Category Archives: Wrestling Lists

Jan 13 2013
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Wrestling Lists

6 Great Matches You’ve Never Seen: Part VI

by Jeremy Cundiff

greatestmatchesyouveneverseenlogo

Thank you for your bandwidth. I’m Madman Szalinski, and I’m just about done with this shit. By shit, of course, I mean this six-part series on great matches that might be a bit obscure. First, I’d like to go over the five matches I’ve already chosen, along with the main reasons for doing so:

#1: Sid vs. Vader (WWF IYH 10, 1996)
#2: Taka vs. Sasuke (WWH IYH 16, 1997)
#3: Blonde Bombers vs. Dundee/Lawler (Memphis, 1979)
#4: Regal vs. Goldberg (WCW Nitro, 1998)
#5: Bas vs. Kanemoto (NJPW, 2002)

#1 was chosen due to the extreme effort by both participants. For a matchup of two big men, moves were used that defied logic it seemed. I knew immediately when I started that I would be including this match for my list because I knew it was an overlooked match due to the main event, and that it exceeded many expectations coming into the opening bell.

#2 was chosen because of the historical significance, and the quality of the match itself. There’s no question, we had Taka Michinoku and the Great Sasuke in there, they both could be hungover and shitting Yoohoo, and still put on a three star minimum. I just didn’t thnk they’d ever be able to do it in America. This match, in my eyes, was much higher than three stars. This was a major shift in the WWF, and it was the first time any WWF fan had ever seen cruiserweight action like that. Another no-brainer to me.

#3 was chosen for, again, historical significance. The match itself was standard 1970′s Southern ‘rasslin. The Bombers weren’t the seasoned veterans we came to know them as (Honky Tonk Man and Moondog Spot) and I’m willing to bet they weren’t ready for what was going to happen that night. The brawl post-match, where the bare-plywood-for-walls concession stand got ripped apart, was where the true gem shined. Again, for a hardcore brawl, it’s tame by 2012 standards (unless you’re a mark for mustard.) But in the big picture, this match was actually very well done and even though I don’t like what it did to the business, I appreciate the entertainment value it gave me. So it was in.

#4 isn’t so obscure, I don’t think. Several people know about that match, and it’s been reported about more than once that Regal was intentionally shooting. When I first heard of the match, it was on Armpit Wrestling’s legendary listing of backstage fights. The following quote was straight from this list: “Regal could lead a dead man through a believable sequence, and I believe that’s what he was trying to do here. However, Goldberg flopped around and looked like an idiot.” I don’t know who wrote that, but dude…we didn’t watch the same match. Regal shot on Goldberg thinking he was going to kill the Goldberg myth once and for all. Goldberg came back and used more moves in one match than he had pretty much his entire career up to that point. While it was clear that Regal did prove the experience factor, Regal still got his ass beat (and countered cleanly a few times). Goldberg showed everyone that he COULD wrestle. It wasn’t just that he only knew two moves, but those two moves seemed to work for him. Hey, nobody is going to argue that Bret Hart knows more than five moves, but the Five Moves of Doom seemed to work for him, right? This match was chosen for the shooting, and the outcome.

#5 was the encompassing definition of what it took to make this list. The action was beyond expectation, the match was entertaining, and I never heard about the match to watch it before. I’d heard that Bas Rutten, one of my few favorite MMA fighters, had worked for New Japan. I found the match and watched it, expecting a Bam Bam/LT type match-up where only the most fundamental basics of pro wrestling would be used. What I saw was Bas and Koji telepathically agree that if there was a script, they didn’t need the motherfucker. And of course, there was this.

kojikanemoto

Yeah. Let’s move on before I laugh myself into asphyxiation.

So…the final video was kind of hard for me. I spent a week doing nothing but watching and searching YouTube like a Deep Web bot. I had included a big man contest, a hardcore brawl, a cruiserweight match, a worked shoot and a shoot shoot. I wasn’t sure what else to do. I was this close from just pulling a bait and switch, doing some M. Night Shyamalan shit and rambling about how “any match you haven’t seen before that entertains you is number six.” Fortunately for you, I’m not retarded and I found this.

6. Earl Caddock vs. Joe Stecher (Madison Square Garden, 1920)

This match is OLD. So old, it predates every promotion in existence today. So old, it predates the modern preconception of a wrestling promotion. It’s so old the copyright on the footage expired. This is one YouTube match that won’t be in danger of getting taken down anytime soon. But I wouldn’t wait forever to go watch it.

You want to know what you’re watching? Real wrestling. THIS, my friends is what professional wrestling forgot. These two aren’t showboating, although their personalities and characteristics are distinct. They are completely focused on the ring and what’s at stake inside of it. And that’s another thing. They’re not superstars or performers, or even talent. They were real fucking wrestlers doing real fucking wrestling. Nobody in that crowd questioned the “workrate” of these guys. They knew what they were getting was real. And there is some debate as to whether or not this match was worked. Remember, this was 1920 and Kayfabe Commentaries didn’t exist yet. There was no way of knowing for sure. Nobody wrote that shit down. And you know what? THAT’S FINE WITH ME. I don’t need to know everything going on in the locker room to enjoy pro wrestling.

Was it a shoot? A work? I don’t know, but you don’t fake the effort these guys put on in the ring. You might not see a shitton of bump taking or many Irish whips to the ropes for that matter. But you will see two guys legitimately scrapping with each other on the mat, clawing for the championship that was on the line. And to let you know how wrestling has changed, the match ended in two hours (video only shows around 25 minutes.) The length of an entire episode of Smackdown or Impact, being just one match, no commercial breaks…yeah, we’re getting robbed. Oh, and the finish? A leg-scissors and wristlock combination. The leg-scissors was a common finisher for this guy. His opponent wouldn’t submit, so he turned him over and pinned him.

I also saw Jiu-Jitsu rear mounts in there, I saw armbars and toe locks, I saw punches and I saw elbows. I saw a real wrestling match that entertained me greatly, with moves I haven’t seen for a long time in the ring. I knew these were two guys who could finish this match, and then beat the shit out of every man in that building who dared say something. I’d love to see a group of Marine thugs in Syracuse try to tackle one of these two on the street. You just know watching these two that they could shoot on virtually ANYBODY in the business today, and nobody could stop them. Legit tough men, with legit grappling skills, trying to get paid and get respect. Not show-offs or prima donnas who couldn’t wrestle, so they learned how to get beat up by the men who truly could. Now, don’t get me wrong…I am not disrespecting those men at all. Shawn Michaels is one of my all time favorites and he sucks worse at shooting than Dick Cheney. But I’m saying that pro wrestling needs legit wrestlers, tough men who can wrestle, in order to be taken seriously again. It needs men like these two, who knew how to cater to the fans or how to rouse them, yet understood that it began and ended IN THE RING. That’s what matters to those casual fans, the total marks, the smart marks, and overall to me as well.

And while this might have been a World championship match…neither Caddock or Stetcher were considered close to “the best in the business”, not then nor now. That’s the thought I wish to leave you with.

I’m Madman Szalinski, and in the words of Teddy Hart…”All that really matters is I took three hours of your day where you didn’t have to think about your bills, your pains, or your worries. You got to live in a reality called professional wrestling. Don’t let it die, my friend.”

billymays

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Now that this massive piece is finished, what the hell should I do next? Any comments, suggestions or death threats? There’s a comment button right below me, so feel free to give me an idea of what you’d like to see me do next (or tell me how I did with this effort). And if you’d rather do it privately, I’m sure there’s a link to my e-mail somewhere around here. Again, below me.

madman_szalinski@hotmail.com (and it works for Windows Live, too!)

See the match for yourself here!

Photo Credits:

Photo 1: youtube.com

Photo 2: en.wikipedia.org

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Dec 30 2012
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Wrestling Lists

6 Great Matches You’ve Never Seen: Part V

by Jeremy Cundiff

greatestmatchesyouveneverseenlogo

 

5. Bas Rutten vs. Koji Kanemoto from NJPW, October 26, 2002

Thank you for your bandwidth. I’m Madman Szalinski, wishing you all a Merry Chr-what? Oh yeah, that’s right. Christmas already happened. I’ll put videos of my presents up on YouTube someday. Well, whatever holiday is up next…New Year’s. Happy New Year’s. And oh yeah, we’re going to Japan to watch Bas Rutten do some professional wrestling. (And for all you workrate marks out there who haven’t busted one yet to this match, Daniel Bryan is in Bas Rutten’s corner.)

I love Bas. Not only as a fighter who has won many matches for many companies with many sets of rules, but as an entertainer. He has a great sense of humor and a rather down-to-earth personality about him. Bas has the mindset to succeed in this business. Problem is, he’s spent his whole life knocking people around with intent to kill. In pro wrestling, you’re not exactly fluffing your opponent like a pillow…but you must protect your fellow wrestlers, because all of you have to go out there and do it again the next week, or maybe the next night. None of you can do that if someone tries to show off and take unnecessary liberties in the ring, because that’s how people get injured. Bas Rutten understood that, I believe. And in Japan, the lines between work and shoot in the ring are so blurred, that the doors are not only open for an MMA fighter to make the transition to pro wrestling, there’s probably a piece of paper with an arrow drawn on it taped to said door. Bas’ colorful personality coupled with his in-ring ability made him a natural for puroresu.

