even does a very short walk of the top rope to land a leg drop to the back of Bret’s head as he was hanging over the top rope.

DAng why hasn’t he done that since? Wow has Kane really been in the WWF nearly 15 years? That’s almost hard to believe if you think about it. Finally Hart has had ENOUGH and throws a suicide dive and beats the heck out of Isaac. Sharpshooter leads to Lawler helping Isaac get out which he more or less had to do. He’s now a manager instead of a commentator so Vince is on his own.

Oh this isn’t going to go well. Brea beats on him for a bit, drawing a mad pop from the crowd, but allowing Kane to hit a double axe from the top to save the King. Lawler eventually grabs Bret’s foot and tries to pull him out as Isaac helps him. This causes the referee to FINALLY DQ them after counting to six. They hang Bret between the top and middle ropes and pull on him which has to hurt badly.

Instead of just going in reverse of what got Bret in that position, the suits that run down decide to shove Bret’s head through the ropes, hurting him even worse. Did they not pay attention to Foley losing an ear in a similar thing? Oh he’s fine though. Being this close to Canada gives Bret his super human powers. It’s kind of like the sun with Superman, but Bret could take him in Canada.

Rating: B-. This was pretty good, but it was in essence a handicap match. While that’s all well and good, this should have been Bret vs. Lawler for one big and final blowoff match, maybe in a cage. Yeah I think that would have worked just fine. Kane was a good enough choice, but the focus was more on Lawler, which hurt things a bit. Either way, the stuff in the ring was very good and this was a solid 15 or so minute match.

IC Title: Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon

No transition here or anything at all other than the Razor promo. It’s the rematch of the ladder match. It doesn’t need much of an explanation so there we go. Shawn climbs the ladder in the aisle to stare down Razor which is a semi-famous image, or at least it was back then. Vince telling someone to get down is just wrong on so many levels.

They raise up the belt which is something you don’t often see. Doc Hendrix jumps in on commentary. Vince says that you would have to be Andre the Giant with a jetpack to reach the belt. Or you could just get a ladder but who am I to argue. Doc offers up a surprising stat: only once in Summerslam history up to that point, in 1993, did the IC Title not change hands. Hey he’s good for something.

Shawn says lift it up and there’s the bell. They slug it out to start and both guys escape finishers. Shawn is knocked to the floor and then stops Razor from getting the ladder. Why? Shawn has to bring it back also doesn’t he? Razor blocks Shawn’s suplex and suplexes him to the floor. I love that move. Not sure why but I always have. Either that or it just sounds good and I’m trying to fill in space.

Both finishers miss again and we get a double clothesline to give them a breather. Razor gets to the ladder which is enough for Vince to say he’ll win. Sid, the guy that gets the winner, is watching in the back. Shawn gets the ladder and control but it’s not like the match is ending anytime soon so the drama isn’t there at all.

Down goes the ladder and Shawn and he might have hurt his knee. Oh that’s funny. Shawn’s knee never gets hurt. The fans aren’t sure if they like what Razor is doing here or not. Shawn is more or less dead and falls as Razor tries to send him into the ladder. This is a much more psychological based match than before but they have some experience this time so that might have something to do with it.

Razor has been dominating for a good while here. No attempt at going for the belt yet though which doesn’t really surprise me. Lots of leg work which is logical. Shawn manages to send Razor to the floor but another knee shot takes away any kind of advantage Shawn may have gotten. Razor is wrestling heel here and it’s working pretty well. Granted that’s his natural style so it’s easy for him.

He goes up but Shawn literally makes a diving save to send him down. Doc declares this the greatest match he’s ever seen. It’s good but seriously, the best you’ve ever seen? That might be a stretch dude. Then again given how many drugs he probably did this might be the only match he can remember seeing. Shawn suplexes Razor off the ladder and everyone is down.

Razor eats ladder in the corner and Shawn takes over. Shawn goes up and hits a moonsault press. It kind of misses but it was close enough to still look ok. A splash from the top of the ladder misses and everyone is down. They slug it out on dop of the ladder and a headbutt from Razor sends both guys flying down. Doc says Ted and Sid have to be dancing in the streets. Or they could be watching in the bac on a monitor but same thing I guess.

Shawn charges with the ladder but goes through the ropes to the floor. Razor is like screw this and gets a second ladder. He finally gets the Edge off the ladder and both guys are down again. If there’s one criticism here it’s that they’re staying down for too many long stretches of time. Granted I can totally understand them needing a break.

Vince wants to know which one is the legal ladder. Is there a ladder checking team that I’m not aware of? Both guys climb up a ladder at the same time and Shawn gets more or less Sweet Chin Music to knock Razor off. And then like an IDIOT he jumps at the belt and misses completely, crashing down onto the mat. Shawn sends him to the floor and climbs again, getting his hands on the belt but just not grabbing it. He goes up again and gets it so I’d think the second one was just a slip or something.

Rating: B+. While not as good as their initial match, this is indeed an excellent one. The problem here is simple: how do you follow the greatest gimmick match of all time to that point, especially with the same two guys in it? Every spot you can look at and say it was better the first time or that wasn’t as good as the one you did last year.

That’s the issue they’re facing here, so while this is good, by comparison it just isn’t as solid of a match, which can mainly be attributed to the expectations they had coming into this match I think.

In the back Dean Douglas has a few choice words to say about the “Bad Guy”. This leads to Ramon coming in and beating him up, kickstarting their feud which would actually be Ramon’s last in the company before heading to WCW.

WWF Title: Diesel vs. Mabel

Please help me get through this. Mabel won the KOTR because Vince got really high one night and decided he wanted to see how well he could screw up Summerslam, so he gives us this. Let’s see, how many other options were there that are better than this? Maybe every single person on the roster? Are you telling me you couldn’t have thrown someone like Owen Hart maybe in there? He would have at least given a decent match.

The problem here is simple: Mabel is too freaking fat for Diesel to muscle around like he’s always done, and it’s going to throw Diesel off his game. Therefore, you have a champion off his game and a big man that can’t do crap. Does this sound like a good equation to anyone at all? Mabel comes to the ring as KOTR with Sir Mo. Oh yes I can see the greatness so clearly here. Vince talks about how Bulldog and Luger are here.

Ooh, why did we not have either of those as a good main event? Oh I remember. We had to use that at In Your House instead of here where it would actually matter. Luger of course would be back in WCW 8 freaking days later after infamously having been in WWF one night and debuting for WCW the next night on the debut episode of Nitro, which when you think about it is absolutely brilliant and an amazing move.

Mabel looks like an idiot with that crown. In case you can’t tell, I hate this freaking match. We keep hearing about the royal plan. Oh yes, Mabel is clearly an evil genius. Give me a break Vince. Mabel starts on offense and Diesel gets beaten up. Soon thereafter we switch that up and put Mabel on offense as I have my family hide all sharp or blunt objects to keep me from hurting myself.

Shockingly enough, Diesel can’t do much other than punch and clothesline him, mainly because it’s the only offense he can use without getting a hernia. Oh yeah, Mabel is wearing his shiny purple and gold ensemble here. Mable eventually gets back in control and as I was waiting on, he sits on Diesel. He puts his hands on Nash’s face but doesn’t pull back, yet somehow it’s called a chinlock.

This goes on for EIGHTY FOUR SECONDS. Yes, I get that Mable needs a rest in there as after 5 minutes someone of his gravitational pull would get tired. HOWEVER, a minute and a half is WAY too much to have a fat guy sitting on his opponent. That’s all he’s doing: high impact sitting. Moe comes in of course and gets beaten up. Apparently this is the great and mighty royal plan: get your manager/tag partner/fellow homeless guy to beat on Diesel.

Oh my lord my feeble brain can’t comprehend such intricate and complex thoughts! Luger runs in for the save as I think the referee has sought out psychiatric help after having to stand out there and put up with this nonsense for ten minutes. Oh wait here’s part 2 of the plan: a leg drop on the floor!  Luger beats up Moe, proving that he’s indeed smarter than a 5th grader.

The referee returns from rehab long enough to count a two on Diesel. Mabel jumps off the second rope in his attempt to change the rotation of the Earth but misses a splash. This combined with what’s called a clothesline from the second rope but is more Diesel jumping on Mable lead to the slowest count of all time and a succ…..a succ… I’m sorry but there was nothing successful about this match at all. Diesel keeps the belt let’s go with that. He poses with the belt to close us out.

Rating: F+. Do I really need to explain this one any further? I hate this match and I hate Nelson Frazier, who is easily one of the worst “wrestlers” of all time in my eyes.

Overall Rating: F. This was a hard one for me, but overall the good moments of this show just can’t get out from underneath the epicness of the nonsense on the card. Hakushi/Kid and Horowitz/Skip are actually quite good matches. I was impressed with them. However, there is no way you can justify having those two plus HHH and the Guns’ squashes all be on this show.

You have a 9 match card and I could see at the very most, four belonging on a major show: the opener because you simply need a hot opener to set the stage which that one certainly meets the requirements for, the Hart/Isaac match, Taker and Kama, and the ladder match. Of the two in the middle, they could have easily been altered to put Hart and Lawler together. The second and third matches are just wastes of time, plain and simple.

The HHH match I can kind of see the point in as it gives an up and coming star a PPV match to get himself over. I can almost come to validate that one, but not by much. The Guns’ match however has no business on a PPV, none. The next match was one of the best in ring matches of the night, but I ask again: WHY IS BARRY HOROWITZ WRESTLING AT SUMMERSLAM???

Women’s match was bad but since it’s a title match it can be justified I suppose, and then the main event I’ve already vented on. I’m sorry, but an opener, a ladder match that’s an inferior version of a match from a year and a half ago and two above average midcard matches simply are not enough to sell a PPV for me.

This show is just a flat out failure. It has its moments and would have been passable as a much lower level show, but this is unacceptable as the second biggest show of the year, which is saying how bad WWF was at this time when you had this and Mania 11, perhaps the worst of all time, as your big shows. This was horrible.

Kollision in Korea
Date: August 5, 1995
Location: May Day Stadium, Pyongyang, North Korea
Attendance: 150,000 (Day 1), 190,000 (Day 2)
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Mike Tenay, Kazoa Ishikawa

So a lot of you have heard about the World Peace Festival that Inoki held that had over 300,000 people there. Well this is it. WCW filmed most of it and made it into a PPV. Now this was filmed back in April of 95 but it aired just after the NWO debuted. No idea why there was a delay but it did indeed occur. The crowd here is bigger than Mania 3 and nearly double that so it’s indeed epically huge. The main event is Inoki vs. Flair, so let’s get to it.

First off, anyone find it odd that a festival promoting PEACE is based on a violent sport? That always made me chuckle.

Regarding the crowd, allegedly the people were told to go or risk being shot. Given the insanity of their leaders, that wouldn’t surprise me.

This aired on a Monday. I’m sure there was nothing else on TV at that time.

We’re told that Koreans don’t know much about professional wrestling. Good to know. And yet over 300,000 people showed up to see it. Yeah I’m sure there’s nothing to that rumor of the government forcing the people to go at all. Not a thing. Oh and Sonny Onoo is named Mr. Ishikawa here and is just a normal person.

2 Cold Scorpio vs. Chris Benoit

Benoit is named Wild Pegasus here. Eric talks about how the lives in Korea are as so much is closed off to them and they have never seen anything like this. This really is something to see. New Japan is co-promoting with WCW here so you’ll see a lot of puro in this. This is a pretty choreographed and gymnastics based match to start which the fans applaud.

It’s so strange to see a totally new audience see something like this. If nothing else it’s cool to see their reaction to seeing something like this which they’ve never seen before. Onoo is playing a heel here that only likes the Japanese guys. His voice is very hard to hear as he’s really soft spoken. Benoit hits a jumping tombstone and the headbutt hits on Scorpio for the pin.

Rating: C+. These are hard matches to grade. There are no angles or anything to them as this is really just an exhibition and an attempt to expose wrestling to a brand new audience, even though they’ll hardly ever see it again. That being said, I’m not expecting much from these matches, but it’s nice to see. The grades will be far less harsh based on how these matches are going to be drawn up.

Yugi Nagata vs. Tokimitsu Ishizawa

Nagata you might know from a really boring run in WCW. Eric says they look alike and they’re wearing identical tights. This could be hard. This starts as a submission thing as Onoo talks about how much better this is.

Ok make that most of the match is submission stuff. You can hear the Japanese announcers over the American ones which makes things a bit complicated and hard to pay attention. The announcers are in Tokyo as they couldn’t get into Korea. That’s really hard to believe. I don’t mean they’re making it up but it’s hard to fathom. This isn’t much as far as a match goes but Nagata hooks a Crossface and that’s it.

Rating: D. Even new rankings considered, this was pretty boring. Nagata was a guy that I never could get into at all. To be fair though in four minutes, how much can you really do? Still though, this wasn’t much at all. It was all submission stuff but the commentary was far more interesting.

We see stuff from the buildup to this show, which is a lot of people in choreographed dancing etc. It’s kind of cool I guess.

Masahiro Chono/Hiro Saito vs. El Samurai/Tadao Yasuda

The first team is using Rey Mysterio’s future music. We talk about Chono’s recent heel turn. Samauri is in the mask which should help me remember that. Chono and Yasuda start us off. Yasuda is a big old boy and of course you’ve heard of Chono. Muhammad Ali is supposed to be an important part of this show but we haven’t seen him yet. Apparently this a compilation of two days of matches and we’re just seeing the best stuff I guess. The rest wasn’t filmed.

I figured something like that was the case. I’ve heard a lot about Samurai but haven’t seen much of him. Chono hits the Mafia Kick and of course Eric knows nothing about it. Tony asks if if it’s called an Irish Whip in Japan. That’s actually a good question. Thesz trained Chono. That explains a lot. Chono kicks him low three times in a row and Eric and Tenay try to analyze it. That’s rather funny. Chono hits a shoulder off the top for the pin Samurai.

Rating: C+. Better. This was probably the best match of the night so far because they gave it some time and had heels and faces in there. It was a very basic match but it came off as watchable. Other than this it’s been just random pairings with no story at all. This wasn’t much but by comparison it was solid.

We go to a package of Flair, Inoki, Ali and some other wrestlers touring Korea. This is cool. It’s 15 seconds long but it’s cool.

Bull Nakano/Akira Hokuto vs. Manami Toyota/Mariko Yoshida

This should be good. Bischoff points out the culture shock of this as women have little to no rights in Korea, which is very true. The more famous names here are far more aggressive as we’re told that Nakano is a lot like Vader, who would have been about to main event Summerslam when this aired in America. Well it’s a squash so far. I’m not entirely surprised. The smaller girls start using a lot more speed stuff and it’s far more successful.

This has turned into a pretty decent match actually. We finally start busting out some high spots and it gets more fun. Toyota hits a nice moonsault for two. The heels finally realize they’re about twice the size as the other girls and just beat the tar out of them and Nakano’s leg drop ends it. Also Tenay, the legdrop and moonsault are not holds.

Rating: B-. This was FAR more fun than the rest of the card. Power vs. speed is pretty much the quintessential tag team combination and this one was that to the letter. This was actually a fun match with some good high spots and decent wrestling. I’ve seen some stuff from these four and I’d like to see more. Fun match.

IWGP Championship: Scott Norton vs. Shinya Hashimoto

I’ve heard a lot about Hashimoto and how much better Norton is in Japan. Hashimoto is champion here and comes out to what would become . We get a funny story about Norton having issues in Korea because everyone kept following him and making sure he didn’t break any rules. Hashimoto is like 30 here so he’s young and in solid shape. Norton of course is just a power guy.

Norton beats the tar out of him with basic power stuff but Hashimoto uses a bunch of great kicks to destroy him. Eric is in heaven explaining the physics of kicks etc. They talk about Hashimoto getting training in Canada at the same place as Benoit and Brian Pillman. That place would be more commonly know as the Hart Dungeon. The problem with Eric doing this is that he gets WAY too complex with the descriptions as he calls something like a spinning back leg round kick.

Translation: he kicked Norton in the head and spun a bit. We hear about a charity football game that the AWA held where Norton allegedly beat up Dave Caspar who is in the NFL Hall of Fame. Norton gets to no sell as he invites Hashimoto to kick him. Onoo is REALLY annoying as he talks about how smart Hashimoto is and how bad Norton is. He belongs in the IWC. Hashimoto does have some great kicks. I can’t argue that.

I love the racism from Onoo as he talks about how the Japanese wrestler is better even though Norton was primarily a wrestler in Japan and had the majority of his success there. And let’s hit that chinlock! We talk about bringing New Japan guys to WCW which would happen about 7 months after this. This is a decent match but the size of both guys is kind of hampering things a bit.

Both guys are big power guys and it makes the power moves look weaker as they can’t throw the other guy around as much. We hear about how there has been no press in Korea (note that when I say Korea I’m referring to North Korea every time. South Korea has no bearing on this show whatsoever but I do know the difference) since the end of the Korean War which was about 40 years ago at this point. That’s very bizarre to think of.

This is getting mainstream international press though and while it’s likely that a lot of this is being put on to make Korea look good and isn’t really indicative of what the country is like, it’s still saying a lot that wrestling managed to get inside the country first. Norton hits a top rope splash but the time limit expires as he’s about to win the title. Hashimoto would lose the title to Great Muta about a week or two later.

Rating: C-. Pretty cheap ending but I can understand why they did it. The thing here like I said was the clas of styles. This just didn’t work as far as a good match goes. It was two power guys that didn’t have much chemistry at all. That’s never a good thing but it’s nice to see a title match to give the match a bit of meaning.

We get a video about the festival which more or less was something like the opening ceremonies at the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Hawk vs. Tadao Yasuda

It’s the same guy from the Chono tag match so I’m assuming this is from a different day. Hawk and Animal are big deals in Japan but Hawk usually teamed with Kensuke Sasaki in Japan and the team was called the Power Warriors. They do some sumo stuff and Yasuda loses. Hawk isn’t very good on his own. He misses a top rope splash as Eric is getting into his traditional style. This is a great one apparently. I’m thinking no on that one. A top rope clothesline ends it.

Rating: N/A. I can’t grade a 2 minute match, but if I did this one would be pretty bad. There just was nothing of note here and it was a total squash. Hawk was a big deal in Japan though so that’s fine I guess.

Steiner Brothers vs. Kensuke Sasaki/Hiroshi Hase

The Steiners of course you know and Sasaki would actually win the US Title later in the year. Here the Steiners are actually NJPW guys. That’s a weird thing to see. These teams had a GREAT match at the first New Japan/WCW Supershow. We’ll get to that one soon. So far this is intense if nothing else. No one can accuse any of these guys of not working out there. Well they could but they would be incorrect.

Scott busts out an STF. And yes he knows more than 5 moves. I could watch this Scott Steiner throw suplexes all day. Oddly enough the Steiners are dominating here and are beating the heck out of Hase. Onoo of course says this isn’t important. Hase comes back and hooks a Giant Swing on Rick.

Apparently he’s famous for spinning people around a lot and his record is 44 spins. Ok then. Sasaki might have been in this for 30 seconds. He and Rick fight on the floor and in the ring, Scott hits the Steiner Screwdriver for the pin. For those of you that haven’t seen that move, it might be the craziest move in history.   Look it up.

Rating: B-. We got to see the Steiners look awesome, but this was almost a glorified squash. The Steiners as heels makes for a very odd showing but it pretty much works. The key thing to it is that they’re really good wrestlers and can bust out a lot of stuff when they want to. This is one of those moments. The lack of competition hurt it for me though.

We see Flair and Inkoi getting ready.

Ric Flair vs. Antonio Inoki

Any bets on who wins this one? Inoki actually has an experience edge in this. We hear about Flair’s heel turn that was going on in America at this time which is kind of interesting. Inoki is the protégé of Rikidozan who is like the Hulk Hogan of Japan and was born in North Korea so this is a very symbolic match. This is their first match ever actually so it’s a cool thing.

