KB8

The Sabu/Taz pull-apart was nicely heated, I though. Taz casually stepping out the way of Sabu's dive at the end was cool as well. Douglas does nothing for me and overly literal feels like a pretty apt description. No idea what half of Candido's promo was about, but I found his delivery sort of amusing if nothing else.

This was definitely pretty amusing. KDX are a worthy addition to any stable so Stevie and the Meanie chose wisely.

Sasuke bigging up M-Pro as the #1 promotion in Japan is very fitting in its ECW carnyness. If nothing else ECW feels like the best place in the US for the M-Pro guys to have a showcase match. The original Do Fixer v Blood Generation for US audiences, I guess.

Yeah, underwhelming is about right. I actually watched this years ago and didn't get into it at all, though this time I did like the primera way more once it got going. The Misterioso stuff got long in the tooth, though. I'm all for some decent stalling and horse shit, but this wasn't particularly compelling and went on forever. Rey fighting out of the camel clutch was good stuff, at least. Decent match, but not really at the level you'd expect from two of the twenty best wrestlers in history.

Super energetic six-man tag. It got lots of time and everyone was working a hundred miles an hour, but it didn't feel messy, we got two strong extended heat segments on a babyface, and the speed they were working at gave lots of it a sense of desperation. When Taylor tried to make that hot tag you knew Flair or Arn were going to have to get over there quickly to cut him off, or Ole would really have to trap his leg so he couldn't crawl away. The Flair opponent putting Flair in the figure-four moment also worked as a great hope spot here. Taylor could've and probably should've made the tag, but the opportunity was too good to pass up even if ultimately it cost him. Flair was a pretty awesome cheapshotting bastard, getting his licks in from the apron and dragging Taylor out to slam him on the floor. He and Garvin lit each other up more than once and I loved Garvin headbutting him clean in the face. Flair really made that finish work by holding Whatley's feet down as well. A simple trip from someone standing on the floor shouldn't really be enough to put a guy out, but it's way more difficult to kick out when Arn is pinning down your shoulders while Flair has a hold of your legs.