His opponent for this match is Koji Kanemoto, also known as Tiger Mask III. No slouch. While he, unlike many of his fellow Japanese wrestlers, is actually not known for his shooting capabilities, he is known for being a good all-around worker, who was able to change his style as needed when age and injuries prevented him from working the light heavyweight style associated with the Tiger Mask gimmick. As he had been fitted with a shooter gimmick in recent times before this match, the setup made a lot of sense to me, who does not follow any Japanese promotions regularly enough to get the storylines, or even any of the commentary. It’s just a nod to how you don’t even have to know the language to be entertained by what you see in the ring.

The stage is set: a pro wrestler trying out being a shooter versus a shooter trying out pro wrestling. This should be interesting. It’s clear about a minute into the contest that Bas is not a worker. He’s an awesome wrestler, a tremendous athlete, and a very stiff striker. But he is not much of a worker. Thankfully, Kanemoto doesn’t give a fuck. Bas isn’t too much for selling either, although he’s not no-selling in a disrespectful “burying you for political reasons” way. It’s more of a “come on, we both know you’re going to need a pick axe to break that bone.” And again, thankfully, Kanemoto happens to have pick axes for legs and Bas has no choice but to sell some of Kanemoto’s offense as Father Physics whispered in his ear “sorry, sir, it’s the law.” That or Bas is selling just to see the look on people’s faces. “Frank Shamrock couldn’t do shit to this man, but Tiger Mask III just put him on his ass? WOWZA!” Roughly halfway into the match, the two begin to trade kicks until Bas briefly forgets that he can’t actually kill his opponent in this sport. Kudos to the ring crew for New Japan, any wrestling ring in America would have fallen apart and flown off into the crowd at that kind of impact.

On the ground, there are plenty of restholds. So many, that they don’t really rest…they just transition from one hold to the next, cranking for a second or two here and there on each hold. So I guess you can’t call them restholds, or not really holds at all as nobody seemed to keep anything for any period of time. It was just seamless transition on the mat. But at 8:41, things take a turn. THINGS TAKE A FUCKING TURN. You see, so far, we’ve been watching two men doing some bad ass moves in there. Bas Rutten is making a decent transition, if a tad green, from competition fighting to professional wrestling. Koji Kamenoto has been his usual self, reminding us why he once donned the Tiger Mask. Until 8:41. That is when Koji Kanemoto did this.

kojikanemoto

Look familiar?

I swear I’ve seen this spot before…

jennamorasca

How about now?

Dead serious, that’s exactly what it looked like. Watch the tape of this match, then go dig up the Sharmell/Jenna match and fast forward to that spot. THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE. Koji Kanemoto, a man who had been going toe-to-toe both on the ground and on their feet with Bas fucking Rutten, was now reduced to slap fighting with all the technique and intensity of a six year old girl whose brother just fed her favorite Barbie to the dog. At this point, I had to pause the video. My wife thought I was dying and it took five Brawny paper towels to get all the Kool-Aid off my monitor. I finally quit laughing and hit play on the window to finish the match, and Koji quickly went for a triangle choke within a second or two afterwards in order to make people forget what the fuck he just did. Bas powerbombed the shit out of him, dead lifting Kanemoto from the mat while in the hold, and we all went back to watching two bad ass guys do their thing. Pretty good match-WHAT THE FUCK BAS JUST KICKED HIM IN THE HEAD WITH BOTH FEET AT THE SAME TIME!

basrutten

I thought that move only happened on Power Rangers.

You know what…just watch the match. It’s obvious why I put it in this list by now. Bas Rutten in wrestling. Against Koji Kanemoto. And Koji SLAP FIGHTS THE MAN. If that isn’t a great match, then there is no such thing.

Next week, we end this series with a bang. And by bang, I mean something other than an exploding ring match. DDP being involved is a possibility. I’m Madman Szalinski, and in the words of New Jack…”yes, I’m under the influence right now, and I’m not givin’ a fuck. I gotta do a show tonight, catch a red eye, fly to Atlantic City, then go over to Detroit, then go home and lay down, and let my girl suck on my thing-thing.”

See the match for yourself here!

I refuse to post a link to that Sharmell/Jenna debacle. You know where to find it.

Photo Credits:

Photos 1-3: youtube.com

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Dec 28 2012
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Wrestling Lists

6 Wrestlers TNA Should Sign/Re-sign…Just for Giggles

by Daniel Johnson

I’ve heard TNA called the “spiritual successor of WCW” and for a while I almost believed it. However, if you’ve been watching TNA television lately then you’ll know that TNA is far too financially responsible to be the spiritual successor of Ted Turner’s money pit. Where are all the needless mini-concerts by incredibly pricey music groups, D-list celebrities and contracts for stars of yesteryear?

Okay, you TNA haters. It is true enough that the company has been guilty of all of these sins to some extent. Still, the asylum (or former asylum anyway) is nowhere near as badly run in TNA as it was in WCW. However, here are a few wrestlers TNA could sign to start fixing that. Why, you may ask? Just for giggles.

1. Vader

Vader made a brief return to the WWE earlier this year and promptly squashed Heath Slater. He then followed this up by coming to blows with a nearly 70 year old Harley Race. Even with Vince Russo gone the company has shown a desire to continue booking worked-shoots. Well, using the WCW philosophy there is no better way to trick an audience into believing something might be real than hiring someone who may actually have a screw or two lose. How else can you explain Scott Steiner’s  2000-2001 push? Sure, the mastodon may not be as fearsome as he once was and there is no way he can cut a promo like Scott Steiner (who can?), but to live up to WCW’s name TNA needs to starting taking chances. Incredible chances, illogical chances, idiotic chances! With TNA’s riskiest recent signing being Christian York a guy who probably should have been signed to a major company ten years ago and probably gets paid with Monopoly money, TNA needs to throw some big bucks at Vader to balance things out.

2. Shark Boy

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With TNA showing some love for underwhelming reveals recently the company has taken some strides to resemble the old WCW. But was Devon really as bad of a reveal as Road Warrior Animal? Perhaps. Still, sometimes “perhaps” just isn’t good enough. A way to top this would be by running some short vignettes saying that “3:16 is coming to TNA” only to reveal that instead of Austin, TNA has brought back Shark Boy with his tribute to “Stone Cold” Steve Austin gimmick. Actually, going beyond just for giggles bringing back Shark Boy may not be that bad of an idea. He could work with a lot of the X division guys and TNA could probably get away with not paying him that much. Of course as long as York is willing to share his Monopoly money with Shark Boy then why not?

3. Adam Bomb

adambomb

Now, I know what you’re saying. “Isn’t that guy dead.” No, that’s Brian Adams. Yes, it is easy to get the former Demolition Crush mixed up with people whether it be his former tag team partners or a Canadian singer-songwriter. What you also may be saying is, “Hasn’t Bryan Clarke been retired for like 10 years? God knows what kind of shape he is in?” To that I answer that if Brock Lesnar can return to the WWE in 2012 then surely Adam Bomb can return to TNA in 2013. If nothing else he could be signed to a short term contract and fed to a bigger hoss the way that he was fed to Bill Goldberg in the original WCW. I think Samoa Joe is hungry.

4. El Generico

elgenericoLike Shark Boy this guy could fit in great by wrestling the X division roster. Plus, one of the legacies that WCW left behind was the company’s tendency to sign world class talent and do absolutely nothing with them. They had the technical wizard himself, freaking Yuji Nagata for over a year and the most he did was briefly feud with Ultimo Dragon and then was quietly swept under the ring. Just think of all the potential they could pee away with El Generico. Generico is one of the most well traveled independent wrestles out there and has wrestled in countries as random as Peru, Chile and Sweden. TNA signing him to an exclusive contract could kill that traveling act just like Nagata’s commitment to WCW prevented who knows how many potential great matches for NJPW. Somewhere John Laurinaitis’ mouth is watering.

5. Kevin Steen

kevinsteen

El Generico and Kevin Steen go together like peanut butter and ketchup to a weirdo without taste buds. For some reason you can’t have one without the other. If TNA signed El Generico then it stands to reason that they would have to sign Steen…then promptly make no mention of their past history together. Steen is the kind of guy who could come in and if positioned right could look like a legitimate challenge to someone the company has already built up. Say Bully Ray for example. Of course if they were to follow the WCW model they couldn’t book him that well. After all his name is Kevin Steen, not Bil Goldberg or Lance Storm. So if TNA signed Steen then perhaps the best he could hope for would be a one sided feud with Bully before quickly dropping down the card. Alternatively, they could throw him in with Aces & 8s since the company loves to throw away talent that way.

