WWE Network Conversation

[Cobra Commander]

Back in January/February, I watched the first 6 episodes of the First Mae Young Classic. Then I forgot about it.

So, since every baseball team is playing a night game today..

The Mae Young Classic (Season 1/Episode 7) - The Quarterfinals

Our final 8: Abbey Laith, Mercedes Martinez, Candice LaRae, Shayna Baszler, Toni Storm, Piper Niven, Dakota Kai, and Kairi Sane.

Our commentary team is Jim Ross and Lita.

The matchups: Kairi Sane vs Dakota Kai, Toni Storm vs Piper Niven, Candice LaRae vs Shayna Baszler, and Abbey Laith vs Mercedes Martinez. So in the reverse order of their intros to start this episode.

Match 1: Abbey Laith vs Mercedes Martinez. We got a tale of the tape for this one too. It's real graps. Dueling chants. This is really happening in an alternate WWE universe. Mercedes hitting hard. JR insisting he's seeing something with Mercedes' shoulder. I'm guessing that chops in womens matches hit a bit higher than they do in mens matches for two obvious reasons. It's a harder landing on the apron than in the ring, then Mercedes gets knocked off the apron to the floor which is presumably a hard landing. Man that ramp is close to the ring. Nice German Suplex by Abbey. Mercedes wins with the Fisherman Buster.

Match 2: Candice LaRae vs Shayna Baszler: Can I consistently spell Baszler right? well, we'll see. Johnny Gargano is here. Ronda Rousey and a friend are here. For some reason, I just realized that if you had to guess about any Mae Young Classic competitors working a goth gimmick in a few years, you might have guessed Baszler before Ripley. Not sure if internet weirdos could have gotten into that look though. That diving tope into a DDT on the ramp by LaRae is crazy looking. Multiple submission moves by noted shooter Candice LaRae. Baszler gets a side slam to break it up. JR talks more about potential shoulder damage. Baszler wins by countering a bulldog off the top into a rear naked choke. Well that was a fun several minutes. And we get some actual villainy in this mostly "all babyface" tournament with Shayna not releasing the hold immediately. Baszler will take on Mercedes Martinez in a battle of arm tattoos. More heel work by Shayna. JR is unsure if he's ever seen a woman as intimidating as Shayna Baszler.

Rocket League getting their plug in. Lita insists someone has to stop Shayna. Lita vs Shayna would have been an interesting match although not sure which era of Lita you pick since she wrecked her neck pretty quickly.

Match 3: Piper Niven vs Toni Storm: Did Mariah May get custody of Toni Storm's tiny hat? Unlike the last match, we get a prematch handshake because neither of these competitors are evil, at least not yet. Aw yes, an early test of strength with pinfalls. How low on the pecking order would you need to be to job to a test of strength (aside from Chavo in mid-98). Double bridge, it's more British than the King. Having Toni just doing a backbridge leaving herself open to a splash is a fun spot. Not sure which wrestler is a better example of a monster heel with nice hair between Piper and Nia Jax. Not entirely sure about having so many near falls on splashes since in theory, that move should be a finish for Piper. I haven't watched enough Piper to know if she's had a good elbow drop for years. Piper misses a somersault splash into the corner and gets hit by the running ass attack. Michinoku Driver by Piper for 2. Toni German Suplexes Piper off the top in a wild spot. Toni wins with the legdrop off the top rope. Some baseball announcers talk a lot about the perils of walking batters. JR talks a lot about the perils of leaving your feet while wrestling. Postmatch hug.

Ronda Rousey and friends are so proud of Shayna Baszler. Only for another group of women (Bayley, Charlotte, Becky) to show up because it's an exclusive look into Women Gang Warz (that I don't think ever happened on WWE TV which might be on the list of legitimate grievances Ronda Rousey has with the WWE).

Also Funaki is in the house.

Match 4: Kairi Sane vs Dakota Kai: Hey now JR, there's lots of pirates, some of them might object to you calling Kairi Sane the World's Toughest Pirate. Also that's the nickname for someone doing both a Pirate and MMA gimmick at the same time. Mean looking running knee by Kai. Lots of fun back and forth. Kairi with a series of moves near/off the ropes. Kai takes a long way to kick Kai. Kairi wobbling to sell a kick. Kai taking the long route again to miss a kick. Is Kai doing kicks in the same sense that rugby players punt in college football. That was a loud sounding slam by Kairi. Kairi wins with the Elbow Drop. That elbow drop still looks cool, as long as you don't care about her ribs or hip.

So our matchups for the next upside are Martinez/Baszler and Storm/Kairi

Out of those 4, I actually enjoyed Baszler/LaRae the most even if it was the shortest of the 4 matches.

Now onto..