Picked up again with the Horsemen set. They're really putting over the severity of Dusty's injury on tv, doing some interviews with his doctor, one on tv with Dusty himself, another where David Crockett interviews both Dusty and the doctor from a rehab clinic. I'm thinking they hired an actual doctor to do this, or at least consulted an actual doctor and got him to tell whoever's playing the doctor what to say, because it's way more...sophisticated, I guess, than most stuff like this in wrestling (certainly from the era). They run through a bunch of different rehab options from the clinic, speak in depth to the doctor who talks about potential repercussions, etc. In the segment where Dusty comes into the studio to talk to Schiavone, Arn and Tully come out and Tully kicks Dusty's crutch out form under him while Arn steals the TV title. Each week after that Arn has been coming out with the belt and declaring himself the TV champion, even bringing Tully with him one week for consultation regarding TV title etiquette. Arn's becoming a better promo by the day and was already comfortably great by late 1985, which isn't necessarily surprising but if nothing else it's confirmation. There's a PWI scouting report segment hosted by Bill Apter in which Dusty does a live interview from his home while Flair is in the studio. Flair says Dusty is a has-been and there's no way he'll be fit for Starrcade, so he can stay at home sitting on his couch with his leg up. Dusty's part is fucking great and, after he talks about himself being the biggest box office attraction in the world of professional wrestling, he treats Flair with a sort of dismissive disdain. He's said all he's willing to say to Flair and that he's lost respect for him, calls him a fraud and a fallacy, refers to him repeatedly as "kid," and you can see Flair getting more and more annoyed. Eventually he just kicks the chair away and starts shouting into the TV, but by that point Dusty's feed has gone so he's left yelling at the wall, which makes him look sort of crazy and clearly rattled. Flair v Dusty isn't a match-up I have a ton of interest in revisiting, but the build has been excellent, going from the animosity that was always in the background even through the Flair/Nikita feud, to ramping it way up after the big angle in the cage. Tully/Magnum is also red hot and I'm hyped to rewatch the match at Starrcade for the first time in about twelve years. They have the massive pull-apart on Worldwide when Baby Doll gets in Magnum's face, which obviously leads to Magnum kissing her and Crockett shouting "SHE LIKES IT!" like a giddy wee weirdo. Magnum wants an I Quit match but Tully isn't interested and says Magnum's time as challenger for the US title has come and gone. Of course the match is made anyway and the next week Tully cuts one of his best promos to date, talking about how an I Quit match is unmentionable and that he'd have wrestled him in any other match bar that. He also says Baby Doll cried for three days after Magnum's stunt last week and he'll be going to his lawyer, the governor, even the President if he has to! He even needs to get Baby Doll to hold to the mic by the end because he's so animated, convinced Magnum and probably Dusty paid off Jim Crockett to have the match made into an I Quit *after* he'd already signed the contract. Arn v Wahoo from the 10/26/85 WCW was pretty pedestrian. Had some big chops, but also some listless arm work and the worst chin lock you ever did see. Arn trying to steal Wahoo's southern heavyweight belt at the end was pretty amusing at least, and it also leads to Magnum coming out and and brawls ensuing between him/Wahoo and the Andersons. Some outstanding promos on the 11/2/85 episode of World Championship Wrestling. Flair is still convinced there's no way Dusty will be able to come back when it's being projected, and he knows this for a fact because he's an intelligent match - college educated, WOO - with a father who's one of the most respected physicians in the state of Minnesota. But if Dusty wants to come back early and do himself more damage, Flair will be there laughing, gloating and partying. How can someone with one leg compete with the jet-flyin', limousine-ridin', kiss-stealin', wheelin'-dealin' son of a gun with TWO good legs? Crockett looks visibly disgusted and one of my favourite parts of these Flair promos is how he'll basically tell Crockett to shut the fuck up any time he tries to get chippy and interrupt him. Arn and Ole are similarly sceptical of Dusty's health: "Dusty Rhodes, you may be long on guts but you're short on brains. It's a medical and physical impossibility for ANYBODY to heal that quickly." Ole is such an awesome promo. "You don't have that belt (TV title), you don't have these belts (tag titles) and it's come to our attention that you maybe don't have too many brains either." If Dusty does show up in Atlanta, Georgia in the same arena as the Andersons and Ric Flair, they'll take great pride in re-breaking that leg. Tully still isn't down for this I Quit nonsense and so he's taken his issue to NWA President Bob Geigel. They run a clip with Geigel basically granting Tully's appeal to have the match scrapped, stating that the level of hatred between Tully and Magnum has gone so far that this kind of match would just be too dangerous to go ahead. Tully, of course, is positively beaming. "It's time for you to go back to the farm, big boy. You thought you had some clout in professional wrestling, but this is where the real clout is." BUT. Jim Crockett comes out later and says that he has the signed contract, and in the NWA bylaws it states that he has control over any stipulations if it's in the best interests of the company. And so an I Quit cage match between Tully and Magnum will indeed go ahead (I guess they added the cage match part right there). Ole's rant later is great and Magnum better surround himself with police until Starrcade, because four weeks is a long time.

This didn't do a whole lot for me, surprisingly. Muta's been pretty enjoyable on the set and they worked this at a nice pace, but I couldn't really get into it. Perez had a bunch of neat offence, though. His low blow to start the comeback obviously ruled, but his big back suplex looked great and he was all over Muta early. Muta's legdrop was swank as hell too, just crazy height and it's not totally surprising his knees got absolutely blown to bits later in his career. Commentary was also in Spanish here and I think Savinovich said Muta was the Great Kabuki's son, which of course rules.

Nifty 8-man tag with a red hot crowd. The early babyface shine is super fun and Kroffat was a real blast getting bumped around for everything. Chris Youngblood never hit an of his cool pump kicks, but he and Mark rolled out a really cool double where Mark hit a legdrop across the back of Kroffat's head while Chris had him in a sort of bow and arrow. Sometimes there was too much going on, so during the heat segment you'd have a babyface come in hot expecting to get sent back out, only he'd have to walk reeeeally slowly over to the heel corner waiting for the ref' to spot him and hold him back. I did like how the heels made a point of keeping Youngblood in their own corner the whole time. Hot tag leads to everyone going at it and we get the double RnRs dropkick for the huge pop. I'll never ever complain about getting eight minutes of this.