6. Scott Steiner

scottsteinerAs mentioned earlier no one can cut a promo quite like Scott Steiner so why not bring him back? He’s already suing TNA anyway so what could be a more amicable way to end this bad blood then with a nice fat paycheck. On the negative side Scott Steiner has been hit or miss in the ring for a while now and he’s not getting any younger. On the positive side the man has that Ultimate Warrior kind of appeal that can only come from some legitimate insanity. Kind of like why Damien Demento developed a cult following after he started making Internet videos a few years back. Wait! That’s it! Give Steiner his own Internet recap show! License to print money.

Photo Credits:

Photos 1-2, 4-6: en.wikipedia.org

Photo 3: onlineworldofwrestling.com

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Dec 16 2012
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Wrestling Lists

6 Great Matches You’ve Never Seen: Part IV

by Jeremy Cundiff

greatestmatchesyouveneverseenlogo

4. Lord Steven Regal vs. Bill Goldberg from WCW Monday Nitro, February 9, 1998

Thank you for your bandwidth. I’m Madman Szalinski, and I had no bandwidth for almost two weeks. I ain’t going to lie, we couldn’t pay the cable bill on time. Obviously, we got it reconnected. So it’s back to business as usual this week, with a stiff encounter that just flat out wasn’t supposed to happen.

WCW in 1998 was the beginning of the end. At the least it was the end of WCW, and at worst it was the end of wrestling’s last boom period. To date, wrestling never recovered from the deaths of WCW and ECW. The “inVasion” storyline was Vince’s way of letting everybody know “if you compete against the WWF, this is what I will do to your corpse after I kill you.” Can’t say I blame the rest of the world for not wanting to compete. But before WCW died, it fought with everything it had. One of its most powerful weapons was Bill Goldberg, and to be honest he should have been the guy that pulled WCW out of the rut.

Bill Goldberg was homegrown, straight out of the Atlanta Falcons into the WCW Power Plant, and then straight into our television sets. Growing up, I was a diehard WWF fan through and through, and only watched a couple of Nitros through the entire Monday Night War. But I still knew what the NWO was, and I knew who Goldberg was. I knew what the jackhammer was, and I knew what the spear was. I never saw a single Goldberg match until 2003, during his WWE run, when I looked up old matches of his and I found this.

jackhammer

He did this for four seconds, by the way.

So yeah, Goldberg was all man. But so was Lord Steven Regal. We all know him as a snobby Englishman, or at least a stereotypical one. And he was still one then, too. (Modern fans may know him as William Regal, changed upon his WWF debut as to not confuse him with Steve Austin. Can’t make this up.) But while Goldberg was a powerhouse of an athlete, Regal was a hooker straight out the British carnival scene. Goldberg can hold a man over his head for three seconds, but let’s face it…the Giant kind of let him do it. Regal was used to guys who weren’t going to let him do it; Goldberg was not. How was Goldberg going to fare against a guy who wasn’t so willing to compromise?

Well, take a look at this match and find out. I don’t need to tell you who wins, because you should already know. Goldberg won every single match he was in up until the infamous cattle prod incident. He also won those matches very, very easily. So easily that many fans believed Goldberg only knew two moves: the spear and jackhammer, since these were the only two moves he needed to put away many of his opponents. Steven Regal was expected to be another one of these easy wins for Goldberg. He was not.

For reasons unknown to this day, Steven Regal just didn’t want to play nice. Some stuff he didn’t sell, and some stuff he just looked back at Bill and said “ninja please” before going right back at him. Now, this is the part where I tell you why this match went on my list. Goldberg went along for a while, just doing what he was trained to do, but when it became clear that Regal wasn’t worried about pesky little details like “workrate,” Goldberg began to do what nobody thought he could do—he wrestled.

Goldberg used more moves in this match than I think he used in pretty much any other match he had during his entire undefeated streak. Goldberg was being shot on, and he shot back—all without injuring anybody. And while Regal did sandbag the piss out of him during the finish—after a few stiff corner shots, which he followed up by simply allowing Goldberg to reverse a whip into the corner, then spear, jackhammer, pin. Even though he tried to sandbag during the jackhammer, it did him no good—it looked to me like Regal was trying to counter the move by wriggling free and intentionally landing on his back anyway.

The point is, Goldberg won and went on to storm WCW, becoming one of its final homegrown stars. Regal got fired for actually doing some good in making himself and Goldberg look like real wrestlers who just wrestled for real, and went to the WWF soon after. There he was asked to do such things as kiss Vince McMahon’s ass on live TV and sample Tugboat’s whistle in his theme music.

Most people might not think of this as a great match. It’s full of miscommunication, has more sandbags than a levee, and it’s honestly one of those albino dalmations—lots of missing spots. But I rate a great match on how entertained it makes me over what period of time. And honestly, seeing Steven Regal try to stretch a rookie and then seeing that rookie fight back before winning the match, going on to become one of the biggest names of his generation, gives me a lot of entertainment for the short six minutes or so the match lasted. And that’s why I gave it this spot on my list. I know nobody’s really seen the match, but that wasn’t the part I was worried about convincing you of. Maybe watching it and seeing some real wrestling for a change will help persuade your opinion.

Next week, I think I’m going to actually find a great match that even I haven’t seen. To do that, we might have to take a trip to Japan. I’m Madman Szalinski, and in the words of The Iron Sheik, “fakk the tomorrow.”

 See the match for yourself by clicking right here!

Photo Credits: youtube.com

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Dec 16 2012
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Wrestling Lists

Counting Down the 5 Worst Title Reigns of 2012

by Daniel Johnson

Even with some hiccups CM Punk is having the best title reign of his life. He could sit out the rest of the year (which he may in fact do) and will still have had one of the best runs with the WWE Championship in a while. WWE title runs in general have mostly been moderately successful, if not stellar. Sure, it turns out that Daniel Bryan’s reign with the World Heavyweight Championship didn’t establish him as a main event player. Yet, it still helped his push and I’m sure he doesn’t mind cashing those fat royalty checks for Team Hell No merchandise. Speaking of Team Hell No, before their reign Kofi Kingston and R-Truth had a decent run and the two teams that preceded them as champions didn’t have train wreck reigns.

Instead the few problems WWE had with their titles this year were in the midcard and one very pointless WWE Divas Champion. Let the countdown begin!

5. Jack Swagger’s reign with the WWE United States Championship

jackswagger

Just look at Swagger in that photograph. It is like he’s thinking, “I can’t believe my reign as ECW Champion is going this well! There is no way the WWE will ever give me another title run like this!” Sadly for Jack he was right. On the surface this seemed like it could be a near perfect midcard title reign. I mean the All-American American holding the United States Championship. That’s as on the nose as a gay Republican group choosing a pink elephant as a mascot (thanks Simpsons). So where did it all go wrong? First, Swagger had already held the World Heavyweight Championship meaning that he was the latest in a long line of wrestlers who WWE didn’t have enough faith in to keep pushing as a top talent. Second, he took the title from Zack Ryder, which was one of many things that helped kill that man’s push. Third, despite being a serious worker who is capable of quality matches he dropped this belt to…Santino Marella. Finally, where did it get him? Not on TV that’s for sure! Swagger left TV in September and only recently returned to the house show circuit.

4. Kofi Kingston’s reign with the WWE Intercontinental Championship

kofikingston

Kept under the glass ceiling much, Kofi? How pointless was Kofi’s title win? Well, pointless enough to take place on WWE Main Event because apparently even someone in WWE creative said, “Do we really need to waste time on Raw or Smackdown with this? I mean its Kofi and he’s not even taking on Dolph Ziggler.” Since Razor Ramon had his record breaking fourth title win many moons ago when it was called the WWF Intercontinental Championship the fourth time holding this title has always been nearly pointless. These reigns exist for one of two reasons. Either 1) The champion has already been in the main event and the company needs something to do with him while he isn’t headlining shows or 2) The office has no plans to push him any higher and never will. Guess which one applies to Kofi?

3. The Miz’s reign with the WWE Intercontinental Championship

themiz

The Miz’s reign with the WWE Intercontinental Championship wasn’t so bad for his career. It kept it in the air after it had long been doing a tailspin following his WWE Championship loss. So why am I putting him below Swagger and Kofi? Because instead of messing up his own career his title win solidified the derailment of the Intercontinental Championship division and the title’s prestige took a hit. Let’s look at the title this year up until his reign. The year started off great with Cody Rhodes having a killer reign before losing it to The Big Show at Wrestlemania XXVIII. Yet, Show’s reign wasn’t too bad. It gave him his Wrestlemania moment and he dropped it right back to Cody. Cody then lost it to Christian less than a month later. Of course being a textbook smark Christian can do no wrong in my eyes, but even looking at it objectively the belt was still about as valuable as when Cody had it. Heck, they could have had Cody crush Christian to win it back. You know Christian would have been willing to do that and Cody could have used that extra momentum to further push him to the main event. Instead Miz won it and before you know it, it was back around Kofi’s waist not doing anybody any good, including Kofi.

