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Oh my God, this was AWESOME. Absolutely fucking smokes Bash at the Beach, because Mero is on here. He actually hangs with Regal on the mat to open, and even busts out an airplane spin--which is a great move for him that he really should have kept. Plus it allows Regal to do a great dizzy stooging sell on the floor, before Badd levels him with a pescado. Badd whiffs on another flying tackle in the ring, and Regal, having been outclassed on the mat, absolutely fucking loses it, just raining forearms and palm strikes and punches down on him in the corner and this turns into a borderline Japan-style "out of control for real" shoot-angle type situation. Some absolutely great hope spots and good selling from Badd and great cut-offs by Regal, and they throw in some cool false finishes playing off past Regal victories, before Badd catches Regal with a backslide to take the TV belt. Fire this sumbitch up on the Network--this is one to put on a supplemental set for sure. Absolutely the match of Mero's career to this point and really just a shade behind the Zbyszko matches.

Talk about it here.

Hm... two things about this match: 1. It's Regal literally on the brink of death 2. It's Regal and Severn in a long, intense mat based contest, which is itself pretty cool. I'm not gonna pretend this was GREAT or something and there is probably something macabre about enjoying a match where one guy is close to self-destruction, but all things considered, this was pretty fun. Severn busts out some cool shit like a pretty sweet cobra twist into a pin, and Regal, while struggling to keep it together, keeps it together, and they have a sort of quasi UWF meets NWA style match. Even inebriated, out of tune Regal with his boot on the wrong foot can still make basic holds look good and hit stiff uppercuts, and the applause from the crowd they got was astonishing. I mean, slot this match 20 years back in the time and there would be nothing out of the ordinary here except Severn's armbars.

After the TV title match, Gene Okerlund delivers a fawning intro for Antonio Inoki, as we get a mini-Slamboree-type presentation for no particular reason other than to set up a farcically contrived angle for the match with Regal at the Clash. No one in the crowd has a clue who this guy is or what this is about, until Regal comes back to save the segment. He actually gets the crowd invested into this, though they were hot coming in. Jesse takes over at the commentary's table and is visibly very, VERY annoyed and irritable. I'm guessing he wasn't happy about being demoted upon Heenan's arrival to start with, and the arrival of Hogan couldn't have sat well with him either. Still, he's acting pretty unprofessionally right off the bat, and it's about time for the Body to go away.