The Mae Young Classic (Season 1/Episode 8 ) - The Final Four

I love how the exterior shots of Full Sail make it look like a community college after sunset. According to Lita, Toni Storm is young, free-spirited, and dangerous.

Shayna and Mercedes with some prematch comments.

Match 1: Shayna Baszler vs Mercedes Martinez: Shayna accepts a handshake. Mercedes laying it in again. This pairing is a lot of fun since it's essentially doing a worked shoot, although there are also irish whips. Nice visual of the gutwrenches on a limp looking opponent. This really is the least Vince/Johnny Ace style of WWE womens match possible. This is really a fun sort of matchup if you're into this sort of thing. Shayna gets Mercedes in the choke until she taps out. I probably could have typed more PBP but this was a fun matchup. Hey, the finals for this are gonna be in Las Vegas.

Stephanie and Hunter and Sara Amato joining the party. Hey here's a bouquet of roses because you're in the finals now.

Some prematch comments from Toni Storm and Kairi Sane.

Match 2: Kairi Sane vs Toni Storm: This match can be fun even if they don't try to work an MMA fight with each other. Toni Storm getting the offense in early. Kairi wobbling to sell uppercuts. Kairi Sane with a dive to the outside that is dangerously close to her landing face-first on the ramp. Kairi hits a spear and we get to see a little cut on her chin that might have involved that dive. Kairi almost worked a Macho Man WCW TV match by taking a bunch of offense before hitting the elbow only Toni got up before the elbow. Toni hits the Storm Zero for a 2. More peril for Kairi with a bridging armbar that looks painful for an armbar. Kairi gets out and gets a rollup for 2. And after all that peril and some arm work, Kairi hits the elbow and gets the win.

So our final is Shayna vs Kairi for all the Doritos.

Stephanie and Hunter watch on as Kairi and Toni hug it out. Also Sara Amato and a bouquet of Roses are there.

Kairi Sane and Shayna Baszler are face to face and Shayna won't shake hands. Instead it's posed fists.

Now let's wrap this one up..

The Mae Young Classic (Season 1/Episode 9) - The Finals

Let's get some words from Kairi and Shayna as I check how long this episode is (31 minutes)

We're live in Las Vegas as we have escaped Full Sail. Renee Young is here. There was a red carpet. Hunter and Stephanie are just so proud. The stars of GLOW (the Netflix version) are here. Shayna's friends are here. Rocket League is here. Alundra Blayze (because we use WWF gimmick names here pal), Dana Warrior, Beth Phoenix, and Mauro are in the crowd.

Jim Ross and Lita are still here to commentate for this one.

Hey, it's Simone Johnson and others in the crowd. And here are some of the wrestlers that lost in episodes 7 and 8.

So it's match time

Shayna Baszler vs Kairi Sane:

Lillian Garcia is here for this special occasion to give the crowd a little backstory since this is Vegas and not Full Sail. Should be fun to see where the middle ground is between the styles here but I'd think Kairi could at least have a fun one with Shayna's style. Nice sounding kick to knock Kairi to the outside. More arm work on Kairi that may or may not be relevant in the end. I might need to suspend disbelief a little on Kairi's spear, but some skinny dudes do spears too, so. Kairi with a series of spears. Shayna running just behind Kairi to hit her with a knee coming off the ropes is a fun visual. Kairi's shoulderblock looked pretty good which might contradict my stance on her spear. Kairi Sane leaps off the top into a Shayna Baszler choke. Kairi gets out of the choke though. Kairi goes up for the elbow again but Shayna counters again. Man the camerawork for this one feels more Kevin Dunn-y than the Full Sail matches, so many camera changes on strikes. Kairi Sane with the elbow and she wins the tournament.

That was a fun one and the crowd didn't feel like people waiting around for an episode of Smackdown/Raw. I wouldn't call women's wrestling a strength of mine when it comes to watching/opinionating but this was a fun tournament even if feels like HHH NXT has a tournament style that you notice quickly. But it's also a difference from the 2010s WWE style which is good. I didn't spend much time watching NXT in the 2010s to be honest.

But now that i've wrapped up this tournament, I can take time to not go back to the 2013 NXT that I started watching and then stopped.

[GodzillaPerez]

So one of the things I've gotten to brag about for the last 33 years as a wrestling nerd is I got to see Hogan vs Flair live (queue the "Lucky???" responses). It was a Raw in Toronto in May 2002. I decided to revisit it. It was billed as No Disqualification and was a typical 10 minute Hogan vs Flair match but it featured Charles Robinson taking a chair from Flair, counting them out and breaking up submissions to the point that I thought "Is this a last minute Vince decision and they forgot/weren't told?" Then X-Pac, Big Show, Bradshaw and Steve Austin all interfered in front of the ref and nothing happened as JR and The King screamed how it's No DQ then Hogan wins. The only thing I remember about this live was Hogan winning. So not only did I get to see Hogan vs Flair but I got to see Hogan booking at it's finest. He did apply a decent figure four, I'll give him credit for that.