2. Santino Marella’s reign with the WWE United States Championship

santinomarella

Can we stop giving this guy title runs? WWE had top drawing comedy wrestlers for years that could get over, bring in fans and not waste a title that could be used to get other wrestlers over. Instead of being used to push talent Santino’s reign helped send Swagger on his aforementioned 2012 downward spiral. From there Santino had a 167 day reign that ranged from forgettable to embarrassing. The low light of this run was his tuxedo match at the 2012 edition of WWE No Way Out where he wrestled Ricardo Rodriguez in a tuxedo match. There the belt wasn’t up for grabs, but instead just served as a prop. Santino’s shoulder warmer if you will. The only good part about Santino’s reign came at the end when he lost it to Antonio Cesaro who has went on to have a decent tenure as champion despite never being given over eight minutes for a pay-per-view match.

1. Nikki Bella’s reign with the WWE Divas Championship

bellatwins

Beth Phoenix had a reign that was going along swimmingly until she did an incredible job of selling a kayfabe injury to her knee in a match with Nikki Bella who she then lost the title to. In fact, Phoenix’s worked injury was the best part about Nikki’s reign as it at least showed Beth’s acting ability. Speaking of acting ability Nikki and Brie better hope they develop some. Six days after Nikki’s win, Layla returned and pinned Brie to win the title when they tried to pull the old switcheroo. Right after this Nikki and Brie left the WWE never to be seen again. Actually, maybe that was the best part of the title reign.

Photo Credits:

Photos 1, 3-5: en.wikipedia.org

Photo 2: onlineworldofwrestling.com

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Dec 09 2012
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Wrestling Lists

6 Great Matches You’ve Never Seen: Part III

by Jeremy Cundiff

3. Blonde Bombers vs. Jerry Lawler & Bill Dundee from Memphis Wrestling (1979)

Thank you for your bandwidth. Last week, we looked at some puroresu cruiserweight action on a WWF show. Interesting enough. Well, today we’re going all the way back to 1979. The ’70s were such a wonderful time, filled with quaaludes and sideburns. Everyone’s shorts rode up their crotch and nobody cared. An afro almost guaranteed you would get laid, and the groundwork was being laid in professional wrestling for a radical change—although, like many sports promotions and leagues, it would be years and in some cases, decades, before the effects would be felt all across the board.

atlantahawks

Exhibit A…an Atlanta Hawks jersey.

Professional wrestling always had its share of gimmicks and carnies, but for the most part it had been centered on athletes working in the ring. While there were flashy personalities, some with elaborate ring entrances, when the bell rang you could rest assured that everyone in the ring knew what they were doing. But as we all know, the same thing won’t work forever when it comes to having a paying audience. Throw the explosion of television into the mix, and it was clear: the formula either had to change, or adjustments had to be made to accommodate for the television cameras. The fans no longer wanted to see plain old fashioned wrestling. They wanted some flair, no pun intended, in their action.

I’m not trying to say that the old style of wrestling is bad. I love the classic style of hooking and shooting, real wrestlers doing real moves. I just understand that there has to be an entertainment aspect to the business as well, otherwise we wouldn’t be watching pro wrestling…we would be in a gymnasium watching an amateur wrestling meet. There has to be some sizzle with the steak, whether it be in the flamboyant personalities that were developing at the time…the Billy Grahams and Ric Flairs of the world that were a direct contrast to former champions such as Lou Thesz and Frank Gotch, who were nothing more than no-nonsense grappling masters…or it be in the content of the wrestling itself. With the advent of broadcast television, wrestling was no longer a big-city arena sport: it was now in the homes of any American with a big enough piece of metal attached to their roof. Now, these wrestlers had a much larger audience than those who were paying for straight-up wrestling: they had to wrestle for every single person who might be flipping through the channels and come across their match.

I believe that when wrestling began to be heavily televised outside of its local markets in the 1960s and 1970s, it began the slippery slope that morphed the business into what it is today. Vince’s national expansion in the 1980s was nothing more than a capitalization on a trend that had already begun: an attempt to make professional wrestling more secular and more appealing to a broader audience, for the purpose of television broadcast. The territory system was not built to compete with television. I believe the writing was on the wall well before Vince Sr.’s death, and this match, awesome as it is, was the sunrise of one era and honestly, the sunset of another.

Memphis Wrestling was one of the hottest territories of its time, and survived well into the national expansion of Vince McMahon’s WWF. One of the reasons I believe it did so was because of its refusal to rely on the flamboyant gimmicks and showmanship that the Northeastern territory did, and instead stayed true to the gritty action in the ring. In their own way, Memphis Wrestling (at the time booked by Jerry Jarrett, father of Jeff Jarrett) was able to stay fresh without changing their product and at the same time, revolutionized professional wrestling as we know it. One way was to take the action somewhere that nobody had ever taken it: to the fans.

Jim Cornette wrote about this match a few years back. I included a link to his commentary to give you more insight on the match, and how it came to be. A combination of a shitty talent pool and really bad ticket sales led Jarrett to go for broke, making a very bold and brash decision to put the Southern Tag Team Titles on two midcard wrestlers who had just been paired together a few weeks before: Wayne Farris and Larry Latham. You may know them better as the Honky Tonk Man and Moondog Spot. Anyways, in Tupelo, Mississippi, a wild brawl of a match ensued where the two youngsters upset the champions, Lawler and Dundee, to win the titles.

That, my friends, is when all hell broke loose.

Lawler and Dundee, the faces in all of this mind you, began to viciously pummel the Bombers (who were the heels, remember) after the match as the television broadcast began to fade to black, going off the air.

billymays

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

You hear somebody yell, “get that camera down here, we have a hell of a fight!” When the video returns, we see the four men, bloody, brawling with one another through the concession stands of the arena. Food is thrown everywhere, bodies are mangled, and a ten-gallon jug of mustard meets its fate against the wall, missing the head of Latham by centimeters.

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“Mustard everywhere!”

Everyone who tried to get in the way got served. The tape was re-aired the next day, and the fire was started. According to Jim, this match was the reason he bought a VCR. The tape was passed around more than a doobie in Barack Obama’s dorm room, and a dwindling Memphis territory had new life. Also, I know that when you watch that brawl, three letters come to mind. I’ll give you two consonants and a vowel. If you need a hint, I should smack you.  This match reeks of ECW, at a time when Paul Heyman hadn’t even bought his first cell phone yet. Because they weren’t invented yet. And neither was “hardcore,” until this fateful night.

So why don’t we remember this classic match? Because Jerry Jarrett went to the well once too often, using this same brawl through the arena two more times in the next two years. (Think about that. Three arena brawls in three years and it overexposed the territory. ECW would run three arena brawls a NIGHT.) The fans were numb to it, because they had seen it all before.  This was where the hardcore, deathmatch style was born. On a tour from Japan, Atusushi Onita participated in one of the brawls. When he returned to his home country, he soon founded FMW, the first hardcore deathmatch wrestling promotion. This led to the American counterpart, ECW. Today many promotions either feature or are centered around hardcore wrestling and well, why the hell would you have a reason to care about this match I’ve shared with you? So what, Jerry Lawler tried to throw a jug of mustard at somebody. Now, you can look up a million matches with barbed wire, staple guns, fire, thumbtacks, or any other weapon you can think of.

I love my old school mat wrestling. I love to see two guys who can work in the ring. But sometimes, yes, I love to see two guys get so pissed off at each other that bare hands just don’t get the job done. I love a good brawl. Done right, and done sparingly, a good street fight can work wonders all around. This match made Farris and Latham stars overnight, and it shot a boost of adrenaline into a crashing territory. This is the first hardcore match I can think of, and it’s a very good flashback to yesteryear. But between the brawl itself and its broadcast on television, and its subsequent taping to be traded, this match also opened the floodgates, for better or for worse. Nothing can be done to go back and fix it, we can only move forward. Except for this series. We’re allowed to look back.

Next week, I’ll think of something else to shock you. There’s so many great matches throughout history, and so many of them right under our noses. Until then, I’m Madman Szalinski, and in the words of Jumpin’ Jeff Farmer…….”Yup.”

See the match for yourself here!

Also see Jim Cornette’s piece on this match here!