The commentary is definitely being performed afterwards as they talk about stuff that happened later. We hit the mat to start so we’re going with the basic stuff first. Ali is here and we hear about Ali vs. Inoki in the 70s which is considered to be one of the first mixed martial arts match. The crowd moves a bit for Inoki which is a real sign of respect. They’re very quiet during the matches but would pop for the endings. I guess it’s a cultural thing.

Bischoff talks about going out jogging with Inoki and getting tired after about half an hour due to the pace of Inoki. That’s pretty cool. Flair is dominating for the most part here which is about what I expected to set up the big comeback win for Inoki. Oh like he’s losing in the main event of the show he set up. Flair throws on an STF. Well ok then. Time to work on the leg. Eric talks about how evil Flair must look by trying to make a man not be able to walk.

And let’s talk about Hogan. We’re told that Hogan is better than Flair and so and so, which makes me ask the obvious question: Hogan isn’t here…why? Oh that’s right: he might not get cheered and worshipped. Figure Four goes on but there’s little drama to it. I was looking away to type and they didn’t even mention it going on. And now we punch it out. Inoki punching looks odd for some reason.

Flair goes up and of course it doesn’t work. Bischoff says he thinks Flair might be getting tired. Has he ever watched a Flair match? Inoki was in his early 50s here so he’s likely the one that’s going to get tired. We’re getting more or less a Flair match without much outside of the basics.

That’s fine though as a vast majority of the fans here have never seen wrestling or especially Flair. Inoki Inokis Up and hits a few kicks and ends it with the Enziguri (one of his finishers) to get the pin. Flair comes after him post match but shakes his hand.

Rating: B-. Not bad, but this was far more about closure to the show than anything else. It’s certainly not a terrible match or anything but just not that great. Flair was having his first match in a long time here so he was a bit rusty. The lack of drama hurt it a bit but this worked for the most part and it made Inoki look good which is how this should have ended.

Overall Rating: C. This is an odd one to say the least. The wrestling is decent at best and boring at more realistic. This was far more of a spectacle than a show though and it worked very well I thought. This was about showcasing athletic competition to a whole new audience and on that level it worked.

Also factor in this was part of a festival promoting peace and I think in that respect it worked very well. This is worth seeing if you never have before as it’s a sight if nothing else. It’s about two hours long and it’s on Youtube although that version of Flair and Inoki is clipped. Worth seeing, but not for the wrestling.

World War 3 1995
Date: November 26, 1995
Location: Norfolk Scope, Norfolk, Virginia
Attendance: 12,000
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone

So after the whole mess that was the Hogan/Giant title situation at Halloween Havoc and a few weeks later, the title was declared vacant and put up in a, wait for it, THREE RING SIXTY MAN BATTLE ROYAL!!! (Bear in mind this is absolutely nothing like the Royal Rumble even though it’s exactly like it minus the time intervals. Later on they would drop any and all pretense and just have it be for a title match at Starrcade).

Anyway, this is the first one and it has big mess written all over it. The first problem is there weren’t 60 people on WCW’s roster. What makes this match funny is you’ll get all kinds of random jobbers that are like 55 years old and haven’t been on TV in about 8 years dug out of mothballs and put out there as a “top star”. Other than that…well there’s Sting vs. Flair. That’s about it. Let’s get to it.

Yes there are three rings in there. Ticket sales from the space the third extra is taking up….likely wouldn’t have been sold. Tony picks Hogan. Bobby picks Savage. Bobby had this really funny tendency to pick random people and have them be right. I don’t recall him ever picking a loser and I base that on about two battle royals that I’m thinking of. Bobby already changes his pick.

And now we go, and I sigh as I remember it, to this. Hogan, still in black, is with Sting and Savage up close to the stage. Oh before I get going on this, Sting and Savage are his best friends. Hogan rips off the black and is in his red and yellow. We scale back and there’s a bucket with fire in it that of course Gene doesn’t see until the camera does. And alas, Hogan has something in his hand.

He insists Sting and Savage will always be his friend. We’re T-minus 8 months from the NWO angle beginning. Ok, now we get to the REALLY stupid part of this. Apparently there’s a rumor that Savage has a bad arm injury. Note: Savage had been favoring his arm for MONTHS and it was all taped up for the better part of the summer and fall. That’s legit mind you. In other words, Savage’s arm was actually hurt in real life, and he’s incorporating that into his character.

And yes, I just explained kayfabe to you for a reason other than I’m afraid you’re a bunch of idiots. Hogan then says that Savage’s arm is fine and that the injury was a plan. In other words, he’s saying that the three of them did what Bret Hart did with his bad leg in his feud with Vince recently. Ok, that’s all fine and good I guess. It’s kind of stupid given how long the “plan” went on but I can live with that I suppose.

Sting finally puts the fire out to prevent a Fire Marshall Bill intervention. Hogan says “OBSERVE this” and holds up a piece of paper. Yes, he’s talking about the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, or a rag sheet as he calls it. In other words, Hogan is acknowledging the IWC who hated his freaking guts at this point.

Hogan talks about how the internet has the real scoop on things, since the WON says that Savage is really hurt and that The Giant is going to win the title tonight. In other words, Hogan more or less acknowledged that wrestling is scripted and fake, but says the three of them are going to go against what the script says. WOW.

We recap DDP vs. Badd, which is title vs. Kimberly. Page wants the title back and Kimberly is sick of it. Has there ever been a girl named Kimberly that isn’t hot?

TV Title: Diamond Dallas Page vs. Johnny B. Badd

This was good last month so maybe it’ll be good this month. Around this time, Badd was becoming a wrestler with annoying music and tights and had more or less dropped the flamboyant stuff. It made him FAR more bearable and the fact that his in ring work went WAY up helped him a lot also. He could have had a fluke run in the main event had it not been for the NWO and him leaving.

Page is starting to get into his traditional look here too and less grimy. You know it always felt like these two fought at every PPV and the reason might be that they came close to doing so. For some reason I just cannot get into this match or show. No clue why but it’s just not there. Page in blue and black tights is just odd looking for some reason. It’s weird seeing another ring over the post of another ring.

Kimberly holds up a card that says 10 (gimmick of her’s) for Badd to a huge pop from the audience. Page hits a ton of backbreakers and they’re working pretty well. These two usually had decent matches together and it’s working I think. Badd hits a tombstone for two. In a rather anticlimactic ending, Badd hits his combination finisher for the pin and Kimberly. Ok then. Ending just came from out of nowhere.

Rating: C. Like I said I just couldn’t get into this at all. It’s not bad but it’s far from what they did last month. The ending was just odd like I said. Not a bad match but I’ve seen far more. That and Badd winning again was what you expected. Not bad and a hot woman at the end so there we are.

Badd gives another YOU CAN DO IT speech after the match. That never went anywhere.

Big Bubba vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan

They keep taping up their fists and punching each other. Yeah that’s all there is to it. You can only win by pinfall or knockout here. Duggan chases him down to ringside because that’s the kind of action you want kids to emulate. The fans chant USA for Duggan. You know what I would find funny? I’ve never gotten why the USA chants only work for Duggan. Bubba is from Georgia.

I’d love to see a heel pop up from a USA chant and become stronger than the patriotic face. I mean think about it: just because Bubba is a heel doesn’t mean he’s anti-American. I would find that hilarious for some odd reason. Then again I’m a rather odd person. Tony suggests this match will go 25-30 minutes. That’s FUNNY. It’s either that or scary. Bubba busts out an enziguri. It gets absolutely no reaction from the announcers but did you really expect otherwise?

Bubba works on the ribs. Not entirely sure why but ok. Oh and Duggan had gone through his history and said that he had a family history of taped fist champions. This got a full segment on Saturday Night once. I’m not making that up. Egads. The question comes up of which ring does this have to end in. The announcers don’t actually know and it’s a good question. Bubba tapes Duggan to the top rope which is smart but stupid at the same time.

Ah ok the knockout thing can happen while he’s in the ropes. Got it. Bubba charges at him and gets backdropped to the floor but his back slams into the apron. FREAKING OW! Three Point Clothesline hits and here’s the man formerly known as I.R.S. with a chain for no explained reasons. Bubba gets it and pops Duggan with it for the knockout. Bubba yelling at Bobby to tell the people how great he is sounds very odd.

Rating: D. Not bad for what it was I guess: two big guys hitting each other. Ending makes no sense but that’s WCW for you. Not awful and they had built up a small feud here so I can live with it. Not good or anything but it could have been FAR worse.

Flair is here and talking with Gene. We get the old school Horsemen lines so I’m happy. Flair talks down to Sting and says he’ll get the title back again. To say Flair is popular here is like saying Sly is kind of smart.

Luger and Jimmy Hart have something to say as well. Hart busts out a Savage impression that isn’t half bad. I’m surprised at that one actually. In a HILARIOUS moment, Hart lists off all these reasons why Luger is going to win the world title, much like any manager would do. However, Luger reaches up his hand clearly for a high five from Jimmy. Jimmy though gets into your standard shouting match with a fan and leaves Luger hanging there for about ten seconds and NEVER slaps his hand.

Seeing Luger pose for like ever and then just get left hanging is hilarious stuff to say the least. That cracked me up. To make this even FUNNIER, Luger starts to talk. Now I’m not one to normally notice things in interviews, but Luger could not more clearly be reading off a teleprompter or a script if his life depended on it.

He never looks up at the camera more than once in the interview and his eyes are clearly going back and forth reading stuff. He had no problem looking into the camera when he was posing so it wasn’t some “I don’t care at all” thing. This was one of the funniest segments I have ever seen and not a thing of it was intentional, which I think is what made it all the funnier.

Bull Nakano/Akira Hokuto vs. Mayumi Ozaki/Cutie Suzuki

What in the world….? Seriously, this is just thrown onto the card with NO explanation other than they’re great wrestlers that are here in WCW. There was a Women’s Championship in WCW but that wasn’t for over a year. I’ve heard of all four of these names but have only seen a decent amount of all but the third name listed. I’m going to have issues with keeping the second team apart as I know next to nothing about them.

Bull and Akira are heels here and are managed by one Sonny Onoo, who would become a big time player here in like a month or so, but more on that later. Basically Nakano is an unstoppable monster and the heels do whatever they can to hurt her but it doesn’t really work. The idea of this more or less is that the faces have to try to beat Akira because Bill would snap them like a popsicle stick. They hit a pair of stomps from the top in a nice spot. That would hurt something fierce.

Crowd is warming up to this one quickly. Hokuto nearly gets her neck broken with a German suplex that was SICK. Nakano comes in and the massacre begins. We go to the floor for a bit but Bull and Akira hit a Doomsday Device followed by a guillotine legdrop to end it. I think Ozaki is dead. Apparently they did this the next night again with the same result. Ok then.

Rating: B. This was a pair of things: random and AWESOME. This came out of nowhere, wasn’t advertised at all, and was more or less never mentioned again. This makes no sense though as it was just freaking sweet. Sadly enough they really weren’t heard from again. Pay no attention to the Japanese invasion angle that was coming next month either that they would be perfect for. This is very odd indeed but we got a sweet match out of it so I can’t complain.

US Title: Kensuke Sasake vs. Chris Benoit

Benoit is a Horseman here and Sasake is champion here because of the aforementioned Japanese invasion angle that’s coming up soon. He beat Sting of all people in Japan for the belt and held it for like a month and a half. Benoit is that guy that went out there and stole like 4 shows in a row so they put him in the Horsemen because they saw the potential in him. Sonny is back for this one again.

Hokuto from the last match is married to Sasaki for you Japanese enthusiasts. Apparently Heenan sold half of WCW to Onoo. Ah apparently he had no right to do that so the deal doesn’t work. The announcers say the fans want the title back in the USA. That’s why they’re cheering for the Canadian. WCW announcers make me feel smarter. Benoit is still good but Sasake is only ok.

The problem is that I don’t think a lot of people know much about Sasake, meaning most people don’t care about this match. The problem compounding with that is that the match is rather boring. Benoit with the long hair is a good sight. Also he’s so young here but they know how great he is even then. Sasake is more or less all power and nothing more.

You could call it a contrast of styles to a certain extent but at the same time not really. Crowd is totally dead other than like 4 people. Onoo does some commentary here to again set up the angle a bit more. This angle is one of the most intriguing one ever but we’ll get to that one at Starrcade. Benoit busts out the Germans which mean nothing at the time. Benoit throws in a tombstone for good measure.

Heabutt hits but it’s 1995 so it doesn’t get a pin or a reaction. He throws out a rana and it’s total dominance by Benoit. Tony makes this dramatic statement that the last American to hold the title was Sting. You know, the guy that held it TEN DAYS ago. Sasake basically is no selling all of Benoit’s stuff and hits a Northern Lights Bomb (Snowplow) for the pin.

Rating: D+. This was just a weird match. For one thing, Sasake is rather pestering. I looked him up and it hit me as soon as I saw the name. He was a member of the Road Warriors in Japan. The style is very similar. Anyway, this match had no real flow. They started out pretty even and then Benoit dominated. Then Sasake just no sold stuff, hit two moves and won. Not terrible I guess, but this was just odd. Crowd hated it too.

Kevin Sullivan and the Giant say what you would expect them to say. Giant is REALLY bad on the mic at this point. “Roses are red, violets are blue, I’m gonna kick your butt to Kalamazoo.” WOW. Did anyone ever explain why Taskmaster (what kind of a name is that anyway?) wore red and yellow?

We recap Savage vs. Luger, which more or less boiled down to Savage didn’t trust him. For once, his paranoid delusions were right and Luger did turn heel at Halloween Havoc. Savage won there, Luger won on Nitro thanks to interference from Giant. That’s about it.

Savage says he’s going to win both matches. This took forever of course. Savage saying he’s always jittery and how that’s part of his charm is rather funny for some reason.

Randy Savage vs. Lex Luger

And remember, Savage’s arm is FINE. Hogan and Savage have both said it, so ignore the massive bandage on his arm. Savage jumps him early as you would expect him to. Apparently everyone wants to be world champion. Heenan finally asks why Savage has a BIG FREAKING BANDAGE on his arm. Tony of course ignores him. Heenan point blank asks and Tony just won’t answer.

Savage gets a messed up beyond belief Boston Crab which he used last PPV. Well it’s a new move so I can’t really complain about a guy expanding his arsenal. We hit the floor for a bit. Savage throws him in the ring, goes up and the elbow hits like two minutes in. Ok then. Hart distracts of course since he’s a great manager. Luger is tossed again and manages to put the rack on Savage on the floor.

Not sure why but he did it anyway. Savage is out cold and Luger throws him back in. An armbar on a perfectly good arm mind you, ends it. Savage just passes out so he doesn’t tap but still, he lost to an arm submission when his arm was FINE. That’s why 95 in WCW was odd: Hogan and company made no sense.

If the whole IT’S FINE thing hadn’t been said, this would make perfect sense. Naturally we can’t have that though so there we are. Post match Sting comes down when Luger won’t let go. He whispers something to him and Luger lets go. Never was explained.

Rating: F+. This was very odd. I’m not sure what the idea was here but it came off oddly. This was like 5 minutes long and made me scratch my head. Who was supposed to look good here, because Luger got his head kicked in and would have been pinned in 2 minutes and then Savage got beat completely cleanly in like 5 total minutes. What was this supposed to be again?

We recap Sting vs. Flair. More or less, Flair was getting beaten down a lot and asked Sting for help. Sting more or less said you screw me over and I’ll kill you. Not really obviously but you get the idea.

Sting vs. Ric Flair

Why Sting didn’t just stay in the ring is beyond me but whatever. Sting of course beats the tar out of Flair to start and Flair runs to another ring. Ok then. This is almost face vs. face as Flair is in Flair Country and Sting is the most popular guy in the company. Naturally Russo would spend his life trying to turn a face that big heel right? And here are Sherri and Colonel Parker for no apparent reason.

Flair tries to walk and that of course doesn’t work. Sting gets taken down twice by the hair and nips up both times. That was cool looking. Is there anything this guy can’t do? Sting goes for his diving splash to the railing and of course it doesn’t work just like it never does at all. Every time Flair chops him, Sting gets stronger. Flair of course keeps chopping him. We switch rings for like the 5th time and Flair starts in on the knee.

We show Parker and Sherri again for no apparent reason. Heenan has a weird respect for Sting. Young heels, take note of Flair. He does such simple things and they make him a great heel. For instance, he asks the referee how much time is left then throws Sting over the ropes.

Totally illegal, but so simply done that it came off as instinct from Flair. Figure Four goes on and like an idiot, Flair slaps Sting. Nick Patrick pushing Flair is always funny. Sting starts his comeback, hits a top rope suplex and the Scorpion for the submission.

Rating: B-. It’s Sting vs. Flair, making it one of the pairings that starts off with a higher grade than most matches get. These two had insanely great chemistry together and this was no exception. It’s not one of their better matches but it did what it was supposed to do as it ended the mini feud they had going on. Can’t ask for more than that.

Heenan says no one that has wrestled already tonight will win the title. Ok then.

We recap what led to this which I’ve been over already. There will be a giant in every ring: Yeti, the Giant and Hogan. Hogan as a giant just sounds weird.

Hogan says what you would expect him to say. And I mean he says it for a LONG time. This takes like 2-3 minutes when it could have taken one.

Tony and Bobby have the belt. Even though Giant won it, it still says Hulk Hogan. That’s just amusing and sad at the same time.

World War 3

Arn Anderson, Alex Wright, Brian Knobbs, Ricky Santana, David Taylor, Scott Armstrong, Sting, Joey Maggs, Pez Whatley, Disco Inferno, Meng, Stevie Ray, Mark Starr, Buddy Lee Parker, James Earl Wright, Lex Luger, Eddy Guerrero, Cobra, The Giant, Paul Orndorff, Khris Kanyon, Bobby Walker, Bobby Eaton, Chris Benoit, Randy Savage, Marcus Bagwell, The Yeti, Kurosawa, Hugh Morrus, Zodiac Man

VK Wallstreet, DDP, Scott Norton, Brian Pillman, Craig Pittman, One Man Gang, Super Assassin #1, Mr. JL, Bunkhouse Buck, Kensuke Sasaki, Mike Winner, Hawk, Shark, Steve Armstrong, David Sullivan, Scotty Riggs, Johnny B. Badd, Black Bart, Steven Regal, Dick Slater, Maxx Muscle, Super Assassin #2, Fidel Sierra, Kevin Sullivan, Jerry Saggs, Jim Duggan, Booker T, Big Bubba, Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan.

If I’m right then the first twenty of that list are in one ring, next in another and the last in a third. No clue which is which but whatever. There are three teams of commentators: Tony and Bobby, Larry Zbyszko and Chris Cruise (I don’t know him either) and Dusty and Eric. Let’s get this over with as the word mess could be defined as this.

First of all there are three cameras and the screen is cut into three small shots. We’re not told which is which. Not that it matters as you CANNOT SEE A THING! Seriously, they’re so crowded and so small you can’t see anything. Once we get a ring down to ten they go to other rings until there are 30 left and they all go to one ring. That makes PERFECT sense right? Having 30 people at once in a ring couldn’t go bad could it?

Ok so Eric and Dusty have ring 2. Tony and Bobby have ring 1 and the other guys have ring 3. Got it I think. Cruise is trying but he’s annoying. Keep in mind this is all pre stuff and the match hasn’t started yet. I’m just killing time until everyone gets to the  ring. Buffer calls it the best battle royal ever. They’re going to show the 92 Rumble? Ok now he just needs to shut up so we can get through the end of this. Ah there we are. Oh wait we have to do a ton of pyro first.

Ok ring 1 is the center ring. Got it. Hogan is there. I think Sting and Luger are in ring 2 with Giant. That puts Yeti in ring 3. Hawk fights Hogan. That’s very weird when you think about it. The problem becomes clear early on: FAR too people being eliminated. We have no one gone in the first minute or so. Never mind as Yeti is gone. Everyone goes after Savage but that doesn’t work of course. Hogan and Flair are on the floor fighting.