Prior to getting the Puerto Rico set this is the only match from the territory I can clearly remember seeing. I think it was on an old Schneider Comp, but at that point I hadn't been exposed to the greatness of Invader and never cared for Muta anyway, so I probably wasn't as invested. Since then the bloody Invader brawl has become one of my favourite things in wrestling. This is masked Invader which means we lose a bit of what makes him so great in these kinds of fights, but you know he bled like crazy and I thought it turned out pretty awesome, albeit a step down from the truly high end slobberknockers. Muta was more than fine here; he'll always bring the energy and he was pretty fun working Invader over with his belt, choking him with his t-shirt, bonking him over the head with his boot, etc. There were also some first class payback spots, including the low blows as this is Puerto Rico and no good ball shot goes unpunished. Muta's was especially great as he was falling back when he did it, really made it feel like a desperation move. By the end Invader has the awesome half-crimson mask thing going on and the pop for him smashing Muta with the briefcase was wild. Badass match.

I wouldn't expect this to work as a concept anywhere other than Puerto Rico. Even then I figured it might be rough, because logistically it seems like a bit of a nightmare. You eliminate someone by throwing them out the door, but the problem is there's only one door. In any other battle royal you can be eliminated from anywhere so there's always that lingering danger or sense that someone could get tossed at any moment. In this I guess you could just stay away from the door. If you're over in the other corner there's no danger of you being thrown out. That would maybe kill the inherent drama of a battle royal, though. People are more likely to pay attention to whatever's happening over by the door and forget about the other stuff, so in theory you'd end up with a bunch of guys not doing much because they're not really "involved." Except in Puerto Rico everybody bleeds and brawls and so you can't really help but pay attention to what's happening over in that other corner. Muta and Kendo Nagasaki might be trying to boot Invader III out the door but over to the right there Bobby Jaggers is trying to scalp Chris Youngblood. Even the eliminations worked better than I'd have thought. Nobody got thrown out without a fight and a few times it took more than one guy to eliminate someone. You had folk trying to grab hold of the ropes while two assailants tried to kick him out. I don't even know who all participated, but it was hectic and it was Puerto Rico.

I could've sworn I remembered Cena doing springboard Stunners a few years ago so I'm glad I never made that whole business up in my head.

Yeah, this wasn't close to the highest highs of the style, but it had a nice enough story and plenty of the elements integral to what made Battlarts to great. Ishikawa/Ikeda is the main event pairing and this was a decent enough introduction to what that match-up would entail going forward. I quite liked Funaki resorting to the pro-style offence as a means of taking Ikeda off his stride, and then again when Ishikawa had him occupied, but this was at its best when Ikeda was beating on the little fella with kicks. That Usuda back fist was a cracker as well. Fun way to cap off your debut show.

A total riot. There was no slow build here, none of the Fabs' usual entrance with the bow ties and tuxedos, high-fiving fans as 'Everybody Wants You' blared through the Mid-South Coliseum. They stormed the ring while the lights were still off and for the next ten minutes these guys tried to murder each other. I had this at #15 on the Memphis set, but as a match it barely goes two minutes. As soon as the bell rings it's carnage, then two minutes later Jerry Calhoun gets hit with a chair and a plank of wood and the match is thrown out. I guess everything after that is technically the post-match. Still, like your concession stand brawls and empty arena fights it was included on the set as a match, it was ranked as a match, and so it's only fair I judge it as a match. I don't make the rules. But yeah, it's mayhem from start to finish. Everybody gigs and gets assaulted with bits of furniture, including Calhoun who is walloped about a dozen times by everybody involved. He keeps trying to interject and ends up getting smacked with a chair or stabbed with a table leg. I don't think I've ever seen a match make better use of a table, in fact. Nobody took a bump through it, instead it got hurled in the ring early and from there everybody kept coming back to rip a piece off and use it as a weapon. At one point a Moondog just dropped the full thing on Steve Keirn's back, and you know it sucked because it was clearly one of those bulky fuckers that weighed a ton. Like the mahogany dining table your granny had, just dropped clean on top of someone. Randy Hales was furiously ringing that big bell to try and stop the madness and Steve Keirn grabbed it like "mate will you shut the fuck up with that?" and bonked a Moondog in the head with it. Lane diving off the apron onto a Moondog's back was amazing, perhaps only slightly topped by Keirn trying to gouge an eye out with a splintered 4x4. Memphis did these out of control alley fights better than anybody and this was right out the top drawer.

