Roddy Piper vs. Mr. T.
This is a boxing match with ten three minute rounds. T has Joe Frazier as his trainer and the Haiti Kid to counter Orton. Piper is the aggressor to start as Vince calls T’s defensive stance a peek-a-boo style. Roddy grabs on the ropes and T fires away some body shots. These rounds might only be two minutes rounds. Piper takes him into the corner but T bobs and weaves before popping Roddy in the face a few times. It turns into another brawl on the ropes for the last thirty seconds or so of the round.
Everyone comes in to break up the brawl and we take a break between rounds. T gets in a few shots to the face to open round 2 but Piper apparently has a bunch of goo on his face. There’s an Orton/Piper joke in there somewhere. After the face gets cleaned off Piper starts pounding away and T is in trouble. I’ll change the numbers again because the rounds are indeed three minutes long. Piper gets him into the corner and pounds away, dropping him with a pair of shots to the head after about seven shots that missed BADLY. That gets an eight count and round 2 ends with T going down just after the bell.
Piper gets in a few cheap shots after the bell because that’s the kind of guy he is. We start round 3 with T firing away but they’re clearly getting tired. Piper goes down in his corner but pulls himself up before the count. T pounds him right back down in the corner and this time gets a seven count. This turns into move of a shoving match until T gets in a right hand to knock Piper out of the ring and out to the floor. Round 3 ends with nothing of note going on.
T talks trash in between rounds so Piper throws his stool across the ring as round 4 begins. They slug it out with T finally taking over. Piper DRILLS him with a right hand that knocks T’s mouthpiece out. T comes back with the same kind of a punch….and then Piper shoves the referee down and slams T for the DQ.
Rating: D. This was one of those things that everyone knew was going to be a disaster and the best chance they had was to make it goofy. Thankfully we’re talking about Roddy Piper in the 80s so you know he can bring the goofy. There were some decent punches in here but like all other wrestling boxing matches, you knew it would end with some sort of a DQ. This was pretty much it for Mr. T in the WWF other than a few cameos later on.
Off to WCW at Clash of the Champions XXI.
Johnny B. Badd vs. Scotty Flamingo
This is a boxing match with three two minute rounds. Scotty is a relatively generic smart aleck who would soon move to the WWF as Johnny Polo and then ECW as Raven. Johnny was an amateur boxing champion so he easily snaps off a string of jabs to send Flamingo to the floor. Back in and a nice combination with a right hand to the head puts Scotty down again. Vinnie Vegas offers a distraction and Flamingo rakes the eyes and puts Badd down with a clothesline.
Scotty hammers away with punches but Johnny just waits him out and pounds on Flamingo, knocking him down again at the bell. Scotty is saved by the bell and dragged to the corner. During the break, Page fills Flamingo’s glove with water. Flamingo get hammered again until Page offers a distraction, allowing Scotty to knock Badd silly with the loaded glove for the win. Not long enough to rate but this was your usual wrestling boxing shenanigans.
Ever heard of Butterbean/ He’s a big fat “boxer”, so here he is against Marc Mero at In Your House: D-Generation X.
Marc Mero vs. Butterbean
Butterbean is a legitimate boxer who weighed over 300lbs so this is fixed to prevent Mero from being killed. There are four two minute rounds and Mero runs a lot to start round one. He hides in the ropes and Butterbean gets annoyed so he knocks Mero off the apron with a big right hand. Back in and they keep feeling each other out with nothing of note until the end of the round. A brawl breaks out between the rounds but again it goes nowhere.
Mero chokes away in the corner to start round two before pounding away with rights and lefts. Nothing of note happens until the end of the round when Mero dropkicks Butterbean into the corner. Round three is all Butterbean with Mero getting pounded into the corner and being knocked silly by a huge right hand to end the round. Butterbean doesn’t want it to end that way though so he pours water on Mero to wake him up. Round four begins with another huge right hand to drop Mero so he hits Butterbean low for the DQ.
Rating: F. Considering the fans were chanting boring before the match started and were almost silent other than for the big punches, what else would you expect me to think of this? This kind of stuff has never worked and almost never will because of one simple reason: wrestling fans want to watch wrestling, not boxing. If they wanted to watch boxing, they’d buy a boxing show. It really is that simple.
From Wrestlemania XV, when the WWF was REALLY stupid.
Bart Gunn vs. Butterbean
The guest referee is Vinnie Pazienza, former world Middleweight Champion. The judges are boxing trainer Kevin Rooney, Chuck Wepner and Gorilla Monsoon, who would be dead soon after this. He looks AWFUL here as he’s lost about 200lbs due to illness. This would be his final public appearance. Bart is introduced as being from western Kentucky. That’s probably accurate as there aren’t many large towns over there so pinning it down to one single town is hardly an option.