That’s another thing they improved on later as people keep going through the ropes and under them, making it very confusing. MIKE WINNER IS OUT!!! A bunch of heels go after Hogan. Guess how well that works. This three camera thing is idiotic. Knobbs puts Mark Starr out. See what I was talking about when I said too many jobbers? Three guys are out of ring 1. Hogan gets ganged up on again and does a nice thing of punches to get out.

That was far faster than I’ve ever seen Hogan throw them. Bagwell and Kanyon are out so there are 17 left in ring 3. Stinger Splash hits someone as Black Bart is out. Anderson and Luger are fighting on the floor but they’re both in still. Benoit and Savage are fighting. That’s a good sounding feud. Imagine that in 98 or so. Another jobber is out. Giant goes off and puts like 3 or four out at once which was really badly needed.

Sting vs. Giant is a fun feud. That ring is thinning out a bit. Ring 2 in case you care. In ring 1 a guy is taken out on a stretcher. Shockingly, all of the big stars are still left. Ring 2 is being broken up as we have ten left there. They went into ring one, so ring 2 is eliminated I guess you would say. Instead of dropping us down to two cameras of course, we stay with three. Brilliant.

Benoit hammers on DDP which is another solid sounding feud. Wallstreet is out, more commonly known as IRS. Norton is gone too. That’s enough and we head into the first ring as we have approximately 30 left. Screw the rules I guess. Savage beats on DDP. It’s about 2 years away but that was a great feud. Everyone beats on Hogan with Zodiac choking him with his boot. I say choking when I mean putting his foot about a foot from Hogan’s throat.

You can see the tights between the gap. That’s pitiful. Pittman, like an idiot, puts a cross armbreaker on a guy. Pillman goes after Hogan. That’s just odd to see. 29 to go apparently. Bubba and Duggan put each other out. Dave Taylor vs. Hogan is weird to see. Luger has been on the floor for the majority of the match. That’s kind of smart. Screw the kind of part actually. It’s brilliant. Disco is out. Hogan vs. Booker T is ANOTHER weird combination.

Now why did these guys never get to fight Hogan other than in a massive mess of a match? Jerry Sags and Booker are both out. That puts us at 23 and you can see the ring FAR more clearly now. Savage and Luger fight in another ring, and when I say fight I mean do nothing of note. Regal is gone as Hogan and Giant start fighting. DDP and Badd go out together. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Pittman is out and we’re getting low on people now. Benoit is gone. 16 left. It’s mostly big names and a few midcard guys left. Kurasawa is out. He doesn’t get to sit on the throne of blood with the title I guess. Meng is out. Zodiac is gone. Sorry for just listing names off like that but there isn’t much else to say. Morrus is gone and I think that’s 10 to go. Bit more than that actually. Pillman is gone.

Hogan puts Hawk and Sasake out. That gives us ten left: Hogan, Orndoff, Gang, Luger, Savage, Giant, Sting, Guerrero, Flair and Anderson. Not bad. Orndorff remembers its’ 1995 and is tossed. The Horsemen go after Eddie but he gets out of a spike piledriver. He and Arn do a nice sequence. Naturally Eddie would do nothing for a LONG time after this. Flair gets a figure four on him for good measure. Savage tries to slam Giant but since HE ISN’T OVERLY STRONG it doesn’t work.

Eddie is out and we have 8 left. Savage is referred to as a former world champion and then chokeslammed. Hogan puts both Horsemen out, confirming that he is indeed better than you. The final six are Hogan, Savage, Luger, Sting, Gang and Giant.

Since getting rid of Anderson and Flair at once wasn’t enough, Hogan puts out Sting, Luger and Giant AT THE SAME TIME. Sweet goodness  this gets ridiculous at times. Giant pulls Hogan to the floor but no one sees it. Savage dumps Gang out to WIN THE TITLE! Sweet. Oh look Hogan is upset. You put Arn Anderson, Ric Flair, Sting, Lex Luger and The Giant out inside of 40 seconds. BE HAPPY!

Rating: F+. This was more or less a disaster. The camera work is the biggest issue here. It is AWFUL. You flat out cannot tell what is going on for the majority of this stupid match and that just doesn’t work at all. That and the ton of jobbers being in there. I mean seriously, Pez Whatley? Cut this down by 15-20 guys and it’s FAR better. Other than that though, this was awful.

Post match, Gene comes out to talk to Savage, and, and I can’t believe this, HOGAN WON’T LEAVE!!! Yes, to everyone’s shock, Hogan throws a fit about how he should be champion and how he didn’t go out and how there is a cloud over Savage’s reign. Savage more or less says he’s champion and get over it. I love that.

The fans boo the heck out of Hogan here. For some reason Hogan says that we can look at the tape tomorrow on Nitro. Why not just look at it now? I mean you’re both here so why wait for a whole day? That’s WCW for you I guess. Anyway, Savage and Hogan make up for the thousandth time and after Tony and Bobby talk for awhile, we’re out.

Overall Rating: D. This was a one match show and the one match SUCKED. Like I said, you flat out could not tell what was going on at all. It was awful. This was WCW in a nutshell: big flashy match with no substance and hope that no one notices that it sucks.

Savage winning was a nice twist though as he wasn’t really expected, but Hogan complaining was just fitting for some reason. Other than that though, the show just wasn’t that great. It’s not bad really, but there’s nothing worth going out of your way to see at all. Decent stuff, but nothing great. Take a pass on this one unless you love ridiculous gimmick matches

Halloween Havoc 1995
Date: October 29, 1995
Location: Joe Louis Arena, Detroit, Michigan
Attendance: 13,000
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone

So we plow on through 1995 as I want to finish this year and get to the NWO stuff. Anyway this is a rather infamous show as we have a double main event: Hogan vs. The Giant for the WCW Title and Hogan vs. The Giant in monster trucks. Yeah I know what you’re thinking. Anyway, this is a show I remember kind of fondly from when I was seven. Now I’m 22 so let’s see how bad it really is. Also on here we have Sting and a freshly face Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson and Brian Pillman, and we know that can’t go wrong at all right?

Also on the preshow, Paul Orndorff beat Renegade, the previously unstoppable machine, in about 80 seconds. Also we had three guys that had just recently signed with the company: Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit. Sadly enough this show is only 15 years ago and of the five men mentioned in this paragraph, Orndorff and Malenko are still alive. Eddie died of heart failure despite being in great shape, Renegade and Benoit killed themselves, and Orndorff is so injured he can barely move. Wow indeed.

WCW really was hilarious with how overblown their Halloween stuff was. It’s pure camp and it’s hilarious. So Hogan has gone to the dark side, shaving his facial hair and wearing all black. Yeah whatever. Remember we’re still about 8 months from the NWO at this point. Hey a big arena is actually full! I’m stunned too. Oh I forgot: the truck think is on the roof of the building next door.

BREAKING NEWS!

Flying Brian and Arn Anderson have apparently beaten up Ric Flair. That’s just amusing.

Tony wants to know why Heenan has been eating sushi. That’s actually foreshadowing.

We recap Johnny B. Badd and DDP. So if you remember the last show, Badd won a title shot against Sting. We have the match, but Badd is nowhere to be seen. Brian got the shot instead but lost. Badd showed up at the end of the show and says he had a flat tire. Gene says he could have called. Just whip out your cell phone the size of a brick and call Johnny. DDP showed up and said that he should have gotten the shot. His bodyguard says it must suck to have four flat tires. Johnny realizes something is up because he only said it was one flat tire so he punched Page. It was never explained WHY DDP would have messed with Johnny’s car but whatever.

TV Title: Diamond Dallas Page vs. Johnny B. Badd

Apparently Sting isn’t here yet so he doesn’t know what happened to Flair. Seriously, how do these people get away with being late to work all the time??? This is being written about two hours after Lockdown went off and Bischoff got to the arena at like 1030. HOW DOES HE HAVE A JOB??? Can you imagine if you showed up to work on a huge day two and a half hours late minimum?

A fake Johnny B. Badd comes out but the real one comes through the crowd to jump him. Tony says this started with a bang. That’s just amusing given what Page would become. Ok hang on a second. Earlier on we saw the two monster trucks dueling a bit. Apparently that was Hogan and Giant driving. So they just get together and ram trucks together? Also note that they were already welded together. Keep that in mind.

In a funny spot, Patrick asks Badd if he pulled DDP’s hair. Badd replies by shouting YOU MEAN LIKE THIS and pulls DDP’s hair. That’s just amusing. Heenan says everyone has been talking about the PPV, even the pilot on his plane. WOW. Tony says DDP likes controlling his matches. Wow I thought he liked getting his teeth kicked in. You can’t buy commentary like this.

And we hit the chinlock. Maxx Muscle slaps the mat while the fans are chanting for Badd. Yeah Page had a tendency to have stupid managers. We do some more stuff and hit another chinlock. At least there’s a theme to this match. Just to be clear: Bobby Heenan will NOT be managing the Detroit Tigers. Ok then.

After Badd makes another comeback, he throws Page to the floor with no explanation for the lack of a DQ other than that’s not the planned finish. He even busts out what would become the basis for the 619. Maxx Muscle interferes but screws up and the big punch ends this.

Rating: C. This was one of those matches that was just kind of there. It’s not particularly good or bad but rather just long. It’s not terrible by any means but it just happened. Badd vs. DDP would be a feud for a good while until he got fired/left for WWF as Marc Mero.

We talk about the monster truck thing to kill time.

Randy Savage vs. Zodiac

Zodiac has what would become Rey’s music soon. It’s Brutus Beefcake being able to only say yes or no. Yeah it didn’t work. I’m stunned too. Ok so apparently Luger and Savage have to win their matches earlier in the night to get a match with each other tonight. If just one wins then…nothing happens I guess. Well ok then. I love that rock version of Pomp and Circumstance.

Savage jumps him early and is dominating. A fan runs into the ring and stays in there for like 20 seconds with the referee just owning him. Security gets rid of him as Savage wins with the elbow in less than two minutes. This was supposed to be Kamala but he left the company. No one else noticed. Total squash so no rating.

Badd says that he believed he could do this and he did it. This is supposed to be emotional or something but it just isn’t. Gene mentions singing Tutti Frutti in a bar. It’s far funnier than it sounds.

Kurasawa vs. Hawk

This was an odd choice. On Clash of the Champions, Kurasawa broke Hawk’s arm and this is the rematch. No one got this feud or why Hawk was wrestling singles matches or who in the heck Kurasawa was other than a good movie makes. Hawk jumps him like you would expect him to as we get going. Hawk gets his one wrestling move, the neckbreaker.

Crowd is into Hawk if nothing else. He even busts out a powerbomb and a gutwrench suplex. Total dominance here. Parker interferes so Kurasawa can take over. He misses a top rope elbow and Hawk takes over again. He was in trouble for MAYBE 4 seconds. Big old clothesline puts the heel on the floor.

On the floor Hawk is rammed into the post, taken into the ring, Kurasawa hits two Samoan Drops and puts his feet on the ropes for the pin. I have been reviewing shows for over a year now and I have NEVER seen a match that made less sense. This was never mentioned again. Hawk destroyed him until that ending. No sense at all.

Rating: WTF. I have nothing else to say for that. Hawk looked like he was beating up a jobber and he loses? No rating again but dude, what the heck were they thinking here? Why did Hawk have a singles match here anyway? WCW continues to boggle the mind.

Savage says he’s going to make sure Luger wins. But let’s talk about Hogan instead.

Mr. JL vs. Sabu

JL is short for Jerry Lynn in case you didn’t know that. And yes, it’s the same Sabu. The reason he’s here is he’s the Sheik’s nephew and Sheik was the king of Detroit back in the day. Lynn is in a mask here. WOW it’s weird hearing Sabu being talked about by Tony. Also that sounds like La Parka’s future music but I’m not sure. Both guys are in purple which is odd to see. They do all kinds of flying around ringside with Sabu doing all kinds of crazy dives etc.

We even get a Bobo Brazil reference to make this even more off the wall. This is pretty good for today’s standards despite being sloppy, but for 1995 this was INSANE. I mean remember, WWF was running stuff like Mabel vs. Taker at this time so having Lynn vs. Sabu on a major PPV was ridiculous.

Sabu wins it with a moonsault and Sheik throws a fireball at Lynn and hits him in the mask. Ok then. Heenan freaks over this and wants to know how to do that. Don’t ask Hogan. He tried it once and it didn’t work at all.

Rating: B+. Somewhat above average match, but considering the timeframe, this was insanity. Rey was nearly a year away from changing the whole idea of what cruiserweight wrestling was, but everyone knew this kind of stuff rocked. Sabu can be passable when he’s not trying to do a garbage match, and this is an example of that.

We talk about Hogan/Giant for a bit and go to the Master’s Lair to hear from him and Taskmaster. I would ask how we get a camera and electricity in there, but it doesn’t need to be asked. Why is that you ask? BECAUSE THE LAIR IS IN THE ARENA. Ok, let’s think for a minute. We have Kevin Sullivan and his master, an old man, standing in the arena with no apparent protection. Is there a reason why Hogan isn’t out there bashing their heads in with a chair?

I mean, I get that his friends are all busy, but can’t he fight off an old man and Kevin Sullivan on his own? This is something that I mean when I say idiotic storylines that go beyond suspension of disbelief. I have no idea what Master is saying here. Something about an eclipse or something. I wonder if he looks like that at the airport. Oh we get a mention of the Yeti. We’ll get to that one later. And now let’s talk about the trucks. The fans are booing the heck out of this. Let’s end this now.

Lex Luger vs. Meng

So if Luger wins here, he gets Savage later. Ok then. The fans pelt Sullivan with garbage. I knew I always liked Detroit. During Luger’s entrance we get a HILARIOUS sight joke that if you know your history is great. There’s a graveyard set due to Halloween and one of the graves says Crockett. If you get that joke, it’s hilarious. If not, it means nothing at all. Meng gets his head rams into the buckle and….it works? Come on man, learn your stereotypes!

Luger was rocking the mullet at this point which is just amusing. Meng busts out a small freaking package of all things. Well that was unexpected. Luger works on the right arm. Wow that’s weird to type. I know the common complaint about guys like Cena is they only know five moves, but I think Luger might break that. He might only know four: punch, clothesline, slam, rack. Oh wait: he uses an atomic drop. Dang I thought I had him there.

Meng is a weird case as he was someone that they seemed ready to push for like 3 and a half years but they never pulled the trigger on. Odd as he could have been perfect for a quick heel run near the title. Not saying he should have gotten it or anything, but a run against a top face was certainly within the question. Oh yeah: the NWO happened. He hits a chinlock, which is better than the nerve hold I guess.

Apparently the Dungeon of Doom is recruiting Luger. Yeah I don’t remember it either. We talk about Heenan talking to Sonny Onoo. That’s more foreshadowing for Starrcade which was a very interesting show. We’ll get to that soon. Meng gets his Golden Spike and Sullivan runs in and kicks Luger to give him the win. Ok then. Apparently it’s a method of getting Luger to fight Savage. Ok then. Yeah it’s odd but it kind of makes sense in a way.

Rating: D+. Again, it’s long but not very good. Also the ending was just rather annoying. Not particularly bad, but it’s just there. Luger was boring as always, but this needed to lose about 4 minutes and it makes it FAR better. This wasn’t that interesting but it certainly was long.

Gene is with the Giant. He literally doesn’t make it up to his shoulder. That’s just amusing. Giant taking the mic and Gene’s hand with it is funny stuff as Gene tries in vain to get out of his grip. Giant is pretty funny here as he’s like 23 years old and about 100lbs lighter than he is today.

Arn Anderson/Brian Pillman vs. Sting/Ric Flair

So basically before Fall Brawl, Anderson and Flair had been fighting. Pillman gave Andersont he win by kicking Flair in the head. The next night on Nitro they had a rematch in a cage and Anderson and Pillman beat him down. Flair got Sting to help him, but Flair got jumped before the show so it’s a handicap match to start. Sting is US Champion here if that means anything to anyone at all.

Sting of course saw nothing wrong with this plan at all. The fans want Flair. Sting does a great job of fighting on his own for awhile but after about five minutes here comes Flair! He’s in street clothes and the fans like him. There’s a massive bandage over his head and Sting is in trouble now. The heels go old school and bust out a Rocket Launcher. Again, a few people will actually get that.

The idea here is that Sting can’t make the tag no matter how hard he tries. We get a stupid spot where Pillman gets a half crab. Ok, that’s fine. Pillman is pulling back on the leg to apply pressure right? Anderson reaches out his hand for extra pressure. One thing: Arn is pulling the opposite way. Wouldn’t that, like, take pressure off of Sting? Flair runs in for a save and gets a HUGE pop.

One thing though: he never actually gets a shot in on either heel. That doesn’t mean anything….does it? Sting is screaming for the NATURE BOY! Does Sting want to ride Space Mountain? This is fifteen years ago and Flair still has a bad looking chest. That’s amazing. Sting FINALLY makes the tag and the place erupts. Wait for it. Wait for it. FLAIR DRILLS STING! Sting snaps but he gets beaten down. Flair is of course fine as Gene waits on the ramp for Flair.

The two not named Flair hold up four fingers and Flair reforms the Horsemen. A guy named Benoit would be added soon. Pillman would be gone by about April though and they would replace him with Mongo a few months later. And we couldn’t get those four vs. Sting, Luger, Savage and Hogan in WarGames…why? Yes I know why but I like complaining.

Rating: B. This is ALL angle and while it’s predictable, it’s classic Horsemen. This was the right move to make as it all came off as a great angle and the whole thing worked very well I think. This is a lot based in taste for me so don’t go looking for a great match here.

I love the Horsemen and their shenanigans as this was a great throwback to the 80s with the group beatdown. Pillman never quite fit but Benoit certainly did so there we are. Also it’s funny seeing Sting get beaten down due to being an idiot. Sting vs. these two is hardly bad either.

Luger wants Savage.

We recap Hogan vs. the Dungeon. Basically it’s your standard Hogan vs. Monster and Giant hurts Hogan’s neck. They shaved his mustache and he started wearing black. This naturally started up a war of monster trucks. You see the connection don’t you? I mean it’s clear as day isn’t it? And then on Monday we did something that I don’t want to talk about for as long as I can so we’ll spare it for later.

We come back to the announcers’ table and Bischoff has replaced Tony since Tony had to go play with his hamster I guess. We talk to the guy that made the truck. Yeah no one cares. Apparently the truck weighs 11,000 pounds with 6 foot tall tires.

We go to the roof and a few things to note. First of all, Hogan stands about 7’8 apparently as he TOWERS over those “six foot tall” tires. Second, the rules are you have to get both sets of axels out of the ring, which is 100ft in diameter. Ok, fair enough. Third, we’re going to weld the trucks together. Pay no attention to the fact that they were welded together earlier (this was taped the night before but that isn’t mentioned).

Also for no apparent reason, in this ring we have two charges that will go off if you run over them. Yes, allegedly, on the roof of a building, there are BOMBS that will go off if a truck runs over them. The idiocy here is off the charts. Let’s get this over with.

First of all, we waste a few minutes welding the trucks together. Allegedly these trucks run on alcohol. So wait. There are BOMBS, as in EXPLODING FIRE, near alcohol based fuel? And this company made money??? Again, someone was PAID to make this up. That’s sad.

Oh and they have co-pilots so they’re only driving one set of axels. Hogan gets put halfway out but makes the save. Hogan’s truck has a flag kind of thing that is supposed to be the bandana I guess. One of the bombs goes off and my head hurts. Ah I think I know why Tony left: he has integrity. And Hogan wins of course. Somehow, the idiocy is just beginning.