 

 

Edited July 7 by GodzillaPerez

[Cobra Commander]

Okay, so Hogan was still using the old school method of applying the Figure Four as late as 2002

It doesn't feel like a coincidence that Hulk Hogan, who first saw wrestling in Florida, used the same method of applying the figure four that wrestlers like Jack Brisco and Dusty Rhodes used. Anybody seen enough Hiro Matsuda to know if Hiro applied the figure four in the old school method too.

[SirSmUgly]

Watching a little WCWSN from late 1992 while I work:

I picked things up post-Havoc just for the heck of it. I've seen the first half of 1992 so much that I decided to skip toward 1993, which is where WWF Superstars picks up anyway. 

10/31/92 SN observations

• Vinnie Vegas/Marcus Bagwell wasn't good, but Vegas showed promise. I think Kevin Nash is actually a good worker when he wants to be. Here, he's less experienced, but he wanted to be good, so he was. He fights through a leg injury to drop Bagwell with a Snake Eyes two weeks after he apparently busted up Bagwell's nose - shoot, I think, not kayfabe, but who knows?

 

• Johnny B. Badd has an important message for the kids who want to be BADD out there - "don't do drugs" was my guess, but no, "stay in school" is his message. Scotty Flamingo comes out here and has a pretty-off with Badd, but I think Badd was prettier. It was the blush that was the problem. Flamingo didn't apply his blush correctly. 

 

• Tex Slazenger and Shanghai Pierce kill a couple of jobbers named Rex Cooper and David Lynch. David Lynch is not strange or mysterious or a '60s soap opera character who suddenly finds himself in the middle of a Lovecraftian horror story, nor is he a dude who smokes a lot of cigs and reads the weather report in L.A. I am disappointed. It wasn't quite as apparent to me as a kid when they were the Godwinns or Southern Justice as it is now, but Pierce blows away Slazenger as a worker. Slazenger wins with a Slop Drop reverse DDT maneuver. 

 

• Brian Pillman kills some geek whose name I missed. Pillman's a heel, which means he's choking and chop blocking dudes instead of trying to be a high flyer. That's a much better role for him. He does fire off a nice dropkick though. After the match, Shane Douglas comes out and challenges Pillman, and you'd never guess that he would one day spout off as the Franchise from this bit of mic work. Douglas is a babyface, so he makes the challenge and then turns his back on Pillman like a dope. They brawl.

 

• Bill Watts is still mad about WWF's cartoony approach to wrestling. WCW executives in general spent an higher amount of time on camera talking about how much they hated the WWF than maybe they should have. Jake's snake is banned from ringside. Jake won't be there either soon enough, so it's not that serious.

 

• The King of Cable tournament is to celebrate twenty years of wrestling on TBS. Um, TBS didn't exist in 1972. It didn't exist until 1976. Maybe they're counting WTCG or whatever the UHF channel was that preceded WTBS? Tony S. reveals the bracket.

 

• Erik Watts does some vanilla promo-ing while looking off into the distance.

 

• The crowd chants LOSE SOME WEIGHT at hairy jobber Fred Avery. I think that’s uncalled for. Besides, I think the back hair is a bigger issue. Opponent Johnny Gunn eggs the fans on. Avery is hilarious because he’s this big dude, but when he slaps Gunn disrespectfully, he runs to the opposite corner and climbs up and over the ropes to force a break. This guy is hilarious. He does it again, and it cracks me up. Gunn is boring as piss, though. Gunn wins with a Thesz Press while I quickly look up more about Avery and find at wrestlingdata.com a claim that he trained Glacier. IDK about that one; I thought it was just Sarge. Did Avery work for the Power Plant at any point?

 

• Recap: Rude apparently had to wrestle both Chono and Nikita Koloff in two title matches on Halloween Havoc. I mean, Rude’s 1992 is great, but he’s not a miracle worker. I should probably watch Havoc ’92 again; I haven’t seen it in literal decades, I don’t think. Rude and Paul E. are on the outs. OK, I guess Vader stood in for (the injured, IIRC) Rude; I barely remember this. Watts’s storylines fell off badly after the summer. Paul E.’s misogynistic YOUR FIRED rant toward Madusa is pretty amazing, as is the part where he ends it by shoving her, whereupon she kicks the dog shit out of him.

 

• Recap: Cactus Jack cuts a pretty good promo on Ron Simmons that is interrupted by Tony Atlas interrupting and cutting his own promo that is not nearly as good and half of which is bleeped for some reason. Probably some unnecessary racial stuff, knowing Watts. Robby Walker comes out and tells Cactus to take his white ass on outta here (mean!) while he talks to Atlas, so Cactus attacks.