Photo Credits:

Photo 1: fineworkshops.com

Photo 2: wikipedia.org

Photo 3: youtube.com

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Dec 08 2012
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Wrestling Lists

Counting Down 7 Heels Who Could Have Gotten Yokozuna’s Monster Push in 1993

by Daniel Johnson

yokozuna

It is no secret that the WWF was ailing in the mid 1990s. While the obvious backlash over a certain scandal (I think it involved anabolic asteroids or something) was a major culprit, some of the company’s booking decisions certainly didn’t help. An early example of booking gone wrong in this period was how much Yokozuna was pushed. The guy ended Hulkamania and won the WWF Championship within months of his debut. That’s insane! I remember back in 2009 there was a commotion about Sheamus getting too much, too soon when he beat John Cena for the WWE Championship. Well, if you converted Yoko’s 1993 push to Sheamus’ 2009 surge then not only would he have beat Cena, but he would have retired him then held the title for the better part of a year while destroying Randy Orton, Batista and anyone else who got in his way.

So what if instead of crushing Hulk Hogan and winning the WWF Championship, Yokozuna just feuded with Hogan freeing up the title picture? Well, we still would have gotten at least one racist Hulk Hogan promo (note: I can’t find evidence of this right now so the link leads to something else involving Hogan and Japan), but it could have given a decent push to one of the following.

7. Carlos Colon

carloscolon

If you’re unfamiliar with him then you should know that Carlito’s dad, Carlos was actually a wicked fun worker. He fought in a ton of early hardcore matches and would bleed buckets! As you may recall Carlos was one of those super randoms thrown into the 1993 Royal Rumble. The way I’d do it is that I’d book him to make a surprise appearance at Survivor Series 1992. At that event Bret Hart successfully defended his title against Shawn Michaels before celebrating with Santa Claus. What I’d do differently is have Colon dress up as Santa. Bobby Heenan could even make some wisecracks about how he doesn’t look like the traditional version of Santa when all of a sudden Colon snaps and attacks Bret. Colon could then either be paired with someone as his mouthpiece (Jim Cornette) or go at it as a lone wild man. After having Colon win the Rumble they could then book Bret/Razor to go on last and Colon could attack Bret making him look like even more of a threat. Maybe even give him an alliance with Razor since they have the whole Latin connection going on. WWF could then build up to the event by showing footage of Colon from Puerto Rico. The beauty of all this is that this is the year of Wrestlemania IX. Therefore they could book it to be a cage match and play up how gladiators used to duel it out to the death back in Roman times. At the event Bret could retain after a hard fought match where both guys’ juice. This would have to be a far less family friendly feud than Yoko/Bret, but WWF wanted to go in that direction anyway. Unfortunately, the criticism they got following the asteroid trial made them go the opposite route.

6. Genichiro Tenryu

genichirotenryu

Speaking of super randoms who appeared in 1993 Royal Rumble, Genichiro Tenryu has to be at or near the top of the list. If you have never heard of this guy then…shame on you! Fans of Japanese wrestling will recall that he is a wrestling legend in that country and arguably the best all around wrestler in Japan of all time. However, the average American fan in 1993 wasn’t terribly aware of who Tenryu was, what he had done and to quote Scott Steiner what he was, “capble of.” As such the best approach for Tenryu would have been to bring him in months prior to the Rumble so fans could get used to him. Originally he was promoted as a face anyway as he and Koji Kitao squashed the heel Demolition at Wrestlemania VII before Tenryu was brought back in two consecutive Rumbles, the second of which he was inexplicably made a heel henchman for Yokozuna. In this alternate booking, Tenryu instead could be brought back with The Great Kabuki by being approached by Yokozuna and Mr. Fuji in a vignette where the two are looking for thugs to help Yoko establish his dominance. Kabuki could take the payoff while Tenryu establishes himself as an honorable wrestler by rejecting it. Tenryu and Kabuki then enter into a feud culminating in a match at the 1993 Royal Rumble. Tenyru not only beats Kabuki, but wins the Royal Rumble after eliminating Savage. Tenryu then grabs an American flag…and spits on it…or at least throws it down. Yokozuna then comes out and banzai drops Savage. Mr. Fuji and Yoko have discarded Kabuki as a loser and managed to ally with Tenryu. Together they will end Hulkamania and capture the WWF Championship, respectively. Admittedly, this booking is pretty flimsy, but doesn’t that Bret/Tenryu match at Wrestlemania just make your mouth water?

5. Ted DiBiase

teddibiaseTed DiBiase’s career was winding down in 1993. So instead of having him wrestle Razor Ramon in a forgettable match to cap off his career why not give him the Ric Flair treatment by having it end at Wrestlemania (sort of)? The Royal Rumble could play out with Yokozuna looking like a monster and eliminating people left and right. Finally, it comes down to just DiBiase and Yokozuna. The two stare each other down for a moment then Yoko turns around and…jumps right out of the ring (or however he can do to get over the top rope). Yes, it turns out that DiBiase has bought his title shot at Wrestlemania. Still, there is a problem with this idea. DiBiase is a co-holder of the WWF World Tag Team Championship with Irwin R. Schyster at this point. This can be fixed easily enough. DiBiase’s ego is so big that he announces he will be the first ever to successfully win tag team and world title matches at Wrestlemania. Just before the tag title match he could announce that he has paid a replacement to stand in for him…which of course would be Yoko again. This could start the Yoko/Hogan feud since Hogan and Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake challenged for the WWF World Tag Team Championship at that event anyway. Yoko could then be made the permanent tag champ or Money inc. could just be stripped of the belts after the match due to an illegal substitution. Meanwhile, Bret/DiBiase are left to tear it up in the main event and allow DiBiase to retire from in-ring competition.

4. Jerry Lawler

jerrylawlerThus far you probably noticed that I ultimately have Bret retaining at Wrestlemania. Well, that completely changes with Jerry Lawler entering the list. As the booking that actually happened shows as cringe worthy as their feud got at times Bret and Lawler could work well together and the feud to put it simply had legs. In this scenario Lawler could have actually lost the Royal Rumble with  Randy Savage eliminating him last to win. The audience could get hyped up for Savage/Hart at Wrestlemania only for Lawler to goad Savage into putting his shot on the line. Savage and Lawler actually have a history together dating back to their Memphis days and Lawler could taunt Savage with old embarrassing footage. What kind of footage? Well, Lawler could probably go beyond the Memphis library with clips like this. Lawler not only cheating Savage out of his shot, but cheating to be the first heel to come out of Wrestlemania with the WWF Championship would make him one of the most hated heels in the history of the company. From there Hart could win the 1993 King of the Ring and go onto feud with Lawler as he did in reality.

3. Mr. Perfect

curthennigI hate to sound like I’m using too much hyperbole in one list, but Hart/Hennig had arguably the best chemistry of any two wrestlers…well, ever really. The match resulting from these two locking up at Wrestlemania would be a classic even if the storyline revolved around one eating the other’s lunch. Still, let me try some more armchair booking. Perfect was just establishing himself as a fan favorite in early 1993, but come on lets face it. This guy was born to be a heel. So how about this, Perfect wins the Royal Rumble, but gets goaded into putting it on the line in a match with Ric Flair on WWF Monday Night Raw. If Flair wins then he gets Perfect’s title shot, but if he loses he is gone for good. Perfect beats Flair in a legendary match just like the one that actually happened. Winning the Rumble and running Ric Flair out of town gives Curt Hennig a tremendously swelled head. He then goes back to the old arrogant and obnoxious Mr. Perfect we all know and love to hate. He could beat Bret at Wrestlemania or not. It doesn’t really matter. Whatever would have happened we would still be talking about it today.

2. Shawn Michaels

shawnmichaelsOne of the most disappointing facts about wrestling in the 1990s is that as good as Hart/Michaels were in the ring together, they grew to hate each other. So what if instead of waiting until these two were pulling each others’ hair out to put them in a match they had a series of matches when they had a much better working relationship? As you may recall these two tore the house down in the main event of the 1992 Survivor Series. In this alternate scenario that match could still happen when Michaels shocks the world by winning the 1993 Royal Rumble. He could even drop his WWF Intercontinental Championship earlier in the night to Marty Jannetty, which would put a little fuel behind Jannetty at a point when his personal demons hadn’t quite completely destroyed his career. Since, Michaels wasn’t ready for the belt in 1993 he would have to job to Bret at Wrestlemania, but that would be okay because Michaels wouldn’t have the leverage at the time to act like a total dick. Perhaps this could even be a trilogy with the two wrestling a third time at that year’s King of the Ring. If Shawn lost thrice then maybe we would all be a little more sympathetic to his role in the Montreal Screwjob.

1. Razor Ramon

razorramonAs bad as the WWF got in the mid 1990s the company always had a few bright stars, who could keep you watching. Just about all these stars either got a run or runs with the WWF Championship or were consistently booked in the main event. One exception to this was Razor Ramon. His biggest chance came at the 1993 Royal Rumble when he lost in a title match to Bret. In this scenario he could still have that same match only it would end in a disqualification. Razor could hit Bret with the title belt and/or a chair and then just really lay into him until a bunch of referees and staff have to break it up. Ramon could then take out a late entrant into the Rumble and claim that wrestler’s spot as his own. Ramon goes onto win and a rematch is set for Hart/Razor at Wrestlemania. One problem. Ramon wasn’t technically in the Rumble since he took someone out. This could then lead Razor to play an anti-authority character similar to what “Stone Cold” Steve Austin would become four years later. After Ramon has to go through some challenges to keep his title shot for instance wrestling the wrestler he took out and the winner-up in one-on-one matches he would then face Bret. For thoroughness lets say Mr. Perfect and Randy Savage, respectively are used to fill those spots. Would he win at Wrestlemania? Well, let me just say at the end of the night he would have gold around his fingers, gold around his neck and gold around his waist, chico!