I’d explain the rules and scoring here, but Butterbean DESTROYS Bart and knocks him down twice in 35 seconds. The second is as brutal of a punch as you’ll ever see. For the life of me I have NO IDEA what they were thinking here. I could watch Bart Gunn get knocked out like that for hours.
And from Bash at the Beach 1999, also involving Roddy Piper oddly enough.
Roddy Piper vs. Buff Bagwell
Big time boxing referee Mills Lane is referee here to try to make people care. In case you’ve never seen him, just picture Mr. Strickland from Back to the Future. Piper has Flair in his corner. Buff’s gloves are actually labeled “Buff’s Left” and “Buff’s Right”. Bagwell sees Flair in Piper’s corner, so he has someone to have his back: HIS MOM, “Judge Judy” Bagwell. And I give up. Seriously it was bad enough when this was boxing instead of Piper just doing a freaking job for Bagwell like he should be doing, but now BUFF’S MOM IS HERE???
Flair gives Bagwell a chance to leave but Buff reminds him of the pin off the Blockbuster a few weeks back. You know, when Flair put Bagwell over in the middle of the ring in the whole point of this entire story. The rounds are two minutes long here. Piper sticks his chin out to start until Buff hammers him into the corner. The fans are dead at this point if you couldn’t guess. Bagwell tees off on Piper (well, as much as he can BECAUSE HE ISN’T A BOXER) to end the first round.
Flair sprays something on Piper’s gloves in between the rounds as this continues to fall apart. Piper hits a few jabs to the face and Bagwell’s eyes are burning. He gets punched down in the corner as Judy brings over a sponge to try and clean Buff’s eyes out. Back up and Piper wildly swings until Buff knocks Piper down in the corner in an identical sequence from Piper vs. Mr. T. thirteen years ago, because that’s what this is supposed to be….a tribute to I suppose? Piper gets up as round two ends.
I’m going to pause for a second here and give you a bit of context to what is about to happen. Fifteen months ago, WCW was still in control of the Monday Night Wars and hadn’t lost a night in the ratings in nearly two years. Their last win was about nine months before this. Yeah they were in trouble, but it’s not like they were so desperate for something good to happen that they had to go insane. A few weeks back, Buff Bagwell hit his finishing move and pinned Ric Flair in the middle of the ring on Nitro, which should have been the start of a huge push for him. After all that, I give you the third round of this boxing match.
Piper jumps Bagwell in the corner and attacks Bagwell early, so his mother Judy gets in the ring and bites Piper’s ear. She then dumps the spit bucket over Piper’s head as Buff punches Flair off the apron. Buff goes up and hits the Blockbuster on Piper as Judy holds Flair on the apron, allowing Buff to pin Piper for the win. Judy chases the President of WCW around the ring after the match.
Rating: G. As in below an F and for GOOD FREAKING GRIEF THEY REALLY COULDN’T COME UP WITH ANYTHING BETTER THAN THIS??? Piper wasn’t capable of doing a five minute match and doing a job for Bagwell? Does WCW really think that it’s important enough to protect him from taking a fall in a wrestling match that they’ll let him take a fall in a boxing match? Read that sentence back and see how insane it sounds. Now throw in Judy Bagwell and more hijinks than an episode of Looney Tunes and you see what happened to WCW in the summer of 1999.
Finally……well what else would it be? From Wrestlemania XXIV.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Big Show
You can by pin, submission or knockout. Other than that anything goes. Floyd is in gloves which would seem to be a disadvantage for him but whatever. He bobs and weaves a lot before firing off some nice punches to Big Show. Mayweather stops for a drink from a chalice (seriously) and Show beats up Mayweather’s team a bit. Show grabs an incoming punch and tries to stomp on Floyd’s hand. Smart strategy.
Show lifts him up for a chokeslam but that lets Floyd get on even level with Show’s head. Some rights to the face stagger show but Mayweather tries to choke him out, which actually works for a bit. Show finally flips him over and steps on Floyd’s left hand. The guys on the floor FREAK and say that’s not allowed before Show chops Mayweather in the corner. Show stands on Floyd’s back before putting him down with a side slam.
A headbutt stops Floyd’s comeback bid and there’s an elbow drop for good measure. Mayweather tries to bail but Big Show chases the team down, beats them up, and throws Floyd back in the ring. Show loads up the chokeslam but a handler hits Show with a chair. He gets chokeslammed down but Mayweather gets the chair and blasts Show with it a few times. A low blow and three chair shots to the head sets up a brass knuckle right hand to Show’s jaw for the knockout (and Show was on his knees at 9).
Rating: C+. This is one of those matches where all you can say is “well what else were you expecting?” Again though, who was I supposed to cheer for? The giant bully, or the loud bragging guy who used chairs and brass knuckles to win? Like I said, the story was head scratch inducing, but this was tremendous fun.
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