 

• Cactus and Tony Atlas are quite the odd couple. WCW is just throwing all sorts of shit at the wall. Cactus/Walker is next, and I think that bringing Cactus into the WWF in 1993 would have probably been worse long-term for Cactus’s career – he needed the Death Match and ECW stuff to build his legend – but it would have made for Undertaker PPV matches that were entirely more watchable than the Gonzalez nonsense that we got.

 

• Jack gets a nice little match out of Walker in which Cactus is clearly the better wrestler, but Walker gets these bursts of offense that seem desperate enough to maybe win the match. I’d go so far as to say this is the kind of theoretically-nothing television match that you’d use to make a case for how good Foley was. He took a green wrestler and led a neat little match with him. Cactus hits his crack smash outside the ring, then lets Walker crawl back into the ring and drills him with a double-arm DDT as he steps through the ropes.

 

• Tony S. interviews Dustin Rhodes, the latter of whom is beefing with Barry Windham even though they’re tag champs.

 

• Jake Roberts cuts a promo in which he reminds Sting, and really all of us, that the REAL snake is him, not the reptile in the bag.

 

• Nikita Koloff beats J.R. King. Nikita stinks, man. What a pro wrestling void of suck that guy is.

 

• Michael Hayes and Bobby Eaton are trying to destroy Erik Watts for some reason, I guess because Paul Heyman wants them to. The best part of this interview is Jim Ross’s big eye roll when Hayes says he used to beat up Bill Watts back in the day.

 

• Bobby Eaton wrestles Erik Watts next. Watts is perfectly fine as a wrestler. Having heard him talk, he really needed to run with a “douchey frat boy” gimmick more than anything. He seems bland, but you put him in a stable full of bros, and he’s a good enough worker and probably a good enough personality to be a decent midcard addition for any company.

 

• Poor Erik whiffs on a punch to Heyman, but Heyman slipped on the slick floor that doesn’t have mats, so I blame Bill Watts for this. I used to assume that Bill didn’t have mats on the floor because he was too broke for that shit in the Mid-South days, but no, he’s just a psycho. Doing spots on a floor with no mats is dumb because the workers are desperately trying to protect themselves, for one, and for two, a guy wearing dress shoes is going to slide around that thing like it’s an ice rink.

 

• Anyway, Eaton clips the knee and works the leg, but Erik makes a comeback. It’s technically solid, and he sells the leg injury, but he’s just so boring. He tries to show fire, but he’s just so dull. Heyman bearhugs the ref while Michael Hayes gets involved. Erik lariats Eaton over the top and then powerslams Hayes and, um, covers for three. Oh, WCW, you love the “ref counts a pin on a guy not even in the fucking match” trope, don’t you?

 

• Ending promo: Pillman and Shane Douglas squabble at one another, then brawl.

 

• Mmm, Bill Watts’s creative run was probably done by the time he got fired anyway. This show felt aimless except for Cactus being good at the pro graps and Heyman/Madusa being entertaining, the latter of which apparently was not a thing that Bill Watts was happy about! Though by the time I got to the end of this show two days after I started it, I forgot about how much Nash tried to do a good wrestling match, so I should give him a bit of credit, too. 

 

[zendragon]

I'm guessing 20 years includes GCW airing on WPCH, TBS's predecessor 

I feel like Diesel 94-96 shows what Nash can do when he's motivated. Sure you have the matches against Taker, Bret, and HBK but you also have him in solid matches against Luger, Yoko, and the Clique tag

[SirSmUgly]

The Action Zone Clique tag is maybe my favorite WWF tag match of all time. That or the American Alpha/Revival tag I saw at an NXT house show. 

[zendragon]

What about Steiners v Hart bros or Hart Foundation Explodes?

[SirSmUgly]

31 minutes ago, zendragon said:

What about Steiners v Hart bros or Hart Foundation Explodes?

I think the Steiners had better matches with the Quebecers and the Headshrinkers than the Harts. 

There are a lot of good WWE tag matches in the company's history, but if you ask me to name great tag matches, suddenly I freeze up a bit. 

[Curt McGirt]

I love the story in the Nitro book that to underline how out of touch Dusty was, they tell the tale of somebody meeting him at the bar and asking why a jobber was named Shanghai Pierce and he responded that it was because he was watching Gunfight at the OK Corral from the '40s, heard a character named that, and thought it was a cool name. "Dusty liked cowboys."

Edited July 18 by Curt McGirt

[zendragon]

9 hours ago, SirSmUgly said:

I think the Steiners had better matches with the Quebecers and the Headshrinkers than the Harts. 

