Review the last wrestling match you watched

[indyfan]

Rick Martel vs Tama - MSG 7/25/87

I recently watched a fantastic match between these two from MSG. This is right before Strike Force was formed. Seek this match out. Martels comebacks and babyface routine is amazing in this. Tama was awesome as well. Match was given a good amount of time too. This might be the most under rated gem i can think of. Highly recommended

****1/4

[Jim]

A match so incredible it defies the concept of calendars~!

Spoiler:

sorry

[indyfan]

A match so incredible it defies the concept of calendars~!

Spoiler:

sorry

Lol you bastard!!!!!!!

I meant 7/25/87

Have you seen this match?

[The LL Father]

Lol you bastard!!!!!!!

I meant 7/25/87

Have you seen this match?

He caught me to it! damn!.

last thing we need is more days in a month especially when you are paid monthly

[Jim]

Lol you bastard!!!!!!!

I meant 7/25/87

Have you seen this match?

I don't believe so, but I have seen their July 1987 match from the Philly Spectrum that I presume is the exact same layout. It's fine, but just a three star match.

[indyfan]

I don't believe so, but I have seen their July 1987 match from the Philly Spectrum that I presume is the exact same layout. It's fine, but just a three star match.

I looked up that match on historyofwwf and it seems to havr a similar finish. I still recommend the MSG match. Its really great!!!

[Jim]

Finishing off my ECW 1996 with some random matches.

Chris Jericho vs Rob Van Dam
From Big Apple Blizzard Blast. In my review for that show, I had actually complained about this match being cut from the home video release. This can easily be found in the Hidden Gems section of the WWE Network. RVD is wearing a singlet that has “Aerial Assault” written on it, which was the name of the tag team he had with Bobby Bradley mostly on the west coast, although they did have a few matches together in AJPW. They’d remain a tag team up until 1997 when RVD stopped working indies to spend more time in ECW. Meanwhile, this is Y2J’s singles ECW debut. The night before, he had actually teamed with RVD in a losing effort against The Eliminators at a house show. On paper, this sounds like a pretty good match, but it was incredibly clunky. The effort was there, but it felt like these two had not only never wrestled a match against each other, but were entirely unfamiliar with the other. Both men would attempt some good spots, but more often than not, the spot would come off as sloppy and borderline dangerous. On the outside, RVD did manage to fire off a Van Daminator, which I had previously thought he only debuted months later at Natural Born Killaz in August 1996. Not that it’d matter as Jericho would win following the Lionsault. Both men tried and while there were certainly glimpses of greatness, this was still a disappointment. Luckily, both men would end up having a good and important 1996 in ECW. ** ¼

Taz w/Fonzie vs Mikey Whipwreck
From Big Ass Extreme Bash Night 1. I originally skipped all of night 1 since it’s mostly just clips, but this match was then shown in full on the March 12th edition of Hardcore TV. For a four minute match, this was fun. The majority of it seemed to be built around Whipwreck hanging in there far better than he should have. Whipwreck even managed to hit some Tazplexes for good measure, even though obviously none of them gave him the victory. Despite putting in such a strong effort, which included Taz having to put in more effort than he did at this point, Whipwreck was still locked in the Tazmission, forced to be yet another victim as he submitted. Again, for four minutes, this was great. ** ¾

Sabu vs Mikey Whipwreck
From the June 17, 1996 episode of Hardcore TV. It was originally taped in Allentown, PA back in May. This is a rematch from their really good match back at Massacre on Queens Boulevard. While this wasn’t as good, it was another match that showed the surprising chemistry between the two men. The vast majority of the match was just Sabu kicking Mikey’s ass. Even though it’s billed as Sabu’s first match since having his neck injured at the hands of RVD at A Matter of Respect, Sabu’s neck isn’t much of an issue. Sure, he’s wearing a neck brace for the entire match and he does sell the neck in a huge way after being hit with a Tornado DDT, but other than that, Sabu wasn’t affected much. A few times in the match, Mikey did manage to get lucky to hit a big move on Sabu, whether it was the aforementioned Tornado DDT or putting Sabu through a table. The main story was simply Mikey absorbing so much punishment, forcing Sabu to keep killing him until Mikey finally couldn’t take any more. The final move ended up being a table suspended across the ring apron and steel railing, allowing Sabu to perform a triple jump to deliver a DDT through the table ala Sabu/Mysterio One Night Stand 2006. Even then, Mikey found the heart to climb back into the ring, but he was easily pinned. Whipwreck is such an amazing underdog that they rarely need to give him wins and he often gets his ass kicked for the majority of matches against stars, yet he remains super over. This is a better example of how to book an effective underdog that succeeds while still never getting beyond being an underdog. It’s a huge difference compared to the WWE’s past hype that Rey Mysterio is the ultimate underdog despite constantly succeeding. Good match, but their more competitive match at Massacre on Queens Blvd offered more. *** ¼

