This was an actual surprise.Bobby Lashley returned to answer Ethan Carter III’s challenge.

Off to Samoa for some Umaga.

Umaga got his start up in Pennsylvania as Ekmo in a tag team called the Island Boyz. They would receive a dark match against the Haas Brothers (Charlie and his brother Russ) on September 18, 2001.

Island Boyz vs. Haas Brothers

The Island Boyz are more famous as 3 Minute Warning. Ekmo (Umaga) throws Russ around for a bit before it’s off to Kimo for a double headbutt and two. Off to Charlie who runs into a clothesline who gets sat on while attempting a sunset flip. The Haas Brothers finally hit a double dropkick to take over on Kimo for a bit but Russ just stands around a lot. The referee misses a tag off to Ekmo, meaning the big monster Samoans are the faces here for some reason. Kimo comes back with a pretty bad looking double suplex and the tag brings in Ekmo to clean house. A side slam from Kimo sets up a top rope splash from Ekmo to pin Russ.

Rating: C-. Very basic tag team match here but the heel/face dymanic was a bit head scratching. The crowd popped for the finish which is more than you can ask for in a match like this. Neither team looked all that great and I can’t say I’m surprised that Russ never made it up to the top level.

The Island Boyz would get hired and brought up to the main roster about a year later as 3 Minute Warning, a pair of enforcers for Eric Bischoff. Their first PPV match was against Billy and Chuck at Unforgiven 2002. You need the recap for this one.

We recap 3 Minute Warning vs. Billy and Chuck. This was one of those things that only happens in wrestling and soap operas. So Billy and Chuck were going to have a “commitment ceremony” (and yes it’s exactly what it sounds like) and the justice of the peace was really old. He started talking about how this could last and said it could be three minutes. He then changed his voice and pulled his face off, revealing that it was Bischoff in a prosthetic mask. The fat guys (Jamal and Rosey) beat up Billy and Chuck after that. Stephanie did the same on Raw and the match happened as a result.

 

Billy and Chuck vs. 3 Minute Warning

 

Here they’re just Rosey and Jamal but the 3 minute idea was still around. Jamal is more famous as Umaga. The fight starts immediately and Rico kicks Chuck in the head to take over. Rosey vs. Chuck starts us off. Cole talks about all of the people that 3 Minute Warning has beaten up, calling them a who’s who of wrestling: Shawn Stasiak, D’Lo Brown, Mini-dust, lesbians, Mae Young and Moolah just to name a few. I’m not here any more. I’m over there. That blew me away.

 

This is the fat boys’ debut and the fans make gay chants at Rico. A middle rope moonsault misses Chuck and this isn’t an incredibly interesting match. Billy comes in and cleans house but then tries to ram the Samoans’ heads together. And people wonder why he gets made fun of. Anyway, Rosey goes up for a splash but Chuck saves….by throwing him off the top with the hopes that Billy isn’t there anymore I guess. Jamal cleans house and superkicks Chuck but walks into a Fameasser. Rico comes in for a distraction and a Samoan Drop ends Billy to set up HLA later.

 

Rating: D. Well this was uh…..pointless? Why did this need to happen on PPV again? The match wasn’t very good at all and was just here to set up an angle later on in the night, which I’m sure won’t have any shenanigans at all. Billy and Chuck would split very soon after this after losing in the first round of the Smackdown tag title tournament.

The pair would head over to Raw and face various teams, including Kane and Rob Van Dam on February 10, 2003.

Kane/Rob Van Dam vs. 3 Minute Warning

Jamal (Umaga) slams Rob down to start but Rob takes out the legs and gets two off the standing moonsault. Rob goes up top but gets shoved face first into the barricade, allowing Rico to get in a cheap shot on the floor. Back in and it’s off to Rosey for a splash for two. The match keeps going slowly as Jamal comes back in, only to have Rob backflip out of a belly to back suplex.

A clothesline puts Van Dam back down for two but he ducks another clothesline which takes Rosey down by mistake. Kane gets the hot tag to clean house with all of his usual stuff. Rosey breaks up a chokeslam attempt on Jamal so Kane kicks both of them in the face. Rob comes in as well for his usual stuff and Rolling Thunder gets two on Jamal. Everything breaks down and it’s a chokeslam and Five Star to Jamal for the pin.

Rating: D. This is one of those matches where you can only say it existed. There’s just nothing else going on in this match and it showed badly. I have no idea who thought splitting up the tag titles in 2002 was a good idea but it was clear by this point that there was no way to support them. Hence why they went on for about five more years of course.

Umaga would be released in June, allegedly due to being in a bar fight. He would head over to TNA in a tag team with Sonni Siaki. That went nowhere so it was off to Japan for a bit before coming back to TNA in 2004, where he would be brought in to try and beat up Alex Shelley on August 11, 2004.

Alex Shelley vs. Ekmo

Ekmo runs over Shelley to start as Tenay tries to explain the Samoan family tree. A suplex puts Alex down and the running hip attack in the corner crushes his face. The managers (the reason for the story) chase each other to the back and when we cut back, Ekmo is down. I can’t stand stuff like that. Shelley cranks on the leg but Ekmo comes back with a spinebuster.

Shelley’s manager Goldilocks tries to come in but Desire (brought in Ekmo) comes back in for a catfight. Ekmo hits a top rope splash but the referee is with the girls. Shelley’s old partner Abyss comes in with two chair shots and a Black Hole Slam to Ekmo, giving Alex’s unconscious body the pin.

Rating: D+. This was all backstory but that doesn’t make it any easier to sit through. The match was short and Desire wasn’t bad looking though, so at least there was something to keep me from getting bored. This would be a one off appearance for Ekmo but it could have been far worse.

After another year in Japan it was back to WWE as Umaga, and old school Samoan monster. His first major match was against Ric Flair at Backlash 2006.

Umaga vs. Ric Flair

Umaga debuted less than a month before this so this is his first real match. When you need a new kid tested, call in Naitch. Flair jumps him in the aisle and that goes badly for him. We go into the ring for the bell and Flair gets pounded into the corner. Flair pokes him in the eye and hits him low a few times, only to get chopped right back down.

The running corner attack (NOT FROM RIKISHI YOU NXT ANNOUNCERS) misses and we go to the floor. Umaga misses a charge and hits the post and it’s time to go after the leg. The Figure Four is broken up and Flair is put in the Tree of Woe for a headbutt. The running hip attack sets up another headbutt which sets up the Samoan Spike for the pin.

Rating: C+. This was a total squash for Umaga but the idea here was perfect: Flair made Umaga look like a monster here which is exactly the point of something like this. Umaga would be a destruction machine, not losing until January when Cena finally put him down with a rollup of all things. This was a textbook example of how to put someone over using a legend.

Umaga would destroy everyone in his path for the rest of the year, including this match against Shawn Michaels on Raw from July 31, 2006.

Shawn Michaels vs. Umaga

The idea here is that no one can stop Umaga so Shawn is brought in to give him a real test while also tying in with the DX vs. Vince feud. Umaga also has Armando Alejandro Estrada as his manager. Shawn chops away to start and hammers away in the corner before hitting a low dropkick. Umaga misses a clothesline and Shawn bails outside as Vince and Shane come out.

We take a break and come back with Umaga uppercutting Shawn down. A kick to the face sends Shawn to the floor as the announcers talk about HHH being taken away for having Cuban cigars. Back in and Umaga hammers away on Shawn even more but Shawn won’t quit. We hit the neck crank on Shawn but he avoids the running hip attack in the corner.

Michaels comes back with chops and the forearm to put Umaga down but Estrada blocks the nipup. Umaga runs over Estrada by mistake but catches Shawn in the Samoan drop. The Samoan freaks out and loads up the announce table but Shawn avoids the Samoan Spike and goes low. The top rope elbow connects but Vince grabs the leg before Chin Music. Shawn takes the forearm but Umaga takes Shawn’s head off with the Spike for the pin.

Rating: C. This was a basic Shawn fights a monster match but it worked well enough. The interference made sense and helped advance the feud so it’s about all you can ask for. Umaga was getting some traction around this time and this was the kind of big win that he needed to put him a bit higher.

This roll would eventually earn Umaga a WWE Title shot against John Cena at New Year’s Revolution 2007.

Raw World Title: John Cena vs. Umaga

The big match introductions never get old to me. This is during Cena’s year long reign that made him so freaking hated. Umaga is just destroying him early on so cue up the Superman music for later. Cena has had maybe two moves in ten minutes. This is domination. Take out the Superman music and give us the Zeke Jackson music.

Cena hits the Throwback but he apparently hasn’t read up on his stereotypes as a shot to the head won’t hurt him at all. Ross references Yokozuna with Umaga, which is a bit much for my taste. The FU doesn’t work either. More or less the fatness of Umaga is too much. And it’s nerve hold time. That gave me a funny image of Samoans in a medical school learning how to do those holds. That’s rather amusing.

After the hold though he RAPS UP and starts his ending sequence, only to not be able to get the FU. Umaga goes for the running hip shot but Cena gets his feet into the chest and rolls Umaga up for the pin. I’ll give them that one: that was a lot more realistic than just getting the FU for the pin, and they kept Umaga looking strong.

Rating: B. Not bad at all here as this was in essence a throwaway show and a token title defense for Cena, although in the end it wound up paying off. That’s always a good sign as this wasn’t a terrible match at all and was actually pretty entertaining. They kept both guys looking strong which set them up for last man standing the following month.

As mentioned, the rematch was a last man standing match at Royal Rumble 2007. Cena has bad ribs coming in.

Raw World Title: John Cena vs. Umaga

Cena is defending and this is last man standing. Cena pounds away to start but Umaga barely moves. Umaga gets in a shot to the ribs and Cena falls to the outside, clutching his ribs. The champ gets sent into the steps and it’s all Umaga in the early going. They slug it out in the aisle and all of a sudden Cena’s punches work better. He tries to ram Umaga face first into the apron but Umaga screams and hits Cena in the ribs again.

Back in and Cena is in even more trouble with Umaga pounding on the ribs. A clothesline puts Cena down and Umaga brings in the steps. Cena knocks him off the apron though and throws the steps down onto Umaga’s (hands covering) head. It looked a lot better when Kane did it because you couldn’t see the hands but whatever. That draws a six count but more importantly it allows Cena to get a breather.

Umaga superkicks Cena down and it’s off to a bearhug. Since there are no submissions, Umaga lets Cena go and brings in some more steps. The steps are set up in the corner but Cena avoids the running hip attack (SEE??? IT WAS UMAGA AND NOT RIKISHI!!! SCREW YOU WWE ANNOUNCERS!!!) and blasts Umaga in the head with the steps. That only gets seven so Cena goes up and jumps into a spinning Rock Bottom, drawing some loud screams from the champ.

The Samoan cannonballs down onto Cena’s ribs but Cena finally knees him in the crotch to slow Umaga down. The Protobomb sends Umaga onto the steps but only gets about five as Cena hits the Shuffle to break the count. Cena tries the FU but Umaga’s weight causes Cena to fall face first into the steps. John is busted open so the fans tell him that he sucks. Ignore the fact that almost no one else could get a match this good out of Umaga I guess.

Cena gets up at eight and gets punched in the face some more, only to start Hulking Up. He pounds away on Umaga but walks into a Samoan Drop, driving the ribs and Cena’s shoulder into the mat. The Samoan Spike is blocked (for the life of me I do not get why they picked a thumb to the neck for Umaga’s finisher. The guy is a MONSTER and he pokes you in the neck?) so Umaga headbutts Cena down instead.

Umaga puts him in the Tree of Woe but Cena sits up in the corner to avoid a running headbutt. The top rope Fameasser takes Umaga down and Cena sends him shoulder first into the post. They head to the floor and Cena is covered in blood. With Umaga still laying over the ropes, Cena BLASTS HIM with a monitor to the head to put him down. Back to the floor but Umaga catches a diving Cena and drives him back first into the post.

Umaga puts Cena on the announce table and runs along the other tables, only to miss a splash and crash onto the ground. That gets nine and Cena has no idea what to do next. Estrada, Umaga’s manager, unhooks the top rope and tells Umaga to use the metal pole to blast Cena in the head. Cena catches a charging Umaga with the FU and hits him in the head with the pole. He hooks a kind of STF with the ring rope and Umaga is passing out. Umaga starts fighting up so Cena chokes him even more. FINALLY Umaga is out and Cena retains the title.

Rating: B+. This was a FIGHT which is what a last man standing match is supposed to do. I was digging the story they were telling here with Cena fighting a savage but having to become a savage himself to beat him. The fans didn’t like him at this point, but screw them as would you really rather have Umaga as champion? This was one of many awesome matches Cena had in this stretch, but OH NO kids like him so he must suck right? Give me a break.

Umaga would pick up the Intercontinental Title a few weeks later before being entered into the real main event of Wrestlemania 23, as Vince’s handpicked monster against Donald Trump’s handpicked man in Bobby Lashley. I’ll throw in the backstory again.

We recap the real main event for tonight’s show and the reason why this show was the highest drawing show ever for the next five years. Vince and Donald Trump both agreed to back a guy into a match and the losing billionaire would get their head shaved. This was when Trump was still a big deal and EVERYONE was backing Umaga because they wanted to see Trump bald. Oh except for Rock who actually cut a promo about wanting to see Vince bald.

Trump picked the ECW World Champion Bobby Lashley. Steve Austin was brought in to referee because this is Wrestlemania. The best part of the build was Lashley in a cage with Umaga on the floor. To escape, Lashley shoulder blocked the cage wall, knocking it down to the floor and nearly crushing Umaga in the process.

Bobby Lashley vs. Umaga

The barber’s chair gets its own entrance complete with some snappy music. Oh and Umaga is IC Champion. Trump coming out to a song with the only word being MONEY is perfect. Real money rains down from the ceiling, including $100 bills. To be fair this show brought in like 50 million dollars in PPV alone so they can afford a bit. They collide to start and slug it out with Lashley pounding him into the corner. Austin pulls Lashley off of Umaga since they’re in the ropes and Umaga gets in some shots of him own. Lashley goes up to the middle rope for a shoulder for two.

Umaga’s manager Armando Estrada is dragged in by Lashley and powerslammed down with ease. Lashley throws him out to the floor and low bridges Umaga to send him to the floor as well. Back in and Lashley misses a spear, sending him out to the floor this time. We head inside again and Umaga chokes away, only to be pulled off at four and a half by Austin. Austin has to do it again, this time by the hair for good measure.

A BIG clothesline puts Lashley down again and Umaga cannonballs down onto his chest for good measure. The Samoan drop puts Lashley down again as does a failed slam attempt. Vince gets up on the apron and gets dropped down by an elbow from Lashley, only to walk into a shot from Umaga to take over again. Umaga goes up and gets slammed down before being clotheslined down. Both guys down and Austin gets to nine before stopping so it doesn’t end in a draw.

Shane McMahon comes out to check on Vince as Umaga hits an uppercut to drop Lashley again. Austin has to pull Umaga out of the corner, earning him a Samoan Spike. Shane comes in and pounds away on Lashley until Umaga is back into things. The running hip attack crushes Bobby’s face and Vince throws in some trashcans. Shane hits the Coast to Coast to drive the can into Lashley’s face. A top rope splash from Umaga crushes Lashley and Shane has a referee’s shirt on now.

Austin breaks up the pin and beats up Shane for good measure, only to walk into another Samoan Spike. Trump isn’t sure what to do and shows off those great acting skills of his. Vince comes over to taunt him and TRUMP CLOTHESLINES VINCE! Umaga tries another Spike on Austin but gets countered into the Stunner. The spear from Lashley connects and it’s time for Vince to be bald.

Rating: D. This match sucked for the most part until Austin got going. The problem at the end of the day was no one on the planet with any idea what was going on here thought Vince was going to win. It also didn’t help that no one cared about Lashley because no one had ever given us a reason to. He was just kind of there for the most part and there was nothing more to him than he used to be a college wrestler and he’s muscular. Seriously, that’s Lashley’s story almost in full.

Umaga would lose the title to Santino Marella but got it back soon enough to defend against Jeff Hardy at Great American Bash 2007.

Intercontinental Title: Jeff Hardy vs. Umaga

Jeff is challenging and that Candace scene was in place of a recap. Umaga immediately takes him down and they go to the floor. Jeff fights back but walks into a Samoan Drop which must be like learning to walk at the Samoan wrestling school. Umaga pounds him down and hooks a nerve hold. Jeff looks more like he’s coming down off a really bad trip. Must be a Sunday. And now it’s back to the nerve hold for a VERY long time.

Jeff gets up and tries a slam but guess how well that goes. Umaga crashes down onto Jeff’s chest and then does it again. This has been a squash so far. A middle rope headbutt misses and both of them are down. Out to the floor and there’s a plancha, thankfully by Jeff so that the plate tectonics don’t shift. A dropkick gets two for Jeff. The running hip bump in the corner misses and Jeff hooks a Twist of Fate for two.

The fans are way into this too which is always a good sign. Umaga charges and hits the ring post. There’s a Swanton but Umaga BARELY kicks out. That seems to wake Umaga up though so he throws Jeff around like a skinny man that owes him drug money. The corner hip shot and the Samoan Spike kill Jeff deader than an overdose on every drug known to man and we’re done.

Rating: C+. This was one of the opening steps in the process of Jeff’s rise to the world title a year and a half later. He would show signs of hammering away on Umaga but then he would come up short. Jeff would continue to rise up and get closer and closer to the big wins, even getting the Rumble title shot in January, before FINALLY winning the title in 18 months. Yes Virginia, there used to be world title pushes that lasted longer than two months.

Umaga would begin to feud with HHH, who happened to win the World Title in the opening match of No Mercy 2007. Umaga had a match against HHH that night so it was made into a title match.

Raw World Title: HHH vs. Umaga

HHH gets to use King of Kings now that he’s champion. Umaga takes him down immediately so HHH fires back with a DDT. Thankfully Umaga remembers his racial stereotypes and no sells it. HHH low bridges him and we go to the floor. Umaga gets rammed into the steps and yells at HHH for it. My goodness it’s nice to see a Samoan monster that knows how to take a beating to the head.

Back in Umaga pounds him down but misses a middle rope headbutt. For some reason that slows him down but the Facebuster has no effect. Pedigree is countered but the spinebuster works just fine. Another Pedigree attempt is countered into a Samoan Drop and the Game has bad ribs. Out to the floor and HHH goes into the barricade. Back in for a bearhug as the champ is in trouble.

Umaga shifts up into a spinning Rock Bottom for two. The headbutt (this time not of the ropes) hits the bad ribs and is followed by a knee. Umaga pounds on the head of the Game and has him down in the corner. The running hip attack (SEE??? IT WAS UMAGA! NOT FREAKING RIKISHI YOU STUPID NXT PEOPLE!) misses, Umaga gets launched into the post and HHH hits a quick Pedigree to retain.

Rating: C-. Not much here as it felt like a Raw main event instead of a PPV title match. Then again this is only the second PPV title match out of four tonight so it’s ok if there’s a match with only about six and a half minutes. It’s nothing that great but it was good to allow HHH to look good. You know, like in a real title reign at a smaller PPV instead of in the third match of the night, but whatever.

Since he was out of the title picture, Umaga would be Rated RKO’s partner against Evolution on the Raw 15^th Anniversary special.

Rated RKO/Umaga vs. Evolution

JR calls this the ultimate tag team explosion. Not quite but whatever. Joined in progress after a break with Flair coming in to face the freshly in Edge. Flair is in the whole “lose and you’re fired” period, but they’ve amended it to say that it’s only a singles loss that counts. Off to Umaga for a nerve hold and it’s Orton in again. Flair avoids a dropkick and there’s a tag to Batista. Everything breaks down and Edge takes a Bossman Slam. HHH and Batista hit stereo spinebusters on Rated RKO. Umaga comes in and shoves the referee for a DQ.

Rating: D+. This was nothing of note but it wasn’t supposed to be. The wrestling here isn’t the point and it would be a mistake to treat it as one. This was about a quick Evolution reunion when most of them were still popular so it’s hard to complain about it. It’s not like 2003 where they were ALL you saw on Raw.

Umaga wouldn’t do much for the first half of 2008 other than having a horrible match for brand supremacy at Wrestlemania XXIV against Batista. He would however have a match against Jeff Hardy at One Night Stand 2008.

Jeff Hardy vs. Umaga

Falls count anywhere. Jeff is in his whole chasing the brass ring phase here as he would be for most of 2008. Hardy charges straight at him….and down he goes. Whisper in the Wind out of nowhere gets two. It’s as fast as it sounds. Jeff jumps into a spinning release Rock Bottom (called a Black Hole Slam by JR) but is fine a few seconds later, hitting a plancha to the floor for two.

Into the crowd we go as Umaga sends Jeff flying to various places. Jeff finds a weapon in the form of a hollow traffic barrel which he chucks at Umaga’s head. Thankfully Umaga has studied his stereotypes and kicks Jeff in the face for two. Good boy. Umaga misses a charge into an anvil case and Jeff finds a fire extinguisher….which he can’t get to work. Finally he gets a shot off and Youmanga is staggered.

They’re in the back now and head into a stairwell where Jeff slides down the railing like you would see a little kid do, ramming into Umaga for two. To be fair that’s something that actually was logical so I can’t fault him there. Out into the concourse with Umaga getting two after throwing Jeff into a garbage can. They go outside and it’s all Samoan fat man. Jeff is rammed into a backhoe or something like that for two.

Basically the idea here is Hardy gets thrown into random objects before he can find something to jump off. They fight up to the production truck and Hardy hammers away which actually works to an extent. It’s kind of weird seeing a blue sky like that behind them. They climb a truck with Shawn’s face on it and Jeff kicks him off before hitting a huge Swanton onto an unseen Umaga for the pin.

Rating: C. Just a hardcore match here which was designed to set up the big spot at the end and give Hardy a win. Nothing wrong with that but there was nothing particularly great here at all. Umaga was a guy that you can only do so much with and Jeff wasn’t the kind of guy that could do something like that, which isn’t his fault. Not bad, but nothing great at all.

After being out a few months with a knee injury, Umaga would return in early 2009 before entering into a quick feud with CM Punk. From Extreme Rules 2009.

CM Punk vs. Umaga

This was a fairly weak mini feud that saw Umaga just destroy Punk at every time. Punk has MITB here and has been trying to cash it in for awhile but Umaga keeps stopping him. Oh and this is a Samoan Strap Match. Why do I not picture a lot of straps in Samoa? They’ll be tied at the wrist here and I think you win by pinfall or submission. There was never any real justification for Umaga to beat the tar out of Punk like he did but whatever.

I guess you could go with he’s a savage. I guess this is the four corner style. Dang it. There is however a helpful graphic in the corner saying how many you have in a row with Punk in green and Umaga in red. Still though I’ve never gotten a clear definition of what in succession means. I know what succession means but often times they just seemingly go with what fits best for the rules at the time. Umaga works on Punk’s arm as this match is just kind of odd.

Not sure why it is but it comes off as most odd to me. With Punk on the floor Umaga gets two buckles but instead of getting the third he goes for Punk. I didn’t know Samoans were such idiots. Aww Punk went for the GTS. That’s so cute. Grisham says Punk was undaunted. What does it mean to be daunted?

I’ve never heard of anyone being daunted but just undaunted. Fans are very behind Punk. Punk gets three but charges at Umaga instead and gets drilled. Well he deserves it for being stupid. Umaga gets three but Punk gets him to charge at him like a bull and Umaga goes to the floor. This is getting fairly repetitive.

Umaga gets pulled off the top and crashes to the mat. Punk gets three and with Umaga pulling away from him, for no explained reason at all, Umaga charges at him and gets caught in GTS so Punk can win. Ending was just stupid looking on Umaga’s part.

Rating: D. These matches were never very good and this is no exception. Also, there were far too many stupid moments here, mainly the ending. I love Punk, but this was just an incredibly pointless feud and thankfully this is the last one between them. Keep an eye on Punk though. He’s going places.