There are a lot of good WWE tag matches in the company's history, but if you ask me to name great tag matches, suddenly I freeze up a bit. 

well it was never a tag focused territory (unless you go back to like the 50's or something)

[odessasteps]

Do you mean the Rocca/Perez era? I don’t know if that’s being tag team focused or just them being the draw, esp in MSG.

[zendragon]

I've heard the only time tags where the top draw where them, the grahams, scufflin hillbillys and the moondogs

[odessasteps]

I’m not sure about the others.lots of people main evented vs Rocca/ Perez including a 19 year old Jody Hamilton teaming with his brother. 

Edited July 18 by odessasteps

[zendragon]

yhea I've heard people say that Vince never liked tag teams because New York/Capitol was never a tag territory but then other people refute that by pointing out Rocca/Perez (among others) where big draws

[SirSmUgly]

Great American Bash ‘91 notes (and a comparison):

• Over in the Nitro thread, I just finished writing up Bash at the Beach 1999. I truly loathed the show. It was WOAT-level stuff in my humble opinion . Now, I’m conducting a scientific test. Is BatB ’99 or GAB ‘91 the worst WCW PPV ever?

 

• I think this opening where a camera walks up, buys tickets, and enters the show in first person is cool, except for the fact that tickets are apparently still available for sale on the day of the show. There’s an East Asian family looking at the camera like WTF as it passes them? That makes me giggle. This was a better opening than the opening that showed all the Nash et al. nonsense which started BatB ’99. Plus, they get right to the action without a lot of talking. ADVANTAGE: GAB ’91.

 

• Steve Austin and Terrance Taylor get on a scaffold to face P.N. News and Bobby Eaton. Scaffold matches always suck. Yes, even the one exception that you’re thinking of. If P.N. News took a bump off this thing, the poor guy would probably drive his kneecaps up through his eyeballs.

 

• Other than the novelty of seeing such a heavy dude get up there, this stinks bad, but there is one shining jewel in the whole thing, and that’s Austin selling the fear and caution of being up that high. Or maybe he’s not entirely selling it. Put Stone Cold in pretty much anything wrestling-wise, and it’s at least a little bit watchable. Eaton captures the heel flag for the win. Even with Eaton and Austin up there being good at pro wrestling in whatever way they can (and PN News mostly just chilling out and watching the proceedings/”protecting the flag”), I would watch Ernest Miller wrestle Disco Inferno like a thousand times before I ever watched this again. ADVANTAGE: BATB ‘99

 

• Eric Bischoff is pushed at his proper level on this show: Ringside interviewer. No, but seriously, as catastrophic as his run of creative oversight ended up being, and as poor an on-screen talent he was until Vincent Kennedy started producing him, he was great at moving toward WCW turning a profit in 1994-1995. If he was just the guy who worked television deals for WCW, he’d be remembered a lot better. I do actually think Bischoff has useful insights into producing television and working deals to get shows onto television. Paul E. and Arn yell about and at Missy Hyatt and Rick Steiner.

 

• There’s lots of downtime with talking and interviews because they’re taking down the scaffold, but this is all better than the countless video packages for feuds that I hate or Tenay trying to sell the rules of the stupid junkyard match on BatB ’99. ADVANTAGE: GAB ’91.

 

• The Diamond Studd is one of those guys, until I rewatched a lot of early ‘90s WCW, who I didn’t realize was doing so many of his Razor Ramon taunts as the Studd, well before he hit the WWF. It’s probably mostly hindsight, but early WCW Studd seems like he’s probably going to be a star. DDP isn’t bad either on the mic because he’s doing his unapologetically corny Jersey guy gimmick. Studd flicks his toothpick at the camera after some lady strips him.

 

• Can Studd carry Tom Zenk to something good? If this were 1994 Razor or 1998 Hall, undoubtedly. In 1991, he’s not quite as polished, but he’s got Page helping him cheat on the outside, and ultimately you’ve got two guys with high-end talent potential making Zenk watchable, even if they’re not fully formed. Hall lands a chokeslam and gets a pop because he rules at pro wrestling. See? Obvious future star. The only disappointment is Hall winning with a back suplex and a bridge after DDP interferes; I wanted a Razor’s Edge Diamond Death Drop. Anyway, heel DDP + non-AWA Hall = enjoyable. Rick Steiner + Van Hammer = not so much. ADVANTAGE: GAB ‘91

 

• BALTIMORE! OZ IS IN THE HOOOOOOOUUUUSE! Say whatever you will about Oz, but at least the guy isn’t booking himself to kidnap and also bang all the ladies before having a mediocre PPV main event. Also, Oz’s entrance is fucking wacky; man, it’s amazing. Dusty, you nut. I get a kick out of Oz coming out to an “Another One Bites the Dust” expy. What the hell? That’s so discordant. I’m interested to see if Ron Simmons can get something out of Nash, who is not good in 1991, but who will probably try pretty hard.  

