Kaz Hayashi vs. Raven

[Ultimo Necro]

Goddam that spill to the outside from Kaz.

 

Terrific little match, Worldwide was like the matches I would put together on WCW / NWO Revenge BUT ON TV!

[Brian Fowler]

And sometimes you found out amazing things.  Like that Steven Regal and Psicosis have amazing chemistry with each other!

[JRGoldman]

It's really easy to forget how fast Raven was back then. He actually looked athletic; I feel like my predominant memories of him now are him waddling around or botching rolling in to the ring because his pants were too tight.

Can someone make sure Dolph sees this match? I want to randomly turn on main event and see him try and top it in a match against Cesaro.

[Curt McGirt]

That just made me imagine Dolph trying to springboard out on Cesaro who uppercuts him and he smacks the back of his head on the apron.

[MGFanJay]

This reminds me of how much Raven could go when he wanted to. I was watching the 2006 TNA Against All Odds DVD, and they had the pre-show with an Impact match where Raven busted out a lionsault and Tajiri's handspring elbow in a match with Shannon Moore.saults l

[EricR]

http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-favorite-wrestling-wcw-worldwide_23.html

 

Over the last couple years I've been going back and writing up a bunch of WCW syndicated shows (from Nitro era to the end). We've done about 40 at Segunda Caida, and the Kaz/Raven match is easily one of the 5 best matches I've seen from Pro/Worldwide/Saturday Night/Main Event. Just about the most cohesive, lunatic, spectacular amount of stuff you could squeeze into 3 minutes. Kaz has pretty much been the MVP of that era so far. I remembered liking him at the time, but he was even better than I remembered. One of the top "stock rising" guys on the set (as well as Vincent, oddly enough).

 

That review also has the show with the previously mentioned Hak/Damien match, which saw Damien get more offense than any other match in his WCW career (even counting tags or trios matches). 

[Sky Blue Sam]

I would say I loved the consistency of Kaz selling his back after hitting the sentons, but it's probably just that his back was legit fucked.

When TNA had their webmatch series on YouTube, I always hoped it'd bring matches like Worldwide. Instead,you just got Homicide vs Brutus Magnus in a 3 minute snoozer

EDIT: Just checked my blog where I reviewed Homicide/Magnus and quite liked it. Change that to Hernandez/Kiyoshi snoozer.

[Web Conn]

Dr. Stevie and Cody Deaner had a match on that Webmatch series that i thought was pretty good.

[Don]

...but the Senton Bomb was Hayashi's finisher!

[Peck]

Just a textbook example of selling. Of course it doesn't hurt that Kaz's tailbone was shattered in 4 places, but still. Fun, fun stuff with some great commentary as well. The groan immediately after the bump was perfect.