Umaga would be released in the fall before passing away due to heart failure in December 2009. His career wasn’t all that long but he was a talented guy who was better than most Samoan monsters. I don’t think he would have ever been a long term champion or anything, but maybe a very short title reign could have worked. He would have worked better in the territory days though and that’s a problem with the modern system. Umaga was a talented guy though and had good matches if given the right opponent.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Summerslam at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

Impact Wrestling
Date: March 6, 2014
Location: Wembley Arena, London, England
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

We’re STILL in England and it’s the go home show for Lockdown. The main story coming into tonight is a six man elimination tag for the advantage in Lethal Lockdown on Sunday. TNA has been doing better lately but they need a really good showing on Sunday to take it to the next level. Given their track record, I’m hoping for good things tonight. Let’s get to it.

After the usual recap, here are Roode and the Bro Mans with something to say. The Bro Mans are champions again, having won the titles in Japan. Nice touch of continuity there. Roode says he and his team are ready for Lockdown and he wants MVP right now. Instead he gets Aries (wearing the X Title to take away the nice bit of continuity) who says that 10% of the pie isn’t much but it’s a piece and Aries wants half.

The Bro Mans say not so fast because they want a piece too. Roode says no because he’s the captain and he isn’t sharing. The top priority is winning the match and Aries says that isn’t a problem. There isn’t a single person in this company that can save MVP, so here are the Wolves and MVP to disagree.

MVP says he made a mistake when he trusted Aries, but he won’t be fooled twice in a row. He had to do some hustling to come up with another partner and he has made his decision. Before he can say anything, here’s Dixie Carter to cut him off. She doesn’t care who MVP’s partner is because she’s been in New York securing the victory for Team Roode. The company means everything to her and she’ll do anything to keep it under her control.

MVP understands but asks if Dixie wants to know the mystery partner. It’s a former world champion and that’s enough for Dixie to want to know. It’s Jeff Hardy and Dixie FREAKS. Dixie says over her dead body and MVP offers to send a wreath to her funeral. Roode jumps MVP and the six man starts before a break.

MVP/Wolves vs. Robbie E/Austin Aries/Bobby Roode

Elimination tag and the winning team gets the advantage at Lockdown. We’re joined in progress after a break with Robbie driving Edwards into the corner before it’s off to Roode for some kicks to the ribs. The villains take turns working over Eddie until he backflips out of a belly to back suplex and makes the tag off to MVP. The title belts are laying in the corner of the rung until Davey lays one of them on the floor. MVP hits a quick Drive By for the pin on Robbie at 2:00.

The Wolves hit a double kick on Roode for two but Aries comes in with a running dropkick in the corner to Edwards, followed by the brainbuster for the pin at 3:45 total. Richards and Aries come in for a slugout with Richards kicking Aries agianst the ropes but Austin coming back with a discus forearm to put both guys down. A double tag brings in MVP and Roode for a forearm and clothesline exchange that goes nowhere. Roode gets knocked down but Aries makes the save, allowing Roode to hit a clothesline to the back of MVP’s head for a pin (with Roode holding the feet) at 5:10 total.

So it’s Richards 2-1 against Roode and Aries. Austin starts by working over Davey in the corner and getting two off a bulldog. Davey is sent outside for a top rope ax handle from Aries but comes back with a dropkick to take out both heels. A running knee to Roode’s chest looks to set up the top rope double stomp but Bobby rolls away. The Roode Bomb is countered but Richards rolls into a half crab, only to have Aries come in with a chair to the arm for a DQ at 7:55 total. Edwards comes out to check on his partner and we take a break.

After a break there’s no official winner, but Earl Hebner gives them one hour to get Davey back in the ring for a match with Roode. The trainer doesn’t think it’s going to happen.

We recap Samuel Shaw and Mr. Anderson fighting because Shaw creeped Hemme out. Shaw says last week was beautiful and he’ll do something else beautiful in the ring tonight.

Samuel Shaw vs. Eric Young

Shaw comes out with a cup of tea. Christy isn’t in her usual ringside seat so Anderson comes out to do the intros instead. Shaw yells at Anderson and almost gets rolled up for the pin. Young hammers away in the corner but Shaw just smiles at him. Samuel hammers away in the corner as the fans call him creepy. Shaw yells at Anderson again and Eric hammers away and is sent to the apron for some strutting. A forearm to the head sets up a belly to belly for two. They head outside and Shaw throws the tea into Young’s eyes for a DQ at 2:23.

Shaw throws Young into Anderson and chokes Mr. out again. He says he’ll be going to claim what is rightfully his. Christy wisely walks away in the back.

Richards says he needs to go to the hospital but MVP has something to do. Davey looks confused.

Richards says he needs to go to the hospital but MVP has something to do. Davey looks confused.

Back from a break and MVP is looking for Aries. He goes into the locker room and yells at Austin over attacking Davey. MVP knows how things are working now.

We recap the Ethan vs. Angle showdown last week. Ethan comes in to see Dixie and she tells him to just focus.

Shaw is looking for Christy in the back. After a break he’s still looking and goes into the locker room. Instead he finds Velvet getting dressed and asks where Christy is. Velvet says the makeup room and runs off.

Here’s Ethan Carter III to call out Kurt Angle. If there’s one thing he learned last week, it’s never meet your heroes because they might sucker punch you in the face. Carter rants about all of the parts of Angle’s leg that he’ll injure and lists off all the people he’s beaten. Once he beats Angle on Sunday, he’ll be the American Icon. Angle finally limps out and says he’s ready to go now but Carter runs. Kurt goes to leave but Ethan jumps him to go after the leg. He slaps on a leg lock until referees make the save.

MVP talks to the Wolves and Richards says he’ll be standing up tonight.

Video on Kenny King being King of the Night. Nice idea at least.

Alpha Female/Gail Kim/Lei’D Tapa vs. Velvet Sky/Madison Rayne/ODB

Madison jumps Gail to start and scores with a quick northern lights suplex. Off to ODB for a Bronco Buster but Tapa comes in and powerbombs her down for two. Back up and they slug it out until it’s off to Velvet vs. Alpha Female. Everything breaks down and Sabin goes after Velvet with a chain and yells at her a lot. Chris charges at her but gets low bridged to the floor. Alpha Female tries a full nelson but gets kicked in the face. In Yo Face is enough to pin Female at 4:17.

Rating: D+. This was a messy match and it didn’t go much of anywhere. I’m not sure why you would have Female lose this quickly unless she’s just there for the European tour. Madison and Velvet only had a few seconds here but that’s better than no build for their title match on Sunday. Yeah they have a title match on Sunday.

Shaw is still looking for the makeup room.

Willow is still creepy.

Shaw goes to find Christy but finds Anderson in a red wig instead. They fight behind a door and Anderson puts lipstick on Shaw’s head.

We recap Storm vs. Gunner.

Here’s Gunner to talk about the code he lives by. He takes every day at a time and he remembers a lot of days since he won that briefcase. This Sunday at Lockdown he’s inside a cage and that brings back a lot of memories for him. This brings out Storm (minus the catchphrase to start his music) who says it sounds like Gunner is just complaining about his bad luck. Gunner needs to pack a lunch on Sunday because it’s going to be an all day beating. Storm gets in the ring and promises to cut Gunner down before kicking him low. The Last Call to a kneeling Gunner knocks him cold. Apparently it’s a last man standing match.

Roode wants Richards in the ring right now.

Bobby comes out and wants the referee to count to ten so his team can win. Davey comes out around six and it’s time for our match.

Davey Richards vs. Bobby Roode

Bobby of course goes right after the arm and wraps it around the post. Back in and Roode drops a knee on the arm and stands around for a bit. Richards rolls to the floor and manages to crotch Roode as Bobby goes after him. Roode heads outside but gets taken down by a suicide dive, only to injure the arm even worse. Back inside and a missile dropkick gets two for Davey and he fires off some kicks to the chest. The Roode Bomb is countered into a half crab but Bobby rolls over and kicks at the bad arm. Richards goes shoulder first into the post and the Roode Bomb sets up the Crossface for the tap at 5:31.

Rating: C. Basic idea here but it did its job well enough. This give MVP’s team a slight disadvantage going into Sunday which is something they need to do given how one sided the match is on paper. Richards sold the arm well and it’s a decent enough story coming into the PPV.

MVP and Edwards make the save.

Tigre Uno is still coming.

Dixie tells Magnus to stop worrying and just win on Sunday. She implies his match means nothing to her.

Here are Magnus and Joe for their showdown to end the show. Magnus says the two of them have won titles and championships in Japan and here in TNA, including here in this building. Joe has had far too many chances to win the title but has blown it time after time due to his rage, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen on Sunday.

Joe says that he does have a rage problem because he wants to make people feel as much pain as he can. That’s exactly what he can do on Sunday because it’s Joe’s Rules, meaning he can beat on Magnus as long as he want and take the title from him. Magnus gets in a cheap shot and gets choked out to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. This was a good go home show but it didn’t do much for me. The heels getting the advantage in the cage isn’t a surprise at all and the matches were just ok. Joe vs. Magnus was a good build but I can’t imagine Magnus loses the title this early. It should be a good show on Sunday but this was just ok.

Results

MVP/Wolves vs. Bobby Roode/Austin Aries/Robbie E went to a no contest

Eric Young b. Samuel Shaw via DQ when Shaw threw tea into Young’s eyes

Velvet Sky/Madison Rayne/ODB b. Alpha Female/Gail Kim/Lei’D Tapa – In Yo Face to Female

Bobby Roode b. Davey Richards – Crossface

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Summerslam at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

We’ll go to 110^th Street today for Booker T.

Before we get started, I had to cut a TON of stuff off this list to keep it from being about 30 pages long. Booker has been around for over 20 years and has won so many titles in almost every company so I had to skip years of stuff at a time because there’s other, more important stuff. I have to do this every now and then because I don’t think you guys want to read novels about these guys.

Booker got his first major start in the Global Wrestling Federation out of Dallas. We’ll look at a match from his run there from some time between 1991 and August 1993.

Super Destroyer vs. Booker T

Destroyer is just a guy in a mask. Booker has a manager in football pads and a helmet for some reason. The announcers say we’re in a new year here and the Destroyer takes over with some forearms to the back of the head to start. Kerry Von Erich is in the promition at this point so it’s probably January 1993. Booker comes back with an armdrag into an armbar as the heel announcer makes fun of Kerry Von Erich.

We look at the announcers and miss Destroyer taking over but Booker comes back with a suplex for two. A spinning scissors kick gets two on Destroyer and we hit the chinlock. We miss even more stuff because of Booker’s manager running his mouth and come back to see Destroyer throwing Booker to the floor.

After a break, we get this gem from the announcer: “Don’t worry. You didn’t miss any action.” A side slam gets two on Booker and Destroyer chokes a lot. The masked guy slows WAY down and slams Booker’s face into the mat but he comes back with a dropkick and side slam of his own. Booker gets two off a rollup but Destroyer rams Booker into the manager’s helmet for the fast pin.

Rating: D. This was a pretty bad match with Destroyer being nothing special and Booker being athletic but not ready to carry a match on his own. The camera direction was more irritating than anything else with stupid cuts to stuff we didn’t need to be looking at. Maybe that’s why the company didn’t make it to 1995.

It was off to WCW soon after this where Booker and his brother Stevie Ray would be known as Kole and Kane respectfully. They were quickly in big time feuds, leading to an appearance in WarGames at Fall Brawl 1993.

Sting/Shockmaster/Davey Boy Smith/Dustin Rhodes vs. Vader/Harlem Heat/Sid Vicious

WarGames again. This is the mother of all gimmick matches in WCW and something that a lot of people with they would bring back in WWE, me being one of them. The idea is it’s 4 on 4 in a double cage match. Two people start us off, one from each team. They go at it for five minutes and then we have a coin toss (the heels will win). The winning team gets to send in another man for a 2-1 advantage. That last two minutes and then the losing team gets to send in its second man. After two more minutes the winning team gets to send in its third. You alternate until everyone is in and it’s first submission wins.

Harlem Heat are Kane and Kole here but I’ll be calling them by their more famous names. Vader is the other world champion here, the WCW World Champion. Animal is advising the faces here for no apparent reason. Dustin has really bad ribs here. Shockmaster is the hilariously infamous falling man that is more famous as Typhoon/Tugboat. Dustin starts without his partners wanting him to and gets Vader.

Dustin hammers Vader down surprisingly enough and pulls his boot off to beat on Vader even more. Well it’s resourceful if nothing else. Dustin is able to fight Vader off as well as anyone else has been able to do in a very long time. His ribs end that run though and there’s the Vader Bomb. Remember that you can’t end the match until after everyone is in the ring. That’s a great rule that makes sure there’s additional violence.

Rhodes fights back AGAIN and puts Vader down. That could be a heck of a Clash of the Champions main event actually. More boot shots (with the boot itself mind you, not a foot in it) to the head of Vader and Dustin is surprisingly in control. The heels win the coin toss which I literally think was a perfect record for them over the years. Dustin counters a dive off the top by Vader into a powerslam in a nice move.

Kane (Stevie Ray) comes in second. Dustin tries to fight them off but Vader gets a shot in to the ribs to take him down almost immediately. A minute in (remember everything now is just two minutes) and Dustin is in trouble. I’m not entirely sure why they sent in Vader so soon but whatever. Sting comes in but Vader and Stevie wait on him by the door like smart people would do.

2-1 is nothing for Sting though as he fights both guys off. I could watch Sting vs. Vader all day. Dustin is back up but is bleeding badly. His grandma is here tonight. Dusty’s mom is here. Let that sink in for a bit. Vader is sent into the cage and stumbles into the cameraman in a funny moment. Sid comes in to fight Sting in an old rivalry. Chokeslam takes Sting down and it’s all Sid.

The pops Sting gets for even the most basic moves are amazing. Vader and Sid ram Sting into the top of the cage for fun. With thirty seconds left it’s going to be the Bulldog in next. Yes Tugboat is batting cleanup. Davey comes in and Sid jumps him immediately. He fights off Sid and Vader by himself. He was a straight up tough guy in WCW if you haven’t seen any of his stuff there. In a nice touch Sting and Bulldog do to Sid what Vader and Sid did to Sting moments ago.

Kole (Booker T) comes in so there’s just Shocky left to come. Everyone is in one ring so that ring is completely overcrowded. The announcers make fun of Shockmaster falling which is funny stuff. They finally split up a bit and the match gets more interesting as a result. Sting takes down Stevie but hurts himself in the process. Sid gets caught in a Figure Four but here’s Shockmaster to even us up. Tony: Hey he made it through!

He’s bigger than Vader which isn’t something you often see. He beats up everyone in sight and after just over a minute and a half he throws Booker in a bearhug and it’s over. Wow so Typhoon beat a multiple time multiple time multiple time multiple time multiple time world champion? Sweet goodness man.

Rating: C. That’s bad for a WarGames match mind you. It’s ok, but the lack of starpower kind of hurts this here. Sid is an afterthought and Vader got beaten down like a fat jobber. Dustin Rhodes looked the most impressive out there which is odd. This was kind of weak and did nothing to set up the next shows or anything. Shockmaster was gone almost immediately after this and no one cared.

Harlem Heat would win the Tag Team Titles several times in 1994, including once near the end of the year. Here’s a title defense from Clash of the Champions XXX.

Tag Titles: Harlem Heat vs. Stars N Stripes

Bagwell/Patriot are the challengers. And they’re late. Instead….here’s Ric Flair. He was retired at this point due to the events of Halloween Havoc. Heenan goes over to shake Flair’s hand, being the suckup that he is. Flair takes a seat in the front row. Here are Stars N Stripes. Booker vs. Bagwell to start with Bagwell hammering away. This is a return match after the Heat basically stole the titles.

Bagwell dropkicks him to the floor and the challengers clear the ring. The fans chant USA. Why can’t Harlem Heat be patriotic? They’re from New York which is certainly part of the United States. Patriot hammers away on Stevie and works on the arm a bit. Really basic tag match here and not much to say for the first three to five minutes.

Bagwell is getting beaten down at the moment, taking that spinning forearm smash for two. The fans show their anti-New York sentiment again. The announcers talk about why Vader has two seats at ringside since Harley Race isn’t here. Heenan: “Maybe he’s going to use the other chair to crack Hogan over the head.” A few seconds of silence pass. Tony: “Maybe he’s going to use the other chair as a weapon.” Heenan never got a break.

The champions keep beating down Bagwell but Sherri gets on the apron to keep the tag from being noticed. The American comes in anyway and everything breaks down. Sherri’s shoe comes in somehow and Bagwell gets an O’Connor Roll on Stevie. Booker kicks his head off to reverse the control though and the Heat keeps the titles.

Rating: D. Total meh match here. This felt like they were told there had to be a tag title match so here’s a quick one so that we can say we had one. It’s not that the match is bad but rather that it’s painfully boring. The Heat would hold the titles for like 5 months until the Nasty Boys won them after they lost them. Long story, don’t ask.

They would lose the belts multiple times in 1995 as well but get a title shot at Fall Brawl 1995.

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.

Booker would occasionally get singles matches, such as this one from June 10, 1996 on Nitro.

Scott Steiner vs. Booker T

 

This would be huge about four years later. Basic anything you can do I can do greater match to start as I think this is face vs. heel but I’m not sure. Both escape belly to back suplexes but Scott gets a double underhook suplex for no cover. Booker manages to get a boot up in the corner kind of like a superkick to put Scott down. Scissors kick gets two.

 

Off to a front facelock and Booker controls. Spinning cross body off the top gets two. Larry Z giving wrestling advice to Booker is really weird for some reason. Scott gets something like a DDT to break the momentum though and here comes Steiner. We speed things up and Scott gets a belly to belly to put Booker down. Frankensteiner is avoided which gets two for Booker. A top rope splash misses and Scott hits another belly to belly to end it.

 

Rating: B-. Not bad at all here with two guys that were still (kind of) young and motivated and could give you a good match at this point. Also nice to see some young guys out there having some time to show off. Booker wouldn’t mean much of anything for like two years though and Steiner would be about 18 months away, so call this a very early preview.

 

With more tag title reigns here and there, Harlem Heat was put in a “four corners” singles match at Spring Stampede 1997 for the #1 contender ship for the world title.

Stevie Ray vs. Booker T vs. Giant vs. Lex Luger

One fall to a finish here and the winner gets Hogan eventually. Luger vs. Booker to start which should be interesting. Feeling out process to start until Luger starts slamming Booker a few times. Off to Stevie who punches Luger down a bit but gets caught between Giant and Luger which goes badly as you can imagine. Off to Giant and Stevie looks scared. Stevie knocks Giant back and gets loudly booed but Giant comes back with a clothesline.

Booker gets thrown around as well and it’s time for a meeting on the floor. I keep forgetting this is a four corners match. That gets remedied by Giant vs. Luger who have a power lockup. Luger tries a slam but Giant falls on him for two. The tag in Harlem Heat and the brothers having to fight gets a big reaction from the crowd.

They lock up and Booker works on the arm. There’s a lot of non contact here which makes sense for the most part. Booker tags in Lex and all is right with the world again. Stevie comes back with strikes and it’s Booker with a side suplex to put Lex down. A knee drop misses and it’s Giant time. A big elbow drop misses and Stevie comes in sans tag. An ax kick by Stevie doesn’t work and neither does a side kick so they go to the knees to get Giant down.

Giant gets up with ease and a big boot puts Ray down. Off to Luger again for some elbow drops which get two. Belly to back puts Booker down but Stevie breaks up the Rack. Booker hooks a chinlock and the Harlem side kick gets two. Harlem Heat double team Luger and it’s back to the chinlock. Lex suplexes his way out of it but Booker breaks it up. Giant breaks up a cover off an ax kick but there’s no cover. Harlem Hangover misses and it’s Stevie vs. Giant. Giant kicks Booker to the floor and calls for the chokeslam but tags in Luger so he can win with the Rack instead.

Rating: C+. This wasn’t bad for the most part as it was really a tag match in disguise. That being said, it didn’t mean a thing as Luger wouldn’t get his title shot until August so this was kind of a waste of time. The match itself was pretty fun though as both teams played it like a tag match instead of the fourway which was the right idea.

The singles career would really launch near the end of 1997 as Booker received a TV Title shot the night after Starrcade 1997.

TV Title: Booker T vs. Disco Inferno

Disco is defending. He dances to start and is booed, so Booker raises the roof to a good reaction. A hard clothesline puts Inferno down as the fans are almost silent. Disco misses an elbow so Booker breakdances a bit before taking it to the floor. The champ is whipped into the barricade but catches Booker with a Chartbuster (Stunner) onto the top rope as they come back in. Both guys fall back over the top and out to the floor. This time it’s Booker being sent into the barricade as the crowd stays silent.

Disco breaks up the count before bringing Booker back in, only to be caught in a sunset flip for two. Off to a chinlock by the champion as we’ve had a grueling three minutes of action so far. Back up and a neckbreaker puts Booker down as the announcers talk non stop about Sting’s challenge. Disco gets caught by a spinwheel kick and a backbreaker to set up the Harlem Hangover for the pin and the title.

Rating: D. Not only did the match bore everyone to sleep but the announcers literally talked about the match for two seconds. Booker T’s singles career gets started here and would wind up having a TON of titles in addition to ten tag titles. The match mostly sucked though as there was no chemistry here at all.

Booker would lose the title to Finlay about five months later before entering into a best of seven series against Chris Benoit to be #1 contender. Booker would win the seventh match through some shenanigans and offer Benoit one more chance. This is from Great American Bash 1998 and the winner faces Finlay later in the night.

Booker T vs. Chris Benoit

The winner gets a TV Title shot tonight against Finlay. Feeling out process to start with Benoit hooking a very quick armdrag to take over. Booker might have a bad knee coming in after the match on Thursday but he comes right back with an armdrag of his own. Benoit bails to the floor and it’s right back to a standoff a few seconds later. Booker grabs a hammerlock to take Chris down before hooking a half nelson into a rollup for two. Benoit fights up and cranks on a hammerlock of his own, only to be elbowed in the face.

Benoit is sent into the corner and peppered with more forearms before charging into a boot to the jaw. Chris will have none of that and takes out the bad knee with a dragon screw legwhip to get his first real advantage. They head to the corner for some WOO inspiring chops from the Canadian before he elbows Booker in the face for two. We hit a chinlock on Mr. T. as Tony compares Booker vs. Benoit seven times to Finlay fighting guys like High Voltage. There’s a snap suplex for two on Booker as things slow down a bit.

Benoit’s belly to back superplex is countered into a cross body for two but Benoit comes right back by stomping Booker down and putting on another chinlock. Booker fights up again but a hard knee to the stomach puts him right back down. Benoit drapes Booker’s ribs across the top rope for two but doesn’t seem sure how to follow up. Back to the chinlock as the fans immediately start cheering for Booker again. Off to a surfboard hold with Benoit’s knees in the back but Booker fights up and scores with a powerslam.

T goes up but Benoit steps to the side to avoid a spinning cross body ala Samoa Joe in a nice counter. A Crossface attempt lands right in the ropes so Benoit goes right back to the chinlock. Booker elbows up and hits an enziguri to put Benoit back down. There’s the snap spinebuster followed by a flapjack, allowing Booker to spin up. The missile dropkick is broken up with Booker getting crotched on the top, allowing Chris to superplex Booker down in a great looking crash.

Neither guy can immediately follow up though until Benoit gets a very delayed cover for two. Here are the rolling Germans but Booker breaks it up before the third. Instead Benoit busts out the dragon suplex for a very near fall. Booker is sent into the corner and tries the spinning sunset flip but Benoit is still in the middle of the ring in a nice bit of psychology. Benoit suplexes him down again and hits the Swan Dive but still can’t cover. Booker comes back with a side kick to the back of the head, setting up the missile dropkick for the 100% clean pin.

Rating: B. This would have been better with a minute or two cut out to lower the chinlockery levels, but even with them this was a great opening match and a perfect way to fire up the crowd. It’s one of those matches where both guys come out looking great though I would have liked to see Booker win more. Still though, very few complaints here.

From later in the night.

TV Title: Booker T vs. Fit Finlay

Booker doesn’t have any elbow pads or gloves on here which is a weird look for him. There’s an undefined extended time limit over the usual ten minutes here. Booker sends him into the buckle to start followed by an awkward looking clothesline. A kick to the face gets two for Booker but he misses an enziguri, allowing Finlay to hook a leg lock. Back up and Finlay forearms his way out of a headlock, only to have Booker come back with a flying forearm for two.