I thought this was very terrible. Everything done at half-speed, lots of Latin Lover, a Lover/Garza stretch where Garza looked like he couldn't really be bothered, some Tirantes silliness...yeah, AAA wasn't too hot in '97.

Fairly standard Hollywood promo, but standard for him at this point is better than most folks' best. I don't actually remember when Savage turns heel (I know it's before Spring Stampede, obviously), so I'm guessing this was another hint that it might be coming soon...

I can understand why folk would hate this, because it's pretty much rambly Piper at his rambly worst, but fuck it, it's Roddy Piper cutting a promo from inside a prison that hasn't been a prison since the sixties so there was no way I wasn't going to find it at least amusing. Shouting "did you hear that, Hogan?" down his toilet, I guess implying Hogan is a big old turn, was a...neat touch, I guess?

This was obviously too daft, with too many plot holes even for pro-wrestling, to be anything more than dumb fun, but dumb fun it was. Production on it was clearly really well done too.

It's a shame that this doesn't seem to have a payoff, because the pop for Randy Anderson punching Bischoff in the mouth would've been wild. This was an awesome segment from start to finish. Randy getting pyro for his entrance, Patrick acting like a complete goober, Bischoff being a terrible human being afterwards, etc.

What a fucking match. I'm positive I'd seen a clipped version in the past, but this is the full version that became available a while back, possibly as part of the 70-TV.com footage released a few years ago. I'd already watched the build up on those 70-TV discs and it really is wonderful. They went back to this feud countless times over their careers and the way they managed to find new ways of keeping it fresh is pretty amazing. The opening here is more cagey than usual for them, but the stakes are as high as they've been in their eternal feud to this point. So it's understandable. Dundee's hair is on the line, but more than that if he loses he'll have to listen to all of Lawler's grandstanding on TV about how he told everyone he'd beat the little runt. Lawler's title and car are both at stake and what's a king without his crown? And in Memphis, a king without his Cadillac? So is his dopey manager's hair but I expect Jerry cares substantially less about that (I don't even remember the manager's name now and I don't think he was around very long. He was no Jimmy Hart, obviously). So it's real tentative and Lawler spends most of the first five minutes skirting the peripheries of the ring, always arm's length from the ropes. I love how Dundee played it cool, though. He never got riled, never got drawn in, just kept patient and waited for his chance. He eventually gets it by kicking Lawler in the knee - which was apparently damaged in another of their recent matches - and going to work on the leg for the next few minutes. Lawler does this great sell of it where he keeps the bad leg turned away from Dundee, still staying close to the ropes in case he needs to grab them or outright escape the ring. Dundee is dogged in going after the figure-four, gets closer to applying it with each attempt, but Lawler manages to fight him off every time. The one time he just about managed it Lawler turned onto his side and yanked Bill off his feet by the tights, so Dundee improvised and applied a sort of side of side on figure-four using his hands for pressure instead. Lawler takes over with a short bit of revenge leg work, but it doesn't last long before we get to the fists. He brings out the chain, opens Dundee up, chokes him with it, grinds it in his cut, bites him, the full playlist. Then before the ref' can catch him in the act he drops it back out to his manager and goes about the rest of his business with bare knuckles. You know what you're getting with the punches. Both are GOAT-level punchers and several dozen GOAT-level punches are thrown. There was one awesome Dundee flurry where he was peppering Lawler with shots, circling around him as he went before dropping him with an absolute jaw-jacker. But Dundee is losing blood and before long he's on his last legs. This was some truly incredible last legs selling. At one point Lawler had him in the corner just lacing into him and you bought Dundee only being upright because Lawler's presence in front of him kept him from falling on his face. It gets so bad the NWA representative in attendance calls a halt to the match, but of course Dundee is having none of it. Lawler is naturally pissed at the restart, immediately jumps for the mount and unloads with this unreal barrage of shots. Just a total "will you fucking die already?" response, the kind of thing you see in a big dramatic murder scene when a character's pushed beyond the brink and they're left staring at their hands, all their fury spent, wondering how they were capable of doing that to someone. Except Lawler knew from the start he was capable of it and he still had fury to burn. The finish might've been a wee bit anticlimactic, but you soon forget about it with the post-match, which was very Memphis in its execution (thus, awesome). I'm not sure where this sits among the very best of Lawler v Dundee, but it's an absolute corker and probably somewhere around their top 3 singles matches.