Photo Credits:

Photos 1, 4-5, 7-8: onlineworldofwrestling.com

Photos 2-3, 6: en.wikipedia.org

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Dec 02 2012
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Wrestling Lists

6 Great Matches You’ve Never Seen: Part II

by Jeremy Cundiff

2. Taka Michinoku vs. The Great Sasuke from WWF In Your House 16: Canadian Stampede (1997)

Thank you for your bandwidth. Last week, you asked me for a great match you had never seen and I gave you Sid vs. Vader. For those of you who didn’t run screaming, this week I’ll be rewarding you for your loyalty. And if you’re just tuning in, this is the second of six installments where I dig up classic matches that nobody remembers seeing. Today, we go from 1996 in the WWF to 1997, and it’s going to look like a whole new world. For those of you who don’t remember…the first image is the WWF in 1996.

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WWF entryway and ring from 1996

Then came 1997…

wwfentryway1997

WWF entryway and ring from 1997

This was only a nine month period, by the way. Within another nine month period, we would have practically a new company, as everything from the Raw theme to the WWF logo itself would change drastically. I got to say that to a young kid like me who spent his entire childhood watching the old red, white and blue roped product, only to hit junior high and see the WWF grow up with you, turning from a family-friendly cartoon into a cutting-edge rock music video…I really don’t care how badly I am butchering English grammar. The WWF was fucking unrecognizible from one side of the transition to the other, and I got to have a front row seat for the greatest time to be a wrestling fan. It really was another Golden Era.

But not everything was a resounding success back then. For every Steve Austin, The Rock, Mankind and D-Generation X…you have Brawl For Alls, Billy Gunn King Of The Rings and you have WWF Light Heavyweight Championships. Not all of it worked. One day I’ll rip the Brawl For All out of its own rectum in a separate article, and I know someone else will already have the ‘biggest disappointments of all time’ covered somewhere down the road. But out of all of those things I just mentioned, the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship should have not only worked…it should have flourished. It was the hardest of the three to fuck up.

In the summer of 1997, the WWF and WCW were on a hot streak that was so hot, we’re still finding pieces of molten metal to this day from the trail that the business left during that period. Every time we see Ryback squash somebody, a piece of history flies off into the crowd. One of WCW’s biggest draws was one of its smallest…its cruiserweight division. Rey Mysterio Jr. and Eddie Guerrero are the two who acheived the most success outside of WCW, but it’s not like they had a bunch of scrubs to work with: Chris Jericho, Ultimo Dragon, Psychosis, Juventud Guerrera, Alex Wright, any Mexican luchador you can think of who wasn’t signed long-term to AAA or CMLL, and many more. And while two 240-pound men can put on a mat wrestling clinic, and pack it with tons of drama and action…let’s face it. There are things a smaller wrestler can do that the big boys just got to give up and go home on. And these men would follow up such high-flying offense with a power move to equal. Chris Jericho would powerbomb your ass, pick you up off the ground, powerbomb you again, then bounce off the ropes and hit you with a springboard moonsault. You know…I think Kurt Angle is one of the best of all-time, but I don’t see him pulling off a springboard anything. (Well, given his track record wth the 450, I predict that if Kurt Angle tries to springboard anything, he will just headbutt his opponent so hard they shit themselves.)

Naturally, when your competitor is doing something different and making money at it…you have to do the obvious and copy the bastard, or come as close as you can to copying him without breaking the law. So Vince McMahon did the smart thing, and introduced the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship. Vince then did the dumb thing and booked the worst fucking tournament ever to crown the inaugural champ. This tournament was the worst of all time. At least until Survivor Series 1998. Want proof? Let me give you the first round brackets. Aguila, known better as Essa Rios, defeats Super Crazy in a botchtastic clusterfuck of a match I remember watching live on Monday Night Raw while Jim Cornette, on commentary, blasted the fuck out of it because both guys were sloppy as piss. While some people like to call him an old fogey set in his ways, you couldn’t argue with him watching this match. It was pretty bad. The rest of this thing? Eric Shelley over Scott Taylor, Brian Christopher and Flash Flanagan. Jerry Lynn was advertised to be in one of the opening matches, but something tells me the weed wore off right before the pen in his hand touched the paper because he never did show up for that first round match. Way to add prestige to your brand new title by having one of the best talents in the division ditch your tournament before the first round.

Oh, and Devon Storm lost to the eventual winner, Taka Michinoku. Taka Michinoku…now there is a man with some talents and abilities. A man that, honestly, you could watch walk into a new company in a foreign country, win a belt, and not question it because let’s face it, the guy can wrestle. But nobody in the WWF knew that. Only one of those guys had ever stepped foot in a WWF ring before this tournament in Scott Taylor, and he was perennial enhancement talent up to this point.

Well, I take that back. Two of them. Because in July, Taka Michinoku made his WWF Debut against…THE GREAT FUCKING SASUKE. That’s right. Pick the brick up that just fell from under your chair. Taka Michinoku wrestled Great Sasuke on a WWF pay-per-view. In 1997. But wrestled isn’t the word for it, more like kit-foo’d.

takamichinoku

Kit-foo means “kicked the fuck out of.”

And that was this match. Kicks, kicks, flying kicks, flying moves, grappling, holy shit slap, kick, slap…and then they stopped playing around, and began to really tear into one another. At one point I wondered if maybe one of them owed the other money, or if Taka ate the last piece of sushi at lunch, possibly Sasuke screwed his sister and this was a precursor to the Val Venis pee pee angle…I don’t know, I just want to know why these two got in the ring, worked for two minutes, then mutually agreed that they would begin to stiff and shoot until either they died or the FBI sent riot troops to protect the crowd from the shockwaves when these guys hit each other. I thought I saw the ring ropes themselves cower in fear at some of the kicks Sasuke was landing.

Look this match up. I won’t post .gifs or stillshots of this match (other than the one above) because they won’t do it justice. No matter how high the quality or the framerate, I cannot articulate this match to you with neither words nor pictures. Stiff, stiff, stiff. No restholds necessary for these two, despite going fifteen minutes. Plenty of dives to the floor. Taka does a springboard plancha to the outside and gets so much airtime on his jump, I thought he was going to check a faulty lightbulb while he was up there. He had to have died a minimum of three times in this match, and still kicked out on rigor mortis alone. After it’s all over, Taka eventually does the job to Sasuke…who poses briefly, and then it’s back to the locker room and back to reality for the WWF fans.

Daniel pointed out to me that yes, these two did have a second match on Raw the next night after this match. Strangely enough, Taka lost yet again making me wonder who was supposed to win that belt in the first place. If it was Taka, making him lose his first two matches really hurt the credibility of the title in my opinion, particularly in such good matches. Taka needed to have a match of this caliber where he WON. They just needed to pay Sasuke whatever they needed to pay him to  job this match. If they had, perhaps the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship would have been so much more prestigious that instead of the afterthought that the title had become (in less than two years, Gillberg would be your damn LHC) it might have gotten the dignity it deserved. This match should have been the showpiece for the WWF’s Light Heavyweight Division. If you had told the 12 year old me watching this match that there was an entire division with titles just for guys this small who did this stuff, I’d swear to never watch a heavyweight match again until the next week on Raw.

So…why don’t people remember this match? Because it was Calgary Stampede, a throwaway show with only one match: the ten-man tag featuring The Hart Foundation versus the makeshuft tandem of The Legion of Doom, Goldust, Ken Shamrock, and Steve Austin. The only reason this shit even sold tickets and pay-per-view buys was the fact that it took place in Calgary and the place went apeshit for the Harts. They also went apeshit for this match as well. I think this match was a treat for the smart fans of Canada, and possibly the smart fans in America as well. If this pay-per-view had taken place in, say, Pittsburgh or Kansas City…I highly doubt we would have gotten such a good match. This pay-per-view was meant to put the Harts over and make everybody a ton of money for going black and pink for a day. A lot of stuff got overlooked, including the WWF Championship itself.

A smart man would have paid The Great Sasuke whatever he asked for to do the job to Taka. I don’t know if the plan was for Taka to become the first LHC all along, but if it was, they did a shitty job of making us think he was a credible champion right out of the gate with this match. He made us believe he was a tremendous wrestler and he would never give up, that he had a fighting spirit and was somebody we all should rally behind. But those are qualities of a championship CONTENDER. Those aren’t qualities of somebody you want to put the belt on initially. If this was the route they wanted to go, they needed to put the belt on the only other person they seemed to give a shit about pushing in the Light Heavyweight division…Brian Christopher. Problem was, he was a half-ass worker from Memphis who, quite honestly, couldn’t hang with the Japanese or Mexican workers or even the American high flyers. If you don’t remember, he was Jerry Lawler’s son, and they all but told you this on TV because fuck it, had to get him over somehow.