Some chops put Finlay on the floor but he comes back in to block an ax kick and go after the leg again. There’s a half crab followed by a regular crank on the leg to keep Booker in trouble. Finlay slams the knee onto the apron and wraps it around the ropes for good measure. Booker comes back with the spinning sunset flip out of the corner for two, only to have the champion come back with another leg crank. He wraps Booker’s knee around his neck ala the Brock Lock before going off to a kind of half Liontamer.

Booker rolls away and just pounds Fit in the head with right hands, only to have Finlay come right back with a shin breaker and another leg hold. They head outside again where the referee has to stop Finlay from getting a chair. The knee is wrapped around the post and Finlay hits a Vader Bomb for no cover. Instead he yells at the crowd and kicks Booker’s knee even more but stops to yell at the fans.

Booker comes back with a spinwheel kick and a powerslam before hitting the ax kick. He spins up so Finlay clotheslines him inside out. The tombstone from Finlay is countered into an AWFUL looking sequence where Booker was supposed to backflip into a tombstone of his own, but instead he fell down and got covered for two. Back up and Finlay misses a charge into the “post”, allowing Booker to hit a kneeling piledriver (Finlay was facing forward but Booker dropped to his knees like a tombstone) for the pin and the title.

Rating: D+. And there goes the really good match streak. The match wasn’t horrible but you can only watch Finlay lay on Booker’s leg and pull on the ankle so many times in thirteen minutes. The ending was HORRIBLE too with the sequence being botched and the ending coming out of nowhere. Also Booker not selling the knee at all after coming in with a bad knee and having Finlay work on it for ten minutes was inexcusable. I think everyone knew Booker would win here after taking the series, which made him look like a star.

We’re going to jump WAY ahead now as Booker stayed in the midcard singles scene for years as the company crumbled around him. Hollywood Hogan would do…..something at Bash at the Beach 2000 (long story) but the short version of it is he left instead of main eventing the show for the title. Booker was put in due to his years of hard work and received a shot at Jeff Jarrett.

WCW World Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Booker T

One has to wonder why the guy that would wind up leaving as champion would have jobbed to a midcarder earlier but that would imply logic so there we are. Oh and they have the other world title there, as in the original one. Tony says he hasn’t seen it in years because the top is bent. And it just happened to be there tonight. Right. Either that or they got it to the arena in like 30 minutes. So it’s a pizza? See if this had happened say two years ago (as in Booker being in the main event) this could have meant something. We get a nice technical sequence as Booker is completely over.

We hit the crowd and walk around for a little bit with very limited actual offense or anything like that. Again, why are we having to do this? Are you telling me we can’t have these two give us a solid in ring match? And there are the weapons to really suck away any real chance of this being awesome. Jarrett piledrives him on the announce table. Now here’s the thing: the violence like this in a match is fine.

This is a big match so they’re going the extra mile. There’s nothing wrong with that and I can understand relaxing the rules for it. The problem with that is literally every match tonight has had a run-in or weapons used. It makes things like this seem less special or less intense. Even ECW had gotten that message by this point and had toned it down.

Now that being said, this is a solid match, but the lack of drama hurts it as ONCE AGAIN WCW blows the chance to show a feel good moment on PPV. Here’s the thing: Booker is clearly popular. Him winning the title tonight is going to be a big moment. The problem is that NO ONE KNOWS THIS IS GOING ON, other than people that bought the PPV.

Instead of announcing Booker as the title shot, they went with Hogan and wound up giving us Booker, rather than taking a chance on Booker as a draw. We hear about how this isn’t about politics and is about athleticism. If by that they mean desperation then I’d agree. Somehow this is Jarrett’s match of his life. Just….no. It’s figure four time as I’m tempted to predict a Flair run-in here.

Tony and the other announcers talk about how much Booker has had to go through here, including the grating of the political thing with Hogan earlier tonight. Did ANYONE know how to think in this company? The Axe Kick connects and Jarrett more or less no sells it for no apparent reason. And now, le sigh as down goes the referee. A belt shot to Jarrett gets a long two. We get a bunch of low blows and chair shots and now Jarrett just says screw it and this the Stroke on the referee. The Book End hits and another referee counts the pin.

Rating: B. Again, this was a good match. The problems surrounding it however made anything we could have gotten out of it completely pointless and useless though. Also like I said, Jarrett would pin him the next night anyway. This was a solid match and the moment was cool, but the levels of idiocy it took to get here absolutely astound me.

Booker would win the title A LOT before WCW went out of business. He won it here in July for the first time and for a fourth time in March. During his first reign he had a memorable defense on Nitro. Earlier in the night Goldberg had mauled Booker and the referee stopped the match in less than three minutes, but Booker kept the title. He didn’t want to be remembered like that and demanded a rematch later in the night.

WCW World Title: Booker T vs. Goldberg

Booker jumps him in the aisle but Goldberg knocks him right back down. As they head into the ring, Booker hits the ax kick and Goldberg is in trouble. Never mind as he clotheslines Booker down and into a 360. A powerslam puts Booker down and Goldberg pounds on the cut from earlier. Jeff Jarrett comes out for no reason and hits Goldberg with a chair as this is anything goes. SINCE FREAKING WHEN??? That makes Goldie mad so here’s the Cat to kick Goldberg in the face. That gets him nowhere either so Booker kicks him down for a second and the Book End (Rock Bottom) retains the title in less than three minutes.

Goldberg immediately pops up and spears Booker down and hits a Jackhammer to stand tall to end the show.

Thankfully Booker would be out of that mess in March and move on to the WWF, where he would face The Rock at Summerslam 2001 for the WCW Title.

WCW World Title: Booker T. vs. The Rock

Rock has bad ribs coming in due to a Bookend (Rock Bottom) through a table. Rock fires off right hands to start but has to chase Shane around the ring. Booker jumps him coming back in but gets sent into Shane, setting up a Samoan drop for two. Things settle down a bit and Rock clotheslines Booker down before hooking a side roll for two. Rock wins a slugout and sends Booker out to the floor.

They head over to the announce table and Rock gets in a blatant low blow. Now it’s into the crowd with Booker sending Rock’s ribs into the barricade to take over. Back to ringside and Booker loads up the announce table but Rock comes back with right hands. Booker easily reverses a whip into the post and Shane takes off the turnbuckle pad. Back in (finally) and an elbow to the face gets two for the champion.

A knee drop to the face has Rock in trouble and Heyman wants a Spinarooni. JR: “It sounds like something from Chef Boy-Ardee.” We hit the chinlock for a bit before Rock comes back and hooks a Sharpshooter. Shane is pulled in again but Booker gets in a cheap shot for two. A slingshot into the exposed buckle has Booker in trouble and Rock gets two off a DDT. Shane puts a chair in the ring and picks up the WCW Title. The referee goes to get rid of the chair and Shane lays out Rock with the belt. This brings out the APA to lay out the Boy Wonder.

Both guys in the ring are down and Shane is knocked silly. His eyes rolled back in his head while laid out is a great visual. The Bookend lays out Rock but the referee is with Shane so the delayed cover only gets two. Rock’s clothesline and the belly to belly get two and there’s the People’s Elbow but Shane comes back in for the save. Shane gets a Rock Bottom on the floor (eyes open again) and Rock hits the spit punch on Booker, only to walk into a spinebuster. The ax kick sets up the Spinarooni but the Rock Bottom connects for the pin and the title for Rock.

Rating: B. The match is good but I doubt even Booker’s mama gave him a chance in this match. Overbooking the match helped and Booker didn’t look like a jobber or anything but at the end of the day it was fifteen minutes of killing time until the obvious ending. Still though, good match that got stuck being on after a classic.

We’ll skip all of 2002 which was mainly spent in tag team wrestling and nothing singles matches. In early 2003, Booker pinned World Heavyweight Champion HHH and earned a shot at the title at Wrestlemania XIX.

Raw World Title: HHH vs. Booker T

HHH is in his manly purple trunks here. They fight into the corner to start with Booker smacking HHH in the face a few times to take over. A backdrop puts HHH down but he comes back with a clothesline. The champion goes up top but just like his mentor, he gets armdragged down with ease. A clothesline puts HHH down for two but Booker goes up and gets knocked down to the floor for his efforts.

Booker gets sent into the announce table as the referee tells HHH to get back in, complete with some very salty language from the referee. Lawler keeps making jokes about Booker being an ex-con as HHH gets two off a neckbreaker. Booker tries to fight back with right hands but gets caught in a spinebuster for two for the champion. A suplex is escaped though and Booker DDTs him down for no cover.

Booker pounds away on HHH before taking him down with a forearm. A spinning variety of said forearm gets two but HHH comes back with his lame sleeper, which was the move he was trying to get over at this point to no avail. The facebuster staggers Booker but he comes back with a quick spinebuster for two. HHH tries going up again but jumps into a jumping superkick for two.

The Harlem Side Kick misses HHH and Booker crashes out to the floor. Flair gets in some shots before sending Booker back in for a freaking Indian Deathlock as we continue the trip back to 1974. Since the hold goes on forever and I have a chance to look at it, the question occurs to me of why does that hold hurt? Their legs are in the exact same positions, so why would it only hurt Booker?

Anyway Booker gets to the rope for the break and we get to the work over the leg to set up the Figure Four because we need to pay tribute to Flair every 18 seconds portion of the match. A rollup out of nowhere gets two for Booker and he counters the Pedigree, only to be kicked into the referee in the corner. Not that it matters as the referee counts a quick two off a rollup anyway.

A big back elbow puts HHH down and the scissors kick looks to finish but Booker can’t cover. The delayed cover gets two and Booker goes up top. He has to knock Flair down, allowing HHH to load up a superplex. That gets broken up too though and it’s the Harlem Hangover (flip legdrop) for a very close two thanks to Flair. Not that it matters though as HHH kicks him in the leg, hits the Pedigree, covers 30 seconds later and retains the title.

Rating: C+. The match wasn’t horrible but TOTALLY the wrong booking here. There was zero reason to have HHH go over here other than he wanted to. Booker had been built up perfectly over the last few weeks and every sign pointed to him winning here, but instead HHH absolutely has to go over to set up that EPIC Kevin Nash feud in a few months.

We’ll skip the rest of 2003 where Booker won the Intercontinental Title and 2004 which was spent in the tag team and midcard scenes again and a long feud with John Cena over the US Title. That brings us to Judgment Day 2005 as Kurt Angle has said he wanted to have wild animal sex with Booker’s wife Sharmell, leading to a showdown.

Kurt Angle vs. Booker T

Cole says he’s usually impartial but he hopes Booker wins here. That’s very funny considering the way Cole is now. Booker hits the ring and drills Angle as you would expect. Kurt tries a front facelock but Booker rams shoulders into the ribs. Angle finally takes over and hammers away on Booker. Not much of a beatdown given how mad Booker was.

Off to the chinlock already which is rather early here. Ah good they’re already out of it. Booker stomps away in the corner as this is working for the most part. Seated dropkick puts Kurt down and he’s bleeding from the mouth. Angle tries the ankle but can’t get it on yet. Booker drapes him over the rope and hits the axe kick to send them to the floor and Kurt is reeling. The fans chant what sounds like Obi-Wan for some reason.

Kurt manage to send Booker into the post and we go back to him in control. Back in the ring now as Angle gets some knee lifts. Suplex gets two and Kurt locks in a side choke. Booker escapes the hold but misses a side kick so Kurt can get another suplex. Good stuff so far here so I apologize for the lack of jokes. The American hero fires off some European uppercuts. Kurt sold out!!!

More mat work by Angle as he tends to do a lot of. The idea of Booker going on pure adrenaline at first and Kurt getting through that and letting Booker make a mistake is a nice story for the match. Booker fights up and gets a spin kick, making Kurt hold his face. Comeback commences with Booker using his odd set of offense. Angle Slam doesn’t work but the Book End gets two.

Spinarooni by Booker but this is the SERIOUS Spinarooni I guess. Booker tries the axe kick but Kurt gets a clothesline and some Germans. Belly to belly gets two. Kurt tries the Angle Slam but Booker rolls through into a kind of small package for the pin. The reactions from Cole, Booker and Angle makes me think that really wasn’t the planned finish but at least Booker won.

Rating: B. Good stuff here but the ending hurts it a bit. The story being told in there was a solid one and the whole thing worked rather well. I’d have liked the actual ending but things happen at times and at least the ending, Booker winning by pin, happened one way or another. Good match again here, which is a running theme tonight.

A year later, Booker would face Bobby Lashley in the King of the Ring tournament finals at Judgment Day 2006.

King of the Ring: Booker T vs. Bobby Lashley

Booker beat Matt Hardy and got a bye to get here. Lashley beat Mark Henry and Finlay. Booker gets shoved down to start and they circle each other. I mean they circle each other A LOT. Lashley takes over with power shots and Booker can’t outmove him. A shoulder hits the post though and Lashley crashes to the floor. We go into the slowdown stuff here as Booker takes over on the arm.

Lashley fights back with a clothesline and stands around a lot. Sharmell interferes which gets them nowhere so they do it again and Booker takes over. Bookend gets a long two. This is rather boring stuff. Powerslam gets two for Lashley and the fans get WAY into it all of a sudden. Spinning heel kick sets up the axe kick for two. Lashley gets the spear but here’s Finlay with the club to Lashley’s head to let Booker hit the Bookend for the crown. He would win the title next.

Rating: D. I didn’t like this one at all for the most part. They felt like they were in the beginning of the match the entire time and it never worked for the most part. A D might be a bit low but at the same time I wasn’t thrilled with it in the slightest. It never got going at all and the whole thing was carried by Booker to say the least. At the time I never got the point of having Booker win but he was by far better at this point and in the long run it turned out to be the right move I think.

The win would turn Booker into King Booker. The new gimmick gave him confidence and Booker won a battle royal, earning a shot at the World Heavyweight Champion Rey Mysterio at the 2006 Great American Bash.

Smackdown World Title: Booker T vs. Rey Mysterio

The King and Queen come out with some kind of car thing. It has a throne on it as well. Eh I don’t think anyone really knew what was going on here so who cares. Booker’s entrance takes about 5 minutes, reaching near Undertaker territory. Rey points to the sky because Eddie is the point of this title reign. Booker: “Eddie can’t help you now.” Long stall to start.

Booker uses the size and power advantage to take over but Rey speeds things up and hits a legdrop for two. JBL and Cole get in an economic debate and Cole is accused of being a socialist. Now remember what I said they did for the first section of the match? Repeat that for the next few minutes. Rey knocks him to the floor and hits a seated senton off the top. A springboard splash gets two.

The challenger is really having issues with someone smaller than him and therefore the match is kind of struggling. A superkick and clothesline get two each for Booker. He works on the arm for some reason and then drops Rey as he tries a jumping snapmare. As in Rey tried it and Booker just shoved him off. Booker goes total rudo and hits Three Amigos for a very delayed two.

The axe kick misses but Rey misses the 619. A BIG kick to the head gets two for the champ and he loads up the 619 again, but Sharmell makes the save. That earns her an ejection and pretty much no reaction from the crowd. Booker gets in a good shot for two and the bulldog is countered into a belly to back suplex for two. Rey takes out the knee and hits a rana to take over. Springboard cross body gets two.

Tornado DDT gets the same. He tries a rana out of the corner but Booker counters and launches Rey into the referee. With him down the seated senton and 619 connect and the frog splash looks to finish but there’s no referee. Booker hits a low blow and Bookend but there’s no referee still. Dang those guys are fragile. Booker’s chair shot misses and Rey dropkicks it into his face. Here’s Chavo to pick up the chair and of course he turns on Rey, cracking him with the chair and giving Booker the title.

Rating: C+. Not a horrible match but the first five minutes or so didn’t really work at all. They were trying, but the problem was due to the size difference. Booker’s title reign was nothing particularly good but he was just holding it warm for Batista anyway. Not a bad match, but you feel like you’re waiting for the real main event after this instead of getting ready to leave the arena, which isn’t good.

Batista would take the title from Booker a few months later and then spend months chasing the title. After a quick feud with HHH, he would head to TNA in 2007. Booker would chase the world title there as well in a series with Samoa Joe, including this one from Victory Road 2008.

TNA World Title: Samoa Joe vs. Booker T

They’re trying to make this an epic match but I’m not getting the Austin/Rock vibes here. And now let’s have another video package. Now let’s watch both of them walk from the back. Why can’t Joe be this much of a monster now? We hear the beginning of his music and go to ANOTHER video about Joe. Seriously, is this necessary? Also why did he put the belt on his other shoulder during the video?

 

We get the IF JOE WINS WE RIOT sign. No, you won’t. See, in ECW it’s effective because they would have actually rioted. These people won’t and they know it. To kill more time we do big match intros. They chop it out and we’re just in the feeling out stages of course.

 

The fans are about 80% behind Booker here which is exactly what you would expect of him. We hit the floor and Booker takes over and busts Joe open. We’re at shot of Sharmell #8 after less than ten minutes. This is far from epic but it’s not bad I guess. Joe goes aerial a bit which wasn’t bad. There’s a lot of striking in the middle of the ring here and there goes the referee.

 

That’s so clichéd it’s not even funny anymore. We head to the floor for more chops and strikes that aren’t anything special. Joe does get a nice Ole Kick on the floor (Youtube it). Ok, we know what Sharmell looks like. We don’t need to see her every 18 seconds. Joe gets slapped by her and beats up her body guards. Oh and the referee is still down and hasn’t moved and therefore could be dead but no one checks on him. Great guys in TNA.

 

Booker is busted too. Ah there’s a second referee. Joe beats both of the other referees up. They were kind of going for an Austin/Taker insanity thing here and it’s not working really. The idea is he can’t beat Booker and he’s snapping and just beating the tar out of him for it.

 

Security hits the ring and down they go. Sharmell is in the ring as I know where this is going. He puts Booker in a choke and Sharmell screams for help. And cue Sting. There’s Bound for Glory’s main event. Sting gets him to leave and then he goes back to the ring to beat on Booker more.

 

Joe flips him off and says F you which earns him some bat shots. West asking why Sting is doing this cracks me up. Sharmell counts a three and Booker takes the belt. That would set up a cage match between Booker and Joe next month. The announcers being in SHOCK, yes SHOCK I say, ends it.

Rating: C-. While I’ve seen far worse, this wasn’t much at all. The whole insane brawling was a bit much and Joe snapping like that sucked. It set up next month and Bound For Glory even better but at the same time it was just boring. Joe was still decent here and the crowd was white hot though so points for that. Like I said, I’ve seen worse.

 

Booker would wind up being in the midcard scene (introducing his own Legends Title) and the tag team scene (Scott Stiner) before becoming a legend (Main Event Mafia) as always. He would head back to WWE and appear in the Royal Rumble, eventually becoming an announcer and then GM. This led to Intercontinental Champion Cody Rhodes taunting him and a feud between the two. From December 26, 2011.

Booker T vs. Cody Rhodes

Non-title here. Cole and Jerry has an actual lighthearted argument over who sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Hiptoss gives Booker an early advantage and a slam gets two. Snap suplex gets one. Axe kick misses though and Rhodes takes over with a neckbreaker. Out to the floor goes Booker and we take a break. Back with Booker taking over. He spins into the corner though and an elbow takes him down. Off to a crossface chickenwing

Clothesline gets two for Cody. The fans of course chant for Booker and Cody is getting frustrated. Booker fights back and it’s boo/yay tonight. Cody dropkicks him down and works the arm. Camel clutch goes on and Booker gets sent into the corner. He gets his feet up though and looks like he needs oxygen. Side slam gets two. The Jack Brisco sunset flip doesn’t look that good as it gets two. Rollup gets two for Cody. The Beautiful Disaster looks to have been short and it gets two. Cross Rhodes is countered but the side kick misses. The axe kick hits though and it gets the clean pin at 12:06.

Rating: C. The sloppiness hurt it and I’m not sure I like the idea of Cody losing clean. Booker looked kind of old here, but it’s what, his fourth match this year? Not bad and I guess the rematch is coming at the Rumble? Also the booking isn’t bad as he lost when he got beaten down before the match but wins when it’s even. That’s not as bad.

We’ll FINALLY wrap it up there. Booker has been around so long and had some much success that I easily could have done twice as much here and probably had them all be major title matches. The guy is definitely talented but he’s on the lower end of the main event scene. That being said, he was one of the true feel good stories in WCW as he rose up from nothing of note and became a tag, midcard and world champion over the course of several years. He did the same in WWE (though in a different order) and then did some decent stuff in TNA. Booker was and is still great and he has an astounding 35 championships in his career. Check him out, but he’s more of a guy that was consistent rather than great if that makes sense.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Summerslam at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HY4NV7Y

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

It’s another double shot today as neither choice is strong enough to warrant a full entry. Today we’ve got Crimson and Brodus Clay.

Crimson debuted in TNA as Amazing Red’s brother in December 2010. He quickly established an undefeated streak and had his first major match against someone familiar with undefeated streaks in Samoa Joe. From Slammiversary 2011.

Samoa Joe vs. Crimson

Crimson hits the ring and they slug it out immediately.  The fans think Joe’s Gonna Kill Crimson.  Suicide dive is blocked by a forearm from the floor and there’s a big boot back in the ring by Crimson.  Neckbreaker gets two.  Cravate goes on so Joe gets a bad dragon screw leg whip to take the red dude down.  Crimson hammers away on Joe but walks into a kind of atomic drop sort of a move to the knee.  That was different.

He takes Crimson down with relative ease and there’s a leg bar for a few seconds.  Spinning toe hold by Joe as we go back to the mid 1870s.  Crimson counters into a triangle choke and then an arm bar which gets him nowhere.  T-Bone suplex by Crimson takes Joe down as the fans are trying to get into this.  Double arm DDT gets two.  The fans chant Mercer, which is Crimson’s real name I believe.

Suplex and a clothesline by Joe get two.  Joe goes up to the middle rope for a Rough Ryder for two.  Joe is all frustrated.  “Dang man end this match already before the buffet is empty.”  Powerbomb gets two and it’s off to a half crab.  We get a Gumby reference of all things as the hold stays on.  They slap it out and Crimson gets a spear to take Joe down.  They slug it out again with Crimson knocking him back into the corner.  Now Joe knocks him back into the corner but can’t get the Musclebuster.  Clutch can’t go on either so there’s the Red Sky to end this.

Rating: C+. Pretty good big slugout here and it’s good to see Crimson actually face big time competition for a change.  Pretty good match here with the ending being pretty clear, but a nice test for Crimson nonetheless.  I don’t think Crimson is as great as he’s made out to be, but this worked pretty well for what it was.

Crimson would hook up with Matt Morgan and win the Tag Team Titles in 2012. Here’s a title defense from Genesis 2012.

Tag Titles: Matt Morgan/Crimson vs. Samoa Joe/Magnus

Joe starts with Morgan and the tall one is taken down quickly. Off to Crimson who is the least interesting undefeated person this side of Tatanka. Magnus comes in and gets double teamed by the champs. Morgan hits his corner elbows and Crimson hits an overhead suplex for two. Back to Joe who runs Morgan over. Crimson comes in and has the same result as Morgan had.

Magnus comes back in and we go split screen as Ray is beating up Abyss. And now we’re back full screen as Joe has a chinlock on Crimson. We get a dueling “We Want Morgan/No We Don’t” chants. Crimson spears Joe down and we’re told that Bully Ray is trending worldwide on Twitter. Off to Morgan who hits the Hellevator (not called that) to Magnus but Joe breaks up the pin.

In a HORRIBLE looking sequence, Joe hits a bunch of strikes in the corner, followed by the middle rope elbow from Magnus. It only gets two though, due to Crimson breaking it up. The horrible part: Magnus flew off of Morgan about a second and a half before Crimson even touched him. Magnus reverses a chokeslam but a double version is enough to pin Magnus at 9:38.

Rating: D+. This just didn’t click for me at all. The messed up save really took me out of the match. Joe just isn’t going to get pushed no matter how much he gets cheered and how much his opponents get booed or get no reaction, because it’s just been decided that he’s not going to get pushed. Listen to the fans TNA. It just might work.

They would lose the titles and as is Matt Morgan’s custom, the former champions would enter into a feud as a result. This one culminated at Lockdown 2012.

