[2000-10-01-WWF-Sunday Night Heat] Dean Malenko vs Taka Michinoku

[soup23]

Heat is on MTV now with Tazz as cohost. They are doing a weird bit where they are commenting on the match from WWF New York watching it on a big screen Prime Time Wrestling style. This is for the lightweight title which is still a thing. 2.5 minute match which is fine with Taka running through all of his stuff including a nice crossbody where Dean was able to base for him. Dean gains the advantage and then hits a pretty rudimentary suplex for the pin. It appears that Taka legit fucked up his shoulder which is a bummer. 3/4*

[GSR]

Malenko is being portrayed as a ladies man as a way to try and give him a bit of a personality.  He’s got a couple of rough looking women on either arm and Michael Cole even refers to him as “the James Bond of the World Wrestling Federation”.  Tazz and Cole are doing commentary from WWF New York as opposed to ringside, while Tazz is still at it with the joke telling and forced OTT laughter.  A Taka dropkick sends the Light Heavyweight champion through the ropes to the floor, and as he’s distracted by Funaki, Taka nails him with a double axe handle off the apron.  Basement dropkick to the face of a seated Malenko.  Flying crossbody for a two.  Malenko reverses the Irish whip and flapjacks Taka to the mat.  It looks like he may have hurt his shoulder on landing the way he’s grabbing at it.  Taka counters the Texas Cloverleaf with a small package and he’s definitely hurt that shoulder as his arm is just dangling there.  Snap suplex that Malenko floats over on and he gets the subdued three.

For the first thirty seconds while they were wrestling I thought we were in for a heck of a short match.  No idea how the Taka injury affected the ending, although the finish coming after a suplex felt flat, almost as if they called an audible because Taka could no longer continue.