Happy for Roman, glad he's back. I don't have much interest in watching Batista wrestle Helmsley at this point, but Dave's instantly the best actor in the company and he'll probably cut some decent promos in the build up. So that could be pretty cool, I guess. He also seems like a jam up fella. I skimmed the rest of the show. I think barely paying attention these days makes it more of a struggle than it would if I was watching week to week like the rest of you (or most of the rest of you), but I thought it was sort of unwatchable at points. I can't sit through most of the segments where someone has a mic. Like, I sure never finished the show and thought "that was maybe one of the best RAW episodes ever." I kind of miss being that immersed in what they're doing.

You knew you were in for something special before this even officially started. The Headhunters are full blown tecnicos here and come out hugging children and high-fiving parents, then Brazo de Plato comes out at a rapid waddle and bum rushes the EVEN PORTLIER Gran Markus Jr. as the Loony Tunes theme song plays. You'd maybe think the match could only go downhill from there, but then you'd be dead fucking wrong because this was an awesome seedy brawl built around a couple fatboys bleeding like pigs. The first caida lasts about a minute and a half before the rudos literally kick Porky into submission. Or the refs DQ them for excessive cruelty, I'm not really sure. Either way Porky gets thrown into the ring post and bleeds, so Markus Jr. punches him in the cut and hungrily laps up his blood like a disgusting wee ghoul. Porky making his comeback was of course phenomenal, as it tends to be. I'll never tire of Super Porky losing his marbles in fit of rage and it looked like he was trying to kick Markus Jr. to death. He was also measuring his punches before landing potato shots right to the cheek bone and digging his thumbs into the cut forehead like he was trying to peel a particularly stubborn tangerine. The Headhunters were a blast in this as well, throwing their ample weight around and splatting guys with beefy clotheslines, one of them crushing Cien Caras with his entire body weight, the other doing an awesome fatboy plancha off the ring apron. Steele is Val Venis in a dodgy Shredder mask made of cut up cereal boxes and he was a pretty fun rudo stooge. He had a couple impressive power spots, like picking up a Headhunter and ramming him into the post, and he had a nice brawling section with that same Headhunter where he tried to cut a mid-match promo only to get his face smashed into a table. The finish is deflating as we finally get to the mano a mano section with Porky and Markus Jr. on level footing, but the ref' sold the almighty hell out of that splash and if the apuestas lives up to the lead in then you can accept the trade off.

Yeah, the idea in theory is fine and could've worked pretty well with the right guy, but Iaukea felt like a total WTF choice. Also WTF was the assortment of folks who came out to celebrate with him. I'm probably reading too much into it, but it sort of made Eddie look a bit lame, going from beating one of the main nWo guys on PPV and winning the US belt to just being another dude celebrating with a guy nobody really cares about. Regal's shtick with the ref' post-match was pretty amusing, at least.

I prefer Sid/Benoit from Souled Out 2000 as Sid's best match, but this was worked in the same vein with Bret plausibly working from above for spells by taking out Sid's leg. Sid sold it pretty well too, and of course the ring post figure-four will make any match worthwhile to me by its very inclusion alone. Austin will not be denied, though, and I'm sure Bret won't absolutely lose his shit about being screwed yet again (though, tbf, he's well within his rights to at this point).

Chyna always did make that 'swing her like an empty pillow case' stuff look wild. Marlena took it like a trooper as well and her short little promo beforehand was effective enough. Lawler getting the ECW dig in there was pretty cool as well. Nice angle.