Crimson vs. Matt Morgan

Crimson is now billed as “The Undefeated” on his graphic. Crimson goes for the door very quickly but Morgan keeps pulling him back in. Morgan walks into a clothesline for two as momentum shifts. Crimson rams him into the cage as the crowd is a little more awake now. He chokes Morgan on the ropes and a spinebuster gets two.

Crimson sets for what looked like the spear but walks into the discus lariat. Big boot puts Crimson down and it’s followed by a nice belly to back suplex. Morgan loads up the Carbon Footprint in the corner but gets tangled in the ropes. Crimson tries a quick escape but they wind up fighting on the top rope. Morgan gets crotched and tied up in the rope, allowing Crimson to climb out for the win at 7:26.

Rating: D. You know, if the time is such a problem tonight, maybe you could have this go a few more minutes and have the TV Title go longer than three minutes. It might keep the issues down a bit more. Anyway, this match was really boring as the feud has been put on hold for the last two weeks. This show is bordering on disaster at this point but there are some big matches to come.

James Storm would return from an injury as a surprise at Slammiversary 2012 and give Crimson his first loss with relative ease. With the winning streak broken, there was no reason for Crimson to be around for awhile. He went down to OVW for further training and quickly won the Nightmare Rumble to earn an OVW Title shot against champion Johnny Spade in September of 2012.

OVW Title: Johnny Spade vs. Crimson

Spade is an OVW mainstay and one of the biggest stars in the company’s history. Johnny grabs a headlock to start but is quickly knocked to the floor with a shoulder block. The announcers talk about Crimson stealing the Nightmare Rumble from Rob Terry after Terry lasted over an hour, setting up a future program. Crimson sends Spade into the barricade but the champion comes back with some kicks to the ribs.

We take a break and come back with Crimson holding a chinlock before running Spade over with an elbow to the jaw. A hard slam gets two for Crimson and the challenger is very cocky. Spade misses a dropkick and gets caught in a quick cravate. Crimson puts him on the top rope but Spade comes out with a tornado DDT to put both guys down. Spade sends him into the corner for a double knee to the back but Crimson blocks a Swanton with knees to the back of his own.

A spinebuster and high collar suplex get two each for Crimson but Spade grabs a loose triangle choke of all things. Crimson powers out of it but runs into a kick to the face (not Spade’s superkick finisher) to stop him cold. Raul Lamotta comes out for a distraction but Shiloh Jonze (Spade’s former best friend) runs out and drills Spade with brass knuckles, giving Crimson the title.

Rating: C+. Nice match here, as was often the case in OVW. Spade was kind of like a Shawn Michaels, as he was a smaller guy fighting a monster but he was just good enough that you believed he could shock the world. Crimson looked good and is far more interesting as a heel who had been playing mind games to get the title shot.

Crimson would hold the title for a few months before dropping it to Rob Terry. This led him to starting a paramilitary stable called the Coalition Forces with another hot prospect named Jason Wayne as the co-leader. Now called General Crimson, he would face another OVW mainstay named Jamin Olivencia (he’s been a jobber on WWE TV a few times under various names) in a #1 contenders match in March of 2013.

Jamin Olivencia vs. Crimson

Crimson looks FAR more intimidating with the rebel flag, camo vest and sunglasses. There are five other members of the Coalition Forces with Crimson here, including one guy covered in grass as a disguise. Crimson and OVW Champion Doug Williams might be in cahoots as well, which ties in to Olivencia as he beat Williams but had the decision overturned for reasons that aren’t quite clear. Crimson actually sends the Coalition to the back because he wants to do this on his own.

Jamin is taken into the corner but comes out with a right hand to the face, sending Crimson out to the floor for a breather. Back in and Crimson hammers away as the announcers argue about whether or not Jamin lost to Doug Williams. Crimson is knocked to the floor again and walks back in to a headlock from Olivencia, only to counter into a chinlock. Jamin goes up top but gets pulled down to the mat for two and we hit the chinlock again. Olivencia fights up again and dropkicks Crimson to the floor as we take a break.

Back with Crimson getting two off something we couldn’t see and putting on the chinlock for a third time. Off to a camel clutch as the announcers bicker even more about secret meetings. Jamin fights out but gets taken down by a hard running clothesline for two. We hit the chinlock for a bit before Jamin fights up and hammers away in the corner. Crimson takes it outside and throws Olivencia onto the announce table but can’t hook a piledriver.

Back in and Olivencia scores with a spinwheel kick for two but Crimson counters Jamin’s DDT into a spinebuster for two. Crimson crotches Jamin on the top and hooks a superplex for two. Jamin comes back with his DDT but Doug Williams pulls out the referee and sends him into the steps. The Coalition runs out and destroys Jamin, giving Crimson the pin.

Rating: B-. This was far better than I was expecting with both guys looking solid. The Coalition is another heel stable but I like having it headed up by one person instead of several. Crimson was in charge here and could do a decent enough power style in the ring to make it work. If nothing else it makes me want to watch more OVW.

Crimson was a guy that had a great look but the undefeated gimmick really hurt him. At the end of the day the streak went on WAY too long and people just didn’t care when it was over. Couple that with the fact that he never won anything and it’s easy to see why people weren’t interested. The paramilitary gimmick was WAY more entertaining and interesting looking, making me think there’s a lot of potential left in Crimson. He’s only 29 after all so there’s a lot of time left.

Off to Brodus Clay, who is a rather scary looking man. He started as G-Rilla in developmental before going by his more famous name in the fourth season of NXT. One of his first major matches on that show was a fatal fourway elimination match on January 25, 2011.

Brodus Clay vs. Byron Saxton vs. Johnny Curtis vs. Derrick Bateman

 

This is the second week in a row where I couldn’t remember Curtis’ name.  That’s not good when I’ve watched every episode of this show.  This is elimination rules, no tagging, winner has the option of changing their pro.  Everyone goes after Bateman for some reason instead of Brodus.  He is thrown into a suplex from Brodus and is pinned in less than a minute.

Now they both go after Brodus as I scratch my head trying to figure that out.  They manage to get a suplex on him but Curtis tries to steal a rollup on Saxton which gets two.  Brodus is collecting himself on the floor so the others are in the ring.  Curtis takes out Brodus with a dive, leaving Saxton in the ring as we take a break.

Don’t try this at home.  These are good PSAs for lack of a better term to run.

Back with Brodus nailing Saxton with a clothesline.  Curtis is down on the floor and lets Saxton get beaten down like an intelligent person would.  Saxton gets something close to a Stunner to take Brodus down for two.  Curtis tries to come in off the top but gets caught.  He knocks Saxton down and gets a double guillotine legdrop to put out Saxton at 4:30.  We’re down to Clay and Curtis.

Clay is reeling and Curtis adds a European Uppercut to send him back on his heels.  Brodus is like wait I’m huge and splashes Curtis in the corner.  Off to the nerve hold which is my least favorite rest hold of all time.  Curtis fights out of it and rams some shoulders into the corner.  Josh has picked Rey to win the Rumble apparently.  Johnny goes up but jumps into the Tongan Death Grip Slam to end it at 7:20.

Rating: C+. This was quick and I think that was the right idea.  These guys aren’t very good in the ring so they kept this short.  Putting Bateman out that fast was kind of awkward but maybe that was due to an injury or something.  This was ok and probably about as good as it was going to get.

 

After hooking up with and being abandoned by Alberto Del Rio, Brodus would stay on Superstars for awhile before disappearing for three months. He would return as the Funkasaurus in what I thought was the surprise of the year in 2012. One of his first big matches was against The Miz at Extreme Rules 2012.

Brodus Clay vs. Dolph Ziggler

The “smart” fans chant for Ziggler and they go to the floor quickly. Swagger runs over Brodus to put him down and get him in trouble for the first time. Back in Ziggler pounds on him but Brodus comes back with a headbutt. A knee lift misses and the Fameasser gets two. Another dropkick gets one and it’s time for a modified sleeper. Brodus stands up and easily throws Ziggler over. Dolph tries a suplex and is easily thrown off. Brodus gets all fired up and shakes, including a shot to Swagger. Headbutt to the ribs sets up the splash for the clean pin at 4:19.

Rating: C. This is EXACTLY what Brodus needed. He’s squashed jobbers for months now so a real win where he had to fight off some people is a great upgrade for him. Ziggler hammered away on him and certainly didn’t get squashed, which is how you make someone like Clay look great. Good stuff.

Brodus would lose his first match to Big Show, sending his career down a good bit. He would however captain a Survivor Series team at Survivor Series 2012.

Team Clay vs. Team Tensai

Brodus Clay, Sin Cara, Rey Mysterio, Tyson Kidd, Justin Gabriel

Tensai, Prime Time Players, Primo, Epico

My goodness they’re USING THE BIG FREAKING ROSTER THEY HAVE. This is a smart move that they never use for some reason. I miss the King’s stupid lines. Apparently the fans got to pick Rosa’s dress tonight. Uh….sure. Kidd and Epico start things off with Kidd taking it down to the mat quickly. Off to an armbar by Kidd before Epico bridges into a backslide. This is some awesome stuff actually. Kidd sends him to the floor but Epico slams him face first into the apron to take over.

Off to Gabriel for some kicks and a legsweep before it’s right back to Kidd. Scratch that as it’s Young vs. Mysterio now as this is hitting a bit of a dull spot. Cara and Mysterio hit a combination wheelbarrow slam/X-Factor for two for Cara. Primo comes in and takes the Tajiri Elbow and a rana to send him into the corner. Primo slams him down and it’s off to the Big Bald. JBL rattles off some NJPW stats for Tensai and it’s off to O’Neal.

That also goes nowhere so it’s off to Epico again for a camel clutch. Cara finally escapes and hits an enziguri before making the tag to Brodus. Everything breaks down and the four tag team guys on the heel team are sent to the floor. Kidd and Gabriel hit stereo suicide dives to take out the Puerto Ricans and the masked guys hit stereo Asai Moonsaults to take out the Players. Awesome sequence there.

This leaves the two monsters left in the ring alone in a match we’ve seen a lot of times before. Clay tries his overhead suplex attempt but it basically turns into a Downward Spiral, which makes me wonder if there’s more to Ryback not being able to Shell Shock Tensai. Brodus misses a splash in the corner and gets shoulder blocked down. The backsplash from Tensai takes out Clay and we’re down to 5-4.

Kidd tries to fire off some kicks but gets run over as well. Off to Titus again with an abdominal stretch to slow things down. A backbreaker from Titus puts Gabriel down and the backsplash from Tensai gets two. A second attempt misses and Justin rolls him up for the pin. Back to O’Neal as we’re down to what this match likely should have been in the first place.

Epico comes in to chop away and hit a butterfly suplex for two on Gabriel. Off to some chinlockery but Epico misses an elbow drop and there’s the hot tag to Kidd. Scratch the hot part as he’s immediately sent to the floor and stomped on by Primo. Back to Titus for more pounding but a big boot misses and O’Neal crotches himself on the top rope, allowing Kidd to hook his spinning sunset flip for the elimination.

Young immediately comes in to stomp away as it’s Cara/Mysterio/Kidd/Gabriel vs. Epico/Primo/Young. Epico comes in and rolls some belly to back suplexes but Kidd sweeps the legs and it’s a Sharpshooter for the elimination. It is Survivor Series after all. Primo comes in now and suplexes Kidd down, only to dive off the top onto some knees.

There’s the hot tag to Rey who speeds things up and kicks Primo in the head for two. The seated senton by Rey gets two and La Magistral leaves Young on his own. There’s the 619, a Swanton from Cara, a top rope Lionsault from Justin, a top rope elbow from Kidd and a top rope splash from Rey to END Young for the win at 18:27.

Rating: B-. Very solid choice for an opener here with everyone looking good to great out there. This is what they should do with the three hour Raw’s: let the small guys go out there and tear the house down for ten minutes or so to fire up the crowd. This worked really well for an opening match and the high flying sequences were all really fun. Good, fun match here which is what the roster is capable of when it doesn’t have stupid writing weighing it down.

Brodus and Tensai would soon form a tag team called Tons of Funk and proceed to do….not much. They did however team up on September 17, 2013 on Smackdown.

Tons of Funk vs. Prime Time Players

Brodus pounds on Young to start before it’s quickly off to Tensai and an elbow/side slam combo. Young bails to the floor and Titus dives on Tensai as he goes after Darren. O’Neil comes in and runs over Tensai, only to miss a charge into the corner. Hot tag brings in Brodus to splash Young in the corner. A powerslam gets two as Titus makes the save (despite being late and the referee having to pause his count early), only to be thrown to the floor. The double splash ends Young at 2:44.

When you look back, Brodus really hasn’t done much. At the end of the day, he’s not much other than a good look but he’s had some decent performances at times. Most of that has been due to his character, but at least it’s better than nothing. Not much to him, but he’s better than some choices.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Summerslam at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HY4NV7Y

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

We’ll head back to Canada for someone a bit better looking than Jacques Rougeau: Gail Kim.

Gail signed with WWE in 2002 and debuted in a battle royal on June 30, 2003. There was actually dome hype for her debut with vignettes reminiscent of the Matrix.

Womens’ Title: Battle Royal

Jazz, Jacqueline, Trish Stratus, Victoria, Gail Kim, Molly Holly, Ivory

Jazz is defending but injured coming in, hence the need for the odd method of defending the title. She’s still able to slam Ivory down but gets kicked in the head by Victoria. This is one of those matches where you can barely call anything because it’s such a big mess. Ivory is quickly thrown out and Jazz lays down because of her injuries. Molly and Jackie are the only ones left on their feet as Jazz is walked out of the ring, apparently eliminated.

Victoria dumps Molly and Jackie and we’re down to Trish, Victoria and Kim. Trish kicks both girls down but Victoria catapults Gail into Trish for the elimination. They go back and forth for a few seconds until Gail counteres a powerbomb into a hurricanrana for the elimination and the title.

Rating: D. The match sucked, just like you would expect a seven Diva battle royal that lasted four and a half minutes to, though the girls looked good in their outfits. You can’t as for a better debut for someone than this and the match quality rarely mattered for the Divas anyway. The fans didn’t mind Gail and that’s not bad for the girls.

Gail would lose the title in a month to Molly Holly, only to join up with her almost immediately thereafter. Molly and Gail would form an alliance over their jealous of Trish and Lita’s popularity, leading to a tag team match at Unforgiven 2003.

MollyHolly/GailKimvs. TrishStratus/Lita

This feud is more or less about Molly and Gail being jealous of Lita and Trish being insanely popular. Standard stuff to put it mildly. Molly is Women’s Champion here and is actually looking good. Lita was out for almost a year because of a broken neck and now wears khaki shorts. Yep she’s gorgeous. The non-famous girls jump them early and that doesn’t work at all.

This is Lita’s return match. Oh seriously who do you expect to win this? You have two girls that are about as middle of the road as possible and the first two women to main event Raw. Lita and Gail are the actual starters and Lita nips up as we hear about King having a vasectomy. Molly hooks a Dragon Sleeper on Trish which works about as well as you would expect it to. Gail is gorgeous. That’s all there is to it.

Now Gail does a Dragon Sleeper. Trish walks up the turnbuckles and backflips into a reverse DDT. FREAKING SWEET. Molly looks good as a brunette and in blue. Trish manages to beat up both girls on her own since Lita is bleeding from the mouth. Lita gets the mostly warm but partly cloudy with a 30% chance of showers tag. Trish knocks Gail to the floor and Lita hits the moonsault to get the win which was about as predictable as you could expect.

Rating: D+. This was exactly what you would expect here. Lita was indeed a huge deal as she and Trish were just flat out awesome around this point but the injury took her out for over a year. This was nothing more than a welcome home match and it did exactly what it was supposed to do: announce that Lita is still awesome.

Gail would get injured a month or so later before returning in spring of 2004 and being placed in a fourway Womens’ Title match at Bad Blood 2004.

Women’s Title: Trish vs. Lita vs. Gail Kim vs. Victoria

All four are too hot for words with Trish somehow possibly being the fourth best looking at the moment. Victoria is champion here. Trish vs. Lita never gets old especially when later this year they main evented Raw. That’s saying a lot and I don’t mean it was the last match and then there was a big angle to end the show.

I mean Trish vs. Lita for the title was the last thing you saw to end the show and it was built up all night. It was a very cool moment and I completely bought into it. Gail gets an AWESOME hold on Victoria. More or less it’s a headscissors combined with a crossface combined with an armbar but cooler than it sounds. Lita and Victoria botch something and we have no Trish for a long time, signaling that she’ll be winning. Yep there she is to roll up Lita for the title out of nowhere.

Rating: D+. They all looked hot and that’s about all there is to talk about here. Other than that it was just your run of the mill Divas match but with four girls that could actually work which is the best case scenario. Gail being back helps and the girls are actually becoming more than eye candy around this point.

Naturally since the division was starting to take off, it was time for Gail to be released. After a year on the indy scene, she debuted in TNA as the new valet for America’s Most Wanted. Her singles PPV debut was at Hard Justice 2006 against Sirelda.

Sirelda vs. Gail Kim

Gail is looking great tonight. She jumps Sirelda to start but gets powered into a corner and slammed ala Ultimate Warrior. Sirelda loads up a chokeslam but Kim easily escapes. She guillotines Sirelda on the top rope and a knee drop gets two. The fourway tag is officially announced as canceled. There’s a Tarantula from Gail but her high cross body misses. A bad looking World’s Strongest Slam gets two and Sirelda loads up a superplex. Gail knocks her back and hits a bad Blockbuster for the pin.

Rating: D-. This was really bad but Gail looked smoking out there so I’ll give it some points for that. Sirelda wasn’t around long and given how awful she was in this match I’m not really surprised by that. Nothing to see here and I think this ended the mini feud between these two. If it didn’t then it should have.

Gail spent a few months out of the ring as a valet before facing Jackie Moore in a cage match at Lockdown 2007.

Jackie Moore vs. Gail Kim

Gail does look good in those little sky blue shorts. They start fighting on the ramp and Jackie takes over, sending Gail on top of the announce table. Gail gets water poured on her and they haven’t been in the cage yet even though the bell rang. Ok now they’re inside (with a nice view of Gail on the way in) and the fans do not seem to care. Gail goes to escape about 20 seconds after they’re in but Jackie continues to be annoying by making this continue.

Jackie takes over and I always wonder why she had a job. Either way, the American hits a German on the Canadian but Gail pops up anyway. They exchange worthless attempts to go up and Gail gets a sunset flip for one. I think Gail gets sent into the cage but it really wasn’t clear. Gail goes up and hits a dropkick and both of them are down. Kim gets up and goes for the door, resulting in a brawl on the apron with the door open. Gail slams it on Jackie’s face but stays in. Gail goes up and jumps off with a cross body (hitting Jackie square in the face. At least she couldn’t make Jackie any uglier) for the pin.

Rating: D. This was rather bad and not just because I can’t stand Jackie Moore. The cage slamming onto Jackie’s head did make me smile but anytime someone beats her up it’s a good thing. The cross body was bad looking, because that could have been a bad injury to either of them. Still though, bad match.

The Knockouts Division was starting to take off and it was clear that a title needed to be established. Since a regular tournament is too basic in a Vince Russo company, we got a gauntlet match for the title at Bound For Glory 2007.

Knockouts Title: Gauntlet Match

This is a ten girl match where you have a regular gauntlet but it’s over the top until we get to the final two. Yep we’re having two battle royals. Kong debuted at Impact so she’s brand new here. We start with Ms. Brooks and Jackie. Good night WHY DOES SHE ALWAYS STAY AROUND? No one cares about her at all and she was always there. Quit shaking your freaking chest because NO ONE WANTS TO SEE THEM.

Brooks gets a big boot to the side of the head of the annoying one but gets caught in a German suplex. Shelly Martinez is in third. Oh…these girls can’t do much. Kong comes in fourth and it’s on. Kong takes like 40 seconds to get to the ring out of a minute.

ODB comes in fifth as Jackie puts out Brooks but Kong just goes off, getting rid of Jackie (GO KONG!) and Martinez. Angelina Love (Angel Williams at this point) has the music, the looks and the stage pose already as she’s 6th. Christy comes in and is still amazing looking Kong beats the tar out of her with a rack where Christy’s feet almost hit her head. A Batista Bomb hits as Gail Kim is eighth.

Everyone gangs up on Kong as the medics take out Christy to eliminate her for the most part. The three in the ring get rid of Kong whose shirt flies up as Talia Madison (Velvet Skye) is ninth. Roxxi who is a voodoo chick with hair at this point is last. Love apparently went out off camera so we have four left: Roxxi, ODB, Gail and Velvet.

Gail puts out Velvet as we get a GREAT back shot of her. ODB is out also and we have our one on one match. Gail gets an insane looking submission hold on Roxxi which was like a sideways Octopus Hold. Gail looks sexy in those shorts to put it mildly. They really make her figure look good. Roxxi botches a jackknife pin for two. Gail hits Finlay’s Celtic Cross to end it and win the title.

Rating: C-. Again, is there a reason to mix things up like they did here that I’m just not getting? Why not have an actual tournament rather than this weird hybrid thing? It wasn’t bad I guess but at the same time this just didn’t work like they wanted it to. This could have been a lot better as a simple one on one match but this just didn’t do it for me like they wanted it to. Not horrible though.

Speaking of Russo, we’ll take a look at Sacrifice 2008 and another of his ideas. It’s a battle royal, but the final two remaining get to have a ladder match. The winner of the ladder match gets a Knockouts Title shot but the loser gets her head shaved. For no reason given, Gail Kim can’t have her head shaved so if she makes the ladder match, it’s the last person out of the battle royal’s head getting shaved. Again, this is why people complain about Russo booking.

Knockouts Battle Royal

Velvet Sky, Angelina Love, Rhaka Khan, Salinas, Christy Hemme, ODB, Roxxi Laveaux, Jacqueline, Traci Brooke, Gail Kim

For absolutely no apparent reason, Gail cannot have her head shaved so if she makes the ladder match, the last person eliminated from the battle royal has her head shaved instead. I’ll give Vince Russo 10 bucks to explain his own stories. Roxxi puts Salinas out (not over the top) less than 30 seconds in. Velvet does some fighting from the apron and yeah it’s only there to have a nice shot from behind her. She’s out a few seconds later.

Traci is gone and the fans chant for ODB. Khan puts Christy out. They’re going out so fast that you can’t really keep track of who is still in there. Jackie and ODB double team Khan and Love joins them to get rid of the tall one. Jackie and ODB go out within seconds of each other and Angelina is out at the hands of Roxxi to put us down to Roxxi and Gail.

Gail Kim vs. Roxxi Laveaux

This is a ladder match and if Roxxi wins, Angelina’s head is shaved. This is officially the same match so I’ll rate it all together. The fans all cheer for Roxxi because Angelina isn’t a nice person. Gail sets up the ladder and goes up quickly but Roxxi makes the save. I see no point whatsoever to this being a ladder match but it’s TNA so what difference does it really make?

Gail puts the ladder in the corner for no apparent reason. She gets taken down and Angelina throws in a ladder of her own. Gail does look good in those TINY shorts. She powerbombs Roxxi off the ladder and might be busted a bit. Angelina interferes again and gets dropped by Roxxi. Roxxi gets a SICK spinebuster to Gail onto the ladder and here’s Angelina again….and she’s gone already. She and Velvet shove Roxxi off the ladder and Gail gets the contract.

Rating: D. Well let’s see. The matches combined to take about 8 minutes, the eliminations were pedestrian and nothing particularly interesting happened. On the other hand, Gail showed off a lot of skin and the other girls looked good too so we can’t call it a total loss. Again though: why was it a ladder match? Can someone explain that to me?

Despite Gail being near the top of the division, her contract was allowed to expire and she went back to the WWE in early 2009. Not a lot happened for her though so we’ll skip ahead to the fall and Bragging Rights 2009 for a battle for brand supremacy.

Michelle McCool/Natalya/Beth Phoenix vs. Melina/Kelly Kelly/Gail Kim

Beth in blue is an amazing sight. This was when Michelle got really hot really fast. Look at the rosters. Who do you think is going to win? Beth and Gail start. Can’t believe I’m typing this but DANG at Michelle. All three Smackdown girls have been in there in less than a minute. Kelly tries a sunset flip. It’s bad.