Giant gets out of his truck and goes after Hogan, and the champ goes back towards the edge of the building. They fight some more up on the ledge and Hogan accidentally knocks Giant OFF THE ROOF. Yes, this was on a major Pay Per View broadcast by a major wrestling company. Hogan’s acting here makes Mr. Nanny look like De Niro. The monster truck dude has to sit here and not break up laughing. That’s just awesome.

And after the apparent death of a wrestler, let’s have a match!

Lex Luger vs. Randy Savage

Man it’s a lucky thing they won their matches and that this is all they had left other than the main event isn’t it? And thus begins a grand WCW tradition of “we’re going to talk about something else entirely while this match is going on.”

Tony: For a minute let’s talk about this match. They make it about 8 seconds. This will apparently be on the front page of every newspaper in the world tomorrow. After some uninteresting wrestling, Jimmy Hart comes down for no adequately explored reason and Luger gets run into him. Elbow ends it.

Rating: F+. This was like 5 minutes long and I don’t remember any of it. That’s never a good sign. Just a total filler here as was the majority of the rest of WCW’s upper midcard around this time. There was this big mystery angle and all that jazz and it never went anywhere.

Heenan wants to know what’s going on and he leaves to go find out. We recap, as in reshow, the Hogan/Giant thing. Tony tries to keep from cracking up despite of Heenan’s overacting.

WCW World Title: The Giant vs. Hulk Hogan

They introduce Giant first but Hogan comes out instead, all in black and sans facial hair. Wow that’s odd to see. Was Hart being Hogan’s BFF ever explained? Giant of course walks out with no explanation at all. In what might be the funniest thing that I have EVER seen in wrestling, the camera shoots back to Hogan just in time for him to turn to the camera and blankly stare while his mouth hangs open in awe.

I laughed out loud for a LONG time. I mean the timing was better than you could have planned if you tried forever. This was hilarious stuff to say the least. Heenan sounds orgasmic over this. His hatred of Hogan stayed forever if nothing else. Hogan has black horns painted on his head. Uh….deep?

He can’t slam him though. Oh and Giant is allegedly Andre’s son. Heenan: Eat Hogan like you would eat villagers! Ok then. Giant hooks a test of strength once Hogan is on his knees already. You know that might be more effective if your muscles were flexing or if you had ANY torque on them.

Heenan says he’s never seen Hogan wrestle in anything other than yellow and red. Odd that he’s seemingly managed against him in blue or white tights but what do I know? Giant is destroying him here. Hogan makes a comeback to some SOLID face pops and knocks Giant to the floor. Taskmaster tries to get Giant to leave but Hogan, like an idiot, stops him. Giant gets a SWEET backbreaker. Hogan was WAY in the air for that and it looked awesome.

Heenan points out how stupid Giant is for not going for Hogan’s bad neck. Give the guy a break Bobby. I mean he just fell off the freaking roof! The bear hug goes on and Tony cracks me up by making it sound like it’s perfectly normal to come back after falling off a roof. Even in kayfabe this is ridiculous. With the paint knocked off Hogan’s head it looks like there’s a Triforce on it. And back to the bear hug. He powers out but walks into the chokeslam. He powers out of that too.

He Hulks Up and the usual puts Giant down, but the referee goes down too. The fans say Jimmy did it. Just to add to the stupidity of this match, when Hogan is yelling at Hart, you can see Giant stick his head up three separate times to see what’s going on. Even playing devil’s advocate and saying he’s playing possum, you don’t have a 7’ monster playing peek-a-boo!

Anyway, Jimmy hits Hogan with the belt but Giant saves him. And it’s bear hug time again. Luger and Savage come out. Luger of course turns heel and….here it comes. This is the thing I didn’t want to talk about all night. On the previous Nitro, the Master had said he had a surprise. At the end of the show, a random block of ice blew up and a mummy came out of it. Yes, I said a mummy.

They called him a Yeti, but he’s a large man wrapped in bandages and tape. What the heck would you call him? With Giant having him in a bear hug, Yeti comes up behind Hogan and more or less dry humps him without actually hurting him at all. It’s Reese from the Flock if you care who is under there.

Luger puts Hogan in the rack to something resembling a pop. They dry hump Savage and rack him too. Giant wins by DQ because he was Hogan’s manager when he hit the referee. They announce that the title can’t change hands on DQ.

OR CAN IT?

Yeah in this match, Hart slipped a clause in, stating that the title CAN change hands on a DQ, so the Giant is the champion. They would strip him of the title in like two weeks and put it up in the inaugural World War Three Battle Royal, which is complete nonsense as Hogan lost the title via a stipulation in a contract he signed without reading. That’s not Giant’s fault but whatever. Hogan and Savage are helped out to end the show. Heenan crying from happiness is funny.

Rating: D. This was a Hogan match with a big angle to end it and nothing more. Giant wasn’t capable of doing much here as he was just a 23 year old kid that had like 5 matches under his belt but he was 7’0 tall, athletic and could talk. I’d push him hard like that too.

Anyway, this wasn’t that good but it was Hogan fighting a monster which was what he was best at so I can’t fault them there. A bit long with FAR too many bear hugs but to be fair Giant had no experience and no real style set yet. He would get a lot better. Yeah this was his WCW debut. I’d say this was fine given the circumstances then.

Overall Rating: F+. Uh…yeah. This show sucked and it sucked bad. The highlight of the show is EASILY the Horsemen thing. Outside of that it’s a bunch of WTF moments with bad wrestling mixed in. This just didn’t work at all and it came off really badly. The whole thing was about Hogan and Giant, which is fine, but the roof thing wound up going nowhere.

It wasn’t mentioned at all in the last 20 minutes of the show and it was never explained at all. In short, it wasn’t needed at all. Just a lot of stuff here that made no sense at all and it didn’t work. Bad show, but a ton of moments that are considered classic bad ones here.

Fall Brawl 1995
Date: September 17, 1995
Location: Ashville Civic Center, Ashville, North Carolina
Attendance: 6,600
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

So this is about two things: WarGames and Arn Anderson vs. Ric Flair. Now this is important for a few other reasons as to begin with, Nitro has debuted at this point so we have a TV show on a night other than Saturday. With that show, Luger is here now. On the preshow, Hogan was on a motorcycle the fans gave him and Giant tried to run over him with a monster truck. Sadly it missed. Let’s get to this.

Brian Pillman vs. Johnny B. Badd

This is the number one contender match for the US Title. Badd was constantly opening shows, but this match is special as you’ll soon see. Those Frisbees are really stupid though. His intro takes like 3 minutes after the bell rings, just for him to throw stuff to the fans. And then Buffer talking about both guys takes even longer. Is wrestling such a hard thing to do?

Pillman gets booed actually. That’s most odd. They feel each other out to start which is a fine way to start so there we are. They start off with some solid stuff which is always a perk. This is a pretty fast paced match so far which is a good sign. Heenan cracks me up by saying that Badd is like Sting’s cocker spaniel because Sting trained him. We have a Bobby the Brain Heenan For President.

Heenan of course bashes him, but says he would appreciate a donation. Heenan is on fire tonight. They go to the mat again which is hurting things a bit. They plug Nitro tomorrow which would be the third show in history. That’s very odd indeed. We go to a wide camera shot which makes sure not to let us see the camera side, which I would bet is about 10% full.

Tony offers some insight by saying the far leg is the leg that is furthest away. Yep I love him too. Pillman goes heel here by throwing a punch. He would soon snap and go full heel but more on that later. Badd gets a weird submission hold where his feet are under Brian’s shoulders and he’s pulling back on his arms. That would hurt quite a bit I’d think. Brian is getting booed more and more.

See what something simple like just a straight punch can do? Brian hits the floor as this is getting good. A springboard legdrop gets two for Badd. It’s kind of sad that the fans are just wandering around when there’s a solid match going on because that’s what they’re so used to from WCW. That can’t be a good sign. With Badd on the floor we have five minutes to go. The over the top rope rule continues to be changed every show as Badd suplexes him over.

And now he jumps over the top to take Brian out as they crank it up again. Johnny goes for a double axe from the top but jumps into a dropkick with four minutes to go. Brian gets a Tombstone with 3 minutes left. Even the WCW crowd is into this so how much does that tell you about this match?

And we hit an armbar with 2 minutes to go. Ok then. And now Brian does the same. That’s kind of stupid. There’s a minute left and we’re in a rest hold. Yeah that’s brilliant. Badd gets his big punch with 20 seconds left but Brian is in the ropes. A springboard clothesline gets two for Brian and we’re out of time. The fans boo the that out of the building.

BUT WAIT!

There must be a winner, so we go to sudden death! It’s one fall to a finish so the sudden death term is kind of pointless but we get more of a good match so there you are. Heenan has never heard of this. Really? We go to the floor and it’s a slugfest. Badd uses the same dropkick counter on Brian that got used on him earlier. And that is what you call psychology.

We get a double count which is idiotic given the must be a winner idea. Heenan says no one has tried the one thing that could win: a pipe wrench. I love that. Pillman gets a sleeper which is smart after over 20 minutes of hard wrestling. We talk about the main event where Heenan seems to fantasize over someone turning on Hogan. A sunset flip off the top gets a LONG two for Badd. Crucifix is countered into a back slam.

This is a great match in case you can’t tell. Hurricanrana from the middle rope, which was an epic move at the time, gets just two for Badd. Tornado DDT, Pillman’s finisher, just gets two. We go BACK to the floor where Badd hits a somersault plancha over the top which he nearly misses and Pillman is out. He goes for a slingshot splash but Pillman gets the knees up for a block. We’re over 35 minutes into the broadcast and we’re still in the opener.

The overtime has been a solid match in its own right after a great opening 20 minutes. They get back in the ring and freaking FLY off the ropes about three times each before both go for cross bodies but Pillman lands on Badd’s knee so it’s almost like a backbreaker which is enough for the pin to blow the roof off the place. Well as much as that small of a crowd can do at least.

Rating: A. GREAT match. This is what two young guys can do when they’re given a ton of time and can show off. This is pretty easily Badd’s best match ever and it’s one of Pillman’s best. Somehow though, that’s not even Brian’s best PPV opener. That’s hard to believe. Find this match as it’s worth watching.

Flair talks about growing up as a wrestler with Arn and how they are so much alike. To say the blowoff for this at Halloween Havoc was great is an understatement. One thing though: Flair says the Horsemen were masters of the WarGames. Did they ever win a televised one? Flair says the problem is that he loves Arn, but one of them is going to have to explain to their son why one is better than the other. GREAT interview.

Sadly, the show is more or less downhill from here.

Cobra vs. Craig Pittman

So Cobra is more famously known as NWO Sting but here’s he’s an ex-CIA agent. And he’s a pro wrestler. Sure why not. Pittman is an ex-marine or something. And he’s not here. Apparently there’s a really stupid backstory here that isn’t important. No Pittman, but here is his private.

Ignore that he’s Prince Iaukea minus being an islander or a Prince at all. Pittman then repels from the ceiling. Yes, a guy is repelling from the ceiling to fight a fake Sting. There’s irony there somewhere. I have no clue who is face or heel here but I don’t think it matters. This is maybe a minute long with Pittman winning with a cross armbreaker. It was worse than it sounds.

Rating: F. This was just idiotic and WAY over the top to call it a no rating. Just stupid as all goodness and NO ONE cared. Waste of time and money. Oh and the arena is now 15 stories high. Sure why not.

We talk about Paul Orndorff having issues with confidence. We see him ranting to himself with no issues about having a camera there. And here’s a television psychic with a big white afro to talk to him. And Orndorff once main evented a show in Toronto in front of 60,000 people. How is this possible? This is just idiotic and Orndorff was gone soon enough anyway. The acting here is about as bad as you could imagine.

TV Title: Diamond Dallas Page vs. Renegade

So more or less, one of these guys was supposed to be a big deal and bombed and one was supposed to be a joke and became a big deal. You can figure out which. Page jumps Renegade to start. In a great line from Bobby: “This is a new DDP. This man has energy. This man has vision. This man is…flat out on the floor!” Dang he is cracking me up tonight. Kimberly is getting ticked off at having to do what DDP said.

She would get far hotter when she straightened her hair. Renegade just can’t do much and on top of that, no one liked him. It’s mostly DDP in control here as even though he’s very green, he’s FAR better here. They point out that this is the longest Renegade match ever. That’s just not a good sign at all. To be fair though, Rob Terry is doing the same thing today and he seems to be a success.

Renegade makes his comeback with no one caring. Hart is freaking out on him as we hear again how WCW is number one. Page gets a sweet jumping DDT for a counter though which helps things out a lot. Maxx Muscle goes after Hart so Renegade jumps at him. He grabs Renegade’s foot to allow the Diamond Cutter for the pin and DDP’s first title.

Rating: D. This was the right decision about a million times over. Renegade just was not any good at all and DDP was rapidly getting better. They had to make the change to someone. This was one instance where they saw the writing on the wall and just pulled the plug on a terrible angle.

We talk about Sherri and Colonel Parker and Tony is absolutely losing it on camera.

WCW Tag Titles: Bunkhouse Buck/Dick Slater vs. Harlem Heat

The talented tag team is challenging here. The idea here is more about the managers though as apparently they like each other. The match is going to suck though. Oh and along with this, we only have Arn/Flair and War Games. We’re an hour and five minutes into the show. That simply can’t be a good sign. I also have issues with a guy names Dirty Dick. Also, they gave THESE TWO the tag titles after like 5 months of Heat vs. Nasty Boys?

I don’t like the Nasties, but they’re light years ahead of these morons. Booker and Slater start so at least the one good wrestler in the match is starting us off. Slater is one of those good old southern boys that allegedly was really talented but never shook either the southern stigma or the lack of talent to get over. Crowd is deader than Booker’s career at this point. Again I love how two hicks like this are supposed to be trained wrestlers.

There’s something amusing about that. Yeah the idea here is that Sherri has a bump on the head and isn’t herself. Somehow this was put on national TV as a mainstream wrestling company with angles like that. Wow indeed. Apparently Dick Slater is one of the best wrestlers in the history of the sport. I can barely laugh at how stupid that is.

On the floor the managers are playing this messed up cat and mouse game that is just rather creepy. The fans prove they’re still alive with a short and incomprehensible chant. It’s weird hearing them talk about Booker as a power guy. That’s most odd indeed. Heenan seems like he wants to talk about Buck being undressed. Ok then. The heels are controlling most of the match here.

You can tell the match itself is pretty awful as I’ve barely talked about it. I’m trying very hard to think of anything else to talk about so that I don’t have to actually pay attention. Fact: I used to have this tape and this match cured my insomnia over a summer. I didn’t sleep regularly for a month but this match put me to sleep in five minutes. That’s saying something. We talk about WarGames to kill some time.

This match needs to end BADLY. And trust me, since this is WCW< I’m sure that will mean both possible things. Stevie gets the I guess you could say hot tag to get the crowd to do nothing at all. And here is that finish as Parker and Sherri get into the other ring and kiss. At the same time the Nasty Boys are here and rip Slater’s boot off to smack him in the head with it to give the Heat the titles. While this is happening, Sherri and Parker are still kissing. I hate this show.

Rating: F+. This was just terrible. The ending sucked and the match was worse. Who thought that Buck and Slater were the best options? Seriously, the American Males were on the preshow. They’re not the best in the world by any stretch of the imagination but they’re better than Buck and Slater. It’s stuff like this that is freaking idiotic and gave WCW the bad name it had.

Buck is ticked at Parker and lets him know. We’ll ignore the fact that he is perfect coherent and only has a mild southern accent despite allegedly being a mindless tough guy. Parker says he feels like he’s 20 years old and is in love. Oh dear. This went more or less nowhere as they managed the Heat as co-managers for awhile until they realized Booker had real talent and gave him a push.

Halloween Havoc is coming. Oh man that show. It might be dumber than Uncensored 96 if you can believe that.

Arn Anderson is with Gene as we see a package about this feud. Basically, Flair had used Arn as a guy to do his dirty work while Flair was obsessed with Hogan. It got to the point where they lost a handicap match to Vader. That’s insane when you think about it.

Yes, this is the time where Flair became the insane man that is obsessed with Hogan that he is now. Back in reality, Arn says that this has to happen even though he loves Flair, but win lose or draw, he’s going to respect himself in the morning and Flair is going to respect him. Ok, there is no way at all this can’t be awesome.

Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson

Ok, now this is actually cool. Arn always dominated the lower card to midcard while Flair was always world champion. Why did Arn never get a shot? Something interesting to note is a Flair 3:16 sign in the crowd a full 9 months before Austin gave him famous speech. A bunch of wrestlers are here to watch this. For old school fans, this is a very odd match indeed. It’s scary how much darker Anderson is than Flair.

Heenan says Flair has been a jerk. Now that’s not something you’ll hear often. Anderson goes to the arm which is his normal thing. And let’s blame Hogan for this to make sure he’s mentioned in most of if not all of the segments. This is a very slow start but that’s all fine and good I think. This is a huge match that can do what it wants.

They get a lot of counters and technical stuff in there as the announcers ask why Arn never got a shot. Oh and they try to make it sound like WCW was the company that went worldwide first. I’ll let them have that because even they can’t believe that one. They simply can’t. Arn gets a weak sleeper as the fans don’t know who to cheer for here. It never ceases to amaze me how simple things like arm work can do so much for a match.

Ok again Tony says that Flair is Arn’s cousin. This is a common thing to be said and for the maybe 3 people that don’t know otherwise, it’s true. Flair is Anderson’s cousin by way of their aunt Clotilda. Not true but I wanted to work the name Clotilda into a review for various psychotic reasons. Flair was often billed as a cousin to the Andersons back in the old days as a way to validate them being partners. That’s where that comes from.

It really is cool to see two guys that know each other this well FINALLY have a match. Flair goes up and actually gets his shot. That’s amazing to say the least. Heenan gets on too much of a rant and says that if Flair gets the figure four on then the referee will have to stop it and if Arn DDTs Flair….well that’s another story but neither guy will give up. That got a laugh out of me.

The knee drop completely misses but is sold anyway. Arn just goes off on Flair in the corner and it’s awesome. I love how sometimes Bobby gets on a roll and Tony has to just ignore him due to how out of left field some of the stuff is. Flair takes over for awhile with his usual stuff. There’s a feeling to this match that you just don’t get that often. Flair gets stuck in the Tree of Woe and Arn chokes away.

It’s hard to tell if Arn is being evil or if he hates Flair. DDT is blocked. Arn calls a spot to Flair on a two count. Figure Four is almost on but Arn blocks the leg. Never mind it didn’t work. Flair spits at him and Arn is FIRED UP. Crowd is WAY into this.

With Arn holding his knee, Brian Pillman of all people gets up on the apron and they trade punches. Pillman kicks him in the back of the head and Flair staggers into the DDT for the pin. This would be explained in solid detail, especially at Halloween Havoc so I’ll spare you the spoilers.

Rating: A-. Just a great match that felt like a bit match. Did you really expect this match to not be awesome? It was as great as you would expect it to be as Arn got to show that he could have a great match against a guy like Flair and beat him. That’s something he never really got to do and it needed to happen. Great match.

Taskmaster gives a messed up interview about Hogan. Just wait until you hear the lineups here and you’ll see why no one really cared about this match, despite how great of a gimmick match it is.

Now for those of you that don’t know the rules, here you go. You have two teams of four men. A guy from each team is sent in and they fight for five minutes. Then there is a coin toss to determine which team gets to go in next (the heels literally never lost this).

This gives the team that won a 2-1 advantage which lasts for two minutes. After those two minutes pass, we get a member from the losing team in to make it 2-2. After two more minutes, we get another member from the team that won. They alternate every two minutes until we have all 8 in. Then it’s first submission wins.

We get a recap of the feud including clips of the segment where the faces BLOW UP A BUILDING.

The face team talks about how they all have drank Agent Orange so they can’t get hurt. Hogan calls the Dungeon of Doom the Dungeon of Goom. Is that supposed to be an insult? I’m actually not sure.