Sabu vs Chris Jericho
From Plymouth Meeting, PA on August 2, 1996. It’s the night before Jericho’s final match with ECW (The Doctor is In). This is a fancam that originally ended up on Extreme Warfare Vol. 2 and later WWE’s ECW Unreleased Vol. 2. This is also apparently a match that has only happened one single time. It’s a pretty entertaining hard hitting match. It’s all standard stuff with Sabu getting in his normal moves while being denied the bigger spots for him to hit at the end. Jericho adapted well, bringing more of a hardcore style to his moveset. Case in point, his running bulldog was performed on a steel chair. Jericho even managed to potentially break his nose by hitting a Lionsault while Sabu had a chair laid across his chest. After a bunch of dives to the outside by Sabu, Sabu finally managed to hit one of his really big moves with the triple jump DDT through the table. Back inside, Sabu finished Jericho off with the triple jump moonsault for the pinfall. The first half was a little dull, but once Jericho upped the aggression with the chair based moves, the action picked up nicely. ***

Raven © vs Tommy Dreamer w/Francine - ECW World Title
From the August 13th episode of ECW Hardcore TV. What makes this match special is that it’s from the ECW/IWA-Japan show with it being held at Korakuen Hall. As a result, it’s the first time that the ECW Title had been defended outside of America. World Title status, baby! I’d say it’s less of a good match and more of just a fun experience because of how unique and different it was. It was a total trip seeing ECW, the company that prides itself on being little hellions, follow the usual pre-match format in Japan that is all about respect. From the very beginning, the Japanese are trying to replicate what they saw on Hardcore TV by chanting all of the big ECW chants. The match was a brawl in and out of the ring, twice going into the crowd where both men got color. Despite the fact that Raven claimed that he would be forced to go at it alone due to leaving Lori and Tyler back at home in America, Stevie Richards blindsided Dreamer in the crowd while Stevie was dressed up as a fan. That alone added some fun value seeing Richards dressed so...normally. From that point on, Richards was interfering non-stop, but nothing he did could keep Dreamer down for his man, Raven. That meant Dreamer had to contend with first taking out Richards if he stood any chance of beating Raven. While he did manage to do that, this unofficial two-on-one handicap match proved to be too much with Raven scoring the win thanks to a chair shot. If you needed one last reason why this match felt special, it’s that despite what an absolute war Dreamer/Raven had from 1995-1997, their feud had gone extremely quiet in 1996 to the point that despite reviewing seventeen (!!!) major ECW shows in 1996, not a single one of them contained a Dreamer/Raven singles match. What’s not to dig about this experience of a match? ***

The Gangstas © vs D-Von Dudley and Mass Transit - ECW Tag Titles
From Revere, MA on November 23, 1996. If I’m reviewing ECW 1996, this was a must see match because it’s maybe the most notorious match in ECW history and a match that messed up their original PPV chances. By now, the backstory should be well known. D-Von’s partner, Axl Rotten, ended up missing the show, so Heyman scrambled to find a replacement. Cue Eric Kulas (Mass Transit) and his father. The pair conned Heyman into giving Kulas a chance, claiming that he was a trained professional wrestler. The problem is that Kulas was neither a trained wrestler nor was he even eighteen years or older. Prior to the match, Kulas agreed to allow New Jack to bust him open. The match itself resembles more of an angle than a proper bout. Mass Transit got some cheap heat prior to the start of the match by giving the middle finger to the crowd. Once The Gangstas came out, it was a total garbage brawl, initially with D-Von and New Jack fighting in the crowd while Mustafa killed Mass Transit in the ring. The trouble started once New Jack entered the ring and destroyed Mass Transit with a toaster to the head and some brutal crutches shots to the back. Then the blading took place. You could hear Transit screaming in pain as New Jack is doing it and immediately there’s a lot of blood on the mat. New Jack still jabbed at the open wound some and Mustafa botched a slam on Transit. Finally, New Jack delivered his 187, crashing entirely on Transit to score the pinfall. After the blading, you could hear Transist’s father yelling “Stop the match” and “He’s only seventeen!” Once the match ended, Damage Control came out to work on Transit. Normally, Damage Control consisted of 2-3 people, but this time it was just the woman. Considering the fact that this was the worst wound in ECW history, just having one member of Damage Control there to work on the injury only further adds to the problem. This poor woman is trying to stop the blood loss, but as soon as she covers Transit’s wound with bandage, it soaks through. She’s forced to rely on yelling at random members of the ECW crew to bring out supplies to her. Oh, and during some of this fix job, she was forced to deal with New Jack cutting a promo on Mass Transit, even putting his foot on Transit’s chest. She was even using some towels to try and help the situation. Eventually, some more medical staff comes out, I presume they had been called to the building to help out. That’s where the video ends. In the aftermath, ECW’s original PPV plans were cancelled, but they were ultimately able to get Barely Legal back on the air for April 1997. There was plenty of news coverage over the incident, a lot of which you can see on Youtube. Predictably, the coverage was unfairly negative towards ECW. In fairness, it wasn’t until the trial that a lot of the details of what really happened finally came out with Kulas not looking as innocent as he did in the initial news coverage particularly when it came to all of the lies that went into getting Kulas into the ring in the first place. I’d say that both New Jack and Kulas are the bad guys in this story with ECW being the true victim. The Gangstas would end up losing the ECW Tag Titles back to The Eliminators in December. Obviously, not a match I’d recommend nor was it any good, but it’s certainly the most infamous ECW match of 1996. Not Rated.