This is just painfully uninteresting as there is less than zero chance for Raw to win two in a row. I mean the match is ok, but people just couldn’t care any less as there is zero drama. Crowd is more or less dead too. Glam Slam ends Melina for the pin.

Rating: W. As in who cares? Like I said, the idea that THIS was going to decide the cup and not the big tag was just ridiculous and it crippled the match. Also the match was just generic. This could have been any other Divas match which really shows how bland the division is at this point.

One of the few high points for Gail in the WWE would be making the finals of a tournament for the vacant Divas Title against Maryse on February 10, 2010.

Divas Title: Maryse vs. Gail Kim

Gail Kim is incorrectly called a two time Womens’ Champion. Gail slides to the corner to avoid a charge from the blonde and gets two off a bulldog. Maryse comes back with a kick to the face for two of her own but gets rolled up for another near fall. Kim goes up top but completely misses a top rope cross body to put both girls down. A victory roll doesn’t work for Gail and a quick DDT gives Maryse the title. This was nothing.

Gail stuck around for several more months until an interesting incident took place on August 5. It was a battle royal (shocking) and Gail was told to be out in the first minute. No one was able to do it, so she got out of the ring herself. This didn’t exactly look right and WWE took her off TV as a result and let her contract run out. It was back to TNA where she would team up with Madison Rayne to challenge Tara and Miss Tessmacher for the Knockouts Tag Titles on November 3, 2011.

Knockout Tag Titles: Tara/Brooke Tessmacher vs. Gail Kim/Madison Rayne

 

Time for the monthly defense of the titles. Brooke’s outfit is designed like a Texas flag for some reason. She and Madison start us off but it’s off to Tara quickly. The arm work begins as the champions are tagging fast. Gail comes in and is all dominant and evil for a bit. Tessmacher’s corner hijinks don’t really work this time. Gail beats on Brooke a bit more until it’s a hot tag to Tara. Everything breaks down and there’s the Widow’s Peak. Karen Jarrett has the referee though and Eat Defeat gives us new champions at 5:05.

 

Rating: D+. It’s not like anyone cares about the belts, but this is what you do with the titles here as they’re actually having a division wide angle going on. Karen is evil and trying to have her girls get the titles. It’s not particularly interesting but a dull story is better than a repetitive one on a treadmill like the Divas have so this was fine, just not that interesting.

This is of course TNA, so why give her one title when you can give her two? From ten days later at Turning Point 2011.

Knockouts Title: Gail Kim vs. Velvet Sky

 

Brawl to start and I really can’t complain about seeing Velvet in shorts like those. Gail is knocked to the floor and Velvet totally misses a baseball slide but Gail sells it anyway. Back in a crossbody gets two for Sky. Kim takes over and here’s Karen on the ramp as the fans chant what sounds like Sloppy Seconds. Gail hooks an abdominal stretch and Velvet fights back with nothing significant.

 

I’m sorry if I seem totally out of it here but I have zero interest in this show for the most part. Eat Defeat is blocked into a facebuster by Velvet but Karen distracts as Madison comes in to lay out Velvet. That only gets two and Gail goes up, missing a missile dropkick but managing a rollup with tights for two. Madison cheats again and Eat Defeat gives us a new champion at 5:54. Really?

 

Rating: C-. The match was ok but the cheating got old fast. Also, they really took the title off Velvet that fast? I’m really kind of surprised by that as I would have thought they would build to Velvet vs. Angelina in the big showdown that has only kind of happened so far. Not great and not bad, but Velvet in blue is always a good thing.

Gail wouldn’t do much in 2012 so we’ll jump to Genesis 2013 and another gauntlet match for a future title shot.

Knockouts Gauntlet Match

Winner gets a title shot at some point in the future. We start with Gail Kim vs. Tessmacher and they trade rollups to start. Tessmacher can’t hit her Stinkface and Kim clotheslines her down for two. Gail goes up but gets crotched, allowing Tessmacher to hit an X-Factor out of the corner for two. That means nothing though as Gail makes her Eat Defeat for the first elimination.

Next in is ODB who stops a charging Gail on the ramp. Back in and Kim gets spanked because that’s what happens in women’s wrestling. A splash crushes Gail and there’s a bronco buster to hammer in the point. They trade rollups and Gail avoids having her face rammed into ODB’s crotch before rolling her up with tights for the pin.

Mickie James is in next and she takes Gail down quickly, only to get caught by a running shoulder in the corner. A neckbreaker puts Gail down as do an enziguri and a flapjack. We head to the floor for a headscissors from James before heading inside where Gail molests the referee. A rollup on Mickie with another handful of tights gets another pin.

Velvet Sky is the last chick in this so she can beat a weakened Gail which is supposed to make us care I guess. I can live with Velvet in a catsuit though. Gail sends her into the barricade but poses on the ropes instead of covering. A cradle gets two for Gail but she gets caught holding the ropes. Sky hits her sitout Pedigree for the pin at 12:00. Gail had her foot under the ropes so I’m sure a triple threat is coming.

Rating: D. I can’t stand gauntlet matches for one reason: they’re nothing but a collection of short matches that don’t have time to develop at all and usually result in a bunch of stupid finishes. On top of that, this was your usual worthless female wrestling with stupid moves that are supposed to be sexy but come off looking completely stupid. I’m sure a triple threat match is coming because that’s how wrestling works.

The next big story for Gail was a feud with referee Taryn Terrell, due to Taryn allegedly costing her matches. This let to a last Knockout standing match at Slammiversary 2013.

Taryn Terrell vs. Gail Kim

Gail attacks in the corner to start but Taryn comes back with clotheslines to take over. Gail puts on an octopus hold but lets it go early and only gets a six count. Kim goes to the floor for a chair but has it kicked out of her hands. Some hair drags keep Gail down for a few moments but she manages to get the chair up to block a high cross body. Gail is up first and goes after the knee for a bit before wedging the chair between the ropes. Taryn blocks a ram into the chair but gets caught in the Figure Four around the post.

Terrell is up at 8 and dodges Gail’s charge into the corner, sending her head first into the chair in a SICK looking crash. That only gets eight so Taryn puts her in the Figure Four around the post for eight more. Taryn misses a charge and lands on the ramp for nine, only to be caught in a legsweep onto the ramp for nine more. Gail tries a piledriver but gets reversed into a bulldog off the ramp to put both girls down. Taryn beats the count for the win at 9:18.

Rating: B-. This was the best Knockouts match in YEARS. The bulldog off the stage was a bigger spot but the missed charge into the chair should have been the finish. It looked MUCH more painful and I thought Gail was out cold. Still though, very entertaining match and I was really impressed with Taryn here. I’d bet on her vs. Mickie at BFG for the title in a veteran vs. underdog title match.

Since that was so awesome, the only solution was a rematch about a month later in a ladder match. From July 11, 2013.

Gail Kim vs. Taryn Terrell

This is a ladder match with the winner getting a title shot at some point in the future. Taryn throws her out to the ramp to start and spears her through the ropes for good measure. The first ladder is brought in and rammed into Gail’s ribs in the corner. Taryn dropkicks the top of the ladder to drive it further into the ribs as Taz is back on commentary. Gail’s cross body is kicked out of the air and the ladder is set up in the middle of the ring. Gail sends her into the side of the ladder to take over but can’t hook the figure four around the post.

Back from a break with both girls climbing and slugging it out on top. They both fall down and land on the ropes with the ladder nearly crushing Gail’s skull in the process. Taryn shoves the ladder face first into a charging Gail but her leg is tied up in the ladder. Taryn has to find a replacement but Gail gets up and climbs, only to be pulled back down by Terrell. The other ladder is bridged between the ropes and the standing ladder but Gail gets off before Taryn can crush her against the bridge.

Gail puts the figure four on Taryn inside the ladder but both of them climb up anyway. Taryn chokes Gail off the ladder and shoves her to the mat, but the knee won’t let her stand high enough. Instead Terrell dives off the ladder with a cross body and both girls are down again. They both climb onto the bridged ladder with Taryn being thrown to the mat again in a big thud. Terrell is up first and hooks a dragon sleeper, but Gail TIES TARYN’S HAIR AROUND THE ROPES. Gail climbs the ladder to get the shot at 15:10.

Rating: B+. Solid match here with a creative ending. The match was so good that it makes me get over Gail getting ANOTHER title shot which I don’t think anyone wants to see. Taryn is showing good promise in the ring which goes along with her looks. I liked the last man standing match better but this was certainly good stuff.

We’ll close it out with a win, from Bound For Glory 2013.

Knockouts Title: ODB vs. Brooke vs. Gail Kim

ODB is defending. Brooke looks GREAT in a leather version of her usual attire. Gail is knocked to the floor to start with Brooke taking over on ODB in the corner. Brooke gives her a Stink Face but ODB pops up and sends her into the corner for a Bronco Buster. Gail comes back in, only to be knocked back to the floor a few seconds later. Brooke works on ODB’s back and gets two off a quick neckbreaker.

Gail pops back up and grabs the figure four around the post, only to have ODB make the save with her chest. ODB chops Brooke but gets rolled up for a quick two. Off to a half crab on Brooke but Gail makes another save. The challengers both go up but have to shove off a double superplex attempt, followed by Gail hitting a missile dropkick on ODB. Brooke adds a top rope elbow (WAY too popular of a move tonight) for no cover.

Back up and ODB gets two on Gail via a delayed vertical suplex. The referee gets taken out as ODB somehow gets both girls up in a fireman’s carry at the same time. Brooke falls off but ODB slams Gail onto her….and here’s Tapa. She runs over ODB and takes her out, only to powerbomb Gail on top of ODB for the pin and the title at 10:33.

Rating: D+. This could have been on any given Impact and that’s the problem with this show: nothing feels special at all so far. Gail is champion again. So? She’s been champion before, just like everyone else in the division. Nothing to see here other than Brooke looking great.

Gail Kim is a good example of a talented worker whose looks helped her out a lot. She looked great in a tiny pair of shorts but could also work a solid wrestling match. The interesting thing is people remember has as being champion quite often but she only held it once in WWE and three times in TNA. Solid worker, but a step below the other top girls who came before her.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Summerslam at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HY4NV7Y

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Today is another instance of there’s no one interesting today so here’s one of my favorites: 2 Cold Scorpio.

Scorpio got his start in Japan in the late 80s but got his first American exposure in WCW, debuting at Clash of the Champions 21 as a mystery partner for WCW World Champion Ron Simmons.

Cactus Jack/Tony Atlas/Barbarian vs. Ron Simmons/Too Cold Scorpio

Ok so Simmons is world champion and is feuding with various guys because they wanted to make Simmons seem like he had something to do while making the WCW Title a midcard title so that guys like Great Muta and Chono, NWA guys, could be the REAL focus of the show. Simmons vs. Barbarian was the WCW Title match at Halloween Havoc. Let that sink in for a bit.

This is Scorpio’s debut and the good guys sprint to the ring with the announcers having no clue what Scorpio’s name is. This match with having only one white guy in it is Watts’ attempt to make the company believe he’s not racist and of course he made the black dude worthless and the title a joke until Sting saved it. Jack is legit injured here so he was a manager for the most part. Somehow injured he was miles ahead of the guys he managed.

Atlas looks like a freaking tank here. There was supposed to be some guy named Robbie Walker as Simmons’ partner. Considering this is Scorpio when he was young and in awesome shape and totally mind blowing, I think he upgraded. Yeah he’s 27 here as is Jack so both guys are young and just awesome. Scorpio misses a moonsault completely and kicks Jack in the head so he has to tag.

Jack and Simmons now as Barbarian was in there all of 10 seconds. Remember: Jack is badly hurt here but he’s the only credible guy on his team. Ah, it’s the #1 contender: Barbarian. Yes that Barbarian. It’s weird hearing them constantly saying “Simmons’ partner” because they really don’t know who he is. Atlas comes in and is just old. He’s still ripped though so that helps.

Barbarian beats on him a bit but then Jack has to be the one to get kicked in the head. Hot tag to Scorpio who blows the roof off the place. He was SO far ahead of his time it’s not even funny. Barbarian misses the big boot to Simmons which kills Atlas and with Simmons holding the other two off, Scorpio unleashes the 450 which is more or less the national debut of it and you can’t hear Ross’ commentary (which is more or less him losing his mind) over how loud the fans are. Naturally that gets the pin.

Rating: B-. This was to do two things: further the Simmons vs. Jack’s team feud and the bigger one: make 2 Cold Scorpio look AMAZING. To say the very least regarding the second one, JACKPOT. The fans loved him as more or less he was a 240 pound Rey Mysterio and keeping in mind this is 1992, this was completely revolutionary stuff. Awesome debut and everything worked like a charm. Match sucked when him or Jack wasn’t in there though.

Scorpio would become a big deal on his own as a singles guy, including receiving an NWA World Title shot at Clash of the Champions 23.

NWA World Title: Barry Windham vs. 2 Cold Scorpio

This could be bad but it could be good. Windham was just holding the title for a little while before Flair got it back in about a month. Jesse asks what kind of name Scope is. Jesse brings up that he was in the Navy and Norfolk is a naval town so he’s happy here. No one believes Windham has any chance of losing here as Scorpio was young, talented and over so of course the NWA can’t let him have the belt. That’s Flair’s belt blast it.

Jesse wants to know who Jordan is betting on tonight. That’s a great line. Scorpio kicks out of a leaping, and I use that term loosely, DDT. Hey! Wanna know how Badd is? Call the Hotline and find out! Yes, we’ll not only give out private medical records, we’ll charge you for them! Windham punches the heck out of Scorpio and this is pretty one sided.

Fans are into it though so that works. In a very cool move, Scorpio is on the apron and hits a slingshot, note that it’s not a springboard, 450. Scorpio’s comeback is very good but in the end he gets caught just like you would expect him to. The Leaping DDT ends it to retain Windham’s title.

Rating: B. This was way better than it should have been. When Scorpio wasn’t fat and was actually motivated, he could go with anyone and that’s what he did here. Solid match all around although the ending sucked to a fairly large extent just out of boringness. The double title thing still didn’t work.

On to the tag team division that Scorpio was best known for. He would hook up with Marcus Bagwell for a Tag Team Title show on the October 23, 1993 episode of WCW Saturday Night.

Tag Titles: Marcus Bagwell/2 Cold Scorpio vs. Nasty Boys

Naties are defending. Knobbs shoves Scorpio into the corner to start and it’s quickly off to Sags who does…..nothing at all. Back to Knobbs who walks into a slam before a slingshot moonsault gets two for Scorpio. He puts on a hammerlock with his feet before it’s off to Bagwell for a double faceplant. We hit the armbar by Marcus and the challengers take turns working over the arm. Brian fights back and makes the tag off to Jerry who walks into the same arm work.

A double dropkick puts Jerry down again and Scorpio puts on another armbar. 2 Cold goes up but completely misses a splash to change control. A Knobbs distraction lets Sags get in a chair shot to the back and Scorpio is in big trouble. He’s able to kick out at two though as the fans chant WHOMP THERE IT IS. Back to Knobbs for a gutwrench slam but Bagwell breaks up the count at two.

We hit the abdominal stretch from Brian but Sags comes back in for some elbows on the bad ribs. Scorpio tries to fight back but gets caught in a bearhug to keep things slow. He finally fights out of it with something resembling a bulldog and an enziguri is enough for the hot tag to Bagwell. Marcus fights off both guys and everything breaks down. Sags and Scorpio are whipped into each other but Jerry gets up fast enough to drop a top rope ax handle on Marcus, only to pull him up at two. Sags lifts him up for a slam but Scorpio dropkicks them both down, putting Bagwell on top for the pin and the titles.

Rating: C-. Not a very good match here but I’ve seen far worse. This was the definition of a meaningless title reign as they would lose the belts back the next night at Halloween Havoc. Bagwell and Scorpio felt like a pair of guys thrown together and they weren’t much more than that at all.

Soon after this it would be off to an NWA territory known as Eastern Championship Wrestling for an NWA World Title tournament. Here’s Scorpio vs. Shane Douglas in the finals.

NWA World Title: Shane Douglas vs. 2 Cold Scorpio

And we get no entrances or anything like that. Joey said a quick thing about this is it and we cut to the bell ringing. I’m fairly certain that Shane is heel here but it’s not incredibly clear. Yeah he definitely is. The locker room is out to watch this. They try to tie this into the classic NWA guys like Race and Thesz, but for some reason the WHOMP There it is chant hurts the credibility on that one.

They do some decent stuff but it’s a tad sloppy which hurts it a bit. I wonder what Shane is thinking as he knows what he will be doing in about fifteen minutes. They lock up for about the fifth time in two minutes. We get it guys. You can do the most basic move on the planet. They do a bunch of small packages and reversals that aren’t bad but it’s hardly the masterpiece that Joey wants you to think it is.

To change the pace a lot, we have a lock up. A top rope cross body gets two and we hit a chinlock. You can really tell how far the title has fallen when it was eleven years before this when Starrcade aired and the company hit its peak. A top rope dropkick puts Shane on the floor and we have a sign that says I’ve Got Crabs. You can really feel the spirits of Thesz and Kiniski here can’t you?

They really do try to put this over as a classic. Well give Joey a point for trying of course. What they don’t point out most of the time is that Douglas beat Terry Funk for the ECW Title coming into this. Barely Legal was far from Funk’s first title reign. We get back in the ring with Shane somewhat in control.

It amuses me that this was supposed to be the biggest match of all time according to Joey, but that weekend we had Owen vs. Bret in a cage at Summerslam. Anyway, Scorpio misses a moonsault and Shane hits a belly to belly for the win. Scorpio says that Shane was better tonight but he’ll be back. Nice job on stealing the spotlight there buddy.

Rating: C+. This was nothing entertaining at all really. It’s just a match with limited heat and not very good wrestling. I get that this is supposed to mean something in the long run, but dang man, there was just nothing to talk about here at all. It’s not bad but there are about a million better matches.

Then some other stuff happened after the match.

Scorpio is one of the few guys that has been all over the world so we’ll take a look at some of his stuff with other companies. This is one such match from a AAA show, though it took place in Los Angeles.

Tito Santana/Pegasus Kid/2 Cold Scorpio vs. La Parka/Blue Panther/Jerry Estrada

This is IWC vs. AAA. Pegasus Kid you know as Chris Benoit and yes that’s the same Tito Santana you’re familiar with. Estrada is a brawler, Panther is a masked guy and captain and La Parka is La Parka. Scorpio is starting us off but Estrada and Parka fight over who starts. Instead it’s Panther who takes Scorpio to the mat to a HUGE pop. I’m a big Scorpio and Santana fan so I think you know which team I like here.

Off to Benoit vs. Parka. The Parka team is WAY more popular as they’re technically the hometown team. Santana comes in but Estrada and Parka fight over who gets to face Santana. Tito in black trunks is an odd sight to see. Also this is just Tito, not El Matador. Mike says Tito is clearly the weak link on his team. That’s not exactly what I’d say but he’s the Professor.

Parka won’t tag in, ticking Estrada off even more. Benoit and Panther come in to speed things way up and Benoit hits a huge suicide dive to the floor. Benoit is the captain of his team so if he loses it’s over. Scorpio and Parka come in and try to out overdo it. They slug it out but neither guy can take over. Parka fakes taking a low blow and both guys hit the floor. That allows Estrada vs. Santana to come in. Remember that’s legal here.

Estrada is sent to the floor and it’s off to Benoit vs. Panther again. They’re both in blue so that works out well. Benoit hooks the snap suplex but an elbow misses. Parka is tagged in and he walks along the apron for a bit first. The Canadian hits a German on the Mexican and it’s back to Panther again, this time against 2 Cold. They look like their chemistry is way off at times in this.

A powerbomb puts Parka down but Estrada comes in, breaks it up, kicks Parka a bit for good measure and now the heels can’t figure out who to get in. Ok so now it’s Tito vs. Panther. Benoit comes in but misses the swan dive. Scorpio misses his huge moonsault as well. I get why Panther is a champion. La Parka and Estrada fight over who gets to cover Scorpio so it’s back to Panther again.

Parka sends Santana to the floor and sets to dive but hits Estrada of course. Scorpio hits a big dive to take everyone out. Panther misses a moonsault so Benoit hits a Matt Hardy legdrop for two. Panther tries a powerbomb on Chris but Benoit rolls through into a rana for the pin and ZERO reaction, which also might be a cultural thing.

Rating: C. I liked it a little better than the previous one but it’s no classic or anything. The idea here was two different styles and in that theory it worked. At the same time though, the tagging thing isn’t something I can get used to inside of an hour, which is how long this has been going on. It was fine but it’s something I think I’d like a lot more if I watched lucha libre more often.

In 1995, WCW held a show in North Korea which had an audience of, I kid you not, 180,000 people. Scorpio was on the card, facing Wild Pegasus.

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.

Back to ECW, where Scorpio would win the Tag Team Titles in a singles match against Rocco Rock. He would choose Sandman as his partner and defend the titles at November 2 Remember 1995.

Tag Titles: 2 Cold Scorpio/Sandman vs. Public Enemy

Woman manages Scorpio and Sandman who are champions (along with Scorpio being TV Champion) and come out to Whomp There It Is. Whoever gets the fall here faces Mikey Whipwreck later in the show for the world title. Woman is kind of hot actually. She could look rather good at times. Scorpio dances a lot while we’re waiting on the Public Enemy to get here.

I have no idea what the face/heel alignment is here but I think Public Enemy is face. According to Gertner the TV Title is on the line here also. Yeah apparently Sandman and Scorpio are the heels here. Sandman is billed from…..Utah? Seriously? Scorpio is doing a thing where he says he doesn’t weigh as much as he really does. He does have a gut on him.

Public Enemy is leaving soon after this for ECW apparently. Scorpio offers them a chance to leave so let’s have a dance off. Uh…..ok? Scorpio cuts a rug and Joey dances too. The camera catches him and his reaction is great. Rocco does a robot which isn’t horrible. Scorpio does one also and destroys him. And now we set dancing back about a thousand years with Sandman dancing too. Joey: “Yes but can he walk a straight line?” They want Woman to dance and it’s very short. Crowd is WAY into this.

The champs jump the dancing morons but Public Enemy clears the ring quickly. AND IT’S TIME TO DANCE! The music is still playing as I think we have a comedy match on our hands. Just a hunch mind you. Ok so now we’re ready to go with Sandman vs. Grunge. Sandy grabs a headlock but is sent to the floor. Everything breaks down quickly and they all head to the floor.

Everyone grabs a chair and gets back in the ring for a good old fashioned duel. Sandman and Grunge are thrown to the floor and Scorpio follows. They fight up the aisle and a fan offers 2 Cold a frying pan. He steals someone’s prosthetic hand instead. Well why not? Sandman goes into the crowd and Grunge is busted open. He hits a splash for two on Scorpio as we’re bordering on having a regular match.

Rocco hits Sandman with a pumpkin pie and Sandy is in the crowd again. Woman pulls Sandman out of the crowd. Sandman tags himself in and he jumps over the top (!!!) with something like a dropkick. Rocco comes in and hits a headscissors to take over. Slingshot legdrop by Sandman but he doesn’t cover.

Off to Scorpio who hits a slingshot splash for two. Scorpio vs. Rock at the moment if you’re all lost. Rock avoids a dropkick and escapes a tilt-a-whirl, only to miss a moonsault. The fans chant for SD Jones for some reason as Scorpio hits a double underhook powerbomb which is broken up at two.

Standing moonsault eats knees and it’s off to Sandman. Rocco (they’re Rocco Rock and Johnny Grunge if you’re totally confused by me changing named) still can’t bring in Grunge so Grunge comes in and pounds on Sandman. Woman cracks Rocco with a kendo stick and Sandman dives over the top to take out Grunge. Sandman gets backdropped onto a table which doesn’t break. FREAKING OW MAN.

Grunge finally goes through the table and everything breaks down even further. Rock hits a big moonsault to the floor as they need to end this soon. A broom handle is brought in from somewhere with Scorpio taking over with it. There it goes though so 2 Cold settles for a Stinger Splash and moonsault for two on Rocco. We’re tagging again now and Grunge gets the hot tag. Sandman comes in sans tag but Public Enemy screws up their finisher and Sandman falls on top for the pin.