WarGames: Hulkamaniacs vs. Dungeon of Doom

Dungeon: Meng, Kamala, Shark, Zodiac
Hulkamaniacs: Hulk Hogan, Lex Luger, Sting, Randy Savage

Gee, thing it’s one sided enough??? Luger replaced Vader who jumped to WWF a week earlier. They say a stipulation has been added where if Team Hogan wins, he gets 5 minutes with the Taskmaster in the cage tonight. They announced that earlier but maybe the crowd didn’t know yet. Now remember, we have Hogan, Luger, Sting and Savage, a WCW All-Star team vs. Kamala, Haku, Brutus Beefcake and Earthquake. Yeah this is a main event apparently.

Ok to be fair, this is the major feud in the company in their signature match so that makes sense. I have no issue there. I just don’t think this is the best they could do. Why not Flair and Anderson with two other guys? It would at least be more interesting. Sting and Shark start us off. More or less Sting massacres him as you would expect. Shark finally gets some offense in after Sting goes for a slam like the idiot he tended to be.

Sting is one of my favorites ever, but he did some DUMB stuff at times. In a funny spot, Shark goes to the end of one ring and after a running start, JUMPS OVER THE ROPE. However he doesn’t make it all the way as he gets stuck on the two sets of ropes over the gap in the rings. What a visual.

With 30 seconds to go before another guy comes in, Sting goes for the leg. With three seconds to go the Scorpion is on. The heels win the toss (naturally) and Zodiac comes in. In a cool spot, Sting grabs the top of the cage and pulls himself up and kicks Zodiac in the head. Sting does what he can but there is too much fat in there.

Savage comes in to tie it up. Like a crazy man he tries to suplex Shark. Are we really supposed to believe Sting and Savage can’t handle these two? The cage isn’t that great so Savage’s leg is hanging out of the cage and the heels are beating on it. His partners ignore him of course so there we are. Kamala comes in as it’s 3-2. Has Kamala ever won a big match? I don’t think so.

Luger makes it 3-3. There just isn’t much to say about this match as the periods are too short to really get anything going. Also the face team is so ridiculously stacked that there’s no drama whatsoever. Luger accidentally hits Savage to attempt to give us some drama as Meng comes in to make it 4-3. Ok now why would Meng hit Luger there? Savage is using energy and hurting Luger so why stop him? The heels dominate for the rest of the period and here he is.

Hogan is the final guy in of course and he has powder. Not only does he have a far better roster of guys but he comes in and cheats. That’s Hogan for you I guess. Naturally he beats up the four guys more or less on his own when Sting, Luger and Savage combined couldn’t do it. That makes perfect sense right?

Heenan says this is like Bosnia. Even Tony stops him on that one. It’s just total domination here as you would expect. This is totally boring at this point as there is no way the heels are winning it. And Hogan gets a TERRIBLE camel clutch on Zodiac for the submission to win.

Rating: D. And that’s with an elevated rating due to it being WarGames. This was just AWFUL as it was so painfully boring. There was never any drama at all. I mean look at the rosters. Would you believe for a second that Hogan’s team was ever going to lose? Of course not and no one bought the heels as having a chance. It could have been worse I guess. Ok no it couldn’t be. One of the weakest WarGames ever.

Sullivan fights Hogan now in really just a beating rather than a match. Everyone else is gone at this point so keep that in mind. Sullivan is nearly a foot shorter than Hogan. It’s very amusing to see. And here’s the Giant to sneak up on Hogan. He jumps over the ropes as he was just awesome at this time.

He does something to Hogan’s neck which put him out for awhile before the inevitable match at Halloween Havoc. Sting, Savage and Luger run out for the save as Hogan is hurt to end the show. Heenan is freaking happy to say the least.

Overall Rating: C+. This is a show where various things give and take from it. You have two GREAT matches, a non match, a title change that had to happen, a terrible title match, and a terrible main event but FINALLY something different to end the show.

This could have been FAR worse had they not had their great stuff in there like they did. Two great matches and a horrible main event make this mostly passable I guess though. Definitely check those two out as they’re great and combine for nearly an hour of the show. Other than that, take a pass.

Wrestlemania 11
Date: April 2, 1995
Location: Hartford Civic Center, Hartford, Connecticut
Attendance: 16,305
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jerry Lawler
America the Beautiful: Kathy Huey

Oh goodness, we did have to get to this eventually didn’t we? If you remember my review of WM 9 being the worst WM ever, I should have said it would be the worst for the next two years. This show is one of the most interesting in wrestling history from a reaction standpoint. From the fans’ perspective, this show is what’s played on a constant loop in the seventh circle of purgatory, minus the WWF Title match.

The number one issue I have right off the bat with this is that it’s from Hartford, Connecticut. Seriously, HARTFORD??? Wrestlemania has broadcast from New York, LA, Chicago, Toronto, Las Vegas, and now HARTFORD? It just doesn’t sound right. Another factor here is that there’s a whopping total of 7 matches. What’s the main event you ask?

Would it be Shawn Michaels getting his first WWF Title match since becoming a main eventer against his former bodyguard Diesel? Nope. We get Bam Bam Bigelow who was wrestling a clown last year against Lawrence Taylor, a former football player and current contestant on Dancing With The Stars. The sad thing is, I’m not making this up. The weird thing though is, this show allegedly brought the WWF back into the war with WCW.

The ratings were decent and it got the company the main stream exposure it’s looking for. Think of it like the modern day TNA: the hardcore wrestling fans like us mostly hate it, but the common fans eat it up. Go figure. Anyway, let’s get on with this so I can look for a hammer to apply to my head.

The opening video is about various Manias through the years which tends to be a theme in these opening videos.

Your celebrities this year are Pamela Anderson (actual celebrity), Jonathan Taylor Thomas (Randy on Home Improvement. Another child star that did nothing.), Jenny McCarthy (Mini-celebrity now, she was at the last SNME so points for that I guess), some guy from NYPD Blue, and Salt N Peppa, who hit on Bret Hart which just looks ridiculous. A special Olympian sings America the Beautiful, and it’s time for our first match.

Ok not quite yet as we get a very interesting chat from Vince and Jerry about what Wrestlemania is.  You don’t get to hear that much from Vince.  It’s short and sweet but it got the point across just fine.  NOW on to the match.

Lex Luger/British Bulldog vs. The Blu Brothers

No that’s not a typo, it’s spelled Blu. These guys have the gimmick of being two incredibly hick brothers from the mountains. You know them better as D.O.A., the Harris Brothers, or those two big white bald guys that are in every promotion on the planet. My goodness how far has Lex fallen in a year? He’s going after the WWF Title and next year is curtain jerking in a tag match?

The twins are named Jacob and Eli in case you were so bored you were actually wondering. Lex and Davey go by the name the Allied Powers. That delayed vertical suplex by Davey never gets old. It’s nothing short of amazing. Definitely like the fact that Bulldog’s tights are about 3 sizes too small.  Oh yeah we have a match to get to.

For some reason the Brothers come down second.  The Brothers try to jump them which winds up in a pair of powerslams for them.  Note that this is just a powerslam and not The Powerslam by Bulldog so it’s just a normal match.  Bulldog is in trouble early on as the power of evil double teaming has him hurting.

A double big boot puts Bulldog down as Luger is just worthless on the apron here.  The fans aren’t incredibly impressed.  Jerry says that Bulldog has only lost once at Mania which isn’t true as he lost at both #3 and #4.  Luger comes in and the fans pop just slightly.  I guess the jump back to WCW was the right move indeed.  Another powerslam gets no cover.

The loaded forearm gets two as the other twin makes the save.  Uncle Zebekiah gets drilled and it’s Twin Magic time.  One twin goes for a powerbomb/Piledriver but Luger makes a blind tag, allowing the Bulldog to hit a top rope sunset flip for the pin, prompting a fireworks display to go off.

Rating: D. Not bad, but just there. It’s nothing special at all and I’m not sure how many people really cared.  The crowd was about as dead as I’ve ever heard for a Mania opener, and that’s including The Executioner vs. Santana back in 85.  Wow I feel old for writing that.  Anyway this was pretty bad and could have been on any Superstars show back in the day.

Jim Ross talks to the Uncle who says this is what they deserved for being in the big city.  They pinned the wrong guy and that’s not the last you’ll see of the twins.

The NYPD Blue guy is with the Million Dollar Team (DiBiase’s stable of mostly jobbers) when he’s supposed to be in the dressing room of Pam Anderson but the mic doesn’t work. As an aside, during the show Lawler accidentally knocked some cords loose and he and Vince had to redo the entire commentary on the show from watching video. Due to that, the commentary you’ll hear on these matches isn’t live at all.

Lawler describes football as a game where eleven men spend hours trying to move a small object 100 yards, which is just like the post office.  What that has to do with this is beyond me but it sounded good at the time.  Oh it’s about the NFL guys here for the main event.

Intercontinental Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Razor Ramon

No real story here other than they’re feuding for no apparent reason. Jarrett is in his country music gimmick here and even the Fink sounds bored out of his mind here. Jarrett won the title at the Rumble thanks to the Roadie (Road Dogg in case you didn’t know that) interfering. 1-2-3 Kid and Ramon are in the back and say that Ramon is ready.

Razor was so over back then it’s insane. Vince makes a weird comment saying that Ramon knows where he is at all times. Not sure why that’s a compliment. Don’t most people know where they’re located? It’s either a Vince line or a rib that 3 people get.  Razor is all over Jarrett to start this off.  Jarrett hits the floor and Razor gets to shoot off his pyro.  He gets about three covers in the first 2 minutes, all off punches.

Double J may have hurt his tooth.  Rollup gets two for Razor.  Roadie saves Jarrett from the Razor’s Edge and Jarrett tries to leave but the Kid is waiting in the aisle to stop that. Five minutes in and JJ’s biggest move has been a hard Irish whip. You know for all of his detractors, Jarrett can wrestle quite well. I’ve always wondered why he didn’t get the recognition as a star that he deserved.

Jarrett tries to get on offense but can’t get anything long term going at all.  He gets thrown to the floor again as the crowd dies all over again.  Jeff gets some dropkicks in and here comes the guy from Tennessee.  We hit the chinlock and the fans get going a bit.  At least it’s a fast one as Razor gets a backslide for two.  Sleeper goes on Razor and again it lasts just a few seconds.  Oh hey here’s another chinlock to keep us interested.

This match just isn’t flowing. It’s like they’re working move to move and it’s showing badly. In a really stupid looking sequence, they both hit the ropes and hit head to head. Then they get up and hit the ropes again and both punch each other. It’s more or less the same spot twice in a row. Just looked stupid. This referee is counting ridiculously fast too.

Fallaway slam gets two.  Discus punch gets Jeff down.  Can Razor do anything else besides punch and go for the Edge?  Razor hurts his knee going for a top rope bulldog, which is the same knee that was hurt THREE MONTHS AGO at the Rumble. Of course it’s still sore. Why wouldn’t it be?

Figure four by Jarrett as the Roadie pulls on Jarrett’s arms for more leverage. I’ve always wondered about that. How does it make it hurt more? I love how Razor’s knee is hurt badly, yet he can pick a 230lb man up, sit him on the top rope and belly to back suplex him from it without his knee giving out.

He gets him up for the Razor’s Edge but Roadie chop blocks him for the DQ. Post match, all four men brawl. JR asks Jarrett about his cheating and Jarrett says he’ll always be the IC Champion. If by always he means until he jumps to WCW and then back to the WWF, loses to Chyna after being hit by a fish and then is banned from the company because Austin hated him, they yes he’ll always be champion.

Rating: D+. This was WAY too many punches and rest holds. These two have had far better matches before, such as at the Rumble. Razor probably had 90% of his offense from throwing punches.  Jarrett wasn’t anywhere nearly as serious as he should have been at this point and that change wouldn’t come for many years.  Definitely a weak match from them.

Since there was no audio earlier, let’s redo the exact movements from the interview earlier on. Pamela Anderson is nowhere to be found. Shawn and Sid say that Diesel is afraid.

Todd Pettingil gets in a 3 point stance with a football player and that’s all there is to this pointless bit.

The Undertaker vs. King Kong Bundy

This is the result of a mini feud with DiBiase and Kama over the Urn being stolen for about the 12^th time.  A baseball umpire is refereeing the match for no apparent reason.  Bundy charges straight at him to start but that gets him nowhere.  Old School can’t take him down.  A bunch of clotheslines finally put the bald man down.

Bundy knocks him to the floor and Taker gets the Urn back.  Now of course Bundy is in big trouble as Taker is all ticked off.  Here’s Kama (Godfather) to steal it back again.  This is going as fast as I’m typing it so it’s not like I’m skipping over a ton of stuff.  Taker grabs Kama’s face but Bundy makes the save and Kama escapes.

Ross grabs an interview with Kama who says he’s going to melt it down and make a chain out of it and put it around his neck, which he wound up doing.  Bundy chokes away in the corner, showing off his vast array of offensive talents.  This referee is rather bad at counting.  Bearer plays cheerleader to try to get Taker out of a chinlock.  Avalanche hits in the corner but Taker is no Special Delivery Jones so it has no effect.  A slam and the jumping clothesline of all things end this.

Rating: F+. Oh man this was bad.  Taker was completely lacking direction at this point and it was painfully obvious that they had no clue what to do with him.  He would feud with Kama for a bit before feuding with King Mabel for a bit until FINALLY Mankind debuted to give Taker something to do long term.  Terrible match.

Oh look, the NYPD Blue guy still can’t find Pamela Anderson.  Steve McMichael says he’ll take down Kama.  The rest of the All-Pro Team says they’ll take care of the Million Dollar Team.  The NYPD Blue guy does find Jonathan Taylor Thomas beating Bob Backlund at chess though.  I never thought I’d have to type that.  Backlund’s rant about the world being screwed up is hilarious.

Tag Titles: Smoking Gunns vs. Owen Hart/???

Owen has a mystery partner here. The Smoking Gunns are a great example of the failure of tag wrestling during this time period. They were definitely talented, but absolutely no one cared about them. They’re practically forgotten but were one of the most successful tag teams from this time frame.

As you probably know, the partner is Yokozuna.  Oddly enough the partner comes out before the Guns, the champions, do.  This is of course about Bret somehow because Owen is completely obsessed with Bret.  Yoko weighs a few tons by this point and is straight up waddling to the ring.  The Gunns say they don’t care who the partner is.  Billy with a mullet and a mustache is freaky looking.

More fireworks for the champions here.  What’s with that tonight for the tag teams?  Owen and Billy start us off.  That’s the most talented combination out there I guess.  Apparently Owen and Neidhart were eliminated from the tag tournament to determine the #1 contenders so this is a result of that.  The Gunns work on the arm of Owen to start which lasts only a few seconds as it’s off to Yoko.

The leg drop misses and Yoko takes over again.  And never mind as it’s back to Owen again.  Cornette is yelling at the fans which is one of the more entertaining parts of the show.  Double Russian legsweep to the Canadian by the American cowboys.  Yoko gets sent to the floor as we’re in the Colossal Connection formula here: Owen does the vast majority of the work while Yoko is brought in as the heavy hitter.

Apparently Men on a Mission have turned heel on the Gunns.  Riveting indeed and unfortunately it set up King Mabel.  The Gunns hit a modified Sidewinder (side slam/legdrop combination) for two on Owen.  Yoko comes in and gets the legdrop on the back of Billy’s head to more or less kill him.  I’m surprised Yoko has been in the ring this long.

LONG nerve hold by Yoko on Billy to waste a lot of time.  Yoko misses a legdrop and Bart comes in.  Everything breaks down and Billy gets killed by a belly to belly from the fat man.  Banzai Drop ends Billy and Owen gets the pin for the title, which might be his first in the company if that’s possible.

Rating: D+. Eh just a tag match here.  The Gunns were boring beyond belief and Yoko was so fat that he could barely move at all.  This was simply to have a title switch on the show much like the first show in the series.  Boring match and somehow the best one so far I think if that’s possible.

Bigelow says he’ll destroy Lawrence Taylor.  There was a Mania Work Out and they had a skirmish there too.  This feud never really got going for me but the media actually paid attention so there’s that I guess.  This interview takes forever and nothing special is said at all.

Bret Hart vs. Bob Backlund

This is an I Quit match with Roddy Piper as referee for no apparent reason.  Vince says Roddy knows something about submission.  What in the world would that be anyway?  This was their second submission match technically as the other was a throw in the towel match that had to end in submission if I remember right.  Piper would be Commissioner by the next Mania.

Backlund is more or less crazy here which was rather impressive given how completely different he used to be back in his glory days.  I’m still mad about not getting Bret’s glasses when I was a kid.  The annoying kid next to me got them.  I did however get a Slaughter helmet.  Bret gets a headbutt to start and the fight is on.  Sharpshooter can’t go on early.

Vince doesn’t remember Piper losing to Bret at Mania 8.  Some fan he is.  Bret goes for the Sharpshooter again and can’t get it.  You couldn’t tell that from Vince as he keeps changing his reaction every five seconds.  “Yes!  No.  Yes!  No.”  Is he the Zodiac or something?  Figure Four goes on but Backlund reverses it.  Neither guy says they quit as we get a quick check-in with the German commentators for no apparent reason.

Bret works the knee again as this is rather boring.  Piper needs to quit asking them if they quit so often.  Backlund works on the arm as I try to find a good novel to read so I don’t have to watch this for awhile.  Backlund hooks a Fujiwara armbar and Bret says No to Piper.  That was a shocking line then apparently which is amusing given that in an I Quit match in 99 with HHH vs. Rock, HHH said Suck It when he was asked if he quit.

Backlund likes that armbar.  Jerry talks about breaking into a pyramid (what the heck?) and seeing a picture of Stu Hart with a headlock on King Tut (where does he get these jokes from?).  Sharpshooter almost goes on but Backlund gets to the ropes before it gets cinched in.  Bret charges again and his shoulder hits the post to put him in real trouble.

There’s the Crossface Chickenwing and Bret is in trouble.  And never mind as he casually reverses and gets a horrible version of it on Backlund for the submission.  You know, from all that devastating work that he did on Backlund’s arm the whole time.  This was an awful match if you didn’t get it.

Rating: F+. This was really bad. Backlund was just flat out too old to be a serious main event threat by this point and while Bret was sharp as ever, Bob just didn’t have it in him anymore. Bret has called it the worst match of his career and he might be right. Backlund’s I saw the Light thing led to an angle where he would run for President of all things. As you can guess, it went nowhere.  Also, having a Bret match lack any and all psychology is very weird indeed.

Backlund is leaving and says he saw the light.  This would mean he became a Presidential candidate.

Ok, the NYPD guy was annoying at first. Now he’s just making me mad. NO ONE CARES.  They’re changing the celebrities around.

More audio issues as Todd tries to talk to Diesel. He finally says that he’s going to keep the title. He slips up when he’s trying to say if he’s going to regain or retain the title and finally screams HOLD ONTO IT. This was back when Nash was actually really good and got the reputation he’s lived off for years now.

Celebrities are introduced as Jerry Lawler reveals he accidentally unplugged some cords.

WWF Title: Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel

The deal was supposed to be McCarthy came out with Diesel and Anderson, who was viewed as ten times hotter and more important than McCarthy (nonsense) would come out with the Rumble winner, Shawn. For obvious reasons, this got reversed. The NYPD Blue guy is the ring announcer and he’s miles better at this than he is as an interviewer. He shouts almost everything he says and for the sake of this, it works really well.

The story here is Diesel was Shawn’s bodyguard but realized he was awesome on his own so he turned face and won the WWF Title. Sid replaced him as the bodyguard and the exact same thing would happen in about a year. Shawn has finally morphed into the character that would make him a legend by this point.  As weird as this sounds, Diesel is a freaking beast at this point. Sweet intro, the music was cool, he has Pamela Anderson, just the complete look. What in the world happened to that?    Anderson simply couldn’t want to be here less if her life depended on it.