 

• I actually kind of enjoy aspects of this match. For example, they fight over a headlock, and Simmons trying to power out is good because Ron Simmons is good at pro wrestling. He tries once and can’t win because Oz has the leverage, tries again and gets closer to escaping until Oz pulls his hair, and then finally gets a break on his third try. I also am a sucker for big dudes shoulderblocking one another. Baltimore is bored, though, and I’m not entirely unsympathetic to their feelings, but then Simmons hits three running clotheslines before finally knocking the very green (literally and metaphorically) Oz off his feet and sending him tumbling to the mats outside the ring, and they pop. See, that’s just good fundamental structure. Anyway, Simmons handholds Oz through a perfectly cromulent bout before clipping Oz’s knee and landing a flying shoulderblock for three. Now, was this match good? No. Did I have to watch David Flair suck at even bumping or selling pain during this thing? Also no. ADVANTAGE: GAB ‘91

 

• Robert Gibson wrestles Richard Morton (w/Alexandra York, brick of a laptop) as the ROCK ‘N ROLLS EXPLODE. Gibson jumps Morton in the aisle and gets things started off hit. I’m sorry, if Morton is now this classy dude who hangs out with a suit-wearing Terry Taylor, he needed to CUT THE MULLET [™ Wesley Willis]. Is it weird that I look at Alexandra York in that ‘80s office drone get-up and get some Janine Melnitz vibes? You could tell Janine was cute and might cause you to fall right over if you saw her dressed in something more flattering than that late '80s office get-up, and the same goes for Alexandra.

 

• Anyway, this match was pretty solid! Morton getting rattled by that encounter on the ramp and stalling/consulting the computer makes sense. So does having the computer remind him about Gibson’s surgically-repaired knee; Morton targets it, and it’s all good structure. I will say that maybe considering the card being what it is, they needed to go full tilt for most of this match and keep the crowd’s blood up the whole time, but the general idea behind the match is good in a vacuum.

 

• Gibson sells that leg wonderfully, and they have a double-whiffed dropkick spot on the ramp that looks good and sounds great because they both hit the ramp. Morton finally figures out that using the computer to figure out a game plan is way more involved than just using it to clobber Gibson in the skull and wins it after doing the latter. This is obviously way the hell better than the eight-man elimination tag. Rey Misterio Jr. is a top-ten, maybe top-five wrestler all time, but he’s not about to turn water into wine Swoll or Kendall Windham into a watchable pro wrestler. ADVANTAGE: GAB ‘91

 

• I forgot that there’s a six-man elimination tag on this show between the Freebirds and Dustin Rhodes/the Young Pistols. Hey, Brad Armstrong is also in this one! OK, this is my totally scientific comparison post, so this match will get compared to both the other elimination tag on BatB ’91 and the next match in the list on BatB ’91, the junkyard nonsense.

 

• Anyway, the Freebirds suck ass. Brad Armstrong is good and makes them barely watchable, but Hayes and Garvin are pretty much the worst. The original Freebirds are only any good because of Gordy in the first place. I’ve been watching World Class, and I don’t think I’m getting into the Gary Hart-booked stuff because I just don’t like a lot of the workers, most of the Freebirds included. Honestly, as bad as half the competitors in the eight-man elimination tag at BatB ’99 are, I’d rather watch literally all of them, including Kendall, Duncum, or Swoll, than Michael Hayes or Jimmy Garvin. Yuck.

 

• OK, as this match goes on, I’m coming to a decision. There’s way too much shitty offense from Hayes and Garvin in this thing for me. In a comparison of elimination matches, I’d rather watch Rey and Armstrong drag what they can out of that match in 1999 than watch Garvin and Hayes waste time posing and sucking at professional wrestling. Hayes doesn’t even fucking lose a fall; he gets eliminated for sending his opponent over the top rope almost accidentally, like a sudden reaction to someone coming at you. Man, that over-the-top rope rule sucked and WCW took way too long to get rid of it. ADVANTAGE: BATB ’99

 

• Now, while this match is hot ass because of two-thirds of the Freebirds and the junkyard match has a bunch of better workers, the junkyard match is nearly literally unwatchable because of how it was produced. ADVANTAGE: GAB ’91. Oh yeah, two guys from each team get eliminated in like a minute-and-a-half after a long ponderous three-on-three prelude. The only two workers worth watching in this thing are left (sorry, Tracy Smothers fans) and Dustin drills Badstreet with a bulldog for the pinfall. Dustin and the Pistols 1 – Freebirds 0: Dustin and the Pistols win. One final note about this match: Fans in Baltimore sure do love DDTs!