Rating: D. Yeah this went too long. These guys aren’t the ones you want having seventeen minutes. This was better as a comedy match but then again I might have just wanted to see Woman dance. Either way, not much here and Sandman getting the pin was pretty much the only logical choice since he lost the title to Mikey in the first place.

After a few more months in ECW it was off to the WWF where Scorpio would become a pimp in a zoot suit named Flash Funk. One of his first big matches was at In Your House 12.

Leif Cassidy vs. Flash Funk

 

Cassidy is more famous as Al Snow but is one half of the New Rockers here. Funk is more famous as 2 Cold Scorpio and is basically a pimp without calling him as much. He has Funkettes and funk music, basically making him the original Brodus Clay. Even Vince dances to the theme song a bit. After a long dance sequence by Funk and his girls we’re ready to go. Funk shoves Cassidy into the ropes to start and dances a bit, only angering Leif as a result.

 

They trade wristlocks until Flash spins around and grabs an armbar on the mat. Cassidy spins up but a flying snap mare takes him right back down. Funk flips out of a Boston crab attempt and takes Leif down into a headlock. Back up and Flash tries to go up but slips off the ropes, only to pop back up and hit a cross body to set up another armbar. A headscissors out of the corner is countered into a reverse powerbomb by Cassidy and the Rocker takes over.

 

Cassidy blocks a right hand and traps Funk’s arms for some headbutts, followed by a belly to belly over the top and out to the floor. Leif follows it up with a springboard moonsault to the floor in a great looking dive. Back in and we hit the chinlock but Flash fights up and dances a bit more. Another powerbomb attempt by Cassidy is countered and Flash lands on his feet, dancing again. Leif comes back with a sitout spinebuster for a very delayed two count. Off to a modified dragon sleeper but Leif lets him go very quickly for some reason.

 

Funk avoids a middle rope moonsault as you can see a lot of empty seats not that far from the ring. Funk hits the ropes and cartwheels into a spinning enziguri, sending Leif out tot he floor. Another big dive takes Cassidy down before a gorgeous top rope moonsault gets two for Funk. They trade some quick rollups for two each until Flash scores with an enziguri and the Funky Flash Splash (450 and yes that’s the real name) gets the pin. We even get a rare error from JR who calls it a Shooting Star Press.

 

Rating: B-. This took awhile to get going but for its time, this was pretty awesome. Funk is a personal favorite of mine who could fly like few other mainstream guys at this time. Cassidy was no slouch either but it would take an absurd gimmick to get him noticed, which is a shame at the\\\ end of the day.

Continuing the international theme, Flash was on the March 3, 1997 episode of Raw, held in Germany.

Sultan vs. Flash Funk

Sultan is Rikishi. Jim Ross has joined us on commentary. Lawler calls in and yells at Vince for having ECW guys on Raw. Didn’t Jerry invite him? If the ECW guys show up next week, Lawler will finish the fight. After a break the match is joined in progress with Sultan running him over. Flash does his usual flying around the ring to get in some offense but Sultan hooks him in a sleeper. Heyman calls in to say Lawler is over the line. The challenge is accepted but it might not be next week. Standing rana sets up a top rope moonsault for two by Funk. Sultan counters a headscissors and the camel clutch ends this quick.

Rating: C-. This match was fine but it’s by far and away the weakest of the matches as far as star power goes. Good match here as Funk is always someone I love watching. Sultan was a dead end gimmick and more or less stopped meaning anything after Mania when Rocky beat him in the IC Title match.

To England, from One Night Only, a one off show (appropriately enough) from Birmingham in September of 1997.

Flash Funk vs. The Patriot

Flash Funk is more commonly known as 2 Cold Scorpio and is a pimp without the name of being one. Patriot showed up a few weeks before this and somehow had a title shot at the previous PPV which went nowhere. Naturally he “came within an eyelash” but that didn’t mean anything after that show.

Patriot has Angle’s old music which it’s just odd to hear in 1997. He’s more or less a heel here since he comes out with the American flag. Patriot says he wears a mask because he represents the face of every American. I don’t know that many men that have golden skin like that. Flash is wearing a freaking zoot suit. This isn’t as good of a match as it could be but it’s ok I guess.

It’s about as generic as you could get but that’s fine. Vince calls Flash the Funkmeister. I’m done. Patriot was just annoying as he never went anywhere. He wasn’t that good at all but was built up to be this great worker which he just wasn’t at all. They keep saying the reason they’re not being all violent and crap is because they don’t hate each other. That’s better than nothing I guess.

If nothing else this should tell you everything you need to know about Patriot: his finishers are a full nelson slam called the Uncle Slam and a top rope shoulder block called the Patriot Missile. Funk’s finisher is called the Funky Flash Splash. A full nelson slam ends this. That was a waste of time.

Rating: C-. Again, this was just there. It wasn’t particularly good or bad, but Patriot got some decent heat which is really all you can ask for. Funk went for a big move from the top and it missed for the Uncle Slam. That’s better than nothing I guess. It could have been a lot worse I guess, but this just wasn’t the best choice of a pairing.

In 1998 there was a quick cross promotional story with WWF and ECW that saw Flash go to ECW for a night at Living Dangerously 1998 against Rob Van Dam.

Rob Van Dam vs. 2 Cold Scorpio

Van Dam is still a huge heel here but it’s lightening up a lot. Scorpio is over at least. He’s Flash Funk at this point but here he’s just the simple 2 Cold Scorpio and therefore much better than he was in WWF. The more I hear the more I think Van Dam is already a face. They start with a long feeling out process which is fine as they do some decent technical stuff.

 

However, we of course get a botch because it’s ECW. Those things just suck the life out of a lot of matches. I understand that they are going to happen and at least here they covered it up a bit. In the previous match they just assumed no one noticed and thought it would be fine. That’s just freaking dumb. We get a very nice reversal sequence with a lot of monkey flips that ends with a standoff.

 

Very nice indeed. We hit the floor and Van Dam is in the crowd. Well you knew it was going to happen sooner or later I \guess. I think they’re going for the big epic match here but the fans aren’t all happy with it which can’t be a good sign. To be fair though, most of the time not all fans are going to love the thing. The fans want Sandman apparently. That sums up ECW crowds pretty well.

 

We’re given a high flying technically mostly sound match, and the fans want weapons and blood and tables. So many times these fans were just ridiculous and stupid and this is one of them. Scorpio hits a SWEET moonsault. The Five Star which isn’t called that yet gets knees or what are called knees I suppose as it looked like it hit pretty well to me. We hit the ramp for awhile and the Van Daminator is more or less no sold. Hint for how to counter: HIT HIM WITH THE CHAIR. Seriously dude, use some freaking intelligence.

 

A piledriver on the ramp and Van Dam is hurt. And there goes the referee because in a no DQ match we need a referee for…? Van Dam tries to steal the 450 and would have missed completely anyway. Scorpio mostly hits the 450 and here’s Sabu to up the workrate. An Arabian Facebuster gets two. Sandman comes out to chase off Sabu. Van Dam gets a SWEET jumping rollup for the pin. Post match Van Dam acts very cocky and offers a handshake but Scorpio nails him to a big pop.

 

Sabu comes back with a table so they try to put Scorpio through it. Naturally this doesn’t work as Sandman makes the save. In a stupid moment, as Scorpio is laying on it and Sandman makes the save, he pops up as soon as Sandman is here. Yeah that didn’t look dumb at all. Sandman tries a hurricanrana from the top through the table on Sabu. Guess what happens. Go ahead and guess. Anyway, the two faces share a beer after the match. Sandman dances. This is disturbing.

Rating: B-. This was good, but it suffers from the same problem that it always does: Paul Heyman overbooking it. Can ANYONE explain to me why Sabu and Sandman had to come in there? I know RVD and Sabu are partners, but he had no business coming to ringside at all. Just let him be Scorpio.

O Canada! From Breakdown 1998.

Too Much vs. Scorpio/Al Snow

 

Snow is completely insane and carries a mannequin head with him. Too Much is Brian Christopher and a newcomer named Scott Taylor. The fans get all over Too Much, sending Taylor into a fit before he starts with Scorpio. Feeling out process to start with Scorpio cranking on a wristlock before dropping him with a spinwheel kick. Taylor flips around and takes Scorpio down with a dropkick, only to have Scorpio in his face by the time Taylor nips up.

 

It’s off to Snow vs. Christopher with Snow hitting a bunch of headbutts to gain the early advantage. Things start to break down a bit with Scorpio bringing a chair into the ring but Snow uses it as a launching pad to dive at Taylor in the corner. Taylor falls face first into Christopher’s crotch to make the crowd wince. Christopher misses a charge at Snow on the floor and Scorpio hits a top rope splash on Taylor for two.

 

Snow moonsaults Christopher off the apron before heading back inside to slam Taylor. Scorpio goes up top but takes too long, allowing Brian to crotch him down to the floor. Taylor hits a nice springboard dive to take Scorpio down again. Things settle down with Too Much hitting a double backdrop on Scorpio but Christopher stops to dance.

 

Snow comes in sans tag with Head to clean house, only to hit Scorpio by mistake. The referee checks on Scorpio, allowing Al to hit Taylor low for a close two. The save is botched a bit with Christopher coming off the top late and the referee just stopping his count. Scorpio makes a save of his own (also a bit late) but Snow pops up and Snow Plows (scoop brainbuster) Taylor for the pin.

 

Rating: C. The ending was pretty messy but the rest of the match wasn’t bad at all. Scorpio had some incredible talent and Snow was one of the most underrated guys on the roster. Too Much would get far better when they stopped being goofy heels and became dancers. If nothing else it was probably better than the original idea for them: the first openly gay (and in love) tag team.

Scorpio left WWF soon after this and hit the indies. We’ll go from there down to as far south as you can get: perhaps the worst wrestling show ever. If you’ve never heard of this, save yourselves and run now. From Heroes of Wrestling.

2 Cold Scorpio vs. Julio Fantastico

Julio is more commonly known as Julio Dinero in case you’ve heard of him in ECW or old school TNA. Scorpio I’m sure you’ve heard of. If not, imagine a Godfather/Luchador combination. Yeah he was a weird one. Why is Julio on this show again? I have no idea either but whatever.

Why do these two and two tag teams have music but Steele and Valentine didn’t? Oh I guess it’s because they sucked. Scorpio is carrying a replica WCW Title belt. I know that because I see it, not because it’s mentioned or anything like that. This match might have potential to be something close to decent. Can’t you hear my enthusiasm in this show?

Lou Albano comes out for commentary for absolutely no apparent reason. I think he just wandered in here and needed a place to sit down. Albano, having no apparent power or anything, has the authority to give both announcers raises. You know, for the one night show, they’re getting raises for next week.

Albano babbles a lot but if you listen to him, he seems like he knows his stuff. Of course he does, but it’s so much rambling it’s hard to say. Can we just let him talk all night? He’s FAR more entertaining and interesting to listen to. He’s not bragging the whole time and he’s actually offering some insight and says that it’s a dropkick instead of a flying leg kick.

He then offers this and I had to listen at least three times to get all this. He says this about Randy: he’s a nice guy but he looks like he’s got the brain of a dehydrated baby if they put him in a pigeon pack and had him fly backwards. Ladies and gentlemen, this man was responsible for what became Wrestlemania. Apparently Lou looks like a pitbull in heat next to Dinero. This is making the show, hands down.

The match is very sloppy as Scorpio is having to carry this, but that’s the best choice I guess. There’s some decent stuff in there though but it’s just sloppy. We see Scorpio holding the ropes and pulling back for something but we go to a shot of Dinero and just see him being crashed on. Nice one guys. Scorpio’s hair is braided by the way.

Dinero isn’t bad at all actually and it was this match that got him a job with ECW of all things. In other words, Heyman or someone under him actually watched this and scouted talent from it. What does that tell you? Dinero takes a nice backdrop over the railing onto the floor.

They fight into the crowd and we can’t see crap because of the lighting and an annoying kid in a 49ers jersey. And the announcers point out that they don’t know what’s going on. Nice one guys. The referee sees a low blow and is fine with it of course. Dutch: we have a 2 count. The referee counted two. THANKS FOR THAT.

Albano gets on Randy for the leg kick thing again which is kind of amusing I guess. This needs to end like NOW. Dinero shoves the referee into the ropes to crotch Scorpio and that’s fine too.

Scorpio hits Trouble in Paradise which Dinero was going down from before it hit but whatever and a 2nd rope Tumbleweed (Harlem Hangover) hits then he goes up for a moonsault where he twists into another leg drop. He misses by a foot and a half, but that’s decent here.

Rating: D-. By FAR the best mach so far. This got something close to entertaining if you can believe that. The sloppiness just freaking kills it though as Scorpio just can’t do anything at all without botching it at all. There was something close to a decent match here though so that’s better than nothing.

It was back to ECW by the end of the year for a World Title shot on December 10, 1999’s ECW on TNN.

ECW World Title: Mike Awesome vs. 2 Cold Scorpio

Awesome (the champion) runs Scorpio over to start and Scorpio isn’t sure what to do. Scorpio knocks him to the ramp (the arena is strange as the aisle to the ring is on the level with the ring but the ring itself is in a kind of a pit) and hits a flip dive to take over, but back in the ring Awesome suplexes him to the floor. Scorpio is launched into the crowd and the champion dives over the barricade with a clothesline.

A chair to the back puts Scorpio back at ringside and a charge into the chair into Scorpio gets two back in the ring. Another tackle puts 2 Cold down and a clothesline knocks him inside out. This has been a total squash so far. Scorpio grabs a quick cradle for two and “hits” a superkick to set up a big top rope splash for two. A moonsault gets the same but Scorpio walks into a modified powerbomb for two.

Awesome hits a sweet release German suplex and it’s table time. It is ECW after all. Jazz, Scorpio’s manager, gets in and Scorpio has to save her from being powerbombed through the table. There’s another superkick to Awesome but Scorpio takes too much time to go up top and a HUGE powerbomb through the table kills 2 Cold dead to keep the title on Awesome.

Rating: C. I like both of these guys so I was a fan of this match before it started. This was when Scorpio was a shell of his old self when he was flying all over the place back in WCW in the early 90s. Good stuff here though as Awesome was moving around like Scorpio used to despite being bigger and taller than Scorpio ever was. Fun stuff.

Scorpio went to Japan for several years before coming back to America, mainly on reunion shows or on the independent circuit. Here’s one such appearance from the 15^th anniversary episode of Monday Night Raw.

15th Anniversary Battle Royal

THE FINK does the intros. We’ve got Al Snow, Bart Gunn (man, where did they drag him out of?), DOINK THE CLOWN, Repo Man, Steve Blackman (in far better shape than he ever was when he was a regular), Pete Gas of the Mean Street Posse, BOB FREAKING BACKLUND (58 years old here and looking to be in better shape than most of the roster), Gangrel, Goon, Skinner, IRS, Flash Funk, Scotty 2 Hotty, Jim Neidhart, Sgt. Slaughter and Gillberg, who gets a full entrance with guards and pyro sticks and canned chants. That’s AWESOME. This is supposed to be a 15 man battle royal but there are 16 in it. Eh who cares?

Gillberg is ganged up on and tossed immediately. Backlund is out quickly and the point of this isn’t who wins but is just for fun. A Head shot by Snow puts Doink out. Same for Gangrel. HEAD CHEESE EXPLODES!!! Skinner is called a fabulous one (haha) and there go Bart, Flash and Blackman. Repo Man puts Goon out and Skinner puts Repo out. Final Four are Slaughter, IRS, Skinner and Scotty. IRS gets his briefcase but gets it knocked into his face so we can see the Worm. Skinner puts Scotty out but walks into the Cobra Clutch. Slaughter dumps Skinner but IRS dumps Slaughter in the same ending from X7?s Gimmick Battle Royal.

BUT WAIT! Here’s Ted DiBiase, who is officially in the battle royal also. However, he says that IRS has his price so IRS dives over the top, making DiBiase the winner! And that my friends, is why Ted DiBiase is better than your favorite heel. We even get the evil laugh! The match isn’t worth rating because that’s not the point. The ending made me smile a lot though.

We’ll close it out with a win from a losing show: TNA’s Hardcore Justice, because why put on something original when you can put on an ECW reunion show?

CW Anderson vs. 2 Cold Scorpio

You know, because these two have SUCH a history together. They keep calling it the original era because they can’t say ECW, even though they do anyway. Oh this is wrestling. Just to be clear I guess. Amazingly enough, there’s next to nothing to talk about here. Scorpio was great in his time, but he was old in 99 and he’s very old now. This is kind of back and forth and really isn’t bad for the most part. Spinebuster gets two and the Tumbleweed ends it.

Rating: C-. This was actually ok. They had a nice back and forth thing going here with a solid clash of styles going. I liked Anderson to an extent and I always liked Scorpio so this worked well for me. Somehow I have a feeling this is going to be the best match of the night. This wasn’t bad at all though and has me in a better mood.

Scorpio is a guy that is remembered as being awesome but was more of a traveling attraction than anything else. He had some singles success in Japan and ECW but was mainly a tag team guy that made his partners look better most of the time. The stuff he was doing was insane back in 1992/3 and wouldn’t have been seen anywhere else in America. He’s a fun character and worth checking out if you’ve got the chance.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Summerslam at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HY4NV7Y

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Impact Wrestling
Date: February 27, 2014
Location: Wembley Arena, London, England
Commentators: Tazz, Mike Tenay

The main story coming out of last week’s show are Storm turning on Gunner to cost him the world title and the official announcement of Lethal Lockdown for control of the company. Bobby Roode will be captaining Dixie’s team but we’re not sure who will be joining him against Team MVP. Other than that we’ll likely get more build towards Joe vs. Magnus. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of last week’s events.

Kurt Angle is inducted into the Hall of Fame tonight. They couldn’t wait for a PPV weekend in nine days for that?

Gunner is looking for James Storm and promises him a beating.

Dixie Carter isn’t here tonight so Roode and Spud have match making authority. Nice to see that if one boss isn’t around, a bunch of others can take her place.

Here’s MVP to open things up with a long list of nicknames. First up, he guarantees that Gunner will get his title shot once he wins full control of TNA. However, that means that it’s Magnus vs. Joe at Lockdown for the world title. MVP brings out Samoa Joe to a very enthusiastic pop from the London crowd. Magnus comes out as well to some solid heat from his home country crowd. We get a clip of his title defense last week where Storm saves the title for the champ.

Magnus rips on London for slipping from a great city into a town ridden with crime, poverty and debauchery. As for MVP, Magnus is the only person that handles his career, so MVP needs to get on with whatever he’s saying. We’re here for a contract signing tonight and MVP tilts the advantage even further to Joe by making it knockout or tap out only.

Joe immediately signs but Magnus says he’s got a whole decks of cards left to play. He calls Joe an unrefined animal and his fans use horrible chants like Joe’s Gonna Kill You. Joe is a dangerous animal and Magnus is the man that will put that animal down. Magnus signs as well and tells Joe to do something about Magnus getting in his face. Joe headbutts him into the corner and ERUPTS on the champion with rights and lefts. He stomps Magnus down in the corner but referees pull him off.

We get a clip from a house show where the Wolves took the Tag Titles from the Bro Mans.

The Bro Mans and Zema are panicking over losing their titles and decide the easiest way to get revenge is to get on Team Roode. They go to see Bobby but he says Bad Influence wants in too. Tonight Roode is making a triple threat tag tonight with Bad Influence, the Wolves and the Bro Mans. If either the Bro Mans or Bad Influence win, they’re on the team. If the Wolves win, the search continues.

Bad Influence vs. Bro Mans vs. Wolves

Non-title and no entrances for anyone. Daniels runs Davey over to start but walks into some armdrags into an O’Connor Roll for two. Davey hooks a modified surfboard as Eddie and Kaz come in for a regular version of the same move to Kazarian. Things settle back down and it’s off to Kaz who walks into an armdrag of his own. The Wolves start speeding things up and working on the arm but Kaz is able to get Davey into the corner for a double team as Bad Influence takes over.

Daniels teases making a tag to a Bro Man but pulls Davey back in a smart move. Richards is able to get a hot tag to Eddie who cleans house and slams Kaz down for two. Robbie makes the save and Zema is already blowing that stupid horn. Bad Influence hits a quick powerbomb/neckbreaker combo for two on Edwards but Eddie comes back with a running Stunner out of the corner to Kaz. Everything breaks down and Davey hits the top rope double stomp to Kaz but Robbie comes in to steal the pin at 5:30.

Rating: C. So they’re putting a comedy team in a match for the future of the company. It didn’t work at Old School and it’s not likely to work here. Bad Influence are also a comedy team but at least they’re capable of having some awesome matches when they need to. The Wolves are growing on me and I don’t have a problem with them winning the titles so soon.

Ethan Carter III has selected a British wrestling legend as his opponent tonight and he’ll become the new face of American wrestling.

Bobby Roode recruits Austin Aries for his team.

Doug Williams vs. Ethan Carter III

The fans are entirely behind Williams and he jumps Ethan to start. Williams pounds away for a few moments before Ethan hits a quick low blow and the One Percenter for the pin at 1:20.

Carter goes after Doug’s knee post match.

James Storm arrives and comes to the ring after a break. He says he doesn’t run and asks Gunner to come out here if he wants an explanation for what happened last week. Gunner says this better be good. Storm says he screwed Gunner out of his title shot and had it planned out ever since Gunner stole the briefcase in Feast or Fired. The nail in the coffin was Gunner handing him the Tag Title briefcase like feeding scraps to a dog. Storm says Gunner should owe him a thank you for picking his career up off the ground.

Gunner says the sad thing is James Storm actually believes that. In the Marine Corps, a thank you was standing next to your friend no matter what. Gunner went over to war so that James Storm could sit here and drink those cold beers. Storm says it doesn’t matter if Gunner had lived or died but Gunner says the people would care. The fight is on and Storm swings a chair at Gunner’s head, only to hit the post instead. Storm runs off when Gunner gets the chair.

After a break Gunner says Storm won’t be able to run forever and he’ll have to go through Gunner.

Magnus is in the ring and looking disheveled after Joe’s attack earlier. He’s found someone to take care of Joe but of course they’re not from England. He went to Germany and found a natural born killer named Bad Bones, who I believe won the international Gut Check competition.

Joe vs. Bad Bones

Bones is a bald guy with a lot of tattoos and some muscles. He jumps Joe during the entrance but Joe pounds him into the corner and hits the Facewash. The MuscleBuster and Koquina Clutch get the submission from Bones at 1:16. So much for Bones.

MVP asks Aries for his decision on Lethal Lockdown. Aries isn’t sure because he doesn’t trust either guy because you can’t do that in this business. He asks to referee their match tonight so he can make his decision up close and personal. MVP agrees.

It’s time for Angle’s Hall of Fame induction. JB gives him a very nice induction and we get a video that I believe aired when he was announced last year. Angle limps to the ring and is given a Rolex watch. He’s touched by the fans’ reaction and says the Hall of Fame is about the fans. TNA wouldn’t exist without them and he can’t thank them enough. He was supposed to accept this honor back in October but he wasn’t in a good place, either personally or professionally.

Angle says he’s in a better place now and thanks God for giving him the abilities he has. He thanks his wife and kids for their support and hopes he can make them proud. The talent in the back keeps him motivated and help him every day. Angle thanks each and every one of the fans and says it’s a great night to be Kurt Angle. That seems to be it but here’s EC3 to interrupt.

Ethan says he was touched by the ceremony and the video, but he has a tribute video of his own. We see a video of him attacking Kurt’s knee last week, complete with thought bubbles that aren’t particularly funny (“I am the new face of American wrestling”, because being the face of everything is a thing in wrestling now).

Ethan says he has big news and Angle invites him into the ring to share it with the world. He opens a piece of paper, with writing on the back saying he beat Angle and Sting. Apparently Angle has a torn ACL and MCL, meaning he requires surgery due to the attack at Ethan’s hands. His career might be over, so Ethan thinks Angle should retire. Angle gets in his face and asks why Ethan would do this when he knows Angle will tear his throat out.