Shawn hammers away to start as we’re already into the power vs. speed area.  Diesel had been champion since a few days after Survivor Series so he had almost 7 more months with the title here.  Diesel sends Shawn to the floor as we look at the ladies.  Sid distracts the referee but Shawn can’t get in a shot on Diesel.  Suplex puts Shawn down.

Back to the floor again as Sid and Diesel stare each other down one more time.  Diesel counters a sunset flip as this is more or less one sided so far.  Nash gets sent to the floor but Shawn Skins the Cat and dives down to crush Diesel.  Baseball slide has the champion in trouble.  We look at Anderson again and sweet goodness does she want to be anywhere else but here.

The fans loudly chant for Sid, thus proving that this entire match is booked wrong.  Shawn hits a splash off the apron to the floor as Diesel is in trouble.  Back in the ring Shawn stomps away and hits a bulldog for two.  I’ve never liked that move at all.  Reverse cross body off the middle rope gets two again.  Shawn works on the arm and gets a LET’S GO SHAWN chant in his honor.

Ok make that he’s working on Diesel’s ribs.  A top rope elbow to the back gets two in what is for some reason a highlight reel clip for Shawn.  Never really have gotten why but it certainly is.  Off to the chinlock now as the fans still like Shawn better.  Diesel fights back and gets Snake Eyes to get some momentum going.  Flair Flip in the corner and Shawn hits the floor again.

Nash follows and it’s time to see Shawn’s tights pulled down as is the tradition for big matches he’s in for no apparent reason.  They slug it out on the floor and the referee twists his ankle getting down.  I guess it wasn’t an Attitude Era thing.  Back in the ring Shawn gets Sweet Chin Music but there’s no referee which would be a factor in Shawn’s reasoning as to why he lost.

It gets two and the fans boo loudly on the kickout.  Sid goes to an old school heel move and rips off the turnbuckle pad.  Diesel gets a suplex to avoid being rammed into it and both guys are down.  Shawn gets an arm over him for a long two as the fans aren’t seeming to care much here.

In a slick counter, Diesel catches a bulldog off the middle rope in a side slam.  Nice move.  Shawn circles Diesel but gets his legs tripped from under him.  Diesel goes old school with a slingshot into the exposed buckle.  If only that had actually been where he landed, as Shawn’s head hit the middle buckle instead of the top one.  Big boot and Jackknife end this anyway.

Rating: B. As you can tell, I really like this match. It’s not famous at all but it’s definitely solid all around. There was a story with the ribs, a controversy that would lead to rematches and a clean ending. The match also got enough time to put on something decent and it showed. Shawn was clearly coming into his own but still wanted to prove himself. Solid effort all around and a very good match.  These two had some of the most forgotten great matches of all time and this is one of them for sure.

Shawn and Sid complain to Ross and say it’s not over, which it wasn’t.  The celebrities celebrate with Diesel forever and Nash gets both chicks.

Shawn complains even more in the back.

Lawrence Taylor vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

If you have never seen a person die and you want to…actually if you want to I’d recommend psychiatric help. But anyway, right here you’re about to see a man’s career die right in front of your eyes.

Here it is. Let it be known throughout the universe and all the world, that the reason that WM 11 is called the worst WM of all time is this match and this angle right here. Here’s the idea: for those of you that don’t know, LT is one of the best football players of all time, bar none. He was at the Royal Rumble in the front row and Bigelow shoved him, leading to this.

Instead of the WWF Title being on the line in the main event of the biggest show of the year, we get a retired football player against a barely upper midcarder that was about 8 years past his prime. Do I even need to explain why this was a bad idea? Each man has a group of 5 supporters at ringside so it’s more or less a lumberjack match.  Their entrances take the greater part of forever.  Oh and Salt N Peppa sing LT to the ring.

Pat Patterson of all people is the referee.  There are so many jokes I could make about that I don’t know where to start.  This is by far and away the main event of the show which still makes my head shake.  I used to complain that Lawrence couldn’t wrestle but that was the point I think: he wasn’t supposed to be able to wrestle but rather be able to fight.

Diesel had been showing him some stuff apparently.  The bell hasn’t rung yet so we’re just hanging around and waiting to start.  Patterson wants a handshake but Lawrence slaps Bigelow instead and it’s on.  Taylor likes to throw forearms which makes sense as it’s a basic strike.  Taylor sends him to the floor with Bigelow doing the majority of the work to get himself over the top.

Bigelow misses a corner splash and Taylor gets a belly to back for two.  More forearms which keep working so naturally he keeps going with them.  Taylor gets in the face of the Million Dollar Team as we’re still waiting on the big brawl between the guys on the floor.  Lawrence gets caught on his way back in and now we get into the main part of the match.

They’re going very slow which is understandable here.  Falling headbutt misses Taylor but he can’t capitalize and Bigelow takes over again.  Boston Crab goes on which shifts into a sloppy half crab instead.  Ok now it’s shifted into more or less Bigelow pulling on Taylor’s leg.  This is a very different kind of match and not incredibly interesting.

The rope is finally grabbed and Taylor goes back to the forearms.  A suplex gets Taylor out of trouble for a bit and both guys are down.  Bigelow gets the advantage again and hits the Moonsault but hurts his knee, having to roll off.  He covers shortly thereafter and gets two to ZERO reaction.  I think the fans were confused or flat out didn’t care.  Either way it’s not a good sign.

LT gets a gutwrench suplex that is called a Jackknife for two.  Enziguri puts Taylor down again and this is really needing to end like now.  Top rope headbutt gets two and a tiny reaction.  Taylor makes his big comeback and hammers away with the forearms and now the crowd is getting into it.  In the big spot of the match, LT goes to the middle rope and hits a flying forearm to get the pin.  Taylor might have been hurt but he seems ok.  DiBiase rips into Bigelow post match, setting up his failure of a face turn.

Rating: D+. Well they tried.  I’ll give them that: they tried.  For the life of me I don’t get why this is what they closed the show with.  Well actually I do as it was certainly the biggest match, but it shouldn’t have been if that makes sense.  Taylor’s offense made sense as he kept at it with the forearms, but the match didn’t work for the most part.  Still though, not completely unwatchable but not incredibly good.

Overall Rating: F+. Yeah this show is still boring.  It feels more like an In Your House rather than what it should have been, which is the biggest show of the year.  Shawn vs. Diesel is good and that’s about it.  Everything else is completely forgettable to say the least and the main event is one of the biggest headscratchers of all time.

To give you an idea of how odd this show is, it runs less than two and a half hours.  Think about that.  Wrestlemania ran less than two and a half hours.  The show was shockingly well received though and it got a solid buyrate for the time.  It doesn’t hold up well at all and that’s what kills it.  95 simply wasn’t kind to PPV and this is probably the second worst show of the year, after Summerslam.  Bad show.

Monday Nitro #1
Date: September 4, 1995
Location: Mall of America, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Steve McMichael, Bobby Heenan

So nearly three years after Raw got going, WCW woke up and realized that being on Saturday nights at 6:05 for your flagship show was freaking STUPID so they decided to go head to head with Raw by debuting Monday Nitro. Their first episode aired when Raw wasn’t on that week which really was the right thing to do when you think about it.

It’s just one hour tonight for no apparent reason, but they manage to pack a good bit in here, including a very important thing that I’ll get to later on. This is a show I’ve seen at least 5 or 6 times so I remember it being not bad. Let’s see how it was.

I always liked the intro video for Nitro as it was a street more or less blowing up with pictures of wrestlers and a great song. It really was cool and I liked it better than Raw’s for a long time. I don’t think anyone knew who McMichael was outside of Chicago, but when did that really bother WCW?

Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Brian Pillman

I can’t wait to do SuperBrawl 2 as their match there could rival Bret vs. Owen for beat PPV opener ever. Liger is just coming back from a broken leg so he might be a bit rusty, meaning he’ll be better than 95% of the wrestlers in the world. Naturally, they start off hot. This is another one of those pairings where it’s hard to mess it up. We’re two minutes in and Mongo and Heenan are already calling each other names.

This could be a really long night. Eric is pitching the company like no other which is fine here as it might be the first show for a lot of viewers. We get the surfboard which is a move that I always mark for. Bobby has a great line: “I never go surfing. I always have people do it for me.” I love that. McMichael is trying but he’s just lost out there. For the life of me I have no idea why they thought he was a good idea.

Liger gets a hurricanrana from the top rope which was a move that no one had seen for the most part. And no, the Frankensteiner doesn’t count as it’s nowhere near as fast or as crisp. These two were WAY ahead of their time out here as the Cruiserweights wouldn’t rise to prominence for over a year. Out of nowhere, Pillman hooks a rollup for the pin.

Rating: B. This is based on being the first match in the new era of the company. They set the pace for the show as they had a fast paced and exciting match. What else can you ask for from a debut match? These two simply didn’t have bad matches, which makes sense given their talent and styles.

Sting is ready for Flair.

WCW Hotline ad.

Ad for Batman Forever for the SNES. That game SUCKED. You use Down + R to use the grappling hook yet X and Y aren’t used at all. See the problem?

We come back from break to see…hang on I need a moment here. Ok I’m good. We come back to Hulk Hogan at Hulk Hogan’s Pastamania. Hulk Hogan had a pasta restaurant in the Mall of America, complete with a dish called Hulk A-Roos. You can’t make this stuff up at all. He cuts a generic promo but the kids around him are loving it. The guy was great with kids, I’ll give him that. This was one of the biggest jokes in wrestling history though, but it did show how huge and mainstream Hogan was.

US Title: Sting vs. Ric Flair

I’ll give Nitro this: they got the card spot on for the first show. You have a cruiserweight match that’s going to be awesome and was, you have this which is more or less impossible to screw up, and Hogan vs. a big man in the main event. They played things safe here and that’s all they needed to do. And now we get the defining moment for Nitro until Hall showed up: Lex Luger walks down the aisle and stares at Sting and Flair.

Now that doesn’t sound very interesting does it? The thing you have to remember, Luger had been in a WWF ring wrestling the day before. This was the first big shock and since the internet was more or less a non factor for the most part back then, this was a shocking thing. No one knew this was coming and it really did set the tone for Nitro and WCW in the future as Luger was immediately in the main event picture.

The announcers have no clue what to say to this and even though Bischoff knew it was coming, he’s playing it off well. Sting was the perfect choice to put on the show here as he had the speed, the power, the mat wrestling ability, the look, the charisma and the talking ability to be remembered really well. He didn’t have to do much as he hits his third gorilla press, but the crowd is eating it up. Why mess with what works? Make that four of them.

His strength is overlooked quite a bit. We go to a break and when we come back we have a wide shot of the Mall and it looks VERY cool. It’s a three story mall and you have all kinds of people shopping around and we just happen to have a major wrestling show going on. Arn Anderson walks out as Sting misses a splash. Arn and Flair had been having a lot of problems lately and would finally fight at Fall Brawl.

They play up the shock value to a T here about Luger and the unpredictability aspect of the show. Sting hits a top rope suplex. The announcers’ reactions: Bischoff says the ring moved two feet, McMichael says his monitor nearly fell off the table and Heenan says his monitor went black. I wish I was making this up. Flair gets the figure four but Arn comes into the ring for the DQ and he and Flair go at it.

Rating: C+. Again, this is hard to get wrong. It wasn’t one of their better ones, but it wasn’t supposed to be. It got them in front of a TV camera and showed the fans what they had coming. This was a lot like the debut of a new promotion in a lot of ways as no one really knew what to expect here.

They kind of had to restart a lot of things in the early weeks to give the people a feel for what they were all about. The match was fine and they did their regular good stuff, but this was about angles and not the match and that’s fine.

Scott Norton comes out to yell about not being on the show despite having a contract. Savage comes out to yell at him. They set up a match for next week. It’s so adorable that Norton thinks he means something outside of Japan.

Sabu is coming. Dang it.

Some guy from Alabama wins a sweepstakes. This took 10 seconds of ring time.

Ad for Saturday Night, featuring a double main event: Johnny B. Badd vs. Dick Slater and Sting and Macho vs. the Bluebloods. And people wonder why the fans were very happy Nitro debuted.

Mr. Wallstreet is coming to WCW. It was IRS going JBL’s gimmick. This went badly. He even mentions the IRS. Seriously?

WCW Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Big Bubba Rogers

Rogers is Big Boss Man’s 15th or so gimmick. We go to a commercial before Hogan’s entrance and we get a SLIM JIM AD! Oh and there’s one for Hot Pockets too. Jimmy Hart has stars and stripes pants and a jacket. He looks like a walking barber pole. The fans are going nuts for Hogan if nothing else. What are you expecting here?

It’s Hogan vs. big man 101, Like I said earlier they’re playing it very safe and that’s fine. Bubba gets in his offense and Hogan makes a comeback and slams him before the leg drop ends it in about five minutes. A clean pin on Nitro. That won’t happen that often.

Rating: C. It’s exactly that: average. There was nothing special here but it wasn’t unwatchable or anything. No one was expecting an epic showdown here as it was just Hogan defending his title in a token title defense. Nothing wrong with that.

The Dungeon of Doom which had been feuding with Hogan hit the ring and Luger makes the save. Macho and Sting show up to calm them down. This would be your main event at Fall Brawl. Sting, Hogan, Luger and Savage vs. Shark (Earthquake), Zofdiac (Beefcake) Meng and Kamala. I wonder who wins that.

We go to commercial and see an ad for the Muscular Dystrophy Association which sponsored Fall brawl for some reason. That’s just odd. There’s also an ad for the Eagles vs. Cardinals game. DAng that would have sucked.

Luger says he wants a title shot. Hogan says sure but says he’ll be champion forever and a day. I love delusions of grandeur that almost came true. They make the match for next week and that’s it.

Overall Rating: B+. For a debut show, this was great. They advanced a lot of stuff and set up next week and the future pretty well. With only an hour they did quite well but remember there was no Raw tonight. The ratings were good but they lost for a good while. The wrestling was ok and we got three kinds of matches and angles were advanced so I’d say very good job here. Things would get far worse for awhile though.

Royal Rumble 1996
Date: January 21, 1996
Location: Selland Arena, Fresno, California
Attendance: 9,600
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Mr. Perfect

Well it’s a year later and the roster is more or less the same. There are a few changes though. The biggest is Shawn has finally given up and turned face thank goodness and Taker is back in the title hunt. Bret has the title again and is facing him in the main event. Other than that, there’s a few new guys but a lot of this is the same. Nitro has debuted so the war has almost started.

The rest of the card looks similar to what we had last year with all three titles on the line plus the Rumble and one other match, but this just looks miles more interesting for some reason. The Rumble roster still looks weak but far better than it did before. This flat out can’t be less interesting than last year so let’s go.

I almost forgot: Shawn has been out with a ton of injuries including the concussion kick from Owen and tonight is his big return, so that’s easily your biggest story of the night here.

Oh yeah and a guy named Hunter Hearst Helmsley debuted. A bald guy from Texas is here too. They’ll never mean a thing.

There was a preshow match with HHH vs. Duke Droese. The winner got 30 and the loser got #1. Amazingly, HHH lost so there we are.

Sunny is in a bathtub and says that tonight’s show is viewer discretion advised. My goodness she was perfect. Anyway, Bret vs. Taker is previewed, along with a few other matches. There’s a picture of Razor hitting a belly to back suplex off the middle rope on someone. That someone: Jeff Hardy. Oh yeah and there’s that Rumble thing too. Finally, there’s talk of some monster showing up tonight. Some guy called Vader I think.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Ahmed Johnson

Ahmed is a relative rookie here, having been around for just a few months here. In other words, this should be a slaughter. This is fallout from Jarrett breaking a gold record over Ahmed’s head at the previous In Your House. I love how I now have seen that match and reviewed it as it ties things together a bit. In case you’ve never seen him, Ahmed is a freaking tank.

He’s more cut up than Ezekiel Jackson and even scarier looking. The only problem was he wasn’t as talented either. He’s killing Jarrett though so there we are. He was supposed to become world champion actually but he couldn’t stay healthy. There have been a ton of clotheslines in this match to say the least. I don’t mean a bunch in a row, but a bunch over a fairly spread out period of time.

Why is it that when something happens it’s unbelievable to Vince? He saw it happen so apparently it’s not too farfetched. Johnson is hulking up. That can’t be a good sign. Jarrett continues to imitate Ric Flair without the success by getting Ahmed in the figure four. You know considering how awesome Ahmed was, this is just really boring.

After powering out of that, Jarrett goes to the top with the guitar and El Kabong is enough for the DQ. Ahmed just stood there and waited to get hit in the head. Jarrett leaves and of course Ahmed is up in about 18 seconds and not even shaking it off. That was odd.

Rating: D+. Uh yeah. I’m not sure what to say about this one as it just wasn’t that good at all. Ahmed wasn’t really sloppy, but he certainly was limited. I’m not entirely sure why they had Jarrett not get pinned here. He really had nothing to lose here as he would be gone less than ten months later. Ahmed was supposed to look great here but he just didn’t, plain and simple. This is more of a headscratcher than anything else.

Buy WWF stuff, t-shirts in this case.

Billy and Bart, looking straight out of the 70s and 80s say they’re going to keep their titles. My goodness they were so painfully bland it’s painful.

Diesel says heelish things despite still being a face officially I guess. He mentions not having a problem with Taker, and we have a feud on the rise.

Tag Titles: Smoking Guns vs. Body Donnas

Sunny was hotter than anything on the planet, period. The Body Donnas are Tom Pritchard and Chris Candido, more commonly known as Chris Candido. Sunny starts off in the ring by saying ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages. Holy stolen ring intro in a few years. Sunny of course gets the biggest pop of everyone. She’s 23 here and was screwing Bret Hart at the time, so there we are.

We get an upskirt shot of Sunny which leaves Perfect speechless. In case you can’t tell, no one cares about the match but only Sunny. She really was excellent at getting all of the attention on her which is very good to be able to do. The Guns are giants compared to the heels. After the Donnas desperately try (and fail) to take over, Sunny is knocked to the floor. The only good thing is a nice back shot but whatever.

Perfect: she could have been hurt! Vince: she may be hurt! Thanks for being original McMahon. Naturally she was faking (don’t you hate when women do that?) and the Donnas get the advantage. Vince calls Zip Flip so there we are: we have found a gimmick so bad that even Vince McMahon can’t remember their stupid names. In a cool spot, Zip hooks his partner in a gutwrench release powerbomb (think Jack Swagger’s move but he just lets the guy go) onto Billy.

That was different as Perfect says. Since this match has been the most intelligent of all time, we have another odd spot as Skip runs into Zip and Zip is knocked into Billy so everyone is down. It leads to the cold tag to Bart who cleans house. Vince says he hits Skip or Zip or whatever his name is. Since it’s 1996, we can’t have a regular ending, so instead the Guns hit the Sidewinder (backbreaker/leg drop from the top) but Sunny distracts the referee.

In a bad looking spot, Billy sees Skip on the top rope clearly, but goes after Sunny instead. It was one of those moments that wasn’t supposed to look bad but accidentally did. The Donnas go for a double suplex but Billy spears one of them so that Bart lands on the other guy for the pin. Yep, that was stupid.

Rating: D. This show really isn’t starting out well at all. This was somehow worse than the previous match. Literally, looking at Sunny is all that this is good for. The match itself is just bad, the booking is weird and the ending leaves something to be desired. The Guns would forfeit the belts in about a month due to injury and the Donnas would get them in a tournament just before Mania, as in about 20 minutes before.

We see a big thing of the Billionaire Ted skits. These were funny at the time, but allegedly they ticked off Ted Turner so much that he revamped WCW, so in essence they nearly killed Vince’s company. There we go then.

Recap of Razor vs. Goldust. In essence, Goldust wants Razor, as in the way I want Ellen Page, so that apparently made Razor put the title on the line. Yeah that makes perfect sense.

Intercontinental Title: Goldust vs. Razor Ramon

Goldust debuted the night before Ahmed so there we are. Hey did you know that Goldust is bizarre? We need to make sure you know that he’s bizarre. Vince says don’t adjust your televisions. I’ve never gotten that expression. How many people actually get up and adjust televisions? What was going to go wrong with it in the last 10 seconds or so since the last segment ended?

Are we supposed to believe that it wasn’t right before? Also, if you have a really fuzzy picture and you had really bad eyesight, would it eventually look normal? Apparently the noise at the beginning of Razor’s music is from screeching tires. What vehicle is making that noise? This is Marlena’s debut as well. She looked really good back at this point.

In a funny moment, Vince goes over the rules to how you win a title and Perfect almost yells about how he’s won the title twice so why does he need to have it explained to him? That’s a really funny point when you think about it very little. Goldy grabs Razor’s chest a few minutes in so there we go. When asked about what he would do against Goldust, Perfect replies with kick him in the face.

I love Mr. Perfect, if nothing else for the rampant sex jokes and innuendos he’s dropping here. At one point when they’re fighting on the floor someone shouts out that Marlena has a nice rack, which is very true. This match seems like it keeps starting and stopping. They’ll do a bit and then Goldust will go all freaky. That’s fine for character development, but it makes for some bad matches which is what’s happening here.

We do however get a cool spot as Goldust hits a slingshot belly to back suplex that I’ve never seen before. Other than that though, there’s just not a lot to talk about here. Finally Goldust takes over, but still there’s no flow to this match. It’s hard to put into words, but you would know what I meant if you say it. Something just doesn’t feel right about it as it just looks choppy for lack of a better word.

On top of that he keeps groping and molesting Razor. That’s just annoying. Can you imagine in wrestling related anything someone that was constantly making gay references and puns and actions? It would drive me crazy. Anyway, it’s a sleeper and a standard comeback by the face.

Oh the fans are mostly dead for this. No Monty Python jokes here by the way. After some Terri interference, the 1-2-3 Kid comes in and heads to the top for a spin kick that clearly misses but I guess the air from it knocks out Razor for Goldust to get the pin.

Rating: D. Uh yeah, this sucked too. I don’t get it. For the most part there’s been talented guys in every match but nothing at all has worked so far. Granted that could be because we’ve had three matches and zero clean endings. Is it that hard to let one guy cleanly beat the other one?

Anyway, like I said earlier this match just feels choppy and it really hurts things. There’s zero flow here and it felt like watching a video game being played where the guy controlling it was just hitting all of the moves he programmed in if that makes sense.

A bunch of people say they’ll win that don’t interest me. Shawn’s doctor says he’s ready to come back.

After the explanation of the rules from Vince (none given to the live crowd), we’re ready to go.

Royal Rumble

HHH is in first and second it Henry Godwin, now rocking the best music in wrestling history: Don’t Go Messin With a Country Boy. These two had a pseudo-rivalry around this time so this works pretty well. We’re back to two minute intervals which almost guarantees a better match. They imply that winning two in a row is almost impossible as Hogan is continually buried.

Backlund is third, completely in his crazy man Presidential candidate (don’t ask) gimmick. Also, how bad of a string of draws does this guy get? The more I see of this guy the more I like him. He’s just amazing considering his age. Backlund still has the Iron Man record at this point. Fourth is Jerry Lawler as I’m already loving these two minute intervals better.

There’s far more time to let people get settled in and it helps a lot. The heat on Lawler is nuts with the Burger King chants. Godwin breaks up a triple team and gets the slop bucket. Everyone gets it at once as they’re on the floor and now we’re back in the ring with a Gallagher reference. Fifth is Bob Holly to fill the jobber quota a bit more. Backlund is on the floor or something I think as he hasn’t been seen in awhile.

He’s not out but he’s not in the ring either. Oh there he is. HHH has jumped twice in this match, which is more than in this decade combined I believe. Mabel, who is still King, is in at 6. He’s gained even more weight here and it even less interesting of a character if that’s possible. HHH is compared to Shawn. Oh dear.

Jake Roberts, on the nostalgia trips to end all nostalgia trips (notice the word choice I used for Jake) is seventh to a solid pop. He lets loose the snake and throws it over Lawler who is of course terrified of snakes. How much of a creep was Roberts? The only people he ever fought were terrified of snakes. That’s just pathetic. Anyway, Lawler hides under the ring as Dory freaking Funk Jr. is #8.

No one knows who he is, which is likely because he’s 56 years old at this point. With the NWA dead at this point, Vince mentions their name on camera. No one has been eliminated yet so we have eight people in and you can recap it yourselves you lazy pests. Jake almost gets a DDT on HHH to a pop but it doesn’t work.

Terry Funk is apparently friends with Bruce Willis. Well ok then. Funk fights Backlund in one of the only encounters you’ll ever see where Bob is ten years younger than the guy he’s fighting. Yokozuna is 9th as we’re way too full here. Those are words I don’t think Yoko ever used. As Backlund has the chicken wing on Funk, Yoko dumps Bob easily to a big pop.

I think he’s just about to or just has turned face. The Kid is tenth as we hit double figures. This hasn’t been bad as it’s pretty clear they’re saving the big guns for the end, but dang those guys are staying in there a long time. It’s not exactly a bad thing, but I’m not sure if I’m sold on it or not.

Razor chases him to the ring as Godwin is eliminated to absolutely zero recognition. I had to rewind it to see where he went out at. Razor chases Kid around for a bit which means nothing in the end. Mo is very annoying to say the least. I think Shane was there as an official to get Razor to the back. Some Japanese wrestler named Omori is number 11. He comes out to the Orient Express’ music, and I don’t have a clue who he is.

Thanks to Wiki, he apparently has a pretty good resume. That’s fine and good, but again we have the same old problem: ALMOST NO ONE KNOWS THAT VINCE. These foreign guys are fine to bring in, but dang it tell us why we should care. Don’t just say he’s a wild man from Japan. We need more than that. Tell us a big name he’s beaten, tell us some titles he’s won, tell us SOMETHING.

I don’t want to have to do a ton of research to figure out who one guy from Japan is in one match. He’s from All Japan Pro, that’s all we get. Even Vince says he doesn’t know a ton about him. Well thanks Vince. Savio Vega is 12th as nothing of note is going on. Dory is out there doing stuff that belongs in the 40s or something which is pretty cool looking.

The saddest part: I doubt half the roster today would be as smooth as he is out there in this match. Yoko puts out Mable and the smarks shed a tear as the completely unimportant Omori is put out by Roberts. To recap, we have HHH, Lawler (hiding under the ring), Holly, Roberts, Funk, Yoko, Kid and Vega in there at the moment. Perfect says he’s tapped into the Superstar line and knows who the next guy is.

Ok wait a minute. So first of all, you can find out the SECRET drawing on the Superstar line? I know they did that last year but I just don’t get what the point is. Why ruin the mystique of one of the biggest matches of the year? Second, you can tap into it? How many science geeks that were watching this (of the 4 or so that were) immediately tried to figure out how to do that? Third, Perfect is on the phone while calling a match? Dude I want that job!

Anyway, 13th is the debuting Vader. At the time, he was a complete monster and rapidly becoming one of the biggest heels in the company. He beats up Holly so he’s a good guy to me. Savio puts out Funk from the apron. Vader of course pulls him back in so there we go. Vader punches Savio, making him dance. Yeah I hate him too. Fourteenth is Doug Gilbert of the USWA, which is Lawler’s company.

Jake sets Vega for the DDT, arguably the most devastating and popular move in company history at that point, so right as he goes for it we cut to Holly trying to dump the Kid. We can see it hit between Holly’s legs and the pop is huge, but of course two career nothings are more important so there we are. In a VERY stupid looking spot, Jake hooks Gilbert for the DDT and then just stares at Vader for at least four seconds and then gets clotheslined over the top. That looked so stupid.

Ok so 15 and 16 are twins called the Squat Team. Yes that’s the best name they could come up with for them. They’re twin 450lb guys from Puerto Rico where they’re called the Headhunters. Ok, so we can’t just call them that generic yet far better name? They last less than two minutes combined as Vader just goes insane on the first one with two punches to knock them both out. That was AWESOME.

As the first one leaves his partner is coming out and they both go to the ring. Vader beats them both up at once until Yoko (still heel apparently) grabs one and is like “Boy get your fatness out of here and make me a sweater” while Vader beats up the other one and is like “BOY go marinate bake me a ham and set the table” and both guys are knocked out.

That was both stupid and pointless which is a nice combination. Oh and just after the first guy came in Doug Gilbert got hit with a freaking AWESOME chokeslam from Vader and thrown out. It looked awesome.

To recap, we have HHH, Lawler (under the ring), Holly, Kid, Vader, Yoko and Vega. Owen is 17th and a major heel at this point due to being the guy that hurt Shawn in the famous enziguri (how in the world is that spelled anyway?) that made Shawn black out. Yoko and Vader just beat the living tar out of Vega and Shawn is 18th as the roof isn’t blown off in the slightest.

There’s a reaction but dang there was nothing impressive about that in the slightest. Vader puts out Savio as Shawn hits HHH. What would the children think??? The crowd is awake but not much beyond that. Vader and Yoko fight at the ropes and Shawn runs up and dumps BOTH of them at once. Ok that was cool looking. The fans are very much insane now. Shawn gorilla presses Kid out in another cool spot.

Vader and Yoko keep fighting as Hakushi is now in to make it him, Shawn, Owen, Holly and HHH as we see the major problem already: it is so completely obvious that Shawn is going to win. Vader comes back in and throws him out to completely silence the crowd. All of a sudden this year that doesn’t count like it used to so Shawn is still in. Gorilla the Commissioner comes down to run off Vader.

Vader would kick dominate him soon which was quite sad. The heel heat on Vader is nuts. Maybe 45 seconds after Hakushi comes in we bring in Tatanka for a one night return for no apparent reason. I’ve always liked that hook of the steel bar that Shawn did. It’s an intelligent counter that works quite well. Owen throws out Hakushi as the Shawn Michaels plus the midcard Rumble continues.

Aldo Montoya is 21st to some of the weirdest music I can ever remember. It’s like techo and tribal mixed and it’s just failing. Shawn finds Lawler under the ring and throws him back in. Sometimes simple heel tactics like that are just made of win. Montoya and Lawler go out almost at the same time as Diesel tries to give Shawn a challenge at 22. I know looking at it now he looks weak but at the time he was a major player still so this was a big deal. He puts Tatanka out with ease.

He and Shawn go at it to a solid pop. Owen goes after Diesel to finally live up to the poster for this event. I have no idea why those two were on the poster. I also have no idea why they didn’t fight at Summerslam 95 instead of Mabel but whatever. I mean really, what match sounds more interesting: Diesel vs. Mable or Diesel vs. Owen? It would have at least been interesting to an extent instead of Diesel and Owen which was completely awful.

Kama is in next to no reaction at all. Yeah Shawn should have come out about 10 spots later than he did. Holly is more or less dead at this point as Shawn hits the ten corner punches on him. The crowd counts with him and I keep thinking it’s another person coming in. Apparently Ahmed has a concussion and is going to the hospital. So wait, it took AN HOUR AND A HALF to figure that out? Dude how bad is your medical staff???

The Ringmaster is in at 24. For those of you that don’t know, he would soon become known as Stone Cold Steve Austin. His manager, Ted DiBiase heading to WCW might have saved the company. He’s wearing white boots here which just doesn’t look right. Aww his boots have little stars on them! That’s so cute! He FINALLY puts out Holly though so he’s awesome already.

Austin is a much more technical based guy here with some very good athleticism. Barry Horowitz is 25th, coming out to his completely sweet rock version of Hava Nagila. How awesome is that? Perfect says that if Horowitz wins this he’ll get back in the ring. That made me chuckle for no reason at all. In a cool looking spot, Owen is leaning on the ropes to choke Shawn so Shawn nips up to kick Owen over, but Owen skins the cat to get back in. That was awesome looking.

The fans are DEAD here. Diesel puts out HHH with complete ease. That looked cool if nothing else. 26th is Fatu. WHY IN THE WORLD DOES HE GET THESE AWESOME DRAWS EVERY YEAR??? This is the making a difference Fatu. My goodness this was awful. It makes Rikishi look brilliant. Hey let’s plug the Superstar Line again! Apparently only the guy on there knows who is next. So is he running around telling people what order to go in?

Perfect changes his stance to he’ll quit if Horowitz wins. So wait, does that mean he’ll quit being retired? If that’s so does that mean he’ll wrestle again? Maybe he didn’t change his stance at all. Owen almost puts Shawn out but just won’t do it because it would probably get him fired. Isaac Yankem (Kane) is in next. Horowitz is gone. Owen hits the enziguri on Shawn again but this time doesn’t kill him.

Austin does the Shawn pose as I laugh. Austin vs. Diesel is a match that I don’t think ever happened. Owen is out due to Diesel and Shawn. 28th is Marty Jannetty as this match just needs to be put out of its misery. Apparently he’s been doing well in the singles division. Did I completely miss some time in the company history? The Rockers go at it in a fight that would have been good maybe 3 years ago.

British Bulldog is 29th again to ZERO reaction. 30th is going to be Duke Droese so there we are. Smith is heel here so he beats on Shawn. He dumps Marty quickly so if nothing else there’s a future for him in vermin control. Fatu puts out Austin. How many people would believe that in three and a half years he would run him over in a car and put him out for a year?

That’s just completely amazing and shows you that all kinds of things can happen in wrestling and you never know what’s coming. Kane knocks out Rikishi with ease as the announcers admit they have no idea how Austin went out due to there being a lot of action going on. No not really but I can’t argue with Vince right? Ok so there’s Duke and the final groups is, and I’m not kidding you here, Duke Droese, Kama, Diesel, Shawn, Bulldog and Yankem. WOW.

If you couldn’t tell who was going to win this and who he was going to eliminate last, you’re an idiot. Droese and Kane go out really fast so your final four are Bulldog, Diesel, Kama and Shawn. And before I’m done typing that Shawn kicks Diesel out to win it. Literally, the final four started and ended inside of 30 seconds. Shawn wins, shocking no one at all. Diesel comes back and they do the Too Sweet sign. Yep, that’s all they do and good night I’m bored here.

Rating: D. How can this show not seem that bad? I mean seriously, Ahmed freaking Johnson at this point has the match of the night, and that’s after guys like Chris Candido, Owen Hart, Shawn Michaels, Scott Hall and Dustin Rhodes have performed. Once Shawn came in, the match was over, period. No one thought for a second that anyone other than HBK was going to win, period. I mean look at this lineup.

The alternatives are the debuting Vader, Diesel, who had talked about Taker nonstop recently so his feud is set up, and……and……oh come on there has to be a third guy. Owen Hart wins it by default I guess: a career midcard guy with a cup of coffee in the main event a year ago that is clearly the first Shawn target. WOW. How in the world did this Rumble get a chance to do anything? There is no way this was ever, and I mean ever, was going to work.

The only thing CLOSE to making this work would have been Yoko, Diesel, Owen and Vader against Shawn at the end. I mean really, who else was going to win? This wasn’t interesting at all and other than for a few seconds, the crowd might as well have been asleep, and I can’t blame them a bit. This was just boring.

Bret says he’ll win in a generic interview, which is somehow the most interesting thing I’ve seen other than Vader and Yoko being put out in over an hour.

WWF Title: Undertaker vs. Bret Hart

This is happening because Bret is champion and Taker would have been far too big of a threat to Shawn’s popularity. Taker is wearing the skull mask at this point after Mabel and Yokozuna destroyed his face. For no apparent reason, Diesel is still at ringside. He gets in Taker’s face and there they go. Taker was just all kinds of awesome at this point, as he was reaching that mythical level that few get to.

He’s officially that kind of guy that’s awesome just because he’s who he is. Like today for example, it’s about two weeks after Kofi destroyed Orton’s car. That was AWESOME. Kofi got over in that one segment and granted I have no idea if it’ll still or not as you guys won’t read this for about two months, but the point is he might just fall off the map. A guy like Taker simply isn’t going to fall off the level he’s on barring anything completely insane happening.

He was just hitting that level around this time. He’s like Shawn is now: you can throw together a stupid storyline to put him in the title match and everyone will buy it because he’s just awesome enough to be in it. Bret’s pop is solid here, but this crowd just kind of sucks. Ok we’ve been in this match 3 minutes now and I think I already know what’s coming. I had a bad vibe about this match earlier on and it’s coming true now: they’re doing a formula match.

Yep, Bret’s going for the knee early. That means a long drawn out match where Bret works on the leg with a submission, Taker fights back, Bret hits the knee and uses a submission, Taker fights back, Bret hits the knee and uses a submission, Taker fights back, Bret hits the knee or a suplex move and sets for the Sharpshooter and somewhere in there we brawl on the floor with a weapon other than the belt or a chair being used. And what do you know I’m right.

Yes, for about 25 minutes, that’s all we get. During that Bret gets the stupid looking skull mask off of Taker that was just really annoying. PLEASE END THIS! Taker hits the Tombstone finally, and here’s Diesel for the cheap DQ to set up Diesel vs. Bret to set up Diesel vs. Taker. Ok, I know I have the benefit of hindsight here, but this was as predictable as humanly possible.

The signs were all there for Diesel vs. Taker, especially the fight before the match started. I mean seriously, who in their right mind thought Taker had a chance here? Actually he won, so who thought he had a chance of getting the title here? Whatever, I just want this show to end.

Rating: C-. While it was formula stuff, it was somehow by far and away the best match of the night, and that’s just pitiful. They went out there and did half an hour of stuff you could write a textbook with. Now I know that usually means greatness, but in this case I mean a book called Cookie Cutter Title Matches in 30 Elongated Minutes.

It might have been that I was just wanting this show to end, but this was boring as heck to me. I’m going with the C- because it gives it the best grade of the night just so Jeff Jarrett can’t have it. WWF>TNA, forever, even when you have to lie to get there.

Overall Rating: D-. Somehow, this passes. I have zero idea how, but somehow it passes. The matches all completely sucked, but it was like I kept wanting to like the show. That’s either really good or really bad and I’m not sure which.

This whole show feels like the forms you have to fill out to get something you know you’re getting: it’s pointless, you don’t like it, but you have to do it anyway to get to the end result. This show is just boring. I don’t know if it’s particularly bad, but it’s just so boring that it becomes bad. Don’t watch this unless you’re an insomniac.

Royal Rumble 1995
Date: January 22, 1995
Location: USF Sun Dome, Tampa, Florida
Attendance: 10,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jerry Lawler

Well, another year has passed and other than some different jobbers in the midcard, the only big change is Diesel has replaced Luger atop the company. Yoko is now a non factor, Bret is of course in the title hunt, and Luger is in the midcard doing jack. Other than that there are just not a lot of differences. Of course we have the Rumble, but other than that and a Diesel vs. Bret title match, we’ve got nothing of note.

This was a very weird period for the company as they were pretty much booking as they went instead of having long term plans. At the same time in WCW, everything was more or less thrown together. Also, there’s still no Nitro at this point as it was about seven and a half months away. There’s just not a ton going on at this point in wrestling and it’s clear that a change was needed. However, that wouldn’t come for over a year and a half, and as you’ll see, that was WAY too far off. Let’s get to this.

Your big deal here is that Pamela Anderson is here and will escort the winner of the Rumble to Mania. This would turn out to be one of the worst celebrity things that I can remember as she just looked like she absolutely HATED being there. If you’re getting paid to be there, at least try to not look like you’re just wanting to go get smashed. The intro is as generic of a beach thing as you can possibly imagine. Why does Vince have to be such a freaking mic hog? It’s really annoying.

Intercontinental Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Razor Ramon

These two feuded for what seemed like forever. Razor is of course the champion here as that’s all he ever did. Razor’s intro has reached Orton levels. Jerry gets in a funny line about how Jarrett, a country singer here, is going to star in a Broadway play: Phantom of the Grand Ole Opry. That’s just great. As we have a long feeling out period, we keep seeing the Roadie, who is more commonly known as the Road Dogg.

These two had some awesome chemistry to say the least. The gimmick that Jarrett had hurt him a lot I think. He was hard to take seriously, which is unfair because he looked good, he sounded good, he wrestled well, and he just overall worked as a big time guy. However, due to his gimmick and eventually the guitar he just failed. I’ve never gotten that. Take this match for example: everything is working fine and it’s a pretty solid match.

I don’t have anything to really make fun of in it. Granted that could be because Razor was incredibly underrated here so that might have something to do with it. Razor does all his usual stuff, although instead of the bulldog from the middle rope we get a clothesline. These two are having a very solid match out there if I do say so myself. We go to the floor though and Roadie clips Razor’s knee to send him down.

That causes the count out but Jarrett is intelligent for a change and says that he doesn’t want it that way so we need to keep going. They went for almost fifteen minutes to get to this point if that tells you anything. It was a lot of feeling out stuff but at the end of it we more or less had a stalemate. Razor gets back in and we’re ready to go again. I’ve never gotten the term restart the match. Why don’t they get new entrances?

That’s what started the match and if you’re going to redo them you might as well redo those too. With Razor’s knee destroyed, Jeff of course gets the Figure Four on a bit later. Lawler channels his inner Monsoon and says stick a fork in him, he’s done.

However, since Razor is a face and therefore comes equipped with healing powers, he escapes and makes his comeback. If Vince says he’s got him! No wait he doesn’t, one more time I’m going to scream. He gets Jarrett up in the Edge but his knee gives out and a small package gives Jarrett the title. That was good.

Rating: B+. That was a solid opener. Razor was a big deal at the time and him jobbing to Jarrett should have been the start of a big push for him but for some reason that wasn’t the case. These two were both solid workers that were likely told to just go out there and have a good match and that’s just what they did. This was a great opener.

Some annoying looking woman can’t find Jarrett. Hint: HE’S IN THE RING!

Todd is with Pamela Anderson who has gotten lots of gifts from wrestlers because apparently wooing her will make them win the Rumble. I really hate this.

The annoying woman has found Jarrett but calls him Razor. He looks good with the belt.

IRS vs. Undertaker

This was during the epically long Taker vs. DiBiase’s Million Dollar Team feud. This was actually billed as Death vs. Taxes. I give up. Apparently Taker was at a monster truck rally the night before, in character. That’s just amusing to no end. They say he was there watching his favorite monster truck: Grave Digger. There’s just something hilarious in that. As expected, there’s not a ton here.

Look at the guys in there and tell me you were expecting a solid match with a straight face. IRS simply isn’t a legit opponent here, plain and simple. This is a lot of IRS trying to fight Taker and naturally failing while Lawler says the Druids, who worked for DiBiase, should be at ringside. I’m quite bored during this match as it’s just not interesting at all. Taker apparently was at the NFL 75th Anniversary Black Tie Dinner. WOW that’s an image.

After more beating on IRS, DiBiase brings in the Druids because this wasn’t uninteresting enough. The Druids mess up Old School as the ring sounds weird. This just needs to end like NOW. It’s completely boring and feels like a bad joke or something. Lawler thinks the urn has something to do with Taker’s power. That’s so stupid I don’t even know where to begin. It’s the SMOKE inside the urn, not the urn itself.

IRS gets out of a tombstone because of the Druids and hits his finisher: a clothesline called the Write Off. Yep, his finisher is a clothesline. After sitting up for like the 4th time, a bad chokeslam ends this FINALLY. Oh wait here are the druids for even more wasting of time. King Kong Bundy comes out and allows IRS to steal the urn. I really couldn’t be any less interested. Oh and apparently the cheering of the fans works as well as the urn. I give up.

Rating: D. Oh man this was bad. It ran about 12 minutes but it felt like 45. I mean really, Death vs. Taxes? Who thought that was going to be a good match? This should have been about half as long as it was and a glorified squash. No one bought Taker as being in any kind of danger here and it’s clear that this was just not going to be competitive. It was also really boring with the Druids and DiBiase taking too much time. Just a horrible waste of time.

We get interviews from earlier in the day where Todd pesters the heck out of Bret and Diesel who don’t want to talk to him.

WWF Title: Bret Hart vs. Diesel

Diesel is champion and Bret wants to be champion, end of backstory. They point out that Bret has won two triple crowns while Diesel has won it faster than anyone else (Punk broke that record.) Diesel goes over to talk to Lawrence Taylor and it starts. I really don’t get what they thought that was going to accomplish. Actually I do as it got them a ton of mainstream press, but the fans got screwed over in about 3 months.

WE ARE LIVE! Vince, I hate your marketing obsession. They’ve bought the show. You don’t have to sell it to them again. This actually starts with a slugfest, which naturally doesn’t work for Bret. There’s a bit of a story going on here as Bret is trying to get at Diesel’s legs using all kinds of little tricks and quick moves while Diesel is just straight ahead power. I like that. Bret gets the leg and hammers it early which is odd.

We’re 5 minutes in and we’re on our seconds figure four. Vince says it’s perfect. Vince is wrong. Lawler uses that line I hate about how they’re the same size on the mat. No, Diesel is indeed still taller than Bret. Bret is acting a bit heelish here which the announcers point out. I love that suicide dive that Bret uses. It just looks awesome. Granted any version of that looks great.

Apparently one elbow from Diesel is like 10 average punches. So he has the strength of ten men. That’s amusing indeed. In a funny moment, Diesel gets Bret up in an Argentinean Back Breaker which starts like a powerbomb but Diesel stops to put the hold on. Bret gives a look to the referee and then realizes what’s going on. It looked funnier than it sounded.

In a weird spot, Bret wraps Diesel’s legs around the post and ties them with his tape to beat on him. This lasts about 5 seconds as the referee frees him. That was kind of stupid. We go to the floor…again and Bret hits a pescado but is caught and posted. Diesel goes for him again but then remembers to sell the knee injury. Thanks for that one big guy.

Diesel hits the jackknife but Shawn runs in for the save. He beats on Diesel and works on his leg, yet that’s not enough for a DQ. Well thanks guys. I guess we’re building up some screwjob credits for two and a half years from now. Bret hooks his third figure four of the match as the fans are so bored with it I’m amazed. Lawler channels his inner Heenan and keeps changing his pick. Dang it Nash sell the freaking knee!

Ok, this whole Bret can’t get disqualified thing is freaking stupid. He cracks Diesel in the knee with a chair and that’s not enough for a DQ. The referee has no issue with checking on a submission after that. Owen runs out for the save as this has just gotten stupid. Hey we’ve used chairs, posts, tape and run ins. Why not an exposed buckle? How can no one get that Bret is likely playing possum as he’s done it about once a match for years. Oh sure. Let’s knock out the referee now.

Owen, Shawn and Backlund and Jarrett and the Roadie run in and FINALLY we get the DQ. So let me get this straight: it was always going to be a double DQ, yet we had to sit through all of those run ins, weapon shots and just absurdity to get there? Why did the heels have to wait for the referee to go down? No one else got disqualified earlier for it.

The announcement of the draw, so apparently they still didn’t get disqualified, gets booed out of the building. Bret gets put in the chicken wing but Diesel breaks it up as his knee is just fine all of a sudden. I hate that. The faces shake hands which I’m ok with. Oh NOW the knee hurts again. Thanks for that one Nash.

Rating: B-. I know I blasted the ending and a lot of this match, but that likely wasn’t fair. This really was a solid match for about 80% of it, but dang they did too much with this. If you want to have the ending the way you had it that’s fine, but why have the run ins earlier in the match like that? I just don’t get that part. I get not wanting to have either guy be made to look weak, but this was just too much overkill for my taste.

That being said, when it was just Bret vs. Diesel, there was a of great stuff in there. The psychology was there, but Diesel, I can’t emphasize this enough: SELL THE KNEE NEXT TIME! I mean Bret worked the heck out of that thing and Diesel barely limped half the time. Anyway, this was solid enough, but the booking didn’t make a ton of sense in my eyes.

Holly and 1-2-3 Kid are in the back and say they believe in themselves.

King draws a picture of himself kissing Anderson using a telestrator. He’s talented but that was pointless.

Tag Titles: Bam Bam Bigelow/Tatanka vs. Bob Holly/1-2-3 Kid

This is the final of a tournament after Shawn and Diesel split and dropped the titles. Holly and the Kid are doing the whole underdog that won’t die thing that no one likes but Vince insists we’re always enthralled with. The heels are completely dominating for about the first 8 minutes or so. I know that’s kind of a blanket statement, but dang this just isn’t even close.

Why should we buy either of these guys as having a snowball’s chance in the world of beating Bigelow or Tatanka. They mention Lou Albano which is still kind of sad. We get it: Holly drives cars. As if we don’t have enough dominance here, Kid accidentally hits Holly. Vince points out that the faces haven’t been around for long and were thrown together. Way to bury the teams they’ve beaten Vince.

Oh apparently they were supposed to be the Smoking Gunns but there was a rodeo accident. I don’t want to know. Holly actually tries to tag in Tatanka. This is just stupid at this point. The faces make a brief comeback which given the way they booked it is something close to believable. Kid is launched to the floor and Bigelow goes up for the moonsault. Tatanka picks that moment to hit the ropes though, and Bigelow crashes to the mat back first.

Holly hits a running forearm to knock the stereotype to the floor and the referee starts a double count. He gets to EIGHT and Kid puts an arm over Bigelow for the pin, SEVENTEEN SECONDS after he hit the mat. So let me get this straight. Falling about 12 feet to concrete keeps you down for about 5 seconds in the Kid’s case, but falling about 6 keeps you down at least 20 seconds? Yeah I hate this match.

As if that’s not enough, the Gunns would win the belts the next night on Raw, which makes me want to know something: WHY DIDN’T THEY JUST WIN THE FREAKING TOURNAMENT??? If you want to put the titles on the Cowboys, that’s fine. However, why not just have them go over Bigelow and Tatanka here?

Oh that’s right: to further Bigelow’s mindless face turn that happened because he kept losing to guys like Kid and Lawrence  Taylor of all people. Where did that turn wind up? Oh yeah: Japan and ECW. Thanks for taking care of your audience Vince.

Rating: D+. I HATE matches where one team completely dominates and then a mistake at the end gives the other guy/team the win. That’s just lazy booking and it makes the winners look completely weak. Bigelow and Tatanka shouldn’t have won, but the faces should have been the freaking Guns. How hard is it to just think for a minute and not overbook the heck out of a match? This is Vince’s biggest flaw as a booker: he over complicates everything.

Post match, Taylor is laughing at Bigelow so the big bald man shoves him and we have our Mania main event. Man I hate 1995 wrestling. This takes 10 minutes somehow.

We get a ton of interviews about the Rumble that I don’t feel like recapping. Everyone says they’ll win and say stuff about Pamela Anderson because she’s more important than Wrestlemania.

Royal Rumble

Oh wait we have to let Pam look bored out of her mind and pretend to be into this for awhile first. I hate celebrities being in wrestling. Anyway, Shawn is first and Bulldog as second. Oh and this year it’s one minute because we just HAD to have all those other matches and we don’t have time for actual intervals. Good night Shawn calls spots loudly at times.

Bulldog has Shawn in a gorilla press but of course slams him instead of throwing him over. Shawn is getting the tar beaten out of him as Eli Blu (Skull of the DOA) comes out as 3. We’re 10% of the way through already which is just stupid. Oh come on we’re at the countdown already? Duke Drose is 4th. What kind of a name is the Dumpster? It’s just stupid.

His gimmick was a wrestling garbage man. That’s beyond any and all logic whatsoever. Let the countdown begin! It’s Jimmy Del Ray who means nothing at all for the most part. We get some heel vs. heel mullet action with him fighting Shawn. Sixth is Sione (Barbarian) as I already hate this match. Del Ray is the first guy out as Shawn keeps surviving in impressive ways.

In at seven is Tom Pritchard, Del Ray’s partner because we have to keep a high level of suckage in there. Vince is in full blown over the top mode here as he asks Lawler if every guy that he likes is going to win the Rumble. Also notice that Vince always says Royal Rumble instead of just Rumble. He has to make sure it’s said correctly. Doink is eighth as this match is rapidly catching 93 as worst Rumble of all time.

Everything is all over the place and the time intervals are just killing it. Granted the whole and complete lack of interesting talent is killing it too. Kwang is in at 9 as I’m thinking about throwing on some Family Ties which I’m not a fan of but it would be more interesting than this.

We’re at double digits with Rick Martel who never changes at all. Del Ray is the only elimination at the moment so the ring is full. That’s another issue with this: You can’t get rid of people without making them look weak, but at the same time you can’t let the ring get this full because it’s too cluttered. That clock is really starting to tick me off. Owen is number 11.

Bret runs out to jump him though on his way to the ring in the most interesting thing in the whole match so far. Now everything starts going insane. Timothy Well (of Well Dunn) is number 12 to a big pop? No actually Bulldog threw Owen out about a second after he got in. At the same time I think Martel went out and Droese was thrown over and landed on Earl Hebner in an unplanned spot. Well is gone also.

Oh Martel just got thrown out. Pritchard is out and we have Doink, Barbarian, Shawn, Bulldog, Eli and Kwang. Doink is out as Luke of the Bushwackers comes out. In an elimination that you can only see on the screen and isn’t acknowledged by Vince or Jerry, Barbarian throws out Kwang and then he and Eli eliminate each other. That leaves us with Shawn, Bulldog and Luke. This is making my head hurt.

He’s in there about 10 seconds as Shawn throws him out. He still had a job at this point? Why? Jerry is timing people with his Mickey Mouse watch. That sounds like a simple comedy one liner right? This confuses the HECK out of Vince. You can tell he’s just thrown completely off by it which granted could have been him fighting back laughter. Now I want a Mickey watch. Jacob Blu (8-Ball of the DOA) is number 14 as we’re nearly halfway done and 15 minutes hasn’t passed yet.

Shawn dumps him in about 15 seconds and we’re back to the first two all over again. Former Wrestlemania main event level talent King Kong Bundy is our halfway man. We get a replay of Owen being eliminated, which was a mere five minutes ago. This show should be shown to ROH fans as a torture method. Mo is in next and Bundy becomes my hero by putting him out in three seconds. Naturally Mabel is next as we continue the dumb tag partners in a row tradition.

Of course he goes right after Bundy and we have a bad battle of the big men which can indeed get old. Eighteen (seriously?) is Butch. Bundy is gone and Butch follows soon thereafter. Both guys (Mabel and Bulldog) try to put out Shawn as Luger the midcard guy is 19th. Dang he fell very far very fast. He puts out Mabel with ease.

Mantaur is number 20 as my eyes roll. He’s supposed to be half man and half bull I think but it was never really explained. This is easily his crowning achievement though so take that for what it’s worth. 21st is Aldo Montoya who is more commonly known as Justin Credible and more commonly known as the guy wearing a jockstrap on his face. Henry Godwin is 22nd and the sixth guy in along with Luger, Mantaur, Bulldog, Shawn and Montoya.

He’s a heel here for no apparent reason. We see Pamela who looks like she’s being told she is about to drink yak urine. Our Jordan entrant is Billy Gunn. WAIT A SECOND! He was too injured to fight in the tournament but he can fight here. I hate Vince. Oh apparently they were injured to keep them out of the tournament but they get a title shot tomorrow instead? I’d just fake injuries to get title shot after title shot.

Bart is of course 24th because tag partners always get the same numbers. In case you can’t tell I hate this match to a great extent. Bob Backlund is next as we have 5 left. Oh look it’s Bret playing policeman again. They would fight at Mania in an ok at best rematch from Survivor Series. Next is Steven Dunn since we have to further lower our intelligence. In case you can’t tell, the final two will be Shawn and Bulldog.

Backlund is out after being in about 15 seconds. Bret stays in the spotlight by jumping him again. As that happens, Dick freaking Murdoch is in at 27. He’s 48 here and would be dead in about a year and a half. He’s also in the KKK but that’s not likely to be mentioned. No one has a clue who he is by the way. It amazes me that he can get an entry here. Were they that hard up for talent that he’s the best they can get?

What’s even worse is he’s more energetic than most people in there. Adam Bomb who should have been pushed harder than he was is 28th. There’s like 10 guys in there and I’m not even bothering to recap them as it’s obvious what’s going to happen in case you can’t tell. Fatu is the penultimate guy. Luger gets Mantaur on the ropes and shakes him up and down to get him out which just looked stupid. He’s out though.

Crush who also should have been pushed is number thirty. Like I said I’m not wasting my time on listing them. The Gunns go out at the same time because of Murdoch and Crush. Murdoch looks pretty good out there actually. We go back to Anderson who points back at the ring as in get off me so I can be miserable and then get my check. I think there’s 9 people in there. Let’s up the stupidity a bit as Vince says that never again will two guys go out at the same time and hit at the same time.

Of course, this ended the show last year and JUST HAPPENED. Luger saves Michaels for no apparent reason. Bomb goes out. I nearly spit out my drink as Vince says he was a favorite. That’s just amusing. He’s young and over and decent. There’s no way he could do anything of note. Montoya is out and AGAIN Luger saves Michaels. Is he that scared of the power of Murdoch? The final six are Luger, Murdoch, Godwin, Bulldog, Shawn and Crush.

Murdoch is by far the most interesting guy in here as he hooks an airplane spin but falls out when trying to dump Godwin. Shawn sprints at Luger which is awesome. This just needs to end as it’s not interesting at all. Godwin is out and we’re at the final four. Crush puts out Luger and I think some nachos sound good here. The heels beat on Bulldog for a bit as we’re just wasting time. Crush tries to jump Shawn but Bulldog sneaks up and drops Crush to get us down to the starters.

We get the famous ending as Bulldog clotheslines Shawn up and over and the music hits for the celebration. But wait. What’s this? Shawn jumps back in and nails Smith to put him over the top and he’s declared the winner. For the only time this will ever be said, Vince is awesome on the mic here. Fink announces that only one foot hit and Vince is stunned. We go to the replay and in one of the coolest and most impressive things I’ve ever seen in wrestling, Shawn’s foot does not touch.

That’s amazing and very risky as if he slips one inch, and who could blame him if he did, the next few months have to be completely altered. Anyway, Shawn wins and he and Pam “celebrate” as it looks like she wants to scream. She even leaves halfway through it as Shawn poses to end the show.

Rating: D+. This has been called the Jobber Rumble and it fits perfectly. I mean look at the list of people. The only ones that were ever going to have a chance were Shawn and Luger, both of whom were midcard guys at best here. The whole thing was just messed up with no monsters to save anything and no one that was a big star to be a big surprise. That’s just stupid.

The one minute intervals are just flat out stupid too. There’s zero time to get going at all and it was just stupid. This did however get two things right: the ending was downright inspired. That’s one o the best ways I can think of to end the thing and the key to it for me is Shawn won completely legally. He earned the win and that’s the most important thing as it ties into the other thing they got right: a midcard guy got elevated.

Shawn goes from IC Title dude to world title shot at Mania in less than 40 minutes. That’s what the Rumble could be for yet never is. They got the end right, but the road getting there was just awful. This could be worse than 93 but I don’t think it quite is.

Overall Rating: C-. This show is just not great at all. It’s the epitome of just being there. It’s not good or bad although it’s leaning towards that latter of the two. The matches are just uninteresting and this feels like it could be on any show at all. Yes we have three title matches, but while they’re good, they could easily have happened on Raws or any run of the mill PPV.

It’s a show where the matches don’t add up to the whole show, as this just feels completely empty despite having some decent stuff on it. I’d say check this out only in extreme cases of boredom or for hardcore fans only. The casual viewer will just be bored to tears, which the ratings around this time reflect. This show was bad, but the individual stuff was ok I guess.