 

• Yellow Dog/Johnny B. Badd is interesting. I didn’t watch Fall Brawl ’95 in my Nitro re-watch and plan to eventually go back and fill in the blanks on some of those early WCW PPVs that I skipped when I started writing those reviews. I have semi-recently seen Badd/Pillman on its own for probably the third or fourth viewing, and it struck me as not exactly good, but quite compelling. But that was 1995, when Badd was at the peak of his powers as a wrestler, and this is 1991. Pillman comes to the ring with an actual yellow dog. Badd comes to the ring with Theodore Long and a fantastic cape. Here’s what makes Badd so watchable: Marc Mero took this gimmick and just threw himself into it. This goofy character is somehow believable, even as cartoonish as it is. That’s down to Mero committing entirely to the gimmick.

 

• I’d say the same about this match that I said about Badd/Pillman at Fall Brawl ’95; it’s not good, necessarily, but it’s compelling. You can tell how green Badd is because he has slight timing issues sometimes (like when he sticks his arms out to be hit with a sunset flip a touch early and breaks the illusion). But still, I liked what I saw well enough, especially considering how green Badd is. I don’t like the DQ finish though (in favor of Yellow Dog after Long tries to get his mask off). The biggest problem for this match is that I look at the BatB ’99 card and it’s running in the spot that the Jersey Triad/Benoit and Saturn match ran. That's bad(d) luck for these guys. Page in 1999 is truly great, by the way. He won the world title and immediately started doing elite heel work in the ring, and he’s still having consistently great performances even as he's cycled down the card. ADVANTAGE: BATB ’99

 

• Now, here’s where it gets a little tricky. You see, GAB ’91 has three more matches than BatB ’99, even though the shows run roughly the same time limit. Since GAB ’91 continues to run guys out on PPV who shouldn’t be here (fucking BLACK BLOOD?!), but on the other hand BatB found space for David Flair and Brian Knobbs on the card, but not Billy Kidman (who is very over even if he’s not my favorite worker), Chavo Guerrero Jr. (who got very over and then was completely ignored), or Eddy Guerrero (duh, put him on every show you can), it’s ADVANTAGE: PUSH as far as I’m concerned.

 

• So, what I’ll do is compare the next two GAB matches to the next BatB match, then the two GAB matches to the main event after that, and I’ll add a straight up main event of BatB '99/ very last match of GAB '91 comparison as well. Don’t question this approach; it’s simple statistics. I did all the proper equations. Trust me.

 

• Bischoff trying to get an interview with Missy Hyatt and listening lovingly as someone reads a card that Jason Hervey sent to Missy cracks me up, as does his response to the card's contents (“What a guy…not at all like the character he plays on ABC’s The Wonder Years”). Hilarious. What a dork. Then, he walks in on Missy in the shower to try and get an interview. Jim Ross and Tony S. are like heh heh heh. Oh, WCW, you are so creepy sometimes, you weirdo creeps.

 

• Big Josh faces Black Blood in a lumberjack match. This isn’t any good, but it doesn’t offend me or anything. As a bonus, it’s also too short to be boring or terrible. The lumberjacks brawl, which gets the crowd sort of hot, and Dustin breaks away from the pack and hits Black Blood in the knee with an axe handle; Josh rolls a hobbling Black Blood up for the win. Good night for Dusty’s kid!

 

• One Man Gang faces El Gigante. Why does Gigante come out with little people? Oh, for a spot where they bite Gang’s butt and stomach. Gang tried to bump around a bit for Gigante, but it wasn’t enough to make this watchable. Gigante wins it with a clothesline. Anyway, DUD. Like that’s a surprise to anyone reading this.

 

• This comparison is tough. Buff/Piper was booked all wrong, on the bad side. On the good side, Judy Bagwell was entertaining. On the bad side again, the boxing match itself stunk and Judy Bagwell was the only person who got over as a result of the match. Meh, ADVANTAGE: PUSH

 

• Nikita Koloff sucks. I love Sting, but it feels like Sting is still at least a year or two away in his development from being able to extract something good from a bum like Nikita. It also doesn’t help that this is a Russian chain match. I think Sting’s best quality, particularly at this point in his career, is his sheer explosiveness on offense. This type of match limits that quality because it’s worked around the chain and strikes. As much as I dig Sting, but his strikes are not why I watch him. This is a ponderous brawl. It’s boring, and if a Sting match is boring, multiple things went wrong. Sting matches might range in quality, but they are never boring unless something is seriously screwed up. The finish involves both guys stumbling into three corners, then Sting Stinger Splashing Koloff into the fourth corner. Yuck. That was really bad.

 

• Lex Luger meets Barry Windham in a cage for the vacant WCW World Heavyweight Championship. That moron Jim Herd not giving Flair his deposit back was somehow even dumber than that moron Jim Herd running one of WCW's only two reliable main event talents off to the competition.

 

• Windham’s heel turn in ’88 worked so well because he has little charisma and almost seems without passion, even when he’s trying to speak or move with passion. When he put on a black glove and was like YO, IDGAF ANYMORE, I JUST WANNA GET PAID, it was the only time in his career that I enjoyed him. He’s basically his generation’s Randy Orton: Great timing, excellent athlete, completely soulless and liable to bore the shit out of you. Both of them have their fans, but I think they’re ultimately mediocre. Neither guy ever put it all together, but they had glimmers of greatness that made me think they could have been all-timers (Windham with the black glove; Orton claiming a mental illness and punting everyone).

 

• WCW spells Barry Wind(h)am’s name wrong in their graphic. Oh, WCW. You low-rent chumps. Speaking of, look at that, uh, tag belt I think, with a World Heavyweight Championship plate hastily bolted onto the front. This match is just boring. It’s dull. It’s not bad, and it’s competently worked, but I can’t imagine caring about this. Poor Lex. Between this match and the SummerSlam ’94 match, he stayed having duds in big title match spots. At least he’ll always have the 8/4/97 Nitro title win. If he’d gotten a win like that eight years earlier, maybe his career is markedly different.

 

• As for the comparison, I will give the BatB match credit for being better than either of these previous two matches because it was relatively short and as poorly executed as it was, the gaga at the end of the match held more of my interest than anything that happened in these previous two matches. And what the heck is up with Luger turning heel and joining Harley Race at the end? That’s as bad as anything booked on BatB 1999’s card. ADVANTAGE: BATB ’99

 

• Yuck, Rick Steiner (w/Missy Hyatt). At least this is 1991, so he’s less useless as a singles wrestler than he is in 1999. A couple of Dicks (Slater and Murdock) come to the ring and abduct Missy. At least it’s the heels abducting women in WCW here in 1991. Steiner wrestles Arn Anderson and Paul E. by himself since Missy’s nowhere around. This is too short to be bad, so there you are. The main event of BatB ’99 is longer and therefore worse. Plus, Paul E. is entertaining, and Arn is good. Steiner wins after landing a Steinerline on Paul E. ADVANTAGE: GAB ‘91

 

• It looks like the final score is GAB '91 - 7, BatB '99 - 4 with TWO PUSHES. There you go: BatB '99 loses and therefore is the worst WCW PPV ever. It’s science.

 

• A couple of final notes: First, WCW’s best crowds throughout its existence are in Baltimore IMO, even though WCW books some true garbage on its shows there a ton of the time. Those are good fans, folks. Really good fans.

 

• Second, WCW in 1991 is going through what could be the worst transitional period that any company has gone through. They stabilize in 1992 when Rude, Vader, Steamboat, and Cactus are on the roster, combined with Watts putting together generally good television for about six months. But this television in ’91 is vile. I might do a WCW ’91 vs. WWF ’02 comparison thread someday because I’m a sick fuck, but also because I want to watch the two worst transitional years that I can think of seeing from a wrestling company and write about them.

[zendragon]

I think Brian Lee's best match was probably the scaffold match he had against dreamer

[odessasteps]

4 hours ago, zendragon said:

I think Brian Lee's best match was probably the scaffold match he had against dreamer

I might saw something from SMW, maybe a tag with Candido vs the RmR ?

[Curt McGirt]

On 7/21/2024 at 3:35 PM, zendragon said:

I think Brian Lee's best match was probably the scaffold match he had against dreamer

That's certainly damning with faint praise.

[zendragon]

Well at least he can say he had the second best scaffold match of all time!

[John E. Dynamite]

Chicky Starr vs Invader 3? Bill Dundee vs. Sweet Brown Sugar? I feel like I'm forgetting another decent scaffold match, maybe from ECW.

[Curt McGirt]

Chicky/Invader probably but there's been great ones in Big Japan.

[odessasteps]

2 hours ago, zendragon said:

Well at least he can say he had the second best scaffold match of all time!

I’d think most of the MX vs RNR matches in Mid Sourh were likely better. If you can actually have good scaffold matches. 

[SirSmUgly]

The next time Matt does one of those Secret Santo threads, I might jump in for a couple weeks and ask people to give me matches they love that are not typically of a style or from a promotion that I enjoy. Maybe I'll see a scaffold match that changes my mind. I haven't seen any of the Big Japan ones, for example. 

[Curt McGirt]

They aren't Georgia-style scaffold matches, just so ya know. But they have scaffolds!

[twiztor]

i don't know that i've ever seen a "good" scaffold match, but Chicky Starr/Invader 3 has to be one of the best. That scaffolding is so f'ing high!  there's lots of punches, kicks, and stomps, of course, but there's also a suplex! and a dropkick! and that scaffold just sways like crazy. It's enthralling for all the right/wrong reasons.