Ethan says he knows Kurt is injured but Angle says you should go straight to the source. Carter: “Why? The internet is always right. Well at least 50% of the time.” Angle says the actual source is right 100% of the time. He has no torn ACL or MCL and knocks Ethan out of the ring. Angle says cut the music because he has an announcement. MVP has given him a match at Lockdown with any wrestler he wants, so guess who he’s picked.

Lei’D Tapa/Alpha Female vs. Madison Rayne/Velvet Sky

Alpha Female really doesn’t work as a name. It’s a brawl to start as Tazz talks about Alpha Female and Bad Bones, completely failing to be funny as usual. Tapa throws Madison around but it’s quickly off to Velvet vs. Female. Sabin tries to come in and go after Velvet but Alpha Female quickly saves him. Tapa misses a middle rope splash but Sabin offers a distraction, allowing Gail to cheap shot Madison. Tapa hits her over the shoulder Stunner for the pin on Rayne at 2:31.

The monsters beat down Madison and Velvet until ODB makes the save.

Tigre Uno is coming at Lockdown. It’s Extreme Tiger from AAA.

Samuel Shaw says people don’t understand. He was helping Christy Hemme last week and the people don’t understand that. He’ll make them understand right now.

Shaw comes to the arena and quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson, saying that to be great is to be misunderstood. Christy has misunderstood him so he asks her to get in the ring. He says there are certain men that aren’t respecting her and those men have been looking at her wrong. Shaw is here to protect her and wants everything from her. This brings out Anderson and Shaw says he’s one of those guys. Christy is lucky Shaw was there last week but Anderson tells him to shut up.

Whatever relationship Shaw thinks he has with Christy isn’t real but here’s what is real. Anderson rolls up his sleeves but Shaw says he’s been nothing but a gentleman. Even if he were to try something with her though, she would be receptive because women like her are always available. Christy slaps him in the face and Shaw hides behind her as Anderson comes in. Shaw shoves Christy onto Anderson and slaps the choke on Mr., pulling him down to the mat.

Willow is still creepy and still coming.

Storm and Gunner fight in the back until agents break it up. Gunner shouts that this ends at Lockdown.

Eric Young hopes Joseph Park comes back instead of Abyss.

Bobby Roode vs. MVP

Austin Aries is guest referee and wearing shorts ala Shawn Michaels on the first weekly Smackdown. Feeling out process to start with MVP taking it to the mat with a headlock. Roode fights up and they get in a jawing session until MVP runs him over with a shoulder block. A clothesline drops Roode again but it’s only good for a one count. Roode blocks a tornado DDT attempt by slamming MVP down onto the mat. A knee drop sets up a chinlock from Roode, followed by a hard clothesline for two.

MVP avoids a charge in the corner and hammers on Roode before taking him down with a nice high collar suplex. The Ballin Elbow sets up a fisherman’s suplex for two and we get a far too close shot of Aries. The Playmaker is countered and Roode charges into a boot in the corner. MVP charges into a spinebuster for two but fights out of the Roode Bomb.

The Playmaker connects for a VERY close two and MVP takes a second to question Aries. Roode comes back to trade forearms but MVP gets the better of it, only to get caught by an enziguri. MVP kicks out the knee and loads up the Drive By but Aries lays him out with a discus elbow, setting up the Roode Bomb for the pin at 9:40.

Rating: C. Basic match here as we were just waiting for the Aries decision to end the match. MVP is fine in this roll and there’s nothing wrong with him wrestling a match here and there. The match was nothing special and Aries being added to the team helps, but the Bro Mans are going to sink any hope Team Dixie has save for a screwjob.

Overall Rating: C+. Perfectly fine show here with a development to end the show and some decent matches in between. They’re filling in the card for Lockdown, even though there’s only ten days before the show. Either way, things are picking up a bit and it’s amazing how much easier this show is to sit through without Dixie hogging all the screen time.

Results

Bro Mans b. Bad Influence and The Wolves – Robbie pinned Kazarian after a double stomp from Richards

Ethan Carter III b. Doug Williams – One Percenter

Samoa Joe b. Bad Bones – Koquina Clutch

Lei’D Tapa/Alpha Female b. Velvet Sky/Madison Rayne – Over the shoulder Stunner to Rayne

Bobby Roode b. MVP – Roode Bomb

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Summerslam at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

Time to go extreme. Today is Tommy Dreamer.

Dreamer is of course most famous for his time in ECW. He started in the very old days of the company when it was still Eastern Championship Wrestling where he was originally a self described pretty boy who wasn’t respected by the fans. That began to change at a show called The Night The Line Was Crossed.

Tommy Dreamer vs. Jimmy Snuka

Snuka is EVIL here and Dreamer is a pure rookie. I’ve seen this before somewhere. Dreamer is from Dreamland USA. Wow indeed. He’s the pretty boy in bright blue tights here and no one cares about him. Snuka is by far the biggest star in the company at this point. Joey promises a classic. That’s never a good sign. Dreamer is 22 here. That’s hard to imagine as he’s always been old.

Lots of stalling to start as we just had to stretch this show out further didn’t we? Dreamer puts on the hat of a kid for no apparent reason. After about three minutes of stalling we lock up and go to a headlock. And now we stall some more. I thought WE WRESTLE IN THE NWA! The fans chant for Piper although I’m not sure why. Would it kill you guys to do something?

Snuka pops him with a pretty weak chair shot on the floor in by far the most interesting move of the match so far. Dreamer kicks out of the Superfly Splash and Joey apparently thinks he can walk on water too. Snuka hits two more of them and Dreamer is more or less dead. He’s bleeding from the mouth and Snuka finally pins him. He beats up some referees and other people afterwards and hits a fourth splash on Dreamer. Gordon comes out and gets beaten up too.

Rating: F+. This was about 80% stalling and then a bunch of splashes. It was like a weird kind of squash and by that I mean it wasn’t any good. The stalling is what hurts this as it’s nearly 8 minutes long and WAY too much of it was just them standing around and yelling at the crowd. Snuka wouldn’t mean anything in the long run anyway as he was only around for a few months after this while Dreamer became one of the biggest stars in the company.

1994 was spent with Dreamer becoming more and more of a fan favorite, including a memorable feud with Sandman. Dreamer knocked a cigarette into Sandman’s eye and blinded him, resulting in Sandman saying he had to retire. This was a huge work against the entire fanbase, many of whom fell for it, thereby ticking them off.

Next up was the biggest feud of Dreamer’s career with a creative backstory. The idea was that Dreamer went to camp as a popular teenage jock with an outcast named Scott who would become a wrestler named Raven. At the same camp there was a girl named Beaulah who liked Dreamer but he rejected her so she slept with Raven. Now she’s back as a Penthouse Pet and wants revenge with Raven. This set off a two year feud with Raven’s Nest fighting Dreamer, including at the main event of November to Remember 1995.

Terry Funk/Tommy Dreamer vs. Raven/Cactus Jack

 

Main event time. Funk is “planning on retiring”. That’s just amusing. Funk says he’ll remember what happened with Cactus last night forever. Apparently it was a big attack on Terry but Dreamer made the save. This is a revenge match for Funk and Dreamer always hates Raven Cactus is in a WCW Dungeon of Doom t-shirt. He was in a WEIRD (yet awesome) heel push where he longed to be back in WCW with “Uncle Eric”.

 

The pairings pair off and Raven and Jack rule the ring for the moment. Now we get to the brawl and Funk fights Raven. Stevie Richards brings in some weapons and gets put in a shopping cart for his troubles. Dreamer BLASTS Raven in the head with a freaking VCR. WHY WOULD YOU BRING ONE OF THOSE TO A WRESTLING SHOW??? In a funny bit, Dreamer hits him with the remote also.

 

Funk beats up the referee because he’s Terry Funk. Dreamer DDTs the referee for good measure. Funk hits Raven with a golf club in the putter. Cheese grater is broken up and Cactus drills Dreamer with a chair. Dreamer gets taken down by a double chain shot to the throat. Raven is busted open and poses anyway. Cactus channels his inner Abdullah as he jabs at Funk with a fork.

 

DDT to Dreamer as Raven and Cactus are dominating. They try the chain again but Dreamer does something smart and dives on it, bringing them together. Not that it matters as Cactus takes him down with ease. Cactus takes the Dungeon of Doom shirt to reveal another one with a huge picture of Eric Bischoff and the words “Forgive Me Uncle Eric” (coining that nickname) on the back. Only Mick Foley could make that work, period.

 

It’s more or less a big mess but were you really expecting something else here? Jack hits a double arm DDT on Funk onto the chair but there’s no referee. Raven dives over the top to take out Dreamer and Jack looks for more weapons. Here are Fonzie and Taz to be referees but Funk kicks out at two. Taz beats up Funk so Dreamer takes Taz out. Jumping DDT takes Raven down and for some reason a regular one does more damage. The referee is back up and Dreamer piledrives Raven onto a chair, letting Funk steal the pin.

 

Rating: B-. Pretty fun match overall as they kept things just weapons based instead of going everywhere. Also Jack having the continuing mental breakdowns in the middle of the match (the Uncle Eric thing) is great. Dreamer not beating Funk is one of those little things that makes a match better. Fun stuff here and one of the better brawls ECW did.

 

Cactus beats them down a bit but gets taken down too. DREAMER SUPERKICKS RICHARDS! Ok so it was in the ribs but still! Raven leaves Dreamer laying to end the show.

Dreamer and Raven feuded for most of 1995, all of 1996 and most of 1997. The key to the whole thing was Dreamer NEVER pinned Raven but kept getting closer and closer every time. Dreamer even got Beaulah to join him at one point during the feud. This finally led to a loser leaves town match at Wrestlepalooza 1997.

Raven vs. Tommy Dreamer

The fans immediately chant YOU SOLD OUT at Raven who was leaving for WCW. Before the match, one of Raven’s lackeys named Lupus says don’t bother doing this because it’s your last night. Raven takes the advice and runs through the front door but Dreamer catches up to him and rams Raven into a steel wall. They head into the bleachers and Dreamer throws both of them through the merchandise table in a big crash. Raven comes back with something resembling a piledriver through a table but the table gives way. Dreamer is already busted open.

Raven throws a table onto Dreamer but Tommy backdrops his way out of a piledriver. The fans actually chant that they can’t see anything. Raven avoids a splash through a table and whips Dreamer into the barricade so hard that it’s knocked off the hinges. Tommy comes back with the same kind of whip before crotching Raven on the steel. They head back to ringside and Dreamer hits a bulldog on the concrete before taking him back into the crowd.

A chair to Raven’s head has him busted open as they head to the other end of the building. Some Philadelphia Eagles are watching from the balcony as Raven throws Dreamer back into the aisle. They’re finally inside the ring again after about a nine minute brawl and Raven hits the drop toehold onto the chair. Another chair is brought in and Raven throws Tommy off the top and through the chair in a nice spot.

Tommy kicks out at two and counters a hiptoss into a DDT to take over. The referee is knocked out by a sign as people keep throwing in weapons like an old N64 game. A piledriver onto the Do Not Enter sign is good for two as Lupus makes the save. Beaulah comes in to DDT Lupus but Raven hits a low blow and rolls up Dreamer for two. A Beaulah distraction lets Dreamer do the same thing to Raven.

Raven’s chick Chastity comes in and sprays hairspray in Dreamer’s eyes, allowing Raven to dropkick him down for two. Everything breaks down and Dreamer DDTs Raven on the sign for a VERY close two. Dreamer loads up another DDT but Raven drives him into the referee. The DDT connects but Louie Spicolli comes in for another save. Spicolli’s DDT gets two for Raven and his own DDT gets the same and Raven isn’t sure what to do. Dreamer grabs a Death Valley Driver on Raven before picking him up, shouting ECW and DDTing Raven on the sign, finally good for the pin after trying for over two years.

Rating: C-. This is a match where the rating depends on your knowledge of the backstory. If you know and care about what Dreamer has gone through to get here, this is a huge moment and a great feeling. I never got into the whole story so it’s just another ECW brawl, but there’s no denying the emotion to it and how big of a deal this was for Dreamer.

One of Dreamer’s most well known associations over the years was with Terry Funk. Tommy appeared on Terry Funk’s retirement show called Terry Funk’s Wrestlefest in 1997.

ECW World Title: Shane Douglas vs. Tommy Dreamer

Beulah is the hottest I’ve ever seen her here, period. Francine looks pretty good too. Shane has just gotten the title back at Hardcore Heaven so there’s more or less zero chance of him losing here. Shane’s heel stuff is underrated I think. He’s overrated beyond belief, but he’s decent at times I think. Ok apparently this is now non title. Ok apparently it is. Dreamer threatens to beat up the announcer if he doesn’t say it’s for the title.

 

Beulah gets on the mic and says that after looking at Shane’s trunks she knows not everything is big in Texas. If I’m Dreamer I’m thinking two things. Why is my wife looking at his trunks, and how in the world did I get a woman that looks like that? Dreamer dominates until Shane kicks the chair he’s holding into his face.

 

The fans keep shouting about Lex Luger for no apparent reason. Shane works on the knee and Francine helps which causes him even more trouble. I’m liking some of the stuff Shane is using on the knee as he’s varying it up very well. We’re told that there are ten minutes left, meaning the time limit was 15 minutes. Dang we get a figure four from Shane. There are about a millions jokes there.

 

Both girls come in and Beulah manages to break up the hold and Dreamer gets two on a rollup. Dreamer goes for the DDT but there’s Francine for the save. You know what’s coming. Shane beats up Beulah including the belly to belly. Dreamer hits everything he has on Shane but can’t get the pin. Francine saves him after the DDT and takes the safest piledriver I’ve ever seen. I love that he never even checked on his wife. A quick belly to belly ends this.

 

Rating: B-. I liked this a lot more than I should have. The interference was annoying beyond all belief to say the least, but we get hot women so I can’t complain much. This was a good match though and it got the job done that it was shooting for so I can’t complain about all that much.

 

1998 wouldn’t be the most interesting year for Dreamer as he would just fight random people wherever he was needed. ECW would begin expanding around this time and Dreamer would be on the second episode of their TV show in a handicap match against the most dominant tag team ECW ever produced, the Dudley Boys. This was also the Dudleys’ last night in the company and they won the World Tag Team Titles. They goaded Dreamer into a handicap match for the belts, but things would change at the end.

 

Tag Titles: Tommy Dreamer vs. Dudley Boys

 

Dreamer takes them down with a double Russian legsweep for two. Tommy finds some salad tongs and grabs D-Von’s balls. Francine throws in a ladder which Tommy tettertotters into the Dudley’s faces. Francine hits Sign Guy in the head with something to take him down. Bubba gets thrown into the ladder and D-Von gets thrown into Bubba, resulting in the falling headbutt ball shot to D-Von.

Bubba gets up and sends Dreamer into the ladder which kills him because of his back. The Dudleys destroy Tommy with belt shots and loads up 3D but Dreamer counters with a DDT. Cue the returning RAVEN who kills Bubba with the Even Flow and pins him to win the titles with Dreamer, his mortal enemy.

Rating: C. This is a really hard one to grade because all that mattered were the last 10 seconds of the match. A lot of it was Dreamer out cold while the Dudleys beat on him so it barely qualifies as a match. Anyway, this was the big return mentioned earlier and Raven got an eruption after finally returning from WCW. At WCW, there had been a meeting where Bischoff told the roster that if anyone wanted out to get up and leave now. Raven was the only one that walked out and he was in ECW in a week.

This was Dreamer’s first title in over five years with the company. In 2000, Taz would win the ECW Title despite not being employed by ECW. Obviously an ECW wrestler needed to be champion, leading to this match from Cyberslam 2000.

 

ECW World Title: Tommy Dreamer vs. Taz

 

Feeling out process to start with the champion grabbing a headlock before taking him down with a T-Bone Tazplex. Hard crossface shots to the face send Dreamer outside and the brawl is on. Dreamer sends him face first into the post but gets whacked in the head with a chair to put him right back down. They head back inside with Taz kicking Dreamer in the side of the head and taking him down with a nice capture suplex for two.

 

Tommy hits a quick DDT for two and loads up the Death Valley Driver, only to have Taz slip down into the Tazmission. A low blow gets Dreamer free but he walks into a northern lights suplex for two. They hit the mat for a quick wrestling sequence and Dreamer flips Taz over into a sunset flip for the pin and the title out of absolutely nowhere.

 

Rating: C-. This is what’s so frustrating about ECW: they can have nice matches like this without all the violence and brawling but that’s all they relied on for most of their important matches. Dreamer was never a great mat warrior or anything but this was perfectly acceptable for the most part.

 

Taz gives a very emotional speech, putting Dreamer over as the man that is now the standard bearer for ECW. Tommy talks about how he may never make it to Wrestlemania but he’s made it here in ECW as he begins to cry. The locker room comes out to celebrate and even Raven hugs Dreamer. Then some other stuff happened.

 

The title reign would last about twenty minutes as Justin Credible would jump Dreamer and win the belt in an impromptu title defense, which really does fit Dreamer’s luck over the years. The company was on its last legs by this point and would hold its final PPV in January of 2001 where Tommy Dreamer would face CW Anderson in an I Quit match.

 

CW Anderson vs. Tommy Dreamer

This is an I Quit match and is your standard veteran vs. young punk with something to prove feud. Dreamer is in a freaking Logan’s Roadhouse shirt. Is he a waiter on the side since he’s not getting paid? I’m not sure if I’m kidding there or not. We’re on the floor immediately as Cyrus is irritating. Back in the ring and Dreamer has a Dragon Sleeper of all things.

Anderson goes to the arm which is likely hurt since it’s Tommy Dreamer. Why should an I Quit match be a wrestling match? Cyrus wants it to be technical which is completely against the idea of the match but whatever. Dreamer goes violent with the ring bell hammer and busts Anderson open. Fairly sick drop toehold into the back of a chair busts Dreamer open.

CW works on the knee which doesn’t really get him anywhere. Dreamer takes some very bad looking unprotected chair shots and busts out a ring of barbed wire. The towel boy from the last show comes in and helps Dreamer beat him up. And there’s a metal sheet to the non-wrestler. Throw in a suplex and I’m sure he’s perfectly fine right?

Spinebuster onto the wire, called razor wire here, and of course Anderson goes for the arm instead of the back which was just slammed into barbed wire. We switch back to the spine as he goes through some chairs. Ok make that the neck as it’s all Anderson here. It’s table time but Anderson goes through it. They take part of it and Dreamer chokes him out for the victory.

Rating: C. Not bad but if this is supposed to be a classic in ECW I fail to see it. Also, nice job of elevating Anderson there by giving the win to the old man that still has never quit. I don’t get this one really and while it was a good beatdown, the psychology was just not there at all as Anderson couldn’t just pick a body part. It’s ok but nothing great at all.

 

Dreamer would join the WWF in the summer and be a fairly small part of the Alliance. Eventually he would join the hardcore division as most people expected him to do. He won the Hardcore Title in August 2002 and would defend it in a battle royal on August 19, 2002.

 

Hardcore Title: Battle Royal

Tommy Dreamer, Jeff Hardy, Bradshaw, Bubba Ray Dudley, Crash Holly, Johnny Stamboli, Steven Richards, Terri, Spike Dudley

Eric Bischoff comes out and says that the 24/7 rule is gone and at the moment Tommy Dreamer is champion coming in. There’s going to be a six minute time limit and whoever is champion at the end gets to keep the title. There are weapons under the ring and a tarp covering something big. A shoulder on Dreamer gives Bradshaw the title so everyone jumps the future JBL.

We’re under five minutes left now and Bradshaw finds a cookie sheet to clean house with. Various weapons are brought in and it’s your usual hardcore style brawl. Bradshaw loads up a powerbomb on the floor but Stevie superkicks him so Crash can pin him for the title. There’s a table in the ring now and we’re under 3:30 to go. Jeff uses Bubba as a launching pad to dive over the top and onto Stamboli.

Crash tells Bubba to get the table but gets powerbombed through one by Bubba instead for no cover. Dreamer KO’s Bubba with a kendo stick and pins Crash for the title. The Clothesline from Bradshaw gets two on Dreamer as Bubba saves. Bubba hits Bradshaw low and superplexes Dreamer for two. We’ve got less than a minute left and Bradshaw keeps breaking up pins. Nothing else happens and the clock runs out with Dreamer as champion.

Rating: D. Well that was boring. Nothing interesting happened here and the match just ended with the same stuff going on for the last two minutes. Terri was gone after about a second so she didn’t need to be in there at all. Thankfully the title would be unified with the IC Title a week later and the thing was put out of its misery. The joke had gotten old like a year and a half ago so ending it was the right idea.

 

We’re going to jump WAY ahead as 2003/2004 saw Tommy do little more than job on Heat. Around early 2005 there was a DVD released called the Rise and Fall of ECW which sold incredibly well. So well in fact that there was a reunion show announced called One Night Stand. Naturally Tommy was in the main event.

 

Dudley Boys vs. Tommy Dreamer/Sandman

Ok, so this is more or less by far and away the most famous and popular part of this show as the match won’t start for about 15 minutes or so. This was the first time the Dudleys had been seen in months on end and they would be gone and in TNA rather soon. Foley sums up a lot very easily: “There are guys like me that absolutely love ECW and everything it stood for but at the end of the day consider themselves WWE guys. Then you have guys like the Dudley Boys that work for WWE but in their hearts are always going to be ECW guys.”

 

That sums up this whole show better than anything else could I say. Dreamer gets a pop and a half. You can tell Dreamer is WAY impressed and really in awe of this. The music hits and so begins the most famous entrance in modern wrestling history at least. Enter Sandman (original, not that Motorhead nonsense) hits and he’s in the crowd.

 

The fans sing the song for his entrance in what is an awesome moment. He’s on his second beer and he’s still on the top floor. Hey he’s at the railing! His entrance is at 3 minutes now. Bubba gets beer spit at him. Tommy and Sandman have beers with CW Anderson and Chris Chetti in the front row before pouring one on two girls’ chest, one of which is Elektra, and licking it off.

D-Von dancing to Metallica is funny and the cane gets jacked off. Five and a half minutes now. Hand pounds all around…and there’s the BWO. The reaction from Foley is hilarious. Think Ray from Ghostbusters when he says “It’s the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man”. Just cracks me up every time. Match hasn’t started yet. Stevie looks good here actually. Joey sums up the BWO perfectly: “If any gimmick never deserved to make a dime and made a whole boatload of cash, this is it. And the best is they couldn’t sue us because it was a parody.”

 

For those of you that have no idea what I’m talking about, the BWO is the Blue World Order: Big Stevie Cool, Da Blue Guy and Hollywood Nova (Simon Dean). They were a parody of the NWO which wound up being ridiculously popular so they ran with it. Stevie says they’re taking over and kicks Sandman in the face. Let the brawling begin. Kid Kash is here, having just been fired from TNA, marking I believe the first and only time it was mentioned on WWE programming. He does nothing and here are Balls Mahoney and Axl Rotten: the Hardcore Chair Swingin Freaks.

They beat up the BWO so the interfering people are fighting the other interfering people. Nova gets the tar chaired out of him. Joey: that’s more painful than having to be Simon Dean on national TV. Everyone brawls in the aisle and Kash has the referee get on all fours for a HUGE front flip onto all of them. Bubba busts out the trashcans. Remember the match hasn’t started yet. Oh hey there it is, 14 minutes after the Dudleys’ song started. Dreamer has a cheese grated.

The fans chant for Cactus Jack which Foley kind of laughs off. Cheese grater across Dreamer’s head is SICK! Oh he’s busted bad so Bubba rubs it on his face. Joey: Tommy’s skin looks like cabbage in a coleslaw. In case you can’t tell, I freaking love this. Foley calls the grater comical. Sometimes I’d pay to be inside that man’s head. Sandman brings in the ladder. We get probably my all time favorite comedy line in wrestling.

Joey says he was going to compare Dreamer wrestling tonight to Gehrig’s last at bat at Yankee Stadium but Gehrig didn’t whip out a cheese grater and start mutilating people with it. And that my friends is why I love wrestling. It’s so insane that to us it makes sense, but when you compare it to something else, it sounds ridiculous. However, in wrestling, there are three words that make things magical: It Could Happen.

That is why I love wrestling: you never know what you could see. Naturally this is just a wild brawl all over the place. Bubba hits a frog splash on Sandy which has to be better than some forms of execution. D-Von takes the White Russian legsweep and we get a double figure four on the Dudleys but the Impact Players run in. Sandman gets a That’s Incredible on barbed wire and here’s Francine.