[The EC]

King of the Ring 1994
WWF Championship
Bret Hart (c) vs. Diesel

What can you say about Bret Hart? If he's not the best ever, he's damn close. But even he's not going to drag Diesel to a five star classic. Don't get me wrong though, this is a great match. Bret's technical savvy is on full display here as he methodically chips away at Diesel and targets the knee to cut Diesel down to size, which is exactly what he promised to do before the match. At the end of the day, things go pretty much as you'd expect, considering the circumstances. Each guy brought someone to be in their corner for this match. Diesel had Michaels and Bret brought Jim Neidhart back to WWF to be in his corner. So, of course there's gonna be shenanigans. Diesel seemed to be heading for victory after a Jackknife Powerbomb, but Neidhart jumped in the ring to break up the pin, resulting in a DQ win for Diesel, meaning Bret retained his title. That was nice of him. Or so we're lead to believe, until he allows Diesel and Michaels to beat down on The Hitman after the match. As it turns out, Neidhart is back to support Owen Hart in his ongoing feud with Bret and only saved Bret so that Owen could be the one to take the title from him. Well that's slightly contrived but fair enough.

Anyways... very solid match. Not as good as the match they had at Rumble 1995, but better than the match they had at Survivor Series 1995.

***¼

[Shock]

I'd say Bret dragged Nash to three of his best four matches of his career. I actually think the 1995 Survivor Series is comfortably the best of the trilogy, but all three are excellent in their own way.

I think if I were to use any matches to highlight the absolute greatness and genius of Bret, I'd use the Nash series and the Bulldog Summerslam matches.

When I eventually get to doing my top WWE matches from 1986-1995, there will be a lot of gushing over these three matches.

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[MC 16]

Bret was easily Diesel's best opponent. He knew how to get the best out of him, whether Diesel was the giant heel or the tall FOTC.

[Jim]

I like how everyone just ignores the IYH 6 match.

Despite not being as good as the Rumble or Survivor Series rematches, the KOTR match had a lot going for it despite a lot of things working against it. Feud wise, there wasn't a reason for the match and neither man could lose. Bret figured out some ways to make Diesel look good to the degree that this match is blamed for why McMahon decided to put the belt on Diesel at the end of the year. Part of what makes the Rumble and Survivor Series matches so much better is that Bret seemingly did the impossible - he made Diesel sympathetic. As good as Shawn Michaels can be, at times he's not overrated, he could only get greatness with Diesel when the alignments allowed him to treat this seven foot monster as a monster heel. Somehow, Bret was the opposite and his storytelling excelled when he was able to work over Diesel while showing glimpses of being a heel and showing Diesel's vulnerabilities.

Bret's 94 title reign was not only his best singles title run, but could also be the best title reign in the WWE in the entire 90s.

[Shock]

Jay Leno & DDP vs Eric Bischoff & Hulk Hogan - Road Wild 1998

Quick review of courtesy of Mrs Shock when I put this on for us tonight:

"I'm so glad this company died"

Can't wait to show her David Arquette next.

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[Jim]

Jay Leno & DDP vs Eric Bischoff & Hulk Hogan - Road Wild 1998

Quick review of courtesy of Mrs Shock when I put this on for us tonight:

"I'm so glad this company died"

Can't wait to show her David Arquette next.

I never had a problem with this match where I'd go as far as to say it's a positive example of a celeb match in wrestling. Regardless of how one feels about Leno (Does anyone like him post-Conan?), it's difficult to deny that the guy is loaded with personality. Unlike some celebs, like Dennis Rodman, Leno actually tried which certainly didn't hurt.

If there is a noticeably negative for the match and the PPV, it's that it's the second straight PPV that Hogan has some celeb tag match that garnered plenty of mainstream attention. Meanwhile, the WCW World Champion, Goldberg, is left in an unimportant match where sure, he went over, but it's hardly the PPV spotlight that your champion should be in. I would say it's a miracle that Hogan stepped aside and allowed Goldberg to be in the main event for Halloween Havoc, but we saw what happened there.

[Shock]

I never had a problem with this match where I'd go as far as to say it's a positive example of a celeb match in wrestling. Regardless of how one feels about Leno (Does anyone like him post-Conan?), it's difficult to deny that the guy is loaded with personality. Unlike some celebs, like Dennis Rodman, Leno actually tried which certainly didn't hurt.

If there is a noticeably negative for the match and the PPV, it's that it's the second straight PPV that Hogan has some celeb tag match that garnered plenty of mainstream attention. Meanwhile, the WCW World Champion, Goldberg, is left in an unimportant match where sure, he went over, but it's hardly the PPV spotlight that your champion should be in. I would say it's a miracle that Hogan stepped aside and allowed Goldberg to be in the main event for Halloween Havoc, but we saw what happened there.

I dunno about all that, Jim. Watching Hogan sell a wrist lock from Jay Leno is one of the worst wrestling related memories I have.

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[Jim]

I dunno about all that, Jim. Watching Hogan sell a wrist lock from Jay Leno is one of the worst wrestling related memories I have.

It's a wrist lock. One of the most basic and earliest taught holds in wrestling. I can buy a non-wrestler being taught that hold and briefly being able to find success against a wrestler mostly because of being lucky and because the hold is successful. WCW was very careful with how they booked Leno so not to have him be too offensive or be in control for too long. There's far worse examples of celebs in WCW.

[MC93]

Watching Slammiversary 07 right now and I'm on the Frank Wycheck/Jerry Lynn V James Storm/Ron 'The Truth' Killings match.To any Tenessians out there, was Frank Wycheck a big deal at the time?Also strange seeing RTruth as a heel and using the 'What's Up' chants before WWE did.

[Jim]

Watching Slammiversary 07 right now and I'm on the Frank Wycheck/Jerry Lynn V James Storm/Ron 'The Truth' Killings match.To any Tenessians out there, was Frank Wycheck a big deal at the time?Also strange seeing RTruth as a heel and using the 'What's Up' chants before WWE did.

I'm not a Tennessean, but it's like any local star. Even if they meant something in the area, the PPV audience doesn't care. Admittedly, Slammiversary 2007 was the second highest attended televised/ppv event at that point in TNA history. Granted, this was in the early days where TNA so rarely held shows outside of the Nashville field grounds or the Impact Zone, so there wasn't much competition.

[MC93]

Just finished it and it gave me some much nostalgia even though it was only 13 years ago, which seems so recent when you think about it.One thing though: The entire PPV is so clogged and chaotic. No time to react to the outcome of the match, they just go straight to the next video package. Also the crowd seem very uninterested to most of the card with exception to perhaps the main event. Also, Don West is the most irratating colour commentator ever.

[Shock]

Just finished it and it gave me some much nostalgia even though it was only 13 years ago, which seems so recent when you think about it.One thing though: The entire PPV is so clogged and chaotic. No time to react to the outcome of the match, they just go straight to the next video package. Also the crowd seem very uninterested to most of the card with exception to perhaps the main event. Also, Don West is the most irratating colour commentator ever.

I used to hate Tenay and West, especially in 07. Since then, stuff like heel Michael Cole, JBL and 2020 JR make me remember them a lot better.

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[Fuji Vice]

I have a soft spot for West because of how enthusiastic he is about everything. Sure he's not a great (or even good) colour commentator, but his energy is undoubtedly infectious.

Speaking of West, I was watching a documentary about baseball cards and he suddenly pops up as an interviewee. Apparently he was working for The Home Shopping Network back during the big boom of the 90's and was just as crazy then.