So this thing was kind of doomed from the start, as they had to make everyone look like a credible contender all at once, and there’s only one belt you can give to a guy. Nobody knew who these guys were, and all they knew is they were good, but when we saw them the first time they got beat. Some more effort into pushing who you had, or at least going out and paying the money for a little bit more, could have went a long way. Oh well, at least we got to see a kick ass cruiserweight puro match in the WWF. And that’s awesome with me.

Next week…I’m not sure what you’re going to get, but whatever it is, rest assured it’ll be awesome. It’s a surprise. Hey, maybe you could leave comments and suggestions to me as well. I like to incorporate other people’s opinions into my work, it’s how you become a better critic. I’m also curious to see what people think of my work so far. So please drop me a line. We have a comment button for a reason. I’m Madman Szalinski, and in the words of Jim Cornette…”if you wanna know what a guy looks like with bald hair, tell me first so I can book him in a hair match and sell some tickets, k? Thank you, fuck you, bye.”

See the match for yourself by forking over $94.99 to Amazon for a VHS tape because YouTube hates us.

Photo Credits:

Photos 1-3: youtube.com

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Nov 25 2012
2 Comments
Wrestling Lists

6 Great Matches You’ve Never Seen: Part I

by Jeremy Cundiff

1. Sycho Sid vs. Vader from WWF In Your House 10: Mind Games (1996)

Thank you for your bandwidth. I’m Madman Szalinski, and I’m not here to bore you with the details about me. I’m a wrestling fan too, and particularly an old school one at that. Not that I can’t enjoy a good X division match like the rest of us, but I loved the old days. To start off, today I am introducing a six-part piece on forgotten gems in wrestling history…matches that should have stood the test of time, or at least gotten their own YouTube meme or a mention on Botchamania. Some were on shows nobody ordered, some are on tapes nobody can find and some we just…forgot. But that’s what I’m here for. For the next six weeks, I’m going to take you back to the past…like that one nerd.

Let’s jump right in with a match that’s not exactly 5 star material…but given its participants and the circumstances the end result was, dare I say, well above and beyond expectations.A little bit of backstory for you going into this one. We’re a month removed from SummerSlam, where Vader and his push were soundly defeated by the tandem of Shawn Michaels and douchebaggery. If I, as a 12 year old diehard HBK fan at the time, knew how Shawn had acted backstage legit…I could have turned out a WCW fan instead. But anyways, Vader had just lost a WWF Championship match he was supposed to have won. So, obviously, there was no master plan for him at this time. I wonder how thrilled he was now about leaving WCW and Japan. Meanwhile, Sid was fresh off a midcard victory over The British Bulldog, and he too was in a position where there was no master plan for him. As you may or may not remember, Sid came into the WWF in July 1996 to replace the Ultimate Douche-WARRIOR in a big six man main event, because Warrior no-showed a ton of events that may or may not have had to do with his dying father. So, what do you do with two big power guys that have nothing to do? You stick them into a match together and pray one of them isn’t Ted Arcidi.

On paper, most modern fans would look at this match and go “psh, I don’t see Kevin Steen’s name anywhere on the card.” But for those of us who remember, let’s delve into it. Sid was never a guy you looked to for classic mat wrestling. He’s not considered a good worker, if a worker at all. However, there are two things that Sid brought to the table. One was high impact power offense, and the other was impressive athleticism. While Sid just about never puts any effort into doing anything in the ring, on the rare occasion he does you can see the natural ability. In this match, you get to see both his power and his athleticism. Not only is Sid throwing his (and Vader’s) weight around with a bodyslam or two that actually look pretty decent (considering Sid was about 315 lbs. and Vader 450 lbs.), but you get to see the master of the squirrels whip out many of his common moves such as the crossbody from the top rope…

…wait. Pause the tape.

Sycho Sid hit a top rope crossbody on Vader. What? Next you’re gonna tell me Sid is going to hit him with a sunset flip…

…gee tee eff oh.

Honestly, these screenshots don’t do these moves justice. When Sid hit the crossbody, Vader didn’t just go, “GUFFAW!” and fall down like Jackie Gayda after a can of Four Loko. He caught Sid with one arm and held him for a few good seconds prior to slamming him to the mat. The sunset flip was very impressive as well. And when Sid wasn’t pretending to be Shawn Michaels (who was sitting right there at ringside doing commentary by the way) he was doing just that: slamming Vader like Onyx. Of course, Vader was returning the shots too. While these guys might not be Misawa and Kobashi mixing it up with their punches, this match has a little bit of a quicker pace than most Sid matches. And given that Sid is the runt of the two, I believe that means it’s possible that smaller, faster wrestlers actually slow Sid down, and he works at his quickest pace when facing a larger, slower opponent. (Please don’t prove me wrong by posting a link and saying “SEE? SID AND MABEL FROM 1995!” It’s Mabel and it’s 1995, it shouldn’t even count in the record books).

The point is, Shawn Michaels did his usual entertaining commentary and got to watch Sid pull some pretty acrobatic stuff, while Vader reminded everyone why Shawn didn’t want to take that ass whooping from him. There weren’t many slow points. The match was quick, but not so quick it required both men to stop and take a chinlock breather. The ending was cool, if not expected for a match with a Jim Cornette protege. Sid won after some botched chicanery, and went on to face Shawn in November at Survivor Series 1996, where he took the WWF Championship and the NYC smark crowd was pleased. I believe this match is proof they didn’t know what they were doing, because if the plan was Sid and Shawn all along, they should have used the commentary to push Sid’s agility and possibly that Sid was using Shawn’s style a little bit to piss him off while he sat watching at ringside. Or Vince just didn’t care because everybody was watching WCW at the time anyway. As for Vader, he did a metric shitton of nothing for the remaining two years of his WWF career, at which point there was nothing left to do but hit Japan on cruise control, his American career in shambles thanks to the abrupt derailing of his monster push. So, this is what I consider Vader’s final match in North America worth remembering until In Your House: Final Four next February. Then, that would be the end of his relevancy in this country…and that sucks ass from a straw with ten holes in it.

Either way, it’s a hell of a match that nobody remembers because it’s 1996 and the main event of this pay-per-view was a Shawn/Mankind brawl where Shawn hit Mick with the backdrop suplex off the top through a table on the floor. If you like seeing two big guys beat the crap out of each other while a skinny guy tries his best to make himself relevant throughout the match, then this will be about sixteen minutes of paradise for you. For the rest of us who just like wrestling…this is a good power match with two talented big men, with some pretty good surprises and not a great deal of filler. Oh, and Shawn Michaels on commentary.

Next week, I’m going into the future…one year. 1997, a wonderful year to be a wrestling fan…unless you were Brian Christopher. Why? Because you would be sitting backstage, watching the match I’ll be featuring next week and asking yourself “WHY did I sign up for this light heavyweight shit again? I’m going to be working with one of THESE guys?” Trust me…it’s a classic. I’m Madman Szalinski saying so long, see you next week (if not sooner), and always remember, in the words of Tony Givens…”Work to the left, you poorly trained fucks.”

See the match for yourself by clicking right here and here!

Photo Credits:

Photos 1-2: youtube.com

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Nov 24 2012
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Wrestling Lists

5 WWE Feuds That Accomplished Nothing

by Kyle Childers

Sports entertainment is a product based on feuds. The conflict between performers is what drives the angles at the core of almost every wrestling program produced post 1985. The innovator of the story driven overhaul of the sport of professional wrestling is undoubtedly WWE owner Vince McMahon. If not for McMahon making his product the only game in town in the 1980s while focusing on higher production values and more angle driven direction it’s entirely likely that the wrestling landscape in 2012 would be vastly different from what it is.

Probably not the worst idea I’ve ever heard…

But being the creator of something doesn’t automatically make you the best at it and sometimes even the WWE has a feud or angle that accomplishes far less than intended. This list is five feuds from the last ten years that either did nothing to help the workers involved or didn’t have the intended effects.

5. Brock Lesnar vs. John Cena (2012)

Brock Lesnar’s return in the Spring of 2012 is easily one of the top stories of the year, sending shockwaves through the wrestling industry and that one guy in the front row into convulsions. Not only was it the first time Lesnar had been in the WWE in eight years, his intial assault of John Cena promised a follow up to an angle that occured in 2003 when young up-and-comer John Cena challenged WWE Champion Brock Lesnar for his title at Backlash 2003. However, this time, Cena was a ten time world champion and Lesnar was returning following his time in the UFC, which included Lesnar having a run with the UFC Heavyweight Championship. Where could they possibly go wrong?

Where They Went Wrong

Spoiler: Cena wins. Some may disagree that having Cena win was a mistake, after all he is the undisputed top draw the WWE has to offer.

Best in the world…at selling t-shirts.

Factor his drawing power against the fact that he just lost what he and the commentators put over as the most important match of his career against The Rock at Wrestlemania XXVIII and it’s easy to see how the creative team and Mr. McMahon would want to have Cena look strong in a high profile match. The only problem is that John Cena didn’t really need the win because he’s John freaking Cena. If watching the WWE over the years has taught me one thing it’s that nothing bothers John Cena. Well, except Wade Barrett, Cena tried to murder him.

Then again, nothing bothers Brock Lesnar either, a man one step below The Terminator in determination after he’s decided to destroy something. The weeks leading up to Extreme Rules saw Lesnar F5 Cena and negotiate his contract to include such clauses as changing the name of Monday Night Raw to reflect his starring role. When the pay-per-view rolled around, Lesnar spent most of the match treating Cena like a meat-filled punching bag, bludgeoning and blooding the former Doctor of Thuganomics for the better part of fifteen minutes (and shaking off a potential knee injury along the way) before a chain assisted right hand and attitude adjustment secured the win for Cena. After the match, Cena cut a promo that alluded to taking time off and then he totally didn’t. No, John showed up on Raw the next night, and most Mondays since, before feuding with John Laurinitis while Lesnar kayfabed time off until SummerSlam. A Lesnar victory would’ve perfectly set up Cena to take the time he probably needs while establishing Lesnar as a big deal to the young audience that has no knowledge of his previous run.

4. Kofi Kingston vs. Randy Orton (2009)

Remember 2009? That magical, unforgetable time when Jeff Hardy and CM Punk were getting their first shots at being “top guys” and Raw had guest hosts? Okay, I’ll admit that second wasn’t all that magical but it is hard to forget, mostly because the doctor told me that I had to choose between forgetting guest hosts or total liver failure.

Liver failure’s suddenly not sounding too bad…

The guest host thing wasn’t all bad though right? I mean, it did give us the return of Bret Hart, William Shatner “singing” superstar entrance themes, and R-Truth exploding. Unfortunately, of those three bright spots, only The Hitman coming back had long term implications. Another angle that failed to live up to it’s potential in a big way (even bigger than R-Truth not staying blown up somehow), started when Raw was hosted by Kyle Busch and Joey Logano who gave Randy Orton a custom stock car for some reason. Later in the evening, Kofi Kingston took it upon himself to give Orton’s new ride a fresh yellow paint job along with fancy key scratches down the side and a swanky dent from a production trunk. Kofi capped (or is it “kapped?”) it all off with a crowbar beating to the car all while screaming, “I got you Randy” approximately 43,000 times. Despite my aloof description, the segment was actually pretty good and for the first time Kofi Kingston was showing real main event potential.

Where They Went Wrong

Kofi Kingston is Intercontinental Champion in 2012. Some may say that’s a good thing but three years ago at the Survivor Series, Kofi pinned Orton cleanly to be the sole survivor on a team he captained while this year he was the fourth person eliminated from a Survivor Series match while Orton went on to again be the last eliminated.

Not only did Kofi pin Orton at Survivor Series, he also defeated him on a Raw following the event. Not bad for a guy that had been pretending to be Jamaician and representing the midcard most of his WWE career. It all came toppling down for Kofi a few blown spots and Orton victories later as he was vanquished back to the midcard in 2010 while Randy went on to win the WWE Championship for the sixth time in August. Let us take a few minutes to remember those few minutes that Kofi Kingston was a badass.

October 26, 2009—Never Forget.

3. Edge vs Dolph Ziggler (2011)

Dolph Ziggler is, perhaps, the most naturally gifted performer in WWE today. I’m not saying it’s fact, it’s really just my opinion, but watching Ziggler in the ring it’s hard to deny that with the proper push Dolph would easily fit into the WWE main event scene. Unfortunately, January 2011 was not the time for Mr. Ziggler. It’s hard to imagine that a feud between a WWE Hall of Famer/one of the best workers to come out of the WWE in the last fifteen years and a hungry, young, and naturally determined to make the most of his first main event push star would fail, but if I’ve learned two things from watching WWE over the years it’s nothing bothers John Cena and never underestimate the ability of the creative team to disappoint.

Where They Went Wrong

This feud was once again a case of the problem being the face winning. Okay, it’s not so much that the face won as much as it is how the face won, how many times he won and how little effort he put into winning.

Edge actually pinned Dolph twice between the flash and the shutter.

The feud followed the tried and true wrestling formula of a heel authority figure (Vickie Guerrero in this case) favoring a heel who is pursuing a title. When Ziggler dropped the Intercontinental Championship to Kofi Kingston, ending a five month reign, before winning the number one contendership for the World Heavyweight Championship over Cody Rhodes, Drew McIntyre and The Big Show, it seemed that the 2011 Royal Rumble would be the scene of Dolph’s first World Championship victory. As it turned out, that wouldn’t be the case. Nor would it be the case a few weeks later when Ziggler got a rematch on SmackDown. Ziggler would actually only get to lay hands on the title belt after a violation of a ban on the spear allowed Vickie to hand him the title.

I was going to link to a picture of Ziggler with the belt but this lasted longer.

11 minutes and 43 seconds later, Edge was World Heavyweight Champion again and Ziggler went tumbling back down to the midcard, a position he is only just now starting to claw his way out of. This whole thing is even more tragic when you realize that Dolph once again failed to win the big one with assistance a year later when he faced CM Punk at the Royal Rumble.

2. Booker T. vs. HHH (2003)

What can I say about this feud that hasn’t been said? I could spend this whole entry talking about the racist overtones of the angle or how Booker T. had all of the momentum in the world leading up to their Wrestlemania match and he still somehow lost to the bigoted heel but that’s not where WWE’s blowing of this feud stopped. Somehow a feud between the top heel for the better part of three years and a five time former heavyweight champion seems like a sure thing but…

Where They Went Wrong

At no point in the feud was Booker really treated like a main eventer. Sure, to earn the title shot he went over some of the bigger names in the WWE at the time but once the actual program with HHH started, Booker only had a few moments of strength before Hunter ultimately won. Wrestlemania XIX could’ve been a chance to have a face beat the dominant heel and complete his underdog tale of triumph and redemption. Instead, HHH retained his title and moved on to feud with his old pals Shawn Michaels and Kevin Nash while Booker fell down the card and into Intercontinental and Tag reigns.

Then there’s this.

It took Booker T. a complete gimmick overhaul and nearly three and a half years to regain the footing he had in early 2003 while HHH had added another title reign to his list before the end of 2003.

1. Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero (2005)

Let me start this entry by saying that this feud only earned a spot not because of what it didn’t do but because of what it undid. Eddie and Rey had a long and storied history spanning multiple companies and two decades that produced some of the finest matches ever seen anywhere. Whether it was WCW Halloween Havoc 1997 or Wrestlemania 21, Guerrero and Mysterio always had amazing chemestry. It makes sense too, they were best friends in real life and had worked together repeatedly. When their feud turned from friendly competition to bitter and heated because Eddie couldn’t seem to score a victory, it provided a new slant to a proven formula.

Where They Went Wrong

They had a ladder match for the custody of a child. Let me just get that out of the way right now because that’s what happened and that’s where this is all building. The angle was going just fine until the build to Great American Bash 2005 when Eddie got all creepy and cryptic by promising to reveal a Mysterio family secret while offering to read Rey’s son Dominic a bedtime story. They went with a ladder match because Chris Hansen refused to referee a To Catch a Predator match.

Predictably, Rey won and even more predictably, Eddie reneged on his promise to keep the secret, which Eddie promised to keep if Rey beat him. Eddie revealed that Rey’s son was actually Eddie’s and Rey and his wife had only adopted him as an infant. Eventually, Eddie brought a social worker to back his claim of parental rights and that gave us the ladder match. This angle could’ve possibly been saved if they had to climb the ladder to actually retrieve Dominic but instead they had to grab a briefcase full of custody papers. Granted, it was a pretty good match and it did have Eddie freaking out over Vickie missing her cue but that’s not enough to save this.

Too little, too late, Vickie.

This wasn’t even the end of the angle. Despite Rey winning the right to keep his child in what really should become legal precedent in all custody suits, they still had one more cage match on SmackDown that Eddie won before feuding with Batista just prior to his untimely death. Really though, when it was all said and done, despite the incredible matches, despite Eddie moving into a title program that he potentially could’ve come out on top of, despite Rey eventually winning the World Heavyweight Championship the next year, no one came out of this feud any better than when it started and that can mostly be blamed on the fact that they fought over the possession of a child.

Photo Credits:

Photos 1-2, 5-7, 9-10: en.wikipedia.org

Photo 3-4, 8, 11: onlineworldofwrestling.com

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