Beaulah makes her return for the CATFIGHT CATFIGHT CATFIGHT!!! Dreamer saves her and they have their big reunion with Dreamer’s face covered in blood. The Dudleys get DDTed by the two of them, making me smile. WHERE ELSE BUT IN WRESTLING COULD YOU GET THIS? Beaulah gets two on Bubba and she’s hardcore according to the fans. Joey is told in his headset that he can’t say balls, which he makes fun of of course.

Sandman goes through a table for two. 3D on Dreamer, and it’s the old style, not the crap one now. We have another table and here’s Spike who is seeing COLORS! Yep, the table is on fire and there goes Tommy. In a spot that makes me cringe, Tommy’s head is tilted towards the mat and blood just pools up from his head. That’s a great visual. Bubba actually dives on him for the pin.

Rating: N/A. Can’t give this a fair grade as it wasn’t a match by any definition of the word. Make no mistake about it though: this is the highlight of the show and as much fun as I can remember having watching wrestling perhaps ever.

Post match (oh like you didn’t expect something else to happen) the Dudleys go after Beaulah and get the heck cained out of them. In a spot that always makes me chuckle, Spike comes back again and Sandman turns around and just canes him again before going back to what he was doing. He looked like he was paying a parking meter or something. Sandman looks at Tommy and says someone….someone…SOMEONE GET ME A BEER! Joey: screw the beer, get him some plasma!

 

Another year passed and Dreamer jobbed even more, but in 2006 it was announced that ECW was being brought back as a separate brand. One of the first major storylines was the ECW Originals vs. the New Breed, which led to an eight man tag at Wrestlemania.

 

New Breed vs. ECW Originals

It’s Elijah Burke/Matt Striker/Kevin Thron/Marcus Cor Van vs. Rob Van Dam/Tommy Dreamer/Sabu and for no reason whatsoever this is a regular eight man tag instead of the Extreme Rules match we would get on ECW a few days later. Striker starts with Sabu and Matt is in early trouble. It’s quickly off to Sandman vs. Burke but before Sandy does much he brings in Dreamer. Cor Von hits Dreamer in the back and comes in to pound away a bit.

It’s quickly back to Burke (the New Breed’s leader and more famous as D’Angelo Dinero) for the running knees to the back for two. Thorn comes in to crush Dreamer into the corner and put on a chinlock. Back up and a sitout powerbomb gets two for Thorn and here’s Cor Von again. Burke comes in as well but Dreamer takes them down with a simultaneous neckbreaker/reverse DDT combo. The hot tag brings in Van Dam and there’s the top rope kick to Thorn. Rolling Thunder lands on Striker as everything breaks down. With everyone else on the floor, Van Dam Five Stars Striker for the pin.

Rating: D+. Seriously, why wasn’t this the Extreme Rules match? The whole point of ECW is to be extreme but we got a seven minute tag match which went nowhere at all. The theory was to finally let these guys get on Wrestlemania, but Van Dam had been on it before and won a title here. Nothing to see here at all.

Dreamer went back to jobbing on ECW for years, but would eventually get an ECW Title shot at Extreme Rules 2009 in a triple threat.

ECW Title: Christian vs. Tommy Dreamer vs. Jack Swagger

If Dreamer loses he’s gone. This is a hardcore match so it’s pinfalls count anywhere. Who would believe Swagger would be the most successful guy a year later? So Dreamer is on a one day contract since they mistimed the whole contract thing in storyline terms. Swagger is the guy Christian beat to get the title.

We even get big match intros. Dreamer is wearing something close to silver pants. Hey, did you know that the champion is at a disadvantage here? I didn’t know if telling you that twice in 40 seconds would be enough indication. Striker says Dreamer has a Singapore Stick. Let the ECW fans freak. White Russian Leg Sweep to Swagger. Dreamer hits a front flip with a trash can behind him so that hits their faces. This is kind of sad considering what ECW was originally about.

Dreamer sets for the baseball slide but Christian stops him and does it himself. In other words, the blonde haired WWE product did the ECW original’s thing to another WWE guy. That sums up so many things so easily. The people want tables. Yeah I’m stunned too. Swagger no sells some kendo shots and hits a belly to belly on Dreamer.

We’re going with the various one on one matches here which is about as expected. Crowd is DEAD other than for the big spots. Swagger goes for the Gutwrench but Dreamer nails him with a crutch twice and hits a DDT to get the ECW Title. More on that in a bit.

Rating: D. This is your traditional “hardcore” match which means let’s hit each other with trash cans and hope the people care. This just felt completely lifeless to me and I just wanted to see it end, which isn’t something that I have issue with that often. There are far worse matches, but this just had nothing at all to it. Even Dreamer’s win, while a big moment for old school ECW fans feels flat. Let’s look at this for a minute. Imagine Christian or Swagger in the original ECW.

One of Dreamer’s only title defenses woul dbe in a five way scramble at The Bash.

ECW Title: Christian vs. Tommy Dreamer vs. Jack Swagger vs. Mark Henry vs. Finlay

This is a Scramble match which is more or less a gauntlet. Every three minutes someone else comes in and whoever gets the final pin is champion but you have to pin the champion for the pin to count. Uh…sure. Christian and Swagger start us off. Wow it’s weird to see Swagger as champion before Christian. I miss the pushups.

Ok so if Swagger pins Christian he’s IT more or less? I guess that makes sense. I’m assuming that there will be a clock once everyone comes in. Striker implies a heel turn for Christian but nothing ever came for that. The clock begins far before three minutes is up and it’s Finlay. Striker talks about Irishmen from centuries ago as no one cares at all. Swagger pokes Finlay in the eye and rolls him up to become IT.

Christian and Swagger do a nice little sequence that gets two for the Canadian. He beats Christian down as Dreamer is number four. Dreamer beats up everyone with incredibly basic stuff but throws out a Sky High. Ok apparently it’s not Swagger that has to lose the title as it’s just the last pin. Uh…that kind of makes sense I suppose.

They blow a spot where Christian is on the mat and Dreamer gets thrown onto him. It just looked really awkward. Finlay finally comes back to life and hits the Celtic Cross on Swagger to become IT. Finlay and Dreamer don’t work well together to put it mildly. And here’s Henry to suck the life out of the match. Ok so now we have five minutes left and whoever gets the last fall is champion. Got it.

Dreamer takes the World’s Worst Finisher with 4:15 to make Henry IT. Everyone not named Dreamer beats Henry up and the people start booing for some reason. Finlay hits a freaking suicide dive onto Swagger. Have to love old men flying all over the place. Henry teases a top rope dive but for the sake of the gravitational pull, Swagger saves him and gets the pin to become it with about 2:20 to go.

I like knowing how much longer to go at times and this is one of them. Christian hits the Killswitch on Swagger but Dreamer DDTs him at 1:20 to become IT. It becomes a big mess now which makes sense at least. On instinct Dreamer goes for a cover which they don’t point out the stupidity of. Everyone goes for covers but the clock runs out and Dreamer retains. He screams “I WON???” in a funny moment.

Rating: C+. These matches are hard to call but I liked it. Thankfully they haven’t killed them by having them every two weeks or something like that. This still feels fresh though and it comes off as a good way to be different. Also it makes Dreamer look like a competent champion and not a jobber which I can’t complain about. This worked but was still a little bit weird.

It would soon be off to TNA and ANOTHER ECW reunion stable called Extreme Violence. They would face four young talented guys called Fourtune in a Lethal Lockdown match at Bound For Glory 2010.

Fourtune vs. EV 2.0

This is a one ring WarGames match. A man from each team starts and after a set amount of time (5 minutes I think) there’s a coin toss and another guy comes in from the winning team. That goes on for two minutes then a guy from the losing team comes in. Two more minutes of that and then the winning team gets the advantage again. Alternate until all 8 are in and then we lower the roof, complete with weapons. No pins or submissions until everyone is in.

EV has Dreamer, Sabu, Rhyno, Richards and Raven. Yeah ten people in there great. Foley is with them. Flair brings out AJ, Storm, Roode, Kaz and Morgan. Fourtune has the advantage so screw the coin flip idea. Flair is in an undershirt. Oh dear.

The old guys go at it before the match starts and we try to figure out who starts the match. Kaz and Richards to start. Again Taz wants to say ECW and can’t do it. Kaz beats the tar out of him to start. And he continues doing so. Well that’s what you get for sending in Richards as your leadoff man.

Stevie gets a Downward Spiral into a modified Koji Clutch but AJ comes in seconds later to make it 2-1. Richards is of course in WAY over his head and gets destroyed. Figure four on Richards and he’s almost dead. Dreamer is in next. How in the world is this guy feuding with AJ Styles?

Dreamer spits mist or something at AJ as Richards gets back into it. All of Fourtune is in blue which is a cool idea I guess. Roode goes in third as this is going to take awhile to just get everyone in. Flair punches Dreamer through the camera hole. I love that thing as it gives you far better shots.

Sabu comes in and hooks a seated crossface chickenwing on AJ which we’ll call a camel clutch for fun I guess. This is REALLY slow now with EV controlling. Dreamer is bleeding fairly badly. Storm is in so it’ll be Morgan and Raven or Rhyno in last. Storm turns the tide and we get BEER MONEY!

With nothing left in the other minute here’s Raven who looks stupid with blonde hair. He cleans some house and shoves a snot rag in someone’s face. Ah ok it was Roode. Dreamer gets his crotch stepped on for fun. Dude seriously, Raven is your hot tag in essence? Roode is busted open.

Sabu is busted too. Morgan comes in as the final member of Fourtune. He drills Richards and drills Sabu back first into the cage. Dreamer takes the elbows in the corner as the advantage does the same thing it’s done the whole time so far. Raven is bleeding too so every member of EV who is in the match is busted.

Big Gore to Storm and here comes the roof. This is where the advantage is supposed to come for EV I guess. Flair and Foley get into it of course as is their custom. EV takes over and there are bigger weapons on top of the cage such as a table, a ladder and something else that I can’t make out.

Raven and Morgan beat the heck out of each other as EV is mostly in control. Morgan goes for the Carbon Footprint and misses, hitting the door which doesn’t move at all. Kaz gets drilled into the door and there it goes. Richards and Kaz go up and we set up the ladder up there. This always scared the living daylights out of me.

Sabu dives through the door to take out Morgan and maybe Storm. Richards sets up the table on top of the cage and Kaz goes up the ladder and here’s Kendrick on top of the cage too. Kaz goes through the table and Kendrick appears to be meditating or something. In the ring Dreamer drills AJ in the leg and drops him on a chair, winning the match. Yes, EV won the match and everything seems to be fine with it. WELL OF COURSE THEY ARE.

Rating: D+. Not much here as there were a lot of very slow spots. Also the Kendrick thing just did nothing for it. The weapons were ok but the ending felt kind of tacked on. This never got to the level that they wanted it to get to and that hurt it a lot. This was one of the weaker matches they’ve done with this gimmick and I think a lot of that is due to the participants.

Oh yeah. DID I MENTION EV 2.0 JUST FREAKING BEAT FOURTUNE and that TOMMY DREAMER PINNED AJ STYLES??? And people wonder why this company can’t be taken seriously.

AJ would want revenge and get a chance at Sacrifice 2011.

Tommy Dreamer vs. AJ Styles

Very basic technical match to start and remember that this is no DQ.  Why Immortal isn’t out there destroying AJ immediately eludes me but whatever.  Dreamer takes over for a bit and drops a bunch of elbows.  Out to the floor and AJ hits a plancha to take over.  AJ pours a soda over Dreamer’s head and crotches him on the railing.  He slides under the railing and it’s forearm time.  Love that move.

 

Out into the crowd because that’s just what we do.  The fans chant ECW which is I guess what TNA wants to do.  Dreamer breaks a cardboard Impact (no wrestling) sign over his head and AJ is bleeding from around the temple.  Back to ringside and it’s time for some weapons.  AJ gets a shot in and there’s a table.  Table gets set up as the fans want fire.  AJ uses the table like a launch ramp for a clothesline in the corner for two.

 

DDT by Dreamer gets two as AJ is under the ring ropes.  I love little rules like that which are cool while there are all kinds of weapons in the ring.  Dreamer finds a fork for a throwback to their I Quit match but AJ blocks it.  Dreamer’s shirt is off and I’m very glad he has a muscle shirt under it.  The table legs are broken but AJ says Dreamer is going through it.

 

Dreamer gets a shot in and sets for the Dreamer Driver only to get caught with a Pele.  Styles Clash is set but Ray comes in with a chain shot to AJ.  Daniels comes out for the save but AJ is more or less dead.  Piledriver through the table marks the second time that Tommy Dreamer has pinned AJ Styles on PPV.  I give up.

 

Rating: C-. Tommy Dreamer has pinned AJ Styles twice on PPV in less than a year.  Dude, WHY IS TOMMY DREAMER PINNING AJ STYLES ON PPV???  The match was just ok but at the same time it was nothing past a basic hardcore match and Ray coming in was about as not shocking as anything you could have asked it to be.

We’ll wrap it up there as Dreamer has mainly been on the indies for the last few years. Tommy Dreamer is a guy who got over on hard work and his heart, plus the ability to use a lot of weapons. He’s somehow made a second career for himself on ECW tribute shows and characters so he’s a smart guy if nothing else. He’s a character that you need to see a lot of in order to get behind, but he can give some good speeches to make you care.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Summerslam at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for just $4 at:

Impact Wrestling
Date: February 20, 2014
Location: Manchester Arena, Manchester, England
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

We’re still in Manchester and the big story is the announcement of Lethal Lockdown between Team MVP and Team Dixie for control of the company in two and a half weeks. Last week’s show saw a huge emphasis on the MVP vs. Dixie story with very little else getting extended TV time so hopefully things are given more room to breathe tonight. The main event is Gunner cashing in his Feast or Fired case on Magnus for a World Title shot. Let’s get to it.

We open with an In Memory graphic for Nelson Frazier Jr.

The opening recap shows us Gunner’s road to the world title shot tonight which has been his dream since he was a kid. All he’s wanted to be is a champion and tonight is his chance.

Dixie ensures Magnus that something is a done deal and tells him to go to the ring and break some bad news. Magnus says if Dixie goes down, he’s not going down with her. The champ also tells Ethan that they need to get along, personal feelings aside. Ethan shakes the champ’s hand and they all head to the ring.

Magnus calls MVP out to the ring to make an announcement, as long as the fans sit down and be quiet while he does it. The champ says he isn’t impressed by people who glorify criminal conduct or people like MVP who have spent nine years in jail. Magnus warns MVP to never think about getting in the ring with him, because nine years in jail will be nothing like nine minutes in the ring with the world champ. MVP goes on a rant about how Magnus is always calling himself the champion and a real champion shouldn’t have to do that.

Enough of that though as MVP cuts to the chase: is the Lethal Lockdown match on or not? Magnus accepts on Dixie’s behalf but he won’t be in the match at team captain. He has bigger fish to fry than dealing with some 50 Cena wannabe. If MVP tries to mess with Magnus, he’ll make MVP his…..MVP: “Don’t say it.” Magnus says it anyway and the fight is on. Cue Ethan for the double team and we see Spud telling security to hold the Wolves back. Gunner finally comes out for the save and the heels run, only to have the Wolves show up behind them. Magnus shoves Ethan to them and a kick to the ribs drops Carter.

We recap Bobby Roode helping Magnus over and over again for a promised title shot, only to have Dixie back out of the deal. Roode had to beat Joe last week to get the shot but lost, sending him over the edge. Bobby responds tonight.

Back from a break and Ethan shouts at Magnus that he literally just threw him to the Wolves. Magnus says that it was in the best interest of the Carters and Ethan is ticked.

Samoa Joe is in the ring and says he gets the winner of tonight’s title match at Lockdown. That leaves him without a match tonight and that’s not cool. He’s here in Manchester to get into a fight so any member of Dixieland that wants a fight, come get it. This brings out Zema and the BroMans who surround the ring. Joe asks which it’ll be before saying he’ll fight all three.

BroMans/Zema Ion vs. Samoa Joe

Joe cleans house to start and sidesteps Zema’s middle rope cross body. The tag champions break up the MuscleBuster and Jesse hits a nice dropkick. Robbie drops a middle rope elbow and Zema gets two off a middle rope moonsault. All three of them hit charges in the corner but Joe pulls the BroMans into the way of a Zema missile dropkick. A DDT/Russian legsweep combo takes the champions down to the floor and there’s the suicide elbow. Back inside and Zema charges into the corner Rock Bottom, setting up the MuscleBuster and Koquina Clutch for the win at 3:38.

Rating: C+. This was the right way to use a comedy tag team and their goofy manager. Thankfully the Bro Mans didn’t lose the fall here, even though they got beaten up pretty badly. It’s a good way to make Joe look strong heading into Lockdown and that’s the right idea given the odds he’s up against.

Christy Hemme gets a new battery pack from a production hand.  After she leaves, Samuel Shaw comes up and destroys the guy before taking Christy’s old pack.

Bobby Roode goes in to see James Storm and says James is one of the guys that he’s been able to trust in wrestling. Roode apologizes for everything he’s done to Storm over the years and calls the Beer Money times special. Storm isn’t sure what to think and asks if Roode has been in his beer. He thinks Roode is retiring and tries to talk him out of it, saying Roode needs to slap the business back in the face and move on to the next day. They hug and seem to be on good terms.

Austin Aries comes in to see MVP and is offered a spot on the team at Lockdown. MVP calls it the anchor spot but Aries says he puts things over the top instead of dragging them down. Aries asks what’s in it for him and MVP makes some vague promises. Austin says he’s heard that before and MVP just says things will be positive. That’s not enough for Aries but he says he’ll think about it.

Video on the Maximum Impact tour.

Madison Rayne and I believe Gail Kim get in a fight in the back. The camera looked to be a regular handheld one instead of a professional one.

Gail Kim vs. Madison Rayne

This is a street fight and the title is not on the line. Madison comes out first and jumps Gail with a cookie sheet. Gail comes back with some choking with a kendo stick but misses a charge into the corner. Madison kicks her to the floor but Tapa dares her to come outside. The champ is happy to oblige and catches Tapa in a guillotine choke, kicking Gail in the process.

Tapa stays on her feet and drives Madison spine first into the apron. Gail puts on the Figure Four around the post but can’t hold onto it that long. Madison comes back with a shot to the face and a clothesline to the ribs which is called a spear. Tapa comes in but takes a cookie sheet to the ribs. The distraction lets Gail hit Madison with the belt for the pin at 4:40.

Rating: C. This was a nice fight but it needed a bit more time. Tapa continues to be a waste of a spot as there’s nothing to her other than she’s big and screams a lot. It doesn’t help that Gail, while very talented, has done almost everything she can do in TNA and there’s not much interesting she can do.

Anderson shows Christy pictures of his kids and Shaw isn’t cool with it.

Another Gunner video on wanting to be a wrestler since he was a kid and becoming a Marine. We hear from his family who are so proud of him. Well done video.

Kurt Angle will be inducted into the Hall of Fame next week.

Ethan says he can’t take anything away from Angle’s career and he’ll let Kurt announce his news next week. He won’t say what that news is but retirement seemed to be implied.

James Storm tells Gunner that this is his time. Gunner says he’s wanted this his whole life and gives Storm the Tag Title Feast or Fired case.

Here’s an emotional looking Roode for his announcement. He says he’s been proud to call Impact Wrestling his home for the last eleven years. As kids, a lot of us have a dream we want to achieve and he’s gotten to do that for seventeen years. Roode isn’t proud of a lot of the things he’s done in the past but he can’t change those things. The only thing he can change is the future and that’s why he’s here tonight. Tonight is his last night as a pro wrestler but the fans say NO.

For the last several months he’s looked in the mirror and only seen hate. He’s had to put up with Dixie’s nonsense for months now and he has to walk away. He thanks the fans but here’s Dixie to stop him from leaving. Roode doesn’t get to make that call because he still has a TNA contract. Dixie brings up Jeff Hardy, AJ Styles and Sting as people that just caused her problems.

She needs him but Roode says he doesn’t want more lies. Dixie apologizes but Bobby says it’s not his problem and he doesn’t want to be here anymore. She offers him the captain’s spot on her team at Lockdown, offering him 10% of TNA if he wins. He can even have his own lawyers draw up the contract. Bobby reluctantly agrees but threatens Dixie’s future if she screws him over.

A German wrestler named Bad Bones won the international Gut Check challenge. He says something in German but we see Shaw jumping Anderson and taking Christy away.

After a break Bad Influence offers their services for Lethal Lockdown but Roode tells them to prove it tonight. Bad Influence isn’t pleased.

Wolves vs. Bad Influence

Edwards and Kaz get us going and they hit the match for a nice technical sequence into a standoff. Daniels comes in with a cheap shot to Eddie but Edwards brings in Richards for a double Japanese armdrag. Kaz gets kicked in the head but Daniels sends Richards to the floor. Kaz drives him back first into the apron and sends him back inside for a two count off a clothesline.

A spinwheel kick gets two more on Davey but he sends Bad Influence into each other and makes the tag off to Edwards. An over the shoulder Stunner gets two on Daniels before Eddie throws Daniels into the air for a kick from Davey. A pair of top rope double stomps from the Wolves is enough for the pin on Daniels at 6:10.

Rating: C+. I like the Wolves far better as a tag team instead of singles guys fighting over Dan Severn. The match was good for the amount of time it had and I’d like to see the long form version between these teams. Edwards still comes off as the better of the two and I’d see him as having a better future as a singles guy

Shaw takes Christy to a room where she wakes up. He tells her everything is ok and chases off a cameraman.

Willow is coming.

Video on Magnus wanting to be a wrestler.

Roode vs. MVP next week.

TNA World Title: Magnus vs. Gunner

This is no countout and No DQ. After the Big Match Intros, Magnus bails to the floor before any contact is made. Back in and Gunner works on a wristlock but gets reversed into a headlock. The hold stays on for about two and a half minutes before Gunner comes back with a back elbow and a clothesline. Magnus comes right back with a knee to the back to send Gunner outside. The champ calls for help from the back but gets the Wolves and Storm instead as we take a break.

Back with Magnus putting on a camel clutch as Tenay tells us this is No DQ and No countout, which I don’t remember being announced at first. Gunner fights up so Magnus changes to a sleeper, only to get caught in a belly to back suplex. It’s Magnus up first and the top rope elbow gets two. Magnus goes to the floor and gets the title belt but Gunner lifts him into a fireman’s carry. The champ escapes and both guys try cross bodies to give us another stalemate.

Ethan and the Bro Mans come in but the Wolves and Storm immediately come in to counter and they fight to the back. Gunner powerbombs Magnus down and hits a top rope headbutt to the ribs. Spud runs out and puts Magnus’ foot on the ropes and Gunner is TICKED. He goes after the Rockstar but gets blasted in the head with the title for a close two. Storm comes back out as Gunner starts Hulking Up. A Rock Bottom lays out Magnus and Gunner goes up again, only to have Storm superkick him out of the air, giving Magnus the pin at 16:38.

Rating: C+. This was a good match but the constant interference needs to calm down for a bit. I do like Storm turning as it means we don’t have to deal with him being the guy who used to be world champion a few years ago for two weeks. The match was going for an epic showdown but that doesn’t really work when we’ve been told about Gunner’s backstory over the span of two hours instead of say two months. Still though, good stuff and an actual match instead of the insanity with Sting and AJ’s shots at Magnus.

Overall Rating: B-. SO much better than last week. First and foremost, they kept Dixie to just a few segments tonight instead of about 87 last week. The Shaw vs. Anderson stuff helped as well as it sets up stuff for the future and gave us something intriguing tonight. They also started setting the stage for Lockdown which is getting closer and closer. The show wasn’t great but it was such a jump up over last week that it was far easier to sit through.

Results

Samoa Joe b. Bro Mans/Zema Ion – Koquina Clutch to Ion

Gail Kim b. Madison Rayne – Kim hit Rayne with the title belt

Wolves b. Bad Influence – Top rope double stomp to Daniels

Magnus b. Gunner – Pin after a Last Call from James Storm

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

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for just $4 at: